by David Drake
By now, the surviving Cernians had turned away from the compound and headed for the jungle. Another mistake. Concealed automatic weapons and mortars opened up and cut them to shreds. The rebels had come through all right, but Shaffer’s marines couldn’t fire without raking the rebel positions. The idiots had placed themselves in direct line with the Cernians. Making matters worse, the rebels were marching mortar shells across the free-fire zone towards the compound.
“I still can’t raise them, Sir!” the com tech cried. Perhaps their com set was broken, maybe they just weren’t listening.
Shaffer ordered his people into the tunnels, swearing a blue streak as he dived in after them.
The Cernians were unable to face the automatic weapons fire and turned once again. By now, half of them were down and the rest were desperate. They ran towards the compound with only one thought in mind: get in and escape the stuttering death which came from behind. They were just outside the razor ribbon before the rebels realized their error and stopped firing.
“Wire cutters! Whose got the fucking wire cutters!” someone shrieked. But nothing lasts forever and by the time Shaffer and his marines came up out of the tunnels, there were fifty crazed Cernians on top of the embankment, cutting through the ribbon and looking for someone to kill.
###
Fox-Smith swallowed hard as a radar display flashed onto the inside of her visor. There were more bogies than she cared to count. At least thirty, all loaded with troops, and all headed for Port City. The city was already under attack, so these were reinforcements. Once they arrived, the defenders wouldn’t stand a chance.
Well, that’s what her team was here for.
Because both her ships and those of the Haiken Maru were Pact standard, and because all the intelligence reports swore that Merikur had no air force, Fox-Smith had been allowed to close on the larger formation without a challenge. She should receive one any moment now.
Meanwhile, everything depended on an appearance of normalcy. “Easy does it,” she said softly over the command channel. “Maintain formation until my command.”
Her AID spoke in her ear. “I have a scrambled transmission on freq six. It originates with the lead ship in the enemy formation. Request for I.D. 94 percent probable, issuance of orders four percent probable, all others two percent probable.”
“Send the following in the clear,” Fox-Smith ordered. “Can’t descramble . . . modulator problems . . . please repeat last transmission in the clear.” Just a few more seconds and they’d be in perfect position.
When the reply came, her AID relayed it through.
The voice was male and rather bored. “Group leader to twelve unknowns. A bum modulator’s the least of your problems, sweet lips. Identify your unit and target.”
Fox-Smith scanned the inside of her visor. Her ships were in perfect position above and slightly behind the Haiken Maru formation. “Give me the command channel. Here we go . . . good luck everyone. Send this in the clear. Sweet lips to group leader. Kiss your ass goodbye!”
###
Buka squeezed the trigger twice, watched the target jerk and fall, swung his rifle right, and did it again. The other rebels hidden along the edges of the clearing opened up and turned the LZ into an abattoir. Cernian troopers dived right and left, searching for the slightest depression or smallest rock which might shelter them from incoming fire. A few bolted back toward the shuttles.
The shuttles lifted with a roar that cut off hope.
A brave officer stood, rallied a platoon of troops, and led them towards the jungle. Automatic weapons ripped them in a crossfire. The officer fell, a long line of her troops dying with her.
Buka grinned. He’d never had so many targets before. His scope slid across the clearing to a medic bent over a trooper with a sucking chest wound. Each time the casualty took a breath, he pumped out a small geyser of blood. The medic slapped a piece of sterile plastic over the wound and taped it down.
Buka smiled as the tiny micro-processor in his rifle computed distance, windage, and velocity.
“Each medic is worth six troopers.”
It was one of the catch phrases they taught in sniper’s school. For every medic killed, six wounded troopers will die. Therefore, it’s a sniper’s job to make sure lots of medics die.
Buka had just started to squeeze the trigger when an invisible club smashed into his left shoulder and threw him back against his safety line. The rifle spun out of his hands and fell four feet to the end of its lanyard. Damn! Just his luck to catch a wild round.
Then the invisible club hit him again, in the right leg this time, and now Buka knew it was no accident. It was a fellow sniper, a graduate of the same schools he’d been to, and a sadistic bastard at that. Anyone who could shoot that well could’ve killed him, if not with the first shot, then with the second. The fug sucker was playing with him.
Buka ignored the pain as he pulled himself around the huge tree trunk. It would shelter him from the clearing. Fumbling fingers sought and found the first-aid kit, pulled out a handful of dressings and stuck them between his teeth. Buka rested his weight against the safety line and treated his leg first.
He placed pressure bandages on both entry and exit wounds, bound the whole thing in place with roller bandage, and slapped a two-ounce package of blood-volume expander over the large distributor vein on his right thigh. Seconds later, the package convulsed and injected a chemically balanced liquid into his bloodstream.
Then he stuffed more dressings against his shoulder, waited a moment while they sealed themselves in place, and took a stabilizer capsule to fend off shock. Feeling a good deal better, he peeked around the tree trunk.
Things had improved for the Cernian regulars. Although some were still pinned down in the clearing, the survivors had made it to the edge of the jungle and were locked in a desperate struggle with the rebels. Something slid along the left side of Buka’s head followed by a sharp pain. The bastard had done it again! Only this time he’d tried to finish the job and failed.
Gritting his teeth, Buka loosened his safety line, winced as he put some of his weight on his wounded leg, and eased himself downwards. On three different occasions, branches forced him to stop, unclip his safety line, and resecure it further down. It was annoying but necessary. Given the way he felt, it would be easy to screw up and fall.
Fifteen feet down the tree, Buka entered an area of thick foliage. His wounds hurt like hell, so he stopped to take a rest. Wrapping some roller gauze around his head, he stopped the bleeding from his latest wound. Then, careful not to disturb the surrounding leaves, he used the lanyard to pull his rifle up. Taking his time, he eased it onto a convenient branch and found a comfortable position.
Infrared was useless with so many bodies around, so he switched to high mag optical and squinted into the scope. Working from right to left, he quartered the clearing. Somehow, he wasn’t sure why, he knew the bastard was in the LZ.
A wave of dizziness rolled over Buka, forcing him to close his eyes. He waited until the spasm passed. Bringing his eye back to the scope, he resumed his search. The bastard would have to show himself eventually, and when he did, Buka would send one more penitent to the gods.
###
The heavy thumping awoke Larry.
It took him a foggy moment to place the noise: guns. Big ones. Artillery or tanks. Now he heard the rumble of powerful engines, the squeal of metal treads, and the chatter of automatic weapons.
He rolled off the bed and scrambled to a window. The small apartment was on the top floor of an older building, offering a good view of the central city.
Even though he knew what to expect, Larry was surprised. There were two monster tanks rolling up Commerce Street. As they moved, their turret guns swiveled right and left like long noses searching out a scent. Every twenty yards or so, the tankers fired their ball-mounted automatics. Windows shattered, walls disintegrated, and buildings burst into flames.
Marines looking like stick figures popped
up to spray the lumbering machines with repulsor fire, then darted into doorways or alleys.
“Come on,” Larry said to himself. “Get a tube tech up there. Repulsors won’t even scratch their paint.”
The lead tank kept rolling, but its stabilized cannon froze, then flared light. The crash shook the walls of Larry’s building. Two blocks away, at the head of Commerce Street, a whole warehouse caved in. Company HQ gone in a wink of the eye.
“Shit! They weren’t supposed to do that!” Everybody’d said they wouldn’t mow up their own property. But either the bastards didn’t care or things were so desperate, they were willing to accept the damage.
The reasons didn’t matter to Larry. He was about to leave the window, gather up his stuff, and head for healthier climes when movement caught his eye.
Two marines dashed into the middle of the street. One carried a stubby launcher and the other had a rack-pack with five extra rockets. The stupid bastards had decided the only way they’d get a clear shot at the tank beyond the arming distance of their fuses was to break cover.
Blond hair fluffed from beneath the helmet of the one with the rocket launcher. Cissy, no question, so the other one had to be Purdy; the two of them were inseparable.
But neither was worth a shit with a launcher. Larry was the best tube tech around. Everyone knew that. Somehow they’d drawn his assignment. His thoughts froze as Cissy knelt, aimed, and squeezed the trigger.
The rocket flew straight and true as it raced down the street, glanced off the sloped surface of the tank’s turret, flew across the street, hit a five-story building, and blew up.
Tons of rubble fell on the tank. For a moment, Larry thought the shattered building had finished what the rocket had started.
Main battle tanks are built to take punishment. This one shrugged off the avalanche of concrete and rolled out of the dust spitting death. Purdy was still loading a second rocket into Cissy’s launcher when the beads hit and bounced them down the street like kickballs.
Nobody heard Larry’s scream of rage and self-loathing. His fingers furrowed in his face. He was lead tube. They were dead because they were as good as the company had left.
He grabbed his launcher and kicked out the window. Stepping onto the tiny balcony, he filled his sight with tank. Panning to match the vehicle’s movement below him, he placed the offset crosshairs on the seam between the tank’s turret and the main part of its hull. That was one of the few weak points on a tank and Larry’s elevation gave him a better angle on the sloped armor. He pressed the “ready” button and gave the little missile a peek at its target. When he pressed “fire,” he lurched slightly as the missile left the tube and accelerated downwards.
###
There’s no subtle way to take a firebase. Knowing that, Nola Rankoo began the job with saturation bombing.
Flight after flight of shuttles came in low, dropped their bombs, and chewed up the ground with cannon fire. Ground vehicles exploded, pre-fabs melted, and the craters multiplied until they overlapped each other.
But Merikur’s marines still lived. For days, rebel miners, trained by the Haiken Maru and using company equipment, had worked to extend the system of tunnels and bunkers already started by the marines. At the first sign of trouble, most of Merikur’s marines had retreated underground.
But even though most of the marines stayed underground and no air force opposed them, the Haiken Maru still took some lumps.
Rebels in the jungle used to good effect the one-shot shoulder launched ground-to-air missiles supplied by Merikur. To attack the firebase, the shuttles were forced to come in low over the surrounding jungle. The little heat-seeking missiles screamed up out of the trees searching for targets.
The shuttles jinked, dumped hot chaff, and occasionally aborted runs. Most of them escaped.
Most, but not all. The rebels claimed two confirmed kills and a probable that trailed black smoke towards the low-lying hills and then disappeared.
The marine air-defense missile launchers hidden around the perimeter of the firebase were completely automatic and armed with a full array of heat- and radar-seeking missiles. They were designed for point defense and didn’t do much damage until the Haiken Maru shuttles were almost overhead, but then they took quite a toll. Five shuttles disintegrated in midair, one crashed into the firebase, and two more were badly damaged.
It was easy to track the missiles back to their source, so each time a shuttle blew up, another missile launcher was located and destroyed. But it was still a good bargain from Merikur’s point of view.
Not that he could spend much time on any one area of conflict. He had the whole planet to consider and things didn’t look good. The Haiken Maru was trying to retake a number of important mining stations, Port City was under attack by enemy armor, and the firebase was taking a beating as well.
Merikur felt the ground shake as a five-hundred-pound smart bomb hit the compound and tried to dig its way down to the main power plant. It didn’t quite make it, but the lights dimmed for a moment as a smaller generator went belly up and a backup came online.
Dirt showered from the ceiling to dust Merikur’s hair and trickle down his neck. He swore as he brushed it off. The com techs grinned. They’d had the foresight to shelter themselves and their equipment under a sheet of plastic.
Fouts appeared at his side. She wore full armor with her helmet visor up. “Time to bail out, Sir. Gopher One reports shuttles down with Haiken Maru infantry on the way.”
Merikur snapped on his body armor. “Thank you, Major. Let’s go topside and welcome our guests.”
“One other thing, Sir.”
“Yes?”
“It looks like they sent us human security forces instead of Cernian regulars.”
“Interesting,” Merikur mused. “An officer who doesn’t like aliens perhaps? Well, we’ll soon find out. Bethany?” He turned looking for his wife and found her standing right behind him.
“Yes, My Lord?” She wore a smile, full body armor, and cradled an auto repulsor in her arms.
“You know how to use that thing?”
“Of course,” she replied serenely. “We learned a little bit of everything in finishing school.”
For a moment, Merikur tried to think of some way to protect her, to hide her away, but the look in her eyes stopped him. He nodded. “Good. But I expect you to follow orders. Consider yourself part of my personal bodyguard.” At least that way they could stay together. He looked around.
The techs had abandoned their equipment and strapped on body armor. He knew it was the same everywhere. When the chips are down, there aren’t any cooks, com techs or medics. Just marines.
He pulled his visor down and activated the command channel. “All right people . . . let’s go up there and kick some ass!”
###
“Fire!” The order was unnecessary. The Cernians who’d cut through the razor ribbon were charging the compound.
As the marines opened up, their weapons made a rolling sound of thunder. Cernian troopers jerked and fell. Others returned fire as they ran. A marine threw up his hands and fell backwards, a hole where his nose used to be. Another threw a grenade and took a burst through the chest.
“Fall back!” Shaffer screamed. “Make for the tunnels!”
He didn’t need to say it twice. The marines fell back, firing from the hip, dragging their wounded with them. In ones, twos and threes they dropped down the short vertical shafts. Scrambling on hands and knees, they entered tunnels and headed for the distant jungle. They had two tunnels to choose from, both constructed by the rebels as a way to get in.
Sergeant Lang stood in front of a drop shaft, her repulsor burping. “Come on, Lieutenant! They’re all down!”
Shaffer continued to fire, inserting his words between ten-round bursts. “Go ahead, Sergeant! You’re gonna need some time to reach the jungle!”
“Bullshit, Sir! I’m not leaving till you do!”
“That’s an order, Sergeant.” Shaff
er swung towards her and squeezed the trigger. Glass balls dug up the dirt in front of her feet. Surprised, Lang fell over backwards and into the vertical shaft.
Shaffer had decided some time ago that there was only one way his troops would have a chance of making it all the way. He screamed an incoherent war cry and charged the Cernians. His weapon sprayed without his conscious awareness. Something hit him hard.
He was flat on his back with rain pattering his face. Something hurt real bad and he knew he’d messed his pants. Damn. They’d find him lying there with shit in his pants like a little kid. It wasn’t fair. He began to cry.
A familiar voice filled his ears. It was his AID. “Don’t cry, Sir. I called for reinforcements. They’ll be here any moment, Sir. I’m sorry I couldn’t get them here earlier, Sir, but . . .”
Shaffer stopped crying. He was furious. “Cut the crap!”
“Sir?”
“I said cut the crap. I’ve been meaning to talk to you about this for a long time. I’m dying, for God’s sake, and you’re busy kissing my ass. Do me a favor . . .”
“Sir?” Silence. “Sir? Talk to me, Sir . . . I’m sorry if I did anything wrong. Don’t worry, Sir . . . everything will be all right.”
But things wouldn’t be all right, and the AID knew it. Shaffer was dead and things would never be all right again. He’d died talking to the AID like a real person, something he’d never done before, and asking for a favor.
Oh, it would give anything, anything, if only, only Shaffer would come back to life.
A blob of heat suddenly filled the AID’s electronic awareness. The blob was a 99.9 percent match with Cernian body type and hummed on freq twelve. It grew larger as it bent over Shaffer’s body. The AID screamed “Don’t you dare touch him!” but no one heard.
The Cernian noticed the wavy black line on Shaffer’s shoulder tabs. A human officer! The trooper felt around the corpse’s waist, ignoring the coils of pink viscera spilling out through the hole in the abdomen. It had to be here somewhere, the small computer command wanted so much, the one they’d give a hundred dru for. Wait a minute . . . here it was . . . covered with blood but still intact. The trooper cut the AID free with his combat knife and brought it up into the light. A simple black box. Why the big deal?
