The 18th Race: Book 02 - In All Directions

by David Sherman

  Sitter nodded. A high level of readiness couldn’t be maintained for a long period of time without the readiness falling off drastically. “Suggestions?”

  “An inspection never hurt.”

  Sitter chuckled. He’d been an enlisted man before he got his commission, and remembered how he hated company commanders’ inspections in the field. “You know, that’ll piss them off.”

  Robinson nodded. “Yes, sir, it will. And they’ll take it out on the next Dusters they see.”

  “One platoon at a time. Have first platoon in formation here in fifteen minutes. Shift everybody else to cover their section of the perimeter. I think twenty minutes per platoon will be enough.”

  “Will you flunk anybody, sir?”

  “Not unless somebody has a weapon fouled badly enough it’s liable to misfire. I’ll have an officers’ call to inform the platoon commanders. You tell the platoon sergeants. Do it.”

  “Aye aye, sir,” Robinson said to Sitter’s back as the CO returned to the CP bunker. Then at the top of his lungs, “Platoon sergeants up!”

  Nobody in first platoon was happy about having to stand in a parade ground formation for a company commander’s inspection, not even the platoon’s top people, who knew and understood the reason for it. But nobody complained. Not out loud, anyway.

  “Are your people ready, Mackie?” Sergeant Martin asked while second platoon was being inspected, when there were only a few minutes left before third platoon had its turn.

  Corporal Mackie grimaced. “Shit, ready. Look at this.” He gestured at the bare ground of the firebase, at the thin clouds thrown up by gusts of wind. “You can’t do spit-and-polish in this. No matter how clean you wipe something down, half an hour later it’s coated with dust again.”

  “At least it’s not raining,” Martin said. “Spit-and-polish would be impossible then.”

  “Maybe not the spit part,” Mackie said with an ironic laugh.

  Martin had to laugh. “Got that right. But that doesn’t answer my question.”

  Mackie grimaced again. “Depends on how hard-ass the Skipper’s going to be.”

  Martin looked toward the Marines of first platoon. None of them seemed upset at the results of their inspection. “I believe the inspection is nothing more than ass-busting make-work. Something to take our minds off of when are the Dusters going to make planetfall.”

  “You’re probably right. But there are other things we could be doing if all he’s looking for is make-work.”

  “Could be. But he’s the boss, so it’s his decision. Besides, it gives him something to do to take his mind off the waiting.”

  Then Sitter finished his inspection of second platoon and third was called to stand in ranks in front of the CP bunker to be inspected.

  The company commander wasn’t hardass at all.

  Second Lieutenant Commiskey stood at attention in front of Mackie, but looked through rather than at him, while Captain Sitter inspected Private Frank Preston, on Mackie’s right. Sitter’s only comment to Hill was, “Keep it that clean, Preston,” when he returned his rifle after giving it a visual once-over.

  Mackie sharply raised his rifle to port arms as soon as Commiskey stepped away. Out of boredom as much as anything else, Mackie let go of his rifle as soon as his peripheral vision showed Sitter’s hand moving to take it.

  Sitter had to move fast to catch the weapon before it fell to the ground. He leaned close and whispered, “Corporal, we’ve both been around too long for you to pull that kind of crap.”

  “Sorry, sir,” Mackie whispered back. But he didn’t sound apologetic.

  Sitter gave the rifle more of an inspection than he had Preston’s. He wiped a finger along the barrel guard, picking up a faint smudge of dust. “Clean it again, Mackie,” he said as he returned the rifle. To Commiskey, “Inspect him again after he’s cleaned it.”

  “Aye aye, sir,” Commiskey said, and gave Mackie a disgusted look.

  They moved on, which put Guillen directly in front of Mackie. The platoon sergeant gave Mackie a barely perceptable headshake and mouthed, Later, at him.

  Later came and Guillen wanted to know, “What was that about, Mackie?” Martin stood at Guillen’s left side, arms folded across his chest, glaring at Mackie.

  Mackie stood at his tallest and defiantly looked Guillen in the eye. “An inspection in the field, when we’re expecting the bad guys to make planetfall at any minute, is mickey mouse, that’s what it was about.”

  Martin snorted and looked away.

  Guilllen snarled. “Junk-on-the-bunk in garrison is mickey mouse. In the field, when we expect a fight soon, is maybe the best time for an inspection. An inspection is necessary then, to make sure everybody’s weapons and gear are ready for the fight. Now, you’ve got fifteen minutes to clean your rifle before Lieutenant Commiskey comes to inspect it.

  You know, I really do expect better from you, Mackie.” Guillen spun about and stalked away.

  Martin stayed and watched to make sure Mackie was cleaning his rifle instead of sulking.

  After Mackie’s rifle passed Commiskey’s inspection, the lieutenant marched him to the company HQ bunker, where Captain Sitter inspected it again. This time, Mackie didn’t let go of his rifle until Sitter’s hand touched it. He passed.

  Watching the sky

  The battle above began on the night side of Troy, which also happened to be during Camp Zion’s night. The first thing the Marines of India Company saw was three lights moving across the sky; the impulse engines of the three frigates as they crawled into higher orbits to intercept the lights of the Duster fleet, which had been visible close to the horizon, and rising toward the zenith since sundown. The frigates’ movement was followed moments later by the larger lights of the Durango’s and Scott’s engines as the battleship and carrier followed them. The ground observers couldn’t see any lights showing that the Scott had launched her fighters—they didn’t flare brightly enough.

  There were abrupt flashes in the night sky, as the warships launched missiles and fired lasers at each other and each other’s missiles. Larger flashes erupted as lasers slashed through missiles, igniting their warheads.

  “It’s like a far away fireworks display,” PFC William Horton murmured, awed. “I wonder what it sounds like up close.” He was sitting cross-legged on top of the fire team’s bunker.

  “It doesn’t sound like anything, Horton,” Corporal Mackie said. His voice had a trace of fear instead of awe. He understood better than the younger man what the lights in the sky foretold. This was merely the preliminary, the Duster fleet would soon enough turn its attention to the ground. Followed by alien ground forces making planetfall. “They’re in vacuum up there. There’s no sound.” He was laying supine on the bunker’s top.

  Horton looked at the shadow that was his fire team leader and considered. “Right,” he said, remembering his nearly-forgotten basic science studies. “You need air for sound waves to propagate.” After a further moment’s reflection he added, “I think I’m glad I can’t hear it.”

  Mackie’s nod went unseen in the night dark. “When a missile hits a ship, everybody onboard will hear it. And for many of them, it’ll be the last thing they hear.”

  There was another moment of silence before Horton whispered, “Right.”

  Throughout Camp Zion, the Marines watched the battle in the sky. For the most part, they didn’t say anything as the warships continued moving closer to one another. They watched and some cheered as the three frigates made their move, coming in on the flank of the Duster formation and sending missiles and laser beams flying at the enemy. The sharper-eyed of the Marines picked out tiny flashes of Navy fighters being hit by Duster weapons. The Marines cheered again when lasers from Shapland struck a Duster warship and broke it in half. The cheering didn’t last long, not once it became clear that there were only three ships hitting the Duster flank. They could see the NAU ships were badly outnumbered.

  “What are they doing now?” Lance Corpo
ral Cafferata suddenly asked, sitting bolt upright.

  It looked like the human task force and the Duster fleet were merging.

  “Whadafug?” was all Mackie could say.

  Then the Dusters were through the task force and seemed to be gaining velocity. Another of their warships tumbled from being hit by Army laser fire.

  Laser fire from orbit and Shapland chased the Duster fleet for a short while before stopping.

  “Why aren’t they chasing them?” PFC Orndoff asked.

  “Maybe because they’re waiting for more Duster ships to come,” Sergeant Martin said from behind them.

  “Goddam it, Sergeant Martin!” Mackie snapped. “You’ve got to stop sneaking up on us like that.”

  “And you’ve got to—” Martin started.

  “Yeah, yeah, I know,” Mackie said, interrupting him. “We’ve got to have all around awareness. But, man, you’re a Marine, you’re quiet.”

  Martin crained his neck looking up. He pointed toward the sky above the eastern horizon. “That’s why they aren’t pursuing.”

  The others looked where he pointed in time to see lines of light from TF 8 zipping at large, barely seen shadows in the sky. Small flashes of light shot out from from the shadows and began dropping, plunging planetward.

  “That’s the invasion fleet,” Martin murmured.

  Shadow-ship after shadow-ship rolled past the horizon. Half of them dropped shuttles and altered their trajectories, maneuvering out of the way of the lasers from TF 8. The others headed onward, aiming for Shapland, to drop their invaders on the elevator, and the Army positions near Millerton. Here a shadow-ship spun as laser bolts slashed through its hull and vented its atmosphere. There a shadow-ship broke in half when lasers sliced its spine in twain. Another burst apart when lasers penetrated to its power core. A shadow-ship began limping with its power reduced, another staggered and lost weigh.

  The diving Duster shuttles glowed red as Troy’s atmosphere ablated their heat shields.

  “They aren’t making planetfall near us,” Mackie observed.

  “Over the horizon,” Martin agreed. “Be ready to move out, we might go out to meet them.”

  “Shit,” Cafferata said. “That’ll leave us without defensive works.”

  Marine anti-air laser artillery began lancing beams at the distant, plummeting shuttles, too far away for explosive artillery. Some beams hit the shuttles, some beams missed. And some were too diffuse to kill by the time they struck their targets.

  A few shuttles were broken open by hits. A few more were tossed so their heat shields no longer protected them from burning up. Most passed through the barrage of killing-light lances to drop below the horizon.

  Headquarters, NAU Forces, Troy, near Millerton, Shapland

  “If their shuttles carry the same numbers as ours, we can expect the equivalent of a reinforced corps to make planetfall. More on Eastern Shapland than here, because the transports coming west are subject to more fire from TF 8 and the Army’s laser artillery,” was the gist of Brigadier Shoup’s operational assessment. “That’s opposed to a battle-weary Marine division and wing on Eastern Shapland, and an even more battle-weary Army division here. Navy air assets are here to give the Army support, as well as two AV16C squadrons.

  “Do you want to go after them, sir?”

  Lieutenant General Bauer hardly had to think about his answer. “The best defense, and all the other clichés aside, they can overwhelm our ground forces if they catch us in the open. Make sure all our defensive positions are as strong as possible—especially the Army’s.”

  He turned to Captain Upshur, standing ready in the doorway of Bauer’s office.

  “Get me Admiral Avery, if you please.”

  Upshur was back a moment later. “Sir, the admiral is on the surface-to-orbit.”

  Bauer took the comm. “Admiral, I see TF 8 acquitted itself well against the Duster warships.”

  “Thank you, General,” Avery replied after a few seconds lag for the surface-orbit transmission. “What can the Navy do for the ground forces?”

  “We have large numbers of Dusters making planetfall in locations remote from our positions. I don’t believe they’ll stay at a distance. It would be very helpful if you could keep us appraised of their locations, directions, and speed of movement, as well as their formations and armor, if any.”

  “General, I will bend every asset the Navy has to that task, provided it doesn’t reduce TF 8’s ability to defend itself.”

  “That is understood. Jim, the Marines and the Army thank you. We also offer our sympathies for your losses. TF 8’s actions here will go down in Navy lore.”

  There was an audible lump in Avery’s throat when he said, “Thanks, Hal. I appreciate that. I will pass it on to my task force.”

  “Bauer out.” He set the comm aside and looked at Upshur, who still stood ready to do his commander’s bidding.

  “Bill, we have a fight on our hands. A big one.”

  Chapter 25

  Camp Zion, West Shapland, near Jordan, Eastern Shapland

  First Lieutenant Bonnyman came back with his platoon of combat engineers.

  “Not good news, is it Captain?”

  “It could be worse,” Captain Sitter said. He looked eastward, toward where the Duster shuttles had touched down beyond the horizon. “It’s still pretty bad. The Navy says they cram more than twice the number of soldiers in a shuttle than we would in the same similar size vessel.” He shook his head.

  “Two corps coming at the First Marine Division,” Bonnyman said. “Eight to one odds.”

  “Marines have faced worse odds in the past and won. I don’t see why we can’t win again. They throw their soldiers’ lives away.”

  “Yeah, they do. And we’re here to help them throw away more. My people are enlarging the spiked trench inside your platoons’ wire, an adding another outside it. They’ve already done that for Kilo Company. Lima is next.”

  “It’ll help.”

  “I better see how progress is going. By your leave, sir?”

  “I’ll go with you.” Sitter donned his helmet and led the way out of his command bunker.

  “Hey, Skipper!” Corporal Mackie called when the two officers were parallel to his fire team’s bunker. “Does this mean we aren’t going hunting?”

  Sitter paused to look at him. “We’ve got beaters out there, driving them toward us. Turkey shoot, Marine!”

  Mackie threw a thumbs-up at his company commander.

  Firebase Gasson, near Millerton, Shapland

  “A corps and a half?” Sergeant First Class Quinn yelped. “Are you kidding?”

  Second Lieutenant Greig shook his head. “I could only wish.” He’d just returned to his platoon’s area from a battalion officers’ call, where battalion commander Lieutenant Colonel Hapeman had delivered the latest intelligence from Navy surveillance. The majority of the alien transports and shuttles had made it through the gauntlet of orbital and surface missiles and lasers to land their counter-invasion force. The Dusters had landed the equivalent of seven human infantry divisions.

  “But all we have is a single division,” Quinn said. “And it’s worse than that—the division was assembled from bits and pieces of other units!”

  Greig smiled crookedly. “It’s more like a reinforced division. Besides, it could be worse.”

  “How could it possibly be worse?” Quinn demanded.

  “The Marines don’t have as many troops or armor as we do, and they’re facing two full corps.”

  Captain Patricia Pentzer and her platoon sergeant, James H. Bronson, joined Greig and Quinn after giving her own noncoms basic information.

  “I can depress my guns,” she said. “They can knock out armor if it comes here. But they won’t be a lot of use against infantry.”

  “The foot soldiers present targets that are too small for you to hit?” Greig asked. “I can always use more riflemen on the line if that’s the case.”

  “They aren’t too
small, it’s just that a laser beam will only hit one at a time, unless they’re lined up.”

  “You can’t sweep the beam side to side?”

  “Very little. Just so you know, I’m not putting my crews on the line until I know the Dusters aren’t bringing armor at us.”

  “We’ll do what we can with what we have.”

  Surveillance and radar section, NAUS Durango, in orbit

  “Chief,” Radarman 2 Peter Howard said over the susurration of soft voices and gentle pings that were the only sounds in the darkened compartment.

  “What do you think you see, Howard?” Chief Petty Officer William Densmore answered.

  “I know I see maneuvering,” Howard said.

  Densmore stepped close to bend and lean in to study Howard’s screen over his shoulder. The screen showed a view from the side-looking radar of a section of the surface of Eastern Shapland east of the positions of the 1st Marine Division. After a moment he sucked on his teeth and stood straight.

  “Sir,” the chief called to Lieutenant George McCall Courts, “we’ve got something for the Jarheads, or for CAC. Your choice.”

  “Zero it in for me,” Courts ordered.

  Densmore bent back to Howard’s station and reached for the controls. In seconds an enlarged image of Howard’s screen appeared at Courts’s command station.

  “Oh, my,” the lieutenant whispered. He got on the comm to the bridge.

  “Bridge,” Lieutenant Commander Buchanan replied.

  “I’m sending you coordinates. It looks like the Dusters are making a move at the Marines.”

  Buchanan only took a couple of seconds to study the display before whistling. “Keep an eye on it,” he told Courts, “and have somebody take a close look at the Dusters west of Millerton. I’ll notify the Skipper.”

  “Keep watching, and put someone on the Dusters west of Millerton, aye,” Courts said.

  As soon as he was off the comm to S&R, Buchanan called the captain.

  “Huse,” the Durango’s skipper answered immediately.

  “Sir, Bridge. It looks like the Dusters are maneuvering. The Marines should know.”