by Rick Shelley
"You seen Teu since we landed?"
"Over there. He's coming," Kenneck said. Ingels and Dezo Parks were walking together.
"Get on to CIC and see what the reports are from the other landing zone. And find out where General Dacik is. Then we'll see just how far behind schedule we're going to be here."
Stossen shook his head and started walking to meet Ingels and Parks. His head still hurt, and there was a faint blurriness to his vision.
—|—
At first, the heat had been really intrusive only when the men scraped away the moss to get some purchase on the rock below. But as they moved west, crawling much of the time, toward the massive Schlinal depot, the heat grabbed at them, and it got more oppressive by the minute. There was only a very slight breeze, and that seemed to bring wave after wave of hotter air rather than any measure of relief. The more time the men spent flat on the ground, the hotter they got. One medic in Fox Company used a thermometer to determine that the ground temperature, just below the moss layer, was 39 degrees Celsius. And this is as cool as it gets was his thought. It was little more than an hour past dawn. The real heat of the day was still to come.
Echo Company was in the middle of a three-company skirmish line advancing toward the Schlinal base. Bravo Company was to their left, Fox to the right. Two of the 13th's sixty-man recon platoons were on the flanks, ready to move up to envelop the enemy positions when they got close enough. By the time the line moved to within two kilometers of the Heggies, the men could see artillery explosions hitting the Schlinal positions. Occasionally they could see Wasps attacking ground targets, or fighting Boems in the air.
At two kilometers, the men on the ground were still out of range of most ground fire. As they passed that distance, a few Schlinal automatic weapons, 12mm slug throwers, did open up on them.
"Get what cover you can," Joe Baerclau told his platoon. Switching to another channel, he said, "Sauv, can your people get a line on that center chopper?"
"Can't see the gun," Degtree replied, but I think we can give him some trouble. Hang on."
A few seconds later, one Vrerch missile was fired by a man in fourth squad. Almost as if that were the signal, Vrerchs were fired by another half dozen men in the three companies, homing in on the enemy machine gun positions.
All of the Schlinal guns seemed to stop firing before the first of the missiles exploded. A Vrerch could be seen in flight.
"Move on up," Joe ordered on his platoon channel. "Get a few more meters before they start shooting again." He scrambled forward, arms and legs sliding out from under him as he tried to get to the next low spot in the terrain. All three companies fought to make some more distance forward, to the next good cover—rock or depression.
Missiles exploded. Holes appeared in buildings. Stones tumbled. The 13th continued to advance—not rapidly, but steadily. Before the smoke of the Vrerch explosions settled, the Schlinal machine guns opened up again, more of them than before.
"They must be bringing new stuff to bear," Joe said, speaking on his link to Captain Hilo Keye, Echo Company commander.
"We're still too far out for them to do much damage," Keye replied. Even over the radio it was obvious that the captain was gasping. Hilo Keye was past the middle of his fifth decade. While that would be young for a civilian who was maintaining his age with medical nanobots, it was old for a soldier. Anti-aging technology was considered superfluous for a soldier, especially in wartime. Outside of the headquarters staff, Keye was the oldest man in the 13th. He had received his captaincy only after the Jordan campaign.
"We get a little closer, Yellow Flight is ready to make a few passes," Keye said after a considerable pause. He had switched channels so that he was speaking to all of the platoon leaders and platoon sergeants. "The more Heggies that get lined up nicely, the better hunting the flyguys will have."
"Rate we're going, it'll be dark before we close," Joe said. His transmitter was still on the private channel, so only Keye would hear him.
"Maybe it'll cool down by then. Look to your men, Joe." The captain's tone was soft enough that the words weren't quite a rebuke.
"Aye, sir. We're keeping our heads down." And roasting them in the process, he thought as he surveyed the platoon.
At a range of nearly two kilometers, even the Schlinal machine guns were making little impression on the 13th. There were a few minor wounds, more from flying chips of rock than from bullets. The rocky ground offered plenty of cover from enemy guns that were themselves at or near ground level. Bullets hit and ricocheted off.
The 13th mounted only sporadic return fire. The Heggies were too far away for Armanoc wire carbines to be of the slightest use, and even the heavier wire splat guns could do no damage at that distance. The only infantry weapons that could reach the enemy were Vrerchs and the Dupuy cough guns. Among the line companies, the RA sniper rifles were distributed two to a platoon. At that distance, the Dupuy riflemen rarely had clear targets. From time to time, the 13th used a few Vrerchs to help suppress enemy fire, but the company commanders became sparing of the rockets. If enemy aircraft managed to get past the Wasp screen, the Vrerchs would be essential to survival. They were the only ground-based weapon the Accord had that could be used successfully against enemy aircraft.
Fifteen hundred meters from the Schlinal lines, the three Accord companies stopped for a much needed rest. They had covered seven kilometers in the three hours since the landing—most of it on hands and knees.
Just a couple of minutes after the order to stop went out, First Sergeant Iz Walker worked his way down the line to Joe's position.
"We've been on the ground three hours and we're already two hours behind schedule," Walker said.
"Not much we can do about it, is there?" Joe asked. Both men lifted their helmet visors so they could talk directly to each other without using their radios. It also gave them the illusion of having more air to breathe, and even the illusion was helpful.
"No, there isn't, and that's the hell of it," Walker said. "Captain just had a talk with the colonel. I gather that the colonel's been on to CIC and General Dacik about the mess. Nobody had any inkling about this moss. There's probably never been a single one of our people on this world before today."
"They didn't send in SI first?" Each of the SATs had a Special Intelligence detachment, and SI—a separate arm of the Accord Defense Force—had other assets that weren't assigned to specific units.
"I guess not. Not much place for even spooks to hide on these rocks. I suppose they thought that dropping SIs would give away more than it got."
Joe nodded. "Probably. But does anybody have a way for us to move on this moss without breaking bones and butts?"
"Maybe." Walker left it at just the one word for so long that Joe had to ask.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"They're gonna load up a couple of Wasps with all needle rounds in their cannons. They'll make one, maybe two, passes from just in front of us in toward the Heggies. I guess they want to see if that'll open up a path."
"Crazy way to waste ammo," Joe said.
"Anything that gets us off of these rocks before high noon has my vote," Walker said. "Word is the air temp could climb to forty-two by then. These rocks are going to get hot enough to cause second degree burns by afternoon."
Hands, Joe thought. "Through battle fatigues?" he asked.
Walker shrugged. "It wouldn't surprise me."
"What happens when we get farther north?" The second phase of the battle plan called for the 13th and 8th to attack a second Schlinal base (called Site Bravo in the plan) that was a thousand kilometers closer to the tropics—at what was considered to be the very limit of human habitability on the planet. The base was located on the west coast of the southern continent, where prevailing breezes off of the ocean moderated the heat—a little. That operation had been scheduled to begin before midnight of the first day of the invasion. But with the delays already encountered, it looked very unlikely that the schedu
le could be kept.
"Let's get through this operation before we start worrying about the next," Walker said. "We'll be here another fifteen minutes, at least, before we start moving again. Now, I've got to check in with the rest of the platoons. Make sure your men are drinking plenty of water."
As if he hadn't thought of water himself, Joe took one of his canteens from his belt and took a long drink as the first sergeant crawled on toward the next platoon. Each man had jumped with two full insulated canteens, each holding a liter and a half. That wouldn't last long in the heat. And despite insulation, the water was already at body temperature.
—|—
Even with both air conditioners running full out, the temperature inside the turret of Basset two quickly climbed to 38 degrees and stayed there. Fans on high made the two compartments barely livable. All four men were sweating freely within minutes of firing their first round of the morning. But the cockpit of a Havoc was always hot, especially when the howitzer was being fired with any regularity. The gun's barrel was a radiator dispersing the heat generated by each shot throughout the interior of the gun carriage.
Jimmy Ysinde passed out after locking Two's fourteenth round of the morning into the gun. Jimmy was the crewman who had the hardest job, physically. Although the loading system was virtually automatic, he had enough to do, nudging the proper round from its rack space onto the loader, to work up a sweat at any time. The system wasn't perfect. On average, he would have to manhandle about one round out of five into proper alignment.
Karl Mennem reached over the top of the howitzer's breech to splash water on Jimmy's face—and to check his neck for a pulse.
"Jimmy's way out of it," Karl reported. "He's breathing okay, but he's zonked."
"Do what you can for him," Eustace said. "Half the loaders have gone out already." And not a few of the other crewmen. Eustace had been monitoring the battery's command net.
All Havoc crewmen were crosstrained in first aid. Because they often operated away from any regular medics, that training could—almost routinely—mean the difference between life and death. But with one man out of action, the gun was also effectively out of action. A Havoc needed all four of its crewmen. Their stations were physically separated from one another. The only one who could be worked around was the gunner. The gun commander could work the howitzer from his location. But the commander had a lot of other responsibilities. His doing the work of two men slowed a Havoc's rate of fire considerably.
"Unless we can cool him down there's not much else I can do," Karl said. "He needs help or he's going to be in real bad shape."
"Take off his helmet and wet down his head and neck the best you can," Eustace said. Gun bunnies did have one advantage over their infantry cohorts. They could keep their water cool. Both of the crew compartments had small refrigerators. Cold water and the air-conditioned breeze would help them all, for a time.
"And salt," Simon Kilgore added. " 'Bout time we all took in a little salt."
After checking with Captain Ritchey, Eustace ordered Basset two back, away from the line of guns that were still firing. With no counterbattery fire or aircraft attacks threatening them, the Havocs weren't doing nearly as much maneuvering as they would have in other circumstances.
"Best we can do is lay off on the shooting for a time," Ponks told his crewmates. "Give the air time to cool down a little in here. It's hot outside too, and no shade. If we can't cool Jimmy down in here, he's not going to get cool without evacuation."
Karl unstrapped his safety harness and squirmed around in the tight confines of the rear compartment to lean over the gun barrel. He was very careful not to touch the hot metal while he worked on Jimmy. Another five minutes passed before Jimmy opened his eyes and groaned.
"What happened?"
"Too much heat," Karl told him, splashing chilled water over Ysinde's head again. "Take it easy. We've pulled back."
"This world's gonna turn us all into mudders," Eustace grumbled in the front cockpit. "Another couple of hours, won't any of us be able to stay in here without being turned into road meat."
—|—
Al Bergon treated his first heat casualty of the day shortly after ten o'clock, barely four hours after the 13th landed. Mal Underwood, the new man, simply flopped forward on his face. Only the fact that he had his visor down kept him from breaking his nose in the process.
"Too much body fat in you," Al said when he finally brought Mal back to consciousness. "You'll do better when some of that's been baked out of you."
"I feel like hell," Mal said in a coarse whisper. "My stomach's playing up, and the world's still spinnin' around and around." His voice got a little dreamy. Al went back to work, recognizing the danger signal.
"We've got to do something for him, fast," he told Joe Baerclau over a private link. "We've got serious heatstroke here and I'm worried that he'll go into shock."
"You'll have to handle it for now," Joe told him. "We can't get anything in to help for at least another hour. Any evac is going to have to be on foot, and you know how slow that's going to be with this moss."
"I'll do what I can, but in another hour he may need a trauma tube to pull him back together. And how many more are going to drop in that time?"
"I'll check with the captain," Joe promised, and then he switched channels to do just that.
"The colonel said that he's working on it," Keye said. "I'll let you know as soon as I have word. In the meantime, watch for those Wasps. They're going to make their first ground-clearing runs any minute now."
"Yes, sir." Joe looked skyward, but at least four times in the past hour he had been told that the runs were imminent, and they had yet to materialize. The planes had been diverted to meet more immediate needs each time.
Joe rolled half on his side so that he could look toward Al and his patient. Something dug painfully into Joe's side. He raised himself enough to move the obstruction and then started cursing, softly but with great intensity, under his breath. He called the captain again.
"Sir, I've got it. The belts."
"What?" Keye asked.
"We've been on the ground four hours now, an' then some. The antigrav belts should be recharged. We tie one healthy man with two casualties—hell, let them fly back to where they can get treatment. One man ought to be able to manage three sets of controls like that."
Captain Keye hesitated for a moment, thinking through the idea, before he answered. "It should work," he admitted. "Somebody should have thought of that before we landed here. Hang tight. I'll have Izzy set it up. We've got to wait a couple of minutes, though. Here come those Wasps."
At the moment, the Wasps were merely a distraction to Joe. He shouted the news over the radio to Al Bergon and the other squad medics. He scarcely noticed the lines of destruction that the Wasp cannons cut through the moss in front of the 13th's line. Fifteen hundred slivers of metal a second hit from each of three Wasps. Three clear avenues opened up through the moss, parallel lines leading directly toward the Heggie base.
—|—
Colonel Stossen heard the suggestion about using antigrav belts to move casualties from Dezo Parks, but the news did not really register. His headache had worsened and his vision remained blurred. Annoyingly, his left eye would tear up every few minutes, further limiting his vision. An analgesic soaker stuck to his neck had not significantly reduced the pain or helped his eyesight.
I need to check with a medic, Stossen had told himself at least a dozen times, but he had not done it. There were simply too many other things that seemed more urgent. The 13th was falling far behind schedule, not because of enemy resistance but merely because of the difficulty of the terrain. Now men were falling from heatstroke. He knew that more would fall victim in the next few hours, when the day reached its hottest.
"Get them back, and see if we have enough belts to..."
The colonel didn't realize that he had stopped speaking in the middle of a sentence... let the healthy men swap out and get back to thei
r units was how he meant to finish it. In his mind, he heard the completion. But the world simply seemed to fade out around him while he was talking. There was a sudden hollowness to his hearing, much as if he were holding a seashell to his ear. The sky and his surroundings seemed to take on a rosy tinge. For a moment, he even thought that he could hear waves crashing on a sandy beach, with a hint of some ethereal music in the background.
Dezo Parks saw his boss's eyes roll back, but he couldn't react quickly enough to catch the colonel before he fell forward and hit the ground hard face first. Van Stossen was unconscious before he fell.
CHAPTER FOUR
A field hospital had been set up at the far western end of the drop and landing zones, at the farthest point from the Schlinal base. An infantry company from the 97th LIR provided security. The surgeons and other medical personnel of the 13th and 8th SATs and the 97th had been busy for hours. In the early hours of the invasion, few casualties were inflicted by enemy action. More were from drop injuries or other accidents. But the overwhelming majority were heat exhaustion and heatstroke cases. Shock, dehydration, and—in some cases—delirium. The drop injuries had mostly been returned to duty before noon. Only a handful of men had hurt themselves badly enough that four hours of rest and soaker patches couldn't cure the problem.
Colonel Stossen was carried into the hospital tent just as the first of the men from the front line were being brought back on antigrav belts. Sergeant Vin Cumminhow brought the colonel in, helped by one of the privates in the headquarters security detachment.
"I think he hurt himself when we landed," Cumminhow told the medtech who was performing triage. "He fell. After that, he had a headache and complained that his vision was blurred. He didn't seem to feel too good all morning. Then, a few minutes ago, he just keeled over."
The medtech looked up from his examination just briefly. "Sounds like concussion, possibly even a skull fracture. He hit his head when he fell?"
