Return to Camerein

by Rick Shelley

  “I need a few minutes to clean up first,” Jeige said. “Will you walk upstairs with me? I need to talk to you.”

  “Of course,” Shadda said with a quick nod.

  5

  The journey aboard HMS Avon had been quick. The Marines scarcely had time for five hours of sleep before they were roused to eat, then board their shuttles for the ride down to the surface of Camerein. It was either go immediately or wait a full day. The two captains, Spencer and Barlowe, had decided to go at once. “It will give us an extra eighteen hours, if we need it, before the regiment lands,” David had said. “An extra eighteen hours to get back up here before the fireworks start, if we’re lucky.”

  The plan was for Avon to stay in normal space over Camerein no longer than it would take her Nilssen generators to recycle for the jump back into Q-space. Spencer and Barlowe had worked out a timetable for communications. The ship would return periodically to maintain contact with the commandos. Those sojourns would be as brief as the first, unless something went wrong on the ground, until it was time to schedule pickup for the Marines and the people they hoped to rescue.

  “Dependent on local conditions,” Barlowe qualified. “We can’t take on overwhelming numbers. If the Feddies have the place well defended topside, we may have to cut back on our communications forays. We might even haveto wait for our battle group to arrive before we can pick you up.”

  “Understood, Captain,” David said.

  “Good luck and God speed, Captain Spencer.”

  The Marines boarded their shuttles before the ship made its final transit through Q-space to Camerein. There would be no time after the ship emerged over the world, not with Avon planning to jump back after only ninety seconds in normal space. And in typical military fashion, the men were put aboard their landers early, just in case some unforeseen snag arose.

  It was a lonely time, sitting crowded together in a shuttle waiting to be dropped on a combat run. The Marines sat with their safety harnesses tight, rifles held between their legs, at least one hand also holding the weapon. Once it was launched from its mother ship, a shuttle had no artificial gravity. That would have required a Nilssen generator, and those were too bulky for a combat lander—”unnecessary luxuries” according to the CSF. All of the men sat with helmet visors down. The tinted faceplates hid expressions from anyone who might be looking. It gave each man almost total privacy, closed him in with his own thoughts, interrupted only by checks from squad leaders and platoon sergeants.

  David spoke to all of his men before Avon entered Q-space for the last jump—a few words of encouragement. Then he switched to a channel that would connect him with only the platoon sergeants. “Alfie, Will, you’ll have to keep your lads on their toes for this. If we’ve got the layout right, we shouldn’t have any Feddies on our backs. It should be just us and a lot of hot walking in the jungle.”

  “We’ll walk the whole world if we have to, Cap,” Alfie said. “That’s better than fighting any day.”

  “Amen” was Will Cordamon’s only comment.

  “Unless our luck goes completely south, the Feddies should never even know we’re around. The ship’s not sticking around all the time. And there’s nothing much on theside of Camerein we’re heading for, no reason the Feddies should be looking there.”

  “No reason we know of,” Alfie said. “Last I heard, we didn’t know anything at all about the place since we lost those three ships back at the start of this soddin’ war.”

  “My mother always told me ‘No news is good news,’ “David said. “After seven years of quiet, that’s another reason why the Feddies might not be too sharp at looking for things here.”

  There was the standard warning before Avon jumped into Q-space. Then the ship’s Nilssen generators created a space-time bubble just larger than the ship’s longest dimension, closing Avon off from the rest of the universe. Navigation determined at which point to stress the bubble and by how much to make the necessary transit—direction and distance. Then the Nilssens reversed polarity and spat the ship back into normal space. Generally, a ship took three transits of Q-space to get from one star system to any other in the explored reaches of the galaxy.

  The two shuttles were launched from Avon six seconds after the ship emerged in normal space over Camerein.

  Avon emerged one hundred seventeen miles above sea level, nearly as close to a planetary mass as the ship was designed to approach. Even as the shuttles were launched, Avon fired maneuvering rockets to halt her descent. Then, as quickly as her Nilssens could recycle, she jumped back to the safety of Q-space. By that time the shuttles, accelerating toward their landing zone, were clear of the zone of interference from the nascent Q-space bubble. Being caught in that could have catastrophic effects even for capital ships.

  Alfie Edwards was the busiest man in his shuttle. He talked with the platoon as a whole; with squad leaders and assistants, singly and as a group; he even talked with a few of their men individually. The activity was a relief for him. It was the one time that Alfie welcomed the responsibilitiesof leadership. It kept him from having time to think, to brood. The five years since his first combat had aged Alfie Edwards considerably. There were times when he thought of himself as an old man, even though he was still in his twenties. On the odd occasions when he thought back to the way he had once been, the platoon clown, he could no longer recognize the bloke in his memories. That chap had been young and carefree, certain of his own survival even when his mates were being killed around him.

  Just a dumb kid, Alfie thought, too stupid to know any better. He looked around the shuttle’s troop compartment, at the blank faceplates on the helmets. There was no way to tell that the faces under those tinted visors were all new. Of the men who had been in the old I&R platoon of 1st Battalion during its first battle of the war, only three were still with the unit. The I&R platoons of all of the regiment’s battalions had contributed to the new commando unit. Most of the other I&R platoons had suffered as badly as 1st’s. Back at the start, Alfie had been a private, happy with his rank and lot. Will Cordamon, in the other shuttle now, had been a new corporal. David Spencer had been a junior platoon sergeant. The others …

  It was because Alfie didn’t like to think about the others at a time like this that he was glad that he was too busy to do so while the shuttle was on its way in. The heroes and cowards. The one man who had been court-martialed for killing prisoners. Those who had died. The lucky few who had transferred out.

  Faces looking over his shoulder. Voices recalling the past. Screams in his brain.

  “Five minutes left,” Spencer said on his all-hands channel after the pilot passed him that information. “Lock and load.”

  In two shuttles, Marines ran rifle bolts to put a round in the chamber. For some, it was time for a last prayer before hitting the ground. Throats tightened. Stomachs churned. This was the most vulnerable time. Locked inside the landers, the Marines were helpless passengers, unable to defend themselves or escape if anything went wrong.

  This is one time that nothing should go wrong, Spencer reminded himself. Sneak in and be on the ground before anyone can do anything even if they do see us. But he took little comfort from his attempts to reassure himself.

  The pilot reported four minutes left. The words were scarcely out of his mouth before he had more news for Spencer, unwelcome news.

  “We’ve got trouble, Captain, a blip coming in hot. It’ll reach us before we get on the ground. We’re working to put distance between the shuttles, make it harder for the bogey to get both of us.”

  “Enemy fighter?” David had no idea what else it might be over an enemy-held world, but he could not hold back the query.

  “Yes, on an intercept course and accelerating.”

  One chance in a million and we get the short end. Spencer could hear his heart thumping. He did not share the news with his men, not even the platoon leaders and sergeants. There was nothing that any of them could do but worry, and David knew that he could
do enough of that for the lot of them.

  “We’re running electronic countermeasures,” the pilot said. “We’re going in short to try to get you on the ground in one piece. It’s going to be rough. We’ll be landing faster than the Book says we can. Make sure your lads are strapped in tight.”

  “Will do.” David switched to his all-hands channel. “Tighten up your harnesses until it hurts, and hold on. Brace for a hard landing. We’re going in hotter than hell to try to get down before an enemy fighter intercepts us. When we ground, I want the shuttles empty in five seconds. Grab what you can, but get out fast. Get the SAMs into play if we’ve got a target.” One man in each squad carried a surface-to-air missile launcher. Three others carried spare rockets.

  There was no three-minute warning. The pilot announcedtwo minutes, then one. In between, he told Spencer that the enemy fighter was still closing rapidly. “It’s nip and tuck, Captain. If he fires at extreme range, it could come just as we’re touching down.”

  Yellow warning lights came on in the troop compartment. When the countdown reached thirty seconds, those were replaced with flashing red lights. When the hatches opened, green lights would come on. Regular troop shuttles had a ramp in the floor. Those landers sat on skids, well off the ground. The converted shuttles that the commandos used had wide hatchways on each side, easier for loading and unloading cargo, and the landers had skids built into the bottom of the fuselage, putting the deck no more than eighteen inches off the ground.

  Red lights. “Crash-landing drill,” David reminded his men. He braced himself, then took a deep breath. Seconds to go.

  The landing was the roughest he had ever experienced. The shuttle skidded sideways as it plowed across a grassy field. The men were jerked from side to side. Several struck their heads against the bulkheads. Even with helmets and padding, the blows were enough to stun a couple of men.

  Retro-rockets brought the shuttles to a halt in little more than three hundred yards, much less than the manuals allowed, and hard on the men who had to endure such extravagant braking. The savanna grass caught fire in several places. The bulkhead lights turned green as the hatches were opened.

  “Up and out!” David shouted over the all-hands channel. “Move it! Move it!” He was already out of his harness and on his feet.

  Closer to the starboard hatch, Alfie Edwards used his bayonet to slice the straps holding the extra supply packs. With one hand, he pushed men toward the exit. With the other, he picked up bundles and hurled them into the arms of the men racing out of the still-moving lander.

  “Clear away from the shuttles!” Spencer shouted as hegot out. He could see the enemy fighter coming in. “Hit the dirt!”

  The two shuttles had come to rest three hundred yards apart. David could not see if everyone was out of the more distant craft. It was slightly closer to the approaching Federation fighter. And the fighter had already launched a pair of missiles.

  “Get the SAMs going!” David yelled. “Bring that bastard down!”

  A half dozen rockets went up. The enemy fighter’s missiles arrived first, destroying the shuttle that 2nd Platoon had come in on. The explosion scattered fiery debris across a one-hundred-fifty-yard radius. Screams told David that some of his men had been hit. But the fighter came down as well, hit by two rockets.

  “Are your men clear?” the pilot of the surviving shuttle asked Spencer. “I’ve got to get out of here before that fighter’s wingman shows up.”

  “Can you hold?” David asked. “We’ve got wounded. I’ll need a few minutes to get them loaded. We’ll give you what cover we can with our SAMs. Will you wait?”

  “As long as I can. Don’t bother with the crew of the other shuttle. They’ve had it. One of those rockets went off right against the cockpit.”

  It took five minutes to administer first aid and get the wounded loaded aboard the remaining shuttle. A dozen injured men were strapped in. The rest of the supplies were unloaded. Five dead Marines would have to be buried. The pilot and copilot of the other shuttle had not been located.

  The grass fires continued to burn, spreading quickly, growing. Near the shuttle that was still intact, Marines beat at the flames, trying to keep them away from the lander’s open hatches as the wounded men were loaded aboard.

  “We’re clear!” David Spencer told the pilot as he ran from the hatch. “Get out while you can.” The eight seconds the pilots delayed gave David just enough time to get clear. The lander accelerated toward the edge of the savanna. The tree line was less than a mile away, but the shuttle took less than a third of that.

  “Form them up!” David said over the channel that connected him to his platoon leaders and platoon sergeants. “Let’s get under cover before any more Feddies come looking.”

  The smoke and flames would be visible for miles, a marker sure to draw the attention of any orbiting spyeyes and any planes or spacecraft that the Federation might have in position to see. The men with SAM launchers kept those weapons ready, scanning the skies as the commando moved toward the nearest cover, the tree line that the shuttle had just cleared.

  Once in the air and above the ground obstructions, the shuttle turned due east. The Marines could still see the lander when it started its burn to climb for orbit, and then they saw another object moving toward it, coming in from the north.

  “Keep moving!” Spencer shouted when a few men stopped. “It’s too far away for our SAMs to reach it. We’ve got to get under cover, fast.” He had had to slow down a little to talk, but as soon as he finished giving orders, David picked up his pace again. In seconds, they were all running for the cover of the trees—even the men carrying the bodies of the men who had died in the first attack.

  The first two missiles that the fighter pilot launched missed the shuttle, confused by its electronic countermeasures. But the fighter fired another pair, and then started firing his RACs—rocket-assisted cannons. At top speed, a fighter could overrun projectiles from normal cannon or machine guns. One of the war’s latest innovations was a cannon whose rounds continued to accelerate after being fired instead of losing speed as they fought atmospheric drag.

  The men on the ground could not see or hear the impact of those shells, but a couple of men thought that they saw the shuttle seem to stutter in flight. It continued to accelerate, but it was clearly no longer gaining altitude asquickly as it had been. It passed beyond the horizon of the men on the ground before the Marines pulled up under cover of the trees.

  “We’ll take time to catch our breath and get organized,” Spencer told his lieutenants and platoon sergeants. “See to your men and get the burial parties working, then come over to me.”

  “Cap, this is Will.” Cordamon waited for Spencer to acknowledge his call on their private link. “Lieutenant McBride was one of the injured. We had to put him on the shuttle.”

  “How bad was he hurt?”

  “Busted shoulder, for starters. He was one of the last men out and got hit with a bunch of shit when the shuttle blew.”

  “See to your men, Will. You got hit hard.”

  “We did,” Cordamon agreed. Cut in half before we even got started, he thought. The five dead and twelve injured had all been from his platoon. None of the headquarters squad people had been touched. Half, just over half, of his platoon’s strength was gone at one stroke. Will felt sick to his stomach. The nausea came on so strong, so quickly, that he lifted his visor, afraid that he was about to vomit. He fought it. Got to set the example, he told himself. And he felt that he was winning, conquering the urge. The nausea receded—until one of the men close to him lifted his faceplate and puked. That was too much. Will joined him.

  The leaders moved away from their men. David Spencer, Mitch Naughton, Anthony Hopewell, Alfie Edwards, and Will Cordamon. All had their visors up. Except in extraordinary circumstances, the commandos would restrict the use of helmet electronics, including radio, until they finished their mission.

  “I hope that we got all of the injured out,” Spenc
er said, looking at Cordamon. “We’re going to be doing a lot of hard moving, and some hero who thought he was doingright by sticking around with a wound could bollix it for all of us.”

  “All of the wounded went out,” Will said. “I just hope they made it back to Avon.”

  David nodded. “So do I, Will, but we can’t help them now. And we’ve still got a mission.”

  “We should know in a minute or two,” Naughton said. “It’s almost time for Avon to come out for the pickup.”

  “We have problems here to worry about,” David said. “The first is that we’ve lost nearly a fourth of our strength. The second is that we’ve lost about forty percent of our extra supplies. The third is that we’re forty miles farther from our destination than planned. We’ve got to move almost a hundred miles to reach our target, damn near all of that through tropical jungle.”

  “I guess that puts the mockers on getting in and out in three days,” Alfie said.

  “Even if Avon can still pick us up,” Spencer said. He held up a hand then, listening to a call from the ship. He pulled his visor down to bring his microphone into place and replied. The others could not hear either end of the conversation.

  “The other shuttle didn’t make it,” David reported when he lifted his faceplate again. “The ship marked where it went down but hasn’t been able to raise anyone.”

  Will Cordamon turned away from the others. All of them dead, he thought, assuming the worst.

  “We’re on our own for at least five days,” David said, trying to keep his voice level, and working hard to concentrate on what lay ahead, not on the men who had been lost. “Even if Avon uses its own boats to retrieve us, we’ve got at least five hard days ahead of us.” He paused. Up to this point, only the officers in the detachment had known the full scope of their orders, and that their mission wasn’t the only operation set for Camerein. “If we can make it five days and a few odd hours, we should be okay. The rest of the regiment will be landing then, if all goes according to schedule.”