Starfist: Wings of Hell (24 page)

“First squad,” Bass ordered, “take your casualties and get out of here. Join guns on the ridge. Sappers, go with them. Second squad, pull back to the next corner.”

“First fire team, pull back to the next bend,” Sergeant Kerr ordered. “On the double. Third fire team, go when they’re halfway there.” Corporal Dornhofer and his men sprinted. Corporal Doyle got his men ready to move out. Even as his first fire team began moving, Kerr ran back up the tunnel to where Corporal Claypoole and his men were holding the corner. Using his infra screen, Kerr found PFC Ymenez kneeling a few meters from the corner, and Lance Corporal Schultz prone at the corner, aiming his blaster down its length. Claypoole was on hands and knees, watching over Schultz’s shoulders.

“Move,” Kerr said, grasping Claypoole’s shoulder and pulling him back. With the corporal out of the way, Kerr leaned low over Schultz to look down the tunnel himself. “What have you seen?” he asked on the fire team circuit.

“Got four,” Schultz answered. “Maybe five.”

“Rock?” Kerr said, asking Claypoole to amplify Schultz’s answer.

“The Hammer got at least one when they first showed up, then three more when they shot the rail gun. He’s tried to ricochet bolts around the corner. I saw a flash of light, so he probably got another that we couldn’t see.”

Schultz fired two more plasma bolts while Claypoole was talking.

Kerr grunted at the report. “Rock, take Ymenez and join the rest of the squad. Hammer and I will cover you. Go.”

Claypoole hesitated, but only for a second. “Aye aye.” He turned and called to Ymenez, “Let’s go. Double time.” They sprinted, leaving Kerr and Schultz behind.

“Hold your fire, Hammer,” Kerr said when they were gone. “I want to see how long it takes them to start coming again.”

Schultz gave a disgusted snort but stopped firing.

While they waited for the Skinks to show themselves again, Kerr reported to Lieutenant Bass what he was doing.

“I’m moving the rest of your squad out of the tunnel now,” Bass said. “If the Skinks aren’t coming in two minutes, put some more fire downrange and pull out. Even if they do show, pull out in two minutes. Understood?”

“Pull out in two minutes, understood.” Kerr checked the time.

A minute and a half later, the door to the chamber with the weapons slid open and a Skink tentatively poked his head out. Schultz fired at the head and the Skink flared up in the doorway. More light flashed from inside the chamber. Kerr thought another Skink had been too close to the looker and was killed by the heat of the first one’s flame.

“Try to put a couple more in there, then let’s get out of here,” Kerr told Schultz.

Schultz rapid-fired six bolts at the doorway. One missed, hitting the wall just beyond the doorway, and pinballed down the length of the tunnel, but the others hit the far edge of the doorway, and at least two of them ricocheted into the cavern and hit Skinks. The two Marines got up and sprinted away. Just after they turned the corner to the last straightaway, muffled by walls, distance, and the corners, they heard the
cracks
of the plasma charges going off in the weapons cavern; some of the echoes may have been the hoped for secondary explosions. They were past the booby-trapped crate that had severely wounded Dean and maybe killed Godenov when they heard the charges in the beans-and-bandages chamber go off.

The Great Master who was the commander of the Over Master who went to kill the Earthman Marines who had penetrated the underground complex ground his teeth when he received the Over Master’s first report. It was not a good report, but a report of pending failure. Duty and honor bound him to inform the Grand Master. Summoning his prime aides to accompany him, the Great Master headed for the Grand Master’s hall; he devised a plan as he went.

In the Grand Master’s hall, the Great Master prostrated himself and waited to be recognized. The Grand Master looked at him with some curiosity; it was uncommon for a Great Master to enter the Grand Master’s presence without being summoned—or without having something of import to say. The Grand Master rasped a command and the Great Master rose from his prostration and sat back on his ankles. At another rasped command, the Great Master reported that the company sent to the side entrance had encountered Earthman Marines, but the Earthman Marines were somehow ready for them when they arrived and used their forever guns to great effect, killing a score or more of the Leaders and Fighters who exposed themselves to the hated Earthman Marines. They had even destroyed a light-fraction weapon. So far as the Over Master could tell, the Earthman Marines had suffered no casualties yet. Worse, they managed to destroy a weapons depository, and kill half the company that had gone after them. The food chamber was of too little import for him to mention. The remaining Fighters, and many of the Leaders, even some of the Junior Masters, were afraid to continue their pursuit of the Earthman Marines. On the orders of the Over Master, the Master commanding the company and his remaining Junior Masters were methodically killing all the cowards who refused to continue the pursuit.

Furious, the Grand Master roared out curses improper for so exalted a personage to speak, then demanded what the Great Master intended to do to rectify the failure.

The Great Master said that, with the Grand Master’s permission, he was going to send a battalion outside the complex to annihilate the Earthman Marines when they attempted to exit the complex.

The Grand Master considered the proposed action for a brief moment, then nodded curtly, and rasped a warning that the Great Master’s head might be forfeit if his plan failed.

The Great Master bowed low, showing that his neck was ready for the swordsman should his death be desired. At another rasped command, he rose and hurried back to his headquarters, giving orders to his prime aides as he went. But when the battalion, under the command of a different Over Master, reached the back door of the cave complex, the Earthman Marines had already left.

However, the clumsy Earthmen had left an easily followed trail.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Third platoon made it back to the company area without further incident—the Marines all considered losing two of their own to be more than incident enough. Lieutenant Bass had radioed ahead with a preliminary report, so Commander Usner and the FIST F2 intelligence officer, Commander Daana, were waiting in the company command post to debrief the platoon’s leaders. A Dragon was also there and took the casualties away as soon as they were loaded onto it.

“I don’t know if they had a way of knowing we were there, or if we encountered a routine patrol,” Bass said after he turned the samples over to Daana, “but they went into action so fast, they must have been expecting something.” He then gave his estimate of how much was in the two caverns.

Bass, Sergeant Kerr, and Corporal Claypoole gave their accounts of the action in the tunnel—even Daana knew better than to attempt to get a detailed story out of Lance Corporal Schultz, so instead of continuing to the CP for the debriefing, Schultz had been allowed to stay with the rest of the platoon when it took its position on the perimeter. Bass, Sergeant Ratliff, PFC McGinty, and Lance Corporal MacIlargie told about the booby-trapped crate and the condition of the casualties when they were found.

“You’re going to have to wait a bit for replacements,” Usner told Bass. “It’s too hazardous to try to integrate somebody new in the platoon while the FIST is in this exposed position.”

“Thank you, sir,” Bass replied. “I’d rather not get somebody new right now anyway. And I only need one replacement; I’ve been carrying an extra man since my last two men got out of the hospital back at Camp Ellis.”

Usner cocked an eyebrow but didn’t comment other than to say, “I’ll inform Captain Shadeh that you only need one replacement.” Shadeh was the FIST F1, personnel officer.

Satisfied with the debriefing, Usner said to Captain Conorado, “Help me get the samples loaded onto my Dragon, and Daana and I will get out of your hair.”

They had just started loading the samples onto the Dragon when the forest’s quiet was shattered by multiple
crack-sizzles
and the high-pitched whine of Skink rail guns.

Corporal Wilson, of first platoon, on the perimeter near where third platoon had come through on their return, was the first to see the pursuing Skinks.

“Heads up,” he said onto the squad circuit. “Bad guys coming.” As he switched to the platoon command circuit, he did a quick count of the Skinks he could see. “Bad company,” he reported. “At least a platoon in three columns. Point is within one hundred meters. I see two rail guns.”

Ensign Antoni, the commander of first platoon, answered Wilson’s transmission immediately. “On my command, take out that gun.” He switched to the platoon’s all-hands circuit and said, “Bad guys, range one hundred. On my command,
fire
!”

“Get the rail gun!” Wilson shouted on his fire team circuit. His first bolt took out the Skink carrying the weapon; before he could aim at one of the gun’s other crew members, his men took them out. A Skink who looked like a sergeant was yelling at others to get to the gun and put it in action. He shot the sergeant, then switched his aim to the rail gun itself and put several bolts into it in an attempt to disable it. In his concentration on the rail gun he didn’t notice the whine of a second rail gun firing until its slugs ripped into the ground next to him. He yelped and rolled away—just in time to be missed by another burst. The incredibly fast slugs plowed into the ground where he’d been firing.

“Shoot and move!” Wilson yelled to his men. Putting action to words, he fired a bolt at another Skink and rolled without waiting to see if he’d hit his target.

“Someone find that rail gun and kill it!” Staff Sergeant DaCosta yelled over the all-hands circuit. The Skinks might not be able to see the Marines in their chameleons but they could certainly see where their plasma bolts were coming from.

The other Skinks were maneuvering, trying to get within the fifty-meter range of their acid guns. Here and there and the other place, brilliant flashes flared as Skinks were hit, but more and more of them poured into the area, and by now second platoon, on the left side of the perimeter, was also fully engaged with the enemy.
Crack-sizzles
from farther away indicated that Kilo Company was also engaging the Skinks.

Third platoon, less Lieutenant Bass and the other five who had gone to the company command post for the debriefing, was holding down Thirty-fourth FIST’s right flank. They didn’t see any Skinks; neither did their motion detectors or other sensors pick up signs of the enemy to their front.

“That doesn’t mean they aren’t there, people,” said Staff Sergeant Hyakowa, in command of the platoon in Bass’s absence. “When we have them, be ready for volley fire.”

“Allah’s pointed teeth!” Sergeant Ratliff shouted. Like the others in the company CP, and those leaving it, he had his screens up and his voice carried through the air. He followed his shout with a shot from his blaster, and the light from a Skink vaporizing showed everybody nearby where to look—a mass of Skinks was racing toward them through the thin forest, getting close to the range of their acid guns.

“On line!” Captain Conorado shouted, taking command of the small group around the CP. He only had ten Marines with blasters. Another eight, including himself and the company’s medical corpsmen, were armed with hand blasters.

Make that
ten
with sidearms.

“Where do you want us?” Commander Usner shouted.

“There!” Conorado pointed, and Usner and Commander Daana sped to the right end of the line, where they hit the dirt and began putting out aimed shots with their hand blasters.

The command Dragon that had brought Usner and Daana to Company L’s CP was lightly armed but it maneuvered to bring its gun on the advancing Skinks as well. Its fire was effective, as a virtual wall of fire flared up along part of the line facing the Marines.

“Shoot and move, shoot and move!” Conorado shouted. The Skinks hadn’t brought a rail gun into action against the CP yet, but he could hear at least two firing at other parts of the company’s lines, so he knew they had some with them.

He looked at the display on his UPUD and saw the entire company was engaged in the fight. But the Skinks’ heat signature was so faint he could barely make out where they were—he had no idea how large the force was that was attacking Company L, or how much of the rest of Thirty-fourth FIST was fighting.

“Kill those bastards!” Corporal Claypoole yelled into the fire team circuit. “Kill them, kill them,
kill them
!” Joe Dean was a friend of his, a damn good friend, a better friend than any of the other friends he’d lost to enemy fire over the years he’d been a Marine. And now the Skinks had seriously wounded him, maybe killed him. Izzy Godenov was also a friend, and he was probably dead. Claypoole wanted revenge; he wanted to kill every Skink in existence. But as furious as he was about the wounding of those two men, his fire was disciplined. He picked his targets and put every bolt into a Skink. The brilliant flashes of dying Skinks flaring up gladdened his heart.

When he finally saw movement through the trees that told him Skinks were passing third platoon’s front, Staff Sergeant Hyakowa decided to engage them immediately even though they weren’t coming toward the platoon.

“Third platoon,” he said on the all-hands circuit, “two hundred meters, grazing volley fire.
Fire!
” He only had fourteen men with blasters available, what amounted to a reinforced squad, and neither of his guns was sited where it could put enfilading fire into the enemy. But the Skinks were two hundred meters distant and didn’t have any rail guns so far as he could tell. When Sergeant Kelly told him he was moving the gun squad into position to support the rest of the platoon, Hyakowa told him how he wanted them used.

“First gun, traversing fire left to right,” Kelly ordered a moment later. “Second gun, traversing fire right to left. Fire!”

“Squads, volley fire.
Fire!
” Hyakowa commanded. “Fire! Fire!”

With each command to fire, fourteen plasma bolts went downrange, where they struck the ground on a ragged line two hundred meters distant. Some of the bolts stuck and smoldered where they hit, while others fragmented and sent small streamers in different directions. But most ricocheted off the ground and continued in the same direction at no more than knee height. Many of the bolts—and even fragmented streamers—hit Skinks, even where the Skinks were out of sight of the Marines.

Reacting to commands from their officers, some of the passing Skinks dropped to the ground and began crawling toward the Marines, trying to stay below their lines of fire until they were close enough to engage with their own weapons. The rest retired deeper into the forest and continued their eastward movement.

Third platoon kept up its volley fire and traversing fire, adjusting range as needed to keep their plasma bolts striking the ground in front of the crawling Skinks and ricocheting into them.

“
Cease fire,
cease fire!” Captain Conorado shouted. In seconds, the
crack-sizzle
from the blasters and hand blasters of Company L’s command post stopped; even Corporal Claypoole stopped when he had no more visible targets. “Did we get them all?” Conorado asked. “Does anybody see any more of them out there?” When nobody admitted to seeing any Skinks remaining to their front, he called for a casualty report. Nobody was injured; the Skinks had only been able to get off a few ineffective spurts from their acid guns before being beaten off. He turned his attention to his UPUD.
Damn, but the Skinks are hard to spot in the infra!
he thought. Conorado had no idea whether his CP was about to get hit again. At least they seemed to have killed all the attackers without taking any casualties of their own.