by John Bowers
"It was a terrible day! I was never so scared in my whole life."
"Didn't seem to affect your aim any."
"I didn't have a choice. The ResQMed was parked alongside, and I wanted to get out alive. Then these five fuckers showed up and were coming straight at us. The Med was unarmed, so I opened up."
They were silent for five minutes. Wade was drained, but sleep still eluded him.
"What are you gonna do with the rest of your life?" he asked.
She slid a hand over his bare chest, pinching one of his nipples.
"I think I'll just stay here and keep fucking you forever."
He laughed. That didn't sound like a bad idea.
"What about you?" she asked.
"I dunno. I'll probably stay in the service until the war's over. After that I may be too old to do anything else."
"Why do you want to stay in? Do your six and get out."
He shook his head. "I have to see it through. They killed my dad."
"I'm sorry."
"No need." He took a deep breath. "Listening to you talk about combat makes me think maybe I should be out there. I'm young and able-bodied — maybe I should be fighting."
She lifted up on one elbow and leaned over him, her long hair dangling to his chest.
"Bite your tongue," she whispered. "Don't even think about it. It's terrible out there."
"I know. But why should I be here when others are dying?"
"You don't know what you're saying, Wade! Trust me. Stay here. Plan the war, but don't fight it. I don't want to lose you."
That made him turn his head. He couldn't see her face in the darkness, but felt the tension in her body. His heart beat a little faster as he wondered if she was feeling more for him than he was for her.
"I won't be going anywhere until the Alpha campaign is over," he said quietly. "That's going to take awhile."
"Promise me you won't go."
"I can't. I'm not sure I could live with myself afterward if I don't do more."
"Please!"
He shook his head. "I can't promise."
She lowered her head and kissed him, her mouth warm and moist. She stirred him, and he slid an arm around her. After a moment she broke the kiss, her hands roaming his body.
"Do me again!" she murmured.
So he did.
Thursday, 3 June, 0230 (PCC) - Polygon, Washington City, DC, North America, Terra
Rear Admiral Henri Boucher smiled fleetingly as Wade Palmer came to attention in front of his desk. He pointed to a chair and Wade sat.
"What is on your mind, Ensign?"
"Alpha 2, Admiral."
"Tell me about it."
Wade did. It had come to him in the middle of the night, and like some of his previous ideas, hadn't yet fully germinated. He spilled it anyway.
"We're winning on Alpha 2," he said, "but it's slow. We gain ground here, lose ground there; we're losing lives. Eventually we'll take it all, if we can keep control of orbital space, but by then the cost will be so high we may not want to push the war any further. The public may decide the best policy is to let the Sirians go just to end the war. And that would be a disaster, because if we do that they'll just come at us again, later."
"Oui. I agree. So what are your thoughts?"
"I haven't carried this all the way to the end yet, but what I think we need is a decisive battle, a victory so momentous it will break Sirian morale. It doesn't have to end the war, but it needs to be significant enough that future historians can say that was the turning point. In Terra history, there were battles like Dien Bien Phu, Stalingrad, Midway, Gettysburg, to name just a few. They didn't always end the war, but they turned the tide."
"And 'ow do we force such a battle?"
"There must be an objective so important that capturing it will give us a permanent advantage. Something that will force the Sirians to commit the bulk of their forces to defend it. When they do, we take them out. After that, it will all be downhill."
Boucher smiled tiredly.
"That is very interesting, Ensign. Tell me — what is this objective?"
Wade placed a sheet of paper on Boucher's desk. It was a hardcopy of a section of map. Circled in red was the objective.
"SE Headquarters," he said.
Tuesday, 8 June, 0230 (PCC) - Lancalpha, Alpha 2, Alpha Centauri System
They moved up in the middle of the night. With modern detection techniques darkness wasn't much cover, but Sirian space power had never been much of a threat to ground troops on Alpha 2, as the available fighters had their hands full.
Rico grabbed a couple of hours' sleep in the back of the troop carrier, but it wasn't restful. A knot in his stomach kept him too tense, and in any case he'd enjoyed five weeks of rest after his release from the hospital. It was time to go back into action.
"We must be gettin' close," Maniac whispered solemnly. "I'm gettin' a hard-on."
To Rico the whole thing seemed suicidal. The objective in this action was the city of Lancalpha, sitting on a peninsula at the northern end of Central Continent. The city was ideally located for access to the ocean and boasted a sprawling civilian spaceport. But the real prize, they'd been told, was the slave-processing center built and operated by the Sirians. Lancalpha was SE headquarters on Alpha 2, and every Centauri slave leaving the planet was routed through that one facility. The place was staffed by SE and was reportedly top-heavy with important officers. Capturing Lancalpha was supposed to crack Sirian morale as no other objective could do.
Maybe, Rico reflected unhappily, but the damned city was over two thousand miles inside Sirian-held territory.
The battle had begun two days earlier. The 7th and 9th Star Marine Divisions had been air-dropped in a surprise move that caught the enemy completely off guard.
Nearly half the city was already in Federation hands, but the enemy still had two full divisions in place, one of them armored. They had the advantage of terrain and were well dug in. To make matters worse, four infantry and one armored division had moved in from the south to cut the city off from any attempt to reinforce the Marines.
But 3rd Division was going in anyway, along with the 421st Federation Armored Brigade. Rico smelled a disaster cooking.
"I'd like to meet the fucking yahoo that thought this one up!" Gearloose muttered, his pinched features twisted with worry. "Prob'ly some shavetail dickhead back at the Polygon who gets to go home at night and fuck some long-legged bitch while we go in and try to make him a goddamned hero!"
"Shut up, Gearloose!" Texas sighed. "I been listenin' to your shit for too goddamned long."
"Well, fuck!" Gearloose muttered, and then shut up.
"How come you never say anything, Tiny?" Texas demanded, scowling at the smallest member of the Fourless.
"Too busy watchin' my life pass before my eyes," the little man replied.
Three hours after leaving their bivouac, the 3rd Division arrived at Lancalpha. Two squadrons of Nakashimas had harassed the Confederates outside the city just ahead of their arrival, and the string of APC/H transports slipped in minutes afterward without drawing much fire; two transports were hit, but the bulk of the division crossed the siege line and set down inside the city.
Rico and the rest of Delta Company stepped out onto solid ground inside the Federation- held zone.
The air was cool, but heavy with the stench of combat. Smoke from fires and explosions, the acrid ozone smell of lasers, and the sickly sweet aroma of roasting flesh made them wrinkle their noses. Rico sneezed. Not far in the distance, heavy weapons were firing, and were answered by the screech of heavy Confederate lasers. The battle was in progress, and they immediately headed toward it.
They wound their way through streets littered with rubble, gutted buildings that were barely standing, and areas where the dead — most of them civilian — had been collected in heaps. After nearly an hour they reached what could be called the front line. By chance, Rico's squad stopped only a few feet from where a senior officer
was briefing Capt. Connor.
"We've got civilians all over the goddamned place!" the colonel was complaining. "The water table here is high, so they don't dig basements. They have no cover, and we have to wade through them. You can't use grenades, because if you do you'll kill civilians. No way around it."
Rico listened with a rising sense of alarm. The Sirians, he heard, were using civilians as hostages when it suited them, which further reduced the options for the Marines. This was going to be nasty. He clutched his Spandau as if it were a life preserver.
"Chavez, tu vente conmigo. ¿Mi entiendes?"
Chavez just nodded, his eyes wide and white in the darkness. His teeth were chattering.
When Connor had been briefed, he briefed his lieutenants, who in turn briefed their squad leaders. Minutes later, Delta moved into the battle.
It was confusing. Star Marines were everywhere — inside homes and office buildings, on the roofs, in the rubble. The Sirians were also everywhere, their positions often overlapping those of the Star Marines. The Sirians used mostly lasers, seeming to prefer the targeting advantage it gave them. The Star Marines used only slug weapons, giving them the advantage of knowing that anyone using a laser was the enemy. Both sides wore infrared contacts for night vision, though explosions and the weapons themselves frequently masked the heat sigs. The Star Marines also wore laser-proof vests, which weren't really laser "proof", but would deflect a beam fired at an angle. They had no such protections for arms, legs, or heads, however. Similarly, the Confederates had vests designed to stop a bullet; but no one had ever invented a vest that could completely hold back an 11mm XP round, which the Star Marines carried as standard issue.
Both sides were protected by modern technology, but it wasn't going to be enough.
Delta Company's assignment was to relieve another company from 7th division that had been fighting for two days. It took another hour and the deaths of two men to get into position. Rico Martinez and his squad found themselves inside an apartment building overlooking a broad avenue swept by laser and slug fire; as soon as Sgt. Ragsdale had been briefed by the squad leader he was relieving, the other squad pulled back. They only had five men left.
Rico and Chavez crouched beside a window and occasionally peered out, trying to spot the source of enemy fire. Lasers periodically crisscrossed the street, and Rico managed to locate seven different positions simply by watching. Keeping as low as possible, he rested his rifle on the windowsill and sighted in on one such position. He waited half a minute for the weapon to fire again, and when it did he put his scope on the spot and opened fire, spraying half a magazine toward it. Instantly, four laser beams shrieked through the room, blowing plaster off the ceiling and causing everyone to duck, swearing obscenely. Rico hit the floor and waited until the dust stopped falling, then looked up at Chavez and nodded.
"See? Nothing to it."
Wednesday, 9 June, 0230 (PCC) - Lancalpha, Alpha 2, Alpha Centauri System
Dawn revealed a hideous cityscape. Every building within view showed the scars of battle, and a heavy, oppressive pollution hung above the streets. Just after daylight, a tank battle broke out a few blocks from Delta's position, and for two hours the heavy armored vehicles hammered each other in a deadly slugfest. No one was clear who was the winner, but finally the heavy stuff stopped and four hovertanks lumbered down the street toward Delta Company. They were Fed tanks.
Directed by spotters on Rico's side of the street, the tanks began to pound the buildings opposite him, and he wondered if the armored guys had been warned about the civilians. Didn't look like it.
But the tanks forced the Confederates to break out of the buildings, and the Marines crossed the street, the tanks covering them. Second Squad burst into a storefront that had been obliterated by the tanks' cannon, finding bodies everywhere. They surged on through the building and up the stairs — no one trusted the gravity lifts — and for the next two hours fought a room-by-room action as they cleared Confederates from the upper floors. They ended up with several prisoners, but these were turned over to a follow-up unit in the street and Second Squad continued to press the advantage, however temporary it might prove to be.
The whole day was like that, moving from building to building, street to street. Twice they ran into heavy weapons and had to dig in and sweat it out. Once they had to fall back and give up an entire street. But Federation armor repeatedly came to the rescue — usually just two or three hovertanks — and forced the Sirians to pull back.
Rico began to worry about the Sirian armor. They were supposed to have a full division in the city, far more than enough to overpower the 421st Brigade. He wondered when they were going to run into it.
When darkness fell again, they'd captured seven city blocks, squeezing the Sirians ever closer to the waterfront. Rico wasn't sure where SE headquarters was located, or if it had been captured yet; if not, they had to come across it soon.
Half an hour before full darkness fell, Delta Company made its last advance of the day. Half of First Squad had been killed or wounded, but Rico's squad had yet to lose a single man. Moving along a narrow street, Delta moved to occupy an intersection fifty yards away, which would give them a clear view of enemy armor should it attempt to interdict their position. The street was gloomy from the dying light and the heavy air. As the Marines advanced at a half crouch, they saw movement along the far side of the street. Ragsdale held up a hand and spoke quietly into his squad mike.
"Hold your fire. Civilians."
Rico trained his rifle above their heads and waited. The entire squad held its position, shrinking back against the buildings as a gaggle of women, children, and old people moved toward them on the opposite side. They walked quickly, clutching what belongings they could carry and keeping their free hands in the air as a sign of neutrality. Ragsdale waved them on down the street, away from the intersection. Rico watched nervously, pitying them, caught in a meat grinder simply because they happened to live in a city that someone had decided was a critical objective. There were about thirty-five of them, and as the first of the group came abreast of him, they started across the street.
Suddenly, the dusk turned dazzling as Confederate lasers flashed through the refugees, cutting down a dozen or more. Women screamed and Rico saw three children fall, their clothing in flames.
"Goddammit!" he screamed, and opened up on the source of the lasers with full automatic. As he was changing magazines, the lasers shifted and swept through the Star Marines. Tiny went down, along with replacements Carter and Abdulla. Rico and Chavez dived into a doorway for cover and returned fire while Texas and Gearloose dragged Tiny out of the street. Roberson was beating out flames on his shirt and White fell prone and blazed away at the intersection.
The laser fire stopped suddenly, and Ragsdale was on his feet, shouting.
"Let's go! Get the cocksuckers!"
It was crazy, it was suicidal, but everyone except the wounded dashed across the street and raced toward the intersection, leaving the civilians to fend for themselves. Behind them, another squad kept fire on the Sirians.
When the Marines were twenty yards from the intersection, the lasers opened up again, and they ducked inside the nearest buildings. Rico and Chavez found themselves inside a bakery where rack upon rack of bread and pastry glittered under millions of shards of shattered Solarglas. They could hear lasers outside, and Rico thought he heard them upstairs as well. He and Chavez found a stairwell and started up, grim-faced in the darkness as they looked for telltale flashes of laser light.
"No grenades, man!" Rico whispered as he saw Chavez pull one from his belt. "Too many civilians around."
"What the fuck we gonna do, then?"
"We're gonna shoot the fuckers! Come on."
"Shit! This is fucked, man. This is really fucked!"
Chavez bitched incessantly under his breath, hardly aware he was doing it. Rico ignored him as he took the lead. The stairs were solid Plasteel and made no sound as he inched his way up
to the next floor. He reached a landing and paused, letting his heart settle as he peered carefully around, looking for heat sigs.
A single Sirian was stationed at the top of the stairwell, but his attention was momentarily diverted down the hall, and Rico saw him first. Rico burst out of the stairwell with his trigger held down. The Sirian died without a sound, and Rico raced toward the room where lasers chirped, well aware that his Spandau had given away his presence. Chavez was right behind him; when they reached the door they flattened out beside it. The firing from inside had stopped.
The two Marines looked at one another, only the whites of their eyes visible. Neither knew how many were inside, but a grenade would fix that. Unfortunately, a grenade would also kill any civilians who might be trapped with the enemy. Rico panted heavily for a moment, trying to think. Then he blinked rapidly to turn up the intensity of his IR contacts. Holding up a hand to Chavez, he pulled a grenade off his bandolier. Chavez's eyes widened.
"¿Tu eres loco?" he mouthed.
But Rico didn't pull the pin — he just tossed the grenade. It hit the floor and bounced, spinning across the floor to the corner farthest from the door. A panicked shout from inside was followed by a frantic scramble for the grenade, and Rico burst through the doorway. He saw four Sirians and opened fire, killing three. Chavez rolled through the doorway behind him and got the fourth.
Rico was on his knees, smoke still pouring from the muzzle of the Spandau, when he heard a woman scream behind him. His blood froze, and he spun automatically. A fifth Sirian knelt beside the doorway, a laser pistol in his right hand. His left arm was wrapped around a Centauri woman whom he held in front of him as a shield. Her face was taut with terror, her mouth open, breasts heaving.
"Wait!" Rico shouted as Chavez drew a bead.
The Sirian was just a kid, probably no more than seventeen. His eyes were stark with fear as he turned the woman toward one Star Marine, then the other.
"Drop your rifles!" he gulped. "I'll kill her!"
Rico didn't move. The kid had a weapon, and if he disarmed himself there was nothing to keep him from shooting.
"Let the woman go," he said as calmly as he was able.
