Steel Gauntlet (18 page)

He turned on his squad leader’s situation HUD and flicked on the map overview. The map showed the streets of New Kimberly to scale and ground elevations in schematic. His position was marked with a blue circle, the company’s destination was a blue X. A few red dots marked enemy disposition. He ignored the red dots; he wasn’t going to depend on the HUD to tell him where the enemy was. He’d checked the map display before the wave of Dragons reached the shore. It hadn’t shown enough red dots in the entire city to make up an armored company, let alone a company waiting to meet them at the shore. He scanned the map seeking a route that might give them a chance of reaching the rest of the company without losing more men. He saw several routes that weren’t too roundabout. The most difficult part would be getting off the rocky slope without being spotted by the defenders in the two bunkers—or by any tanks that might still be around.

He turned off the HUD and looked around inside. Even though the infra didn’t show details, he could tell that every man, except the unconscious Van Impe, was looking at him as the senior man to tell them what to do, where to go.

He heard a voice call from the Dragon.

“Nobody stopped to check for survivors?” Captain Conorado asked when his communications man, Corporal Escarpo, gave him the platoon commanders’ reports: First and second platoons and the assault platoon made it through all right. One Dragon, with third platoon’s two blaster squads, was stopped and presumed killed at the beach.

Escarpo’s shrug went unseen in the predawn dark. How was he supposed to know?

Conorado was silently swearing at himself. He should have known at the time that one of the Dragons was hit. He should have given the order himself to check for survivors. This was a failure on his part; Marines were never supposed to leave their own behind. No time for self-recriminations now, Companies L and M had to reinforce Company K and secure the spaceport. Company K was already engaged with enemy armor. Thunder rolled toward the Marines of Company L—the roar of Straight Arrows firing, the blast of main battle tank guns, the ear-splitting shriek of Raptors swooping low to fire their cannons, the stuttering of Dragon and hopper cannons, the louder blasts of tanks exploding. Less than a kilometer ahead the night strobed brilliantly with the flashes of plasma bolts and the explosion of tank rounds, sometimes punctuated by bigger blooms of light as killed tanks erupted.

“Sir,” Escarpo said. “F Three wants the actual.”

Conorado accepted the offered handset with one hand and flipped up his infra with the other so he could snug the earpiece under his helmet. “Lima Actual here, go Foxtrot Three,” he said crisply.

“Lima Actual,” came back the voice of the FIST operations officer. Conorado could hear explosions behind the voice, explosions that reached him through the air a split second later. The FIST headquarters was closer to the fighting than he was. “Another company of bad guys is approaching rapidly from the southeast. Move your company to intercept and stop them. Details follow. Do you copy? Over.” Conorado toggled on his HUD. Colored lines and dots appeared etched in the air in front of his eyes, put there by his small belt computer, which received the data transmission from HQ and recorded it. He focused on the circled blue dots that represented his company and the circled red dots that indicated the approaching enemy. “Roger, Foxtrot Three, I see them. Over.” Part of his mind was already calculating the route the company would take to intercept the tanks.

“Kill them, Captain.”

“Roger, Three. Do they have infantry support? Over.”

“Not that we know. Foxtrot Three out.”

Conorado gave the handset back to Escarpo. “Not that we know,” the operations officer had said.

That told Conorado there was a serious intelligence breakdown. The intelligence officer should know details like that and pass them on to operations. Conorado didn’t have time to worry about foul-ups higher up. He flicked on his commanders’ circuit and spoke to his platoon commanders and sergeants.

“We’re moving out this way.” He traced three lines on the map display on his belt computer. The computer immediately transmitted the data to the HUD displays of his senior men. “First platoon, your route.” He made the center line blink. “Second platoon, yours.” The line on the right blinked. “Assault platoon and headquarters group.” The leftmost line blinked. “Third platoon, accompany first. Move now.” He started out himself. Around him the other Marines of the company HQ group also began heading toward their interception point. Through his infra he saw the men of the assault platoon advancing ahead of him. “Everybody see the red dots? Armor. We don’t know what kind. It may or may not have infantry support. We’re going to kill them before they can join the main fight.” Conorado’s HUD showed the blue dots of his company split into three groups that followed the three lines. He turned it off.

One hundred men with small arms, antipersonnel guns, and twenty-four Straight Arrow antitank weapons were on their way to intercept and kill forty-five tanks. He repressed a shiver.

CHAPTER 14

“We went six blocks,” Schultz reported. “Didn’t see or hear anything.” He stood in a recessed doorway half a kilometer from the landing beach, facing Sergeant Hyakowa. Dean huddled next to him.

“You’re sure nobody’s coming that way?” Hyakowa asked the men he’d sent ahead to scout their route.

Schultz didn’t say anything. He thought the predawn light was bright enough for Hyakowa to see his

‘That’s a dumb question’ look. He had no way of knowing whether someone out of his hearing or sight might be moving to cut across the route he’d taken. But he and Dean—Hyakowa had insisted that Schultz not go alone—had gone out by one street and come back by another. They hadn’t found anything to indicate enemy presence in the immediate vicinity or moving their way.

Hyakowa looked at Dean, who nodded, agreeing with Schultz. The senior squad leader cocked his head and listened to the distant sounds of battles, fights they’d been hearing since before they got off the landing slope. One, the first one they heard start, sounded like it was at the spaceport—at least it was in that direction and could be the right distance. “Lead the way,” Hyakowa said, then flicked on his squad and squad leaders circuits. His squad leader’s radio had three groups of frequencies: one was selective and allowed him to talk to his own squad, either all of them at once or a few of them selectively; on another he could talk directly to the other squad leaders in the platoon; the third went up to the platoon and company command. He hadn’t been able to raise anyone on the platoon or company frequencies.

Between interference caused by the buildings around them and electronic interference, he wasn’t able to transmit or receive much more than a hundred meters. He flicked on both the squad all-hands and the squad leaders circuits. “Let’s move it out, people,” he said. “The rest of the company needs us.” He dropped his infra back into place to watch the two squads begin their movement.

Schultz moved close to the buildings on one side of the narrow, winding access road they were following through a light industrial area. Dean and Corporal Leach, their fire team leader, paralleled him on the other side of the road. Then came the second fire team, Ratliff, Chan, and Godenov. Dornhofer brought up the squad’s rear with MacIlargie, whose wound wasn’t severe enough to prevent him from walking and using his weapon. Second squad followed them, carrying Van Impe and Duguid on two litters. They had hidden the bodies of Corporal Keto and the two dead Dragon crewmen in a building—Hyakowa thought that none of the people who normally worked in this area would come to work today, not with all the fighting going on in the city. He was willing to leave the dead hidden to be taken care of later, but there was no way he would leave a wounded Marine behind. Sergeant Eagle’s Cry and PFC Clement, the other walking wounded Marine, formed the rear point.

Satisfied that the two squads were moving out in as good order as possible under the circumstances, Hyakowa fell in behind Ratliff.

Company L barely got into position before the van of the oncoming armored company reached them.

The vehicles, fifteen TP1s, thirty medium tanks, and an armored staff car, came barreling in two columns down the middle of the broad boulevard leading from the city proper to the spaceport. Any infantry that might be accompanying the tanks couldn’t keep up with them. Second platoon, on Company L’s right flank, didn’t wait for orders from Captain Conorado.

“First squad,” the second platoon commander coolly ordered over his platoon command circuit, “fire one Sierra Alfa, kill the nearside lead tank. Second squad, fire one Sierra Alfa, kill the tank behind the leader. Platoon, pull back as soon as Sierra Alfas are fired.” Second platoon was spread out in a colonnade of monuments and ornamental trees that shielded travelers on the boulevard from the ugly sight of the industrial area between it and the port. The trees afforded little protection from the guns of the tanks, but the monuments were heavy and close enough together to prevent the tanks from mounting an orderly charge. The industrial area began less than fifty meters behind the colonnade, a warren of small and medium three and four-story buildings plunked down wherever was convenient or where there was space. Streets wended mazelike through them. If the tanks could be enticed to follow the Marines into the warren, they could be isolated and picked off one at a time. Maybe.

Two Straight Arrows fired almost simultaneously. The first squarely hit the TP1 leading the near column. The huge tank bucked violently and skittered out of control toward the far side of the boulevard, slamming into and knocking over a medium tank in the far column before skidding to a stop with its sides bulging, seams burst, turret canted. The medium tank that was second in the near column lifted several inches off the pavement then crashed back down, broken and dead. A second later it erupted as its ammunition cooked off. The closest following tanks were moving too fast to stop before they piled into the dead tanks ahead of them. The drivers twisted their steering yokes and stomped their drive petals to maneuver between and around the wrecks. One medium tank spun almost a complete 360 degrees before it skidded off the roadway and slammed into a monument. The impact shattered the ferrocrete base and toppled the bronze statue on top of it onto the tank’s engine cowling, where it hit with a thud that shook the vehicle. A second medium slid sideways into the back of the medium killed by the Straight Arrow. A TP1, whose driver wasn’t able to see the knocked-over medium tank in time, slammed into the damaged tank and began climbing over it. The medium shrieked and partly collapsed beneath the monstrous weight. The TP1’s treads came fully off the pavement and it stalled. The remaining tanks managed to avoid the growing pileup.

The Marines of second platoon were on their feet, sprinting for the buildings to their rear before the missiles hit the tanks. They made it to temporary safety as tanks farther back in the double column, which had more time to slow their speed and avoid collisions, fired wildly into the colonnade.

Seventy-five meters to the left, the first platoon commander assessed the situation through his infras as soon as the tanks came into view and realized what second platoon was probably going to do—it was what he would do in the same position. “Platoon sergeant,” he ordered, “take first and second squads and put them in the buildings to our rear. Assault squad, wait for my orders.” He looked around to check the disposition of his assault squad, saw too many red splotches, then remembered the rump of third platoon was attached to his platoon. He switched to the circuit that allowed him to talk to the other platoon commanders. “Three-six, go with the rest of my platoon,” he said. Having that extra assault squad with its two Straight Arrows could come in very handy very soon. He was senior to Vanden Hoyt, so there was no question of who was in command in the platoon.

“Let’s move back, Three,” Vanden Hoyt murmured into his all-hands circuit. Third platoon’s assault squad went with him, back into the industrial warren.

First platoon’s commander and assault squad watched as the two tanks were killed and the nearest survivors reacted with wild maneuvering. They felt like cheering as they watched another TP1 and two medium tanks crash into obstacles. Their elation didn’t last, as other tanks began speeding through the gaps.

“Team one,” the first platoon commander ordered, “kill the Tango Papa on the left. Team two, kill the medium on the right.” He waited for the double explosion that told him the two missiles were fired, then commanded, “Pull back, on the double,” and began sprinting toward the industrial warren. Halfway there he paused to look back and was rewarded by the sight of his infra screen flaring a red that nearly blotted out his entire vision, caused by another exploding medium tank that he hoped would block the boulevard.

But when his screen cleared enough, he saw a splotch of moving red that told him the TP1 his first team had shot at was unharmed. He flipped his infra screen up for a better view and groaned. The Straight Arrow that should have taken out the TP1 had been wasted on the armored staff car. When he got the chance, he was going to have to chew someone a new asshole for that.

Lieutenant Colonel Namur, momentarily shocked by the sudden destruction of a half dozen of his tanks, had just taken the vehicle commander’s position in the driver’s module of his command car when a Straight Arrow passed straight through the passenger compartment, killing both the brigade S-3 and S-2

before exiting through the opposite side and detonating inside a nearby building, where it started a raging fire.

The vehicle’s hull armor, vaporized by the Straight Arrow warhead as it bored its way through, skittered around inside the passenger compartment in the form of white-hot globules of molten metal, igniting everything combustible, including the men’s clothing. The bodies of the two officers, cleanly decapitated by the round, slumped blazing at their consoles, but the two sergeants who accompanied them were pounding frantically at the release buttons of their safety harnesses.