Dire Steps

by Henry V. O'Neil

  The ground trembled when the shock wave reached them, dissipated by the miles but still felt in the torsos of the prone soldiers. A pulsating roar surged through the vegetation, the hollering of some mythical monster, and the echo lasted a long time. Staring into his goggles, Mortas saw that the lights along the perimeter fence were dead. Fires burned all over the north and east slopes, but the structure itself was no longer ablaze. Still generating heat from its center, it had somehow transformed into an oval shape. No more flickers of rocket fire showed from the cover of the trees, and no sounds of gunfire could be heard.

  “Broadleaf, this is Orphan. Can you hear me?” Dassa called the site.

  Silence.

  “Broadleaf, this is Orphan. Can you hear me?”

  Nothing came back.

  “Broadleaf, this is Orphan. Contact us if you can. We are coming to you.” Dassa addressed the entire company. “Saddle up, Orphans.”

  The decision to move did not sit well with some of the troops. B Company had accomplished many an arduous trek through difficult terrain before, but this was markedly different. The first few miles between their positions and Broadleaf ran over unmapped ground because so few Force units had operated that far away from the sites. The bush was thick and undisturbed, and their route was loaded with deadfall and unexpected ravines. Once they got close to the stations, they would be entering a zone that was infamous for Sim booby traps.

  Finally, and worst of all, they were rushing through the darkness toward a target that had already been hit by an enemy who had somehow managed to blind the humans’ orbital scanners.

  “Second Platoon will head straight for Broadleaf, and the command element will travel with them.” Dassa named the game even as Mortas was calling the remaining two squads of his platoon forward to link up with Frankel’s squad. “Third Platoon will follow the route I am marking now”—­military symbols appeared in goggles all over the jungle, indicating a movement corridor that would shield Second Platoon’s eastern flank—­“Wyn, I leave it up to your discretion to deviate from that lane as you see fit.

  “First Platoon will follow this route”—­a shorter journey, one that would put Mortas and his ­people just short of the ridge where the stations sat, protecting Second Platoon’s western flank—­“again, deviating as necessary. We have to move fast, but not so fast that we run into something, especially each other.

  “Sam may have come up with a trick for avoiding our sensors, but remember we have fire supremacy. So if you bump into Sam, form a perimeter where you are and bring the rockets down. Let’s go.”

  Sergeant Dak appeared next to Mortas just as Dassa finished speaking.

  “Platoon’s ready to move, sir.”

  “What formation should we use? We have to be able to react if we run into something.”

  “This bush, in this darkness, I say three squads in column. Spreading out when we can.”

  “What are you thinking?”

  “It’s a real problem. I know we have to get up there, but this is gonna take forever.”

  “What would you do?” Mortas had already drawn most of the same conclusions, but didn’t have an answer to his own question.

  “The Sims who hit Broadleaf aren’t waiting up there, not with the shit we can drop on them. They made their attack and ran off. The CO should have the Dauntless fly a Marine security force right onto the site. Or find a clearing, and have them shuttle Second Platoon up there that way.”

  Mortas was considering just how to suggest this option to Dassa when the company commander’s voice came over the headphones. “Marines from the Dauntless are going to be inserted onto Broadleaf by shuttle. We will continue the move as planned, but we’ll hold up when the shuttles come in. I want to be able to move around the ridge to pursue the enemy, or to engage him if he appears on this side.

  “Keep on the move, but don’t rush. Let’s go.”

  Dak drifted back to Mecklinger’s squad in the rear, while Mortas moved up to Sergeant Frankel’s squad in the lead. The platoon was in a tight perimeter, most of the men kneeling with weapons ready. Frankel was at the edge of the trail, having sent two men to scout out the far side, and Mortas knelt near him.

  “Comin’ back.” The dark green world inside his goggles showed the open ground of the trail, but not much else. The trees, brush, and vines closed in all around them, and Mortas wondered how they would be able to push through the vegetation without sounding like a troop of elephants. Two dots of light appeared in the distance, slowly elongating until they were recognizable as men carrying rifles. The scouts knelt on the other side of the trail, and Frankel sent the first half of his squad across.

  The forms, hunched inside their torso armor and helmets, shuffled quickly to the other side and spread out. Already organizing themselves in patrol formation, getting as much separation as the terrain allowed. Frankel signaled to the rest of his men, and they hustled across in a loose group.

  Mortas and Vossel followed, the damp soil making a sucking sound against their boots.

  Hours later, Mortas was astounded to see how little ground they’d covered. The lead squad had to push through the worst of the brush when there was no way to go around. It was noisy, exhausting, and time-­consuming work, and he’d already rotated all three squads through the point position. Vines hung up on everything from rifle barrels to canteens, and ages of collected deadfall created barriers that were taller than a man. Unyielding branches scraped along helmets and torso armor with a metallic screech that was almost a yell, and men tripping over unseen roots and rocks fell with a loud crash.

  Walking inside the tight arrowhead of the lead squad, Mortas soon found himself concentrating on his every footfall instead of directing the platoon. His canteens were now empty, and his mouth felt like it was made of cotton. There was no time for rest breaks, so the only chance he got to switch to the overhead imagery was when the lead squad had to stop to deal with yet another obstacle.

  Still miles to their north, the main building of Broadleaf Station was little more than a smoking ruin. Second Platoon, heading for it, was moving no faster than First, but Wyn Kitrick’s Third seemed to have acquired wings. Every time he checked, Mortas was surprised to see the eastern flank platoon getting farther and farther away from Second. They were following their assigned lane, but even so a yawning gap was beginning to form between them and the rest of B Company.

  A rushing sound broke the darkness overhead, and Mortas dropped to a knee along with the rest of the platoon. A muttering engine announced the presence of a reconnaissance drone, but that was little comfort. Captain Pappas came up on the radio.

  “Hey ASSL, we’re still not sure the enemy knows we’re here. Who called for that recon ’bot?”

  “Wasn’t me.” A pause. “The scientists at Cordvine are getting anxious. They made their security platoon send that up.”

  “Tell them to keep the thing away from us,” Dassa ordered. “They can scout all they want to the north and east—­Sam’s probably expecting that.”

  The wet ground began to moisten his knee through his fatigues, but Mortas was reluctant to move. With the platoon stopped, the jungle had returned to the stillness that had surrounded their earlier position. Exhaustion flowed through his muscles, and he reflexively reached for a canteen before remembering for the hundredth time that he had no more water. Most of the platoon was empty, and now they’d moved away from the water source they’d planned to use.

  His eyes fluttered and tried to close, so Mortas put a hand on his bent knee and pushed himself up into a standing position. Vossel, crouched by a narrow tree, stood up next. All around them men began to rise, some tapping buddies who’d fallen asleep during the brief stop.

  “Let’s get going.” Mortas had barely gotten the words out when the helmet buffers all over B Company clenched down tight and a robotic voice announced, “Imminent rocket impact. Immine
nt rocket impact. Seek shelter. Seek—­”

  The men had already thrown themselves back down, and Mortas felt moisture from the waist down when he joined them. To the east, a momentary flash of intense light burst through breaks in the overhead foliage. Seconds later, the rumble of a heavy explosion rolled over them.

  “Who called for that?” the company ASSL demanded. “Where was our warning?”

  “Uh, uh, sorry Orphan,” a nervous voice answered. “We detected movement at the base of the slope and wanted to blast them before they got away.”

  “Who is this?”

  “Oh, it’s Cordvine. Sorry. We thought you were far enough away.”

  “I don’t care what you thought. You call for fire, you make damn sure everybody knows you did it.”

  “Won’t happen again—­wait, we’ve got another activation! They’re out there, I tell you!”

  “An activation? You threw a rocket at a ground sensor?”

  “What else have we got? The scanners didn’t pick up the Sammies who hit Broadleaf, and by the time we see them they’ll be—­hold on, we’ve got more movement! Get your heads down, Orphans, I’m calling it in!”

  “Negative, Cordvine, negative! We have a platoon moving in your direction!”

  “I see your platoon on the screen, and they’re nowhere near the activation! I’m doing it!”

  Mortas spoke to his men. “Everybody get ready, more rockets on the way. Some dipshit at the monitoring station is shooting at shadows.”

  “Can’t we call the Dauntless and cancel the mission?” asked an anonymous First Platoon soldier.

  “It’s not coming from the Dauntless. They’ve got their own armed satellite.” Dak spoke calmly, the transmission so crisp that he could have been lying right next to Mortas. A moment later he was, throwing himself down next to the lieutenant. “Hey, El-­tee. I got bored walking in the back.”

  “Rockets inbound. Rockets inbound,” the ASSL called out in a businesslike voice, and Mortas decided he’d received advance warning from the Dauntless. “They’re not too close, but ya never know.”

  To the east of the company’s three separated platoons, more flashes of light and a series of concussions. In his goggles, Mortas saw the rounds impacting just off the tip of the ridge that was home to Cordvine and what was left of Broadleaf. The ASSL began arguing with the frightened man calling in the fire, and a hand tapped Mortas on the elbow. He turned to see Dak looking at him.

  “None of that stuff is anywhere near us, but it’s making a lot of good noise. How about we take advantage of that, and really cover some ground?”

  “Tell me exactly what you’re seeing.” Dassa sounded fatigued, and with good reason. The commander of the Dauntless had diverted the Marine force to Cordvine instead of landing it at Broadleaf. Having finally reached the base of the tall ridge without encountering any enemy booby traps, Dassa and Second Platoon had immediately started the climb.

  “Got heat signatures, not far to my front,” Lieutenant Kitrick whispered from Third Platoon’s defensive position, east of the spot where Second Platoon was beginning its climb. “Nothing on the overheads, but those are definitely Sims.”

  Mortas, crouched in the jungle west of Dassa, played with the images in his goggles. The fire at Broadleaf was finally out, and there were no indications that anyone up there was alive. He could identify the snaking column of Second Platoon, working its way up the slope, as well as the tight circle of Third Platoon. As Kitrick had said, overhead imagery was showing no heat signatures other than the humans’.

  Dassa came back on, winded. “Dauntless isn’t picking anything up. Are they coming toward you?”

  “Negative. They’re passing to my front, heading north. I can see the movement through the breaks in the trees.”

  “You want rockets?” The ASSL, climbing with Dassa, sounded equally tired. “I’ve got a good spot on you, and I can walk them in.”

  “No way. They’re too close. I’m going to move up and engage with direct fire.”

  “No you’re not. They’ll hear you coming, and we still don’t know why we can’t pick them up on the sensors. Stay in position.”

  “After what they did to Broadleaf? They’re right in front of me!”

  “Don’t you get it?” Annoyance crept into Dassa’s voice. “What they did to Broadleaf is exactly why I don’t want you to move. We didn’t see them coming or going, and you’re not rushing into what could be a trap.”

  The darkness all around First Platoon’s perimeter was intensified by the looming, forested ridgeline immediately to their north. Mortas had arranged the squads and their machine guns well short of the slope, but it was so tall that it blocked out the stars. Birds and insects had begun clicking and chirping shortly after the tired soldiers had hunkered down in a defensive ring, and it was easy to imagine they were alone out there.

  But Kitrick was seeing enemy movement that was not showing up on the scanners. Mortas flipped the goggles back to night vision and carefully scanned the wall of foliage to his west. Nothing.

  Behind him, the night erupted in a series of sharp explosions that Mortas recognized as chonk rounds. The grenade-­launcher fire was followed immediately by the steady booming of Force machine guns, then Scorpion fire joined in.

  “They’ve seen us! We’re engaging!” Kitrick shouted, his transmission bringing the battle right into Mortas’s helmet. “Approximately an enemy squad one hundred yards to our east!”

  “Hold your position, Kitrick! That is an order!” Dassa shouted, anger in the words. Mortas was baffled for just a moment, but then realized that the volley of chonk rounds had been too well coordinated to be a reaction to the enemy discovering Kitrick’s position. Chomping at the bit, smarting over having missed the fight on Fractus, the veteran lieutenant had created an excuse to chase the enemy passing his position.

  The sounds of a few Sim rifles came across the night sky when Third Platoon’s fire slackened. Flipping to overhead imagery, Mortas now saw that Kitrick’s entire platoon was on the move, two hundred yards from where they’d been, three squads identifiable as oval clusters of men pushing through the brush.

  Mortas was straining to see any indication of the enemy when an enormous explosion detonated to the east, right where Kitrick’s men would be.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Ayliss was adrift in an ocean of cold water, but there was nothing she could do about it. Too weak even to force herself into full consciousness, she felt her body descending into oblivion for unknown lengths of time before rising toward the surface without quite getting there. Her brain was packed with cotton, and the bucking engine in her core had turned into a blast furnace.

  She couldn’t tell if she was dreaming or not, but fragments of what had to be reality kept coming to her. Hands swabbing her face with damp sponges, followed by scattered phrases of encouragement and sympathy. An enormous paw on her forehead, and a voice she remembered from decades before. “Don’t die on me, little bear.”

  Floating downward again, shocked to have forgotten the name from her childhood, when the huge man had been Big Bear and she had been Little Bear. Remembering the night of her mother’s funeral, when she’d finally been returned to her home, finally away from the minders and handlers and toadies who only wanted to use her to get to her father. The enormous hands and the broad chest, holding her while she’d cried for the loss of both her parents, her mother because she was dead and her father because he seemed not to care at all.

  Tears flowed from her eyes, and she moaned in anguish.

  “It’s all right, Little Bear. Big Bear is here.”

  Walking down the corridor, still in the body armor he’d been wearing all day and all night, Blocker forced himself to ignore his fatigue. An hour earlier, sitting with Ayliss, he’d heard the gunfire and explosions up on the hill. Suspecting that Selkirk was somehow involved, and believing tha
t yet another of their limited options had been taken off the table. Ayliss had refused to enter the mining compound before losing consciousness, and whatever destruction had taken place there since then suggested that they were no longer welcome. Hemsley’s tunnel settlement was barred to them as well unless Selkirk had made amends with the veterans, so they were stuck right where they were. If open warfare broke out, Blocker and his party were directly in the line of fire.

  His small security detail was positioned at key points all over the building, armed and armored, but they wouldn’t last long once the heavy weapons on the mining perimeter came into play. Something about that sneaky Hemsley told Blocker that the veterans had more than rifles at their disposal, and he stopped himself from considering what would happen in such a cross fire.

  Most of the building was dark, but a dull glow emanated from the room where the strange commo guy from the settlement, Ewing, had set up shop. He’d walked up the slope on his own while they’d been getting Ayliss settled, and volunteered to help with their communications. Blocker initially told him to get lost, but had relented when the self-­confessed drug user explained his unexpected offer of help.

  “First Sergeant doesn’t let me man the radios anymore. It’s the only thing I was ever good at, and I’m not doing it.”

  Shorthanded, Blocker had relented. He’d been amazed when Ewing not only proved reliable on radio watch, but also boosted the power of their signals through a complicated relay involving Zone Quest’s orbital satellites. When asked if ZQ knew about this piggybacking, Ewing had merely grinned.

  “Hi, Blocker.” Ewing removed a set of headphones. “I tried to request a ship like you asked, but the Step’s been suspended.”

  Blocker lowered himself into a chair. “You know those never last very long.”