The Conscripts: Fight or Die (Blood War Book 3) (21 page)

Fene's training finally kicked in, he had something to do and people to lead. He stood and said, “First squad on me. Wedge. Double time, move!”

He was up and out of the crater and moving as fast as he could toward the large field of wind-shaped dunes in the distance. His heads-up said they were close to a mile away, but the way he was moving it wouldn’t take long before they reached them.

It dawned on Fenes that this was the first time he had ever really worn his armor—all the other times had been in the simulation. It felt exactly the same, and he found he didn’t have to think about it to use it. All the training on the ship had prepared him for this. Given how crude the sim was, he was amazed at how well it had prepared him. He landed and pushed off with his right leg and took a long stride over some small craters and the rock-strewn plain. He landed on his left leg and bounded again. He was covering ground at a rate that he had never been able to achieve in the simulation.

On his next bound Fenes looked past the dune field. In the distance almost on the horizon could see the colors of a battle as the marines made their landing at LZ Sol. Being on the extreme left of the VF forces, it would be up to his platoon to tie in with the marines. A Ura saying came to mind. Worry about your piece of the war and let the people with all the brass on their collar worry about the big picture. Take care of you and yours.

He glanced at his heads-up and saw with a sense of pride that his squad was in position and moving together just the way they had practiced for days on the ship. Second squad was in a diamond with Striker in the center, and the third squad was on line. The whole platoon was moving just as they had been trained to do. The fire from the ridgeline was concentrated on the LZs. Striker was right. The sooner they got away from the LZ’s the better. They were overgrown bull’s-eyes.

Fenes kept sweeping across their line of movement. Nothing. All the physical training was paying off. The fast pace felt natural, and he had learned how to use the armor without exerting his body too much. He could keep this pace up all day.

A red streak passed over his head, followed by a huge explosion. It was the destroyers trying to take out the Xotoli in the ridgeline. Another red streak. This time the explosion was closer. Sand and rocks bounced off his armor. He knew it was hard to hit something from orbit, but how about leaving a little margin of error?

Fenes turned his attention back to the ground in front of him. It was perfectly flat, covered by small rocks and pebbles. The sand ranged in color from a deep red to almost an orange, with a number of hues in between. No place to hide or take cover until the dunes ahead. He increased his pace. The sand was very fine, with a texture that was almost a powder. His armor’s weapons system was scanning ahead for movement or anything else that was not natural. Nothing. A lot of nothing. The aliens were still concentrating on the LZ’s. The explosions and streaks of plasma and laser weapons around LZ Sol were getting more vivid as they moved. He had almost reached the first line of the dunes. The dunes were all U-shaped, with the arch of the U pointing toward the ridgeline ahead. They would provide cover and concealment until the platoon could link up with the marines.

“Don’t stop at the first line of dunes. I want us in the middle of those things,” Striker said.

“Roger that,” Fenes said.

He landed at the base of the first dune. They were huge—at least thirty feet high, some even higher—and the space inside the U formed by the dunes walls were hundreds of yards across. Fenes made sure to put extra into his jump and cleared the first of the outer dunes. He continued to move through the dunes, checking his squad for spacing and formation in this very difficult terrain. They were still in a wedge as best they could manage given the landscape. By the fourth or fifth set of dunes, Fenes saw they were well into the dune field, with plenty of cover from the ridgeline.

“Sarge, how about here?”

“Looks good, Fenes. Ground and spread out.”

“First squad, down and watch your spacing. Face the ridgeline,” Fenes said.

Fenes landed at the top of the dune and watched in his heads-up as the squad spread out in a U around him. Striker and the second squad took the dune behind him and third the dune behind that.

When everyone was in place, Striker said, “Squad leaders on me with first squad.”

Striker skimmed over the top of the dune behind Fenes and landed next to him. Ardan and Minga were not far behind. Striker switched to the squad leaders’ frequency.

“Listen, I’ve been monitoring the company’s command net. We are the only intact platoon, the best I can determine. In addition to our lieutenant, the other platoon leaders and sergeants are all either down or dead. We’re stuck out here on a limb. We can’t depend on any others from the company getting out here you saw what the LZ was like and without officer or NCO's they are going to make it. We’re it. The VF armor is supposed to be landing now, so it shouldn't be long before we see some organization of the units.”

Fenes had known it was going to be bad when they decided to use the penal battalion as the first wave, but he hadn’t known it was going to be this bad.

“What about the Marines at LZ Sol when will they hook up with us,” Ardan asked.

“Unknown. Until we know more, assume they are in as deep as we were on our LZ so we are going to dig in and prepare to wait this out. Let’s scout around and find a dune large enough for us to set a platoon-sized perimeter. Fenes, you’re it.”

“Roger that.”

Fenes turned and moved to the top of the dune. He peeked over the edge. The ridge was still lit up like a Christmas tree, but none of the fire was aimed in their direction. He needed to find a vantage point from which he could get a good look at the terrain instead of bouncing around trying to find the right dune.

There was a dune at least twenty feet higher than the rest to his right. It had what looked like some type of spiny plant sticking out of the top. He moved as quickly as he could through the dunes, always varying the timing and height of his jumps. He managed to make the distance in good time. He landed at the bottom of the huge dune and looked around. There were a few rocks on the ground. He climbed the steep slope until he reached the top. What had looked like a spiny plant turned out to be wind-eroded rock that was razor-sharp. When he grabbed it to keep from falling, he realized the rock went deep into the dune. He pulled his axe off his leg and scraped away the sand. The rock got larger as it went down. It was what the sand had been shaped by—that meant it went all the way to the surface. He turned and saw that the dune formed a bowl about three hundred yards across, with rocky spikes at the top of all of the walls. This was it. This dune field was really a rock formation. This would work.

“Striker, this is Fenes.”

“Striker, go.”

“I got us a good spot. Want me to come back and guide you?”

“Negative, stay there. Squawk me your position.”

Fenes hit the encrypted location alert. Then he turned back to keep an eye out while the rest of the platoon came to his position. That was when he realized he wasn’t shaking anymore. Sure, he was scared, but as Ura had said, scared is what keeps you alive. Being brave is being scared and doing it anyway. Now he knew he could do it.

LSD Tarawa

Tactical Operations Center

Combined Confederation Expeditionary Force

General Dasan Sand paced on his command platform at the back of the Tactical Operations Center. He stopped behind his chair and display desk and stared at the huge multicolor display that spread across the entire front of the large room. Before him lay the tools that allowed him to command the joint operations of the battle on Chika. Systems for planning, communication, and visualization for the invasion was fully manned and staffed at all the stations. There were representatives from Von Fleet, Wolf, and Rift, as well as naval and Marine officers who traced the various operations and provided coordination between the TOC and the specific combat information centers for each of those participants.

The wall displayed the objectives of the operation for each unit. They changed as each of the scheduled objectives was completed. Sand glanced at the mission clock in the right corner on the front wall. H-hour plus one-point-five, yet none of the objectives had been met.

“Raider, I want a situation report on the spaceport,” Sand snapped.

The display at the front of the room changed to a real-time infrared image of the spaceport. The Raider operator knew Sand liked to be able to see the individuals instead of a group of symbols signifying the units’ current positions and statuses.

“Sir, the drop was disrupted by heavy ground fire. We have lost a number of the Mike boats, and the units are experiencing heavy resistance on the ground. While they are progressing toward their objectives, none of the units have reached them yet.”

Sand watched the movements of the Raiders on the ground. They appeared as small white figures on a black background. They were moving in small groups and as individuals toward the objectives that were superimposed on the image. He saw one then another go down. The armor went to yellow on both of them. They were wounded but still viable, their armor’s medical systems treating their wounds until the corpsmen could get to them.

“Casualties?”

The captain hesitated then said, “Heavy, sir. But the resistance isn’t organized. There were more on-site personnel than we had anticipated.”

“So we dropped them into a hornets’ nest. Doesn’t matter if it’s organized or not. You still get a lot of stings.”

Sand shook his head. Once, just once, he wanted intel good enough that he didn’t lose troops because of the unforeseen.

“Very well. Von Fleet, what is the status of the landings?”

Again the view changed. Instead of individuals, the display showed military symbols representing the 135th Penal Battalion’s units’ positions on the ground.

“Sir, the landing has taken place and the units are moving toward their assigned objectives,” the Von Fleet captain said.

“Switch the view to one that shows the battlefield itself.”

The display flickered, then showed the Von Fleet landing zone just to the south of the crater. The scene was one of chaos. Sand could see at least six of the APCs down and burning. There were bodies all over the LZ. Heavy fire from off the screen was raking the LZ. As Sand watched, a whole load of troops from an APC was cut down by fire as they exited the ship. There was no organized movement on the ground—only an individual here or there moving.

Then he saw what looked like an organized movement of troops to the west of the LZ. A platoon-sized unit was moving out of the LZ toward a dune field.

“Who is that, Captain?”

“Uh…I’m not sure, sir. Things are very confused on the ground and we have received no progress reports from the units in the landing zone.”

“No shit. Now find out who the fuck is moving to the left flank!”

Sand almost cringed as he watched APC after APC destroyed or damaged as it tried to land its troops. It was a true horror show. Von Fleet was the center of the line between the two marine LZ’s. He had assigned them the center hoping that the marines on their flanks could provide glue that would hold the three different LZ’s together. It was as he had feared—it appeared that the penal battalion was being decimated.

“Sir, uh, that would appear to be a platoon from the 3rd Company. They were assigned to the far west to link up with the Marines at LZ Sol.”

“You don’t know which one?”

“No, sir. We didn’t give the penal battalion any personal or platoon locators. We only gave them to the company commanders and their command post staff.”

“Then where is the company CP?”

“Uh, sir, none has been established. In fact, we have heard nothing from them since they reported landing.”

“So you are in the dark as to where your units are and what their status is?”

“Uh…yes, sir,” the young captain said. “Sir, we’ve never landed on a planet like this. I would expect there to be some confusion.”

Sand’s face turned red before he exploded, “You fuckin’ logo soldiers are a piece of fucking work! No human has ever made a landing against an alien race before. That is why we spent so much time planning! Now I’ve got the center of my beachhead on a planet in jeopardy because Von Fleet sends in a penal battalion in the first wave despite my wishes!”

“Sir, I.…”

“Shut the fuck up. The next time I ask for a sitrep and you give that kind of bullshit, I will have security pull you out of here and I’ll find somebody who can do the job.”

Sand turned his back on the room and walked to his commander’s station. He knew he should not have exploded, but there had been a long and complicated fight with Von Fleet about this very subject during the planning of this landing. He had taken it all the way to Admiral Raurk, and she had been overruled by the secretary general. It had been a political decision designed to placate the planets using Von Fleet to make their contributions to the Confederation’s military. Now there were young men and women paying the price for a political decision down on Chika.

He took several deep breaths and turned back to the room. He still had his Marine Corps Expeditionary Force, which was comprised of three regiments with additional naval and Marine units attached along with a bootstrapped division of Rifts and Wolfs—a regiment of each with a Wolf general in command. He had to depend on Von Fleet taking the center of the beachhead, because they had all of the equipment to construct the forward operating base, which this very TOC was designed to become a part of once the beachhead had been secured. He turned back to the room.

“1st Marines, report.”

The display switched to Landing Zone Sol. He could see they too were experiencing stiff resistance, but he saw organized units moving toward the assigned objectives.

“Sir, the first wave of 1st Battalion has landed and is moving against heavy resistance. Second Battalion is now entering the atmosphere and should be reinforcing the 1st soon.”

“Casualties?”