A World of Hurt

by David Sherman

  "Sir, I'd trust this webbing to keep my own granny safe," the coxswain assured him.

  Sturgeon cocked an eyebrow and sardonically asked, "Ah, but then the question is, do you like your granny?"

  The coxswain laughed. "My granny Troycott, I do, sir. And she's the one I'd trust the webbing with."

  "That's good enough for me."

  "Sir," Captain Rhu-Anh said excitedly, "we have string-of-pearls!"

  "Show me," Commander van Winkle said, turning to the S-2 comm team.

  "Here, sir," Lance Corporal Striker said, leaning out of the way so the infantry battalion commander could look at the satellite communication displays.

  Van Winkle saw a welter of displays: images in visual, infra, radar, and several others; graphs and charts and scrolling strings of numbers. "Give me a visual of the inside of the valley," he ordered.

  Striker leaned back in and worked the controls on his station. "Upper right, sir," he said. A large screen morphed from an array of smaller screens and gave a sharply angled overhead view of the valley. The string-of-pearls was equatorial, so not all of the valley was visible; the mountains on the south side occluded part of the view of the valley's southern edge, and the tall trees to the north blocked vision of the northern edge of the valley's bottom.

  "Overlay infra," van Winkle said. Suddenly, bright red showed through the trees a quarter way around the valley floor on the north--the signature of the engines of the We're Here! vehicles. They weren't moving. "Get me an eye-in-the-sky over that, I want to see why they stopped." The distant shriek of a landing Essay barely registered on his consciousness.

  The air liaison immediately got on his comm to order one of the orbiting Raptors to overfly the north side of the valley.

  "Sir, do you want the sky-eye view alongside the string-of-pearls, or replace it?" Striker asked.

  "Alongside."

  The display to the left of the string-of-pearls view enlarged. At first all it showed was static, then a wildly careening visual resolved. Van Winkle studied it intently until he understood what it was and the location and direction of the viewpoint. He ignored the sudden increase in communications at all the staff points; if his staff was receiving anything he needed to know, they'd tell him.

  The view on the display closed on the northeast quadrant of the valley walls, then swerved and ran along the northern edge of the valley floor until it reached a cluster of vehicles haphazardly stopped in front of a large rockfall. The Raptor went into hover over the vehicles.

  "Tighten the image, let me see what the people are doing."

  Striker touched his controls and the image sprang into a smaller scale, enlarging the landscape below and showing soldiers running from their vehicles into the forest.

  "Oh, no. No, no, no! Do we have comm with anybody in the We're Here! unit yet?" He looked away from the display when nobody answered. All of his staff were on comms, none had heard him. "Three!" he shouted. "Do we have comm with We're Here!?"

  Captain Kitchikummi jerked as though struck. "Sir? Nossir, nobody has replied yet to our comm."

  "Broadcast on all freqs they might be using, tell them to order their people in the valley to get out of the forest--and tell them why."

  Kitchikummi's face registered surprise that the We're Here! soldiers had left their vehicles, but he didn't ask any questions, instead he immediately began giving orders, then spoke urgently into his comm.

  "Sir," Captain Uhara, van Winkle's executive officer, said, "the brigadier is planetside. I just dispatched two Dragons to pick up him and his staff."

  "What's wrong with his C-squared Dragon?"

  "I don't know, sir. He just said he needed transportation."

  Van Winkle let it go; he knew he'd get an answer soon enough. He looked at Kitchikummi and saw that the ops officer was still trying to establish comm with the We're Here! commander. "Get a platoon ready to go in and haul those people out of there before they get themselves killed," he ordered Uhara. Brigadier Sturgeon might have a different idea of how to deal with the situation, but he would have his own solution ready to go.

  "Aye aye, sir." Uhara replied. He glanced at the display that showed the status of the battalion's companies and platoons, then got on the horn.

  "Third herd, saddle up!" Ensign Charlie Bass ordered into third platoon's all-hands circuit.

  "Saddle up, first squad."

  "Saddle up, second squad."

  "Guns, saddle up," the third squad leader echoed.

  "Where are we going?" Lance Corporal MacIlargie asked as he checked to make sure he had all his weapons and gear.

  "Someplace," Corporal Claypoole snorted. "How the hell am I supposed to know, Wolfman? You heard the same all-hands I did. What say you tell me where we're going?" He busied his hands checking MacIlargie's weapons and gear, double-checking his readiness. He turned to Lance Corporal Schultz to check his readiness and hesitated with his hands inches away from the big man. "Ah, you all ready, Hammer?" he asked.

  Schultz slid up his infra screen and spat a streamer into a thorny bush.

  "Ah, yeah, I guess you're ready." Claypoole turned back to MacIlargie and snapped, "What are you doing just standing there, looking like a lost kwangduk? Check your body armor, make sure it's secure."

  "Are we going to need it?" MacIlargie blurted. Before he could say more he noticed the you're-too-stupid-to-live look Schultz was giving him, turned away and checked his body armor.

  The Marines turned and looked at the five Dragons that roared up. They wondered who else was joining them when the Dragons dropped their ramps to show they were all unoccupied.

  "Squad leaders up," came Hyakowa's voice over the command circuit. The squad leaders assembled with him and Bass to be given their orders.

  "Give me an update," Brigadier Sturgeon said when communications were established with the infantry commander.

  Commander van Winkle gave it all to him concisely: there had been no actual combat, most of the We're Here! force was contained in one unprepared position, twenty-five of their armored vehicles had entered the valley, he had no communications with the We're Here! commander or anyone else in the invasion force, and he had a platoon standing by to go into the valley to rescue the dismounted soldiers who were fleeing into the forest. The telling took less than two minutes.

  Sturgeon briefly studied his own displays, then asked, "Do you plan to send them over the saddle where the We're Here! forces are?"

  "Yes, that's the only way I can get them in fast enough to do any good."

  "Send them in." Then he had his radios set to broadcast on all known frequencies used by the We're Here! forces and delivered a message to them.

  "This is Brigadier Theodosius Sturgeon, Confederation Marine Corps, Commander of 34th Fleet Initial Strike Team. You have people in trouble on the other side of the ridge behind you. I am sending Marines in to help them. These Marines will be passing close by you. Do not, I say again, do not fire on them or otherwise attempt to impede their passage."

  He left the "or else" unsaid.

  "Second squad, on me," Sergeant Linsman called when he returned from the squad leaders' meeting. He removed his helmet and raised an arm, letting the sleeve slide down. His expression was that of a man who didn't know whether to laugh at the joke being played on him or to tear the head off the jokester. The Marines of second squad also removed their helmets as they approached.

  "These people we're stopping are from We're Here! Before you ask, it's a back-space world with a comic opera army and navy that has never gone to war. I have no idea what they're doing here, and neither does anybody else up the chain of command. What we do know is, about a company of them went into the valley. We're going in after them." He hurried on before anybody could comment on that. "To rescue them, not to fight.

  "First and second fire team, get in Dragon Four. Third fire team, you'll be in Dragon Five with a gun team. We pull out in zero-two. Move."

  "But..."

  "What...?"

&nbs
p; "You gotta..."

  The Marines threw questions and objections, but they went to the Dragons they were directed to, and Linsman ignored the questions and comments.

  The Dragons crossed the saddle without incident and sped at top speed after the armored vehicles stopped at the rockfall. They got there a lot faster than the Marines of third platoon wanted; they'd already dealt with the dangers of the forest and didn't want to do it again. They found a couple dozen We're Here! naval infantrymen huddled in terror behind their vehicles or up in the rocks. Nearly as many more lay on the ground in front of the forest, tendrils already probing their way inside their corpses.

  None of the frightened men looked like he was in charge, but one of them had epaulets with what looked like officer rank insignia on the shoulders of his dull green shirt. Ensign Charlie Bass spotted him as soon as he dismounted and headed toward him. The officer jumped when Bass removed his helmet and his head suddenly appeared suspended in midair.

  "I'm Ensign Bass, are you in command here?"

  "S-Sir?" The officer was so wide-eyed-shaken, it seemed he hadn't understood Bass's words.

  Bass looked around. Including the bodies at the edge of the forest, there wasn't anywhere near a company there. If the vehicles held five men each, plus crews, there were well over a hundred of them missing. "Where are the rest of your people?"

  "S-Sir, in there." The officer pointed toward the trees. His whole arm shook.

  "Mohammed's pointed teeth," Bass muttered. "How many?" he asked.

  "I heard sc-screaming. Th-Then nothing." The officer's voice trembled.

  "How many went into the trees?" Bass repeated firmly.

  "I don't--I don't know," he said plaintively.

  "Get your people back in the vehicles and get out of this valley. Now! Rejoin your command."

  "The--The trees and flowers, they killed us!"

  Bass snarled at the officer's helplessness and spun about. He redonned his helmet as he headed to where his infra screen showed his men were assembled.

  "More than a hundred of these 'soldiers' went into the forest. We're going in to see if any of them are still alive, and bring them out. Enter the forest in columns of squads. We'll get on line once we're under the trees. Dial your blasters down to minimum power. If we have to shoot, I don't want to start another forest fire." He wanted to spit in disgust, but would have had to raise his infra screen and didn't want to expose any part of his body so close to the forest. "Move out, and keep moving. Those plants need time to fix on a target, they won't shoot at you if you don't stop long enough to give them a target."

  Third platoon entered the forest in three columns fifty meters apart, and spread out farther once they were inside.

  "Get on line," Bass ordered when they were twenty-five meters inside. "Ten meter intervals." The squads spread out on line, with ten meters between men.

  They found the first body moments after they formed on line.

  "Leave it," Bass ordered. "We're looking for live ones, the dead can wait."

  Soon after that they heard gunfire to their right front. Not the crack-sizzle of blasters, but the staccato chittering of fléchette rifles firing on automatic.

  "Platoon, half right!" Bass ordered. "Keep on line. Step it out. Make sure your armor is sealed. Remember, we're here to rescue those people, not fight them." He resisted another urge to spit.

  Screams punctuated the gunfire.

  Their body armor did what it was supposed to do--it stopped every fléchette that hit them. But there weren't many hits; nobody was shooting at them, and only some were shooting in the Marines' direction. Thirty of the We're Here! naval infantrymen were massed in the middle of a clearing, and twenty more lay moaning or still. The clearing was barely large enough to hold the soldiers. They were yelling, screaming, crying, and firing wildly at every movement.

  Two more went down in agonizing pain from acid strikes between the time the Marines first spotted them until they had the naval infantry surrounded and began firing low-power plasma bolts at the acid-shooting vines. The survivors in the clearing were so panicked they didn't notice the blasts of fire around their position, or that the floral movement was slowing, until Bass turned on his external speaker.

  "We're Here! forces, don't stand there. These things will kill you. A platoon of Confederation Marines is here. We'll lead you to safety. Don't panic if someone you can't see grabs you, we're wearing chameleon uniforms. Pick up your casualties and bring them along. We'll handle defense."

  The disembodied voice panicked them. Some fired long bursts into the forest, others bolted. The fléchettes bounced off armor or flattened against it. Every man who ran was grabbed or knocked down by a Marine he couldn't see.

  "Pick up your casualties, we've got to get out of here! Do it NOW!" Bass switched to his platoon circuit and gave orders. The Marines began moving into the clearing and manhandling the naval infantry into a rough formation, making them pick up their dead and wounded. Then they headed back to the edge of the forest. Only a few acid streamers came toward them on their way out, and most of them either hit Marines or missed everybody.

  Still using low power on their blasters, the Marines burned the edge of the forest back from the valley side. When Ensign Charlie Bass decided it was safe enough, he had his Marines herd the dejected We're Here! naval infantry into their armored personnel carriers and directed them back to the saddle over which they'd entered the valley.

  "Pretty pathetic, aren't they?" Corporal Claypoole commented as he watched the rescued soldiers boarding their small vehicles.

  Lance Corporal Schultz hawked and spat. "They never fought," he said. "Fighters didn't train them." Those seven words were almost a speech from the taciturn big man. But Claypoole was able to fill in the rest easy enough. The We're Here! naval infantry might have been full-time soldiers; nonetheless, they were pretend soldiers. None of them had any combat experience before whatever they'd seen on Maugham's Station, and they hadn't been trained in warfare by anyone who had combat experience. Claypoole knew that unless you've got experience, you don't have a clue what combat is really like, or how to fight when lives and more are on the line. The best people to train an inexperienced army were combat veterans. We're Here! didn't have any, and didn't contract with anyone who did to train their troops. So of course they were pathetic.

  Later that day the seventy-one Marines and sailors of the artillery battery were left planetside to guard the prisoners when the rest of the FIST was abruptly ordered back to the Grandar Bay.

  Chapter Thirty

  While the Marines were planetside dealing with the We're Here! ground forces, the Grandar Bay fended off the We're Here! fleet by letting it cross her T.

  What Commodore Boreland knew that Admiral of the Starry Heavens Sativa Orange didn't was that before the Confederation Navy sold its obsolete warships, it downgraded their weaponry. Not that it mattered in this case--Mandalay-class Amphibious Landing Ships, Force, had shields designed to defeat naval guns a generation beyond those the King class had before its weapons were downgraded. The only danger the Grandar Bay faced was if the entire We're Here! fleet concentrated its fire on the same spot. Or if the King or one of the Mallorys rammed her; she could easily withstand a collision with one of the Freemonts or the smaller ships.

  But the commander of the We're Here! fleet refused all communication with the Grandar Bay, and repeatedly crossed her T, salvoing with all lasers and missile batteries on each pass.

  After three passes it got tedious.

  "We could knock out the King's guns, sir," Executive Officer Maugli suggested. "That could make them reconsider talking to us."

  "I already thought of that, Zsuz. But her shields have probably degraded, and our lasers and missiles would do severe damage to the ship, likely kill her." Boreland shook his head. "I can't help feeling like I'd be a schoolyard bully picking on the class runt if I fired on her."

  Maugli chuckled. "She can't hurt us, but if we disengage and leave her unhinde
red, she can do damage to Ammon, is that it?"

  Boreland nodded. "I think we're going to have to take her. The Marines have the planetside situation under control, right?"

  "Yessir."

  "Send a message to the Commander, Landing Force. Secure prisoners, and reembark all landing force personnel not needed to maintain planetside security."

  "Aye aye, Skipper."

  "We need to board that King," Commodore Boreland told Brigadier Sturgeon. "Otherwise, we'll have to keep playing this monotonous game until that fleet runs out of power and missiles, or decides to disengage and go away. If they do that, we'll have to follow them to We're Here! and deal with planetary defenses."

  Sturgeon nodded. "You've got a Tweed hull breacher?"

  "It's even been modified so it doesn't explode."

  "It was one of my Marines who came up with the modification, did you know that?"

  Boreland shook his head. "I knew it was a Marine who figured it out, but I didn't know a FIST had that level of engineering expertise."

  "A FIST doesn't. It was a Corporal Doyle. He was a company clerk then, now he's a blasterman. He'd studied some mechanical engineering in college and figured it out on his own."

  "I'm impressed. What operation was it on?"

  "I was impressed when I found out too. But the operation it happened on is classified 'Ultra Secret, Need to Know.' As it is, I know more about it than I'm authorized to know. Sorry."

  Boreland let it go; he understood about secrecy. Though why he and Sturgeon should bother about secrecy between each other in their current circumstances...

  "How are we going to do it?" Sturgeon asked. "I don't like the idea of sending my Marines across any distance to get to the dreadnought.

  "Something only moderately risky. We're going to make a close pass--hopefully, close enough so the King won't be able to fire on the THB while it closes. I don't have any information on the internal security of that ship, but before the Confederation Navy retired the Kings, they carried a compliment of twenty-five Marines. You'll need a boarding party that can handle that many, plus whatever deck crew is armed to repel boarders."