“Good luck,” Longfellow whispered at Pasquin’s back.
While Pasquin was telling his men what he was going to do, Bass raised second squad’s first fire team, which was on the platoon’s right flank, a hundred meters beyond the reverse slope of the ridge the platoon was on.
“Negative,” Corporal Chan answered when Bass asked if he saw any sign of Sharp Edge, or anybody else.
“Well, stay sharp,” Bass said. He wondered why Lance Corporal Schultz, on point, hadn’t sensed anything wrong.
Hammer Schultz was wondering the same thing. He’d been shocked when Pasquin had reported that they were walking into an ambush. He looked in the direction of the ridge where Pasquin had said the ambushers were hiding, and couldn’t feel anything from that direction. Or any other direction. He was shaken by the idea that he almost led the platoon into an ambush. He always took point, or whatever the most exposed position was, because he was good at sensing danger before anybody else did. So why hadn’t he sensed this ambush before the platoon began walking into it? For the first time in years, Schultz felt uncertain about himself, about his abilities. He began to tremble.
Pasquin went on knuckles and toes, keeping himself as low as possible. It would have been easier to crawl on his belly, but a belly crawl would have increased the chance that he’d make noise that could be heard by the ambushers. His knuckles were sore, his forearms burning, his feet and calves threatening to cramp by the time he eased himself to the lava bed to take a few deep breaths and flex his aching muscles. After a moment he cautiously raised his head high enough to see over the lava ripple that had concealed him. He’d gone a hundred and fifty meters and still wasn’t at the far end of the ambush. But he was pretty sure he saw the end, fifty meters farther along.
A two-hundred-meter ambush line. Averaging two meters between men, and allowing close to a meter per man, he calculated there were seventy or seventy-five men in the ambush—more than twice the platoon’s strength. He slid his magnifier screen into place and looked closely at a few of the men on the line. He didn’t like what he saw. Not all of them were armed with flechette rifles; some had more powerful-looking weapons, maybe weapons that could defeat the Marines’ body armor.
“One, One-two,” he whispered into his comm. “I have approximately seventy to seventy-five men in the ambush line. And I think some of them have surprise weapons.”
“Roger,” Ratliff replied. “Stay in place until further orders.”
“Aye aye.” Pasquin switched to the fire team circuit to tell his men what he’d found. He arranged himself to lie where he could watch the ambush line, and the outline of his helmet would be disguised by one of the few bushes growing on the ripples.
Charlie Bass was in a dilemma. He couldn’t move forward, because that would put more of the platoon into the ambush’s killing zone. He couldn’t back up, because that would confirm to the ambushers what they probably already suspected—that they’d been discovered. Nor could he have the platoon charge into the ambush line, because too few of his men were in position to do that. He could try to have one squad and a gun team flank the ambush, but that would leave most of one squad fully exposed to the ambushers.
So what to do?
The decision was taken out of Bass’s hands by an overly anxious mercenary who edged to the top of the ridge without being sent back down by an officer or sergeant. He saw the Marines and couldn’t restrain himself, opening fire with his flechette rifle set on automatic. The needles struck harmlessly on the lava, or spattered without effect against the Marines’ body armor.
“Second squad, pull back to my position,” Bass immediately ordered. “First squad, get on line to flank the ambush. Left flankers, open fire on the back of the ambush. Right flankers, hold position and guard our flank.”
“Let’s go!” Corporal Claypoole yelled to his men. He twisted around and scooted toward Bass, trailing Lance Corporal MacIlargie, who had begun withdrawing from the killing zone as soon as Bass gave the word. Claypoole glanced back and staggered to a stop—Lance Corporal Schultz was frozen in position, with more and more of the Sharp Edge mercenaries firing at him. Schultz wasn’t shooting back.
“Hammer, move!” Claypoole yelled.
Schultz didn’t even twitch. Flechette needles were slamming into the lava all around him, splatting on his armor. There was red on his arm where a flechette had hit an unarmored spot.
“Hammer!” Claypoole swore to himself. He didn’t know what the problem was; had Schultz been wounded badly enough in the opening burst that he couldn’t move? He couldn’t think of any other reason for Schultz to just be lying there unmoving. Taking a deep breath, he launched himself back to Schultz, to drag him to safety.
“Where are you hit, Hammer?” Claypoole asked during the short sprint. No answer. He thought Schultz must have been knocked unconscious by his wound. He wanted to drop next to the big Marine and check for wounds, but too much fire was coming that way. Instead he reached down, grabbed the back of Schultz’s armored collar, and began dragging him, not even taking the time to pick him up in a fireman’s carry. Not that he was sure he could lift someone that big over his shoulders anyway.
Claypoole hadn’t finished taking his first step when something clamped onto his wrist, feeling tight enough to crush bones. He yelled in shock and pain, and twisted back to see what had caught him. It was Schultz’s hand.
“Let go! I’m trying to get you out of here.” He looked through Schultz’s faceplate and was shaken by what he saw. Schultz’s face was beaded with sweat, his mouth opened and closed soundlessly, and his eyes were wide with fear. They seemed to be fixed on something in the far distance—but there was nothing but sky where he was looking.
“What’s the matter, Hammer?” Claypoole asked, dropping down so that he didn’t present quite as easy a target. “Are you hit bad? Let me get you out of here.” His words were punctuated by an explosive round that blew a small crater in the lava centimeters from Schultz’s shoulder. “We gotta go, Hammer!” Claypoole shrilled, and gave a sharp tug on Schultz’s collar. He gave a grunt of pain as the small bones of his wrist ground together under the pressure of Schultz’s grip. Another explosive round hit, this time impacting with a glancing blow on Schultz’s hip, digging a crater in the armor but not penetrating the flesh underneath.
Schultz didn’t even flinch.
Claypoole tried to stand and take a two-handed grip on Schultz’s armor, but Schultz’s hand kept his arm too low, and he wasn’t able to get his feet under himself.
Suddenly Sergeant Kerr was by Claypoole’s side. “What’s the problem here?” he demanded harshly. “We’ve got to get Schultz out of the line of fire.”
“I know, but he won’t let me pull him.”
Kerr looked into Schultz’s face. “Oh, hell,” he breathed. “Hammer!” he said sharply. “On your feet, Marine! We’ve got to go. Now!”
Schultz finally reacted, turning his head to look at Kerr. His mouth moved as though he was trying to say something, but nothing came out.
“Move, Lance Corporal. Now!” Kerr ordered.
If it hadn’t been Hammer Schultz that Claypoole was looking at, he would have sworn that a tear came out of the big man’s eye. He shook off the thought and sighed in relief as Schultz’s grip loosened. Between them, Kerr and Claypoole got Schultz to his feet, and they ran, half carrying, half dragging the big man. More explosive rounds came at them, but they all missed.
They got back to where the rest of second squad and the gun squad were laying down covering fire for first squad, which was in position to begin moving on the ambush’s flank.
“Where’s he hit?” Hospitalman Third Class Hough, the platoon corpsman, asked when Kerr and Claypoole got Schultz into a shallow defile. Hough had his med kit ready to give whatever treatment the big man might require.
Kerr shook his head. “He’s got a ding on his arm, but that’s not the problem.” He looked the corpsman in the eye. “If it was anybody but Schultz, I’d s
ay he’s suffering from battle shock.”
Hough looked at Kerr in disbelief—the Hammer suffering from battle shock?—then looked at Schultz’s face. “My God, I think you’re right.” He took a deep breath. “Get back to your squad, I’ll deal with him.”
“All right, Doc.” He clapped Claypoole on the shoulder. “Come on, we need to help with that base of fire.”
Corporal Pasquin, still at the far end of the left flank when Lieutenant Bass gave the orders at the beginning of the firefight, ordered Lance Corporals Quick and Longfellow to open up on the rear of the ambush. He himself began picking off the mercenaries with the weapons that looked like they might be able to penetrate the Marines’ body armor. But he was only forty meters behind the ambush line, and it took almost no time for the mercenaries to realize someone was to their rear and for several to turn and fire back with everything they had. Even armored, Pasquin had to duck low to keep from getting hit by something powerful enough to seriously hurt—or kill—him. So, after three aimed shots, his fire became ineffective for anything more than keeping the mercenaries down. And it sounded like some of them were starting to maneuver to where they could see him. He began crawling back to his men, who were doing a slightly better job of pinning down the Sharp Edge ambushers. But he had a long way to go before reaching the relative safety of two more Marines. He was almost halfway back when flanking fire began from first squad; the holding fire from second squad started seconds later.
But the first of the maneuvering mercenaries were then in position to see Pasquin, and beyond him the other two Marines. Flechettes impacted on Pasquin’s body armor, and explosive rounds started coming at him. The first one to hit tore off the top of his helmet and knocked him flat.
Longfellow heard the fire from the side and turned his head to look. He saw Pasquin get hit. He let out a scream and shifted his fire from the ambush line to his front to the people closing on his fire team leader.
The change in Longfellow’s fire caught Sergeant Ratliff’s attention. As soon as he looked in that direction, he realized what was happening. “Dorny!” he shouted. “See where Longfellow’s shooting?”
The first fire team leader looked. “Yeah,” he answered.
“Put your fire team’s fire there.”
“Roger.” Dornhofer told Lance Corporal Zumwald and PFC Gray to add their fire to his and began shooting at the mercenaries maneuvering to flank the flankers. In only a few seconds, all of them were down. Wounded, dead, or simply hiding, Dornhofer didn’t care; they were out of the action. He returned his fire team’s fire to the flank of the ambushers, who were trying to reorient themselves to answer the threat on their flank.
The gun squad’s fire swept across the top of the ambush line, keeping the mercenaries down, forcing them to crawl to change their positions, vastly reducing their ability to return fire.
“I can use some help here, Hound,” Ratliff called to Sergeant Kelly.
Kelly looked to Lieutenant Bass. Bass nodded. “Taylor, give first squad some support,” Kelly told Corporal Taylor, the second gun team leader.
“With me!” Taylor shouted to his two men. Lance Corporal Dickson, the gunner, picked up the gun and ran with his team leader. “Where do you want us?” Taylor called to Ratliff as he ran.
“Right here,” Ratliff said, moving to where he wanted the gun. “You can put enfilading fire on their whole line from here.”
Dickson put the gun where Ratliff indicated. Taylor started directing his fire, and PFC Dias dropped down next to the gun, ready to change barrels or reload the gun as needed.
On the left flank, as soon as the additional fire from first squad dealt with the mercenaries who were maneuvering toward Pasquin, Longfellow began scrambling toward his fire team leader. “Cover me!” he yelled back at Quick.
Nobody from the ambush line was maneuvering toward the flankers anymore: Too much enfilading fire was coming at them from their own flank. Because of the volume of incoming fire, they weren’t even able to shift their line to meet the new threat. All along their line, without orders, mercenaries began breaking off, scrambling, either crawling or rising to a low crouch, to get away from the deadly fire coming their way.
“Cease fire! Cease fire!” Bass ordered on the all-hands circuit.
“Cease fire!” Staff Sergeant Hyakowa repeated. “Cease fire!”
The squad leaders echoed the orders, and then the fire team leaders. The fire from the Marines quickly died off, and the Marines watched the last of the Sharp Edge survivors running off.
“Casualty report,” Bass ordered. It took a few seconds for the reports to filter up from fire team level.
“First squad, Pasquin’s down, maybe dead,” Ratliff reported. “One walking wounded. We’ve got him patched up. Doc can take his time getting to him.”
“Second squad,” Kerr called. “The Hammer’s down. Doc’s got him. No other casualties.”
“Guns, no casualties,” Kelly said.
“Doc, as soon as you can, see to Pasquin,” Bass said. “First squad, check the enemy casualties. Second squad, guns, cover them.” While the squads were moving to obey his orders, Bass contacted the other flanking fire team. “Right flank, how do things look on your side?”
“No one’s in sight on the right,” Corporal Chan answered.
“Stay sharp. We don’t know there’re no more bad guys in the area.”
“Aye aye,” Chan acknowledged.
Of the seventy or seventy-five mercenaries Pasquin had reported were in the ambush line, twenty-seven were still there, dead or too badly wounded to drag themselves away. The plasma bolts from the Marines’ blasters usually cauterized the wounds they made, so there were no blood trails to tell the Marines whether other injured Sharp Edge mercs had gotten away.
“Get a hopper in here to medevac the wounded,” Bass told his comm man, Lance Corporal Groth. He looked at the wounded mercenaries. “Make that two hoppers; we’ll take their wounded, too.”
“What about the dead?” Hyakowa asked.
“We’ll make sure Sharp Edge knows where to find them.”
Corporal Pasquin and Lance Corporal Schultz were evacuated along with the Sharp Edge wounded, and third platoon prepared to move out again. This time, first squad had both the point and the left flank, first and third fire team respectively.
Second squad’s first fire team, still on the right flank, stood up for the first time since Bass had ordered them to stay in place when the platoon began walking into the ambush’s killing zone. Corporal Chan paused before stepping out to take a good look outward.
“Buddha’s blue balls!” he swore. He then toggled on his radio’s command circuit. “We’ve got company coming.” He snorted a quick laugh. “Looks like about company size.”
“The Virgin’s sacred tits!” Bass swore. “Why don’t they just stand down?” Then to Chan, “Humans or Fuzzies?”
“Definitely human. They have clear faceplates, so I can see their faces. Human. And not in Marine utilities.”
“How far out?”
“A bit more than a klick, maybe a klick and a half.”
“Get me Company,” Bass told Lance Corporal Groth. In a moment, he was talking to Captain Conorado for the second time in ten minutes. He reported what Chan had described and asked, “Sir, can we get some air support on this? A strike from above will probably discourage them.” He listened to Conorado’s reply, signed off, then ordered, “Third platoon, move out!”
Ten minutes later, two Raptors from Thirty-fourth FIST’s composite squadron dove on the company approaching third platoon from its right rear. Bass joined Chan and his men to watch. Even before the fast flyers finished their first strafing run, the mercenaries were scattering, mostly running back the way they had come.
Third platoon had no more incidents on the way to Mining Camp No. 15, which they found deserted by its Sharp Edge guards and overseers. Hundreds of Fuzzies milled around aimlessly or sat about listlessly. The Marines opened the gates, broke d
own portions of the perimeter fence, and went through, opening the few cages that still held Fuzzies. They stood aside and watched while the released Fuzzies began wandering toward the open gate and downed sections of fence. Once out in the open, the Fuzzies began to run off in that odd four-legged gait, tails up, bounding rear feet to front in a hobbyhorse motion.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Mercury squatted in his corner of the command post, going over the latest reports from his scouts and raiding parties. The command post wasn’t in his own burrow. Indeed, he didn’t even know where his home burrow was. When the People were taken by the Naked Ones, they were usually removed from their home territories and taken to distant locations where they didn’t know the land or any of the People who lived in them. If there were still People living in the strange lands, which there never seemed to be.
He hadn’t set out to be a general—no, not a general, but the general in command of the Fuzzy rebellion against the Naked Ones’ taskmasters. But he had led the first of the freedom fights, the one that had released his fellows of Deep Roots burrow from the vile labor in which the Naked Ones held them.
Then, with the blessing of the Mother and the Father, he had led the fighters from Deep Roots burrow to release the people of other Bright Sun Clan burrows. The Clan Mother and Clan Father had then instructed him to find and release the people from Running Water burrow of the Deep Pool Clan and bring their Mother and Father to them. He had done as the Clan Mother and Clan Father had instructed. He was granted the privilege of sitting in when the Clan Mother and Clan Father met with the Mother and the Father of Running Water burrow. The Mother and the Father of Running Water burrow agreed to align themselves with the Bright Sun Clan in their war against the Naked Ones on the condition that the next attack be against the prison where the Clan Mother and Clan Father of the Deep Pool Clan were being held. The Clan Mother and Clan Father agreed that this would be most beneficial to all concerned.
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