Steel Gauntlet (19 page)

Namur and his driver were largely protected from the initial blast by the armor plate that separated the driver’s module from the compartment behind it, but within seconds everything around them was in flames too. The driver threw himself out of the vehicle through his escape hatch and rolled desperately on the ground, the lower half of his body wrapped in flames. Namur exited through the commander’s hatch and, ignoring his own painful burns, raced around the vehicle, now entirely engulfed in flames, and dragged his struggling driver to safety behind a partly demolished wall. There they crouched, their clothing smoldering, listening to the screams of the sergeants still trapped inside.

Namur’s mind whirred, blocking out the screams of the men frying inside the vehicle: He would not be able to replace the two officers who’d just been killed. He’d have to deal with brigade intelligence and operations himself now. His driver only then realizing how badly he’d been burned still thought they were lucky to be alive.

“What do we have?” Hyakowa asked. He’d sent Schultz and Dean to recon the engine noise that had been growing louder as the Marines slipped through the past several blocks.

“A tank company on that side street.” Schultz pointed in the direction he and Dean had gone.

“I think it’s the same company that hit us on the beach,” Dean added.

“Why do you think that?”

“We counted thirty-four of ‘em. One had a bent cannon, and I saw one on the beach get its cannon bent. Three others looked like they were in a crash.”

“How could you see that?”

“They set up lights to work under.”

“Hammer?”

“He’s right.”

“There’s only thirty-four?” Hyakowa remembered there were supposed to be forty-five tanks in a company. Five were killed on the beach, there should be forty.

Schultz shrugged. “Could have been more.”

Dean agreed.

“What else were they doing?”

“Nothing,” Schultz said. “Just working on the damaged tanks.”

“They looked like they were trying to get them back in operation,” Dean added. “One of them had its treads off. I don’t think they’ll be able to straighten out the bent cannon, they’ll have to replace it.”

“What kind of security did they have out?”

Schultz lifted his infra screen high enough to spit.

“We didn’t see any,” Dean answered. “They probably think all the Marines are ahead of them, at the spaceport.”

Hyakowa thought for a moment, considering his options. He had to get his two squads back to the company, which was still a couple of kilometers away. The company needed the men and the tank killers they carried. They could easily bypass the tanks if the tanks stayed where they were. But then there’d be a company of tanks behind the Marines, and that wouldn’t do.

“What are the streets like?” the sergeant asked while he studied his HUD map. If the street layout was accurate... “Can we bottle them up?” He made two marks on the map and transmitted it to Schultz and Dean.

“East mark,” Schultz said after looking at the map. “Move it right a notch, up two.”

“Like this?” Hyakowa made the adjustment and retransmitted.

“Like that.”

Two shots and they could stop or at least slow down an entire tank company—and still have four Straight Arrows when they rejoined Lima. Hyakowa made his decision.

“Chief, Rabbit, to me.” In a moment the first and second fire team leaders joined him. He transmitted the map to them. “Here’s the situation.” In a few words he told them what he wanted. Schultz and Leach would wend their way through side streets, through buildings if they could, to the far, easternmost, end of the tank column. Dean would lead Ratliff to a position covering the rear of the tank company. Each pair would take one S.A. When Schultz and Leach got into position, they’d take out the lead tank. When Ratliff and Dean heard their shot, they’d take out the rear tank. Then everybody would reassemble at another spot he marked on his map—he’d lead the rest of the unit there while the four were getting into position.

“Questions? Then do it.”

Leach and Schultz raced to the north side of a building directly east of their position. Dean led Ratliff south and they climbed through a window in a long building that ran east-west. As soon as the red splotches that showed the two Marines dropped out of his infra vision, Hyakowa signaled on his all-hands circuit and moved out with the rest of the Marines to the assembly point.

Vanden Hoyt and Bass saw how first platoon’s platoon sergeant was deploying his men inside buildings facing the boulevard.

“That way?” Vanden Hoyt asked, nodding toward a darker shadow between the dark shadows that were buildings under the star-lit sky. It looked like the mouth of a narrow alleyway that led deeper into the industrial complex.

“That way,” Bass agreed. “I’ll take point.” He sprinted toward the doorway of a one-story, framework building flanking the alley’s entrance.

Vanden Hoyt signaled the assault squad to follow Bass and brought up the rear of the truncated platoon.

Bass paused next to the door and flipped down his night vision screen. Using night vision and infra together slightly reduced the effectiveness of each, but neither one by itself might provide enough guidance inside a darkened building at night. He yanked the door open violently and dove through the doorway, tumbling halfway across the night-black room inside. As he tumbled he looked around with an infantryman’s eyes, the muzzle of his blaster always pointing where his eyes looked. Before he came out of the tumble and bounced to his feet, he knew no one was in the room with him. Clarke, the first man in the assault squad, dashed into the room, spun to the side and came to a stop with his back against the wall next to the door. He quickly looked about, aiming his blaster where he looked. The only red he saw on his infra screen was Bass. Lonsdorf and Stevenson were right behind him. In seconds all of them were in the room. The room seemed to be a reception area of some sort. It held a smallish secretarial desk and chair, a settee, a couple of chairs, a low table, a coffee maker, and some computer data storers. The room was crowded with the nine Marines.

Vanden Hoyt didn’t know what, but he could tell Bass had something in mind. He said curtly, “Lead on, Charlie.”

Behind the room was a corridor that ran the length of the building. Bass led the way to the corridor’s end. At each door along the hall he stopped long enough to kick the door open, or look in if the door had a window or was already open. The building was unoccupied except for the Marines. There was a door at the corridor’s end. Bass opened it onto a narrow passageway. Directly across was the door to another building. This building was of sturdier construction than the office building, masonry and metal sheathing.

Bass turned back and raised his right arm to let his sleeve slide down and show his arm. He made a few hand signals. Lonsdorf and Clarke joined him in the passageway, against the wall on either side of the door. The others flattened themselves against the sides of the corridor. When everyone was where he wanted them, Bass looked at the door. It had a push plate and opened in. Arm still bare and visible, he gave Lonsdorf and Clarke some signs. They nodded. He put his hand against the push plate, shoved, and stepped aside.

The door swiveled slowly open on its gimbals. No light or sound came through the widening gap. As soon as the door was open far enough, Lonsdorf pushed himself away from the wall and dashed inside.

Clarke was immediately behind him. Their paths crossed as they rushed at sharp angles away from the door. Bass ran inside on Clarke’s heels. He zigged and zagged a few paces, then went prone behind a blocky something he barely saw in the darkness. The three Marines swept the interior of the building with their eyes but saw nothing threatening. The first building had windows that admitted enough light for their vision screens. This building was windowless; the only light came from the open door, and the vision screens were almost worthless. The darkness didn’t affect the infra screens, though. Those screens showed no people but the Marines, and no operating machinery.

Bass stood. “All clear,” he murmured into his all-hands circuit. Behind him Vanden Hoyt led the other Marines in. He moved on, around and past the looming shadows of hardly seen light-manufacturing equipment, some freestanding, others table mounted. The platoon followed him. Ten minutes later he and Vanden Hoyt were putting everyone into position in an area where the streets were barely wide enough for a TP1 to navigate, and many led to cul-de-sacs.

Vanden Hoyt nodded approval. “This is a good place to be when they come in after us.”

“And if they don’t come in after us,” Bass said, “we’ll convince them that they should.” Half a kilometer away they heard sporadic cannon fire from the tanks as the monsters hunted Marines.

Twice they heard Straight Arrow rockets firing, followed closely by the explosions of killed tanks.

The long walls of the assembly building Dean and Ratliff entered were lined with windows that began not far above street level and continued almost to the ceiling. As long as they stayed close to the side walls, the dim splashlight afforded by the stars was enough to keep them from bumping into things.

Deeper, they’d have to use their night vision screens, which neither wanted to do. Ratliff would have been more comfortable with Chan, or even MacIlargie—even though he and Dean were in the same squad, Dean wasn’t in his fire team and he didn’t know him as well as he did his own men. “Where are we going?” he asked as soon as they were in the building. Dean told him and he took the point.

When they left the building at its far end, they had to run across a wide street. They ducked inside another building, two-story this time, climbed to the second floor and went its length. They found themselves in a room that overlooked a short street leading into a lit up rail-switching area filled with tanks and the low din of shouting men working on the heavy beasts. One TP1 was clearly silhouetted just beyond the short street, barely inside the switching area.

“Are you sure two hits will block that area?” Ratliff asked “There are only two ways out?” Dean nodded. “Hammer and I got a lot closer than this. We looked at it from several spots. We only saw two ways in. That’s all the map shows too.”

Ratliff grunted. He didn’t trust the maps, and even though he knew Dean was a good Marine, he didn’t know in his guts that he could absolutely trust his scouting reports. But he trusted Schultz implicitly.

If the Hammer said there were only two ways, there were only two ways.

“Gimme,” he said, and held out a hand.

“What?”

“The Straight Arrow.”

“It’s mine. I’m a good shot with it.”

“I’m a better shot. Gimme.” Ratliff didn’t know for a fact that he was a better shot with the S.A. than Dean was. But he did know how good a shot he was, and didn’t know how good a shot Dean was. All hell was going to break out when they fired at the tanks. He wanted to make sure the way to them was blocked, that all they’d have to worry about was getting away from these windows before any tank fired at them, not worry about tanks rumbling after them. If one shot was all they were going to get, he was going to take it.

Hesitantly, almost resentfully, Dean handed the rocket over. “Where are we going to shoot from?” he asked.

“Right here.”

Dean’s eyes went wide. “We’re inside a room. We should shoot it outside.” Ratliff settled the tube on his shoulder and put his eye to the sight. “I’ve got as pretty a sight picture as you can get right here. No need to go outside and try to find another spot. Probably won’t find a cleaner shot anywhere else.”

“B-But the backblast...” Dean sputtered. His legs twitched as he remembered the burns he’d gotten when the backblast from an S.A. washed over them during training.

“That’s why we left the door open.” Careful not to alter the position of the rocket, he turned his head and looked back. “Most of the backblast will go out the door. There won’t be enough left to bounce off the walls and hurt us.”

“But—”

“We do it from here.”

From a few hundred meters away they heard the muffled, echoing whoosh of a rocket being fired.

Then a closer explosion, and the switching yard flared with the explosion of a tank. Ratliff took quick, careful aim and fired the Straight Arrow.

CHAPTER 15

Vanden Hoyt and Bass quickly took stock. There were only nine of them. They only had two tank-killing Straight Arrows. Worse, something had gone wrong with their communications, they couldn’t talk to anyone except the seven members of their assault squad. They had to rely totally on what they could hear to know what was going on with the battle that raged around them.

It was obvious from the sounds that the tanks had come through the colonnade and gone after the rest of the company. The wide dispersal of the explosions—mostly tank guns—made it evident that the Marines were spreading throughout the industrial area. None of them seemed to be coming this way at the moment.

“We need to set up a barricade just beyond there,” Vanden Hoyt said, pointing to a turn about fifty meters away. They were leaning out a first-story window overlooking the narrow road along which they’d emplaced their few Marines. The road snaked its way through two rows of buildings with no passages wide enough to admit a tank intersecting it. At this place the road went straight for three hundred meters before taking a left turn.

Bass nodded, examining the area. “Right. If we lure them in here and block the road behind them we can get a lot of tanks trapped. I’ll check it out.” Before Vanden Hoyt could object, Bass slipped out the window and darted to the corner.

The road beyond was just as narrow as before the corner. A TP1 could drive along the road, but it had no maneuvering room. Set up a roadblock, and the tank wouldn’t be able to turn around, it could only back up. If the other end was blocked as well, however many tanks they managed to lure in would be blocked. But what could they use to make a barrier? He looked at the buildings lining the road. They were two- and three-story masonry structures, some with a lot of windows, some windowless. If they could bring down a few walls, that might do it. But there was that rule of engagement that forbade any unavoidable damage to the infrastructure. Knocking down walls would certainly damage the infrastructure. He shrugged mentally. They didn’t have any explosives to knock down the walls anyway.