The army that joined the Mogats at the far end of the canyon outnumbered us five to one. Their tanks and jeeps were forty years old. They drove antiques, we had the latest equipment; nonetheless their antiques would be very effective against our light infantry.
The Mogat army wore red armor. Red, not camouflaged, no attempt was made to blend in. They poured down the rim of the canyon like fire ants rushing out of an anthill, their armor glinting in the bright sunlight. Our officers were alert. The column quickly collapsed into a defensive perimeter by taking shelter behind the side of the riverbed.
“Holy shit,” Lee screamed. “We’d better get down there.”
“Hold your position, Lee,” I said.
I frantically contacted Captain McKay. “Captain, I’m coming to get you out of there.”
The Mogats were at the bottom of the canyon and coming fast. Poorly aimed shells from their tanks and cannons hit the ground well wide of their mark.
“Do they see your position?” McKay shouted.
“I doubt it,” I said.
“Get your men out of here, Harris.”
From where I lay, about three hundred yards from the action, the battle seemed to take place in miniature. I saw our men hiding in the dirt and the enemy running forward. The enemy looked poorly trained, but that would not matter with their numerical advantage.
The Mogat gunners figured out the range and their shells began pounding the riverbed. I saw a shell hit a group of men, flinging their bodies in different directions. Back behind the brunt, our light artillery returned fire far more effectively, hitting the advancing sea of enemy soldiers time and again. It didn’t matter. There were far too many of them for a few shells to matter.
Squads of fighters and six destroyers raced to the Kamehameha ’s aid. In the distance, the Washington and the Grant, ironically the two ships Thurston used to defeat Bryce Klyber in their simulated battle, remained stationed behind the cover of the distant moon. They had slipped in unnoticed two days before the Kamehameha arrived.
Self-broadcasting is a complex process that takes time and calculation. Thurston’s ships counterattacked swiftly. Before the battleships could broadcast themselves to safety, Thurston’s Tomcats and Phantoms swarmed them. His destroyers arrived moments later, blasting the battleships with cannons that disrupted their shields. The Mogats had enormous ships, but their technology was forty years old, and they did not have engineers who could update it.
The surprise attack succeeded. Two of the battleships exploded before returning fire. The third staged a weak defense, managing to demolish several fighters and dent one destroyer before exploding. The last Mogat battleship turned and ran. The officers commanding the lumbering ship could not have hoped to outrun the fighters. They must have thought they could buy enough time to broadcast to safety. Closing in from the rear, a destroyer fired several shots at the battleship’s aft engine area. The ship’s rear shields failed, and several of its engines exploded just as it entered Little Man’s atmosphere.
The Mogats poured into the valley like a tidal wave. They would not need stealth or weapons to flank our two-thousand-man invasion force—it almost looked as if they planned to trample us. But U.A. Marines do not give up without a fight.
“What do we do?” one of my men asked as I returned.
“McKay ordered me to retreat,” I said.
Hearing that it was an order, my men immediately complied. Without a word, they turned and started back. Then Lee noticed that I did not follow. “Harris, what are you doing?”
“I want to get McKay out of there,” I said. “I promised I would watch his back.”
“Wayson, you have got to be joking,” Lee said. “Take another look. He’s probably dead by now.”
I crawled up for one last look. I doubted that he had died yet, but his time was probably just about up. The Mogats had closed in on our front line and overwhelmed it. On one side of the battle, a group of about fifty men formed a tight knot and charged the enemy head-on. The tactic they took gave them the element of surprise. They broke through the Mogats’ front line and pushed deep into their ranks. It was a gutsy move, but doomed to fail. As they fought their way toward an open field, they took more and more casualties. I did not stay to see if any of them survived the charge. In the center of the battle, the Marines put on one hell of a show. Our riflemen pinned down pockets of enemy Mogat soldiers and our artillerymen lobbed a continuous arc of mortar fire. Despite their efforts, there was no denying the superiority of numbers. By the time I turned to follow my men to safety, it looked like half of our invasion force was dead or wounded.
“Can we go now?” Lee asked, sounding anxious.
I did not want to leave. Whether it was programming or upbringing, my instincts were to fight to the end. I sighed as I climbed to my feet. “Okay, Marines, let’s move quickly!” I shouted, in my best drill sergeant voice. Most of my men were already a hundred yards ahead.
The air still rang with gunfire, but the amount of shooting had slowed considerably. By the time we reached the far end of the valley floor, I only heard the sporadic bursts. We sprinted for the path leading up the far wall. The path twisted, and it left us more exposed than I would have liked, but I thought it would be safer than stumbling up the steep slopes. By then we were several hundred yards from the battlefield. If we could just reach the top of the ridge, without being seen . . . “Stay low, move fast. Any questions?” I said to my men. I led the way, rifle drawn, shoulders hunched, running as fast as I could. If there happened to be a few enemy soldiers at the top of the trail, I thought I might stand a chance of picking them off. My lungs burned and my mouth was dry, but I had shaken off the fatigue I felt earlier that morning. The adrenaline rush of battle had woken me far more effectively than any meds ever could have. The muscles in my legs tingled and my head was clear as I continued up that dusty course at full speed. The path started at a gentle angle, no more than ten degrees. A few yards up, however, it took a steep turn. I felt fire in my calves and growled.
I no longer heard gunshots, but what I heard next was far more frightening: the whine of ATVs. Turning a bend in the path, I paused and saw four trails of dust streaking along the valley floor in our direction.
“Move it! They’re coming!” I shouted to my men. I swung my arms in a circle to tell my men to run faster, and I slapped three men on their backs as they ran past me. “Move it! Move it! Move it!”
The ATVs stopped a few yards from the base of the trail. As the last of my men ran past me, I saw four men climbing off their vehicles. They had rifles slung over their shoulders. “They’ll never catch us,” I said to myself as I turned and sprinted.
I was just catching up to Adrian Smith, one of the new privates who had transferred in while I was in Hawaii. He was a slow runner; I thought that I might need to stay with him to coax him on. That was what I was thinking as the bullet smashed through his helmet, splashing brains and blood against the side of the hill. The sound of the gunshot reverberated moments after Smith fell dead. Ahead, up the trail, three more men fell just the same way. A single shot to the head followed by the delayed report of the rifle. The men at the base of the trail never missed a shot.
“Everybody down!” I yelled. “Snipers!”
They were using our tactics. The snipers pinned us down. Across the valley, hundreds of soldiers were headed in our direction. If we did not get up the ridge quickly, we would never make it up at all.
“Lee, take them up the hill,” I called as I darted behind a rock.
“What are you doing?” Lee said.
“That is an order, Corporal.”
Below me, one of the snipers saw Lee get to his feet. He swung his rifle. As he trained on the target, I shot him with a burst of rapid-fire. All three bullets hit the sniper before he fell. Another sniper returned my fire. The other two picked off several more of my men. I crawled along the ground, steadied my rifle, and rolled to one knee. Two of the snipers fired at me before I could squeeze o
ff a shot. The third hit another of my men. In the background, I saw the Mogat army. They were almost here. Ducking out of their sight, I lobbed a grenade. The blast kicked dust into the air. I rose to have another look, then ducked back down quickly. For some reason, the Mogats had stopped. Many were looking at the sky. Whatever had distracted them was not important enough to stop the snipers from taking shots at me. Three bullets zinged the ledge near my head.
I rolled onto my back, then I saw it—a dark gray triangle dropping quickly through sky. It looked like a capital ship, but capital ships were not designed to fly in atmospheric conditions. Whatever it was, the triangle left a thick white contrail in its wake. The smoke billowed out in tight pearls that spread and congealed into a smooth strand of cloud. At first, the ship fell straight down, then it managed to catch itself.
And, as it flew closer, I noticed that there were dozens of smaller ships buzzing around it. From where I lay, the scene looked like a hive of bees attacking a bear cub as it tried to run away. The valley seemed to shake under the echoing rumble of the big ship’s engines. The ship was dropping lower and lower. The fighters that surrounded the ship continued to pick at it with lasers and rockets.
“Harris, get out of there!” Lee screamed. “That thing is going to crash.”
Flames burst out of the front and rear of the ship as it dropped like a shooting star. A few bullets struck the ledge below me as I jumped to my feet, but I no longer cared. I sprinted as hard as I could, turning corners and skidding but staying on my feet.
The battleship slammed into the far end of the valley sending a shock wave, flames, radiation, and debris. Nearly one mile from the explosion, the shock wave hit me so hard that it tossed me through the air and into the canyon wall. The blast knocked the air out of my lungs, and my head rang with pain. Dazed and barely able to stand, I continued up the path, fighting the urge to lean against the canyon wall for support. I could hear nothing except the sound of my breathing. The audio equipment in my helmet had gone dead. I was panting. My legs were tight. I placed my hands on my thighs and pushed, hoping it would help me run.
Below me, the canyon was consumed with molten fire. Looking down the slope was like staring into Dante’s “Inferno.” The battleship had skidded across the canyon, cutting a deep gash and spewing fiery fuel and radioactive debris in every direction. The very earth around the ship seemed to combust in an explosion of flame, smoke, and steam. I did not see any people in my quick glimpse, but I saw the remains of an upturned tank as it melted in that blazing heat.
Even one mile from the crash site, the heat from the fires would have cooked me alive if it hadn’t been for my armor. For the only time in my career, I felt heat through my body glove. As I reached the top of the trail, Lee and another man grabbed my arms. My legs locked and I started to fall, but they held me up. I could tell that they were trying to speak to me, but I heard nothing through my dead audio equipment.
Lee and the private lowered me to the ground. I fell on my back and stared into the sky. Above me, a U.A. Phantom fighter circled in triumph. An entire regiment had been demolished; but for Robert Thurston, Little Man was a triumph indeed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Growing up in an orphanage, I sometimes imagined that I had parents on another planet looking for me. In my fantasies, my parents kept a room on the off chance that I would someday return. The room would have a crib, a bicycle, and closets filled with toys. Until they found me, my parents would seal that room, entombing its contents. In my mind’s eye, I saw the room as dark and filled with shadows. Dust covered the toys and crib.
Over the years, my childhood dreams were replaced by adult realities, and I forgot about that room until I returned to the Kamehameha with only six of my men. When I entered our vacated barracks, I experienced the very emotions that my imaginary parents would have felt whenever they visited my imaginary room.
Of the twenty-three hundred men sent down to Little Man, only seven survived. There were no wounded. That was the reality, and I kept on realizing it again and again. Lee and I did not speak much when we returned from Little Man. We were not mad at each other, we simply had nothing to say. We returned to our living quarters with five privates in tow and the rows of empty bunks looked like a cemetery. You can shake a jar filled with marbles and never hear a sound. Take all but a few of those marbles out, and those last few will rattle around in the empty space. We rattled around corridors once teeming with Marines. We were the ghosts. Captain Olivera allowed us to remain in our barracks, but he closed down the mess hall, the bar, and the sick bay. That meant we ate with the ship’s crew, which might have been the most haunting part of having survived.
The first time we went to the upper decks for a meal was like stepping onto an alien planet. When the elevator doors opened, we saw sailors walking in every direction. Men talking, some shouting, others rushing past the door—I had forgotten what it felt like to be among the living. I stepped off the lift. Lee followed. The hall fell silent. People slowed down and watched us. Nobody told us to leave. People simply stepped out of our way as we walked to the mess hall. We arrived during the middle of the early dinner rush. Looking through the window, I saw men with trays walking around in search of places to sit. I heard the loud din of hundreds of conversations and remembered when our mess hall was equally loud. The noise evaporated as we entered the doorway. We were the only men wearing Marines’ uniforms. Everyone knew who we were. I heard whispers and felt people staring, but nobody approached us.
I reached for a tray, and somebody handed it to me. “Thank you,” I said. The man did not respond.
The battle on Little Man lit a fire in the public’s imagination. “The New Little Big Horn” said the Unified Authority Broadcasting Company (UABC) headlines. Other famous massacres were also invoked. One reporter called it “a modern-day Pearl Harbor,” an irony that would not have been lost on Yoshi Yamashiro, though I doubt the reporter recognized it.
The Pentagon served up an endless supply of details about the battle, milking it for every drop of public support. A briefing officer held a meeting in which he traced our movements using maps. The public affairs office released photographs of the captured map room. The Joint Chiefs gave the UABC profiles and photographs of the hundred officers who died during the assault. Captain Gaylan McKay, a promising officer in life, became a public figure in death.
The Pentagon did not release information about survivors, but somehow the press got wind of us. We were dubbed, “The Little Man 7.” Probably hoping that the story would go away, the Joint Chiefs acknowledged only that “A fast-thinking sergeant had managed to evacuate six men from the field.”
They did not release my name. I did not care.
Over the next six weeks, as the Pentagon released a litany of tidbits about the Little Man 7, SC
Command ignored us as we rattled around the bowels of the Kamehameha . Once word was out about the survivors, I think the Joint Chiefs hoped that the public’s interest in Little Man would cool, but it continued to grow.
As time went by, Lee returned to his weight training, and I became obsessed with marksmanship. I practiced with automatic rifles, grenade launchers, and sniper rifles, shooting round after round. Lee and I went to the crewmen’s bar almost every night. The sailors seemed used to us by that time. Some invited us to sit with them whenever we showed up. By the time our transfers came, Lee and I had almost forgotten about the animosity between sailors and Marines.
Having spent a month and a half hoping for the public to forget about the Little Man 7, Washington finally embraced us. In his capacity as the secretary of the Navy, Admiral Huang announced plans to bootstrap us to officer status. The thought of promoting a Liberator must have caused him great pain. Lee and the other men were transferred to Officer Training School in Australia. I was called to appear before the House of Representatives in Washington, DC.
The night before Lee and the others left for OTS, we all went to the crewmen’s bar for one las
t gathering. We found that news of our transfers had spread throughout the ship. As we entered the bar, some sailors called to us to join them.
“Officers,” one of the men said, clapping Lee on the back. “If someone would have told me that I all I had to do was survive a massacre and a crash to become an officer, I’d have done it five years ago.”
Everybody laughed, including me. I didn’t think he was funny, but more than a month had passed. In military terms, my grieving period was over.
“Lee and the others are shipping out tomorrow,” I said.
“Congratulations.” The sailors looked delighted. One of them reached over and shook Lee’s hand. “I’d better do this now,” he joked. “Next time I may have to salute you pricks.”
“When are you leaving, Harris?” another sailor asked.
“Not for a couple of days,” I said.
“I can’t believe they’re shipping all of you out,” the sailor responded.
“What did you expect to happen to them?” another sailor asked. “Olivera needs to make room, doesn’t he?”
“Make room for what?” I asked.
“SEALs,” the sailor said, then he took a long pull of his brew. “Squads of them . . . hundreds of them.”
Lee and I looked at each other. That was the first we had heard about SEALs. Until we received our transfers, we’d both expected to remain on the Kamehameha to train new Marines.
“That’s the scuttlebutt,” another sailor said. “I’m surprised you never heard it.”
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