First Casualty (7 page)

“I'm sorry.”

“No you're not, Mary. If we hadn't blasted those two rigs, if we hadn't stomped them at the rim, they'd have rolled right over us a half hour ago. How many of us would be dead? Me, Lek, Nan, Dumont , definitely the lieutenant. How many, Mary?”

“I don't know.”

“Neither do I. But you saved our asses, Mary, and we're kind of glad for it. Now, you go take care of yourself, girl.”

“Thanks, Cassie. It's good to know someone cares. I owe you a beer.”

“Then you definitely take care of yourself. I need all the free beer I can get at my age.”

“Cassie, I got a few things to do. Call you back in a couple of minutes.”

“If you don't, I'll call you. We need you, girl. Dig in good. If anybody knows how, you do.”

“Thanks. Mary out.” Mary glanced around her cell. Not much bigger than her apartment in the belt. Over there was room for the bed. The cook space was opposite it. The couch would go against the door leaving a whole wall for the vid center.
Where do I hide, under the bed or in the closet?

The moles must have finished. The jacks skittered away from the original door and headed for a corner. Mary got down on her hands and knees. Yeah, under the bed sounded good.

She grabbed her gun and started crawling.

Three

“B Company, report,” Major Longknife ordered.

“Locked and loaded. We want their skulls for hood ornaments.”

The major would have expected nothing less. “C company, report.”

“In position. There better be enough skulls for us, too. Damned if I'll settle for their guts as antenna streamers again.”

“There'll be enough. Where're the ambulances?”

“Last one just cleared the escarpment... now.”

“Artillery, they're yours. D and E companies, forward at a gallop. B and C, as soon as the smoke thickens, advance and take the pass.”

“Roger,” “Yes, sir,” and “On our way” answered him.

“Lieutenant Cohen.” The major called the new commander of B company. “Your folks pretty sure they've found the skunk that's been calling down all those rockets?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, you don't have to wait for smoke to go after that one. That's a skull I want, personally.”

“It's yours, sir.” The young voice held no doubt.

* * * *

Mary felt the pressure of the explosion even through vacuum. She checked her heads-up display one last time before she doused it, and the hint of light it brought to the cavern. It was all red, hot, and ready. Damn. The mines! She'd safetied them for the LT's walk. With a flick of her wrist, she reactivated them. Then she doused the heads-up.

Mary eyed her old space through the slit she'd left open to her new quarters. The stone slab lay half in, half out of the doorway. Three grenades sailed through the hole. Mary ducked. Through the stone, she felt the explosions and shrapnel bouncing off walls. Something slammed into her helmet. Carefully, she fingered a bit of jagged metal sticking in the plastic of her faceplate. Bent and twisted, it had ricocheted off the walls before coming to rest, spent, on her helmet. With a glob of safety goo in one hand, she gently pulled the metal out. It had barely dinged the plastic. Mary, never one to take a chance, slapped goo sealant liberally on the ding and risked a look into her old space.

Four infantry, rifles at the ready, entered one after another. Rifles and helmets moving as one, they swept down the entire cavern. Not one square millimeter went unexamined.
So that's how professionals do it.
Three stayed on point and alert. One relaxed his aim, probably a sergeant getting ready to report. Mary didn't want that. She flipped on the laser designator high on the far wall. In its ruddy light, the dust and gases of the explosion still swirled. Like puppets, every gun and eye swiveled to face it.

Mary slipped her needle rifle into the notch left for it below the slit. Her heads-up display back on, it showed the next room. The sights settled on the closest back. Mary squeezed the trigger, gently, like she'd been taught.

The gas vented out the sides of her rifle; she felt no recoil. A three-round burst went into one back. Mary walked her aim to the next closest back. Three more for it, then the next.

That one wasn't a back. She caught him—no, maybe it was a her—turning. Mary stitched three rounds into her side and changed aim for the last one. He was diving for the cover of the stone. Mary had to get him; she couldn't hold off a siege. His helmet was in her sights. She jerked off three rounds. Only the first one hit. It was enough.

The faceplate shattered.

Mary lay, rifle in hand, fascinated as the blood flew in lazy arcs, obedient to the gentle gravity of this moon. She might have lain there, mesmerized by the deaths she'd caused, but explosions were seeping into her body.

Her mines were going off.

She ordered a vid to keep an eye on her old space and put it on motion detection. Switching her heads-up to the outside picture, she nodded. Yep, the minefield was taking a toll. There was still too much of the WP stuff to use a laser. It took her a minute to regain the situation. Somewhere in that minute she was violently ill, but she kept most of the vomit off her faceplate. Her friends needed her.

* * * *

Lieutenant Cohen waited for the cloud of Willy Peter to thicken. After each burst of shell, he'd start counting. When he got to fifteen without starting over, the swirl of white obscured the end of the pass—and he could believe the artillery net's claim that the barrage was over.

“Follow me, crew,” he shouted, and the men and women of B company lit out after him. He was near the crest of the ridge when something exploded at his feet. Arms and legs flailing, he flew up, then smashed into the pass's stone wall five meters above the ground. Of his feet, he felt nothing. His ears rang, but not enough to miss the hissing of pressure fleeing his suit. With his last air, he shouted. “Come on, soldiers, a few mines can't slow the Guard down. Show the others how it's done. Forward.”

Troops double-timed toward him, some shooting up as explosions blossomed at their feet, others making it through, rifles up, shooting at what lay ahead. Then darkness took vision from the lieutenant's eyes as his whole body struggled for breath. It was not a long struggle.

* * * *

Each shell bounced Cassie around the inside of her dugout. As best she could, she left space for Joyce to do her own rattling around. Then the lieutenant bellowed on the platoon-wide net. “Infantry in the gap. Heads up. Rifles out. Shoot.”

She and Joyce stared at each other. Did that idiot really want them to crawl out of their hole under this artillery barrage? Then again, the place wasn't shaking anymore. Just her knees. Through the faceplate, Cassie could see Joyce's face. Sweat ran down it, vomit speckled the helmet. She was in no shape to stand up, much less shoot.
Wonder what I look like?

I sure as hell don't feel like standing up and aiming a gun.
Cassie was shaking like an unbalanced motor. “I'll fire a round if you will,” Cassie said.

“Just one?”

“That's all I got in me.”

They came up out of their hole together, slapped their rifles down on the rocky lip, and fired. Cassie didn't try for a sight picture. She just pulled the trigger and held it down, slowly sweeping the barrel over the gap three hundred meters away. Figures in armored space suits poured through the pass. Some flew .. . mines, she remembered. Good luck, Mary.

Her rifle quit spitting. For Mary, she popped the spent magazine out and slammed in a new one. Cassie glanced at Joyce. She slumped over her rifle, surprise still showing in her empty eyes. Her faceplate had taken a direct hit. She hadn't suffered. A needle's tiny hole showed between her eyes.

Cassie turned back to the gap, finger on the trigger, gun venting. She wondered why her throat hurt. It wasn't until she slipped the fourth magazine in that she realized she was screaming. She didn't try to stop.

* * * *

Captain Tran did a belly flop in the dust at the end of the pass. He'd made it! From the looks of things, he might be the only officer who had. Company B was taking a pasting. They'd always been a hard luck unit. Tough luck. The rifle fire on his side of the gap was lighter. “First and second platoon, keep going. Third and fourth, give them fire support.

When they've got the rill, third and fourth will leapfrog over them.”

Shouts answered him. A dozen men took off hopping. Was that all that was left of the forty who jumped off with me at the escarpment?

Eight made it to the rill. They ducked down and started looking for hidey-holes. “It's like shooting fish in a bowl” came over the net. Tran would give them a minute, then order third and fourth up and forward.

* * * *

Dumont held Tina. “I can't go out there,” she whimpered.

“Don't worry, hon, we ain't going nowhere. No LT's gonna make us.”

“They shot her,” screamed a voice on the squad net. “They shot her right in our...”

“That was ...” Tina started.

“Yeah,” Dumont cut her off. He had the hole right down from them. Dumont raised his helmet just enough to see. Someone in space armor with the red unity lightning patch was emptying his rifle into that hole. Unthinking, Dumont pulled his gun out, sighted quickly, and blew the gunner away. Someone on the lip of the rill turned toward him. Dumont walked his fire up to blow him off his feet.

Needles stitched the other side of the rill's wall. Dumont ducked before they got him. Needles ricocheted all over the place, but none hit him.

“Du, what is it?”

“Hon, if you want to live, you got to kill 'em. It's us or them time. Tina, can you stand up a bit more and see what's coming up behind me?”

Trembling, she did.

“See anything?”

“No.”

“Good girl. Now, something's coming up the rill behind you. Don't turn around. I'm gonna get 'em.” He edged his gun out a bit. The vid on it relayed the sight picture to his heads-up. Nothing. He pushed the gun a bit more. There was someone, down a ways, hiding behind a twist in the rill. Not much to aim at. He held the gun with both hands and pulled the trigger. His target fell, kicking and trying to slap his wounds. Dumont put two rounds through his helmet. He didn't move anymore.

Using his gun camera for a sweep, Dumont spotted nothing more at either end of the rill. Lying on his back, he pushed out—hoping the whole time his suit would hook on something and keep him in his hole. Nothing. Crouching, he risked a peek above the wall of the rill. Four dudes hopped forward, firing at the old ladies in the holes behind him. Without thought, Dumont swung his gun over the four, trigger finger locked down. They folded over backward. He felt Tina's hand on his shoulder. “What do you want me to do?”

“Cover my back. I'll take care of our front.” One of the four bodies rolled over, grabbing for the gun nearby. Dumont shot him through the soles of his feet.

* * * *

Captain Tran blinked. First and second platoons were gone. Just gone. He needed artillery before he'd order another assault. He crawled to the crest of the pass to get a line-of-sight on artillery. Climbing up on his knees, he got a signal from the artillery net—and a needle in the back.

It went right through him, leaving a tiny hole that bubbled blood into vacuum. He grabbed for a patch even as he fell. Front hole covered, he wondered how he'd handle the back. Two troopers crawled up behind him. One slapped his back. The pressure in his helmet quit dropping.

“Don't worry, sir, we'll get you back.” They grabbed him by the shoulders and hustled him over the crest and down the other side, past blown mines and body parts. He glanced around. There were lots of wounded being helped by one or two friends, all headed back. Here and there a single soldier, no wound visible, no wounded comrade apparent, drifted back. The battle was over for B and C companies. D and E would have to take the pass.

Tran glanced up. D and E were rolling forward, maybe three or four more klicks out. D and E would do it.

* * * *

Mary studied her display. The platoon had held against two hundred. Now another two hundred were coming up. It was time to do something—or surrender.

She'd watched Dumont 's squad hunker in their holes, trying to make their own separate peace. Half of them were dead for that. Surrender was no option today.

“Lieutenant, Rodrigo here. I want missile release.”

“How many, Sergeant?”

“All you got.”

There was a pause . . . while the LT thought. No, the background of the pause carried the
ping, ping, ping
of a rifle. He was breathless when he came back on. “They're yours, Mary. We're too busy. Use 'em well.”

Mary counted her targets. Twenty carriers, half of them tracked—that meant armored—raised dust plumes as they raced toward her. She had to get them. But there were laser rifles on several of them. These missiles would have to fight their way in.
Okay, flood them, like they flooded us.
Then there was the artillery. She'd heard the platoon whimper under its merciless, impersonal pounding. She'd also heard the screams as they died. Artillery is gonna pay.
And that big square box owes me. Owes me big time.

The WP stuff was settling. Maybe they'd run out. Mary would not take that chance. She fed solid coordinates into the four SS-12's, offsetting their course so they'd be a deflection shot until the last second. The rigs were different; coming in fast, they kept their intervals. That made them predictable. She assigned the SS-3's areas to search if they lost laser lock.

All the missiles were rigged to one launch button. She shouted, “Fire in the hole!” and pushed it. Behind her, in two salvos, they leaped from their canisters. Twisting into immediate turns, they cleared the ridge by maybe one hundred meters, hungry for targets. Mary lit off every designator she had. This was it. But she didn't just play them on targets. She'd learned; these guys must have some kind of warning system. Those first two had taken off dodging as soon as she'd illuminated them. She programmed the lasers to play around the targets, ten meters to the right or left. Close enough so the missiles would know where to fly. Not so close the rigs didn't keep racing forward unwarned.

Here and there, a laser bolt shot upward, but the missiles were not coming head-on. Making a deflection shot at this rate of closure, jostling in the speeding carriers, nobody scored.