The Far Stars War

by David Drake

  It was my first real look at Gerin, though I knew what to expect from the stills and videos. Still . . . I know why they call them slime was my first reaction. Just a look at them sent a strange feeling galloping up and down my back. They came out of the shuttles armed and alert, as if they were expecting a fight, or hoping for one. Only one triad went into the building—one warrior and his two slaves or apprentices, whatever they are. At the door, the warrior stopped and looked back toward the end of the landing strip. The other triads were already setting up temporary shelters near the inland end of the cove, on the north side of the stream not far from the end of the landing strip.

  The shuttles took off again as first light hit the water.

  Thirty minutes later, three more shuttles landed—it was too soon for the first group to have made a round trip. Another fifteen triads disembarked and moved supplies off with them before they made camp with the others.

  We’re going to earn our pay this time, I thought. I wondered how big a mess we were in, how many Gerin were going to come down and park in our laps. Before the shuttles started bringing in these reinforcements, it looked like we might have a slight numerical advantage, parity at worst. Now we had to be on the short end of at least six-to-one odds.

  “Would you think I was out of my mind if I offered a guess that at least one more Gerin ship has come to Grenadier?” I whispered.

  “I wonder what Admiral Mac had in mind when he sent us in,” Liri said. “Did he know something was going to happen or was it just a lucky guess?”

  “I’ll ask him the next time we have tea,” I said, and that ended that conversation.

  The arrival of so many extra Gerin put me more on edge than I had been before. And when they started sending out patrols, I felt very naked and vulnerable—and I didn’t like it. Two more shuttles came in and disgorged their complements of Gerin that morning. We were getting deeper and deeper. All of a sudden there were more than ten times as many Gerin around as when we landed.

  As long as it was light out, we couldn’t do anything but sit still and age. But when night fell and the Gerin brought in their last patrols, I had to do something, even if it was futile and dangerous.

  “Let’s move back a little,” I said when night was firmly in place. It was a nervous detail, filling in the holes we had been using, making that ground look undisturbed, and digging new trenches. We worked silently but fast, worried that the Gerin might decide to send out a patrol our way. I sent Ace and his team back to dig their new home first while the rest of us covered them from our original position. Then Ace’s team returned the favor while we retreated the forty meters we could afford without losing touch with our three spotters. Forty meters wasn’t much, but it made me feel a little better. I went to sit with Ace’s crew for a while then.

  “You think they know we’re here?” Ace asked when I dropped into the trench next to him.

  “No, but they’re bound to stumble over us sooner or later,” I said.

  I didn’t think it would take nearly as long as it did.

  * * *

  Three local days. We sweated under our field blankets through the hours of daylight and were very careful about trips out after dark, even though the Gerin didn’t patrol at night. We got used to three or four Gerin patrols along our valley every day—usually one triad moving along the creek. We made like dead whenever that happened, just one man on the corner watching with a fiber-optic system in case the Gerin got too close. Maybe they weren’t real patrols the way we would have mounted them. It might have simply been a Gerin warrior out for a stroll with his two flunkies along from habit.

  By the third day, there were over two hundred Gerin on the planet. Every day more triads came down, and none seemed to be leaving. We were ready to crawl out of our skins, even when no slimers were in sight. And when the patrols came around, it taxed our discipline just to stay quiet, even though there was nothing else we dared to do.

  Most of the patrols came along the valley, but late on the third day after reinforcements started to land, one patrol came directly over the ridge. It was just a little before sunset, later than any of the other patrols had been out. I swallowed hard as these three Gerin moved past one of our spotters on the ridge and started down the slope, not directly toward me, but close enough that I worried that they might spot the fiber-optic stalks I was watching them through.

  They’ll turn at the creek and follow it, one way or the other, I told myself. The Gerin always seemed to follow the water when they could. This time I was wrong. The warrior waded upstream for a few steps, but then he came out on the near side and his stooges followed.

  “Turn, dammit,” I whispered. But they didn’t. They were heading straight for the trench where Liri and his fire team were hiding.

  I didn’t have much time to consider alternatives. Sure, our orders were to keep out of sight, not let the Gerin know we’re around, but one way or another, we were about to get found. There wasn’t even time for doubt. I was going to get up and start shooting. That gave us a slight chance. If the Gerin just tripped over Liri’s position, we’d likely lose four men straight off and the Gerin warrior would get on his radio link the instant he spotted humans. Then we’d have all the slimers down on us in minutes.

  Unless I could pop the Gerin warrior off with one shot.

  But he was in battle armor. I wasn’t sure that even a direct hit would kill him fast enough, not from behind. I had to make him turn around without tipping him off so I’d have a chance of putting a beam through his throat or into his face below the helmet.

  It takes longer to tell than it did to do.

  I said one soft word on the radio. “Ready.” Then I stood up fast, like an idiot from some third-rate adventure, popping the field blanket aside while I brought my beamer to bear on the Gerin warrior.

  I quacked once, very loudly.

  People have taken ducks to a lot of the worlds with them. But Gerin would have no reason to recognize the call or associate it with humans. The warrior and his stooges turned toward me, toward the sound. I got off the critical shot that took out the warrior. Before the others could return fire, Liri and his men were up behind them, and the whole skirmish was over in less than twenty seconds.

  “No signal,” Ace said at my shoulder. “They never had a chance, Ducks.”

  “Knock that crap off,” I said. “We’re still in deep.”

  “What now, Sarge?” Liri asked when we got over to the dead Gerin.

  “If we move back any farther, we risk losing contact with our spotters,” I said, and we couldn’t move the spotters either. I looked down at the bodies. Four more steps and the slimers would have been in the trench with Liri.

  “Why not make it look like these two fried their boss?” Ace asked, poking a body with his boot. “These burn marks don’t carry signatures.”

  “Will Gerin believe that?” Hiis asked.

  I shrugged. We had no way to know. But I also couldn’t come up with any alternative that sounded more plausible.

  “We’ll still have to move them,” I said.

  “I knew it had to be you, Sarge, even without the radio,” Liri said, loosening up a bit. “No one else would have quacked like that.”

  “Well, just forget about that,” I said, sharper than I intended. “I had to do something.” Am I gonna have to live with that from now on? I asked myself. Talk about above and beyond the call.

  “We’ll dump them in the creek. These things belong in the water.” I pointed. “Downstream of our last spotter.” We could get them about six hundred meters from the nearest trench. That was the best we could do. But there was no posse screaming over the rise yet, so maybe we could get away with our deception a little longer. If nobody saw us moving the bodies or returning to our holes, we could sit around some more and hope that our people came back for us in plenty of force before the Gerin went ape.

 
; * * *

  I didn’t sleep a wink that night. I hardly closed my eyes long enough to blink. Somebody had to miss the dead Gerin. But no one came for the bodies until morning, just after first light. Three triads came together, over the ridge, in skirmish formation. We sweated out the operation, not moving a hair while the Gerin homed in on the bodies. Then the Gerin stood around their dead comrades for several minutes, talking. One or another of the warriors—it was easy to identify the head slimer of each triad—scanned the valley constantly. When one looked back to the bodies, another took up the scan. Cautious, well-trained soldiers. Or maybe it’s instinct with them. Who knows?

  I tried to figure odds. We might be able to take out all nine of these Gerin as long as we held the edge of surprise, but not fast enough to keep them from blowing the whistle on us. And we wouldn’t be able to evade all the Gerin on Grenadier very long once they knew we were around.

  After a time—maybe no more than fifteen minutes—the three warriors started back toward the cove. Their stooges picked up the bodies and followed, and they really had to hump to keep up. We kept watch, directly until the Gerin crossed the rise between us and the cove, then with the remotes. The bodies were hauled to one of the shuttles that were on the ground. One triad got in with the bodies. The rest headed for the permanent building on the shore. Before they got there, the shuttle was in the air.

  And I started breathing again.

  “We may not have bought much time,” Hiis said when he saw me relax. “If they do good autopsies, they may figure out that something’s wrong.”

  All I could do was shrug. “So what choice did we have? All we can do is stay alert and hope our people get back before our position here gets, uh, untenable.” That’s a word right out of the manuals. Every grunt knows exactly what it means before he gets out of boot camp.

  Bend over, stick your head between your legs, and kiss your ass goodbye.

  * * *

  The shuttle carrying the bodies hardly had time to clear the atmosphere before three more Gerin shuttles landed. From the way the troops on the ground snapped to, it wasn’t hard to guess that there had to be at least one big shot among the new arrivals. One Gerin from the second craft got a lot of attention from everyone else. Then those shuttles were taxied off the landing strip in a hurry and three more shuttles landed. And even the big shot from the first group snapped to when this latest batch unloaded.

  “Are we here to spy on their general staff or something?” Liri asked.

  “Your guess is as good as mine.” I didn’t take my eyes off the scene the remotes were shooting me. “But if intelligence knew this was coming, our fleet should have been tracking their ships.” And if so, our ships should be dropping out of FTL space right about then—with any luck at all—ready to take on the Gerin and pick us up. I hoped.

  * * *

  Why is there never a bookie around to take my action when I guess right?

  * * *

  The only indication I saw of the battle in space over Grenadier was one massive explosion—so bright that it was like a second sun in the sky for more than a minute. Two of our dreadnoughts and six cruisers surprised four Gerin ships and destroyed three of them, losing only one cruiser in return. But I didn’t hear about all that until later. I was too busy on the ground.

  We heard a series of sonic booms as shuttles punched into the atmosphere attack-hot, and then I had the captain’s voice on my radio. “That’s our ride home, Ian. Get up to the ridge and give them some cover. We’ll be on the other side, so keep your fire down.” He had to be getting orders from someone upstairs.

  “On our way, Cap.” I got up out of the foxhole, tossing the field blanket aside as I clicked back to the squad frequently to get everyone moving. We jogged toward our positions on the ridge, ranged between two of our spotters. My knees were so stiff from all the squatting and sitting that I must have waddled the first few steps, but the stiffness worked itself out in a hurry. We were finally going to move into real action. There’s no place for cranky joints when that happens.

  Alpha Squad got in the first shots, but we weren’t far behind. It was—you should pardon the expression—a duck shoot. We flopped into steady prone firing positions and opened up with everything we were packing—beamers, slugthrowers, rockets, and grenades. After all the days of tension and cramped muscles, we were all a little triggerhappy, high on adrenaline.

  Gerin can be surprised, even if they recover quickly.

  After the sonic booms, they were looking to the air for attack. Before they had time to get crews to the big guns, though, Alpha Squad hit them from the ground. As the Gerin responded to that, we showed up in back of them and surprised them again. The few seconds they needed to shift their thinking each time provided all the advantage we needed. We lowered the odds in a hurry, and the Gerin had almost no room to maneuver once our shuttles started coming in.

  The mayhem wasn’t all one-way, though.

  Ace got a few centimeters too high while he fired a rocket into the concrete building across the cove. The rocket went in the door, but Ace was dropped before it blew. Smoke and flame belched out of the building, though it didn’t collapse. We used the rest of our rockets on the Gerin shuttles on the ground.

  Hiis fell when three Gerin triads got their act together and charged up the slope at us. All nine of those Gerin went down in payment. It wasn’t enough. It never is.

  But then, Gerin never know when enough is enough.

  They don’t surrender, no matter what. We knew that already. When the captain clicked back to me and said, “We’d like prisoners if possible,” all I could do was laugh. “I know,” the captain said, “but they want us to try anyway.” I rogered and passed the word to my people. A couple of them laughed too.

  The Gerin never tried to flank us, never managed to use the numerical advantage they started with. They didn’t have much chance at all for initiative. They fought from cover when they could, but a lot of them finally got around to standing up and charging. It wasn’t enough to keep dropping them. They kept coming, even when they had to crawl, and no matter how badly they were hurt, they kept shooting, providing covering fire for their comrades even as they bled to death.

  Finally, our piece of the action came down to one last Gerin triad.

  “Hold your fire,” I told my men as the Gerin warrior walked out into the open below us, his two shadows right with him. The warrior shouted something while several of his limbs churned. A challenge, I think. I’ve heard that’s something Gerin will do. He wanted us to come out and fight like Gerin.

  “What’s that all about?” Cord Witters asked over the squad frequency.

  “I think he just gave us the finger, Gerin-style,” I replied.

  I raised my head just a little to shout, “Throw down your weapons and surrender!” That brought a few chuckles over the radio. I shook my head, then lifted a hand to show the Gerin the finger, human-style.

  “Aim to disable, not to kill,” I said. I took the first shot. All three Gerin went down fast enough, but none of them gave up. They kept shooting as long as they could hold their weapons.

  “Don’t those bastards ever pass out?” someone asked on the radio.

  “They’re losing buckets of blood,” Liri said next to me.

  The stooges finally stopped moving, dead or so close that it didn’t matter. But the warrior kept dragging himself up the slope toward us. His gun was gone. He was clutching a knife now.

  “Let’s reel him in,” I said, getting to my feet. Maybe we could get a prisoner after all. I kept my gun trained on the Gerin, in case he was hiding another gun or a grenade or something, waiting for one last chance to take out some humans. But all he had was the knife. And when he saw the crowd of us approaching, he used the blade.

  On himself.

  * * *

  Two hours later, we were back on the Cardigan, standing in the sho
wers hosing a week of Grenadier’s grime off while the ship accelerated away from the planet. Eighteen of us landed. Fifteen made it back off, and only two of them had wounds requiring serious treatment. Colonel Gregory was aboard to welcome us back personally. He shook hands with everybody and clapped us on our shoulders. The cooks laid out a banquet to make up for our days on concentrated field rations. A couple of bottles of hootch appeared in the squad bays that night.

  Three weeks later, we were eleven light-years away, dropping out of FTL space for a rendezvous with a little rest and recreation dirtside. Before we shuttled down from Cardigan, though, Colonel Gregory gathered us in the mess hall to read a “well done” message from Admiral Mac.

  I suppose the text is around somewhere if anyone has any real interest. There was nothing in it about why we were dropped on Grenadier. Nobody has ever bothered to tell us that. But Mac carried on in the usual way about how our bravery and professionalism might shorten the war by years and save millions of human lives—that kind of snake oil.

  My face turned red while the colonel read the message.

  It’s not that I’m easily embarrassed by compliments, but all that crud about professionalism reminded me of an unfortunate incident that happened on Grenadier, after the last of the Gerin went down to stay.

  I was leading Bravo Squad toward the landing strip to meet Alpha Squad and some of the reinforcements. The captain was leading his people across the river. Reunion time. The captain had a tired grin on his face. I was feeling pretty good myself. The fight was over and we were both still alive—despite that “this might be the last time” handshake in the cave. I guess I forgot that the captain and I weren’t alone, that there were a lot of other guys around with nothing to keep them busy. For a minute, it was just the captain and me, together after a fight again, the way we had been so often over the last fifteen years. I waddled a few steps and quacked loudly every time I moved a foot . . . until everybody started laughing.