by Baen Books
She checked the chronometer in her faceplate: 0549. Had it really been that long? Thirty-seven minutes? From her right side, she heard the soft snapping of Marine RAGs—gauss rifles throwing smart-head flechettes—and she began her tactical breathing routine to lower her heart rate.
22 December 2133 (D Plus Forty Minutes)
T'tokl-Heem Downstation, on K'tok
J. C. ran the two blocks to the downstation, dashing from cover to cover—mostly recessed doorways—pausing in between to assess the situation, but at this point she figured surprise was still on her side. Any hostiles were trying to figure out what was going on and waiting for orders. That would change in a half hour or less, but for now she ended up having a clear run.
She paused at the corner of the building at the end of her street and looked across the broad boulevard between her and the open door to the downstation, saw a Marine helmet behind a gap in a low retaining wall. That should be second platoon's first squad. The door to the VIP entrance hung open crookedly from one hinge, a neat ten-centimeter hole blown where the lock mechanism had been. Above and behind it, the impossibly tall and thin golden needle rose in the pre-dawn gloom for several hundred meters, and then it caught the still-rising sun and shimmered in glaring brilliance, climbing on up until it disappeared into the clouds. She pulled up her helmet tac-tracker and saw IDs from two of her Marines near the doorway: Barenberg and Littlewood, the First Squad HAR gun team. She had a good line of sight to them so she commed them on tightbeam.
"Corporal Barenberg, I am across the street from your position. Is the street clear?"
She saw a head appear at the doorway and disappear quickly.
I see you, Cap'n, she heard inside her head from her surgically embedded commlink. There's a sniper about two hundred meters up the street to the west, your left, or there was five minutes ago. But he can’t shoot for shit, ma'am. If you haul ass you should be okay.
"Littlewood, can you give me some covering fire?"
Uh . . . not from here, ma'am. He's on the north side of the street, same as us, and I don't have a line of sight.
J. C. heard the thump-thump-thump of running feet behind her, the heavy footfalls of Marines in composite powered armor. Her helmet display showed the four Marines from the platoon's second squad, white fire team: Zahala, Liu, Thibodaux, and DeYoung.
"Two-Two-White, on me," she commed them, and waved her hand to show her position, make her stand out from the building background color which her armor now duplicated. Their helmet optics would have shown her position as well, but redundancy never hurt. She stepped back from the corner of the building, turned to them, and lifted her faceplate.
"There's a sniper supposed to be two hundred meters up the street to the west, left as you face the complex, far side, probably second story. Reportedly a bad shot. I am crossing. I want two shooters on this corner, one high and one low. Sergeant Zahala, your call. If he shoots, try to take him out but at least get eyes on him. He's actually in Charlie Company's AO, so if we can’t put him down we'll hand him off to them."
Zahala turned to his fireteam. "Thibodaux high, DeYoung low, Liu, you're with me. We'll cross with the captain and if we take fire we'll return it from the center of the street, cover the captain's crossing, and take the sniper's attention off our two concealed shooters." He turned back to J. C. "With the Captain's permission."
"Sounds like a plan to me, Sergeant, but don't hang around out there very long. We got a job to do and it ain't getting that one sniper. Now get your shooters in place and let's go."
22 December 2133 (D Plus One Hour)
T'tokl-Heem Downstation, on K'tok
They took fire, they returned fire, and if anyone was hurt, it was the sniper, but no one thought they hit him. Fighting the Varoki, it was always a him, never a her. J. C. passed the contact off to Charlie Company, left Zahala's fire team at the door to alert the next group, and went to find the rest of Second Platoon's first squad, taking Barenberg and Littlewood with her. The path was easy to follow from the trail of explosively breached doors. She saw only three bodies of the vaguely lizardlike Varoki along the way, all uniformed security guards. They had carried only pistols, the dismantled parts of which were spread across the floor along with their blood.
She found Staff Sergeant Hank Schleef about thirty meters into the complex, hunkered down in a room off the access corridor but opening into a much larger receiving area. His face brightened when he saw her and his squaddies.
"Captain. Good to see you. We've cleared up to this open area. No casualties. I held up to assess our crossing plan. Having the HAR team for covering fire helps."
She scanned the group of armored figures. All eight members of Schleef's squad, other than his HAR team, were present, so he'd had a good drop. Two demolition engineers and one Navy medtech were with him as well. Only one person was missing.
"Where's Lieutenant Stillbower?" Stillbower was the platoon leader for Second Platoon and had dropped with the first serial to lead the early breach-and-clear actions.
Schleef shook his head. "Don't know ma'am. Hope she just landed in the wrong spot, but we got some missile fire down close to the LZ. Couple green chutes got hit and went down hard, but those might have been from one of the other platoons."
J. C. nodded and checked the floor plan of the open area—about ten meters of open ground, with chest-high counters and workstations along two walls, the ones to either side from their position. Two doors on each of those walls with the workstations, a broad corridor exiting from the far wall.
"What's your plan, Schleef?"
"Door's ajar so we don’t have to breach it. breach the wall low right here," he pointed to the wall three meters to the right of the door, "and use it as the loophole for Littlewood's HAR. That's our base of fire. Blow the wall and the squad assaults in two stacks through the door, red team right, white team left. It there's no resistance in the main room, they clear those side rooms and join up at the corridor."
J. C. nodded and turned to Littlewood. His HAR was the squad's support weapon, an HAR-7 15mm cassette-fed heavy magnetic accelerator rifle firing explosive rounds, capable of low-velocity rapid fire or very high velocity single shots, making it a powerful squad automatic, an excellent sniper rifle, and an anti-armor weapon in a pinch.
"Lance Corporal Littlewood, we got the needle down-range from us, when and if you start firing, so you set your weapon on low velocity rapid fire, HE warheads to explode on contact. I don’t want no high velocity AP rounds fucking up my elevator." That was in the OPORD as well, the stated SOP for the clearing squads, but redundancy never hurt. If they dinged the elevator, the whole trip might end up being for nothing.
*****
They cleared the open area without resistance but heard the distant sound of small arms fire from farther in the complex. J. C.'s tac-tracker couldn't make sense of it: too much metal and electronics between her and her other platoons and too much overhead crap to get a good satellite signal. There might be some jamming going on, too. She got some partial data packets—grainy and heavily pixilated—that looked as if Third Platoon was running into some resistance.
She kept Schleef's squad moving forward and before long they were joined by Gunnery Sergeant Klaus Helzberg, the platoon sergeant for Second. He brought along Staff Sergeant Ann Pohlod's Second Squad, missing one trooper from her own Red Fire Team but otherwise intact. She had another demolition specialist with her who turned his breaching charges over to the two with J. C. and then filled the empty slot in Red Team. Boniface, the Nigerian journalist was with them as well.
J. C. turned the platoon over to Helzberg and watched him take it through its paces, just like the drills, alternating squads, breaching and clearing, closing in on the core of the complex. After fifteen minutes, J. C. began to get nervous. This was taking too much time. Lord knew what the Varoki security people had available to stop them, but whatever surprise the Marines had had was gone by now. About then Major Colloredo showed up.
"What's the situation, Captain?"
"South complex is cleared except this big cargo holding area and then a last suite of offices right up against the needle retaining wall. Five hostiles dispatched, two prisoners taken and sent back for Third Squad to hold at the complex entrance, no casualties."
"Yeah, saw the prisoners. Pretty sorry-looking leatherheads, and they pretended not to speak aBakaa."
"Might not be pretending, sir. This part of the colony was all uZmataanki before the uBakai took over. I think most of the ones we've seen are Sammies. not Oo-Baks. Intel fucked up only loading aBakaa autotrans in our commlinks."
Colloredo shrugged, which was especially eloquent in powered armor. "A leatherhead by any other name, J. C. One's as lethal as another. What we need to do is fucking ándale and get this area secured."
J. C. had been thinking the same thing. She commed Gunnery Sergeant Helzberg and Staff Sergeants Schleef and Pohlod on the tacnet. "Gunny, you stay here with Schleef's squad and clear this cargo area. I'm taking Pohlod's squad forward with the two demo guys to breach and clear that last office suite. Back us up when you're done here."
Aye, aye, ma'am.
J. C. and the twelve Marines set off across the cargo bay at the trot, Major Colloredo and the embed Boniface following them, although the major did not assert command. This was still J. C.'s show. A fair-sized electric cargo mover was parked about four meters from the door and to its right, and a large structural support pillar stood to the left of it. J. C. waved Pohlod to the pillar while she moved to the cover of the cargo mover, with Colloredo, Boniface, and the demo specialists in tow.
"Pohlod, one fire team assaults, one in reserve. Send your HAR team over here. It can shoot through this wall if we need to. Demo, set up your breaching charge on the door. Go."
The demo specialist set his charge and returned to cover as Corporal Jones and Lance Corporal Chaubanse, the HAR gunner, took their place beside her. Chaubanse set up his HAR-7 to fire over the engine housing of the parked vehicle as Jones pulled another ammunition cassette out of his bandolier.
"Rapid fire HE, explode on contact," J. C. said to Chaubanse, who nodded and double-checked the settings. The actual needle cable was about ten meters past the wall they faced, with a sturdy protective barrier wall surrounding it, but not so sturdy it would stop a 15mm AP round at peak velocity. "Remember, Chaubanse, no armor piercing."
"Roger that, ma'am. No AP."
How stupid would it be to get this close to securing the needle and then break it by accident?
Pohlod's Red Team stacked up with her in the lead, behind the pillar and out of the direct line of fire of the door, ready to charge, Zahala's White Team crouched to their left and rear in reserve. Pohlod signaled the demo specialist with three quick nods. The specialist blew the door, the stack stepped out from behind the pillar, moved quickly toward the now-open doorway, and suddenly there was a loud CRACK! and a softer thud—no, several thuds almost simultaneously. The four Marines in the stack jerked backwards against each other and then collapsed in a tangled heap, and a calm part of J. C.'s brain recognized the soft thuds as the sound of a single heavy, high velocity slug passing through the armor and torsos of all four of them.
"Fire!" Jones shouted to Chaubanse, and the first three-round burst of 15mm HE blew masonry fragments back toward them but did not open the wall to the room beyond.
"CORPSMAN!" J. C. heard from behind her, Sergeant Zahala's voice a study in anguish. As if in slow motion, J. C. turned and saw Zahala kneeling, reaching out to pull back the still-twitching body of the fourth member of Red Team. There was a lot of blood. Thibodaux stood by the pillar, leaned around it, fired two three-flechette bursts from his assault rifle through the open door, then a 3cm grenade from his under-barrel launcher. He leaned back and away, rifle up, just before a second loud crack sounded and took a wedge of masonry from the column. J. C. looked at him and he at her, and his eyes were calm and detached.
"We're not getting penetration!" Major Colloredo shouted, his voice rising in desperation. "Gunner, AP, peak velocity. Take that fucker out!"
"No!" J. C. shouted.
The weapon from the far side cracked again and J. C. heard the clang of the AP round as it cut through the engine housing of the cargo shifter, deflecting up and to the side in a streak of sparks as it passed by her head. More rounds, smaller caliber, exploded through the wall and she hit the deck and pulled Chaubanse down with her.
Gunfire. Plaster dust. Small arms rounds slamming against the metal body of the vehicle like a deafening anvil chorus. Confused and angry shouts. And then Major Colloredo was down, screaming in agony and holding his leg. The bone was clearly broken and the leg bled a steady, dark stream.
"Corpsman!" she commed. "Major's down. Helzberg, get the hell up here!"
She put her hand on Colloredo's shoulder and already had the autoinjector from her medkit in her other hand. "You'll be okay, Tony. We'll get you out of this." She pulled open the drug port on the neck of his suit and hit him with the anti-shock drug. Then she turned to Chaubanse. Small arms fire was coming through the wall from the other side, so the wall might be thick but it wasn't armored.
"Set your HE for delayed detonation, staggered from one to five meters, and give me rapid continuous fire. Traverse right to left and then left to right." She switched to the platoon comm tacnet. "Thibodaux, keep up the suppressing fire. Zahala, once Chaubanse lays two long bursts of HE into the room interior, assault with your team. We’ll be right behind you. Helzberg, on me, back us up."
23 December 2133 (D Plus One Day)
T'tokl-Heem Downstation, on K'tok
It was winter here, just like back home, and although winter on K'tok's equator was hot, the sky still looked like a winter sky to J. C.—a uniform blue-gray that reminded her of polished steel. An unforgiving sky. She heard distant thunder, but there were no clouds in sight. Orbital bombardment munitions, pounding the hostile heavy lift cavalry units the uBakai would probably try to shift back from the frontier. The Navy called the bombardment munitions Thuds. Good name.
The cohort's heavy weapons platoons were coming down the needle now, the whirring, clanking four-meter walkers mounted with gun and missile packs negotiating the streets out from downstation to reinforce the perimeter posts. There hadn’t been a serious counterattack yet, but whatever the uBakai could scratch together here in the city would probably hit them after dark. Those lift cavalry gunsleds would come at them later, would be hard to stop unless the Thuds could keep them away.
J. C. walked to the aid station, feeling the deep ache in her muscles from the insertion and gee shock, but also feeling the strength returning to her limbs. The too-tall door and too-low-ceilinged interior of the requisitioned building reminding her she was the invader on this world. Her eyes took a moment to adjust to the dim interior light.
She soon found Tony Colloredo's cot. His right leg was in a pressure cast and elevated. He looked depressed, but hid it as soon as he saw her. They exchanged greetings and she brought him up to date on the operation: mission accomplished, and the needle was bringing down their heavy stuff and the first contingents from Forty-Two ROMAC. Her company had taken seven fatal casualties, three coming down and four on the ground—Pohlod's fire team. Seventeen wounded, most of them light wounds. Five of them had gone back on the line as soon as their wounds had been dressed. He listened thoughtfully, nodding as she talked.
"Alice Stillbower died coming down? Who's running your second platoon?"
"Gunny Helzberg still is. Skipper goes down, the gunny takes over. Not the first time, sir."
"Not the first time," he repeated, and he looked out the window.
"You okay, sir?" she asked.
"Yes, I'm fine. Had a little pain but got a happy drip. I've been wondering, though, did you do an ammo count after the fight? Rounds expended?"
"Yes, sir, every weapon. Already restocked from cohort and they sent the report up the needle to get resupplied from brigade.
All squared away."
"How many rounds did you fire?"
"The company?"
"No, you, J. C. What did your shot counter read? How many flechettes did you put through your assault rifle? I can look it up if I have to."
She looked at him, looked him in the eyes.
"One round, sir."
Colloredo nodded, looked out the window at the building across the alley, its sandstone wall turning blood red in the setting sun.
"I lost it in there, J. C. I could have broken the goddamned needle, put an AP round right through it. I don’t know what happened, but I lost it. It wasn't fear, at least I don't believe it was, but I stopped thinking. Never figured that would happen, but you never know until you know. Now I know."
"Bullshit," she said. "When things get crazy, the training takes over. You know that, and all them drills we did was never with a big, fragile needle in our fire lanes. Hey, you got a million-dollar wound, you're going up-needle this evening to Peleliu's sickbay and then home a hero, and you got nothing to be ashamed of. I mean that, chère. Don't let five seconds of confusion eat on you. Nobody died but Pohlod's fireteam, and that weren't on you. Got nothing to be ashamed of, you."
"I might have had, if I had not caught that stray bullet. Medtech says it looks like a forty-five thirty smart-head flechette. Friendly fire. Well, there was a lot of stuff flying around in there. Hey, you better get back to your company. I appreciate the visit and . . . everything. Vaya con Dios, Gunny."
