Starfist - 12 - Firestorm

by Dan Cragg

  General Nonbrite alerted Task Force Osper, the reinforced security battalion at Gilbert’s Corners, of a possible Confederation assault.

  The Marines knew the 9th Division was on the direct route from their landing beach to Gilbert’s Corners, so the hoppers swung farther south to avoid overflying the division before they cut inland. The hoppers flew low, following roads, not quite as far above the ground as the tallest treetops to reduce the chance of being spotted. Three kilometers from Gilbert’s Corners, they rose thirty meters above the trees and moved line abreast for the final approach. At the same time, the eighteen Raptors of the three FISTs’ squadrons, orbiting at forty thousand feet above Gilbert’s Corners, heeled over to plunge toward the surface. At ten thousand feet, two of the squadrons began firing plasma cannons at predesignated targets in the Coalition defenses, while the third squadron sought targets of opportunity along the roads on the route from the 9th Division’s base at Grenoble’s Shop to Gilbert’s Corners. None of the squadrons looked to the northeast, so they didn’t see the 819th Regiment begin its move to intercept.

  The aerial attack caught Task Force Osper by surprise; it was the first use of Confederation attack aircraft, other than against the Coalition forces attacking the defensive perimeter at the Bataan Peninsula, since the war began. Still, the plunging fire from the Raptors’ plasma cannons didn’t have as much effect as it might have. After the Force Recon raid that destroyed many of the battalion’s barracks and resulted in the capture of Heb Cawman, Task Force Osper’s combat losses were quickly replaced and the battalion was reinforced so it was nearly two thousand strong. Construction of new barracks had been canceled, and all construction efforts were directed to building new strongpoints for the defenders—many of those strongpoints held defensive weapons systems designed to be operated remotely; some even automatically, after a command to sweep an area. General Lyons didn’t want to risk a repeat of the slaughter of the force that had been tasked with protecting the Coalition government. Close-in security, previously neglected, was built up to make it nearly impossible for anyone who managed to evade the patrols and sensors in the forests beyond the farm belt to approach undetected—even Marines in chameleon uniforms. The only significant loss to the defense from the air assault was a five-room subground complex that included two bunkers; its ferrocrete roof hadn’t cured properly and half melted, half collapsed when it was hit by a burst of aerial cannon fire, causing the loss of two squads.

  The Marines landed less than a minute after the Raptors broke off their attack.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  When Lieutenant General Kyr Godalgonz landed north of Gilbert’s Corners with 17th FIST, it was the first time in the memory of anyone in Marine Forces Ravenette that a three-nova general had participated in an assault landing.

  “If we’re going to capture the leaders of the rebel government,” Godalgonz had explained to his FIST commanders, “I believe it’s important that those leaders have someone of high rank to surrender to. They might construe being forced to surrender to someone of lesser rank to be an insult, and they won’t cooperate as well as they might—or they might even resist, causing unnecessary casualties among them and to us.”

  Neither Brigadier Sturgeon of 34th FIST nor 17th FIST’s Brigadier Nuemain could argue that point, though both thought Godalgonz was taking an unnecessary risk. They also both felt that their own commander’s belief that they might be too low-ranking to accept the surrender of rebel leaders was a bit insulting. But they were Marines; when given orders they fulfill them.

  Brigadier Sturgeon did not envy Brigadier Nuemain’s having Lieutenant General Godalgonz with him on his sweep to the north to capture the Coalition leaders. Neither was he very fond of the call signs Godalgonz assigned them. Nuemain was Boomer, 29th FIST’s Brigadier Devh was Pitbull, and Sturgeon was Viper. Godalgonz himself was Killer.

  Lieutenant General Godalgonz, of course, had another, unspoken, reason for wanting to make the landing with 17th FIST: This was a fully unexpected—and almost positively his last—chance to make an assault landing with a FIST. He was disappointed when 17th FIST’s landing was opposed by just three easily neutralized watch posts.

  The farmers, shopkeepers, and construction workers at Gilbert’s Corners had learned the hard way what happens to untrained people when they take on Confederation Marines, and they weren’t about to make the same mistake twice. As soon as they realized the Marines were landing, they began scrambling for shelter behind locked doors.

  The hoppers carrying 34th FIST’s infantry battalion landed a kilometer west of the southwest extremity of Gilbert’s Corners, from where it could block a reaction force heading to the northern edge of the town or itself enter the town from the south.

  Sergeant Kerr jumped from the hopper when it was still more than a meter above the ground and sprinted away from the bird. The Marines of second squad followed him, using their infra screens to identify their squad leader. Kerr hit the dirt fifty meters away, and the squad went prone on line with him.

  “Fire team leaders, report!” Kerr barked into his squad circuit.

  The fire team leaders were already in contact with their men.

  “First fire team, ready,” Corporal Chan answered immediately.

  “Second fire team, we’re here,” Corporal Claypoole said as soon as Chan finished.

  “Th-Third fire team, present and accounted f-for!” Corporal Doyle reported.

  Sergeant Kerr listened to the platoon circuit while his fire team leaders were reporting. As soon as he heard first squad’s Sergeant Ratliff report, he spoke into the circuit with, “Second squad, all present and ready.” Then Sergeant Kelly called that the gun squad was in position.

  “Guns,” Ensign Bass said as soon as all three squads reported in. “One gun lay down fire on the objective. Two, you know what to do. Everybody else, wait for targets.” One gun began streaming plasma bolts at a bunker in front of second squad’s position; knocking out that watch post was third platoon’s first objective.

  Kerr peered through his magnifier screen at the uncamouflaged bunker five hundred meters away. No fire had come from it yet, and only someone suicidal would try to fire from it; it was being washed by a stream of plasma. No incoming fire, no casualties; it was time to go.

  “Second squad, on your feet, forward at the double,” Kerr ordered. He pushed himself erect and began trotting toward the bunker. “Watch your flank, Doyle. We don’t want any friendly casualties here.”

  “R-Roger,” Corporal Doyle answered. He sounded as if he was already panting from the exertion of running.

  Kerr slid his infra into place and looked to his right. The stream of fire from the gun bathing the bunker scorched a brilliant line across his vision, almost blanking out the red blotches of the men running along with him. Still, he was able to make out the three Marines of his third fire team—they weren’t in the gun’s line of fire, and if they didn’t drift to their right, wouldn’t be in it until the squad was fifty meters from the bunker.

  “Keep tight with the rest of the squad, Doyle,” he ordered.

  “Y-Yes, Sergeant Kerr.” Doyle was definitely panting, but Kerr now thought his shortness of breath might have been hyperventilation due to fear, rather than from running.

  Corporal Kindrachuk’s voice came over the radio. “Gun one, changing barrels.”

  “Second squad, hit the deck!” Kerr ordered. “Hit that bunker!”

  Plasma bolts from the blasters of the ten Marines of second squad began hitting the bunker just as the bursts from the gun team stopped washing it. Most of the bolts hit in or near the bunker’s firing aperture.

  Before the Marines could get into a rhythm, Kindrachuk’s voice came back: “Gun one resuming,” and the gun again bathed the bunker with bursts of plasma bolts.

  “Second squad, up and at ’em!” Kerr lurched to his feet and looked left and right through his infra to make sure his men were back on their feet and trotting forward. Assured that they were,
he faced front again and maintained pace with them. They’d cut the distance to the bunker in half. With less than a hundred meters to go, Kerr ordered, “Second squad, halt in place and go to your knee.” The squad stopped and each man raised his blaster to his shoulder from a kneeling position. “Wait for my command, then open fire,” Kerr told his men. Then, “Gun one, cease fire!” As soon as the gun stopped shooting, he ordered, “Second squad, fire! Stand, advance firing!” The ten Marines rose as one and moved forward at a brisk walk, firing their blasters at the bunker. Their fire wasn’t as accurate as it had been when they stopped to let gun one change its barrel, but it was accurate enough that it would have been suicide for anyone still alive in the bunker to approach the aperture to fire out of it.

  But there was nobody alive in the bunker when they reached it.

  “Whooh! Crispy critters!” Lance Corporal MacIlargie exclaimed when he reached the bunker and looked inside.

  Crispy critters, indeed. Four charred husks were all that remained of the Coalition soldiers who’d been on duty in the watch post bunker. They were unidentifiable to the naked eye beyond “probably human.”

  “Never mind that,” Kerr snapped. “Let’s get some security here while the rest of the platoon comes up.”

  “You heard the man,” Corporal Claypoole said. “We’ve got the middle. Second fire team, with me.” He slipped off a glove to show MacIlargie and Lance Corporal Schultz where he was, and began walking away from the bunker, toward Gilbert’s Corners. A hundred meters away he stopped, and the three Marines took positions watching the approach from the village.

  “That’s weird,” MacIlargie murmured into the fire team circuit.

  “What’s weird?” Claypoole asked.

  “Nobody’s there.”

  That was true. Not only were no soldiers rushing toward the recent sounds of battle, no people of any sort were visible in the village.

  “Hiding,” Schultz rumbled.

  “Makes sense to me,” Claypoole agreed. The civilians heard firing close to their north, and now sounds of a raging firefight to their southeast. Anybody who didn’t absolutely have to be out would be in hiding, to avoid getting accidentally shot. He continued to watch. The wait wasn’t long.

  “Second squad, on your feet!” Ensign Bass barked when first and gun squads reached the bunker a couple of minutes after second squad declared it secure. “On line. Gun two with first squad, gun one with second. Check your dress, keep it staggered.”

  “Stand up!” Claypoole ordered as he rose to his feet. He looked through his infra to see the rest of the squad angling toward his position, then looked to see where the rest of the platoon was. There, to his left when facing the village. He swore silently when he realized what that probably meant, and which fire team was to his right. Sergeant Kerr confirmed his suspection a moment later.

  “Doyle,” the squad leader said on the squad circuit, “Kilo Company’s coming up on our right flank. Tie in with them.”

  “Me?” Corporal Doyle squeaked. “M-Me tie in with Kilo?”

  “I didn’t stutter, Doyle, you heard me. You can do it. Take a look, here they come.”

  Doyle looked to his right rear. His infra showed red blotches that weren’t Marines of Company L approaching. “R-Right. Tie in.” He thought for a couple of seconds, then said, “S-Summers, identify y-yourself to the Kilo flanker and m-maintain contact w-with him.”

  “Roger,” PFC Summers said crisply.

  In moments, 34th FIST’s entire infantry battalion was on line, advancing on Gilbert’s Corners and past its sides. South of the village, the Raptors of all three of the FISTs on Ravenette plunged down in their firing runs, to bounce back up for another go. The sounds of the fight on the ground grew.

  Lieutenant General Kyr Godalgonz was in a most uncomfortable and unaccustomed position—pinned down by enemy fire. It had been a long time since he was last pinned down; he’d been a squad leader at the time. Even though he’d survived it without injury, that did nothing to alleviate the discomfort he felt this time. Which could be due in part to the fact that he’d been a captain the last time he’d been exposed to sustained fire, and a brigadier the last time he’d faced fire of any sort.

  “Lieutenant generals should get on the front lines more often,” he grumbled. “Either that or stay away from the fighting altogether.”

  Nobody heard his grumbling, though. He was alone, pinned behind a heap of rubble that had been piled up when the debris from the Force Recon raid was being cleared out. He had full communication through his helmet with his battle staff and with his subordinate commanders, and he could monitor their communications with their subordinate commanders. But he was frustrated; he couldn’t do anything to affect the course of the battle. His communications man, carrying his UPUD Mark III—Universal Positionator Up-Down Link—lay ten meters away, across bare ground swept by continuous fire from an automatic defensive weapon system. The sergeant hadn’t moved since he’d gone down, and hadn’t responded when Godalgonz called to him. Godalgonz thought the Marine must be dead. With the UPUD out of reach, he didn’t have a picture of the battlespace.

  Where the hell was Cooper? He twisted around, looking for Ensign Cooper Rynchus. Where was the man? He was too old and tough a Marine to be a casualty, either dead or unconscious. Godalgonz knew the man could take injuries that would kill a lesser man, and keep fighting and leading Marines. That was how he’d won the Marine Medal of Heroism at the Siege of Mandelbaum.

  “Tough Guy, this is Killer,” Godalgonz said into his battle staff circuit. “Where are you?”

  No reply.

  He tried again, then to his battle staff, “Has anybody seen Tough Guy?” All replied in the negative.

  Godalgonz looked at the UPUD, only ten meters away, but it might as well have been in orbit. Only ten meters, but those ten meters were regularly showing puffs of dirt rising from the ground being pelted by fléchettes shot by the automatic defensive system that covered the area where Godalgonz was pinned down. As near as he could tell, the weapon covered an arc seventy-five meters wide. And it traversed fast, too fast for him to wait for its fire to pass and bolt to the UPUD between sweeps. The fire would reach him again before he could regain cover.

  The loud thud of a heavy body hitting the ground next to him. He half rolled away, moving his hand blaster into position, and looked just in time to see Rynchus raising the screens on his helmet to show his face. A chewed-up area of his helmet near his left cheek was visible, showing where a fléchette burst had struck it. Godalgonz moved his hand blaster so it was no longer pointing at his aide, and raised his own screens.

  “Are you hit anywhere else?” the general asked.

  “Nope. And that would have missed if I wasn’t wearing a helmet,” Rynchus said with unintentional irony. “It messed up my comm. I can still hear, but I can’t transmit. Where’s Shumwray?”

  Godalgonz tilted his head toward where the communications man lay. “I think he’s dead.”

  “And he’s got your UPUD.” Rynchus looked at his boss. “Not much you can do without it, is there?” It was phrased as a question, but it was a statement. He kept his eyes on Godalgonz, but watched the progress of the traversing fléchettes in his peripheral vision. Without warning, as soon as the next group of dirt puffs passed, he launched himself across the ten meters of open ground and dove for the cover of a debris pile beyond the UPUD, scooping it up as he went past. He reached the cover just as the automatic weapon’s traverse brought its fire back. As soon as it passed again, he darted back to Godalgonz’s side.

  “I always was faster than you,” he said with a chuckle as he handed the UPUD to the general.

  Godalgonz just gaped at Rynchus. Then he remembered that he was a lieutenant general in the Confederation Marines; he wasn’t supposed to gape like a schoolboy who just watched a magician pull a rabbit out of a hat. He got control of his face, and gasped, “How did you manage not to get hit?”

  Rynchus laughed. “Like I sai
d, I can run faster than you. Now get to work and do some generaling.”

  Godalgonz stared into Rynchus’s eyes for a couple of seconds, then said, “Don’t ever do something so dumb that you get killed for me.” He turned to his UPUD and quickly saw the situation.

  What looked like an entire regiment was moving toward 17th FIST’s right flank, and Alpha Company, on that flank, was shifting position to meet the new threat. Bravo Company, on the left flank, was maneuvering to hit the enemy forces in the defensive positions from their flank, hoping to free Charlie Company, which was pinned down in the middle, so that it could aid Alpha in fighting off the rapidly approaching Coalition regiment. To the north, 34th FIST was moving through Gilbert’s Corners and along its sides. Icons indicated secured enemy positions around the village. So far, the Marines hadn’t found any members of the government, though they had found some hastily vacated offices and managed to retrieve some data crystals that hadn’t been destroyed.

  But Godalgonz already knew all of that from listening in on his subordinate commanders’ conversations with their subordinate commanders. What neither he nor anybody else in his assault force had known was that another regiment was rapidly approaching from the northeast.

  “Oh, hell,” he swore softly, and showed the display to Rynchus. Rynchus whistled.

  “Boomer,” Godalgonz radioed 17th FIST’s Brigadier Nuemain, “this is Killer. Acknowledge.”

  “Killer, Boomer, go,” Nuemain answered. He sounded rushed; he was fighting a battle bigger than anticipated.

  “Patch me through to 29 Actual, my comm is down.”

  “Roger, Killer. Wait one.”

  Godalgonz waited impatiently through several seconds of soft static, then Brigadier Devh’s voice came over the radio. “Killer, this is Pitbull.”

  “Pitbull, what is your status? I need you now.”