by Jerry
“I’m using first names in my team,” Eddie said, “Lieutenant . . .?”
“Um, I’d rather remain Coker. Sir.”
“All right,” Eddie said. “Who else do you have, lieutenant?”
“Sgt. Emil, whom we call Aim, and Pvt. Spinner is three meters to my left—I think he still has a bead on you.”
“Have to admire initiative,” Eddie said. “Sgt. Aim, Pvt. Spinner? This is Capt. Eddie. Lt. Coker and I have agreed to merge teams, so stand down and get quick introductions out of the way.”
“You heard the captain,” Lt. Coker said. “Let’s gather up.”
Eddie appreciated no one moved until the lieutenant spoke. The chain of command, such as it was, had been properly established. On both sides.
“By the way, captain, we saw a Raptor—probably a 4500—the other day,” Lt. Coker said quietly. “Was it yours?”
“No,” Lt. Eddie said. “I was hoping it was yours.”
“Sorry, no. Probably the nuke strike a couple of nights ago to the south then.”
“Yeah.”
Three new members. It’d been months since anyone joined Team 84632. And it bothered Eddie that he knew nothing of these “new guys.” Other than they were human, of course.
He had data records from Team 55329, of course, which gave him sketchy information. Lt. Coker had been a supply sergeant at the start of the action; Eddie already didn’t trust him as a combat officer. Sgt. Aim had come in from the Home Guard, a local, rather than IEF-1. And Pvt. Spinner was a recruit from Refugee Camp 62-188, joining up just a few months ago. That made it two locals and a supply sergeant trying to be an officer amongst the newcomers. Not an Earth-trained solider in the lot.
None of this had come out during the brief handshakes when the two teams merged, of course, because neither side was likely to spill any personal details from a past that seemed dead and gone. And Eddie could already see that Sgt. Rhonda—Master Sergeant now—wasn’t happy. She’d long ago proved herself an uncomfortably good judge of combat worthiness. Not that they wanted to see anyone get killed, but Team 84632 had survived for a while as a stable fivesome. He tried not to think of this merger as the start of a baby-sitting operation, but it remained a possibility.
“Your radio’s shot.” Eddie glanced over to see Pvt. Jayes looking over the communications gear from Team 55329 and rendering his professional opinion. “No wonder you couldn’t pick up anybody.”
“And you’ve been receiving . . . exactly what, Pvt. Jayes?” Sgt. Aim asked. “This radio is not in the greatest shape, but it still passes diagnostics.”
Eddie saw Robbie looking over the other team’s self-growing food jars. There wasn’t a lot of sympathy there either. “These cultures are infected with bacteria—you shouldn’t be eating this.”
“It doesn’t taste great, but it’s nutrition,” Pvt. Spinner said.
Robbie ignored him, pouring the contents of the jars onto the ground. “Now I have to waste some of our cultures . . .”
“It’s not a waste,” Eddie said patiently. “We’re all one team now.”
“Yessir,” Robbie said reluctantly. But it didn’t sound as if the man believed Eddie.
This wasn’t going to be an easy transition.
“All right, everyone,” Eddie said when they stopped next. “Circle up. Sgt. Rhonda—high sentry.”
“Yessir,” she said and selecting her rapid rifle, moved towards higher ground.
Eddie restricted the net to exclude her momentarily. “I’m only going to say this once. Sgt. Rhonda is the only woman in this unit. None of you are going to take advantage of that fact. If any one of you tries to push yourself on Sgt. Rhonda, it’s one round in your head, am I understood?”
“Crystal,” Private Jayes said instantly.
Eddie didn’t go on until everyone else acknowledged as well. Switching back to unit-wide net, he said, “We have two sergeants in the unit. Just as we didn’t need to have two lieutenants, we don’t need two sergeants. Effective immediately, I’m field promoting Sgt. Rhonda to Master Sergeant. Sorry, Sgt. Aim—you lose on this round simply because I don’t know you.”
“No problem from me, captain,” Aim said.
“We’ve got three privates now: Jayes, Robbie and Spinner. I don’t have a problem with fielding three privates. Maybe if we link up with another team, we can actually split people into squads.”
“I ain’t in this for the promotions, captain,” Robbie said. “I’m here to kill Scalies.”
“I’m sure we can accommodate you, Pvt. Robbie,” Eddie said. “Now go around the circle one by one and display your gear and your supplies. Sgt. Aim, I’ll need a report from you on inventory and any supplies redistribution you see fit. I don’t want anyone going into battle running light because one of you is hoarding.”
“Yessir.”
“When you are finished, relieve Master Sgt. Rhonda at high sentry. Sgt. Rhonda, report to the circle when relieved and show off your gear and supplies as well.” Eddie heard a click in his earpiece from her. “Lt. Coker—you’re with me.”
“Capt. Eddie,” Lt. Coker began, “you did a fine job back there . . .”
“Stow it, lieutenant. I don’t know if you’re trying to be polite or sucking up. Unfortunately we have little time for the one and no room for the other.”
“Yessir.”
“Don’t be insulted,” Eddie said. “Neither one of us went to O-School, so we didn’t get taught the niceties. All I need for you to do is acknowledge my command.”
“You’ve got it, captain.”
“Good. Now you’ll get a copy of Sgt. Aim’s inventory report. You know your own situation. Add or subtract whatever you need in your pile from the troops as needed. You’re already carrying plenty of spy gear, so don’t weigh yourself down.”
“I’m good, captain.”
“Okay. Now the big question—have you been in contact with anyone at Battalion or higher?”
“No, sir,” Lt. Coker said a little sadly. “My previous real-life Ell-tee kept telling me he wasn’t getting any updates, but he never gave me the access codes either.”
“Same here.”
“So we’re not operating on any orders?”
“Not for a long time,” Eddie admitted. “We’re still operating under General Order One—drive the aliens off this colony world. That’s good enough for me until I hear the bastards have either surrendered, died or left.”
“Yes, sir!” Lt. Coker said. “Uh, and thanks for not bringing this up in front of the boys.”
“They know.”
“Yeah, but . . .”
It undermines authority, Eddie thought. “I understand.”
“New guy curse,” Rhonda said under her breath as she stood by Eddie.
He wanted to tell her to stow it, but he knew his original Team 84632 all felt the same way. You couldn’t add a decimated team of three without thinking bad things could happen. Yet it never occurred to any of them that they themselves constituted a decimated team of five—a difference of perhaps one bad alien ambush.
“Saddle ’em up, sergeant,” Eddie said on the open channel. “We’re a new unit—eyes and ears everybody.”
“Captain,” Sgt. Aim came alongside Eddie. Since they only existed in the field these days, there were of course no salutes. Eddie hadn’t seen anyone salute in over half a year—a thought which came to him only because a new guy was reporting.
“Yes, sergeant?”
“We’re four hundred meters from a heavy weapons cache, according to old map data. Do we check it out?”
“What’s the seventeen time?” Eddie asked, reflexively asking for confirmation.
“Two hours.”
“Let’s press on and circle back tonight. Pass the word.”
“Yessir.”
As Sgt. Aim moved off, Master Sgt. Rhonda started to leave as well. “Still think it’s new guy curse, sergeant?” he asked her. “Sgt. Aim seems to be on his game.”
“Day is s
till young, sir. And sergeants are a different breed,” she said. “There’s still a too-green private and a deadbeat lieutenant to deal with.”
Military Command hadn’t stood by as the big heavily defended bases and supply convoys were bombed out of existence. Instead they’d broken the army into the small Mobile Infantry Teams and established thousands of weapons and supply caches everywhere. As the war progressed, the caches were either used or obliterated. If any new caches were being established, there’d been no map updates to tell them.
Their own supply situation wasn’t bad, but a heavy weapons cache was hard for Eddie to turn down—they had few rockets or mortars on hand. The scanners accurately plotted the original entry point for the cache—they were able to dig out of sight, sheltered by a fallen concrete slab wall. After moving a meter of broken rubble, the two sergeants stepped in the pit and worked carefully until they reached a metal plate.
“Gateway mine,” Sgt. Aim said. “Right on schedule.”
Eddie established a link to the mine on his handheld and entered the one set of officer codes he reliably knew. His screen blinked green.
“We’re not the first team to hit this cache,” Eddie said, “but the previous time was six months ago.”
“What’d they leave us, Skipper?” Rhonda asked.
“Looks like two rockets and half-a-dozen micro nukes,” Eddie said. “We should take the rockets and four of the nukes.”
“They assembled?”
“No.”
Rhonda looked relieved. As they dug into the cache, extracted the two 70cm long rockets and pulled up the lead shield plate, they wouldn’t have to worry about a nuclear booby-trap, though the master sergeant still searched for one.
Lifting free the four gray plutonium filled eggs and slipping them into a lead lined bag in her pack, Rhonda asked, “Should we set one of these against unwanted snooping?”
“No,” Eddie decided. “I don’t want to take the time. Clean this spot up and let’s move out.”
“Ell-tee, what does that pillar look like to you?” Sgt. Aim asked Lt. Coker some five minutes later.
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“It’s a food store, isn’t it?”
Coker looked around the rubble pile. “I haven’t seen an intact building in months,” he admitted. “But you could be right.”
Eddie was called over. He’d hoped to clear out from this area and put a couple of klicks between the team and the heavy weapons cache—just in case someone was watching. But a chance for prepared food seemed too good to pass up.
“You’ve got fifteen minutes—do it fast, but do it safe.”
“Yessir.”
One section of the demolished food store still had part of a supported ceiling intact. Sgt. Aim and two privates slipped through a hole and played their flashlights around. Eddie could hear some excited comments—something about canned peaches—before the enthusiasm popped like a soap bubble.
“Trap!”
“Scalies have been here, sir. Some of the scattered cans are piled up around an alien directional mine.”
They came back with a handful of cans anyway, but once topside a quick scan revealed microscopic sealed puncture marks. The cans were compromised.
“Leave it all,” Eddie said. “We clear out in two.”
Sgt. Aim look saddened as the cans were tossed back in the hole.
“Are you all right, sergeant?” Eddie asked.
“Oh . . . sure, Captain. Just disappointed.” Aim straightened up and smiled. “Have to remind myself not to count cans of peaches until they’re declared safe. I’ll be fine, sir. But peaches would’ve been nice.”
As the sergeant moved away, Eddie admitted to himself he’d been imagining the taste of lovely canned peaches. If they’d been desperate, he might’ve taken a chance they could construct an antidote for whatever had been injected into the tainted cans. But, by some small measure, they weren’t desperate enough.
The delay hadn’t been too long: a calculated risk, Eddie figured. As long as no one was watching.
Two more days of steady marching. The terrain looked the same as it had. This city had been pulverized during the alien invasion, twenty years before IEF-1 landed.
It was due to a quirk in the lighting that Cpl. Gary spotted the gossamer tripwire visually when even the scanner failed to register any alien polymer at all. “Freeze,” he hissed subvocally. But the man in front of him—one of the new guys who’d insisted on taking point—kept moving. “Halt! Now!”
The new guy—Private Spinner, he finally remembered—seemed surprised by the call and turned partway to look back at Gary. But Spinner didn’t quite stop his forward progress and his boot tip brushed against the wire.
“DROP!” Gary shouted.
Rhonda and Lt. Coker were silently prepping one of the lieutenant’s tiny Fabian aerial spies for launch when they heard the shouted calls—“Halt! Now! . . . DROP!”—followed by a burst of gunfire.
“That’s Gary,” Rhonda said, tapping a query into her wristband. “I’m not raising him.”
In the lower right-hand corner of their eyeshields, CPL.GARY and PVT.SPINNER showed up in red.
“Damn . . .”
“Automated firing stand,” Lt. Coker said in disgust, tossing the spent firing tube onto the ground next to his dead man. “One shot kill to the head.”
“Cowards,” Rhonda said, with more venom than Eddie thought she’d muster for one of the new guys. “And Gary took one to the open neck.”
Sgt. Aim stepped up, took off his helmet and mopped the sweat from his brow before reciting the abbreviated Field Prayer for the Dead. “Ashes . . . dust . . . peace . . . Amen and move on.”
The team, minus Jayes as high sentry, stood silently for thirty seconds.
“Right,” Eddie finally said. “Robbie—you’re senior, so you’re field promoted to corporal. The day’s already hot and it looks like the sun might break through soon. I don’t want to green up in this kill zone. Strip both bodies of anything usable. Let’s move out.”
There really wasn’t anything else to say. Eddie didn’t know Pvt. Spinner. And really, what did he know of Cpl. Gary? His team never talked about home and family any more—rarely did a discussion of “normal” food even come up. Conversation had devolved into strictly technical matters.
And what, Eddie wondered without looking at his handheld, was Gary’s last name?
Both Eddie and Rhonda froze at the same time. Ever since the latest booby-trap which claimed two, he’d worried about how fresh the emplacement had been. Now he was sure they were close to something.
Go high, he signaled to the master sergeant and she begin to climb the near rubble pile, moving as silently as a cat. Strange . . . he hadn’t thought about cats or any creature which wasn’t human or alien for a while. Shaking cats from his mind, he deployed the rest of the team.
A bip in his earpiece alerted him to check his handheld. Rhonda beamed an image from a fiber optic threaded between two shattered chunks of concrete—three of the aliens sitting on rubble in the shallow bowl of bomb crater. It looked like three people around a campfire, except there was no fire and they were busy rigging directional mines and automatic firing tubes.
Eddie hesitated about three seconds. The three Lizards were either tired, desperate or guarded from elsewhere. Bip-bip-bip, he clicked his teeth: take them. Rhonda immediately fired. Three shots, three kills. The aliens barely moved before slumping. To the left a firing stand popped up and fired a train of explosive rounds in her direction. But she’d already dropped, moving quickly down from her perch.
Meanwhile Jayes targeted the weapon stand and Sgt. Aim fired a high-speed grenade which silenced it. Afterwards there were no sounds at all.
“Back out and around to the west,” Eddie whispered over the net. He’d already decided not to even investigate the Lizards. “We’re gone from here.”
They were times you took your luck and didn’t push it any further.
&n
bsp; At 0430 hours, the skies lit up again, but not from nukes.
“Ships, Captain,” Jayes reported. “I’m seeing half a dozen ships blasting off. Looks to be theirs.”
“Range?” Eddie was wide awake. He thought they’d been finally caught by the rest of the Lizard team they’d killed earlier. There’d been almost no ships heading up to space since the opening days of the war: anything airborne invited instant attack. “If they’re breaking cover, then prepare for incoming missiles.”
“Ten klicks. Already tracking sixty inbounds.”
“Under cover!” Eddie shouted.
“Enemy is firing counterbatteries.”
Ducking under the edge of a concrete slab, tilted upward at a crazy angle—impossible to tell if it’d been meant to be floor or wall—Eddie pulled out a hand screen and looked at the remote’s view of the battle. Over a hundred streaks of light showed the enemy’s outgoing missiles. Two more brilliant lights of escaping spaceships. And then one bright streak inbound and the camera image burned in whiteout: those last two ships were probable kills.
“Nuke!” Eddie hollered as the scanner beeped. Then the ground shook. And shook. Again and again and again.
They had no good intel. They’d been walking right into a Lizard landing zone, and they hadn’t known. He hadn’t known. Eddie pulled his shock jacket tighter as he tucked his head into his chest as far down as he could.
“Where’s Sgt. Aim?” Eddie asked, making a quick scan around at morning.
“He was in the rubble hole next to mine all night,” Jayes said.
“Lieutenant—do your men go solo?”
“No, captain,” Lt. Coker said reluctantly. “Nothing like that.”
“Quarter this territory,” Eddie said, sketching a box on his knee pad which overlaid on their eyeshield map displays. “Scan for any sign; report back in five minutes.”
“He’s gone,” Rhonda said. “I might’ve seen two disturbed chunks of concrete about fifty meters out, but he walked out.”