The First Casualty

by Mike Moscoe

  Mary slipped her needle rifle into the notch left for it below the slit. Her heads-up display back on, it showed the next room. The sights settled on the closest back. Mary squeezed the trigger, gently, like she’d been taught.

  The gas vented out the sides of her rifle; she felt no recoil. A three-round burst went into one back. Mary walked her aim to the next closest back. Three more for it, then the next.

  That one wasn’t a back. She caught him—no, maybe it was a her—turning. Mary stitched three rounds into her side and changed aim for the last one. He was diving for the cover of the stone. Mary had to get him; she couldn’t hold off a siege. His helmet was in her sights. She jerked off three rounds. Only the first one hit. It was enough.

  The faceplate shattered.

  Mary lay, rifle in hand, fascinated as the blood flew in lazy arcs, obedient to the gentle gravity of this moon. She might have lain there, mesmerized by the deaths she’d caused, but explosions were seeping into her body.

  Her mines were going off.

  She ordered a vid to keep an eye on her old space and put it on motion detection. Switching her heads-up to the outside picture, she nodded. Yep, the minefield was taking a toll. There was still too much of the WP stuff to use a laser. It took her a minute to regain the situation. Somewhere in that minute she was violently ill, but she kept most of the vomit off her faceplate. Her friends needed her.

  • • •

  Lieutenant Cohen waited for the cloud of Willy Peter to thicken. After each burst of shell, he’d start counting. When he got to fifteen without starting over, the swirl of white obscured the end of the pass—and he could believe the artillery net’s claim that the barrage was over.

  “Follow me, crew,” he shouted, and the men and women of B company lit out after him. He was near the crest of the ridge when something exploded at his feet. Arms and legs flailing, he flew up, then smashed into the pass’s stone wall five meters above the ground. Of his feet, he felt nothing. His ears rang, but not enough to miss the hissing of pressure fleeing his suit. With his last air, he shouted. “Come on, soldiers, a few mines can’t slow the Guard down. Show the others how it’s done. Forward.”

  Troops double-timed toward him, some shooting up as explosions blossomed at their feet, others making it through, rifles up, shooting at what lay ahead. Then darkness took vision from the lieutenant’s eyes as his whole body struggled for breath. It was not a long struggle.

  • • •

  Each shell bounced Cassie around the inside of her dugout. As best she could, she left space for Joyce to do her own rattling around. Then the lieutenant bellowed on the platoon-wide net. “Infantry in the gap. Heads up. Rifles out. Shoot.”

  She and Joyce stared at each other. Did that idiot really want them to crawl out of their hole under this artillery barrage? Then again, the place wasn’t shaking anymore. Just her knees. Through the faceplate, Cassie could see Joyce’s face. Sweat ran down it, vomit speckled the helmet. She was in no shape to stand up, much less shoot. Wonder what I look like?

  I sure as hell don’t feel like standing up and aiming a gun. Cassie was shaking like an unbalanced motor. “I’ll fire a round if you will,” Cassie said.

  “Just one?”

  “That’s all I got in me.”

  They came up out of their hole together, slapped their rifles down on the rocky lip, and fired. Cassie didn’t try for a sight picture. She just pulled the trigger and held it down, slowly sweeping the barrel over the gap three hundred meters away. Figures in armored space suits poured through the pass. Some flew…mines, she remembered. Good luck, Mary.

  Her rifle quit spitting. For Mary, she popped the spent magazine out and slammed in a new one. Cassie glanced at Joyce. She slumped over her rifle, surprise still showing in her empty eyes. Her faceplate had taken a direct hit. She hadn’t suffered. A needle’s tiny hole showed between her eyes.

  Cassie turned back to the gap, finger on the trigger, gun venting. She wondered why her throat hurt. It wasn’t until she slipped the fourth magazine in that she realized she was screaming. She didn’t try to stop.

  • • •

  Captain Tran did a belly flop in the dust at the end of the pass. He’d made it! From the looks of things, he might be the only officer who had. Company B was taking a pasting. They’d always been a hard luck unit. Tough luck. The rifle fire on his side of the gap was lighter. “First and second platoon, keep going. Third and fourth, give them fire support. When they’ve got the rill, third and fourth will leapfrog over them.”

  Shouts answered him. A dozen men took off hopping. Was that all that was left of the forty who jumped off with me at the escarpment?

  Eight made it to the rill. They ducked down and started looking for hidey-holes. “It’s like shooting fish in a bowl” came over the net. Tran would give them a minute, then order third and fourth up and forward.

  • • •

  Dumont held Tina. “I can’t go out there,” she whimpered.

  “Don’t worry, hon, we ain’t going nowhere. No LT’s gonna make us.”

  “They shot her,” screamed a voice on the squad net. “They shot her right in our…”

  “That was…” Tina started.

  “Yeah,” Dumont cut her off. Har had the hole right down from them. Dumont raised his helmet just enough to see. Someone in space armor with the red unity lightning patch was emptying his rifle into that hole. Unthinking, Dumont pulled his gun out, sighted quickly, and blew the gunner away. Someone on the lip of the rill turned toward him. Dumont walked his fire up to blow him off his feet.

  Needles stitched the other side of the rill’s wall. Dumont ducked before they got him. Needles ricocheted all over the place, but none hit him.

  “Du, what is it?”

  “Hon, if you want to live, you got to kill ’em. It’s us or them time. Tina, can you stand up a bit more and see what’s coming up behind me?”

  Trembling, she did.

  “See anything?”

  “No.”

  “Good girl. Now, something’s coming up the rill behind you. Don’t turn around. I’m gonna get ’em.” He edged his gun out a bit. The vid on it relayed the sight picture to his heads-up. Nothing. He pushed the gun a bit more. There was someone, down a ways, hiding behind a twist in the rill. Not much to aim at. He held the gun with both hands and pulled the trigger. His target fell, kicking and trying to slap his wounds. Dumont put two rounds through his helmet. He didn’t move anymore.

  Using his gun camera for a sweep, Dumont spotted nothing more at either end of the rill. Lying on his back, he pushed out—hoping the whole time his suit would hook on something and keep him in his hole. Nothing. Crouching, he risked a peek above the wall of the rill. Four dudes hopped forward, firing at the old ladies in the holes behind him. Without thought, Dumont swung his gun over the four, trigger finger locked down. They folded over backward. He felt Tina’s hand on his shoulder. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Cover my back. I’ll take care of our front.” One of the four bodies rolled over, grabbing for the gun nearby. Dumont shot him through the soles of his feet.

  • • •

  Captain Tran blinked. First and second platoons were gone. Just gone. He needed artillery before he’d order another assault. He crawled to the crest of the pass to get a line-of-sight on artillery. Climbing up on his knees, he got a signal from the artillery net—and a needle in the back.

  It went right through him, leaving a tiny hole that bubbled blood into vacuum. He grabbed for a patch even as he fell. Front hole covered, he wondered how he’d handle the back. Two troopers crawled up behind him. One slapped his back. The pressure in his helmet quit dropping.

  “Don’t worry, sir, we’ll get you back.” They grabbed him by the shoulders and hustled him over the crest and down the other side, past blown mines and body parts. He glanced around. There were lots of wounded being helped by one or two friends, all headed back. Here and there a single soldier, no wound visible, no wounde
d comrade apparent, drifted back. The battle was over for B and C companies. D and E would have to take the pass.

  Tran glanced up. D and E were rolling forward, maybe three or four more klicks out. D and E would do it.

  • • •

  Mary studied her display. The platoon had held against two hundred. Now another two hundred were coming up. It was time to do something—or surrender.

  She’d watched Dumont’s squad hunker in their holes, trying to make their own separate peace. Half of them were dead for that. Surrender was no option today.

  “Lieutenant, Rodrigo here. I want missile release.”

  “How many, Sergeant?”

  “All you got.”

  There was a pause…while the LT thought. No, the background of the pause carried the ping, ping, ping of a rifle. He was breathless when he came back on. “They’re yours, Mary. We’re too busy. Use ’em well.”

  Mary counted her targets. Twenty carriers, half of them tracked—that meant armored—raised dust plumes as they raced toward her. She had to get them. But there were laser rifles on several of them. These missiles would have to fight their way in. Okay, flood them, like they flooded us. Then there was the artillery. She’d heard the platoon whimper under its merciless, impersonal pounding. She’d also heard the screams as they died. Artillery is gonna pay. And that big square box owes me. Owes me big time.

  The WP stuff was settling. Maybe they’d run out. Mary would not take that chance. She fed solid coordinates into the four SS-12’s, offsetting their course so they’d be a deflection shot until the last second. The rigs were different; coming in fast, they kept their intervals. That made them predictable. She assigned the SS-3’s areas to search if they lost laser lock.

  All the missiles were rigged to one launch button. She shouted, “Fire in the hole!” and pushed it. Behind her, in two salvos, they leaped from their canisters. Twisting into immediate turns, they cleared the ridge by maybe one hundred meters, hungry for targets. Mary lit off every designator she had. This was it. But she didn’t just play them on targets. She’d learned; these guys must have some kind of warning system. Those first two had taken off dodging as soon as she’d illuminated them. She programmed the lasers to play around the targets, ten meters to the right or left. Close enough so the missiles would know where to fly. Not so close the rigs didn’t keep racing forward—unwarned.

  Here and there, a laser bolt shot upward, but the missiles were not coming head-on. Making a deflection shot at this rate of closure, jostling in the speeding carriers, nobody scored.

  Ten seconds to impact, Mary had the lasers light up their targets. Rigs began to twist. They were going too fast. Two bolts took missiles head-on, but that close, the wreckage of the missile was just as deadly as an undamaged one.

  As a cheer went up on the platoon net, Mary concentrated on the four remaining missiles. The SS-12’s reached out to the plain. Two for rockets, one for guns. One for…No, I can’t commit one missile to just that command rig. But it looks soft enough. Maybe if I target the gun closest to it?

  Mary grinned and set her designators.

  • • •

  “Major, missiles in the air,” sensors shouted.

  “Artillery, give me WP now, and plenty of it.”

  “Don’t got any. Carrier just pulled in. We’re offloading it straight to a tube. Damn, we needed it ten minutes ago.”

  “Get it out there.” Ray turned back to the battle. Assault rigs still ran arrow straight across the broken terrain. Dumb. “Sensors, did you pass the missile alert to them?”

  “Didn’t want to juggle their elbow, Major. They’ve got their own warning system beeping in their ears.”

  “Don’t look like it. Tell ’em for me.”

  “Yes, sir.” There was a pause. When sensors came back, his voice was low, like a man who’d bet his wife and lost. “Sir, the beepers went off as I started talking.”

  On the plain before him, speeding carriers started to turn. Laser rifles fired. From where Longknife stood he would see the twisty way the missiles came in, making the gunners’ job damn near impossible. Carriers started exploding. Here a missile went wide. There a rig dodged. One slid sideways into a boulder. The missile smashed against the rock. Troopers poured out of the demolished carrier, some running, too many crawling. Unable to look away, the major watched in disbelief as sixteen of his troop carriers met the missiles head-on. Nothing survived the collision. But those carriers each had ten of my troops!

  “Major, Iran here. Request permission to withdraw B and C companies.” There was a tremble in the officer’s voice. He was hit, or had just watched D and E companies die—or both.

  “Permission granted. Get back here any way you can. We’ll lay artillery on their positions.”

  “Thanks, sir.”

  “I’ll try to get some transport out there for you.”

  “Don’t bother, sir. We’d rather walk.”

  “Major, we got four more missiles incoming,” sensors squeaked.

  “To where?” The major came heads-up.

  “Us!”

  Longknife swung himself out of the van. No damn Earth platoon had missiles with that range. What was he facing? Why hadn’t they used them sooner? Was this the start of a counterattack? The missiles were above him. Jets of fire pushing them over, plunging them down. No laser bolts rose to meet them. All the rifles went with D and E. After all, they were going in harm’s way. We were sitting back here safe and sound.

  “Duck, you idiot,” somebody called.

  Whether to the major or some other idiot, Ray didn’t know. But Ray hadn’t ducked and he was an idiot. He ducked, shouting, “Staff, bail out. Take cover.” In the low gravity of this moon, ducking took a while. He was only halfway down when the rockets hit.

  Strange how you fall slowly in low gravity, but explosions move just as fast. To his left, a rocket launcher was halfway through reloading when the missile hit. With its own rockets not yet in the armored launch canister, not one but nine rockets blew. Fuel, flechettes, and jagged chunks of wreckage flew, consuming another launcher, stripping a gun mount of its crew. White phosphorus blew in all directions, taking out a second gun.

  As if awed by that spectacle, the next two hits were hardly noticeable. One rocket hit one launcher. Another rocket demolished a gun. Then the fourth missile hit. It had the major’s name, rank, and serial number on it.

  Landing between two guns, its shower of flechettes wiped out half their crews. That covered two-thirds of the perimeter of expanding gas and plastic. The major and the command van took the rest. Pain came from a half dozen pinpricks. Worse, they threw him against the bumper of the van. Something crunched, and he quit hurting. I don’t want to quit hurting. For the moment, he had no choice.

  It seemed like a year before people started hopping around among the fire and debris. Two found him. “You hurt, Major?”

  “Mind patching these holes? My arms aren’t working and my ears are popping.” They pulled goo out of the med pouch on his belt; his air quit getting thinner. As they lifted him off the bumper and settled him on a stretcher, he got a glance at the inside of the van. He’d only caught the low edge of the explosion. His staff, still at their stations, had taken the full force. They were pinned to the front wall like the targets at some fairground knife-throwing show.

  The knife-thrower had made a lot of mistakes.

  “Can you help my team?”

  “Yessir,” the private answered. Through his faceplate, Longknife saw the sergeant just shake his head.

  Longknife could still chin his mike. “Artillery, I want fire on their position to cover our troops’ withdrawal.”

  No answer.

  “Artillery? Is anybody on net? Who’s in charge?”

  “I guess I am, sir. Second Lieutenant Divoba. I can lay sixty-four missiles on them right now, but we need a minute to get a tube manned.”

  “Hold your missiles, son. We’re not trying to win a battle, we just want to keep thei
r heads down while we walk away. Use your tube artillery, and back your rockets off ten klicks. Now do it, son.”

  The pain was coming back.

  “You want a shot, sir?”

  “Not ’til I’m on ship.”

  “We can get you on one of the carriers heading out now, sir,” the sergeant offered.

  “I ride the last one, Sergeant. You want to take an earlier one?”

  “Nosir.” It was nice to see a sergeant smile the way they did when they found an officer doing what an officer should. Longknife hoped that smile wouldn’t cost him his life.

  “Private, you want to take an early ride?”

  “Nosir.” His voice broke, but he got the word out. Poor kid. Stuck with two seniors playing it out by the code. Ray knew he ought to order the kid out, but he might need him to carry him. A cannon shell arched over the major’s line of sight. Usually he would have felt the ground shake. I must be real bad. The sergeant twisted around to follow the shell for a moment. He got a good view of the troops struggling back from the pass. “Looks pretty bad, sir.”

  “We’ve been in some tough ones. We always come through.”

  Then it got worse.

  • • •

  “Captain Andy,” Umboto chortled, “I got six missiles ready to have a go at those transports. I had to teach them their numbers on pencil and paper. I’ve tucked them in at night and booted them out of bed for the last eternity, but they are ready! Permission to launch, sir.”

  “You may launch when ready, Commander.”

  Captain Anderson glanced around his HQ. It had gone from a morgue to damn near looking like a winning celebration on election night—one of those rare ones where they beat the polls. On his display, the captain watched six dots leave the crater and march slowly toward the enemy’s grounded transports. With them gone, the enemy troops would have but two choices: fight on with air getting stale, or surrender.