The Battle for the Ringed Planet

by Richard Edmond Johnson

  Both marines escorted her through the brush to the pavement where two commandos strode to meet them, “We got her sergeant.” one with red hair poking out from under his tan beret spoke professionally.

  Sergeant Keith nodded, handing Torian’s Con to the Commando, and then with Private Nixon, raced back under the noise of the thrusters flaring back to the squad nestled in the tree line.

  Torian watched wistfully while the frightened girl walked with escort up the ramp into the Spacemaster followed by the rest of the super soldiers. She glanced back looking for him in the thick undergrowth and he stood up so that their eyes met. He held up his hand to wave good-bye as the ramp started to close. All he remembered was her scared blue eyes. Then the door shut followed by the blasting of the thrusters as the large box-shared vessel lifted away.

  May watched, too, with a look of sadness in her dark almond eyes, and then glanced at Torian as he crouched back down, “They’ll put her in officer territory surrounded by goons.”

  Both their eyes followed the trio of Spacemasters soaring away with an escort of fighters higher up, “Yeah.” the young man in the dirty torn navy blue flight suit shrugged, “But they need that shield down to take the city, and she’s the only one who can get in.”

  Chapter 19: Base Camp

  In the dim light inside the Spacemaster Siiri was strapped in with a ‘T’ bar lowered to secure her tightly in a row of seats. Across from her sat commandos reading displays inside their smaller darker visors and speaking in low tones. The door gunners on either side swung their plasma guns back and forth and she noticed blackened peeling metal on the opposite entrance.

  The commando next to her with the reddish orange hair under his beret was talking quickly touching his the side of his visor glasses, then he turned to Siiri, “Hi there, I’m Mark Viktor. The ride will be short.” She noted that his camouflaged uniform had turned to dark blue, grey, and black from the forest colors when she initially saw him and had thinner armor with a tiny rank insignia of two vertical bars in the center.

  Mark tapped a round window behind them, “Ever fly before?”

  “No.” she said nervously with a shaky voice, “What happened there?” she pointed to the blackened portion.

  “Lost a gunner yesterday,” and when he saw her fright he touched her arm, “We’re in a safer area, check outside.” He pointed to the window.

  When Siiri saw the ground rushing beneath her she leaned forward coughing. Fortunately, Mark held out a plastic bag so that she could throw up. After that, it just got worse.

  --

  On patrol, dinner was brief but at least Torian ate meat and potato rations. May wrinkled her nose but ate anyway and Torian grinned watching her.

  “How are you holding up?”

  “I could use another pain killer.”

  Corporal Wilder walked up to the group of marines chowing down, “Let’s get ready, Sarge is on the horn, they want to capture that pilot that bailed. He’s only a few clicks up river.”

  The squad stowed their mess kits, finished their juice or coffee and then checked their gear. They spread out in a long line until they got to the parkway, and then two by two ran across to the thin line of bushes next to the river. Torian ran with Wilder and May with Nixon, keeping up.

  Next to the scenic river, with ducks squawking near the shore, the marines kept low until the forest thickened up. Dusk was setting in and soon they spotted a parachute in the trees. Torian remembered the rebel female pilot he and Siiri found and hoped that she was doing better.

  A black marine named Walker was on point and signaled to stop, ducking down and then motioning for the sergeant who quickly moved cautiously to the front. Torian watched them whisper for a few moments.

  The squad received instructions through their helmets and Wilder whispered to Torian and May, “Not sure, something ahead …”

  Approaching closer to the tree where the parachute hung, Torian noted that the shredded silk material as if someone literally took a knife and cut long strokes through. Torian and May were in the center of the squad, strung out in a line, but he knew something was up when the first elements began to bunch up and look away horrorstruck.

  Sergeant Keith strode back down the squad with a look of disgust and worry at the same time, whispering harshly to each marine, “Cons on full, scan your arcs, firing positions!”

  The corporal with the steel teeth near Torian pointed, “Keep your rifle aimed there, and cover my arc.”

  “What’s going on?” May knelt close to Torian, questioning the veteran marine.

  “Something got that pilot, really nasty.”

  “Can I see?” she asked.

  “Go for it, dragon.”

  The tallest of anyone in the squad crept forward near Walker on point and surveyed the scene grimly, then nodded to the nervous black marine and crouched back to Torian, “Nothing much left of him.”

  “Plasma? I don’t see any burn marks.”

  “No, worse.”

  “Really?”

  “I think I’ve seen this before.”

  Wilder turned, overhearing her low tones, “You know what did that, dragon?” then he tapped the side of his visor calling the sergeant over. With helmet in one hand running his other sweaty palm through his thick black hair, cut short at the sides, Sergeant Keith’s head resembled a dark cleaning brush.

  “What do you know Private Xiong? What did that to a human being, half of his body is gone, no explosions, nothing.”

  “All I know, sergeant, is that on my home world our treasure is the tiger. At night once on maneuvers we lost a corporal when a tiger took him right out of his sleeping bag. And the body looked like that.”

  “A tiger? You’re serious?”

  “I am, or an animal similar, it was probably sleeping when the pilot floated down, got caught in the tree, and, well, made a fine meal.”

  “Will it attack again?”

  “It’s very territorial.”

  “Well, we have a blood trail tracked towards the river, we’ll go around the other way, this ain’t no hunt. I got enough to worry about with air strikes and enemy insurgencies and now man eating tigers!” he turned and signaled for everyone to get up and start out.

  --

  The ride was short, noisy, and the vibrations did not help her stomach. Still she had to admit it was fascinating and with a hand over her mouth to keep things down, she glimpsed out the small round porthole. The gunship beside them rose up and circled overhead as what looked like a section of forest below slide open revealing a landing pad with four intact Spacemasters, two gun ships and two troop carriers, lined up along the sides, and one smoldering blackened hulk. On one corner of the landing area was a quad plasma canon pointing to the sky manned by vigilant soldiers. Small shield towers dotted the perimeter. Siiri could not take her eyes of the burned out mass of metal, the remains of a troop carrier. She wondered what happened to the people that had been inside.

  The ground rose up uncomfortably fast and Siiri glanced away squeezing her eyes shut. A firm hand gripped her shoulder and she struggled to open her eyes.

  “We’ll have to move fast, miss. Are you all right to run?” Mark eyed her with her concern.

  “Why? Are we going to end up like that wreck on the side?” Just then, the large vessel touched ground and Siiri tasted bile again. The red haired commando was too busy with her harness to answer. Unceremoniously he and another soldier seized her arms and lifted her up to her feet. The back door lowered into a ramp and the side gunners pulled in their plasma guns. Soldiers charged out ahead in double file with Siiri in the middle of them.

  “When they see us coming in with Spacemasters we get a welcoming firestorm,” the commando pulled her towards the opening of a metal tunnel.

  “You built all of this in a couple of days?” she was impressed. Stopping only for a second, still with a queasy stomach, she could not help watch the dusk sky become a canopy of trees as the shields closed. Then, out of nowhere, a bur
st of fire splattered over the false treetops, fizzling out the image, and producing an ear-shattering thump. The blonde girl’s knees buckled but Mark had her arms, lifted, and dragged her towards the metal tunnel shelter. Another explosion hit the shield and the girl covered her ears screaming.

  Inside several other marines were crouching as the ground shook with more pounding, “What are they doing?” she cried out.

  When they got under deeper she glanced around, the ceiling had round lights and the walls were linked steel panels, and when the commandos stopped Mark shot her an apologetic look raising his dark glasses, “That’s shelling. The shields hold most of the time, but sometimes they break through. We’re sending Starhawks over for a couple of sorties, but they can’t stay long, the battle cruisers need them.”

  “How long will they do that?”

  Shaking his head, “Not long, we’ll fire back over the city to the other side, and it will go until night time. It will be pretty hot outside the perimeter.”

  The she grabbed his arm, “What about the patrol?”

  “Don’t worry, those are seasoned soldiers, they’ll wait it out. Come on; let’s get you to the CO.”

  The entire complex consisted of a spider web network of trenches and tunnels leading to bunkers and front lines. There were buildings on top, but during the shelling, the soldiers went underground. As Mark led the young blue-eyed girl with several other commandos, they snaked around marines digging tunnels and adding metal reinforcements. Some carried supplies and ammunition to gun emplacements while others just shuffled by checking their rifles and webbing. Every few moments the ground shook and dirt poured through seams in the smooth steel walls. After winding by rooms and through a series of tunnels, they entered a bunker complex with tables displaying holo images of the city terrain and battle cruisers in space with marines moving virtual screens rapidly with their hands talking through unseen Comms.

  “Command Center,” Mark nodded to the other commandos who stood outside waiting. The ground shook as an artillery round struck flickering the lights while dust streamed down on the tables with holo displays.

  Out of the shadows and shimmering displays a wiry man with a thin strip of grey hair from the front of his head to the back stepped out followed by two others. Siiri shrank under his hard stare and other than wearing the same combat uniform as everyone else; the only difference she noted was the small black eagle in the middle of his chest. Mark saluted and the man half-heartedly returned one.

  “So this is the girl?” he snarled, looking her over.

  “That’s right, Colonel.”

  The leather faced man nodded, “Well, little lady, we have a lot of questions for you.”

  Boldly, despite her dirty condition, she addressed the man, “So you’re in charge here?”

  His answer was narrowing his eyes and standing closer, almost bearing down on the blonde girl, then he spoke, but without emotion, “That’s right, this is a Marine Expeditionary Unit, over 2,500 marines dug in on the south side of the city. The rebels have the north. Anyone who enters Kaarina dies, so we end up pounding each other because we can’t do anything else.”

  The colonel was a tough man with a hawk like face, and he continued, softening his tone, “You’ve been in the city? And there are others like you?”

  “I’ve been in the city, and there are others.”

  “That’s what we need to know.” then he paused for a second, “Forgive me, I’m Colonel Benjamin Trilling.” He then glanced to a man behind him and nodded, “You’ll be seeing our intelligence officer, and he’ll give you everything you need. I have to …” another shell hit close and rocked the command center, “…get back to this.”

  She had not noticed that Mark had left and now another man escorted her through another tunnel into the entranceway of a small room. The man saluted someone behind a fold out table in the room who stood up raising his hand sharply to his forehead. Siiri tried to hide her surprise when she saw that the man behind the table had a steel hand.

  The young ash blonde haired woman stared at the tall thin man behind the desk as he sat down and studied a virtual screen, and she frowned when she saw her own image.

  “You can sit, you know.” the man spoke with a strange accent she had not heard before and motioned to a chair next to his table. He had a thin moustache and short light brown hair, and of all the men she had seen, he was the most striking, even more so than Torian. His eyes were a deep blue, and when he took a long look, they appeared cloudy, or that there was something reflecting in them.

  “Why? Is this going to be long? I could use a rest and somewhere to clean up.”

  “Soon.” his voice was gentle and almost soothing, and she suddenly found herself sitting and watching him.

  “Your eyes …”

  Smiling he leaned back on his chair, “I know, they were expensive …”

  “Are they implants?”

  Waving his hand, he remarked, “No.” and watched her to the point where it was starting to be uncomfortable, “Contacts, with a full Con feed. I hate implants …”

  “Except for your arm.”

  Flexing the metal fingers, that made no noise whatsoever, he gripped a cup of coffee with the precision of a normal hand and sipped, “Plasma canons can do nasty things.”

  “I’m sorry.” A small black rectangular object lay on his desk with scratches and a chip in the corner and she recognized the Con, “That belongs to Torian.” she pointed.

  Raising his brows slightly, he fingered the device, “It’s very interesting, as are you.”

  “Well, you know things about me. I don’t know who you are.”

  “Major Neil Duncan, I’m an intelligence officer. And...” he glanced up and Siiri turned to see a young black female soldier saluting the major, “This is Lieutenant Kat Martine, she’s going to be your best friend for the next couple of days, until we can get you off world. She will escort you everywhere in this complex … for your own safety.”

  Glancing at her frayed stained green blouse, torn pants, and dirty webbing, Neil stood up and stepped around the fold out table, “Don’t worry about tonight, Kat will take you to the QM to get you some clothes, fatigues I’m afraid, then the abolition area to clean up. Tomorrow, after a hot breakfast, you and I will have a little talk. We would have sent you to the fleet right away, but they have other things to worry about.”

  Returning his long stare, Siiri was not really looking forward to questioning, but she did like watching the handsome officer.

  --

  In the evening it began to rain, making things miserable, especially after a long wait for the illuminating flashes and pounding thunder of artillery to ease off. The marine patrol drew near the southern perimeter of the military enclosure, and Torian, without his Con, could not make out where the defenses were located. After Lance Corporal Greene spoke for a moment, a section of the forest opened revealing a path through a six meter electrified razor wire fence and metal plates. Shields not only provided an energy barrier for protection, but also made the barriers appear exactly like the surrounding foliage.

  One by one, the marines entered through the gap in the defenses next to a heavy gun emplacement and the body of a roasted deer fooled by the trickery of the shields stuck in the razor wire, “Mmm, burnt venison tonight.” Corporal Wilder chuckled.

  Once inside, the shield closed up and Torian observed the dark recently erected buildings next to the airfield and a few others in the distance. A few marines darted around between the buildings now that the artillery barrage was over, carrying supplies and two of them hauling a stretcher with a wounded soldier.

  “Wilder!” Sergeant Keith grabbed the marine’s shoulder, “Take these two to the Orderly Room. The rest of you, let’s get to debriefing!”

  The Marine Expeditionary Unit consisted of two infantry battalions, the 2nd Battalion, 2nd Confederation Marines, known as the Warlords from the United States on Earth, and the 1st Battalion, 8th Confederation Marines, call
ed the Dragons, from the colonized planet Jiangxi, both supported by an artillery battery, a tank squadron, a tactical air space squadron of Spacemasters, engineers and logistic support. Within the battle fleet was a Planetary Assault Cruiser, the C.S.S. Juno. Most of the marines reside in the interplanetary assault ship when in space, but elements were spread out in the other ships for security.

  The marine corporal led May and Torian through the drizzle to a prefab hut of steel with a flat panel display showing ‘16th Marine Expeditionary Unit Orderly Room’. The dim room was small with a counter and holo displays and a young clerk playing a space fighter game. Torian suddenly felt overwhelmed with exhaustion, so much so he had to sit down in one of the chairs near a small table and May, who was worse off, put her hand on his shoulder for support.

  “You should sit,” he glanced up at the towering marine.

  “If I do I won’t be able to get up.”

  The clerk poked his head up, sighing at the interruption of his game, “It’s late.”

  Wilder, however, was having none of it, “Do I look like I give a damn?” Torian half grinned as the hardened marine corporal ranted at the clerk, “Go wake up your sergeant, these two are special cases.”

  “Story of my life …” May muttered and Torian smiled.

  “I’m awake, Corporal!” came a growl from the back room and a burly man with a thick midriff and a mess of chevrons, up and down, on his rank patch, strode out to the counter, “What’s so important that you need to harass my clerk?”

  Ignoring the sergeant, Wilder slapped Torian on the shoulder, “Good luck!” Then to May, “Watch your head.” He winked at her than headed for the door.

  “Corporal! Where do you think you’re going?” the sergeant bellowed, but Wilder pushed open the door with one hand and flipped the bird as a parting gesture with the other. That really made the administration sergeant boil when he glared at Torian and May.

  Opening a holo display he barked at May, “You first!”

  “Private May Xiong, 1st Battalion, 8th Marines,” she stepped forward at attention and Torian got to his feet.