A World of Hurt

by David Sherman

  Conorado kept his UPUD set on the visual download from the string-of-pearls so he could monitor the progress of his company--and the growing forest fire. The fire didn't progress en masse or in surges; it jumped hither and yon and shot a line here and a line here, making narrow lanes of fire. Conorado had seen forest fires before, not only in trids and vids, but nearby on the ground. He'd never seen one that spread the way this one was spreading.

  "Keep it moving, second squad," Sergeant Linsman ordered. "You can step over that, it won't hurt you."

  "Go ahead, Summers," Corporal Kerr said.

  PFC Summers, on his first combat mission, hesitated a second longer, looking at the burning vine that lay across his path. It looked so damn strange! Its surface visibly knotted in moving swells under the flames that danced on it; not moving in regular pulses, like blood pumping through an artery, but in irregular humps, like a liquid was sloshing--or bubbling--inside a flexible tube. But no steam rose from the vine. And it had just been lying there until all of a sudden fire zapped along its entire length. Weird. He then stepped forward and over the vine.

  Corporal Kerr followed quickly, and Corporal Doyle stepped over the vine almost timidly. Linsman resisted the temptation to step on the burning vine; the flames that ran its length were only inches high and couldn't possibly burn through his boot in the second or so he'd be in contact. But he'd been around long enough and been on enough missions in enough strange places to know that the most innocuous-seeming things could prove deadly.

  Lance Corporal Schultz, walking backward on the squad's rear point, only occasionally looking around to check his path and make sure he was still in contact with Corporal Claypoole, was the only one to see what happened when the skin of the vine finally burned through and spilled its contents on the ground.

  Fire spread to the sides of the vine, igniting the surrounding brush.

  He nodded to himself, but didn't say anything.

  Sparks flew when bark popped, tongues of fire wafting in the breezes as burning leaves broke free from branches and lifted into the air. Most of them landed in places still too damp to catch fire and harmlessly went out. Some set down on dry places and smoldered until they spread to living wood and foliage. The thick vines that curled across the ground, or dangled, wrapping around the trees, acted like lines of flammable liquid when they ignited--inches-high fire shot their entire lengths so fast a casual observer might not be able to tell from which end the burning started. The vines burned until the flames ate through to their cores, then they broke open and spread their contents, spreading fire to anything they were near. Vine-cluttered trees lit up like gas torches. The fire spread in patches and chunks and lines, mostly along the ground-covering vines. The fire totally engulfed the area where Company L had its firefight, shot veins deeper into the forest, wide to the sides of the battlefield. Racing lines sped ahead of the Marines toward the edge of the forest and the valley's side.

  Smoke thickened, blocked sight, infiltrated the acid-tight seams of the Marines' chameleons, seeped into their helmets where they began choking as they breathed it. It gave them an ersatz visibility, hollow ghost figures, partially visible, moving through the white drifts of smoke.

  Captain Conorado looked at the real-time download on his UPUD and saw fire growing to the company's front, blocking the Marines' way. But there was a passage--if it held open. He drew another route on his map and transmitted it to the platoon commanders and platoon sergeants.

  "Column of twos, close it up, pick up the pace," he ordered; this was no longer a time they needed to be alert for ambush, not until they reached the forest edge, where the Skinks might be waiting. "Alternate sleeves."

  The Marines rolled up their sleeves, right for the men in the left file, left for those in the right file, so they could see each other in the firescape where their infras were useless.

  First platoon took the lead, the command group mixed in with second platoon as third platoon continued to bring up the rear. The Marines moved quickly into a line two abreast mere meters apart, front to back almost within arm's length.

  The company commander looked at his UPUD again and saw the break in the fire beginning to close. "Double-time," he ordered.

  Company L started running. Not a sprint, but at a ground-eating pace that men could maintain over a distance.

  First platoon made it through the slowly closing gap in the fire. Second platoon and the intermixed command group made it through the more rapidly closing gap.

  There was a ten meter gap between Lance Corporal Godenov and PFC Quick, in the lead of third platoon, and the trailing men of second platoon. The gap in the fire slammed shut in front of them, sending them reeling back from its heat.

  Chapter Twenty

  "Third platoon, fall back!" Ensign Charlie Bass shouted over the all-hands circuit. He rapidly pulled back thirty meters from the closed gap in the wall of flame to a swatch of ground that was bare of vegetation. "Form on me!" He raised his right arm and slid the sleeve all the way down so his Marines could see where he was.

  "First squad, form defense right," Staff Sergeant Hyakowa ordered. "Second squad, form defense left. Assault gun, in the middle." First squad drew a half-circle around the platoon command group's right side, second squad mirrored it on the left. The two Marines with the big gun from the assault platoon joined Bass, Hyakowa, and Lance Corporal Groth in the center of the outward-facing circle. The bare ground they were on was so small they knelt almost shoulder-to-shoulder. Glowing embers drifted down around them from the flames in the branches above. The Marines' plasma shields, designed to safely deflect the sudden star-heat of plasma bolts, struggled to dissipate the rippling, steady wash of heat from the forest fire.

  "Third platoon, sitrep," Captain Conorado's voice came to Bass over the company's command circuit.

  "No casualties," Bass replied. "We're in an open space thirty meters back from the main fire." As he talked, he looked around for someplace free of fire where he could take his platoon.

  There was a brief pause before Conorado said, "My UPUD shows a narrow passage to your left. Do you see it?"

  "No." Curtly.

  "I see you on my UPUD, the passage starts fifteen meters to your left and wends its way a hundred meters to another break in the leading fire. Now do you see it?"

  "No." Bass could see a fire-free place where Conorado said there was one, but he didn't see a passage clear of fire beyond it.

  "Charlie," sharply, "are you looking at your UPUD?"

  "I don't trust the damn thing."

  "Ensign Bass," Conorado snapped, "do you remember what happened the last time you didn't trust your UPUD?"

  Bass's jaw clenched. The last time he ignored something his UPUD showed, he was wounded and the other Marine and several Kingdomite solders with him were killed by the Skinks the UPUD's motion detector had shown nearby. He was taken prisoner and didn't get free until after the Skinks were driven off Kingdom. Worse, when he did get free, he suffered from amnesia, and it was several months before he regained his memory. By then 34th FIST had given him up for dead and returned to Thorsfinni's World, leaving him to make his way home on his own.

  "Well, Ensign?" Conorado sounded furious.

  Bass ground his teeth, but snatched the UPUD from Groth and looked at its real-time display, downloaded from the string-of-pearls. "I see the passage," he snarled.

  "Do you see the break in the fire wall?" Conorado still sounded angry, but not as much.

  "I see it."

  "Get to it. Use your UPUD. Now. Six out." Conorado wasn't going to brook any argument. Charlie Bass might be an excellent leader of fighting men, but he was sometimes far too obstinate.

  It was not the time for Bass to dig in his heels, and he knew it. He called up his map, drew the route from the UPUD onto it, and transmitted the map to his squad and fire team leaders.

  "Move out, second squad in the lead--"

  "Second squad trails," Lance Corporal Schultz broke in. He was the one man in
the company, probably the entire FIST, who could be more stubborn than Charlie Bass. Bass opened his mouth to order him to take the point, but Schultz spoke first. "No Skinks in front of us," he said.

  Bass looked at the UPUD display again. If it was right in showing where the flames were, then Schultz was right and there weren't any Skinks in front of them--if anyone was in front of them, they were too busy fleeing the fire to ambush his platoon. But much of the ground behind them hadn't yet caught fire, and some suicidal fools could be approaching from that direction.

  "First squad, lead off," Bass snarled. "Schultz, take the damn rear point. Closed ranks. Everybody, keep a sleeve rolled up so we can have visual contact. Do it."

  "First squad, three, me, gun, two, one," Sergeant Ratliff said. "Go."

  Corporal Joe Dean called up the map on his HUD display and made sure both his you-are-here marker and the route were visible. He kept the map up. "Quick, that way." He pointed with his bare arm.

  "Aye aye," PFC Quick said, and went where Dean pointed.

  Trees and bushes burned to the platoon's sides, and waves of heat washed over them. Their plasma shields weren't good at deflecting the fire's heat, and the Marines were sweating heavily. If they didn't get out of the fire quickly, they'd be overcome by the heat. As it was, they'd all need medical attention when they reached safety; the hairs on their bare arms grew brittle, frizzled, and fell off as ash; the bare skin reddened and blisters began to rise.

  "Angle right," Dean told Quick when his you-are-here on the HUD map reached the first turn in the sinuous passage.

  Untouched trees and bushes mixed in with the burning vegetation that lined the fire-free lane the platoon passed through; it provided slight relief from the heat. Where the fire had raged hottest, charred, broken tree trunk stelae smoked and dropped flakes. Dried dirt crunched under the Marines' feet. Ash and dust puffed around their ankles and calves, slowly rose higher, and coated them a visible gray.

  "Sleeves down," Bass ordered when the ash coating allowed him to dimly see his men. The Marines gratefully lowered their sleeves, their newly covered arms feeling abruptly cool, but only in relation to how hot they'd been. "Make sure your plasma shields are still on!"

  Light and heat suddenly flared to their left flank, accompanied by a riot of loud popping and crackling, and a shower of sparks and embers pelted them. They spun at the unexpected attack and dropped to the dried, heated ground. Blasters slammed into their shoulders and they returned a maelstrom of crack-sizzle fire. Plasma bolts struck bushes, trees, and foliage already dried by the fires all about them, pushing them over the edge to blaze themselves.

  When the fire turned into a solid wall of flame, Bass suddenly knew no one was attacking the platoon from the flank.

  "Cease fire!" he screamed, loud enough so most of the platoon heard his voice through the air rather than the radio. "Cease fire!" He checked the UPUD's motion detector. It showed only the Marines and the rapidly growing fire that was advancing on them.

  "Get up!" he shouted, with less volume, his voice carrying over the radio net now. "Move out, at the double!"

  "Angle left, around that tree," Dean told Quick as they scrambled to their feet. "Then turn sharp right."

  "Left around that tree," Quick said back, pointing with an ash-covered arm. "Then sharp right."

  "That's the one. Go!"

  As thickening smoke swirled around them, flames leaped, and the tree was suddenly engulfed. Fire spread from it to the surrounding trees and bushes so fast, Quick barely had time to stop before he ran into them--the way was blocked.

  Almost frantically, Bass looked around for another route while he made a sitrep to Captain Conorado.

  "Use your UPUD visual," Conorado ordered. "Two hundred meter radius."

  Bass muttered to himself, calling down curses on the UPUD from every god that came to mind, but he looked at its visual display, set to the radius Conorado said--the damned thing hadn't betrayed him this time; it wasn't the UPUD's fault the fire had jumped to block the platoon's route of egress. He had to blink away the sweat that flowed into his eyes.

  "I see something, Skipper," he said. "Fifty meters to my northeast. The fire seems to have burned out there. If we can get there, we'll be out of it." A thin stream ran through the burned-out area; it looked like it broadened into a small pond.

  "Damnit, Charlie, you've got a wall of fire between you and the burned-out area, you can't get there!"

  Bass glared at the display, as though demanding the UPUD show him another path to safety. All it showed was more patches of fire all around. "That's the thinnest line of fire around us," he said. "It's the only way out of the flames." He coughed and tried to blow the smoke out of his helmet.

  There was a beat, then Conorado asked, "How are you going to get through that fire, Charlie?"

  Bass remembered what happened scant moments earlier when his men reacted to what they thought was an ambush and choked off a bitter laugh. "We're Marines, Skipper. We'll do it the Marine way--we'll blast our way through!"

  "What--" Conorado began to ask, but Bass ignored him.

  "Third platoon! We're going to fight fire with fire. On line, on me." He held his arms out to show the angle on which he wanted them lined up. "Forward at a brisk walk," he ordered while they were still getting on line. The platoon began advancing toward the northeast. "Volley fire, right into that fire. Fire! " The blasters and guns of the platoon erupted with the crack-sizzles of plasma bolts that flamed into the flames they faced. The attached assault gun was silent since the platoon didn't stop to let the gunners set up the tripod.

  "FIRE!" Again, they fired. The wall of flame they faced began burning more furiously, lashing them with greater heat. Wood popped and cracked as heated sap expanded and burst its fibrous bonds.

  "'Toon, halt!" They stopped, barely more than thirty meters from the flames. "FIRE!" They crack-sizzled another volley of star-stuff into the fire, which now burned too hot to make smoke.

  "FIRE!" Once more they fired. The flames shot higher, and heated air rushed in, dragging smoke from other blazes with it. Wind beat at the Marines' backs, eager to reach the hottest fire. The snaps and pops became a constant, clattering din.

  "FIRE!" And yet again. Overheated air roared skyward, shooting flames ever higher. The highest flames detached from the slower moving fire closer to the ground and fluttered higher on their own before winking out. Husks of trees collapsed into incandescent coals. Flames bent toward them from the rear.

  "FIRE!" With a mighty WHOOSH! the remaining combustibles billowed out and up in roiling, overlapping balls of fire and scaled into the sky. Only gray ash and steam rising from glowing dirt remained where the fire had blazed.

  "GO, GO, GO!" Bass roared, and sprinted. He looked to his sides to make sure everyone was running, slowed enough to let them pass him, then looked back to make certain nobody was left behind. He saw how close behind him the flames were and sprinted across the burning dirt, feet touching down too briefly for the great heat of the ground to translate through the soles of his boots. Ash rose in clouds at each pounding step.

  "Squad leaders report!" Staff Sergeant Hyakowa ordered as soon as Bass and the others crossed the burning ground into the area that had already burned out.

  "Fire team leaders, report," Sergeant Ratliff commanded.

  "Fire team leaders, report," Sergeant Linsman ordered.

  "Gun team leaders, speak up," Sergeant Kelly barked.

  "Assault squad, all present," came the first of the squad leaders' reports--the assault squad had only two men to account for.

  "First squad, all present," Ratliff reported, panting.

  Linsman had to cough his throat clear before reporting, "Second squad, we're okay."

  "Gun squad, we're good," Kelly said.

  Bass joined Hyakowa, Kelly, and Groth. His breath was ragged from the smoke and his yelling.

  "Everybody, turn on your coolers," he ordered. "Turn off your plasma shields." The plasma shields used a
lot of a uniform's power. He looked around. The nearest flames were more than fifty meters away; everything between the platoon and the fires had been burned to ash. The flames themselves were distorted by eddies of air wavering in the heat. Smoke moved toward the flames. The Marines were all visible, ghostly in translucent gray, with a flickering red undertone from the heat their plasma shields radiated safely away. Away from the flames, the cooling units in the uniforms would do a better job of keeping them from overheating.

  Bass found that the streamlet was dry in places, now that he was close enough to see it, and where it did broaden into a pond, steam rose from the surface. He lowered his head and raised a hand over his eyes so he couldn't see any fire, then dropped his infra into place and examined the ground, looking for a cooler swatch. His lip curled, but he double-checked with his UPUD's infra download. It agreed with what he'd already seen--there wasn't any cooler ground. Even the small pond showed an elevated temperature, but in the infra the water didn't glow as brightly as the ground surrounding it.

  "Follow me," he croaked. "I think it's cooler over here."

  "Cooler?" MacIlargie laughed phlegmily. "Out of here it's cooler." Then he yelped. "Hey! What'd you hit me for?"

  "Because I didn't have a rotten egg to throw at you," Claypoole snapped, then doubled over coughing. "You're a lousy comedian," he gasped when he cleared his throat enough to speak again.

  "Hey!" MacIlargie yelped again.

  "I think you're a lousy comedian too," Linsman said. "Get over there with the boss." His voice was strained from breathing smoke.