Starfist: Kingdom's Fury (33 page)

"Launch the infantry," Sturgeon commanded.

Hoppers hopped into the air and headed for the wetlands; Dragons roared onto their air cushions and sped toward the marshes.

The Raptors, already reloaded after their third sorties, headed out to launch even more Jerichos. This time the Jerichos were aimed at the southern end of the Skink area, where the Marine infantry was going.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

The Hoppers played it safe, flying as low as the squadron commanders dared while keeping as much of the little high ground between their flight paths and the Skink positions as possible. They landed more than five hundred meters from the nearest position. The Marines of 26th FIST's infantry battalion began debarking even before they touched down. Thirty-fourth FIST's infantry entered the area on Dragons and pulled right up to their objectives.

The infantrymen of 34th FIST raced out of the Dragons into a landscape shocked silent by the devastation. It looked like the chunk of the Swamp of Perdition where Jerichos broke the buzz saw ambush that had done so much damage to them early in the campaign. All the grass on the islets and the reeds on their fringes were gone, leaving only a residue of ash. The larger trees were reduced to charred, smoking spikes rising from desiccated ground; smaller trees were simply gone. So was the water where it had been shallow. Bare ground visible through the ash and charring was sere and cracked. At every step ash rose and fried dirt crunched underfoot.

Entrances to the underground were clearly visible as burned pits, many with dried and crumbling edges.

There were no Skinks.

By platoons and squads, the infantrymen of two FISTs poured into the gaping entrances to the Skink stronghold. The entire lighting system in line of sight of the entrances was knocked out. Blast and fire damage from the Jerichos was clearly visible for the first fifty to a hundred meters inside the tunnels and chambers.

Beyond the first bends in the tunnels, the Skink lighting systems still worked. No Skinks were encountered for more than two hundred meters, though there were random scorch marks near dropped weapons and other gear, which may have been all that remained of Skinks struck by heat waves from the blasts. The Marines went deeper along wide tunnels before any of them encountered a live Skink.

Lance Corporal Schultz, on point for third platoon's Bravo unit, padded swiftly along a three-meter-wide tunnel. On the other side of the tunnel, Corporal Kerr was almost level with him. After the first fifty meters, the tunnel never went for more than twenty meters without a turn. At each turn they paused while Kerr used the motion detector to check beyond it.

Staff Sergeant Hyakowa, in command of the Bravo unit, positioned himself behind Kerr and opposite Corporal Doyle. The data stream from the string-of-pearls couldn't penetrate into the caves and tunnels, and radios could not reach from one unit to another, so each squad or platoon was on its own underground. An inertial guidance system kept Hyakowa's HUD up to date, and Bravo unit's route and first objective were clearly marked on the HUD. They were to join the Alfa unit at the first objective.

The gun team came next, followed by the rest of second squad. Corporal Claypoole and Lance Corporal MacIlargie, frequently looking behind them, brought up the rear.

"We don't need to watch behind us, Rock," MacIlargie objected when Claypoole told him to "check our six." "Nobody there but the swamp."

"There could be hidey-holes. Skinks could come in from the swamp," Claypoole said. "We watch our six."

MacIlargie grumbled, but not much, and looked to the rear almost as much as he watched where he was going. Between them, Claypoole and MacIlargie kept an almost constant watch behind Bravo unit.

They were just four bends from the first objective when Schultz murmured to Kerr that he sensed something. Kerr's motion detector also picked up something ahead of them, but it didn't seem to be around the bend where they'd halted.

Hyakowa moved forward and touched helmets with Kerr. "Let me see."

Kerr pushed the motion detector toward Hyakowa. The platoon sergeant flipped up the lid and studied the display.

"First fire team, listen up," Hyakowa said into the command circuit. Schultz and Doyle acknowledged while the others of Bravo unit listened in. "Someone's moving around the next bend after this one. We don't know who it is. I'll take a look here to verify we're clear, then—"

"Already did," Schultz said.

"You looked?"

"It's clear."

"All right. The four of us will advance to the next bend. Kerr, I want you on the inside of the bend. Hammer, outside, but out of sight. Doyle, behind Schultz. I'll be with Kerr. On my command, one of us will look. Got it?"

They rogered.

"The rest of you, hold your positions; I want space if we have to pull back in a hurry. Taylor, get your gun ready to cover us. Use your infra so you know we aren't in your line of fire if you have to shoot. Got it?"

Corporal Taylor, the gun team leader, acknowledged.

"Second fire team, use your infras, be ready to support. Third fire team, watch the rear."

Claypoole and Corporal Chan acknowledged.

"Let's do it."

The four Marines moved silently around the corner and took positions at the next bend, twenty meters farther along. Hyakowa, still holding the motion detector, stuck close to Kerr.

Kerr listened to the motion detector's earpiece, Hyakowa looked at its display.

Hyakowa spoke softly. "There's less movement than before, but it's in the next straightaway."

"That's how it sounds to me," Kerr agreed.

"Hammer, are you close enough to see anything?"

"A shadow. Wait." Schultz lowered himself to his knees and leaned forward onto his left hand. He held his blaster ready in his right, then stretched forward.

Simultaneously, he pulled back and pressed the firing lever on his blaster. The tunnel wall centimeters from his head burst into rock dust. The chattering roar that filled the tunnel told the Marines the Skinks had a buzz saw set up around the corner.

Kerr stuck his blaster around the corner and fired blindly. Schultz flattened himself and stretched out his right arm to point his blaster down the next length of tunnel and fired away. Brilliant light flared and the buzz saw's roar stopped. Schultz scuttled forward to where he could see.

"No Skinks," he said, and bolted to his feet to sprint the few meters to the buzz saw.

Hyakowa slapped the motion detector against Kerr, who took it and replaced it in its holder.

"Come on, first fire team!" Hyakowa ordered, and pushed Kerr ahead of him.

Nervous sweat washed over Doyle as he followed.

There were scorch marks on the floor, walls, and ceiling of the tunnel near the buzz saw, showing where Skinks had flared, but the weapon didn't seem to have suffered any damage.

"Everybody up," Hyakowa ordered. He turned the buzz saw around to face away from his Marines and knelt to examine it. "Allah's pointed teeth," he murmured.

"This looks almost like the firing mechanism on some twenty-first-century machine guns I saw in the Marine Corps Museum on Carhart's World. Heads up, everybody." He took hold of the two handles in the rear of the weapon and pressed his thumbs on the swivel plate between them. The buzz saw ripped, and the wall of the tunnel at the next bend powdered. He pulled his thumbs back almost instantly, but the burst was still long enough to plow a gouge several centimeters deep in the wall. He examined the weapon more closely. Except for the oddly cased barrel, it looked remarkably similar to the ancient machine guns in the museum. The box on the side of what appeared to be the receiver assembly had to be the ammunition container, he decided. How many rounds did it hold? Two more canisters sat on the floor nearby. There was nothing that resembled a safety—unless it was, yes!

Another plate slid out from in front of one of the handles hooked into a recess in front of the other handle and covered the thumb trigger to keep it from being accidentally depressed.

"First fire team, cover the next bend. Chan up." Hyakowa continued to examine the buzz saw. In a moment he had the receiver cover raised and the ammunition container detached and open. Inside, the receiver didn't look like anything he'd ever seen before. The container was filled with uniform metal bits. They didn't look particularly aerodynamic, but he guessed at the speed they were propelled, they didn't have to be. There was no obvious mechanism for feeding them into the receiver. He pulled one out and weighed it in his hand. It felt lighter than ten grams.

"First fire team, get back here." He lowered his infra to make sure the three Marines got behind him. When they were out of the line of fire, he reattached the container, closed the receiver cover, and shoved the safety plate out of the way. He tapped his fingers against the trigger plate and a short burst shot from the buzz saw's muzzle.

"Chan, did you see everything I did?" Hyakowa asked as he replaced the safety.

"Yes."

"Show me." He moved out of the way. He watched the receiver cover rise and the ammo container lift off, then reattach and the cover close. The safety slid out of the way and the trigger plate depressed briefly. A burst powdered more of the facing wall.

"We're in business. Chan, you've got the buzz saw. Have each of your men carry one of those ammo containers. Let's move out."

Third platoon's Bravo unit resumed its advance into the depths of the Skink stronghold.

The Great Master received reports of the battle in his command center. The reports were all negative. Nearly all of the heavy guns that could take out Earthmen aircraft and armored vehicles were destroyed. The advance of the Earthmen scum army of this mudball to the west of the underground complex had been stopped, but at the cost of too many weapons and Fighters for the defense to hold for much longer. Earthmen Marines were inside the complex, advancing against scattered and disorganized resistance from the south. The mission to draw the Earthmen Marines into a decisive battle had succeeded. But yet again, the True People had failed to defeat the Earthmen Marines. He had failed.

He summoned his second in command and major subordinate commanders to meet him in his quarters. They arrived and bowed respectfully. The Great Master sat cross-legged on a mat on the floor, wearing a simple robe. They waited for him to speak.

"I have failed," the Great Master said at length, his voice chalk crushed underfoot.

The few Over Masters who attended him stood silent, their heads bowed.

"Send the rovers against Haven to draw the Earthmen back," he said to the Over Master in command of defense, his voice a rasp on wood. "Prepare defenses for when the Earthmen Marines return.

"Get a message to the Grand Master Commanding," he told the commander of communications, his voice the sigh of a breeze through an ancient forest. "Tell him we need the ship.

"Take command," he ordered his second in command. "Return Home with the survivors," his voice a mouse gnawing a hole in a silo's side.

"Now leave me," he said, his voice sand running through a glass.

The few Over Masters who attended the Great Master bowed again, not as deeply as when they arrived, and filed out of his quarters. A Large One remained behind.

"You know what to do," the Great Master rasp-whispered to the Large One, who bowed deeply in appreciation of the singular honor he was being granted.

The Great Master opened his robe and shrugged it off his shoulders. He reached under his thigh to pick up a knife that had lain there out of sight and raised it before his misted eyes. Slowly, he lowered the knife and turned it until its point rested ever so softly against the side of his abdomen. He held it there for the time of two rasping breaths, then plunged it in and slashed it across with the same fervor he had cut through the bodies of foes when he was a young Master at war.

The Large One bent over the Great Master and took the knife from his trembling hands. Then he gripped his commander's head with one hand and bent it back. He sliced the Great Master's throat to the bone. When the Great Master's eyes glazed, the Large One flamed the corpse.

The Marines hadn't entered the underground through all of the entrances on its southern fringes; there weren't enough platoons and squads. Nor did they have enough Dragons to cover the entrances the infantry hadn't used. And there were many, many more entrances in the wide gap between the fringes where the Marines went underground and the western fringes where the Army of the Lord fought its terrible battle. Many of those entrances were large enough for smallish vehicles to use. Small armored vehicles began to trickle out of the larger cave and tunnel mouths; entrances the Marines hadn't used, entrances between the Marines and the Kingdomites, entrances deeper within the Skink stronghold. None of the vehicles sought out the Dragons standing watch on the southern fringes, none assaulted the Army of the Lord to the west. Instead they struggled through the waterways, heading southwest, toward Haven. The going was difficult for the vehicles because they were designed for travel on dry land and had only limited amphibious capabilities.

The string-of-pearls spotted them almost as soon as the first one moved from the darkness underground to the light of day.

Brigadier Sturgeon got the report from the
Grandar Bay
and saw the speckling on the large situation map that indicated the vehicles. He swore under his breath. Where had those things come from? Why hadn't the Skinks used them before?

"Get me a visual on one of those vehicles," he ordered.

In seconds an image from one of the many surveillance devices planted by the Marines came up on his console. A tank trundled past the device. It seemed sluggish, though he thought that might have been because of the marsh. The tank tapered in steps, front and back, to a cupola on the top. The barrel of a weapon sprouted from the front of the cupola. Using the Skink who was half out of the top of the cupola for scale, Sturgeon was able to tell its size—less than half that of a Dragon. When it climbed out of the water onto an islet, he saw it moved on two pairs of treads, one fore, the other aft.