Star Marine!

by John Bowers

  "You are jokin'! Is that it?"

  "Is that it? Jesus Christ, Adolph, I'm offering you over two hundred thousand people in return for one girl! I'm not even asking for our own prisoners back, and I'll probably catch hell for that in the next election. Sir, if you are any kind of leader, you must be as concerned about your people as we are about ours. This will make you a bigger hero at home than you are now. And it's the only offer you're going to get. So … " He felt his heart seize as he spoke the next five words. " … take it or leave it."

  Periscope Harbor, Beta Centauri

  Rico dived through the doorway of someone's kitchen as laser bolts chipped the doorjamb behind him. He hit the floor painfully and skidded under a table, tipping chairs. He saw a shadow looming in a doorway directly ahead and opened fire, recoil hammering his body as 11mm slugs ripped the man open. The body fell heavily backward and Rico scrambled forward, out from under the table into the doorway. He fired again, stitching the room with heavy slugs. Furniture and knick-knacks shattered, Solarglas sprayed across the room. He heard Texas scramble through the doorway behind him.

  "In here!" he whispered into his helmet mike. "I got one, I think there's another."

  A shadow flitted past another doorway leading to a bedroom; Rico twisted and fired. He heard a grunt as another body fell. Still on his belly, he elbowed his way forward, sweat streaming into his eyes.

  "Got another one!" he reported. "Keep your eyes open, don't shoot me!"

  He heard movement in the bedroom, but held his fire. He lay prone and waited, the Spandau ready. He could feel his pulse in his throat. For fifteen seconds nothing moved, then in the silence he heard someone weeping.

  "Throw out your weapons!" he ordered. "Give yourself up and I won't shoot!"

  Fat chance, he thought. The BC were every bit as tough as advertised. They didn't even retreat, so they weren't likely to surrender.

  "Don't shoot," someone said in a weak voice. "Please, don't shoot any more."

  Rico's tongue traced across his lower lip. His heart raced at this development.

  "Throw out your weapon!" he called again. "Goddammit, I'm not fooling! Throw it out!"

  A laser rifle skidded through the doorway, and Rico stared at it in indecision. Was that it? Was there only one? Did he dare trust this, or was it a trick?

  "Come on out," he said. "Hands in the air."

  "Please! Don't shoot." The voice sounded elderly, heavy with emotion.

  "I said come out!"

  "I can't. Just go away."

  Rico risked a glance behind him. Texas stared back with haunted eyes.

  "Cover me," Rico mouthed, and Texas nodded.

  Rico gathered his feet under him and crouched, then darted to the wall beside the doorway. He pulled a grenade off his belt and held it ready, then dared a fleeting glance inside.

  No one fired at him. The sight that met his eyes stopped him cold, and he stood immobile for long seconds. A man knelt on the floor, cradling a BC soldier. The man was in his fifties, thin and balding. The soldier was gasping in pain, blood spreading across the floor. The older man held him like a child, rocking him gently. He looked up at Rico. Tears stained his cheeks.

  "Don't kill him," he begged. "He's my boy. Just let him be."

  Rico blinked. Texas appeared beside him, his rifle trained on the BC. Rico pushed his rifle to the side.

  "Get a medic up here," he whispered. "Hurry."

  He stepped into the room and knelt carefully in front of the pair. The man had buried his face in the soldier's blond hair and continued to rock him. The BC stared at Rico with pain-dulled eyes. Rico ran a hand quickly over him, found no other weapons, and sat back.

  "He's your son?" he asked, and the man nodded. "Okay, just take it easy. Help is on the way."

  A corpsman arrived a few minutes later, analyzed the soldier's wound, and began treatment. Rico watched for several minutes.

  "He's got a good chance," the corpsman replied when Rico asked. "I think you missed all the vital organs."

  Rico nodded. He glanced at the soldier's father again. The man looked up. Neither spoke, but their gazes locked for a long moment. Rico dropped a hand on his shoulder, gave it a squeeze, and left the bedroom. Outside, he stood for several minutes and stared at the smoke-filled night sky. It was the first time he'd ever thought of the enemy as …

  People.

  Friday, 2 November, 0232 (PCC) (Day Two) - Periscope Harbor, Beta Centauri

  As daylight began to break over Periscope Harbor, a string of fifty supply transports dropped out of the sky and streaked through the saddle west of the city. The ASC batteries didn't detect them on Ladar, but opened fire when visual contact was made. A number of batteries had been repaired during the night, and a surprisingly heavy volume of fire reached for the cargo ships. Nineteen were hit, and sixteen went down, including most of those carrying heavy weapons. The rest touched down at the airport and began to offload supplies, including ammunition, food, medical supplies, and a single platoon of light tanks. The unloading was accomplished in spite of a sudden barrage of parabola fire, and barely minutes after they touched down, the landers began to roll.

  The airport looked like an obstacle course. Two dozen or more wrecked spacecraft dotted the field, some still burning. P-guns from the hillsides opened fire every time something landed, and the tally of wrecked craft continued to mount. Most had been dozed off the runways, but spacecraft operations were harrowing. Those heading back to orbit carried as many wounded as could be loaded aboard. The airport had become the collection point for casualties. Four separate field hospitals were in full operation inside the maintenance buildings; the dead were stacked in empty aircraft hangars.

  * * *

  Just before dawn, Rico Martinez and Delta Company had reached the river, putting the residentials behind them. The last few blocks had been heavily defended, a sign that rapid advancement was nearing its end. The 31st crossed the highway into the high-rise district then, but almost immediately ran into Sirian armor. Delta and the 33rd moved up on their right flank, but held at the highway. They could see enemy armor less than a half-mile from their position. Not until some of the fresh supplies reached them an hour after sunrise were they able to do anything about it.

  Included in the equipment they received were a pair of anti-armor launchers, and a couple of men to operate them. A squad of quartermaster people also delivered extra ammunition, rations for another day, and laser vests. Rico was especially happy to receive the latter, since he knew from personal experience that they saved lives.

  The anti-armor men moved into position, covered by the riflemen, and Delta Company was back in business.

  * * *

  Onja had slept three hours during the night. The 313 was back in action with the dawn, flying ground support missions. The ASC batteries alongside the saddle were still making life difficult for incoming landers, and losses had been severe enough that Command was beginning to worry about having enough landers to finish the job. Once Periscope Harbor was secure, more troops would be landed elsewhere on the planet, and the landers would be needed for that. More were available on Alpha 2, but that wasn't the point.

  The offshore islands had been badly hammered by space power, and enemy fighters were not an immediate threat, but the ASC batteries there were still in operation. Today's mission order was to obliterate as many laser batteries as possible.

  Langley poured on thrust as he led the squadron toward the target, and Onja lined up her targets with the help of onboard Ladar as they approached. The batteries weren't firing yet; the mission briefing had explained about the virus that had been transmitted to enemy computers. Onja had never heard of a computer virus, but if it blinded enemy Ladar, she was all for it.

  She released her missiles at the exact moment she'd intended, then Langley banked gently left to line her up for her bombs. At that moment the enemy batteries fired, and Onja felt the fighter jerk as four feet of the starboard wing disappeared. She cried out in
alarm and grabbed the panic bar to brace herself as the ship sagged and skidded. Alarms screamed inside her turret and she heard Langley swearing as he struggled to bring the fighter to an even keel.

  They swept through the saddle, trailing smoke; the enemy lasers were firing on the next section. Langley dropped his flaps to full, but the starboard flaps only opened halfway. Onja felt a sickening sensation as the fighter lost altitude at eight hundred knots. If Langley wasn't able to hold it, they'd have to eject, and they had only seconds to decide.

  "Hang on, Onja!" he panted from the cockpit. "We're losing altitude, but it's throwing us to starboard. If I can hold it long enough to clear the city, the rockets should get us out of here!"

  He was right — they were in a starboard turn, still losing altitude. On her target holos she could see the city below them, coming ever closer. Her heart tripped faster and she held her breath — would they make it?

  "We're too heavy!" he shouted. "Dump the bombs! Do it now!"

  Onja remembered the Star Marines down there, but they'd already passed over the combat zone. They'd swung south and were streaking down the coast away from the center of the city. Below them were ten square miles of homes, hospitals, schools. Onja hesitated.

  "Now, goddammit!" Langley screamed in her headset.

  Unable to speak, Onja reached out to the manual bomb release, flipped all switches upward, and punched the release button. The bombs fell clear and the QuasarFighter leaped upward — still bearing to starboard, but climbing. She caught her breath with relief, then remembered and looked back at her target holos. She saw the bombs plunge into a vast acreage of residential homes and explode with blinding force, devastating everything for a hundred yards in every direction.

  "Goddess Sophia!" she whispered. "Please forgive me!"

  * * *

  Rico Martinez crouched in the doorway of a high-rise and peered up at the towering structures that filled the sky in front of him. The architecture of downtown Periscope Harbor was spectacular — broad boulevards flanked by widely spaced vertical towers that gleamed brilliantly in the bright sunlight. The sky above the city was a deep blue, the day cloudless and beautiful. A fresh breeze off the harbor carried away the smoke of battle, crisp and cool like a spring day in the Rockies back home. Oddly, the city had the feel of a ghost town — a scene like this should include people bustling about: shopping, touring, doing business. Since landing the day before, Rico had seen very few civilians. Here there was no one except Star Marines, Sirian tanks, and BC soldiers.

  Only, the BC weren't visible. They occupied the heights of the buildings themselves, forcing the Star Marines to come in after them. The tanks covered certain intersections, making life unhealthy for the invaders. Thousands of men on both sides were actively engaged in mayhem, but the city looked deserted. It was eerie.

  Rico heard gunfire as it echoed around inside the sky tower across from him, saw smoke filter out from broken windows, saw and heard the flash of explosions behind those sheer facades. Farther away, a few blocks to his left, a company of enemy hovertanks fired in sporadic salvoes, their rifle blasts echoing through the urban canyons.

  "Goddamn it!" muttered the man next to him, "I hate street fighting!"

  Rico nodded; he shared the emotion. The man who'd spoken was Private Henderson, one of the antitank men attached to Delta that morning. His heavy weapon rested on the sidewalk beside him, a slender tube that resembled an ancient bazooka, but which fired a concentrated laser beam instead of a rocket. Henderson had already killed three tanks, and it wasn't yet quite noon.

  "Too bad the enemy doesn't feel the same way," Rico said in response. "If they did, we wouldn't have to do this."

  Henderson grunted.

  Rico scratched. In spite of the ocean breeze he was sweating under his laser vest, and it itched.

  "On yer feet, Delta!" Capt. Connor ordered over the headsets. "R & R is over."

  Lt. Bauer's voice was next, as he ordered First Platoon forward. Rico nodded at his men and they moved out, walking at a crouch along the side of the building, keeping in single file. The building beside them had already been cleared, and the next objective beckoned.

  They were ordered into the underground of the next building on the street. Lima Company was already working its way up the inside of the structure, and Delta was to clear the lower levels. Twenty minutes later, moving slowly through a corridor one level below the street, First Platoon entered a wide parking garage filled with private vehicles. Starcrete supports blocked a complete view of the area, but nothing seemed to be moving, and First Platoon fanned out, moving by squads through the silent vehicles. It was nerve-wracking — there were hundreds of hiding places, and the power had been cut, leaving the area in gloom except for the faint light that filtered in from ventilation ducts. The Marines depended on their night-vision contacts, which depended on residual light, and found little.

  They crossed the parking area and came to a bank of elevators. Without power they couldn't be used, and no one dared use them in any case; they were gravity lifts that depended on cables, which could be cut at any time. Instead, the men started down the stairwells, moving in small groups. They reached the bottom level and stepped out into another parking garage. Rico was the first man from his squad to emerge, and he'd barely taken a dozen steps away from the stairwell …

  Grenades flashed less than ten yards away, blowing him backward against the wall. He tumbled hard to the ground, the breath knocked out of him. Temporarily blinded by the plasma, he could see nothing, but heard men screaming. The staccato chirp of rapid-fire lasers filled the enclosed space, and he dragged himself behind a parked car, panting in something close to terror.

  Cars were burning where the grenades had burst, and Rico had no way of knowing how many of his people had been hit. Men were yelling, Spandaus hammered suddenly, and everything was chaos. Desperate with panic, Rico dug the contacts out of his eyes and blinked rapidly, trying to restore his vision. Lasers chipped the wall behind him and bullets ripped into the car above him.

  "Squad Two, sound off! Is anybody hit?"

  "We're all here, Beaner, but I can't see a fucking thing!" Texas yelled back.

  "Preacher! Where are you?"

  Preacher replied, but Rico lost his words in the roar of a fuel tank explosion. Flames were spreading rapidly inside the enclosed space as burning fossil fuel flowed like water. If the BC didn't get them, the fire would. Rico felt the heat, and with it a rising urgency.

  "Squad Two! To your left!" Rico shouted. "Get away from that fire!" He still couldn't see clearly, but knew the flames were in front of him. He blinked rapidly, rubbed his eyes, and with each passing second his vision blurred a little less.

  Texas and the rest stumbled along the wall toward him, and on past. Someone grabbed his arm and pulled him along until they were out of immediate danger of the spreading flames. Smoke roiled in black clouds, obscuring everything, thick and choking. Lasers still fired, but now they were blind.

  "Texas, Knee Grow, Chavez — work your way to the left and try to flank those fuckers. Maniac, Tiny, you're with me!" He looked around. "Where's Henderson?"

  "Plasma got him."

  "Fuck!"

  There was no time to work out a strategy; they simply had to get the job done. The six of them worked their way between the vehicles, rifles ready, skirting the flames, which had now stopped spreading, but had set other vehicles alight. As the Marines penetrated into the garage another gas tank cooked off, then another and another. More vehicles began to burn, and Rico realized that within a few minutes the entire place would become an inferno. They had to get out before that happened, but they were cut off from the way they'd come in. They had to find another exit, and avoid being killed by BC at the same time.

  "Preacher! Where the fuck are you?"

  "In the stairwell!" came back the reply. "The fire's right in front of us."

  "Get back to the street and wait for us."

  "Aye-aye."

&n
bsp; "Is Gearloose with you?"

  "He's right here."

  "Good. Get going!"

  Rico had barely uttered the words when he saw BC, at least eight of them, crouching behind the bed of a cargohover. Their laser weapons were still aimed at the stairwell as they searched through the inferno for the Star Marines. Rico opened fire at once, hammering the group with his Spandau, watching them die as his slugs ripped into them. Maniac and Tiny joined in, and killed all eight without even drawing fire.

  "Come on!" Rico panted, and he ran toward the dead men at a crouch, expecting to find more BC. At that moment the building's fire suppression system finally activated. From twenty directions in the overhead, CO2 blasted into the parking garage under high pressure, choking the fire with a cold fog of carbon dioxide, blinding the Star Marines and smothering the oxygen. Rico gagged for something to breathe, and reflected that this was a hell of a way for a fighting man to die.

  "Masks!" he gasped, and the men with him quickly unzipped their utility belt pouches. Seconds later all three had oxygen masks in place. The belts carried compressed oxygen capsules with thirty minutes of supply. They had to get out of the garage soon.

  Spandaus hammered to their left, and Rico turned to look, but could see nothing. Texas and the others had found something, and Rico could hear answering lasers. Before he could react, he heard screams of defiance and spun to see what looked like a wave of humanity bearing down on him.

  "Jesus!" he gasped in disbelief.

  At least ten BC lunged toward him out of the fog like an infantry charge. He didn't have time to wonder if they were attacking or just trying to escape the CO2. Tiny was already firing, and Rico joined in, dropping two or three before the BC slammed into them like a solarball line. Rico swung his rifle like a club, wishing he had time to go for his laser-blade, knowing he didn't. He caught the first man in the face, ripping his jaw out of place, but was carried to the ground when the BC's body slammed into him. Tiny was screaming something unintelligible, and Maniac lived up to his name.