JJ suddenly had doubts.
What if I fucked up? What if it won’t work?
And then Jasper said, too loudly, “There he is!”
JJ had become so wrapped up with the thought that he might not have made the bomb correctly that he’d missed the lieutenant, but sure enough, there was Mountie, emerging from the opening. He immediately took a few steps off to the side and bent over, as if re-sealing his boots.
“Forty seconds,” Jasper said an instant before a gout of fire erupted from the opening, reaching out over the trucks parked 100 meters below. It looked as if the entire mountain shook, and dust rose from a couple of hundred square meters of land. A moment later, a shock wave and boom reached them, pressing both of them into the earth.
“You said 40 seconds,” JJ shouted, as leaves torn off the trees floated down them.
“I must have started it late!”
“Where’s Mountie?” JJ asked, getting to his knees to get a better view.
There was chaos on both the hill leading to the cave as well as among the trucks. Mercs were only just getting to their feet—those that could, at least. A half-a-dozen bodies that JJ could see where still down and motionless.
“There he is,” JJ said as he caught sight of a flight-suited man, stumbling down the side of the hill, rifle ready.
He’d only been meters from the opening, but off to the side and out of the direct blast. He looked unsure of his footing, but JJ was just happy to see him moving.
People were running back and forth. From the top of one of the trucks, a stream of water reached out, not quite reaching the cave opening. They both could hear yells reach across the road and wetlands to them.
Mountie made it down to the trucks, where JJ lost sight of him. When the lieutenant appeared on the near side, he almost shouted out his encouragement.
“He’s going to make it!” he told Jasper, his previous anger evaporated into nothingness. “Let’s get back over to meet him.”
He stood up to put the binos back into their case when with his naked eyes, he saw the dark figure of Mountie stop, and an instant later, the unmistakable flashes of firing. He whipped the glasses back, with the light amplified, saw Mountie fire another burst at a merc, who fell beside a prone body. Mountie broke into a run.
“Fucking shit-sucking mother-humping hell!” he said. “Come-on!”
He broke into a sprint, running wildly through the trees to where the wetlands narrowed as the creek almost came up alongside the road. Without hesitation, he broke into the open and splashed across the shallow water, reaching the other side and struggling through the grass and muck to reach the edge of the road. He flopped to his stomach, M90 trained down the road as Jasper struggled through the muck to reach him. Fifty meters down the road, Mountie was charging. A flurry of shots reached out to him, and he ducked back into the cover of the trees. That slowed him down but kept him out of the line of fire for a moment.
JJ shifted his aim as three mercs ran pell-mell after Mountie, intent on their prey.
Losing situational awareness was a cardinal sin in combat, and JJ was about to demonstrate why. The three mercs were almost shoulder to shoulder, barely 100 meters away when JJ sprayed them with a full clip of 150 darts, dropping them all. Whether they were zeroed or not, JJ didn’t care. They were off the lieutenant’s ass, and that was all the mattered.
JJ turned to haul the foundering Jasper up the bank and out into the road.
“Come on, Mountie. Kick it into high gear,” he shouted as he gave Jasper a push to get him going.
He waited a few moments until Mountie tentatively came back out on the road, looking back.
“I took care of them, sir,” JJ shouted. “And we really need to diddiho now.”
Mountie spun and took off towards JJ. When he reached him, JJ took off, matching the taller man’s speed.
“I think they’re kind of pissed at me,” Mountie said as they closed the gap with Jasper.
“Yeah, that they are. And they’re going to want to see who just shot the crap out of five of them.”
“Well, JJ, I’d suggest we put a little distance between them and us before we plot our next move.”
“Roger that, sir,” JJ said as they reached Jasper.
Together, the three of them ran off into the night.
Chapter 23
Jasper
“Is this the trail?” Mountie asked.
“It has to be,” Jasper answered as he walked out onto it, stomping his foot to feel the footing.
They’d almost missed the trailhead in the dark. In all the flicks, Marines had small monocles that lit the night as day, but evidently, those weren’t issued to engineers or pilots. The two sets of binos and the loupe were all well and good, but they couldn’t continually be held up as they moved. JJ, on point, would scan the area with his binos, move forward, then scan the next area. It was while he was doing this that Mountie, with his naked eyes, noticed the rock marker back on the side of the road. They’d been moving within the treeline and had actually stepped over the trail, which was lost in the evergreen needle litter.
Jasper felt a rush of emotion as he used the loupe to survey the path. He couldn’t tell if anyone had passed by—the loupe flattened out what he was seeing. But with Mount Rand just ahead and off to the north, this probably was it.
“Do you have that thing that can tell if someone passed by here?” he asked JJ.
“You mean a sniffer? We’re not recon. We don’t go out to try and find the bad guys. And they’re not even that effective all the time.”
Another Hollybolly myth smashed, he thought, wondering just how accurate the flicks were.
In his heart, though, he was sure this was the trail. It was deceptively wide, enough for a Goat or ORV to haul people or supplies up the mountain. There couldn’t be that many trails this size this far from any settlements.
“Well, then, let’s head on up. If it stops, we can always backtrack and continue on.”
Mountie seemed amazingly calm for someone who’d just entered the belly of the beast and come out whole. Jasper was amazed at his demeanor and extremely grateful that somehow, they’d all made it this far.
Not all of us, he reminded himself, remembering Sergeant Go.
This close to the road, the fir trees were thick. After only 100 meters, the trail started to climb, and the trees began to thin out some. As they emerged from the heavy cover, Jasper could see the purple dawn that heralded another day. He fervently hoped that by nightfall, he’d be back with Keela and the grandkids.
A sound of a truck turbine whined from behind them, and all three wheeled around, weapons at the ready. This hadn’t been the first time they’d seen and heard signs of mercs, mercs who were undoubtedly searching for them. To Jasper’s relief, the turbines kept east, bypassing the trail. They waited a few more moments until they were sure they were clear before turning and resuming their movement.
Jasper had expected a steep climb, but to his surprise, it was rather gentle. The mountains on each side rose steeply, but on the road, the rise was gradual, and without a stream alongside as might be expected. The firs gave way to a white-barked tree that Jasper didn’t recognize, probably some genmodded form of Aspen. The science of terraforming was well beyond him. As a farmer, he wanted the latest and greatest in algae, but what they put in the wilderness had little impact on his life. Still, now that he was walking up the trail, his curiosity was piqued. Why firs by the road, but now the white-barked trees? Up ahead, it looked like more evergreens.
“Jasper, look,” JJ said, interrupting his thoughts.
Jasper looked to where the Marine was pointing. There, on the side of the trail, was a Goody Bar wrapper, crumbled and discarded. He picked it up and gave it a sniff, not that that gave him some hidden insight. Someone had come up the trail, but who and when? Still, it gave him hope.
The trail rose in a series of ascending dips, and at each rise, he expected to see the lake below them. He’d seen eno
ugh images of the deep blue lake, situated in a bowl. The near side, where they were marching now, was wide and gentle. On the far side of the lake, the mountains rose like sentinels, and the trail they were now on became a series of switchbacks that climbed a couple of hundred meters before flattening out to the pass that crossed the range to the Van der Horst Plateau. Whatever geological forces shaped the area long pre-dated humans, and all of the introduced vegetation could not hide the planet’s personality.
As they reached the next rise, Jasper moved forward to stand with JJ. Below them, slightly dipping down, was a shallow depression, about 200 meters across. It was scattered with clumps of dry grasses and a few scraggly and diseased trees.
“The planet wins,” JJ remarked, pointing the muzzle of his M90 at the trees.
That commonly spoken truism was a vast understatement given the tremendous transformation of what had been an almost atmospheric-less hunk of rock and ice only 120-some years before, but still, despite the best efforts of man, the planet seemed to be fighting back. Spirit Lake might be the planet’s ultimate statement that it had not given up.
“How much farther?” Mountie asked as he stepped alongside them.
“Can’t be too far. Those mountains are on the other side of the lake, and how far away are they? Ten klicks?” Jasper responded.
“Let’s push on, then. There’s too much activity behind us, and they’re going to expand their search. I’d rather be long gone before then,” Mountie said.
“But if they’re really kicking off something big, can they afford that?” JJ asked.
“Can they afford not to. We just punched them in the face, and they can’t have Federation troops running wild in their rear. They have to come after us. Hell, we might have delayed an offensive push by them.”
“That’s good, right?” Jasper asked.
“Maybe. We just don’t know if—” he started before JJ lunged forward and fired a stream of darts into the air.
“What the—” he started as JJ ran forward, dropping his magazine and inserting another in a few efficient motions before firing again.
Jasper looked high to see what he was firing at until a flash, much lower caught his attention. Sparks flew as a small object came into focus, zig-zagging as it fluttered to the ground to bounce 40 meters away. He instinctively chased JJ as the Marine sprinted to whatever he just shot.
Jasper arrived just as JJ was picking up the small, light object, which was flashing from the blue of the sky color to the sandy tan of the dirt and back again.
“Mother-fuck!” JJ said, pointing to a small green light on the underside of the object. “It’s transmitting.”
He dropped it to the ground and stomped on it, once, twice, three times until it was reduced to a pile of scrap.
“How long has it been on us?” Mountie asked.
“Don’t know, sir. I just caught a glimpse when it moved in front of those mountains. The sky-camo gave it away.”
Mountie picked up the scraps and examined them before dropping the heap back on the ground.
It was obvious what the tiny drone was, even if Jasper had never seen one before, but holding out forlorn hope, he asked, “What was that?”
“That, my friend, is our asses,” JJ said, kicking the dead drone once more for good measure. “They know where we are, and they’re going to come after us.”
Chapter 24
Mountie
“Why don’t they fire on us?” Jasper asked as the three slowed to a walk for a moment to catch their breaths. “They know exactly where we are now.”
At least two drones were flitting overhead, darting in and out of their sight.
“They can’t,” JJ said. “Their arty is to the west, and these cliffs keep us in defilade.”
“But don’t they have missiles that can bend around? Or aircraft that can fly right at us?”
“Too expensive for just the three of us. For a missile, I mean. And unless things have changed, we’ve got air superiority with the Navy in orbit. They need to save their air for the big push.”
“They’re waiting to see where we’re going,” Mountie said.
He’d expected the mercs to hit them by now. He could hear them back down on the road near the trailhead, and he caught glimpses of activity. JJ had been right about the defilade, but they’d only just now reached that. When first spotted, they’d been vulnerable to Tenner arty. He’d wondered about why they’d been left to flee when it finally hit him.
They wanted to see why three Federation troops were moving up to a lake. If it was to marry up with a larger unit, they wanted to know. If there were a route through the mountain range, then they would really want to know. In trying to reach Jasper’s family, in trying to use the route to marry back up with the Marines and the squadron, they’d led the mercs right to a path across the range.
The Federation forces, with the Navy ships and satellites, probably knew about the trail. The mercs were privy to the same sources, and on frontier worlds like this, records were sometimes spotty. But if they found a way through with a sizable force before the more limited-in-number Federation forces could react, they could gain a foothold in the key plateau. A thrust from two fronts could overwhelm the Marines.
“What do you mean?” Jasper asked.
“Why are the three of us running into what they think is a box canyon with a lake at the end? Are we rejoining our unit? Or is there a way to the highlands that they don’t know about?”
“Damn! I never thought about that,” JJ said. “So, what do we do now? Go east again?”
“Too late now. They know we’re here. They’ll be guessing there’s something else here, too. And they used them,” he said, pointing up to where the drones were flying, “To find out just what that is.”
“My family?” Jasper asked, not verbalizing his concern.
“Can you find them quickly?”
“If they’re here,” Jasper said, with Mountie catching the hitch in his voice, “they’ll be around the research platform. It’s up on the west side of the lake somewhere. I’ve been trying to spot it, but nothing yet.”
“Then I suggest we keep pushing. We’ll pick up your family, then make it up the upper trail to the plateau. If we can outrun the jamming up there, we can get word back that there’re mercs on the way.”
“But the drones, they’ll see the women and children,” Jasper protested.
“And do what?”
“They burned Donkerbroek. They killed that family! What do you think?”
And the drones have feeds that are recorded. Someone killed that family, yes. But no one is going to attack civilians when it’s all being recorded. They should be safe.”
“‘Should?’”
“Sorry, Jasper, that’s the best I can do for now.”
“We’ve got civilian camps up there, for refugees,” JJ said. “All laid out with red crosses. They’ll be safe there.
Jasper didn’t look convinced, but Mountie couldn’t waste any more time. They had to keep moving. He broke back into a ground-eating trot.
He had been elated about blowing the ammunition dump, sure it had improved the Federation’s position. But if the end result was that they’d led the mercs to another route of advance, then it could have been a grave if not fatal mistake.
Chapter 25
Jasper
As the three jogged up the trail, Jasper forced all thought about the gathering mercs behind them out of his mind. He caught several glimpses of the research platform, but try as he might, he didn’t see any signs of people.
What if no one’s there, he wondered. Have I been fooling myself?
They crested the last rise, and the impossibly blue waters of Spirit Lake filled their view, a blue jewel set in a rocky mount, surrounded by green trees.
“Woah!” JJ said. “I’ve never seen anything like that.”
Jasper had to admit that it made a pretty sight. He’d seen the holos and pics, but they didn’t do justice to the raw beauty.<
br />
“There’re bodies down there,” Mountie said.
Jaspers’ heart jumped into his throat, and he whipped out the loupe and focused down near the shore where two lumps were motionless on the ground. He dreaded what he would see.
“Mercs,” Mountie said. “Two of them. Look like scouts.”
Jasper thought he was going to faint. He could see that the two bodies were in uniform, and not the now-familiar Marine combat utilities. From all accounts, the two had died a pretty horrible death, coughing out their existence down on the shore. Jasper had to tear his eyes away, sick to his stomach that his wife might have even risked coming to the area.
“I guess they never heard what you told us,” JJ remarked matter-of-factly. “You’d think the lack of vegetation all around the lake might have given them a clue.”
“I take it that if we keep where the trees are growing, we’re OK?” Mountie asked.
“Aye-yah, just stay on the road. Depending on the weather, that can move the gas up and down, but if we’re on the road, we’re OK—at least I think so.”
“You think so?” JJ asked. “I’d like to be a little more sure than that. I don’t want to end up like those two idiots down there.”
“OK, OK. I’m sure. Look, the road curves around, then you can see on the other side where it starts to climb.”
“I think I’ll let you lead us,” JJ said. “You can be the canary, and I’ll cover our rear.”
Jasper blew the “canary” comment off. With the mercs in the rear, it made sense that the Marine take up that position. Without another word, he broke into a trot towards the lake.
Despite his assurances to the other two, the closer they got to the lake, the more he tried to breath shallowly, the more he tried to smell the air. He wasn’t a young man, and he wasn’t used to running, so restricting his breathing was beginning to tell on him. He had to start gulping the air just to stay on his feet.
As the trail bent off to the left and leveling out, he felt another surge of relief. And up ahead by 500 meters or so, he could see the observation platform. He unconsciously sped up, ignoring his exhaustion.
Behind Enemy Lines: A United Federation Marine Corps Novel Page 18
