by John Bowers
One of the holos depicted a scaled-down map of the Solar System; of particular interest at the moment was the Asteroid Belt, where the current operation was taking place. Other holos were local maps of individual asteroid bases that had been captured or neutralized by the enemy. Color-coded points of light represented the task forces that were closing in to retake those bases, and most of the units were in position.
Wade felt his palms sweating, and for a moment wondered if the men aboard those transports felt any more jittery than he did. At his elbow, Kamada was outwardly calm as always, but he'd been through this before. The planners stood or sat in small groups before the various holos; technicians manned the electronic equipment and made adjustments as necessary. Faces were strained, tense. Some looked confident. Wade felt terrified.
"We have confirmation," a lieutenant (jg) at the consoles stated aloud. "Thirty-third Star Marines is in position. That leaves only the 22nd Infantry."
"How long for 22nd?" Gen. Willard asked.
"Another hour. They have two battalions on station …"
"Fuck 'em! Thirty-third can do it without them. Tell 'em to go!"
"Aye, sir." The lieutenant thumbed his throat mike and issued an order over subspace. "Grey Wolf, Wolf's Lair. White Lobo says go! I say again, White Lobo says all Wolf Packs are go! Acknowledge!"
It took less than three seconds for the reply to come back across several hundred million miles of empty space.
"Roger, Wolf's Lair. Grey Wolf understands White Lobo says go."
That was it. Except for two battalions of the 22nd Federation Infantry, all units were poised for the attack. Strung out around the Belt in two-dozen directions from the sun, each assault force was mobilized. If the Sirians were in control of any of those bases, and if they issued distress calls, it wouldn't serve to warn others — all were being assaulted simultaneously.
Exactly as Wade Palmer had specified in his hypothetical plan.
It was unbelievable that a plan he had drawn up was actually being executed. Wade felt his skin tingle as he heard that acknowledgment from Grey Wolf, and his heart tripped into turbo for a few seconds. He let out his breath noisily and Kamada glanced at him curiously. Their eyes met, and for the briefest instant, Kamada winked at him. Wade managed a weak grin, then turned his attention back to the holos.
The assault was about to begin.
AB-131, Asteroid Belt, Solar System
Rico wasn't part of a line company, and as a result would not participate in the assault on the asteroid. He met the news with mixed feelings. Part of him was frustrated — he was a Star Marine, a trained fighting man — he should be fighting. And yet, he couldn't deny a sense of relief as well. The last time he'd been part of an assault force …
When Sgt. Natali gave him the news he shivered inwardly, then began to tremble ever so slightly, bleeding off excess adrenaline. The trembling made him ashamed.
The transport had been built for economy, designed to carry the maximum number of men to a forward combat zone, and launch their landers if necessary. On the trip out they lived in cramped cubicles of six or eight men, with very little room to move about and absolutely no room for exercise. Those who would disembark climbed into the landing craft an hour before launch, where they lay nearly immobile, sweating and waiting miserably; the launch itself would be a welcome relief. Others, such as Rico and the headquarters platoon, were allowed to watch from one of four small observation decks.
About forty men crowded into the deck where Rico stood beside Natali, straining to see what they could, which wasn't a hell of a lot. The asteroid was visible, but was several miles distant, just a hunk of rock that looked exactly like the millions of other rocks that floated around it. The only difference was that this particular rock was larger than most; it was some ten miles long, two miles wide, and looked something like a mountain peak floating off balance in space. Rico had never seen an asteroid field, and could hardly believe his eyes. The ship was shielded against the debris, and it was a good thing. Nearby space looked something like a snapshot of a dust storm, or more correctly, the air immediately surrounding a tornado. Billions of pieces floated in place, motionless. Only the size of the target asteroid made it visible, and even then it was partially obscured by the screen of junk that floated around it.
"So that's an asteroid base," he mused as he gazed at it.
"That's it," Natali growled. "AB-131, probably the most famous of them all."
"Famous? How come?"
Natali glanced at him as if he were stupid.
"You don't remember?"
Rico shook his head.
"Six or seven years ago, the fighters protecting this base deserted their post and left it for the Sirians."
"Deserted?" Rico was shocked.
Natali shrugged. "In a manner of speaking. The base had been located, the Sirians shot up the hangars, and only a couple dozen fighters survived. The officer in command knew the enemy would be back with a boarding party, and he knew they'd be heavily escorted. He also knew he didn't have enough assets to defend the base. If he stood and fought, his people would be wiped out, and the Sirians would get the base anyway. So —"
"I remember now." Rico's eyes were wide. "He pulled his fighters out to save them for another day. But that's not desertion."
Natali shrugged again.
"They're still debating that one. Will be for a long time."
Rico stared in awe at the distant rock. "That's where the Fighter Queen started her career." The Fighter Queen was Onja Kvoorik, a Vega-born Norwegian girl who'd become famous as the top Sirian killer in the fleet. To date she had well over a hundred kills, including two troop transports.
"Yep." Natali grinned. "What a gorgeous piece! You ever seen her?"
"No. But my sister knows her."
For the first time since he'd known him, Rico saw Natali's granite features crack in surprise. He stared at Rico with rounded eyes.
"Yeah? How's that?"
"My sister works for Lincoln Enterprises. She used to date the Railsplitter." Railsplitter had been Onja Kvoorik's pilot, until his death in 0222. His name was Johnny Lincoln.
"You shittin' me?"
"Swear to God, Sarge. Before the war. In fact … "
Rico stopped. He wasn't sure he wanted to tell the rest. Not that he was ashamed of his sister, but did he have the right to admit to Natali that she had an out-of-wedlock child?
"In fact what?" Natali's expression suggested he wasn't sure he believed any of this, but he wanted to hear the rest.
"Uh, I was gonna say, she met the Fighter Queen when Johnny Lincoln brought her home on leave. And since Lincoln was killed, the Fighter Queen still comes to Colorado on leave. They're pretty good friends."
"On the level?"
"Swear to God, Sarge."
"I'll be damned."
The landers launched a few minutes later, four of them carrying a full battalion of Star Marines. Rico could barely see them from where he stood, and quickly lost them as they sailed into the storm of debris toward the asteroid base. Fleet fighters flew escort, and soon there was nothing more to see. Rico and Natali retired to quarters, where they listened to the chatter from the combat frequencies.
Much of it was confusing to nonpilots, but it was something to do. The pilots sounded remarkably laconical as they approached the target, but as the landing drew near Rico thought he detected an extra level of tension in some of the voices. The lander pilots also sounded sterile and robotic, but once again the voices rose in pitch the closer they came to the big moment. All sightings were negative. Pilots reported no sign of activity in the hangar bay, and earlier inspections had shown no surface activity on the rock itself. Laser battery emplacements appeared to have been destroyed, which suggested these were the original emplacements destroyed by the Sirians when they captured the base. Apparently they'd never been repaired.
It occurred to Rico that the base was completely deserted.
Things progressed with ago
nizing slowness. Two fighters entered the hangar bay ahead of the landers, ready to open fire if any threat appeared. None did. The four landers filed into the bay and the pressure-suited Marines poured out, nearly eight hundred of them. They assaulted the air locks, found them in working order, and within half an hour had all entered the base. Now the fighters could no longer aid them — they were in their own element at last.
The voices coming over the cabin speakers now were the team leaders inside the base. Rico could hear the breathless strain in their voices as they directed teams, squads, and platoons through the lower levels, fanning out to search for the enemy. Gradually they worked their way up, level-by-level, and found nothing but emptiness. It began to look as if, once they'd killed or captured the Federation garrison, the Sirians had abandoned the asteroid to its natural environment.
The audio show was interrupted by the regimental exec's voice, ordering all remaining personnel to prepare for debarkation. Rico and Natali and the rest leaped into their pressure suits, grabbed their gear, and filed to the launch deck, where they crawled into one of the landers. Nearly two hundred others, both men and women, boarded a second lander. These were technicians who would put the base back in working order. They would be the very last to enter, but not until there was no doubt in anyone's mind that it was safe.
Rico scrunched into an infantry berth and felt himself begin to sweat. He tried to still his racing heart as memory of the last time flooded over him. Natali lay in a berth directly across from him; last time it had been Chavez over there.
"You okay, kid?"
Rico nodded, fighting the urge to cross himself. Natali watched him for a minute, but said nothing more. He knew about the last time.
Maddeningly, once they'd hustled to board the lander, they lay there for forty-five minutes before it launched.
Hurry up and wait, Rico thought. Fuck!
But once the regimental commander and his staff had boarded Rico's lander, they were nudged gently off the transport, drifting relatively slowly through the asteroid field, shields up to prevent hull damage from the space garbage. The trip across to the asteroid base took only ten minutes, and Rico spent much of the time with his eyes closed, breathing through his mouth to keep his nausea in check. He told himself the nausea came from weightlessness, since the lander had no artificial gravity, but it sounded like an excuse even to himself.
The troops couldn't see out, had no idea where they were. The first indication they'd reached their objective was the gentle bump of the lander's gear against the rocky floor of the hangar bay. Less than a minute later, trembling with relief, Rico heard the order to debark. He scrambled out of his berth and, clutching his laser rifle tightly, stumbled down the center aisle to the exit, Natali right behind him.
Gravity was light inside the hangar bay, but Rico had been trained for low-grav, and remembered the techniques for walking or running without soaring above the surface. Headquarters platoon was immediately ordered inside the base, and set off single file. The nearest airlock was twenty yards from the lander, and within moments the platoon was queued up to enter, six at a time. Rico had to wait, and looked around in awe at the vast interior of the hangar cavern, nearly a quarter mile across. Wreckage of fighters, shuttles, rescue and repair craft lay in heaps. Someone had dozed it away after the Sirians obliterated the hangar bay with torpedoes, and most of the cavern was clear. It looked cold, airless, and forbidding. He was glad when his turn came to enter the lock.
Rico knew few specifics about AB-131, except for its unique fighter evacuation and the fact that the Fighter Queen had lived and fought there; but he knew it took several thousand people to staff and operate such a base, about the same as for a spacecraft carrier. Each asteroid base was essentially a self-sufficient city, a tight little community which existed solely to support a hundred or so fighter ships and keep them flying. Since the war's beginning, two-thirds of the asteroid bases had been located and destroyed, including this one. When that happened, for all intents and purposes, the city died. Attacking Sirians were met by a Star Marine garrison, and any Space Force personnel who were able would also fight. But once that resistance had been eliminated, it was over. Sirians were free, if they chose, to murder any who remained. To date, no one knew just how frequently they chose that course of action, though it was widely believed that women would be taken prisoner. The Sirians sold them as slaves.
It was with some trepidation, therefore, that he entered the base itself, not knowing what he might see. He emerged from the lock into an L-shaped corridor. Those who'd entered ahead of him milled about, waiting for the rest of the platoon. There was no urgency here; two battalions had already checked the area and moved upward toward the command and residence levels. Comm chatter suggested that no one had been found alive, even though the base was still pressurized and the air fresh. The recirculation equipment was still functioning.
But there'd been a hell of a fight here at one time. The paneling had been stripped from the walls by bullets and laser, revealing scarred rock underneath. Irregular dark stains mottled the floor. Bits and pieces from walls and ceiling were scattered about, bullet casings and laser powerpacks everywhere. Rico felt his stomach tighten.
The regimental brass came out of the airlock then, and Lt. Carter began issuing orders. Natali and Rico were directed to stay with the staff officers in case of trouble. The rest of the platoon was split into teams to cover the techs as they went about their work. It took several minutes to get everyone organized, then the milling mob began to disperse, each group heading off to its assigned area. Rico and Natali joined the colonel and his exec as they entered the lift and headed upward.
Col. Ireland took off his pressure helmet and sniffed the air. He nodded, satisfied.
"Little stale, but not bad," he observed. "Amazing goddamned equipment that can run without maintenance for seven goddamned years!"
Rico waited until Lt. Carter and Major Kuldip also removed their helmets, then removed his own, hanging it on the back of his belt to keep it out of his way. The lift stopped suddenly and Rico stepped off, looked both ways, and stepped aside. Dozens of Marines were visible up and down the corridor, standing around waiting for orders. Nothing exciting here. Around the lift itself were more bullet and laser scars, but the corridors away from the lift showed little damage. As the colonel exited the lift, a major and a captain hurried toward him, saluted swiftly, and began reporting what they had. Rico didn't hear it all, but no enemy had been found inside the base. He relaxed a little.
Col. Ireland barked orders for a moment, and the captain hurried away. The major stayed to show the colonel around. The command party set off at a brisk pace. Feeling like a third testicle, Rico trailed along ten feet behind, his rifle at port arms. Natali walked a few feet in front of him.
They were on the residence level, where most of the noncombatant personnel had lived. Fighter crews lived one level below. Speaking in hushed tones as they approached, the major led Ireland and his party into a cafeteria. Rico was the last to enter, and had to peer around the others to see what they were looking at. Along one wall he saw a mound of what had been corpses, too numerous to count. In spite of the recirculation, a stale, sickly smell lingered in the air. It was hard to tell for sure, but the bodies appeared to be men, though they were now mere skeletons.
From what was left of the clothing, Rico decided they were Star Marines; he saw the fatigue colors, the distinctive all-purpose space boots. No weapons were evident, nor did he see any bullet marks in the walls.
"Jesus Christ!"
It was Ireland who'd spoken; his face was turning red, his neck seemed swollen. He looked like a man who has discovered the bodies of his own family.
"Doesn't look like they were murdered, Colonel," the major was saying. "My guess is they died in battle, and the Sirians collected them here. We found more rooms like this, on nearly every level."
"I don't give a good goddamn!" Ireland roared, turning so Rico could see the torture
in his eyes. "The fuckers could have at least given them a decent burial! We bury their fucking dead!"
Rico felt his own face heating with anger as well. Staring at his regimental commander, he felt a sudden rush of affection. Ireland's rage came from a concern for the men in the Star Marine uniform. Rico glanced at the skeletons again.
It could've been me! If I'd been stationed here …
He swallowed deliberately and looked away, but amazingly, he now felt calm. His jitters from the lander were gone. He turned and followed as the others went out.
They visited three more rooms where bodies were stacked. One contained noncombatants, not a Star Marine among them. With one or two exceptions, they were all men, hundreds of them, nearly all in Space Force uniform. Apparently they were techs, noncombat personnel who kept the base running, but weren't trained to fight. Like the rest, these were merely skeletal remains, so it was difficult to know how they had died. When the tour ended they returned to the lift, and once again Ireland issued orders.
"I want the personnel logs checked," he told his exec. "Match up datatags with the records, and anyone who doesn't have a datatag, get DNA samples. We're going to positively ID every casualty. If there's any consolation to all this, it's that we'll be able to notify next of kin. A lot of people have been waiting for years to find out if their loved ones are dead or alive. And make a roster of personnel who are unaccounted for. We need to get an idea how many prisoners they may have taken."
They boarded the lift again and went upward, to command level. Command occupied three levels, including quarters for ranking officers. Once again, signs of combat were minimal, except near the lifts. Rico followed the officers into the comm center, where newly-arrived technicians were at work diagnosing the equipment, testing systems, trying to find out what needed to be done to get the base operational again. Rico gazed in awe at all the high-tech gear in the huge room, amazed that any of it still worked. He temporarily safed his rifle, just in case.
