Steel Gauntlet (27 page)

“What about first fire team?” Bladon asked.

“You’ve got the tank, you provide support if we need it. Stay two blocks behind the rest of the squad.

I’ll let you know if we need your help.”

Corporal Bladon glowered. He didn’t like being left out of the action this way. “Third fire team’s shorthanded, let them have the tank and we’ll take out an OP or two.” Eagle’s Cry shook his head. “You’re the ones who spent the night in the tank. You know how to use it, they don’t. Besides, it takes at least three men to operate one of those tanks, and third fire team only has two men. Any other questions?”

“What do we do after we take out the OPs?” Goudanis asked.

“Don’t be so anxious. I’ll let you know when I find out. Ready? Let’s do this thing.” They all headed for the tank.

“Listen, Birdie,” Bladon said, walking next to his squad leader, “put Linsman and Rock in the tank with me. They both know how to drive. We can show them what they need to know about driving the tank, and show them how to operate the gun.” Eagle’s Cry shook his head. “Still takes three men.”

“Put Clement with them, or Nolet. Let one of the other fire teams be short.” Eagle’s Cry stopped and faced Bladon. “Tam, you’re my senior fire team leader, my most experienced. I need my most experienced man commanding that tank.” Bladon shook his head sharply. “I’m most experienced on foot, I don’t have any more experience with tanks than anyone else in the whole FIST.”

“You’ve got more time sitting in a tank than anyone else, you studied them more than anybody else.

That makes you more experienced. You found the tank, you wanted to keep it, it’s yours.” He sighed.

“Tam, you’re probably going to have more than your share of the shit before this day is over. Now let’s get going.”

Reluctantly, Bladon dropped the subject.

In a couple more minutes second squad was all in or on the tank and rolling to the point where the second and third fire teams would drop off and move ahead to kill the observation posts.

“What are they doing?” Claypoole asked nervously. “Do you think they got spotted and taken out?” He and Linsman were crouched with Eagle’s Cry, waiting at the side of the building second fire team had entered five minutes earlier, the building with the first observation post to be killed.

“Snooping and pooping,” Eagle’s Cry replied softly. He was almost successful at keeping the concern out of his own voice. “It takes time to get to the third floor and into position without being spotted. Even with chameleons. Maybe the OP’s reporting in and they have to wait.” He shrugged.

“But what if—” Claypoole’s question was cut short by the crack!—sizzle of a blaster.

Eagle’s Cry held up a hand to forestall any questions. He listened carefully to his helmet comm. After a few seconds Corporal Saleski reported, “We got ‘em.”

Eagle’s Cry let out his breath in a whoosh. “Let’s go.” He rose to his feet and trotted around the front of the building. Hugging the fronts of the buildings, the three Marines hurried to the next corner. A moment later, second fire team exited the building and followed. Two blocks farther back, Goudanis rolled the medium tank forward.

They were in a mixed residential area—mostly single houses and small apartment blocks, with a scattering of convenience stores and restaurants at ground level. Most of the buildings abutted each other; the few that didn’t open directly onto the sidewalk seemed to be eating or drinking establishments that used the space between their front walls and the sidewalk for outdoor seating.

“Your turn,” Eagle’s Cry said to Linsman and Claypoole when the three of them ducked into a recessed bistro frontage short of the next corner. “Unless they’ve got some kind of infra or motion detector spy-eyes out there that recon didn’t spot, they can’t see you coming until you get there. Ready?

Go.”

Claypoole padded rapidly to the corner behind Linsman. They ran with a shuffling, gliding motion that made almost no noise. After several long seconds they reached the corner, crossed the street, and dropped to a knee next to the shop front recon had reported held a three-man observation post.

Claypoole looked across the way at the park. Straight-boled trees grew in it, the foliage of the trees beginning three or four meters above the ground and continuing upward another twenty meters or so.

That was why the OP was on the ground floor—the men in it could see under the trees; in an upper story, their view would be blocked by the trees.

Linsman put his head close to Claypoole’s and whispered, “I’m going to take a look.” A moment later he whispered, “Back.”

The two Marines eased back toward the corner.

“Here’s the situation,” Linsman said in a low voice when they were at a safe distance. “It’s a butcher shop. The door’s open. One man is inside the window on the far side of the door. He doesn’t seem to be paying a lot of attention. One is lying on a counter on the right side, maybe sleeping. I didn’t see the third man. Damn, I wish we could go in the back way.” He shook that thought off; wishing wouldn’t change anything. “Here’s what we do. I’ll go in first and get the one on the left. You come in on my heels and go for Sleeping Beauty. We’ll use our knives. Then we have to find the third one. Use our knives if we can, blast him if we can’t.”

“They’ll see our knives,” Claypoole said—the Marines’ combat knives weren’t chameleoned.

“We’ll be too fast. And like I said, the one man watching isn’t paying much attention. He probably won’t see the knife until it’s too late for him to react. The other one’s sleeping, he won’t see anything at all.”

“Okay.” Claypoole took a deep breath and tried to calm himself. Not knowing where the third man was bothered him. “Put your hand on my back. Stay with me. I’m going to run. Let’s go.” Linsman stood and waited until he felt Claypoole’s hand. “Go.”

The two ran. Claypoole did his best to keep in step with Linsman, but he couldn’t see the other Marine’s feet to avoid stepping on his heels. The tock-tock of their footfalls were swallowed up by the park and didn’t echo. In seconds they reached the butcher shop and Linsman pivoted right, through the door, then left to the watcher. Claypoole lost his pacing and his toe clipped the side of Linsman’s heel when Linsman turned left. Claypoole staggered a step or two, then regained his balance and headed toward the man lying on the counter. Behind him, he heard the clatter of the watcher falling. He was still a couple of steps from the man on the counter when a door in the rear of the shop flew open and a blaster bolt flashed through the room. The bolt sizzled just past Claypoole, hit the front window and melted a wide hole in the glass. Claypoole glanced toward the rear door and saw a man in a gray uniform standing in the doorway, pointing a blaster. The man had a screen suspended from the front rim of his helmet and seemed to be looking straight at him. The muzzle of the blaster swung toward him.

“He’s got infras!” Claypoole shouted as he dove under the counter his man was on. A blast shot through where he would have been if he hadn’t dropped. He heard the man on the counter scrambling to his feet. Then he heard a scream and a gurgle and the blasterman thudded to the floor.

So did the man on the counter. He bumped into Claypoole and his eyes popped because he was touching someone he couldn’t see. Even so, he reached out with both arms, groped at his invisible opponent, and locked his arms around him in a bear hug that squeezed the air from Claypoole’s lungs.

Claypoole was on his right side, his knife hand trapped under his body. The tanker tightened the bear hug while Claypoole struggled to suck in a breath as he twisted his knife arm free then shoved the blade into his opponent’s kidney. The tanker gasped and arched his back, reaching a hand around for the knife, but Claypoole pulled it out and sliced the man’s exposed throat. The tanker spasmed and thudded his heels on the floor while Claypoole skittered away from him.

The fight was over. They’d been in the butcher shop for ten seconds.

Claypoole rose to his feet and shuddered. It had been close, closer than it should have been. He looked at the man in the back of the shop and saw Linsman’s knife being pulled out of his throat.

“He saw you, didn’t see me,” Linsman said as he wiped the blood off his knife on the man’s gray shirt.

“I threw my knife. He was sure surprised. So was I. That trick hardly ever works, even in the gym.” Claypoole shook his head, smiled.

Then Linsman got on the comm unit to report their kill. Third platoon successfully killed all seven of the observation posts assigned to it. Killed: all twenty-seven of the Diamundean tankers were dead, no prisoners. The infantrymen of 34th FIST assembled in platoons a block beyond the arena’s surrounding open areas, and platoon sergeants checked their platoons’ loads of antitank weapons. Company L was the main assault force and would approach from the south. If they needed help, K Company was to the west and would come to their aid. Mike Company was stationed east of the arena to kill any tanks that broke out and tried to escape. The Marines heard tank engines rumbling from the direction of the arena.

There was no time now. They didn’t know how often the OPs were supposed to report in, or where they were in the reporting cycle. As soon as the platoons were all assembled, Company L moved out at a trot, straight down the streets toward the arena. Each platoon carried a dozen Straight Arrows. Not enough to kill an entire company, but Commander Van Winkle didn’t think the Diamundeans would stand and fight to the last tank. Either they’d surrender or they’d try to run. If they ran, there were two more companies of tank-killing Marines waiting to stop them.

But the tanks of Company F, 687th Tank Battalion weren’t going to simply wait in the arena for someone to show up. Before Company L was in position, tanks began pouring from the arena.

“Take cover!” Vanden Hoyt ordered on his all-hands circuit. He dropped next to a wall and stared forward in horror and disbelief. The tanks were rolling out of the arena. A whole platoon, maybe more, was already in the open space between his platoon and the building they were supposed to assault. A squad of the tanks were already entering the street in front of his lead men.

“First squad, kill the point tank,” Vanden Hoyt said urgently. Sergeant Hyakowa, directly behind Corporal Leach and the first fire team, said, “Chief, kill the point.” He used his infras to see where the first fire team’s rocket carriers were, then rolled into the middle of the street to get out of the way of the Straight Arrow’s backblast.

Schultz was already up on one knee, his rocket tube resting on his shoulder. “Mine,” he said.

“Get him,” Leach agreed.

Dean dove away from Schultz. He’d already been scorched by an S.A.’s backblast, he wasn’t going to let it happen again. The tank was almost too close to safely fire the rocket, but Schultz ignored the behemoth and took careful aim at the seam where the gun mount met the front glacis. He fired. The rocket struck the front of the tank. The depleted uranium casing of the warhead punched straight through the 300mm-thick armor and spewed globules of molten metal into the interior. The driver was densely speckled by the fiery liquid all up and down one side. His death was agonizing but quick. The gunner got the full force of the round when it bored through his belly, so he never knew he was dying. The tank commander, standing up in the hatch, was hit repeatedly in the front of his legs. He screamed and tried to lift himself out of the turret, but was flamed by a shot from Hyakowa’s blaster. Hyakowa leaped to his feet and raced away from the still moving tank. The tank’s other two crewmen lived a tiny fraction of a second longer before the exploding ammunition box tore them apart. The tank bounced up from the force of the explosion. Its turret was jarred loose when it hit the ground and it canted but didn’t come off.

On the other side of the street Eagle’s Cry shouted, “Let’s go,” as soon as he saw the turret wasn’t going to land on anyone running by it. He broke past his second fire team and led the way. “Here!” he ordered, and stopped in the middle of the street directly in front of the dead tank. The five men of his squad who were on foot joined him. Directly in front of them the second tank in the column, a TP1, was trying to back up but was blocked by the tanks behind it.

“Oh, shit,” Corporal Saleski exclaimed. Bladon had a tank, he wanted one too. “Second fire team, let’s take that tank.”

“NO!” Eagle’s Cry shouted, but Saleski ignored him. Watson and Clement ran with their fire team leader. None of the three believed that even if the tankers had infras and could see them that they’d be able to bring their guns to bear and shoot them before they were on the tank.

The tankers didn’t bother with infras or aiming, they just started firing their plasma guns. A burst from the commander’s gun turned Saleski and Clement into ash. The turret gun swept the back of the dead tank and around its right side. It flamed Eagle’s Cry and sent Linsman and Claypoole, who were just rounding the left corner of the tank, staggering back. Leach was leading his fire team along the side of the tank when the gun fired and he took the full force of the plasma spray.

Claypoole, who had been behind Linsman, recovered first. He quickly glanced to his rear to make sure no one was in his backblast area, then fired his rocket. The second tank belched loudly, then burst at its seams. Watson barely jumped off it in time. The concussion from the explosion slammed him down and rolled him violently into the gutter, where he lay still.

Behind the rest of the platoon, Bladon stood tall in the hatch of his tank. Coolly, he directed Goudanis to fire the main gun and gave him aiming adjustments as the medium’s main gun drilled rounds into the tanks trying to exit the arena.

Six more men from third platoon managed to reach spots where they could fire their Straight Arrows.

They killed five more tanks. First and second platoons didn’t have tanks coming up their streets. They reached open ground without resistance and fired all their rockets.

The fourteen tanks of Company F, 687th Tank Battalion, that weren’t killed by the Marines in the first three minutes of the uneven battle tried to run. They ran right into Mike Company. None of the tanks or their crews survived the encounter.