Steel Gauntlet

by David Sherman

  One hundred ten tanks, mostly Teufelpanzer Ones, rolled toward the spaceport where the Marine artillery was landing.

  “Captain Pelham? I’m Conorado. My company is to escort your battery to your position and provide security for you.” The spaceport stank with exhaust fumes from the Essays. The ground trembled with their launches and landings. Wind gusts thrown by the Essays buffeted them. Even with helmet communications, Captain Conorado had to shout to make himself heard over the roar of the Essays that were bringing the big guns planetside.

  The artillery commander stuck out a hand. “Glad to meet you, Coronado.”

  “Conorado,” the infantryman corrected as he shook hands.

  “What? Sorry.” Pelham waved a hand, indicating the Essays. “So much noise, I can’t make out what you’re saying. Where are we going?”

  “Are your guns ready to move?”

  Pelham looked to the side of the spaceport where his six twenty-ton, towed artillery pieces were hitched to heavy equipment movers, and a train of twenty Dragons carrying his gun crews and loaded with ammunition and spare barrels and batteries were waiting. “Ready whenever you are, Captain.”

  Conorado pointed toward the Dragons holding his company. “Mount up and follow us.” His company already had its resupply of tank killers, enough so nearly every man in the company had one.

  “Roger.” Pelham turned and trotted to his command Dragon.

  A moment later, back in his own Dragon, Conorado gave the order to move out. A moment after that he gave the order for the Dragons to spread out and take cover and for his infantrymen to dismount and deploy—more than a hundred tanks suddenly were roaring into the spaceport field with their guns blazing.

  An Essay, just launching after off loading its artillery cargo, was hit by an armor-piercing, high-explosive round. The round exploded in the Essay’s cargo bay and tore gaping rents through its body. It dropped back to the field and skittered into another shuttle. Fire engulfed the two shuttlecraft.

  Another AP-HE round slammed through the open cargo hatch of an Essay that was off-loading artillery ammunition and set off an explosion that shattered three nearby Essays and rocked every vehicle in the spaceport. When the smoke cleared, there was a crater twenty meters deep and eighty meters across where the Essay had been.

  In less than half a minute’s time every Essay that wasn’t able to get off the ground was hit, fifteen orbital shuttlecraft killed or severely damaged.

  By then the Marines of Company L were dismounted and deployed. Their first Straight Arrows were already aimed.

  Schultz was the first to fire. He aimed broadside at a TP1 in the middle of the spaceport. “That one’s for Chief, you bastard,” he muttered as the rocket penetrated the tank’s armor and split its seams. He looked to his side and grabbed Dean’s S.A. off his shoulder. “You ain’t going to fire it, I will,” he shouted at Dean’s astonished face. He fired and hit an oncoming TP1 just under its turret. The tank staggered and slewed to a stop. “That’s for Eagle’s Cry! You aren’t killing my buddies and getting away from it, you sons of bitches!”

  Dean looked at him, astonished, and backed away. As deadly as Schultz was, Dean had never seen him angry before. He suddenly thought that anywhere near Schultz was a dangerous place to be.

  Schultz looked around for another unfired S.A.; he had more Marines to avenge. He didn’t see anyone with a tank killer he hadn’t fired. He looked back at the field, saw what he wanted to see, and waited with his blaster in his hands.

  “You ready?” he snarled at Dean when another tank came close. “Let’s get it.” He bounded to his feet and ran at a tank as it sped by. He leaped at the tank and clambered onto its side.

  Dean, thinking Schultz’s action was suicidal but not knowing what else to do, followed. Somehow, he managed to get onto the rear deck of the tank. Almost immediately he knew he didn’t want to be there—it was burning-hot from the engine’s cooling fins.

  Schultz was on top of the tank now, trying to wrest the commander’s hatch open. It wouldn’t budge, it was dogged and secured from inside. Drastic measures were required. He remembered in training that the gunner, Moeller, had said a blaster could burn through a tank’s armor if the tank stood still long enough. Well, this tank wasn’t going anywhere, not without taking Hammer Schultz along for the ride. He stood up, braced his legs against the side of the turret, and began shooting at one spot on the commander’s hatch.

  “Keep them off me,” he yelled at Dean.

  Dean goggled through his infras at Schultz, convinced more than ever that the man was crazy. He climbed to the other side of the turret so he was off the cooling fins and looked around for any tanks that seemed to be paying attention to them. His infra vision was totally blotted out by the large, red splotches of burning Essays and tanks. What seemed like a lifetime ago, on Elneal, he’d witnessed a scene that looked like a Bosch painting of hell. When he raised his visor so he could see, what met his eyes made that remembered scene look more like purgatory. The spaceport field was covered with burning vehicles, the dead tanks outnumbering the destroyed Essays. Debris was scattered everywhere, much of it glistening red with fresh blood. Unidentifiable chunks may have been, some certainly were, bits and pieces of people. Shadows that were tanks moved rapidly through the flames and smoke. Almost instantly Dean realized that even with infras, tankers wouldn’t be able to see him and Schultz on top of this tank. And just as quickly, he realized other Marines wouldn’t be able to see them either.

  “Hammer, we’ve got to get off this tank,” he shouted, and grabbed Schultz’s arm.

  Schultz shrugged Dean’s hand off. “If you don’t care about Clement or Keto, you go.” He returned his attention to burning a hole through the commander’s hatch.

  Dean looked at the hatch. It was growing concentric rings of red, white, and red around the spot where Schultz was shooting. He wasn’t going to leave Schultz alone, no matter how crazy and suicidal he thought this was. He shuffled around to the front of the turret and straddled the main gun, then added his own fire to the hole Schultz was burning, and ignored the heat that washed over him from the hole they were trying to burn through the armor.

  A sudden clank behind and below him made him twist around.

  The driver’s hatch was open and a soldier was beginning to emerge with a hand weapon. Dean pointed his blaster and pressed the firing lever. The bolt burned the tanker’s head half off. He started to turn back to the commander’s hatch before it clicked on him that the interior of the tank was now open to him. He dropped down, managed to stick his blaster’s muzzle through the open hatch and fire just as someone inside pulled the dead body out of the hatch. Over the roar of the tank’s engine he heard a scream from inside. Encouraged, he fired at a different angle, then another and another and another. The tank lurched into a different direction. Dean, on his knees, shifted to another position and fired several more bolts into the tank. When there were no answering shots or screams, he ducked low and looked inside. Nothing moved in his view. He lowered himself and poked his head inside. He saw five charred corpses and a slow dribble of molten metal from the commander’s hatch.

  “Hammer,” he shouted, standing up, “we did it! We killed them.”

  Schultz paused in his firing to look at Dean. “You sure?”

  Dean pointed at the open hatch. “Take a look, you don’t believe me.”

  Schultz looked out at the burning field. “Let’s get off this tank,” he said, “before our guys shoot us by accident.”

  Chapter 22

  General Han, army forces commander, stared intently at Brigadier General Harry Sommers, his chief of staff. The one-star general nervously fidgeted before his commander’s desk. The news he had just delivered was disastrous, and as the messenger, he feared he’d be the one shot. He also had other reasons to fear retribution, one of which was that he hadn’t bothered to verify the readiness reports subordinate units had submitted to General Han before their deployment orders were issu
ed.

  The Confederation Army required all combat units to submit semiannual readiness reports to their higher headquarters, and periodically inspection teams visited every unit with a check-list, to verify readiness independently. But since the army’s combat commands were spread out all over Human Space, the intervals between submission of reports and actual on-site verification were usually vast. To make matters worse, individual commanders’ careers often hinged upon the readiness reports, and no one was ever willing to admit his unit wasn’t deployable. Most commanders fudged the reports, hoping to make them good before the next inspection team arrived. The whole system was a joke among army men, but they still played the silly game because no one had the courage to tell the truth, and, until that day, luck had been with them.

  Now the chickens had come home to roost. The III Corps, already in orbit around Diamunde, was reporting that most of its heavy mobile weapons required spare parts to make them combat ready. The Corps commander deployed, fully aware of that shortcoming. He’d counted on making the necessary repairs en route, not an unusual practice. But those spare parts were on a freighter whose Beam drive had broken down, and the ship was now days behind the rest of the reinforcing fleet. Nobody knew when it would arrive. Worse, the Corps had mounted out so quickly that many units barely had the basic load of ammunition required for the infantrymen’s personal weapons, much less that required to supply their heavy artillery in sustained combat.

  “I’ll have that bastard’s ass,” Han muttered, referring to Lieutenant General Bosworth, commander of III Corps. “Damn,” he hissed, and pounded his desk, “rely on the navy to screw things up!” He meant the freighter whose Beam drive had broken down. The chief of staff remained silent. He knew the blame was with the army staff, not the navy. General Han knew it too, and he also knew that as overall army commander for that phase of the invasion, his head would be the first to roll. Now he bitterly regretted that offhand remark he’d made to General Aguinaldo, that the Marines should take their golf clubs down to Diamunde with them since the invasion would be a “walkover.” He didn’t even know if General Aguinaldo played golf. Probably not. The Marines were too straitlaced for golf.

  “Goddamnit, Harry, why the hell didn’t you check this crap out for me! That’s what a goddamned chief of staff does!”

  The portly brigadier general spread his hands helplessly. General Han knew it would do him no good to get on Sommers. He was force commander; the ax would still fall on him first and hardest.

  “Well,” General Han sighed, “I better go tell the admiral.”

  “You mean to tell me,” Admiral Wimbush asked General Han after he’d explained the problems with the III Corps, “that the Marines, who’ve been getting slaughtered down there for two days now, can’t expect reinforcement for six more goddamned days?”

  “Yessir, until Ninth Corps get here. Unless the freighter gets here first, of course. Any word on her position, sir?” General Han was as calm as if he were inviting the admiral to play a few holes of golf with him in the morning.

  The admiral stared in disbelief at the army general. Admiral Wimbush controlled himself with effort. “That—That,” now he lost control, “asshole corps commander of yours deployed without all his goddamned gear and you sat on your damned ass and let him do it. You bastard! You promised me...” Admiral Wimbush rested his head in his hands. What was this going to do to his career? he wondered. Marines were always a problem to anyone who desired order and probity in life, but dead Marines could ruin a man’s chances for advancement.

  “Will the Ninth Corps be ready to go ashore when it gets here?” the admiral whispered.

  “As far as we know, sir.”

  Admiral Wimbush looked up as if he’d been shot. “ ‘As far as we know’? Did you just say ‘As far as we know’?”

  “Sir, they will be ready,” General Han answered, but his voice did not carry conviction, and the admiral sensed that instantly.

  “You worthless sonofabitch,” Admiral Wimbush said evenly. “All you had to do was walk through the door the Marines kicked open for you. This is the biggest operation either one of us ever participated in and the most important command I’ve ever gotten. Probably my last, thanks to you. Okay, General, you get your worthless ass out of that chair and you drag it down to General Aguinaldo’s headquarters on Diamunde and you tell him how you have left him holding the bag.”

  General Han blanched, not because he was afraid of General Aguinaldo’s understandable wrath—Han may have been an arrogant stuffed shirt, but he was no coward—but because Admiral Wimbush was the one who should have told the Marine ground commander the bad news, not a subordinate. General Han realized in that dreadful moment that it was Wimbush who was afraid of the Marine general.

  “One more thing, General. After General Aguinaldo is through with you, you are relieved. That stupid Corps commander of yours is relieved. I’m putting Third Corps under General Aguinaldo’s direct command until the army sends in an officer capable of leading troops in battle. I’m the senior commander here and it’s my decision to make. Let your high command scream all it wants to. Let them answer to the Marines. Now get out of here,” he finished wearily, putting his head back into his hands.

  General Han sat stunned for a moment before he rose. He had never in his life been talked to like this. Privately, he despised Admiral Wimbush as the quintessential naval manipulator, one who advanced his precious career upon the merits of capable subordinates. He wanted to stand up and bury a fist in the pudgy admiral’s face. But he couldn’t respond, he was helpless before Wimbush’s onslaught, because he knew he deserved it. Slowly, he walked to the door.

  “General,” Admiral Wimbush said from behind him, “isn’t it the custom in the army for an officer to salute a superior when being dismissed from his presence?”

  General Han turned and stared back at the admiral. That was too much. “Fuck you,” he said after a moment, and stepped through the door.

  General Aguinaldo surveyed the spaceport from a hopper he’d commandeered for his personal use. He shook his head. The extent of the destruction was astonishing. He’d rarely seen its match in his forty-five years as a Marine. As soon as he’d landed, an hour before, he’d gone straight to Major General Daly’s division headquarters for a firsthand report on the ground situation. Then he’d gone on a tour of the lines, intending to visit each of the FIST HQs and as many of their infantry and Dragon companies as possible before he headed for the expeditionary airfield to see for himself the condition the squadrons were in.

  The First Tank Brigade began its counterattack while he was with Company B of the 21st FIST, the first company he visited. Even as confident as he was of the combat prowess of Marines, he was impressed by the ease with which the men of Company B killed the tank platoon that attacked them. So intent was he on watching the battle that he didn’t notice the stream of plasma bolts from a medium tank commander’s gun that just missed him until his sergeant major, who was wise enough to take cover, reached up and pulled him down.

  “I’d appreciate it if you turned on your shield, sir,” the sergeant major said.

  Only then did Aguinaldo realize he hadn’t turned on the shield that would protect him from plasma bolts. Another burst shot overhead.

  “Thank you, Sergeant Major,” he replied. “But if a burst like that hit, it would overwhelm the shield.” He poked his head up to look again. “I don’t see anybody firing single shots.”

  He didn’t see anyone firing anything—Company B’s fight was over. Moments later he got word of the attack on the spaceport and headed to it.

  Now, from the orbiting hopper, he could see the fifteen Essays that were down—a very significant portion of the fleet’s orbit-to-surface capability. The landing of reinforcements—when they get around to joining the show, he thought bitterly—would be slowed by the loss of the Essays. Fortunately, most of the artillery had landed and dispersed before the attack—even though much of their ammunition and suppl
ies had been destroyed. Scattered throughout the landing field were close to eighty dead tanks, some still smoldering. Heavy movers were already shoving the hulks off the field to clear space for Essays. Around the periphery of the field, buildings were burning. Other buildings showed damage.

  At least his Marines had done their job. Damn, one infantry company against an entire tank battalion. That company was going to get a citation. He’d make sure as many of its men as possible also got individual medals for their heroism. He wondered, not for the first time, why the Diamundean Army didn’t have infantry in support of its armor. Very early in the history of armored warfare, back in the beginning of the twentieth century, commanders had learned how terribly vulnerable tanks were to infantry, and that they needed infantry to defend them against the enemy’s foot soldiers. That was a lesson St. Cyr seemed not to have absorbed. Well, Aguinaldo wasn’t going to be the one to point out his mistake to him—not until this war was won, anyway.

  The hopper suddenly turned out of its orbit and flew away from the landing field. Before Aguinaldo could ask why, the pilot’s voice came to him over his headset.

  “Sorry about the unexpected maneuver, sir, but an Essay is coming down and we had to get out of its way.”

  Aguinaldo looked up and saw the rapidly growing silhouette of an approaching Essay making a “tactical” landing. He glanced back at the landing field and hoped the Essay’s coxswain was good enough to come in somewhere the field was clear. They couldn’t afford to lose any more Essays.

  The Essay landed safely and a small party of men emerged. They ran from the Essay, which launched as soon as they were at a safe distance. Aguinaldo wondered who the newcomers were and why an Essay drop was wasted on five men when weapons and ammunition were so desperately needed. He saw a Marine join the newcomers, and a moment later received a call that he had important visitors. He told his pilot to land near the small group.