First Sergeant Nordstrand was the senior Marine in the company, he was not in a PICS, and he was still wounded. Why was he asking a sergeant where he should be?
“Uh, maybe with the skipper?” he asked, pointing to the gate to the monastery.
“He doesn’t need me, son, and you do. You’re kind of thin here.”
“But you aren’t armed, First Sergeant.”
That wasn’t technically true. The first sergeant had his M99, but that would be ineffective if the Grubs attacked them.
“Au contraire, mon sergeant,” the first sergeant said, walking over to the flatbed where he reached along the side and pulled out a pike, the same kind that the Marines had used on K-1003.
He handed that to Morales, who was standing looking rather unsure of himself, then grabbed another for his own use. Stepping back to Hondo, he brandished it over his head.
“I’m armed.”
Hondo, trying to couch his words, said, “First Sergeant, that’s all well and good, but the pikes, they’re older technology, and well . . . ” he trailed off, pointing at the man’s bad right shoulder.
“Lucky I’ve got two arms, Sergeant. And these might be older tech, but they work. You saw that. Me and Morales, we’re ready, right?” he asked, turning to the lance corporal.
Morales did not look like he was ready as he dubiously looked at the pike, but he replied, “Yes, First Sergeant.”
Hondo had said his piece, and it had been rejected. The first sergeant outranked him, and if he wanted in on the fight, there wasn’t much he could do about it.
“Why don’t you two take the gate, First Sergeant?” he asked, although if the Grubs got that far, he was pretty sure the cause would already be lost.
“Yes, sir, mon sergeant,” the first sergeant said, stomping a foot to come to attention and snapping out an open-palmed salute like a legionnaire.
“He’s fucking crazy,” Pickerul said, as the first sergeant gathered up Morales and left to take his position. “What was he speaking?”
“Maybe he is crazy, but who the hell isn’t?” Hondo said. “And I think he was trying to speak French.”
“Like I said, crazy,” Pickerul said.
He stepped over the edge of the road and looked down to where Hanaburgh was already in position. Over the lance corporal’s shoulder, the valley stretched out. A dozen Grubs were making their way south towards Berea. Thirty or forty were out of their spheres, with five heading towards the camp. Another ten or so were still descending. If the dozen still continued on their way, that left about fifty facing the camp and possibly the monastery. Between Hondo and Cara, they had 15 PICS Marines including the lieutenant. The detachment from 2/14 had another 13. That would not be enough, even if the 60 or so cats and dogs were added to the mix. For all the first sergeant’s enthusiasm, Hondo didn’t think any of the non-suited Marines and corpsmen would stand much of a chance against a Grub.
“Sergeant, the refugees in Camp Alpha are in panic mode,” Hanaburgh passed, as he looked down at the camp from his vantage point. “Some are climbing the slope to us.”
Hondo stepped off of the road bed and down to him, carefully placing each step. His gyros would keep him upright, but the footing was loose, and he could still start a long fall down to the valley floor. He reached Hanaburgh and looked over the lip of the shoulder. Camp Alpha was located between the Marine camp and the base of the hill. Hundreds, if not thousands, of refugees were streaming out of the camp. With the dozen Grubs visible farther to the west, no one was heading in that direction. Some were running for the Marine camp despite more Grubs being on the other side of it, some were running south along the base of the hill. A crowd, however, was climbing up the steep slope, heading right towards the monastery.
“Sir, we’ve got refugees heading our way,” Hondo passed to the lieutenant.
“Block the road. No one is to approach the monastery.”
“Not on the road, sir. They’re coming up the slope from Camp Alpha.”
“Wait one,” the lieutenant said. He came back twenty seconds later and said, “Keep them away. Warn them that they need divert to the south at least five hundred meters where they can get on Alverson.”
“What force is authorized if they refuse?” Hondo asked, praying he wouldn’t hear what he feared.
No one listened to his prayer, because the lieutenant said, “Lethal force, if necessary.”
“Do what you have to do to keep them away from the monastery. They can move down 500 meters, then reach the road,” he relayed to Hanaburgh.
“How am I supposed to do that, Sergeant?”
The snap-snap-snap of Chimera missiles reached them. Out in the camp, Marines were engaging the Grubs in the valley.
“I think they’re more afraid of them than us,” Hanaburgh said, pointing.
“Just do it. Use lethal force if you have to.”
“What? They’re civilians!”
“Just do it. Lieutenant’s orders, and they’re probably coming from on high.”
Hanaburgh swiveled to look at him, and Hondo could see his expression through the faceplate. He wasn’t happy.
“I’m not saying to kill anyone. But if you make them think you will, then they’ll steer clear.”
“I hope you’re right, because I’m telling you now, Sergeant, I ain’t going to kill anyone. We’re here to protect them. And what the hell’s so important about the monastery, anyway?”
“I don’t know. Lots of research going on in there. Our grappling hooks came from what they discovered.
“So, evacuate them and be done with it. Bring them to Tarawa and let them work there, for that matter.”
“Maybe, but that’s not what’s happened. Look, the lead ones are halfway up here. Get going.”
“I’m not shooting anyone,” Hanaburgh said, then he stepped to the edge of the drop-off, cranked up his externals, and started yelling at the people to shift to their right.
The lead people stopped, looked up at him, and shifted ten meters or so.
“That’s five hundred meters, Hanaburgh,” Hondo said, before he left him and climbed back up to the roadbed.
“Sergeant McKeever, Sergeant Riordan’s almost here. She’s got Staff Sergeant Rutledge with her. What do you want me to do?” Corporal Johnson asked.
“Shift back to me. We’re going to take right here at the gate and back down the road to the south. Ask Sergeant Riordan to take from where you are now and up the road to link with us.”
“Roger that. She’s coming up to me now.”
“Wolf, are there any Grubs to the east of the camp?”
“No, they’re out in the valley, but most are closing in on the camp now.”
“OK, thanks. I’ll see you back up here.”
While there at the top of the hill, the view was extensive, the curve of the west-facing slope blocked Hondo’s view to the base of it by the edge of the camp. He needed to make sure the approach up the road from the camp was under observation. The Grubs might be big, and they seemed slow, but they had an uncanny ability to show up where they weren’t expected.
Wolf showed up ten minutes later, Joseph and RP in tow. Leaving Pickerul right at the crest, he sent the three to fill in along the road as it descended back towards the south. Their frontage was now more in line with the SOP, but this wasn’t a defensive line. The Grubs could bypass them entirely and hit the monastery from behind, and there wasn’t much the Marines could do about it.
The skipper and two people in white labs coats came out, looked over the valley, then gestured several times at the hillside before returning back inside.
“What was that about?” Pickerul asked.
“Not for us to try and guess.”
He did wonder, though. The skipper had looked agitated about something, and if something wasn’t right, then it could affect his Marines.
Hanaburgh was doing a masterly job of diverting the civilians. He strode back and forth, his speakers on max as he yelled, cajoled, an
d threatened them to get them to shift to the right. Several times, like sheep escaping the sheepdog, people would break and try and climb to the road too soon, and his Marines had to try and shoo them back down. Luckily, no one had to fire their weapon.
All the time they were playing traffic cop to the refugees, below them, Grubs continued the unstoppable push toward both Berea and the camp. The Marines from 2/14 were engaging long-range, but the Grubs heading towards the camp were not yet returning fire.
With a scream of tortured air, two Gen 5 Brotherhood Air Guard atmospheric fighters blasted directly over the monastery, inverted, and dove on the Grubs heading for the city. They fired a salvo of missiles before pulling some impossible G’s to loop back. From the far ridge, another finger of light reached out, enveloping one of them. A purplish-orange aura coalesced around the plane, but still it flew, scrambling to get clear.
“Come on, make it,” Hondo muttered, trying to will the fighter back over the near hills.
It broke up before reaching safety, coming apart into a thousand pieces and splattering the hillside a klick away from them. Hondo shifted to take the Grubs in view, but the same dozen were still moving forward, seemingly unfazed by the attack.
“Nothing’s stopping them,” Pickerul said. “Look at that.”
“They’re not within grappling hook range,” Hondo said. “Wait until they get closer.”
At 500 meters, the front rank of Grubs started sending ropes of light across the nearest camp buildings, as if spraying water from garden hoses. Buildings started collapsing. Inside them, he knew Marines were dying. He couldn’t see them, and he refused to zoom in. He still knew it.
The Marines on the front had reported decent results from the modulated sonic cannon. It turned Grubs away and could even kill one of the bastards, but if the 2/14 Marines were using them, they were having no effect. Maybe the distance was still too great, or maybe the Grubs had already adjusted to the weapon.
“Joseph, if they come up here, don’t employ your sonics until they get within 150 meters.”
Down the road, the PFC waved the bulky, odd-looking weapon in the air and passed, “Roger that, Sergeant.”
He was the only Marine in the squad with one of them, and Hondo wasn’t convinced as to how robust the thing was. It looked pretty flimsy to him—the bell, in particular, looked like it could be snapped off in a heavy wind. He didn’t want Joseph to go crazy with it before the Grubs were within range.
A single stream of fire reached out from the camp’s fence line. It fell just short of the nearest Grub, and immediately, two of them shot their light tendrils at the spot. No more flames reached out.
“Steady, guys. Wait,” Hondo muttered.
As with the Grubs heading south to the city, the ones moving on the camp were advancing in rough ranks, with eight in the first one. Those first eight sped up as they closed, and several streams of fire arched over the closing distance to splash five of them. Hondo zoomed in when he heard the distant bangs of grappling hooks, spotting at least a dozen reaching out to pin several of the enemy.
How many PICS does Fox have? Not that many, for sure.
Which meant that the cats and dogs, those in the rear party, had to be fighting without combat suits. Hondo had met a Grub in his longjohns and only survived the encounter by a stroke of luck. The un-armored Marines and sailors in the camp had the odds stacked against them.
The Grub farthest from him, upon being hit, swung a pseudopod like a scythe, cutting the line on the hook. The line was a molecularly bonded ceramic—it should not have parted, and the same line had held fast against Grubs before, but it came apart this time as if it was crepe paper.
The grappling hook still gave the thing a jolt, but without the line, no more energy could be passed through. It was one and done.
Where the flamethrowers connected, those Grubs did not seem to be able to cut the lines. One other was hit with three hooks. It managed to cut one before it started going into spastic convulsions.
“Are you watching this?” Hondo passed on the platoon net to both squads. “We’ve got to double up on them.”
Three of the eight Grubs slammed into the camp fence, not even pausing as they flowed into the camp proper. The second rank of Grubs galumphed past the dying in the first rank, just as one of them imploded in a brilliant flash of white light.
The upgrades to the hooks are working, at least.
The previous versions had never killed a Grub so quickly.
Five out of fifty was nothing, however. Within moments, half of the remaining Grubs were in the camp, like Godzilla in Tokyo, using their bulk as much as anything else to flatten buildings.
They’re saving their energy, he realized.
In previous battles, the fight had boiled down to making the Grubs expend their energy. Like a PICS when the powerpack ran out, they couldn’t fight. Unlike a PICS, though, when a Grub ran out of power, they either imploded and collapsed, or they used the last of their power to go out with a bang. Hondo didn’t know the math, but he was pretty sure that simply crushing an expeditionary shelter with their mass used less energy than using their light-based weapons.
The Marines below didn’t roll over and surrender. They were putting up a fight, and grappling hooks, flamethrowers, and missiles were fired, but individually, not in a concerted massing of fire. Grubs fell, but more entered the camp.
Hondo had seen a documentary once, of the War in the Pacific during World War II. On one of the islands—Iwo Jima, he thought it was—the Marines had hit the beach. Many of the old films were taken from aboard the ships out as sea, safe and sound, while a couple of klicks away, US Marines and Japanese soldiers were dying. Hondo felt like that now. He was safe—for the moment, at least—while down there in the camp, his fellow Marines were being slaughtered. True, some Grubs had been killed as well, but not enough.
The camp was going to fall, that was pretty evident. Hondo was pretty sure they’d be next.
“You doing OK?” he asked Hanaburgh, shifting his attention off of the camp.
“It’s herding cats, but I’m managing.”
The lance corporal had been running back and forth along the fall line, haranguing, begging, and threatening to keep the people moving. Hondo slaved into his display and was shocked. He’d imagined fifty or sixty refugees still climbing, but there had to be a couple of thousand, a mass of panicking humanity. The pack was moving south, some at the bottom, some on the sides of the slope.
“Just keep them going,” Hondo said. “The camp is about to fall.”
Captain Ariç came out of the monastery with a monk, took the first sergeant under her tow, and came to the road where she could see the camp. She and the first sergeant were having a heated discussion. Hondo was tempted to turn up his pick-ups, but he held back. If the skipper wanted him to know what she was saying, she’d be broadcasting.
After a few moments, the three jogged back up the path: the skipper and the monk to go back in, the first sergeant to resume his position with Morales. Within twenty seconds, the lieutenant was back on the net.
“Change of plans. Staff Sergeant Rutledge, Sergeant Riordan, you’re going to get off the road and move to higher ground. We want to canalize the Grubs off of the road and to the ground just above it.”
Hondo shifted his gaze. “Just above” the road, the rough terrain was somewhat flat up to a 30-meter wall that ran from 40 meters to the south of the gate and then to the shear rock wall of the bones of the hill 80 meters to the north. He only now noticed a monk—or as he was not in robes, at least a technician—making what looked to be readings along the wall.
They think that’s strong enough to hold back a Grub?
He didn’t think so.
“We’re still going to try and stop them, but if any of them are going to get past us, it has to be right there.”
It sounded like a stupid plan to him, but those were the orders. First Squad remained in place, but Cara took her squad and pushed them back
along the upper slope. The platoon’s line was 400 meters along the road to the south, up to the gate, then breaking west of the road and into the upper slope.
And Hanaburgh, downslope with the refugees.
This isn’t good!
Hondo was not wedded to all the Marine Corps pubs on how to fight, but those pubs were out there for a reason. Simple things like mutually supporting fields of fire made sense, and the way they were set up now, that just wasn’t there. Tony B, the farthest-most Marine, was left out there hanging, with only RP and Joseph able to support him if it came to that.
“Sir, I’d like to bring Lance Corporal Hanaburgh back up to us,” he passed to the lieutenant on the P2P.
There was a pause, and the indicator light let him know the lieutenant was slaved into Hanaburgh’s cam. Hondo piggybacked on that, and the mass of refugees on the slope below had not diminished.
“No, leave him there. We can’t let the refugees up here.” There was another pause, then, “It’s safer for them if they don’t get caught up in this.”
Hondo couldn’t tell if the lieutenant was sure of that or trying to convince himself it was true.
“No, belay that. If the Grubs head straight up the hill at him, recall him back, OK? We can’t leave him out there alone, civilians or not,” he said, to Hondo’s relief.
“Roger that. Thank you, sir.”
Hondo switched to Hanaburgh’s P2P and said, “I just spoke with the lieutenant. If the Grubs come up the hill at you, hightail it back to the road. You aren’t going to meet them head-on by yourself.”
“What about the people?”
Hondo didn’t like that either, and it hurt him to say it, but he had to look at the bigger picture, and if the Grubs came up the hill instead of the road, Hanaburgh wasn’t going to be able to keep them alive.
“They’re going to have to fend for themselves,” he said, then cut off the net before Hanaburgh could respond.
“The Grubs are moving past the camp,” Corporal Wojcik, Cara’s surviving NCO, passed.
Hondo turned from Hanaburgh and ran down the road until he could see down into the entire camp. Most of the camp was leveled, and sixteen Grubs had passed through the other side and against the base of the hill.
The Price of Honor Page 20
