by Jay Allan
I was positioned between Corporal Vincennes, my team leader, and Harden and Quincy with the SAW. Harden had been the team’s lead SAW operator since before I got to Tombstone, and he’d been through four partners since then. It was considered something of a jinx posting, but I escaped because of my marksmanship ratings in training. I hadn’t gone through sniper school, but the lieutenant wanted me as an informal sharpshooter rather than managing Harden’s ammo feed. So I stayed in the line on a standing order to try and target enemy officers and non-coms if I could identify them.
“Hey, Sam, how’s it going over there?” Harden and I had become pretty good friends. Most commanders probably would have forbidden this type of chatting over the com, but the lieutenant believed the unit was a living organism. As long as it didn’t interfere with vital communications, he encouraged limited banter.”
“Not too bad. I’d say we held pretty damned well.” He paused, and I could hear him taking a deep breath. Not a bad use of a couple million rounds of ammo.” Harden was a little bloodthirsty; he’d lost a brother in the service and I don’t even know how many partners. I didn’t know it then, mostly because I’d had no one close to me since my dad died, but you get that way if you lose enough people. We’re professionals, but that only goes so far…enough pain will make any of us into vengeful sadists howling for blood.
“Yeah, we did ok.” I was a little more circumspect. I wasn’t all that comfortable with the killing yet, and I found it hard to rejoice as he did in the enemy dead. After all, most of them were just conscripts with no choice in the matter. The Caliphate was pretty rough with its recruiting; it was a theocracy and a dictatorship that made the Alliance look like a big happy family. Its recruiters could pressgang just about anyone except the clergy and the nobility.
“Just ok? It was a shooting gallery, baby!” Harden was overstating things. We did give the enemy a bloody nose, but it was hardly a walkover. We were pulling back with 31 troops; we’d gotten here at full strength with 50. I couldn’t get over the losses, even if we did inflict almost ten times that on the enemy.
“We lost a lot of friends today, Sam.” My voice was soft; I was trying hard not to sound like I was scolding him.
“Yes, we did.” His spoke more slowly, his tone darker. I think he got the point. “But it could have been a lot worse…a lot worse. If we’d been overrun, the whole unit could have been wiped.” He paused, and sighed. “But we did pay the price.”
“Yes, we paid the price.” The last of our wounded had been evac’d, but we were leaving seven dead on the field. I thought quietly to myself for a few seconds then I shifted my mind to more relevant things, with the soldier’s knack for mourning the dead one minute and focusing on duty the next. “You need help packing up that thing?”
“Nah, let the newb handle it.” The light auto-cannon really wasn’t all that large, just a bit unwieldy. Still, I had a twinge of sympathy for Quincy. It wasn’t that long ago I was the newb.
I climbed down carefully from the perch I’d occupied for the last twenty hours. Keep your head down, I thought. Although the fighting was in a lull, the sporadic sniper fire had never stopped. What a stupid way to get killed, losing focus on your way to the rear to rest. I took one last look out over the field, thinking the worst of it was over. I was wrong.
Chapter 8
2252 AD McCraw’s Ridge Central Sector – “The Cauldron” Day Two – Afternoon Delta Trianguli I
We pulled back about five klicks, just behind the next ridge. We were well within range of enemy mortars and other ordnance, and we wanted some cover. On a more hospitable world we might have popped our helmets and actually eaten some solid food, but that wasn’t an option on a planet like Tombstone. So I enjoyed the epicurean delight of another shot of high-energy intravenous nutritional formula, kindly served by my suit’s AI. It wasn’t exactly a stick-to-your-ribs meal, but you could definitely feel the increased energy level.
Sleep was another issue. We’d been going for about 40 hours, the last 24 under combat conditions. I was tired. You could go for several days on stims injected through the armor’s medical maintenance system, but there was no substitute for actual rest…plus, the less you relied on the stims, the longer you could go on them before getting really strung out. The armor is more comfortable than anyone who hasn’t worn it would think, but it wasn’t built for taking a nap. The most comfortable position was sitting on the ground leaning against something. I staked out a fairly choice spot against a good-sized rock outcropping and closed my eyes. I fell asleep in a few minutes.
When I’d first gotten to Tombstone, a well-trained but completely untried Marine, I found it very difficult to relax at all. Even in base when we sat around, waiting days, even weeks before getting the orders to suit up, I was nervous as a cat, expecting the alarm to sound any minute and scared to death about going outside, going into battle. There are certain clichés about soldiers, and I have found that many of them are true. One of these is the fact that we can sleep anywhere, and it wasn’t long before I’d joined that club. I was still scared to death whenever we fought; I still am to this day, though I have since learned to more or less ignore it. But even back then, if the shooting stopped for a few minutes, I could take a nap.
We’re good scroungers too, another military stereotype that turns out to be true. Despite living in the most hostile environment imaginable, cut off from virtually everything except official supply routes, there was actually a fairly active black market in the firebase. I never understood how the most active participants got some of the items that did. Later I came to realize that the officer didn’t just look the other way – they actually helped things along a little behind the scenes. All of our officers start as privates, and they knew very well that a posting on a place like Tombstone was a cheerless enough existence. As long as nothing degraded combat readiness, it was helpful to boost morale any way possible.
I’d gotten maybe 45 minutes’ sleep when I woke up to a jarring on my leg. My visor automatically went transparent and I could see Harden standing above me, kicking my leg. It was a gesture best performed by veterans; a little too much power behind the kick and the force amplification system in his suit could have damaged my armor. It was best done to a seasoned Marine too…startle a sleeping newb and you may end up getting shot to pieces or sliced in half with a molecular blade.
I was seasoned enough not to over-react. “I was sleeping, asshole.” Not normal chatter for the comlink, but I was mildly annoyed, and my tone conveyed it.
“What are you gonna do, sleep your life away?” He was always cheerful, which was surprisingly irritating sometimes. This time, though, it seemed like a facade. Something was bothering him.
“Wouldn’t want to waste a minute of the Tombstone experience, would we?” I wanted to be pissed, but he was a good guy; he just never shut up. “I think it will be a big vacation spot once we’re done fighting for it.”
He sat down next to me, leaning back against the rock wall. “I wonder how long we’ll be posted here.” His upbeat tone was gradually getting a little more somber. Tombstone wore everyone down. “The unit we replaced had been here six months. We’re almost there, but I haven’t heard squat about us getting rotated out.”
Of course, I’d considered it too, but I wasn’t sure I should tell him what I really thought. It looked to me like both sides were increasing the strength deployed here, and they were probably going to do it by extending the tours. “I think we’ll be here awhile.” What the hell, I thought. Tell him what you think. “It’s obvious the expeditionary force here is being increased. If they increase the postings to a year they can bring in the unit that was going to replace us as an incremental force.”
“Fuuuuck.” He stretched the word out impressively. “I hadn’t thought about it that way, but you’re right.” He paused for five or ten seconds, both of us silent as we thought about that unpleasant prospect. “Man, I hate this shithole.” He slapped his hand lightly against the ground
as he spoke.
I nodded, though it wasn’t all that obvious of a gesture in armor. “We made it this far; we’ll make it a year if we have to.” I said it, but I wasn’t sure I believed it. A lot of us hadn’t made it this far, and it was anyone’s guess how many would get through another seven months on this hellhole.
I expected him to say something - he always had something to say - but not this time. What was there to say? We were here, and we had a job to do. That was all there was to it. Whether we liked it or not wasn’t part of the equation.
“I’m getting the shakes.” He’d switched to direct laser com. “The last month, maybe more.” His voice was serious, more so than I’d ever heard it.
I let out a short breath, thinking about what to say, wishing he’d gone to one of the real veterans who might have something wise to tell him. But he’d come to me, and we were Marines…we were there for each other. Always. “It can’t be too bad, Sam. I lost count of how many you dropped this morning. It’s not affecting your shooting any.”
“I’ve managed to control it when we’re fighting. I guess it’s the adrenalin or something. Focuses me.” He paused. “But it’s bad before, and it’s starting to get that way after too. It took me the whole walk back here to settle down.” His voice was edgy; he was really worried.
Sam Harden was a decorated Marine who’d been in half a dozen engagements. He was sure to be bumped to corporal and given his own team after this posting. But none of us was immune to the nerves, the fear. It gnawed at you, even as you pushed it aside, and it could come out at any time. We all controlled it in our own ways. Over the years I’ve known guys who had lucky charms, some who prayed before battle, still others who played different mind games with themselves. Some of them focused anger and rage; others relied on a sense of discipline.
When you started to lose your control, even a little, it became harder to get it back. Doubts preyed on your confidence, and eventually the fear that you wouldn’t be able to regain control added its own pressure. Marines, especially veterans like Harden, didn’t like to talk about this kind of thing, so if he was coming to me it was probably bad.
“Sam, you’re one of the guys who pulled me through when I got here. You’ve done it for other guys too…I’ve seen it.” I was trying to sound upbeat and supportive, but I really had no idea what to say. I was so green I barely knew how I kept myself together. “This place gets to everybody sooner or later. Don’t let it eat away at you. When it’s important, you’ll be ready. There’s no one here I’d rather have backing me up.”
He sat quietly for a minute then he turned and looked at me. “Four partners. Four partners I’ve lost here.” He looked down at his feet.
“Sam, that has nothing to do with you. We’re in a dangerous business.” I frowned, though of course he couldn’t see that in armor. The next time I heard that jinx bullshit being joked about I was going to have a talk with whoever started it. “Not one of them got hit because of anything you did.”
“I know you’re right.” His voice was really unsteady. “But still, I should have been able to do something, kept them safer somehow.”
He really sounded like shit. I was in way over my head. My first thought was, he shouldn’t be in battle right now. But what should I do? I wanted to run to the lieutenant and tell him about this, or at least the squad leader. It was the hardest situation I’d run into since I’d been in the Corps. Harden had come to me in confidence. He’d be furious if I ratted him out. It felt wrong. But letting him go back to the line in his current condition didn’t seem any better. I talked to him a while longer, trying to make him feel better, all the while trying to decide what to do.
In the end, I got up and walked away and kept my mouth shut. It was a mistake I have regretted the rest of my life. We were about to get called back to the lines, and Harden would be dead in two hours, him and Quincy both. I was never sure exactly what happened; I think he got rattled and decided to move the SAW, and they ended up exposed and were chopped up by enemy fire. By the time I got over there they were both dead, riddled by half a dozen rounds each. They’d had a good position; if they’d stayed put they probably would have been fine.
Things were hot on the line when they got hit, so I didn’t have time for grief or guilt. But a few hours later the situation calmed down for a while and I just sat on the ground in shock. My stomach clenched, and I wretched, though there wasn’t much in my stomach to come up but a little foam. My suit’s systems tried to clean up inside my helmet, doing a fairly reasonable job.
It was my fault; I knew it was my fault. I didn’t want to betray Harden’s confidence…I wanted to be a good friend. So I didn’t tell anybody he was too unnerved to go back into the line. I didn’t do anything.
Harden died thinking of me as a friend, but I failed him when he needed me. We were more than friends; we were comrades in arms. I owed him more than he got from me. He was my brother, and I didn’t have his back. He thought I did, and I thought so too, but that was superficial. I could have saved his life, but I didn’t. A live Harden who hated me the rest of his life would have been a thousand times better than a dead friend.
I never forgot the lesson I learned that day.
Chapter 9
2252 AD McCraw’s Ridge Central Sector – “The Cauldron” Day Three Delta Trianguli I
We were in the middle of the third day of the biggest battle ever fought on Tombstone. Our estimates of enemy strength on the planet turned out to be wildly inaccurate. My distrust of intelligence services, which would continue to increase at an exponential rate over the years, started that day. It wasn’t the last time I’d see bad intel, but it was the last time I’d believe it.
Not only were we facing more enemy troops than should have been possible, but we were also up against a tac-force of Janissaries. We’d been outnumbered all along on Tombstone - we knew that - but we’d had the qualitative edge. My battalion was an elite assault unit, one of the best in the Corps. Most of the enemy troops were colonial troops, well-equipped, but definitely second line. One on one they had never been a match for us.
But the Janissaries were front line troops, every bit as elite as we were. They were the only fighting force with even more training than we had, since they were essentially bred as soldiers and raised from childhood in the barracks. Worse, they were fresh, and we’d been fighting for two and a half days, beating back every conscript and colonial regular they could throw at us. We had half our total strength on the whole planet deployed, but I still wasn’t sure we’d be able to stop them.
But stopping them wasn’t an option; it was a necessity. If we’d fallen back before the battle we could have fortified the surrounding hills and maintained a strong defensive line. But if we pulled out now, broken and beaten, we’d compromise our control over the entire sector…and lose the most productive mines on the planet. A defeat here could be enough to shatter the stalemate on Tombstone. I wasn’t up in the chain of command, but I didn’t have to be to know our orders. Hold at all costs.
I was back almost exactly where I’d been for most of the last three days…nearly dead center in our line. The fighting here had been fierce on the first day, and it looked like it had been just as intense while we were in reserve. The dead and wounded had been pulled back, but from the shattered pieces of armor and equipment I had a pretty good idea the fighting had been brutal.
We weren’t back long before we were attacked, but we beat it back without too much trouble. That’s when we lost Harden and Quincy. When they went down I shifted over, covering a larger frontage. Corporal Vincennes and I were the only ones left in the fire team. We tried to get Harden’s auto-cannon set up, but it had also been hit. It might have been repairable, but not in the field, so it was useless to us. The corporal set me up just left of where the cannon had been, and he headed 200 meters to the right.
We were a laughable defense. Any serious attack would have cut right through us, but fortunately the enemy didn’t hit us before w
e were reinforced. The corporal and I had held that forlorn hope for about ninety minutes before the lieutenant came jogging over with reinforcements. The captain had sent up the last of the company reserve, and he cut the frontage our platoon had to cover. The lieutenant took advantage to pull some strength from other sectors to strengthen our weakened center.
He brought the platoon weapons team with him, though only one of the original crew of three remained. Langon, the platoon’s technician, was backing up Private Glenn, and they were handling the thing a man short. The medium auto-cannon was a double-barreled hyper-velocity weapon that put out three times the firepower of Harden’s lighter version. They set it up right where we’d had the SAW, though they had to clear some of the rock out to make enough room. Fortunately, Langon had the plasma torch, so it only took a few minutes to dig in. When they were done, it was in a great spot, in good cover and able to direct fire on either side of the rocky spur.
The lieutenant also brought Graves, the sniper, and he placed him in a big rock outcropping just behind our line. He had the marksman’s weapon of choice, the M-00, AI-assisted sniper’s rifle. It was longer than our infantry weapons and fired a single shot at even higher velocity and greater accuracy. The AI interface helped compensate for weather, visual irregularities, even projected movement of the target. An expert sniper could score a hit as far away as ten klicks.
I’d trained on the weapon at Camp Puller, and I’d been fast-tracked for sniper school based on my performance. Snipers were all veterans though, so I couldn’t go right into the training program from Puller, and I’d been stuck on Tombstone since then. I expected to go after this campaign, though things would turn out differently, and I’d never end up being a sniper. But I always respected the effectiveness of well-utilized sharpshooters.
After he’d deployed everyone, picking out their exact positions himself, the lieutenant settled in directly on my left. He gave us a few short instructions and a little pep talk, but mostly he left us alone. We knew what we were doing, and we knew what was coming. The Janissaries would be here soon, and we’d be waiting for them.
