The Junior Master blinked at that. He played the image forward at double normal speed, and saw something that made his throat constrict and his gill covers tighten—one of the empty shelves suddenly sagged, as though an unseen weight sat on it. A couple of moments later, the shelf righted itself. This time, when the door opened and closed the second time, he saw something he hadn’t seen before; it was just a flash and only partial, but he saw the corner of a packboard go through the doorway. Just a corner, as though something unseen was blocking his view. And he knew.
The Earthman Marines had penetrated the complex. He didn’t think of the consequences to himself for his failure to properly supervise this Leader; proper supervision would have told him immediately that something was amiss. He called for the Senior Master in command of the security observation room. It was only as he was playing back the image for the Senior Master that the Junior Master realized that he was in as much trouble for dereliction as was the Leader under his supervision. It was no consolation to him when he realized that the Senior Master was in just as much jeopardy.
The Senior Master knew right away the punishment likely to be meted out to all in the observation room, and took immediate action. He swiftly drew his sword and chopped at the Leader’s neck with enough force to nearly sever it. Then he spun at the Junior Master and, with one clean slice, disemboweled him. He copied the bubble that had recorded the opening and closings of the door onto his reader, and raced from the room without taking time to assign a Master to take charge, leaving everyone in the room wondering what had happened. By the time one of the Masters played back the moving images showing the visit of the invisible Earthman Marines, the Senior Master was in the Grand Master’s hall, prostrate before his lord, showing him the image and explaining its meaning.
The Grand Master took a few seconds to order one of his Large One guards to decapitate the Senior Master, before he ordered an attendant Over Master to make haste with as large a force as he could quickly gather to the unguarded entrance to the complex.
A hundred meters back down the tunnel, second squad again took position to cover the platoon from deeper inside the Skink complex. The sappers opened the door to the beans-and-bandages cavern even more quickly than they had the weapons chamber. First squad entered and gave the chamber a quick going over to make sure it was unoccupied by enemy before the sappers went in to set their charges. While the sappers were doing their work of emplacing plasma charges, Lieutenant Bass had first squad break open a few crates and grab samples of their contents. They didn’t have orders to take samples, but he thought S2 or G2 might learn something from them. He also thought, if they had enough time, that he’d have his men take samples from the crates in the leg of the tunnel leading outside.
Just as they’d had point coming into the Skink complex, second squad’s third fire team would have rear point on their egress. Lance Corporal Schultz wouldn’t have had it any other way. The three Marines took positions where they could guard the platoon’s rear while first squad and the sappers were inside the beans-and-bandages cavern.
Corporal Claypoole was behind a crate, looking over it, with his ears turned up all the way, listening for anything he couldn’t see. To his rear he heard the faint sounds that first squad and the sappers made returning to the tunnel. At the same time, he heard Schultz say into the fire team circuit, “Coming.”
“I didn’t tell you to come,” Claypoole said an instant before he realized Schultz meant Skinks were coming. He switched to the squad command circuit. “The Hammer says the bad guys are coming,” he said.
“Stand by,” Sergeant Kerr replied. Seconds later Kerr was back on the squad circuit. “Second squad, listen up. Schultz says someone is coming. As soon as first squad reaches the dogleg, we’re bugging out of here. Wait for the word.”
The Marines of second squad waited for a tense minute while the rest of the platoon reached the turn and got around it.
“Second squad, on the double!” Kerr ordered.
“Go!” Claypoole ordered, and took a last look beyond Schultz. He didn’t see anything before he twisted around and raced from shelter behind the crate. He heard Schultz coming with staggered steps—the big man kept twisting around to look to his rear.
Claypoole was only a few strides away from the corner when he heard the crack-sizzle of Schultz’s blaster, immediately followed by the high-pitched whine of a rail gun, and saw bits of the wall he was running toward shatter and fly about with razor-sharp edges. At the same time he heard a distant explosion somewhere beyond the corner.
Claypoole dove to the floor and twisted about, slamming his infra screen into place. “Hammer, you okay?” he shouted into the fire team circuit. Schultz didn’t answer with words, but instead with three spaced plasma bolts from his blaster. Claypoole’s infra showed him that Schultz was prone, firing from behind a crate on the other side of the tunnel. At Schultz’s firing, three red blotches almost three hundred meters distant flashed into a brilliance that blanked out Claypoole’s infra screen for a moment. When he could see again, he didn’t see anybody at the far end of the tunnel where Schultz had flared the three Skinks.
“Hammer, pull back,” he ordered. “I’ve got you covered.”
Schultz fired three more quick bolts, trying to angle them to ricochet around the far corner, then jumped up and bolted past Claypoole’s position. “Rock, go,” he shouted when he took a fresh position past Lance Corporal Ymenez.
Claypoole got up and sped past Ymenez and Schultz to the corner and dropped down where he could shoot down the length of the tunnel. “Ymenez, to me!” he ordered, and held his fire while Ymenez ran past Schultz, and then around the corner.
Schultz, meanwhile, kept a steady stream of spaced bolts going to prevent the Skinks’ turning the corner. On Claypoole’s command, he headed to his fire team leader’s position and muscled him out of the way so he could continue keeping the Skinks away.
With both of his men out of the tunnel, Claypoole took the time to ask his squad leader about the explosion he’d heard when Schultz opened fire on the Skinks.
When first squad and the sappers had reached the dogleg of the tunnel, Lieutenant Bass ordered all but one fire team to wait for second squad to clear the long tunnel.
“Rabbit,” he ordered, “send one fire team to get some samples from the crates in that tunnel. I’d like to see what the Skinks are storing there.”
“Aye aye,” Sergeant Ratliff had said. “Dean, go see what’s in those crates. Get some samples for the boss.”
“You got it, Rabbit.” Dean switched to the fire team circuit. “Third team, we’re going to collect some samples for the boss. Let’s go get them.”
Lance Corporal Godenov led the way around the corner, followed by Dean, with PFC McGinty bringing up the rear.
“Go halfway, Izzy,” Dean had said. “Find a bunch together that look alike, then open one in the middle.”
“Will do,” Godenov had said back. He trotted down the tunnel toward the exit. Thirty meters down he found a line of six low crates stacked two high and stopped. He’d slung his blaster and drew his knife. He pounded the blade into a seam on the middle top crate and began levering the lid up. “Oh, shit,” he murmured when he heard a faint click from the lid. He let go of his knife and dove away.
An explosion caught Godenov and drove him into a corner where another large crate met the opposite wall. Three sharp splinters of wood, one almost the size of a man’s wrist, shot into him; the point of one went all the way through his shoulder and imbedded itself in the crate he was against. Dean wasn’t as close, so the blast only tumbled him backward—but two large splinters also found him and sunk in deeply. McGinty was far enough away that he was only knocked down by the force of the explosion.
“Dean, report!” Ratliff shouted into the squad circuit. When Dean didn’t answer, he ordered, “Third fire team, sound off!”
“I-I’m all right,” McGinty answered a moment later—he sounded dazed.
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p; “Damn, damn—damn!” Ratliff swore. Then to Bass, who was demanding to know what was happening, he said, “I think I’ve got two men down. I’m on my way to check it out.”
“Let me know as soon as you find out.” Bass sent Lance Corporal MacIlargie to assist with the casualties.
“Will do.” By then Ratliff had reached McGinty, who insisted he was all right. A few meters beyond him, he found Dean unconscious. Dean’s uniform was trying to stanch the bleeding but was having trouble making a proper seal around the splinters. “I need a stasis bag,” Ratliff said on the platoon command circuit. Then he reached Godenov and couldn’t tell whether he was alive or not, because his bleeding had almost stopped, and Ratliff could see that Godenov’s uniform hadn’t made a seal around the splinters. “Make that two stasis bags. On the double!” To Bass he reported, “It looks like Izzy was opening a crate, but it was booby-trapped and went off on him. He might be dead; I’m not sure.”
Just then a tossed stasis bag landed next to him. He flipped it open, then as gently as he could, drew the splinter in Godenov’s shoulder out of the crate and put the lance corporal in the stasis bag. By then MacIlargie and McGinty had put Dean in another stasis bag.
“First squad,” Bass ordered, “take your casualties and get out of here. Join guns on the ridge. Sappers, go with them. Second squad, pull back to the next corner.”
“First fire team, pull back to the next bend,” Sergeant Kerr ordered. “On the double. Third fire team, go when they’re halfway there.” Corporal Dornhofer and his men sprinted. Corporal Doyle got his men ready to move out. Even as his first fire team began moving, Kerr ran back up the tunnel to where Corporal Claypoole and his men were holding the corner. Using his infra screen, Kerr found PFC Ymenez kneeling a few meters from the corner, and Lance Corporal Schultz prone at the corner, aiming his blaster down its length. Claypoole was on hands and knees, watching over Schultz’s shoulders.
“Move,” Kerr said, grasping Claypoole’s shoulder and pulling him back. With the corporal out of the way, Kerr leaned low over Schultz to look down the tunnel himself. “What have you seen?” he asked on the fire team circuit.
“Got four,” Schultz answered. “Maybe five.”
“Rock?” Kerr said, asking Claypoole to amplify Schultz’s answer.
“The Hammer got at least one when they first showed up, then three more when they shot the rail gun. He’s tried to ricochet bolts around the corner. I saw a flash of light, so he probably got another that we couldn’t see.”
Schultz fired two more plasma bolts while Claypoole was talking.
Kerr grunted at the report. “Rock, take Ymenez and join the rest of the squad. Hammer and I will cover you. Go.”
Claypoole hesitated, but only for a second. “Aye aye.” He turned and called to Ymenez, “Let’s go. Double time.” They sprinted, leaving Kerr and Schultz behind.
“Hold your fire, Hammer,” Kerr said when they were gone. “I want to see how long it takes them to start coming again.”
Schultz gave a disgusted snort but stopped firing.
While they waited for the Skinks to show themselves again, Kerr reported to Lieutenant Bass what he was doing.
“I’m moving the rest of your squad out of the tunnel now,” Bass said. “If the Skinks aren’t coming in two minutes, put some more fire downrange and pull out. Even if they do show, pull out in two minutes. Understood?”
“Pull out in two minutes, understood.” Kerr checked the time.
A minute and a half later, the door to the chamber with the weapons slid open and a Skink tentatively poked his head out. Schultz fired at the head and the Skink flared up in the doorway. More light flashed from inside the chamber. Kerr thought another Skink had been too close to the looker and was killed by the heat of the first one’s flame.
“Try to put a couple more in there, then let’s get out of here,” Kerr told Schultz.
Schultz rapid-fired six bolts at the doorway. One missed, hitting the wall just beyond the doorway, and pinballed down the length of the tunnel, but the others hit the far edge of the doorway, and at least two of them ricocheted into the cavern and hit Skinks. The two Marines got up and sprinted away. Just after they turned the corner to the last straightaway, muffled by walls, distance, and the corners, they heard the cracks of the plasma charges going off in the weapons cavern; some of the echoes may have been the hoped for secondary explosions. They were past the booby-trapped crate that had severely wounded Dean and maybe killed Godenov when they heard the charges in the beans-and-bandages chamber go off.
The Great Master who was the commander of the Over Master who went to kill the Earthman Marines who had penetrated the underground complex ground his teeth when he received the Over Master’s first report. It was not a good report, but a report of pending failure. Duty and honor bound him to inform the Grand Master. Summoning his prime aides to accompany him, the Great Master headed for the Grand Master’s hall; he devised a plan as he went.
In the Grand Master’s hall, the Great Master prostrated himself and waited to be recognized. The Grand Master looked at him with some curiosity; it was uncommon for a Great Master to enter the Grand Master’s presence without being summoned—or without having something of import to say. The Grand Master rasped a command and the Great Master rose from his prostration and sat back on his ankles. At another rasped command, the Great Master reported that the company sent to the side entrance had encountered Earthman Marines, but the Earthman Marines were somehow ready for them when they arrived and used their forever guns to great effect, killing a score or more of the Leaders and Fighters who exposed themselves to the hated Earthman Marines. They had even destroyed a light-fraction weapon. So far as the Over Master could tell, the Earthman Marines had suffered no casualties yet. Worse, they managed to destroy a weapons depository, and kill half the company that had gone after them. The food chamber was of too little import for him to mention. The remaining Fighters, and many of the Leaders, even some of the Junior Masters, were afraid to continue their pursuit of the Earthman Marines. On the orders of the Over Master, the Master commanding the company and his remaining Junior Masters were methodically killing all the cowards who refused to continue the pursuit.
Furious, the Grand Master roared out curses improper for so exalted a personage to speak, then demanded what the Great Master intended to do to rectify the failure.
The Great Master said that, with the Grand Master’s permission, he was going to send a battalion outside the complex to annihilate the Earthman Marines when they attempted to exit the complex.
The Grand Master considered the proposed action for a brief moment, then nodded curtly, and rasped a warning that the Great Master’s head might be forfeit if his plan failed.
The Great Master bowed low, showing that his neck was ready for the swordsman should his death be desired. At another rasped command, he rose and hurried back to his headquarters, giving orders to his prime aides as he went. But when the battalion, under the command of a different Over Master, reached the back door of the cave complex, the Earthman Marines had already left.
However, the clumsy Earthmen had left an easily followed trail.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Third platoon made it back to the company area without further incident—the Marines all considered losing two of their own to be more than incident enough. Lieutenant Bass had radioed ahead with a preliminary report, so Commander Usner and the FIST F2 intelligence officer, Commander Daana, were waiting in the company command post to debrief the platoon’s leaders. A Dragon was also there and took the casualties away as soon as they were loaded onto it.
“I don’t know if they had a way of knowing we were there, or if we encountered a routine patrol,” Bass said after he turned the samples over to Daana, “but they went into action so fast, they must have been expecting something.” He then gave his estimate of how much was in the two caverns.
Bass, Sergeant Kerr, and Corporal Claypoole gave their accounts of the ac
tion in the tunnel—even Daana knew better than to attempt to get a detailed story out of Lance Corporal Schultz, so instead of continuing to the CP for the debriefing, Schultz had been allowed to stay with the rest of the platoon when it took its position on the perimeter. Bass, Sergeant Ratliff, PFC McGinty, and Lance Corporal MacIlargie told about the booby-trapped crate and the condition of the casualties when they were found.
“You’re going to have to wait a bit for replacements,” Usner told Bass. “It’s too hazardous to try to integrate somebody new in the platoon while the FIST is in this exposed position.”
“Thank you, sir,” Bass replied. “I’d rather not get somebody new right now anyway. And I only need one replacement; I’ve been carrying an extra man since my last two men got out of the hospital back at Camp Ellis.”
Usner cocked an eyebrow but didn’t comment other than to say, “I’ll inform Captain Shadeh that you only need one replacement.” Shadeh was the FIST F1, personnel officer.
Satisfied with the debriefing, Usner said to Captain Conorado, “Help me get the samples loaded onto my Dragon, and Daana and I will get out of your hair.”
They had just started loading the samples onto the Dragon when the forest’s quiet was shattered by multiple crack-sizzles and the high-pitched whine of Skink rail guns.
Corporal Wilson, of first platoon, on the perimeter near where third platoon had come through on their return, was the first to see the pursuing Skinks.
David Sherman & Dan Cragg - [Starfist 13] Page 20
