The 18th Race: Book 02 - In All Directions

by David Sherman

  Firebase Gasson was called “under construction,” and indeed there was building going on. But the little that remained to be done wasn’t much more than cosmetic. Heavier construction was taking place at the two firebases to the left of Gasson, which the troop’s other platoons would occupy. Temporarily, Captain Meyer had his command post co-located with first platoon.

  And Meyer wanted the new men to get fully integrated into the platoon quickly.

  Alpha Troop’s temporary HQ

  “Ted,” Captain Meyer said when Greig reported to him, “your new boys need to get up to speed as quickly as possible.”

  “Yes, sir,” Second Lieutenant Greig fully agreed. “Yes, sir.”

  “Short of coming under fire, which I sincerely hope doesn’t happen any time soon, I think the best way of doing that is for your new boys to go on patrol out there.” He waved a hand at the farmland outside the firebase, and distant forest beyond. “The Navy hasn’t reported spotting Dusters in this area, so I suspect it’s clear. I want you to take your platoon out on a ten-hour patrol tomorrow. One of the other platoons can hold Gasson during your absence. I’ll come up with a proper patrol order for you by evening chow. You can brief your platoon after morning chow tomorrow.

  Any questions?”

  “No, Sir. That seems clear enough.”

  Meyer smiled wryly. “Any doubts?”

  “If it’s as quiet as the Navy says, there shouldn’t be anything to cause a doubt.”

  “Of course, we all know the Navy sometimes misses something.”

  Greig didn’t say anything to that.

  “Then that’s all until this evening.”

  “Thank you, sir.” Greig saluted and left the HQ tent.

  Farmland and into the forest

  Second platoon followed a dirt tractor-track. The farmland was checkerboarded with different crops. First was a broad field of something that looked like knee high grass, turned brown and gone to seed. It may have been Earth’s wheat for all the soldiers knew. Beyond it was something much lower and leafy, perhaps soybeans. Then something stalkier, which might have been the greens of potato plants. None of the soldiers of Alpha Troop’s first platoon had been farmers and didn’t know. But this had been farmland used by the human colonists of Troy, so whatever the crops were, they were likely Earth-evolved food plants, perhaps genetically engineered to grow healthy in this alien soil. At its edge, the forest was already beginning to reclaim the farmland; saplings and other forest undergrowth were sprouting among the probable potato plants.

  Just inside the trees, the undergrowth grew thick and was reclaiming the roadway. It thinned out as the tree cover became denser, blocking more and more sunlight. Avians chirped and sang in the canopy, swooped among the branches. Insectoids buzzed and clicked all around. They all ignored the column of humans passing in their midst, even the insectoids, some of which had been actual Earthling insects imported as pollinators, left the men alone. Again, none of the men in second platoon knew or cared. Although Greig saw an avian that looked like a blue jay and an insectoid that might have been a bee buzzing about looking for a a patch of nectar-bearing flora.

  And none of the soldiers were comfortable about taking a walk in the woods.

  Particularly not the new men from Whiskey Company, soldiers who days before had been manning comps or comms in headquarters units, or maintaining vehicles, or issuing stores, or moving the materials the heavy equipment operators needed to build up firebases. One had been working in a medical station in Millerton, treating the minor scrapes and bruises that afflicted rear area personnel. He was particularly uncomfortable humping the field medical kit he’d been issued when he reported to Whiskey Company.

  The order of march was third squad, Greig, second squad, SFC Alexander Quinn with the medic, first squad.

  “Make a comm check,” Lieutenant Greig said when the platoon was fully under the trees.

  PFC Charles H. Marsh spoke into the comm he carried. “Goal Line, this is Red Rover. How do you read me? Over.”

  The answer came immediately, “Red Rover, Goal Line. I read you five-by. You me? Over.”

  “Goal Line, Red Rover. I read you five-by. Over.”

  “Roger, Red Rover. Goal Line out.”

  “Sir, comms read five-by,” Marsh reported.

  “Good.” Greig turned on his map and studied it for a moment. It was linked into the orbiting warships; his position showed up as a glowing blue dot on the barely noted track through the forest. His assigned patrol route was a purple dotted line. Clearings were hashmarked green, and water courses were blue lines. Dusters, if the warships picked any up, would show up flashing red.

  He saw all the colors except red.

  Greig went to the head of the column where he found Staff Sergeant O’Connor behind his point fire team.

  “Sergeant O’Connor”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Greig showed him the map. “I want you to go fifty meters off the right side of the trail, and proceed to this blue line,” he pointed at a thin line that indicated a stream cutting across the direction in which the platoon was headed.

  O’Connor studied the map for a moment, then nodded. “What do you want me to do then?”

  “Hang a right and go far enough for the entire platoon to be along the water course.

  Again, O’Connor nodded, and he asked, “Do you want us on the bank or back from it?”

  “Stay inside the trees. I don’t want to get surprised on the bank.”

  “Got it.”

  “Go.”

  O’Connor nodded and headed for the point, he’d lead the squad until it was time to make the turn.

  This had all been covered in the squad leaders’ briefing before the platoon left the firebase, but repetition was always helpful.

  The blue line on the map was only a few hundred meters away, but it took the platoon most of an hour to get there. Part of the slowness was due to the frequent times the more experienced squad and fire team leaders had to spend instructing their Whiskey Company replacement on silent movement. The avians and insectoids gave proof of their noisiness by falling silent as the platoon passed; the noise disturbed them in a way their more quiet passage on the dirt road hadn’t.

  The platoon stopped when all its members were in the trees parallel to the stream that showed on the map. Greig called for a squad leaders’ meeting. They edged through the trees to where they could see the waterway. It was a stream only two or three meters wide, that softly gurgled over a pebbly bed. The trees on the other side looked as quiet and empty as the woods they were in.

  “How are they doing?” Greig asked sotto voce.

  “They’re learning,” O’Connor said. “Slowly, but my squad isn’t making as much noise as it did when we first got into the trees.”

  “I wish we had time in the rear to drill them,” first squad’s Staff Sergeant Alphonso Lunt said.

  “We don’t,” Platoon Sergeant Quinn snarled, equally unhappy about taking out a patrol with so many untested men into possible enemy held territory. “So let it go.”

  Lunt looked across the stream and didn’t reply.

  “They’ll get there,” said second squad’s Sergeant Charles Breyer with a shrug. “At least there aren’t any Dusters near us.”

  “Listen,” Greig said, holding up a finger and looking up into the canopy. The avians and insectoids on their side of the stream were resuming their calls.

  “If the birds and bees start talking again this quickly after we stopped moving, any ambush set over there has been in place long enough for them to start up again. We need to stay alert. I don’t want to totally rely on the Navy for intelligence.”

  “The LT’s right,” Quinn said in a lower voice than he’d used before.

  “Look.” Greig held out his map. “We’re only a couple of hundred meters from the nearest part of the road we came out on. We’ll sit here in ambush for a couple of hours. Then we’ll go beyond it maybe three hundred meters farther, then head
back in, using a different track through the fields.” The map showed the stream made a slight turn to the left, so the way back in would be a bit longer than the way out had been. “When we start out again, keep instructing your boys on silent movement. Let’s see if we can move without causing undue distress to the fauna. Order of march will be first squad on the point, third, tail end. Now see to your boys, and take a rest.”

  The squad leaders acknowledged the orders with nothing more than grunts, and headed back to their squads.

  Two hours later, second platoon was once more on the move. Enough of the soldiers whispered among themselves about how relieved they were to be on the move out of the forest that the avians and insectoids went silent once more.

  When they pulled out of the ambush, Quinn kept second squad in the middle because Breyer was his least experienced squad leader, and he wanted as much experience as possible front and back.

  The return to the firebase was as uneventful as the trip out.

  Almost.

  Halfway across the fields Greig glanced at his map again, then did a double-take. He thought he saw a brief flicker of red at the far edge of the map. He turned to look back the way they’d come, but didn’t see any pursuers. He gave the entire treeline a quick scan and still didn’t see any sign of Dusters. Nonetheless, his map had shown that faint flicker of red. He resisted the urge to have the platoon pick up speed.

  He didn’t know how many Dusters might be in the forest, or whether they would attack. But the flicker of red told him positively that Dusters were still in the area, despite their heavy losses.

  Chapter 21

  Combat Action Center, NAUS Durango, flagship of Task Force 8, in geosync orbit around Troy

  As was usual, the lighting in the CAC was dim, the only illumination coming from the display screens at the workstations scattered about the compartment, spaced and angled so that their lights didn’t interfere with each other. The only sounds were the muted sussurus of air circulation and occasional reports from the techs at the stations.

  “Chief, I’m picking up something odd,” Radarman 3 John F. Bickford suddenly said, a bit louder than anybody else’s reports.

  “What kind of odd?” Chief Petty Officer James W. Verney asked, taking the two steps from his station to Bickford’s. He looked over the radarman’s shoulder to see what was so odd. “That’s not odd, son,” he said when he saw it, “that’s downright anomalous.” He turned toward the station where the division head oversaw the entire operation. “Mr. Hudner, we got us a problem.”

  Lieutenant Thomas J. Hudner, the radar division head, glanced at the chief to see which display he was looking at, dialed his screen to show the same image, and quickly saw what Bickford had spotted. He swore softly, then said only loudly enough for Verney to hear, “We’ve been expecting something like this.”

  Verney nodded. “Yes, sir, we have.”

  Hudner picked up the comm and pressed the sensor that connected to the bridge. “Bridge, CAC.”

  “CAC, Bridge. Go,” replied Lieutenant Commander Allen Buchanan, the bridge watch officer.

  “Bridge, it looks like a fleet is approaching from the scattered disc. Roughly four AU out. Two-seventeen, three degrees above ecliptic.”

  “Show me,” Buchanan said, all business. He peered at the display that popped up on the bridge’s main board. “I will inform the captain,” he said as soon as he saw the display of approaching bogies. He toggled his comm to the captain’s quarters. “Captain, Bridge.”

  Captain Harry Huse answered immediately, but sounded groggy as though suddenly awakened from a deep sleep. “Captain. Speak.”

  “Sir, CAC has spotted what appears to be an unknown fleet approaching. Range, four AU.”

  “I will be there momentarily. Notify the admiral’s CAC.”

  “Aye aye, sir,” Buchanan said, but Huse had already signed off.

  Bridge, NAUS Durango

  “Captain on deck!” Petty Officer 2 Henry Nickerson shouted as the Durango’s commanding officer stepped into the bridge.

  “Carry on,” Captain Huse snapped, ignoring the fact that nobody had stood to attention at the announcement that he had entered the bridge. He took the command chair and strapped himself in. Buchanan, who had vacated the seat as soon as Huse said he was coming, stood by its side. “Details,” Huse said as he began studying the big board.

  Buchanan gave his report. “Sir, the bogeys were first spotted as an anomalous smudge coming from the scattered disc during a sweep for any missed survival capsules.”

  During an attempt to intercept and destroy a swarm of enemy missiles aimed at Amphibious Ready Group 17, many of the SF6 Meteors off the fast attack carrier Issac C. Kidd were killed. The fighter craft were built around a “survival capsule” intended to keep the pilot alive in the event the craft was severely damaged or destroyed. The surviving starships of ARG 17 had been conducting a rescue mission for them and survivors of the starships that had been killed by the missiles that had gotten past the Meteors and defensive fire from the ARG’s escort of warships. The Durango’s radar had been aiding in the search for survivors.

  “CAC estimates there are at least forty spacecraft in the approaching fleet. ETA at current velocity, ninety-seven hours. Composition of fleet not yet determined. CAC thinks that determination will be possible in approximately twenty-four hours.”

  “Thank you.” Huse toggled his comm to the admiral. “Sir, did you get that?”

  “Yes I did,” replied Rear Admiral James Avery, commander of Task Force 8. “I have ordered the remaining ships from ARG 17 and the escort to move at flank speed to Troy orbit. And I am notifying the forces planetside to prepare for company.”

  Huse thought about the report. The scattered disc was exactly that; scattered. The wormhole the fleet came from must have been in line with a clump of the icy dwarf planets and cometary objects that made up the scattered disc.

  Not that it mattered. More of the aliens were on their way.

  Headquarters, NAU Forces, Troy, near Millerton

  “Sir,” Captain William P. Upshur stood in the doorway of Lieutenant General Harold W. Bauer’s spartain office. He held the control of a surface-orbit comm in his hand.

  “Yes, Bill?” the commanding general of the human ground and air forces on Troy said, looking up from the reports he’d been going over, showing where the elements of the 1st Marine Combat Force and those elements of the VII Corps that had made it to planetside were deployed.

  “Admiral Avery wishes to speak with you at your earliest convenience.”

  Bauer cocked an eyebrow at his aide. The last time he’d talked directly with Avery, it had been face to face. On that occasion, he’d had to talk the commander of Task Force 8 out of resigning on the spot; falling on his sword, as it were. “Make the connection.” He gestured for Upshur to stay, but be out of sight.

  “Aye aye, sir.” Upshur manipulated the control in his hand and a display on the office’s side wall came to life, showing the interior of the Admiral’s Bridge on the NAUS Durango, in orbit above Troy. Avery was centered in the image.

  “General, thank you for replying so rapidly,” Avery said.

  “Of course, Admiral. When the Navy shield wants to speak to the planetside commander, the wise ground commander complies as rapidly as possible. What can I do for you?”

  “You can get ready. We have detected an unidentified, forty-plus spacecraft fleet approaching Troy. Estimated arrival, slightly more than ninety-six hours.” He paused before adding, “The fleet’s vector makes it being from Earth unlikely.”

  Neither felt it necessary to mention communication—or the lack thereof—between the approaching fleet and the humans in orbit around Troy. Had there been contact, Avery would have said so. Attempts to make contact were standard operating procedure.

  “How firm is that ninety-six hours?” Bauer asked.

  “It’s at current velocity. We have no way of knowing at what point they will begin to decelerate, or whet
her they will overshoot before braking.

  More, we cannot yet determine how many are combat ships, or how many are transports or other support vessels.”

  “What is the disposition of the outlying ships of ARG 17?” Bauer asked.

  “Not good. Four wounded transports plus the Kidd have resumed their voyage to Troy orbit. They’re all limping badly, but they should arrive in orbit within two hours of the soonest arrival of the unidentified fleet.”

  “A wormhole is out of the question?” Bauer’s question was almost a statement, and Avery didn’t bother replying to it. They both knew that a wormhole from Earth wouldn’t open in that direction.

  “I am drawing plans to counter any hostile action by the unknowns,” Avery said.

  “The Army brought limited surface-to-orbit defensive weapons. I will make sure they’re all operational by the time the unknowns arrive. Do you have anything else?”

  “No, sir, that’s everything for now. I will keep you appraised of developments as they arise.”

  “And I will inform you. Thank you, Admiral. Bauer out.”

  Upshur touched a sensor on his control and the display blinked out.

  “Notify my staff and component commanders. A vid conference will do. Meet in thirty minutes.”

  “Aye aye, sir.” Upshur left to do his commander’s bidding.

  Upshur had a conference screen set up in Bauer’s small office. It took up a side wall of the room, from front to back, and gave the small office a claustrophobic feel. Bauer’s desk had to be moved to make room for it. The screen was divided into twelve windows, one for each of the MCF’s primary staff, and the commanders of the NAU Force’s major components. Two of the windows were for Admiral Avery and Captain Huse, or their representatives.