Starfist: Kingdom's Fury (3 page)

"You're in command, Ted," Sparen said. His calm voice belied the excitement he felt at getting into combat with an enemy alien sentience he'd only learned about on his way to Kingdom.

"Do this thing, Brigadier."

"Aye aye, Brigadier!"

Once outside 34th FIST's headquarters in Interstellar City, Sparen had to restrain himself from running to his HQ.

The honor of 26th FIST's first contact with the Skinks fell to first platoon, Alfa Company. The platoon was strung out in a line about two hundred meters long in a moderately dense forest along the edge of a marshy area when Lance Corporal Ransfield, the platoon comm man, said softly, "I have movement."

"Hold up," Ensign Cainey, the platoon commander ordered into his helmet comm's all-hands circuit. "Where?" He asked Ransfield.

Ransfield didn't look up from the UPUD Mark III's display as he pointed to his right front. "About two hundred fifty meters."

"Right front," Cainey said into the all-hands circuit. "Anybody got anything on infra?" Nobody did. He projected his preloaded situation map onto the inside of the chameleon shield of his helmet. The map confirmed what he already knew—no friendly forces within two kilometers of first platoon's position.

"Send a report to Battalion," Cainey ordered Ransfield. "And get an updated sitmap."

"Aye aye," Ransfield murmured. He requested the map and showed it to the platoon commander when it downloaded. No friendly forces where the UPUD

picked up the movement—nor did it show anybody else in that area. Movement by people undetected by the string-of-pearls was ominous; all the briefings the Marines of 26th FIST had about the Skinks told them the creatures were almost impossible for the surveillance satellites to detect. Now what should he do? He could call in artillery on the movement, but what if it was some farmer's gaggle of geese? That would be bad for relations with the locals. But if it was Skinks, they didn't know a Marine platoon was here and he could ambush them.

"Tighten up," Cainey said, giving the all-hands order. "Echelon right, on me."

Immediately, the first platoon Marines began to close their interval and move on an angle—those behind Cainey swung in an arc to his right rear, those ahead of him to his left front. He knelt, facing the right front. The ground was damp under his knee.

"Closing," Ransfield said. "Two twenty-five." He kept his attention on the UPUD, a device that combined satellite communications, geoposition locator, and motion detector. It also could receive a variety of data, including real-time situation maps such as the one he'd just downloaded.

"How many?"

"Not sure. Twenty, twenty-five."

"Keep me posted at twenty-five meter intervals." He listened for vagrant noises, but all he heard in the direction of the movement was the gentle sloshing of water. He saw a fish jump in the marsh and heard the splash as it fell back. He saw tiny light reflections off flitting insectoids over the water.

"Aye aye," Ransfield replied.

Cainey quietly issued orders to his squad leaders on the command circuit. "Fire teams, close to contact. Ten meters between teams. Gun teams second from end.

Get behind something."

"Two hundred," Ransfield murmured.

"Full shield rotation," Cainey said into the all-hands circuit. In each fire team and gun team the Marines obeyed; one man used his infra shield, one his magnifier, one his light gatherer.

"One seventy-five."

"Anything from any other direction?" The platoon was now closed to a line little more than a hundred meters long.

"Negative." Ransfield wasn't as certain as he sounded. There was still too much movement toward the ends of the platoon, which might interfere with the UPUD's ability to detect movement farther in those directions.

"One fifty."

"How many?"

"Same, twenty, twenty-five. Can't be positive. The movement flickers in and out."

"Anybody have anything visual?" Cainey wasn't concerned when none of his Marines reported seeing anyone—or anything. Sight lines in the lightly wooded marsh hardly ever reached a hundred meters. He looked to his flanks. He could see his Marines only when he used his infra shield. All of them appeared to be behind cover, so they should be safe even if the approaching Skinks had that other weapon he'd heard about, the thing that turned trees into kindling and men into shreds of blood and gristle.

"One hundred."

"Heads up, they should be entering visual range." Should be, but still nobody reported seeing them.

"Seventy-five."

Something was very wrong. "Is that thing working?" If the Skinks were that close, he should see them in the marsh. Twenty or twenty-five people couldn't move that well-concealed in an area that semi-open.

"Diagnostics say yes."

"Run the diagnostics again. See if you pick this up all right." Cainey spoke into his helmet comm, "Two-three, make a move for the UPUD."

Second squad's third fire team was the farthest to Cainey's right. "Roger, Six Actual," Corporal Ascropper, the fire team leader, replied. He rolled onto his side and hefted his blaster into the air.

"I got that," Ransfield said.

"Secure, Two-three."

"Aye aye."

"Tell him to stop moving, he's confusing the signals," Ransfield said a few seconds later.

"Two-three, secure from movement and stand tight."

Corporal Ascropper blinked. He'd lowered his blaster and resumed his position as soon as Cainey told him to secure. "Roger, have done," he answered.

"I'm still getting movement from his direction," Ransfield said.

"Two-three, check your three and your six. We're picking up movement from your location."

A moment later Corporal Ascropper reported, "Flank and rear secure."

"Movement to the front?" Cainey asked Ransfield.

"Negative. Front movement stopped." He paused as he studied the UPUD display.

"Movement to the right stopped."

"Any movement anywhere?"

"Negative."

Ensign Cainey lay lost in thought for a moment. He'd heard scuttlebutt, rumors, that the UPUD Mark II had been so sensitive it picked up gnats in the air in its highest setting and burned out. The Mark III hadn't been around very long, maybe that bug hadn't been completely worked out.

"What's your sensitivity setting?"

Ransfield flicked his eyes at the settings. "Mid-range," he replied.

"Have you changed it since we stopped?"

"I haven't touched the settings since we left the perimeter."

"Run it up to most sensitive."

"I'm getting movement right here!" Ransfield had to force himself to keep his voice low instead of shouting.

"Show me." Suddenly pumping adrenaline sounded in Cainey's soft voice.

Ransfield looked up from the UPUD's display for the first time since he first spotted movement 250 meters to the right front. "Great Buddha's balls," he murmured. He rapidly looked back and forth between the display and a point less than two meters away. "It's picking up that bug." He pointed.

Cainey looked where the comm man pointed and saw something that resembled a small dragonfly wafting about in the breeze. He breathed a deep sigh. That did it; there had to be something loose inside the UPUD that made the sensitivity of the motion detector change.

"Damp it back down to normal." Then on the all-hands circuit, "False alarm, equipment failure. Prepare to resume patrol."

"Sir?" Ransfield said as Cainey stood. "The UPUD showed that bug at less than two meters. It showed the first movement at two fifty."

"The UPUD has a history of failures in the field," Cainey said. "This is another failure. On your feet, we're moving out."

Ransfield glanced at the display again before standing, and that probably saved his life. "Movement right!" he shouted.

A high-pitched whine, like that of a buzz saw, came from beyond the right end of the Marine line. Seven of the dozen Marines who had already reached their feet were knocked off them: one had an arm torn off just above the elbow; two fell with most of their torsos blown away; one, sideways to the line, stared down in horror at where his abdomen had been before he fell dead; another tried to take a step and collapsed when one leg detached itself at the hip; the Marine closest to the whine flopped legless to the ground, his feet up to mid-calf still standing. Ensign Cainey's head erupted in a mist of pulverized blood, bone, and brain.

The skull-splitting whine continued. Dirt gouted, rocks shattered, and saplings splintered as the weapon's projectiles hit, but the Marines were safe below its trajectory.

"First squad, maneuver right!" ordered Staff Sergeant Groap, the platoon sergeant.

"Stay behind cover! Second squad, use your infras. Return fire but make sure who you're shooting at." Damn! He realized that most of the casualties were from second squad and its attached gun team. "Second squad, report."

Before all the fire teams of second squad could report, they were hit from the marsh. Small, dun-colored figures with tanks on their backs and hose nozzles in their hands rose from the water and sprayed streams of viscous, greenish fluid at the Marines who were trying to return fire at the weapon that had just killed half of them.

Two of the seven Marines remaining in second squad and its gun team shrieked in agony as the acid hit exposed skin and began eating flesh and bone. The other five were either well enough protected by rocks or trees or the topography, or the acid only hit their chameleons.

Ransfield dropped the UPUD and pulled his blaster into his shoulder. He brought it to bear on one of the Skinks in the water and fired. Even though the Marines of 26th FIST had been briefed on the phenomenon, he was still startled when the Skink vaporized in a brilliant gout of flame. Quickly, he shifted aim and flashed another Skink, and a third. Staff Sergeant Groap, only a few meters away, was also firing and flaming Skinks in the water. The high-pitched whine continued from the right but didn't seem to be hitting anyone.

The Skinks in the water became aware of the two Marines firing at them. Their Leader barked out shrill commands, and they leaped out of the water and charged, wildly spraying green acid as they closed into range. Five more of them went up in flame as they ran.

"Move!" Groap ordered Ransfield. The two scuttled backward, firing at the more than a dozen Skinks that were still charging and spraying acid.

The crack-sizzle of a blaster came from their right. The Skinks had come in sight of one of the survivors of second squad, and another Skink flashed brightly into vapor. At a shrilled order, three attackers veered toward him. One of them got close enough to drop a flow of acid across that Marine's back. His uniform saved him.

Suddenly, so many crack-sizzles came from farther right they almost blurred into one, and the whine of the shredding weapon shuddered to a stop.

A shrill voice barked out commands, and the remaining Skinks spun about and raced for the water. Groap and Ransfield snapped off more plasma bolts at them, and only three Skinks managed to reach the water and disappear under the surface.

The blaster fire from the extreme right stopped.

"Squad leaders, report!" Groap snapped into the all-hands circuit.

A moment later the first squad leader reported in—no casualties, enemy on the flank defeated, no enemy wounded or prisoners. Second squad's report came in piecemeal. Five of the thirteen Marines were uninjured, five were wounded, three were dead.

Groap organized a defensive position and saw to the care of the wounded while Ransfield called in a report. Minutes later the Alfa Company headquarters ordered them to hold tight while Marines came out to help them collect the bodies of the dead and escort them back in.

As near as could be determined from the debriefings, first platoon had killed between twenty-five and thirty Skinks. The Marines had lost three dead and five severely wounded, and held the ground at the end of the firefight. By any conventional measure, it was a victory. But the way the Marines of first platoon, Alfa Company, 26th FIST saw it, they'd just gotten their asses kicked.

CHAPTER TWO

"Father? Shall we ever be able to go home?"

Zechariah Brattle shook his head sadly. "Not as long as evil lurks out there on our land, Samuel." He nodded toward the hills above the Achor Marshes on the shores of the sea of Gerizim. "New Salem anymore, son, is as far away as—as Earth."

None of the families that had somehow survived the massacre of their camp above the sea wanted to think about the horror of that night. Only two weeks in the past, it was too fresh in their minds. They were concerned now with simple survival.

"Why did God allow this to happen to us, Father?" The question was not an accusation, just a young boy asking someone he respected for an explanation of something monstrous: Why had a decent and righteous people been destroyed?

Zechariah massaged the back of his neck for a moment. "It is not given to us always to understand why the Lord does things, Sam. This is not the first time our people have suffered woe. I believe God is punishing us now for allowing our ministers to lead us into sin." He sighed and gazed silently at the far-distant bluish smudge for a brief instant, remembering that dreadful night. He shook his head to clear it of those memories. "But Sam, instead of dwelling endlessly upon what happened back there," he nodded toward the distant blue line on the horizon, "we should ask what lesson is in all this for us. We have been spared for a reason. We must be brave now and face the future."

But Zechariah was ashamed of himself, ashamed of the way he and the other survivors had fled the scene of the massacre pell-mell, stumbling through the darkness that night, concerned only for their own survival. Neither he nor any of the other men among the survivors had mustered the courage since to go back to the site and search for survivors.

The Brattles, Hannah Flood and her children, and five other families—forty souls in all—had made it to some caves on the south end of the Achor Marshes and had remained hidden there for a week now. During the day, they could barely make out the dark line on the horizon that was the hills above the sea, the place where the City of God sect had been wiped out by . . . None among the survivors was sure who had slaughtered their friends and neighbors, but they all agreed that the killers could not be of this world.