by David Poyer
“I’m not going up the line with that.”
“Then he won’t take the mission, sir. And I can’t say he’s in the wrong. The Chinese decimated his people from the air. He had no way to fight back.”
Silence. Voices, in the background. Then, finally, “We’ll have to disavow.”
“Is Jedburgh that important?”
“Important? Yeah. It’s crucial. So … if that’s what it takes. A limited number. On loan. With the short-life batteries. So they can’t go rogue on us later.”
He trudged back to the hut. Squatted, again, on the same rock. The black silhouette of the rebel leader waited opposite him. Oberg coughed hard, an agonizing sound that was more like a retch. Vlad’s lungs ached too. He couldn’t help thinking of all the villagers. Gassed to death.
They had to bring Zhang down. If they had to make sacrifices to do it …
“I got you Stingers, Master Chief,” he muttered. “They didn’t want to release them. But they will. For this one mission. There’ll be more gold too. Guns. Medical supplies. Eavesdropping equipment. Even your own recon drones, if you want them.”
The SEAL’s silhouette remained still. Silent. As if pondering. Finally he murmured, “And this mission will end the war?”
“Yes.”
* * *
TEDDY sat motionless, thinking it over. He hacked and spat. Closing his eyes, he flashed back on the terror of the flight over the rooftops. The corpses carpeting the streets. Exterminated by their own government, and any survivors murdered.
No. It wasn’t their government. Just brutal oppressors, who massacred them because they wanted freedom. Maybe not the CIA’s brand of freedom, or America’s. But their own.
If he agreed, a lot of his men would die. Or Qurban might succeed in turning them on him.
But if Jedburgh worked, it might finish the war.
Was this His will? Or the warped desires of ignorant, deluded men?
He coughed again, dreading the welling of fluid in his lungs. Well, he could pull out, if it looked too dangerous. And with more gold, guns, shoulder-fired missiles, they could rebuild from today’s catastrophe. Grow the rebellion. That was his mission out here, after all. And surely that had to be Allah’s will too.
But even he could hear the doubt in his voice as he muttered reluctantly, there in the dark, “Okay. We’ll give it a shot.”
16
USS Liscombe Bay, the Eastern Sea
NIGHT, deep night, but in the infrared goggles the heat still eddied in shimmering waves off the steel deck, griddle-hot from where the strike fighters had warmed up. The dark lightninged from strobes. It shuddered with the SHUMP SHUMP SHUMP of huge four-bladed rotors powering through the greasy sea air.
Sergeant Hector Ramos bent into the prop blast, clutching his Mickey Mouse ears. They were clamped tight, but the engines all around still battered at his brain. Behind him the platoon waited, down on one knee, gear-heavy, silent, focused on the black aircraft that squatted ahead, maws open. Half the Marines were human. The others were CHADs, in a new pairing-up Higher thought might be a better tactical mix.
At the far end of the flight deck, the UAVs were taking off.
Ahead, the vertical takeoff aircraft that would shuttle the Second of the Third in to hit the beach.
Behind, his men and women.
Second Battalion, Third Marines. He’d hit hostile beaches with them on Itbayat and Taiwan. But he was practically the only one left from those assaults, aside from a few lifers in the head shed. A staff sergeant now, but he never felt like he knew what he was doing. Embrace the suck, sure, but the enemy had cut down so many officers so fast the new ones had no idea what to do in combat.
Which left the Combat Action Ribbon vets. Like him.
The Corps had reorganized again, struggling to learn from the bloodbath on Taiwan. A squad still had three fire teams, but only six members were human. Each team was led by a human lance corporal or PFC, and built around a M240B machine gun, the new titanium-framed model with increased rate of fire. A Sensor and Robotics Controller had been added to each platoon. Hector’s “sark,” as everyone immediately called him, was a slim Puerto Rican named Vacante. Vacante spoke a weird Spanglish but Hector could make himself understood when they went off-line so the others wouldn’t hear.
Except for the Pigs, everyone’s weapons had suppressors now, plus a stabilized sight and a laser pulser built into their rangefinders that would dazzle an enemy at three hundred yards. Their jelly armor was tougher and when they moved it generated power for their electronics. Their helmets incorporated night vision, intrasquad radio, and BattleGlass data. The heavy face shields opaqued like a welder’s goggles when a laser hit them.
The nonhuman squad members were CHAD Ds, driven by an uprated AI that was supposed to give each robot the combat reactions of a Marine PFC.
Hector scratched at his eye. He’d had the face shield pushed up just for a second when out of nowhere some bit of grit or steel blew off the deck and into his eye. The more he dug at it, the worse it would feel. Fuck it, he thought. Let it fucking go blind if it wanted to. He snatched his hand down.
He was looking at the nearly invisible disk of the propeller.
For some reason, last-second maintenance probably, the VTOL had its engine nacelles turned partially down, nearly horizontal to the deck. The flight crew had a ladder up to the engine. The Marines were holding to see if it could be readied in time for the launch.
This time, for the plains of North Korea, east of Pyongyang.
The lieutenant said it would be like Inchon, except from the east. He said Kim was dead, the regime decapitated. It must have been a hell of a naval battle. They’d passed smoking wrecks of three ships on the way in, and the Marines had spent all night up on the flight deck, in case a torpedo found the carrier.
Hector had already decided: He didn’t plan to survive this one.
He curled his fingers around the crucifix in his pocket. Mirielle had sent it, since he’d lost the rosary on the steps of the government building in Taipei. To remember me by, she’d written.
The lieutenant down-crouched beside him in the thundering dark. Hector reoriented his brain, but it felt slow, a hard turn, like steering a truck across a potato field. He’d done that when he was ten, on Mister Savage’s farm. He’d felt so grown up that day. Until his too-short foot could not reach the accelerator, and the harvester had edged up on him, and suddenly hundreds of pounds of dirt and potatoes had cascaded in his open window, burying him where he sat.
Burying him …
“Staff Sergeant. You with us?”
“Yessir.” He tried to straighten, to look alert. But who was this? It wasn’t roly-poly little Lieutenant Ffoulk. Wasn’t angular tall Hawkshadow. So who? He couldn’t remember. Lieutenant … but his mind had gone blank. The pills deadened the rage. Stopped the blackouts. But they numbed him, too, made him more a robot than the mechanical shapes crouched behind him. “Yes, sir. Say again, sir? Those engines are so fucking—”
“I said, five-minute hold.”
“The wave, sir, or just us?”
“Five minutes on everybody, but get ready to load. Should get the word over—”
The soft-voiced AI the troops called Wet Dream said in his headphones, “Wave two, five-minute hold.” Hector tapped his headphones; the lieutenant slapped his shoulder and went to the next stick.
Hector looked back along the line of troops. A hand lifted. Patterson was a squad leader now. He’d gotten that for her at least. Karamete was a sergeant, the platoon guide.
And he, Ramos, platoon sergeant. Expected to lead. Expected to take them into the fight.
But he couldn’t. Not again.
He lifted a hand in return, muttered, “hope you make it though this, Wombat.” Then faced front again. To where, past the deck edge, a black-on-black horizon was beginning to show. Delay much longer, they’d lose the dark.
But he wouldn’t be here to worry about it.
Th
e engine roar increased. The deck shook. The other VTOLs were warming up too. Their own still had its props lowered. Was spinning up. A whirring disk, nearly invisible, though lit, in his goggles, by the infrared plumes of the engine exhaust.
Setting his rifle aside on the deck, Hector hoisted himself to his feet. He walked forward, unbuckling his pack.
Ahead, the deadly blur of the propeller.
Behind, he supposed, his Marines were staring after him.
He started to shrug the pack off.
Then stopped. Hesitated.
The platoon was watching.
If he did this, if he abandoned them, they’d die too.
So what? They were gonna anyway. Like all the others.
He stood shaking, drenched in sudden cold sweat, two paces from the whirling propeller. The wind was sucking him toward it. A mechanic looked down, mouth open in a soundless yell. Those huge blades would end all fear. All terror. Right now. It would end.
A hand clamped his shoulder. Karamete, shouting into his ear. He couldn’t hear the words, but she was yanking on his load-bearing equipment. Pulling him back with violent jerks. He resisted, then gave way. Stepped back from the prop. She thrust his carbine into his hands. Pushed her helmet into his, so they were touching. “We need to vack you, Staff Sar’n’t,” she shouted. “You shouldn’t be on this op.”
“Fuck that. You just want my billet.”
“Yeah … yeah, I want your fucking asshole billet.” She guffawed. “The fuck you think you’re going? You got a straw? Suck it up, battle buddy. Oorah?”
“Rah. Rah. Thought that was the word to go.”
He allowed her to drag him back to the queue, but halfway there the intrasquad told them to board. He let the dread go, with the terror. Blanked his mind, and signaled the platoon to their feet.
The prop blast battered them as they lurched forward, each marine bent under a hundred and fifty pounds of assault pack, weapon, ammo, food. The flight deck crew flicked wands of invisible light, waving them to the boarding ramp. Hector had already transmitted his manifest to the loading assistant. He faced the ramp, telling each man, woman, or robot as they passed to strap in and thumbs-up. When they were all boarded, he swung himself on too.
* * *
THE flight in jolted the hell out of them. Even above the roar of the turbines Hector heard the explosions outside. The airframe jolted, tilted, shuddered. A bang outside, a rattle against the fuselage, and wind whistled through holes. Hector rode with eyes closed, fists clamped on his carbine. Thinking of absolutely nothing but the map. He’d downloaded it to his command tablet, and he could access it with the BattleGlasses. But in the mountains of Taiwan so much gear had gone diddley fuck he’d decided he needed it stored in his head too this time.
Before embarking the Marines had worked in Taipei loading the ships. No one knew how many there were total, because they came from different ports. He’d counted seventy in Taipei alone. Missiles had screamed in several times a day, forcing everyone to take cover and keep masks handy. A constant threat of air attack from across the strait. Two ships were hit going out and left behind, burning.
Operation Catapult. ROK airborne would parachute in to feint an assault farther north, but the Marines would make the main landing, with the Japanese conducting a parallel assault to the south. He’d memorized his objectives for D-day. If they could reach those, Division would echelon more forces ashore and move to the next phase: reinforcing, holding any counterattack, and transitioning to sustained combat operations. The Third would be a maneuver unit. Since this was the fighting season, with hard ground and the rice paddies drained, they’d move with the tanks, punching through and penetrating deep into the enemy’s rear.
At least that was the plan. The plan had worked on Itbayat. Sort of. Hadn’t gone very well on Taiwan, though. But this was a different enemy, not Chinese. North Korean. Maybe their regime was decapitated. But no one seemed to think they wouldn’t fight, once the Allies hit the beaches.
The beaches. The diversion to the north was on Red Beach. The Japanese were landing on Blue. The Marines, on White. The hydrography was gradual for a quarter mile behind the high-tide point. Past that was rough ground, gun emplacements, concealed pillboxes, and dug-in tanks. The air and CAS drones had worked them over but there were probably plenty left. A mile in they would hit flat land, a river delta landfill. Possibly too soft for armor; the tanks would hook to the right. The city would be to their left. Leaflets and drones had warned the inhabitants to leave, but Higher doubted the enemy would let them. Which could mean dismounted urban operations. Regardless, they’d punch ahead on the right while the Japanese struck to the left. Past the city they’d join up again for the push on the capital. Always staying alert, this time, for a Chinese incursion on their right flank, across the border.
Semper Gumby, as the old Marine saying had it. Always flexible.
“Rampart, Iron Dream. Three minutes out,” the intrasquad AI said in his earbuds.
Hector blinked. Had he been here before?
Yeah. He definitely had.
When he opened his eyes one of the CHADs was watching him, tiny head cocked, its buglike, multi-lensed oculars glittering in the gloom as if lit from within. Its identifier, stenciled on its chest, read 323. They stared at each other in silence, machine and man.
Something detonated outside, or maybe it was just flares. The airframe jolted, then rolled so far he grabbed for the seat frame. “One mike,” said Iron Dream in his earbuds. Then another voice, male. “Heliteam leader, crew chief. You’ll exit the aircraft facing south. The terminal will be to your right front. The fighter revetments, behind you. The ferry harbor will be on your left.”
“This is Rampart 1-2, roger. Thanks for the lift.”
“Give ’em hell, Rampart.”
Seconds later the airframe jolted, hard, and Dream added, “On deck.”
“This is crew chief: on deck, dropping ramp.”
Hector had popped his lap belt and hoisted to his feet. “Rampart 1-2, load and lock. Deplane, deplane,” he’d yelled.
But that was then.
This was now.
Again.
He shuddered, gripping his weapon, squeezing his eyes shut. Weren’t two-island Marines supposed to be over this … over this fear? But it got worse every time. Not better. Worse.
While you were supposed to pretend—
Someone was shaking him. Shouting in his ear.
He opened his eyes unwillingly. “On deck, Sergeant,” Karamete was yelling, bent over to screen him from the others.
Oh yeah. He was supposed to be first out. The ramp was already down. The night was flickering, so bright it blanked his NVDs. He thumbed them off, stood, yelled an “Oorah,” as loud as his lungs would yield, and forced shaky legs to totter him down the ramp.
Into a flickering, noise-crammed night. He oriented, pointing his guys out to their perimeter. A shell burst a hundred meters away. The shock wave pressed his chest. His mouth was cottony. Flashes lit the hills. Line of advance … break through, disrupt the defense … fight and lead to the objective.
The air was fogged white, making it hard to see. Dust? Mist? Smoke? It didn’t seem to be gas. Whatever it was made the beams flickering through it visible. His face shield blanked, then cleared. Tank engines growled to the north, interspersed with the deafening cracks of high-velocity guns. Drones whirred overhead, heading inland. A fine mist of particles fell from them.
The lieutenant was talking in his earphones but Hector couldn’t make out what he was saying over the noise. So he ignored it. Skirmishers? Wedge? Wedges were easier to control. He hand-signaled the platoon into a vee of squads, each squad into a wedge of fire teams, and led them forward as at close to a trot as he could manage. The ground yielded, mushy under his boots. Puddles glinted. This must be the landfill. Too fucking flat, why were they even here? Zero microterrain. No cover. Get across as fast as possible. Patterson waved at him, pointed to an area in front of her. Min
e.
Oh, God no, Hector thought. Flat land, and mined? Then he realized why they were skirting the road. Looking back, he realized something else. Behind him, thickset forms with narrow heads were moving more slowly than the rest.
“Rampart, Rampart One. We got a problem.”
“Go ahead.” Hector crouched, cupping an ear to the intraplatoon.
“CHADs are falling behind. Ground won’t take their weight.”
“Fuck. Uh—they’re holding up the advance, we leave them behind.”
“Leave them—? That cuts our effectives by half.”
“They can catch up when we make contact. We got to keep moving.” His own boots were sinking deeper too, almost disappearing in the muck. Shit, he thought. If this gets much deeper, none of us are going anywhere, human or machine.
The growl of engines and crack of guns to his right intensified. Armor was fighting inland along the road. The platoon had to guard their flank.
Rockets flashed above, wove, and dove into the ground ahead. The muck quaked. Fiery pinwheels rose above the flashes, and drones flickered in and out. “Somebody’s getting their asses handed to ’em,” one of the squad leaders offered.
Hector signaled the base fire team off to the right, where it looked like it might be slightly firmer terrain. He couldn’t slide too far in that direction or he’d collide with the next platoon, but maybe they were having the same problem. He tried the radio but couldn’t raise them. An ominous crackle grew ahead, as they waded toward what looked like a paddy wall.
Geysers of wet muck blasted up, spattering his face with mud as he dived flat. A heavy MG. And they were out in the open … he rolled over, opened his tablet, and punched it in. The drones hesitated, milling around; then wheeled, merged into a swarm, and dove. The tap-tap-tap faltered, then fell silent.
Another two hundred meters. The paddy seemed endless. The platoon alternated rushing and dropping, in case somebody remanned the gun. Hector lay in the mud, yearning desperately to stay there, but forced himself to his feet. I’m up. He rushed. They see me. He dropped. I’m down. Around him the others sprinted forward in bursts, then covered the others as they in turn exposed themselves.
