Mountie took a deep breath, trying to regain his composure. Most of the support firing had ceased, and it seemed quiet in comparison. He was able to hear the whine of engines below. The Tenner armor would be climbing the trail. He could hear voices shouting to the right as the mercs shouted orders at each other. He couldn’t tell if they would try to rush them again, or just wait for the tanks to get up to the pass and crush them.
“You OK,” he called to the other two.
“Jasper’s hit,” JJ said.
“I’m OK,” Jasper immediately added. “I’m still in the fight.”
With the lack of firing, half-a-dozen drones hovered overhead. Mountie knew the feeds would be going to the infantry. They’d know exactly where the three of them were.
A merc voice reached out, clearly audible to Mountie, shouting, “In the pass now, everyone!”
“Shit, they’re coming” Mountie yelled at the other two. “This is it!”
The first two mercs stumbled into sight, looking back, of all things. Both were immediately dropped before a mob, pushing and fighting each other, came around the east edge of the opening before they simply seemed to come apart with gouts of blood and body parts separating from each other.
“Their own armor is killing them!” JJ shouted, but Mountie knew different.
The whine he’d heard was not the merc armor. Only one thing he knew had that lovely sound—A Federation Navy Basilisk, known to those who flew them as the Lizard.
“It’s a Lizard! It’s a Lizard!” Mountie shouted, jumping to his feet and rushing forward, ignoring the pile of muck that had been living men only moments before.
There, pulling a beautiful Lin turn, the Lizard was swooping straight up, almost touching her belly to the rock face of the mountain. From below, armored vehicles fired, tracers reaching up to try and catch the Lizard. Slipping on guts and blood, his M90 at the ready, Mountie edged forward. The 150 meters between the opening and the bend in the mountain cliff had been almost swept clear. Two mercs were moving, but down and struggling to get back. Whoever else had been there was gone. Lumps littered the slope, but Mountie didn’t look too closely at them.
“Ooh-rah, mother fuckers!” JJ shouted, M90 held high in one hand while he jumped up and down.
Mountie watched, oblivious to the merc armor below, as the Lizard reached apogee, then spun on its tail to swoop back down. Mountie could see the two mounted BV-G30’s under the wings. These were not designed for armor, but they’d get the job done. Maybe not for 30 vehicles, but for a good number of them. The pilot still had his Forsythe vulcan, of course, the same weapon he’d used to scrape the mercs off the mountain, and he might get a few more that way.
Only the Lizard didn’t dive at the armor. She came in directly for the pass. Mountie looked around for more mercs, spotting the one who’d retreated to the left, but he had his hands raised in surrender, looking at the Lizard.
Oh, shit! Our see-me’s must be getting jammed!
“Let him see us!” he told the other two as he started waving his arms. “The pilot doesn’t know we’re Federation.”
With the armor firing at him, Mountie wondered why he’d be wasting time with a handful of what he thought were merc infantry, but that’s what it had to be.
There was a flash from the underside of the Lizard, and Mountie instinctively ducked, but it was a hit from one of the armored vehicles below. The Lizard is a tough frame, and she flew on, but she couldn’t take too much of that kind of pounding.
A thousand meters out, the Lizard wheeled to the left, inverted, and then came back along the face of the mountain, cockpit facing it. She swooped right at their level, maybe 30 meters away.
Hell, that’s Skeets! he realized as the Lizard buzzed past them, Skeets waving at them. What they hell’s he doing showboating like that?
“I think he wants us to move,” Jasper said.
“What?”
“He wants us to get out of the way. He’s going to block the pass.”
He’s right! That’s why the BV-G30’s!
“Run!” he shouted.
All three immediately bolted as Skeets shot his Lizard up into the air.
“How far do we have to get?” JJ asked.
“A hell of a lot farther than this,” Mountie answered, sneaking a peek back.
Ten meters behind them, weaponless and catching up fast, was the lone remaining merc. He caught Mountie’s eyes and said nothing.
“Keep running,” Mountie said, as Jasper started faltering, blood staining his side.
Mountie closed in to help, but the merc brushed him aside, putting an arm around Jasper’s waist and pulling him along.
This isn’t right, Mountie thought, then let it go for the moment.
He’d sort it out later.
He wasn’t sure how far they’d gone when a huge roar reached them. All four men slowed to a stop and turned just as the concussion reached them. Back at the opening to the pass, some 300 meters back, clouds of smoke obscured their sight. Rocks, thrown up into the sky, came back to earth, landing all around them. One, bigger than the rock that JJ had sent down onto the Pecker-3, landed 15 meters from Mountie, making the ground shake.
No one said a word as the smoke billowed higher and higher, maybe reaching the mountain peaks. As it began clear, the sight of rock and rubble began to emerge. Hundreds, if not thousands of tons of mountain had collapsed to block the pass. It didn’t take an engineer to know that nothing would be getting through that for a long, long time.
A lone Lizard cut through the smoke cloud and came low, flying over the cliff walls. Skeets waggled his wings at them before heading back north.
“Um, I guess I’m your prisoner?” the merc said, the first to break the silence.
JJ started to raise his M90, but Mountie pushed the muzzle back down with his hand.
“What’s your name?” Mountie asked.
“Infantry Specialist Three Waterson, sir.”
“Well, Spec Waterson, I accept your surrender. Why don’t you help Private van Ruiker there? We’ve got a long hump to get out of here.”
The four men turned to the north and started walking.
Epilogue
Mountie ran through his checks. The Basilisk, so maneuverable in an atmosphere, was a pig in space with little room for error, and he couldn’t afford any problems. It wasn’t unheard of for a pilot to survive a fight, only to buy it on the way back to the carrier.
“Buddley, I’m getting a 92 on the right oxypack.”
“All you need is 90% for an up-check,” ADR2 Baron said.
“I know what we need, but it’s not your ass on the line, is it. You’ll be heading up to the Andaman Sea in one of the shuttles, all nice and comfy.”
“Sucks to be an officer, huh, sir? Anyways, that’s about all we’ve got left. I’ve got three worse than that, and one Cat 4’d. If you want to get back, it’s this one or nothing.”
Mountie stepped back and looked across the tarmac, heat waves rippling in the air. No, he wanted to get off this piece of crap world as soon as he could. If all he could get was a 92% on the right pack, he’d make sure he nursed it along. Even with only the left pack, he should still be able to make rendezvous with the carrier, up there in low orbit, even if the SOP for a one-engine approach meant being tractored in—and that was mortifying for any plane-jockey.
Of course, Skeets had brand new packs clamped over his engine intakes. Rank had its privileges, something he was used to, and with Mutt gone, he was the junior pilot in the squadron.
The thought of Mutt made him pause. He’d spoken with Mutt’s parents on the starsat once since getting back from being shot down, but he knew he had to make a personal visit as soon as he could. Mutt was from Earth, so it might take a while for him to schedule it, but it was something he had to do.
“Miss you, Mutt,” he said, slamming his fist to his chest, then extending a forefinger as he raised his hand to the sky.
The squadron had lost three airc
raft during the fight, a Lizard and two Kangaroos: one of those ’Roos had 12 Marines onboard. Three lost while fighting a sophisticated enemy was better than they might have hoped for, but that didn’t make the pain of losing his friend any less. And for what? Why had six sailors died, why had the Marines lost over 200 men? They hadn’t won the fight. They hadn’t lost the fight. They’d been merely a sideshow in the war, an afterthought.
After the Battle of the Black, where Navy ships slugged it out at tremendous ranges, the powers that be had decided that enough was enough. Both sides met on St. Barnabas, the homeworld of the Brotherhood of Servants, and after a month, had hammered out a peace. The Federation declared victory, of course, and from a military standpoint, they had won. But the Tenners managed to wring out concessions, most of what they had initially demanded from the Federation only to be turned down at the time.
Mountie still hadn’t gone over all the details of the treaty, but he had a sneaky suspicion that the only real winner in the war was the Brotherhood of Servants. In the midst of the negotiations, they somehow came out with an independent world and rights to a good chunk of empty space in which to colonize.
What really pissed Mountie off was that they could have won. The enveloping force at Spirit Lake had been a Tenner afterthought, an opportunity that they’d jumped on. When it had been blocked, they’d gone ahead with their major thrust up through Elena Pass—and been stopped in their tracks by the militia. Yes, the militia had suffered heavy casualties, far more than the Tenner mercs, and the Marines’ Charlie Company with them had almost been wiped out, but together, they had dug in and pushed back the mercs. That was the last major operation of the war on this planet, at least. For the next four months, it had been raids and patrols without any major change in control over the ground. General Corning, the planetary militia commander (and former FCDC sergeant first class) had pushed for a major offensive, but it had soon become clear that the war had entered its final phase, and both the Federation and Tenner commanders were hesitant to waste lives and seemed willing to let the top-level negotiators decide on the outcome.
Mountie, though, had wanted to pursue this little corner of the war and end it. The ghosts of the dead farmer and his family still haunted his dreams, begging for revenge and so their release into the long sleep.
Last week, after the armistice, he’d watched shuttle flares as the Tenners evacuated from one of their forward bases, only 80 klicks away. One quick flight, five minutes in his Lizard, and ground support craft or not, he could have blasted one of the shuttles out of the air. The weird thing was that Mountie couldn’t tell if he was merely daydreaming or if he was truly tempted.
Not all the Tenners were gone. Mountie looked over to the squadron command where he knew a Tenner liaison officer was monitoring their retrograde. Some of the other pilots had gotten into conversations with him, but Mountie couldn’t bring himself to talk to the man.
Snap out of it, man. It’s over. Let it go!
He turned back to his aircraft maintenance chief, who was patiently waiting to set the Pretty Gabby to green.
“OK, Buddley, I accept the plane.”
“Roger that, sir,” he said quickly, punching his code into his PA. “See you back here at 1700!”
He watched Buddley dash off, obviously happy to get this last task done. In six hours, he’d be riding the shuttle back to the ship with a clean bunk, a full night’s sleep, and real chow.
The thought of the welcome-back meal lifted Mountie’s dark mood. Besides being a tradition, the Andaman Sea, or rather Master Chief Pious-Strength, put on a feast that was known throughout the division if not the fleet. His mouth started watering at the thought.
“Sir! Respectfully request your attention, sir!” someone shouted out from behind him.
Oh, what now? he wondered as he turned—to see one Lance Corporal Javier Julio Gregory Portillo, United Federation Marine Corps, and Private Jasper van Ruiker, Nieuwe Utrecht Militia, in a Marine uniform with the white tulip patch of Nieuwe Utrecht instead of the Federation patch on his sleeve, both standing at an exaggerated attention, right arms up in a rigid salute.
“Oh, my God, look who they let on the base,” he said after automatically returning the salute and then stepping forward to hug JJ and pound him on the back.
“We heard you Navy-types were bugging out first, so we thought we’d come to send you off,” JJ said.
“Yeah, we’re anxious to get back to decent company, you know. Civilized folk and all,” he answered as he released the Marine.
“And what’s this?” he asked the militiaman as he enveloped him as well. “You joining the Marines?”
“Oh, good God, no! I’m too old for them. But I’ve been a militia liaison to the Corps, ever since Spirit Lake. See the patch?”
“I see something else,” Mountie said, touching the nametag sewn into the older man’s utility blouse. “Gyver?”
“Well, why not?” JJ asked. “He earned it. He’s also getting a Battle Commendation First.”
“Really? Congrats, Gyver.”
“And JJ’s been put in for a Bronze Star.”
They both looked at him expectantly, but he didn’t say anything. Getting shot down was not something taken lightly in the Navy, so despite his squadron recommending him for a DFC, Fleet was going to look long and hard at that. And the wing being the wing, whatever he’d done on the ground with the two standing in front of him wouldn’t be worth a warm bucket of spit with his seniors.
It didn’t really matter much to him. As much as he lived to fly, he cherished his time behind enemy lines with these two. They would be part of his life forever.
“Well, look. I’m off in four hours, but the squadron commander has opened up the bar. I’m flying, so I can only have one, and I’ve got to take a Jolt-Sober after, but I’d be honored to lift one with your two in memory of Mutt and Sergeant Go.”
“I’m not leaving for four more days, and our battalion commander has not opened the bar, but as I’m with a real live Navy ‘ossifer,’ if he’d make that an order, I’d be honored as well.”
“Well, then consider it an order there, Marine. You, too, Marine liaison. I think I’ve still got authority over you.”
“Aye-aye, sir,” the two chorused as the three headed off the tarmac and into the field-expedient club.
**********
“Sergeant Gary James Go, Engineer Platoon. 4 March 138,” the sergeant major intoned.
JJ stepped one foot forward and placed the helmet on top of the M90 that was driven muzzle first into the ground.
He came back to attention, refusing to wipe the tear that had formed in his left eye and threatened to run down his cheek.
He barely heard the sergeant major continue the honor roll with, “First Lieutenant Shareef Koudra-Miyako, First Platoon, Charlie Company. 7 March 138.”
March 7th was the date of the merc offensive, so JJ knew he’d be standing at attention for a long time. He didn’t care. Honoring the fallen was something every Marine treasured. Traditionally, this was done on Founding Day, where each of the Marines who’d fallen during the year was so honored, but the Marines in the battalion had requested a separate ceremony on Nieuwe Utrecht soil, and the commanding officer had readily agreed. Two-hundred and ten M90’s were driven into the ground of the planet in 21 rows of ten, one for each of the 206 Marines and four Navy corpsmen who had fallen. In front of each one, a friend stood, helmet in hand, to place on the weapon.
Most of the dead had already been shipped back to division before they’d be sent to their homes for burial or cremation. Fourteen of the 206 fallen Marines, however, would be left on the planet when the CO stepped into the last shuttle, including the four recon Marines who’d died at the bridge with him. Recovery teams would be sent later to try and find the bodies, but for now, this was their resting place, and the Marines wanted a ceremony here.
July on Nieuwe Utrecht was close to the planetary equinox, but the day was hot, the sun beating down
the gathered Marines. The sweat rolled down his back as JJ stared at the small brass nameplate attached to the stock of the M90 with Sergeant Go’s name engraved on it. He’d come to terms with the sergeant’s death, but the ceremony was a time for remembrance. The image of the sergeant, the door of the truck opening, the flash of the merc’s handgun going off invaded his thoughts. Sergeant Go was a Marine’s Marine, and to be taken down by some limp-dick driver seemed like a travesty.
He wondered whatever happened to the driver, if he’d survived the war, if he was in some bar right now, recounting how he single-handedly took out a Federation Marine. Despite himself, he almost smiled as he thought of others calling bullshit on him, not believing a word.
He wasn’t even really angry at the merc anymore. He’d done what he’d had to do, nothing more. What the merc did had a personal impact on him, but he had to admit that he’d done far more damage, killed far more mercs than most Marines, certainly more than any other engineer.
“I hope I did you proud, Sergeant,” he whispered.
“Private William Sanderson, 2 July 138,” the sergeant major said almost half-an-hour later. Bill was the last Marine to die, killed when his M-180 turned over in a ditch and crushed him, a week after the armistice was signed.
And the ceremony was over. There were no speeches, no attempts to rally the troops. The ceremony was the names, and the names were the ceremony. Nothing more was needed.
JJ broke his position of attention, looking around. Staff Sergeant Inca, his platoon sergeant, walked up and gave his shoulder a pat.
“Good job, Portillo. Go-man would have been pleased.”
It hadn’t been a good job. He’d just stood there until it was his turn to put the helmet on the M90. Hell, it hadn’t even been the sergeant’s helmet, just one drawn from supply for the ceremony. And JJ wasn’t sure Sergeant Go would be pleased. Wherever he was now, if he could see them, he’d probably be pissing and screaming his displeasure. But JJ also knew that was what Marines said to each other in times like this.
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