Easier said than done. I didn’t see you volunteering.
That wasn’t fair, JJ knew. He massed 60 kilos soaking wet. The sergeant probably tipped the scales at 95 kilos. This was the logical course of action.
He didn’t have to like it, though.
Bridge 2203 was a fairly typical deck truss type, with the trusses and support beneath the roadway. With a normal truss bridge, the charges could be emplaced from the roadway itself. Between the two of them, they could have set the charges for that within a couple of minutes. With the strength of the bridge below the roadway, however, someone—JJ—had to go below to do the dirty work
Taking a deep breath, he squatted, not committing just yet as Sergeant Go took up the slack of the utility rope that was all that would keep JJ from plummeting to the bottom of the gorge. Intellectually, he knew the one-cm rope was more than strong enough to support his weight, but that part of his brain was having a hard time convincing the rest of him of that.
“Come on, anytime today, Portillo,” the sergeant said.
JJ had sunk almost to his haunches, his ass on his heels. The rope attached to his combat harness was taut. He crossed himself, muttered a quick Ava Maria, then shoved off the tiny ledge.
“Fuck, Portillo! Easy!” the sergeant hissed as JJ fell a few meters, his heart jumping for his throat.
The sergeant had him, however, and after a couple of swings where he bounced off the bridge’s infrastructure, he managed to grab ahold of a diagonal strut. His heart was still pounding, but at least his feet were planted on something solid.
“You OK down there?”
“Yeah. I’m fine,” he got out between breaths. “I’m emplacing the first charge now.”
The Bunson charge was one of the mainstays of the engineer community. The small, 1.8-kg rectangle was filled with C6, a nano-thermite mixture that burned much slower than a monomolecular explosive but with extreme power-to-density. That might not bring down a building as well as other explosives in the Marine arsenal, but it was superior in cutting through objects or moving dirt. The little rectangle didn’t look like much, but it packed a big kick.
JJ pulled off the slick, exposing the gecko pad. He reached over and slapped the pad on the longitudinal girder where it disappeared into the cliff face. With a quick twisting motion, he could get the pad to release the charge, but it would be almost impossible for any linear force that a man could exert would remove it. With it firmly in place, he pushed the arming switch on the detonator and was rewarded with a single series of three green flashes.
“Charge number one in place,” he shouted up to Sergeant Go.
“Why don’t you tell the world, Portillo!” the sergeant hissed back.
“Sorry. I’m moving to the first transom,” he said in much more subdued voice.
“Roger that. I’m on belay.”
JJ was not sure “belay” was the correct term. Maybe the sergeant was absorbing too much of the recon Marines who’d brought them through enemy lines, such as they were, to the target.
Reaching out to the next strut, he made sure his grip was secure before he stepped off and pulled himself forward. He trusted the sergeant to hold him if he fell, but he saw no reason to test that trust unnecessarily.
It took almost two minutes to make it to the first transom. His rope kept getting hung up, becoming more of a nuisance than anything else, and he had to fling it around with one arm, the other in a death grip on a strut or beam, as he tried to free it to move forward with him.
The transom was a good half-meter wide, and JJ was glad for something a little more substantial on which to sit. He pulled out the second charge, slapped in on, and armed it.
Two down, four to go, he thought with satisfaction.
JJ might be a combat virgin, but he was pretty confident of his engineer skills. And when he kept his mind on making things go boom, he almost lost track of the fact that he was sitting under a bridge, 80 meters above a creek, and deep within enemy-held territory.
Almost.
As he started reaching out to move forward, a volley of fire sounded from the approach to the bridge. He stopped dead, spinning around, but under the bridge, he couldn’t see anything. He reached for his M90, only to remember he’d given it to Sergeant Go to hold while he played gymnast under the bridge.
“We’ve got a company-sized unit incoming,” Staff Sergeant Bristol, the recon team leader, passed on the team net. “What’s your status?”
“Two emplaced, four to go,” Sergeant Go answered.
“Is that enough to bring it down?”
There was a moment of silence. JJ knew the two charges would do some damage, but while they would weaken the bridge, the system of trusses would probably be enough to re-route the lines of stress enough for the bridge to remain standing.
“That’s a negative. We need more time,” the sergeant answered.
The fire intensified, and the low blast of an explosion reached JJ.
“Understood. You’ll have your time, but push it. Things are getting hot here.”
“You heard them, Portillo! Move your ass!” Sergeant Go shouted from above him.
JJ looked ahead, trying to plan the quickest route to his next position. With all the girders, trusses, and supports, it was like a jungle gym, one where his safety rope was a hindrance to quick movement.
He sidled over to the side to see if that might eliminate some of the obstacles when two rounds hit the plastisteel supports near his head and sending him diving back for cover. His safety line got caught up around a truss, and he tried to jerk it free.
“Fuck, Portillo! Watch it!”
From just a meter or so above him, he heard the familiar staccato stutter of an M90. Sergeant Go was firing back, so that meant the Tenner mercs were getting close.
Crossing himself once more, and before he could remind himself of the torrent of reasons why it was a bad idea, he unhooked the rope from his harness.
“I’m off belay!” he shouted up at the sergeant as the rope drifted out of reach, not caring if that was the correct terminology or not.
“What? Get that back on now, Portillo!”
“Can’t hear you, Sergeant! Get some rounds downrange and cover me!”
There was a whir as Sergeant Go fired off another 100 darts or so, then a “Mother fuck!” before the other end of the rope appeared beside him and the entire length fell into the gorge. He could hear footsteps retreating to down the bridge before a final “Get your ass moving!” reached down to him.
Without the safety rope, he felt more maneuverable, but naked. Trying not to think of the fall, he wormed his way forward to the next transom. He didn’t even brace himself but slapped the next charge in place, armed it, and pushed forward, only to stop dead in place. The center of the bridge was almost bare, without any of the infrastructure that he’d just climbed through.
What the hell?
A “clean” center was common for swinging bridges or bridges close to the water’s surface, but 80 meters up? It made no sense. But crazy or not, that was what faced him.
There were braces under the roadbed, and along each edge and the middle were the longitudinal girders, but there wasn’t room for him to climb on top of any of them.
If he’d still been attached to the rope, he could ask the sergeant to pull him up, and he could cross over on top of the bridge. But the rope was now 80 meters below him, and from the sound of it, the sergeant was heavily engaged from the far side of the bridge.
“What’s your status?” Staff Sergeant Bristol asked again.
“Still working on it. Maybe five minutes,” Sergeant Go responded.
“Too long, you need—” the staff sergeant started before he grunted, and then the comms fell silent.
“You’re out of time,” another recon Marine broke in, breathing heavily.
JJ didn’t hesitate. The girder was a typical H-shaped beam, with a horizontal bottom connected to the top by a vertical piece—from his engineering classe
s, he dredged up that the horizontal parts were called the flange, the vertical, the web. Each side of the bottom flange extended a good 18 or 20 centimeters out from the web. JJ leaned forward, grabbing each side of the girder, then let his legs fall free. He swung forward until his legs reached up in front of him. Desperately, he tried to lodge his heels on the edges of the girder. His right heel caught, but his left bounced off. Panic almost overwhelmed him, but he forcibly calmed himself, reaching up with his left leg and hooking the edge of his heel above the girder’s bottom.
Hanging ass-down like some sort of baby sloth gripping his mother, he wasn’t really hooked, though. If his hands slipped, his heels wouldn’t hold him, and he’d be in for a long fall.
JJ walked his hands forward, one after the other, about 40 centimeters. Then, gripping as tightly as he could, he pushed with his feet, extending them.
Shit, only 20 more of these and I’m there. Ain’t no thing.
Once, twice more, he edged forward. His forearms began to shake, but there was no choice. He had to push across.
There was a crescendo of fire from behind him, but he couldn’t pay that any attention. He had five more meters, four, then three. He looked under his arms to see how close he was, and the slight twist of his body was enough to lose his footing. First, the right heel slipped, immediately followed by the left. His body swung down in an arc as he desperately hung on with his hands.
Somehow, he held on, his body swinging like a pendulum. He tried to swing his heels back up, but he could barely get them half way, and each kick threatened to knock loose his grip.
“Portillo, are the charges placed?” he heard the sergeant shout.
He didn’t reply. He was focused on the transom a little more than a meter away. It might as well have been a klick.
A line of rounds impacted on the web, centimeters from his hands, spraying his fingers with tiny bits of plastisteel. Spurred into action, he hand-over-handed it forward, reaching the transom where a small diagonal strut braced it against the large vertical post. He swung his feet up, and with them wedged in, he was able to take the weight off his failing hands.
Thank God for lower gravity, he told himself.
Nieuwe Utrecht was at .96 ESG,[4] and even though that wasn’t a huge difference, JJ wasn’t sure he’d have been able to hang on had the gravity been even Earth-Standard.
He stopped a moment, trying to catch his breath before another line of rounds impacted just above him, and exhaustion forgotten, he scrambled up on top of the transom and back into the guts of the truss system.
JJ’s heart was pounding, and his arms ached, but he couldn’t stop. He whipped out the fourth charge and slapped it on the middle of the transom. He started second-guessing the placement, but he was already scrambling up and over struts and braces to get to his next point. Without the rope, it was much easier, and within a minute, he slapped one more on the central girder.
“Portillo? You there?” the muffled voice of Sergeant Go reached him.
“Two minutes!” he shouted, unsure if the sergeant could hear him from his position smack dab under the middle of the roadway. He could move to the side and shout up, but that could put him in the line of fire of the Tenner mercs.
The firing behind him was petering out, which could be good or bad. The four recon Marines were about as fierce a group of men as he’d ever met, but the staff sergeant had said they were facing a full merc company. JJ didn’t think anyone was that tough. And if the recon team had fallen, the mercs wouldn’t be long in coming.
JJ banged his knees as he hopped over and squirmed under the trusses to reach to where the bridge met the far cliff face. Unlike the other side where the cliff was shear, on this side, part of the cliff wall fell away in a more gradual slope for about three or four meters before dropping off more precipitously. As he reached the slope, JJ dropped down, feet on the rocky ground, even while still keeping a death grip on the girder above him. Never letting go with both arms at once, he walked up to the final transom and set his last charge.
Now to get out of here!
First, before he did anything else, JJ carefully armed the detonator control. He entered 6-9-6-9 into the keyboard, programing it. Without hesitation, he pressed the detonating lever.
Nothing happened, which was what he expected, but still, there had been the slightest nagging doubt in his mind. The code was to program the control into a dead man’s switch. If JJ dropped the control—as in being shot—the six caps would detonate, setting off the Bunson charges, and if Sergeant Go and he had been correct in his calculations, the bridge would fall into the gorge.
He started to turn to his right, but he’d taken fire from that side before, so left it was. As he reached the edge of the roadway above his head, he drew his Prokov 8mm. Unlike his M90, the sidearm was a lead-thrower. It was great for close-in defense, but the magazine carried only 12 rounds.
With the detonator in one hand and his Prokov in the other, he ran out from under the bridge and started scrambling up the last few meters of the slope. The final step, though was about a meter-and-half of bridge footing. He knew he was exposed to the mercs on the other side of the gorge, but he had to holster his Prokov to free a hand. He reached over the footing to the roadbed, then tried to pull himself up—when someone grabbed him.
JJ tried to jerk his arm free to grab his Prokov back when Sergeant Go asked, “Are they all emplaced?”
“Shit, I didn’t know who you were!” he said as he swung his legs up onto the bridge.
Sergeant Go yanked JJ to his feet, then started bolting for cover.
“Did you get them emplaced?” he repeated, shouting over his shoulder.
“Yeah. All six,” JJ said as he rushed to follow.
He flopped down on his belly, facing the other side of the gorge as the sergeant handed him his M90. It felt comforting to have it in his hands again. The range across the gorge was more than he could manage with his handgun.
Across the gorge, the firing was not as intense as before. There wasn’t any sign of the four recon Marines.
“When do we blow it?” JJ asked.
“Not until recon crosses.”
Almost as if on cue, their comms sputtered, and then one of the Marines said, “Cover me. I’m coming over.”
“Is anyone else with you?” Sergeant Go asked.
“Negative. It’s only me left.”
“Roger. We’ve got you covered.”
With one hand still holding the detonator control, JJ used the raised footing to support his M90. Accuracy wouldn’t be as important as volume of fire, and with a cyclic rate of 400 rounds per minute, he could sure provide that.
“There he is,” Sergeant Go said as Sergeant Bill Thies bounded down from a small rise, hit the roadbed, and darted down the bridge toward them.
JJ hadn’t recognized his voice over the comms, but there was no mistaking the recon Marine’s short, but broad-shouldered figure. The heavy-worlder’s legs churned as he sprinted.
JJ swept his fire into the trees on the other side. He couldn’t see any mercs, but a quick crescendo of fire was proof enough that they could see Bill.
The sergeant took only seconds to reach half-way across, and JJ could clearly see the strain on his face as he put everything into his run—and he could clearly see the look of surprise? regret? as he was hit, the sergeant’s right hand moving to the back of his thigh as he stumbled and fell face first onto the roadbed.
“Shit!” JJ yelled while dropping his mag and inserting another.
Sergeant Thies tried to regain his feet, but his leg didn’t seem to work. He started to drag himself forward with his arms, pushing with his good leg when a heavy automatic gun of some sort spewed rounds all around him. Chips of the roadbed few up in the fusillade.
“Come on!” JJ shouted, trying to will the sergeant forward.
For a few brief seconds, it seemed as if the rounds were impacting everywhere except on their intended target, but that brief window of hope
was quashed when the sergeant shuddered and fell still. The unseen gunner poured more rounds into the sergeant’s body, each one a nail to JJ’s heart.
JJ knew that Marines would be killed on this mission. He knew the other three recon Marines were already dead. But he’d never actually seen anyone killed before. There, 15 meters in front of him, a Marine’s life had been snuffed out, a Marine JJ had only met the day before, but still a man he knew.
A sense of anger boiled up within him, and he had the urge to stand up and scream while emptying his magazine at the hidden enemy.
A hand on his arm brought him back to reality.
“Stay down. I’ll tell you when to blow the bridge,” Sergeant Go said.
JJ ducked back below the lip of the buttress footing, breathing heavily, the back of his head pressed up against the buttress wall. The sergeant was right. They still had a mission to accomplish.
From the other side of the gorge, a few rounds reached out to the near side, but they seemed to be questing, rather than aimed. Nothing hit near them. The mercs had to know they’d been taking fire from the two of them, but somehow, they didn’t seem to know exactly where they were. JJ couldn’t guess as to how they hadn’t been spotted, but he wasn’t going to argue. They were pretty well protected from direct fire by the footing in front of them and the raised roadbed behind them, but a simple airburst grenade would put them in a world of hurt.
“Here they come,” the sergeant said quietly.
JJ looked over to where Sergeant Go was holding a tiny hand mirror around the edge of the footing. JJ almost snorted. With all the high tech available, his sergeant was using a hand mirror?
Whatever works, I guess.
“I’ve got a squad coming down the road.”
A squad on the road, and a company in support of them, JJ noted.
“One of them’s trying to check under the bridge now.”
JJ’s breath caught. He’d put the charges towards the middle, and they were designed to be hard to spot, but still, he wasn’t sure if the mercs had any dampening capabilities that could block his detonator control’s signal.
“If he looks like he sees anything, I’m blowing it,” he said.
Behind Enemy Lines: A United Federation Marine Corps Novel Page 3
