Star Soldier

by Vaughn Heppner

  Peace reined for nine hours. Then they learned that two more convoys had been nuked and destroyed. There had been no survivors. Each convoy had been earmarked for Tokyo, for the big push to the merculite battery. Soon thereafter, the Colonel of the Slumlord Battalion called his captains and lieutenants together in his HQ in the granary’s old monitoring station. Most of the surveillance screens in the room had been broken the day they stormed the granary. Bloodstains still marred the walls. They sat in high-backed chairs around a large table. The Lot Six Highborn towered over everyone else.

  “There’s been a change in emphasis, gentlemen,” the Colonel said, standing at the end of the table. He rapped it with a large knuckle. “Advance at any cost is no longer the prime directive. You are now to husband your men, bleed the enemy and wait for reinforcements to get through.”

  “Sir?” asked Sigmir.

  “We’ve reentered a maneuver stage,” the Colonel said. “Verdun tactics—at least until the transports start getting through in numbers—will no longer dictate our actions. Ninety percent of the reinforcements are marked for the panzer drive north and the heavy infantry push to our south. Our goal, gentlemen, is to pin down as many enemy formations as possible.”

  Marten had learned that the greatest asset of the Highborn was their ability to shift plans. If the situation changed, their goals changed to suit what was possible. It was a daunting power, and he felt uncomfortable in their presence, even if they were only Lot Six, seven-foot tall Highborn. The weird vitality, the intense stares, the life force emanating from them made him feel small, weak and inferior. And that made him angry. So he cleared his throat and asked, “What are Verdun tactics?”

  The four Highborn glowered: the Colonel and his three captains. The lieutenants, Australian-born all, perked up.

  “Mind your place, preman,” growled Sigmir.

  “Now, now,” said the Colonel. “Perhaps an explanation is justified. Verdun was a battle-site in World War One, Lieutenant.” The Colonel must have noticed Marten’s perplexity. “One side set out to grind down the other through a vast battle of attrition. I think the term ‘meat-grinder’ has been used among your men. Such a term is rather accurate, as such things go, and Verdun had been planned as a meat-grinder.”

  “I don’t understand,” Marten said.

  The Colonel glanced sharply at Sigmir.

  “I believe he grasps the concept, Colonel,” Sigmir said. “What he’s trying to—”

  “—He’d better grasp it,” interrupted the Colonel. “Otherwise he should be instantly demoted to private.”

  Marten hated their arrogance. Sure, they could outfight and out-think him, but he was putting his life on the chopping block for them. The least they could do was treat him like a man. He asked, “What was the reason for using Verdun tactics?”

  “I just explained that,” snapped the Colonel.

  “I don’t mean back then, sir,” Marten said, “but for using such tactics here.”

  “That’s quite outside your theater of concern,” the Colonel said loftily.

  Marten couldn’t agree, nor would he let it go. “Sir, do you mean to say that the Slumlords were supposed to grind the enemy by letting ourselves be ground in return?”

  “Weren’t you listening?” asked the Colonel. “Verdun tactics are suspended until further notice.”

  “I realize that, sir. My question is why did High Command ever plan to use them in the first place? It seems beneath Highborn military skills.”

  The Colonel stiffened as the room grew still. The four Highborn gave off a caged tiger feeling, like a mad beast lashing its tail, eager to pounce and kill. The force of it, in a knot of radiating will, hit Marten almost like a physical blow.

  The regular men, the FEC lieutenants, grew uneasy and then visibly scared. Kang was a huge man by normal standards but dwarfed by the Highborn. He slid his chair away from Marten until Marten sat alone.

  The Colonel worked to control himself. He finally said, “To be frank, Lieutenant, High Command believed that Verdun tactics was all that you hastily-trained premen were capable of.”

  “But now, sir?” Marten asked.

  The Colonel flushed, his snow-white skin turning crimson. “Can’t you discipline your men?” he snapped at Sigmir.

  Sigmir reached out and cuffed Marten across the back of the head.

  Marten jerked around as his hand automatically dropped to his holstered pistol.

  “I’d make him point man,” the Colonel icily told Sigmir.

  Marten released the pistol butt and stared at the table. He’d discovered that the Highborn thrived on premen acts of contrition. It fed their bloated egos and made them feel even more smugly superior.

  With the slightest dip of his head, Sigmir acknowledged the Colonel’s suggestion. “Yes, perhaps I shall put him on point.”

  “Fighting spirit is one thing,” the Colonel said, “this lack of disciple quite another.”

  “He will be taught his place,” Sigmir assured the Colonel. “Lieutenant, you will remain silent until further notice.”

  “Yes, sir,” Marten said. “I’m sorry, Colonel.”

  The Colonel sniffed loudly, and then ignored Marten as beneath his notice. “As I was saying—”

  An alarm cut him off. Com-lines buzzed and the entire granary trembled—caused by enemy artillery shells hammering against it. Concrete pebbles from the ceiling were dislodged and rattled upon the table. Dust drifted.

  “To your posts!” roared the Colonel.

  9.

  Having slipped onto Japan so that he could lead the fighting from the home islands, Field Marshal Kitamura had given the word for the grand frontal assault. If they could clear Tokyo, then reinforcements could be rushed north and south, and then maybe Japan could be held until Operation Togo. But first tasks first. So quick-trained levies boiled up from the depths. Samurai Divisions gathered their strength and Kamikaze squads strapped on their bombs. What was left of the airforce hurled itself at the largest Highborn concentrations. A massive artillery park endlessly shelled enemy territory.

  The FEC 4th Army took the brunt of the first day’s attack. It was composed of the broken 9th, the newly arrived 10th and the yet intact 12th, 20th and 22nd FEC Divisions. The remnants of two other divisions, shattered beyond repair, had been taken to the docks and reformed into a garrison brigade. The 23rd and 204thJump-Jet Battalions provided mobile elites to plug any gaps. Lastly, prowling the back lines, shooting stragglers, regrouping others, in effect stiffening the FEC volunteers by their presence, was the Highborn 91st Drop Assault Battalion. The giants in their heavy combat armor were the terror of both sides. The better-off FEC 7th Army held the city to the south, while the 5th Panzer Corps was to the 4th Army’s north. An offshore battery of artillery-bearing submarines provided the armies with gun tubes, while an orbital laser station was dedicated for Highborn Tokyo use.

  Roughly, one hundred thousand FEC soldiers with a smattering of Highborn waged street war against three hundred thousand Japanese. A few of the Japanese formations were the dreaded Samurai Divisions, well-trained soldiers that man for man were more than a match versus the best-trained FEC formations. However, the bulk of the three hundred thousand Japanese were hastily trained civilians, stiffened by police units. They’d had even less training-time than the FEC volunteers. Nor had they the benefit of Highborn instructors. To make matters worse, they were more poorly armed and armored than their FEC counterparts.

  The Japanese frontal attack lacked grace. Field Marshal Kitamura knew his soldiers: they were brave but barely trained. Boldly led in attacks their morale might last a week, maybe a few days beyond that. Then newer levies still training in the depths could be brought up and thrown into the cauldron. Of course, complex tactics were beyond them. So he hurled them straight at the enemy, or as he told his commanders, “We’ll shove a spear into their guts.” To add to the spear’s effectiveness, he tied on a bomb as it were onto the tip, in this instance, the Kamikaze squads
.

  To Marten and his men, the sequence seldom varied.

  First enemy artillery pounded their positions. Following almost on its heels screamed the demonic suicide squads. They crawled, ran, limped, dropped down with jetpacks, popped out of sewers, anyway they could they tried to close and detonate. Then waves of hypnotically bolstered soldiers or stim-induced berserks rushed in. They were armed with carbines, sometimes with heavier weapons, always hurling grenades and fighting hand-to-hand with vibroknives and swords if they could. A few times the Samurai Divisions clanked forward in their dreaded bio-tanks.

  Almost as bad as the constant attacking, Highborn Intelligence learned that an entirely new batch of recruits, another two hundred thousand, trained deep in the city for the next wave. From intercepted communications, it was clear that Tokyo was to remain a sea of bloodshed, that the city would be held at any cost. Intercepted holo-news reports showed that Social Unity lied to the people of Tokyo trapped below. The holo-shows told of incredible victories, that soon the Supremacists would be hurled back into space.

  Above ground, the realities of the situation dictated the strategy for each side and that governed tactics. The underwater nuclear attacks had badly hurt the Highborn ability to re-supply the city. Ninety percent of whatever got through to Japan went north and south. Seldom did anything trickle into Tokyo.

  A week after the initial attack, Marten lay hidden behind the twisted heap of a battle tank. The metallic corpse had the dimensions of a dinosaur. He rested his new sniper laser on the twisted tank body, tracking through his scope for signs of enemy. Beside him, Stick gasped, having just run from Company HQ with orders from Captain Sigmir. It was near noon, but that was difficult to tell under these conditions. Like ominous thunderclouds, a vast sea of smoke blotted out the sunlight. From various parts of the city flames and more funneling smoke rose. Here and there behind both lines, artillery tubes spat fire. Marten ignored it all as he tracked across a field of rubble and boulder-strewn chunks of plasteel and concrete. Beyond the rubble stood ruined buildings, their walls immodestly torn away to reveal the various floors.

  “Do you believe them?” Stick whispered.

  Marten pressed the firing stud. A flash of laser-light stabbed a man crawling toward them—he was forty meters away. The bomb strapped to his chest exploded. Stones flew up and rattled against the dead tank. Marten rolled and slithered through the dust and dirt to a broken sign for Tempko Sake. Stick tagged along. Two Japanese on the third floor of the nearest building stepped forward. Each aimed his electromag grenade launcher at the useless bio-tank—where Marten had just been. Marten lasered them. Then he moved again.

  “Well?” asked Stick a little later.

  “Well what?” whispered Marten from a foxhole he’d dug earlier. He tracked across the rubble, watching carefully.

  “Do you believe the reports?”

  “Which ones?”

  “That High Command is finally hunting down the last of the nuke-launching subs?”

  “Sure, I believe that.”

  “Do you think they know that?”

  “Who?”

  “The enemy generals!” said Stick.

  Marten’s eyes widened as the hairs on the back of his neck rose. He jumped out of the foxhole, pulling Stick with him. Hunched over, they sprinted to a trench where several men of their platoon manned a tripod flamer. “Down,” hissed Marten.

  Everyone flattened himself against the bottom of the trench.

  Shells screamed out of the dark sky, hammering against the old tank, the sign and on top of the foxhole. More rubble, stones, dust and miscellaneous items including flesh was flung into the acrid air. The barrage lasted seconds, and then silence ruled again. Marten rose, peering over the lip of the trench as he listened carefully. He heard the crunch of boots before he saw the gray movement.

  “Up,” he whispered.

  Around him soldiers rose, and now each of them could see the wide-eyed Kamikazes, their lips pulled back in a death grimace as they crawled or bounded from spot to spot toward them. Lasers fired—red lines of agony. Kamikazes curled around them, dying, sobbing and sometimes detonating their grisly packages. From south of their trench came wild shouts of rage. A wave of enemy soldiers high on stims raced at them in a desperate bent-over rush. Carbines barked from enemy hips, bullets whined around Marten and his men. One bullet staggered Marten, striking his heavy chest armor and ricocheting away with an evil spang. The flamer crew, veterans now, swiveled their weapon and sighted. A strange belching sound issued from their cannon and an orange glob of plasma burned the enemy squad in a fierce sizzle. Beside Marten, one of his men gurgled with a ripped out throat.

  There was no time for niceties. They had to spoil the next probing attempt. Marten pointed to three other men: snipers like him. He led them to the dead tank. In this type of battle sniper work was never done.

  “If it’s true,” Stick whispered in his ear, “the enemy generals must know that.”

  “What are you talking about?” Marten whispered. He was unaware until then that Stick had followed him out of the trench.

  “That the enemy soon won’t own any more nuke-firing subs.”

  “So?”

  “So, they’ve got only so long here then until we’re reinforced.”

  “Yeah, that makes sense.”

  “So how long until they make a final push with everything they got?”

  Marten’s stomach grew queasy. Since there wasn’t much to say about that, he shrugged and kept tracking the ruins.

  Suddenly, one of the enemy dead behind them stirred. He was minus an arm, and only one eye worked. He looked up and stretched his torn lips in a dreadful smile as he reached for his detonation button. That caused his elbow to scrape against concrete. Stick whirled around, saw him, drew and fired.

  Marten nodded his thanks. He’d give the enemy this: they fought to the end—the little good it did them. Stick probably had it right. The enemy generals had to realize their situation couldn’t last forever. The Highborn ruthlessly hunted the nuke-launching submersibles and pared their numbers. Perhaps worse for the enemy in Tokyo, the orbital laser station religiously hunted down and burnt the artillery if it wasn’t quick enough to relocate. But worst of all for the enemy were the Highborn who’d crawled forward and studied their tactics. Just like a few minutes ago, FEC troops fell back at the first sign of attack, so hopefully artillery shells exploded upon empty areas. Often Highborn gun tubes fired then, upon the Japanese assembly areas, uncannily catching them at just the wrong moment. The battle was like a clumsy vid-wrestler fighting a cunning knifeman. The knifeman made deadly little cuts and avoided the wrestler’s grapples. But if the wrestler ever got a good hold or if he knocked the knife away…

  Relentless day and night shelling and the first-day softening nukes of the original Highborn attack had turned the buildings, streets and the near-surface tunnels of Tokyo into rubble and ruin, and that made wonderful defensive terrain. In a week of fighting tens of thousand of Japanese soldiers had died hideously; burned, shot, gutted and blown to bloody bits. According to the latest reports, more enemy engineer and flamer troops were being rushed up from deep within Tokyo. Sigmir had told them that in ages past flamethrowers had been used for close combat. The flamer was the modern progeny. It discharged a short-range glob of plasma and could kill even heavily armored Highborn. Marten had seen it happen, and he’d seen the rescue teams rushing to the Highborn to take them back to the hospital submarine to resurrect them if they could.

  The Highborn who’d studied the enemy had made their reports and recommendations. Now the Highborn colonels and captains intensively trained the FEC soldiers in even smaller unit tactics. Instead of platoons and companies being the units of maneuver and fighting, it had become the individual sniper and the storm group. Storm groups were built around the three-man tripod flamer crew. To support the flamer the others carried sniper lasers, gyroc rocket carbines, machine pistols, and grenades for close-in work. Thi
s was no longer street fighting in the usual sense. To stand in the open was too dangerous. Most of the fighting took place inside the ruined buildings or near them.

  As he scanned the rubble, Marten uneasily rolled his shoulders. “They’re not finished here today,” he whispered, feeling the enemy out there.

  “Should we fall back?” asked Stick.

  Marten considered it, and then shook his head. High Command had at last ordered them to stop retreating. The week of relentless enemy frontal assaults had driven the FEC formations too far out of position for High Command’s ulterior plans, or so Sigmir had told him this morning.

  Before Omi’s team replaced his, Marten fought off two more Japanese probes and one more wave attack. He and his assault group of eight men slew forty-three enemies, losing only the throat-shot private in return. By Highborn standards, it was an excellent morning’s work.

  Finally he and his team humped back to company HQ, a hundred meters behind the twisted wreck of a Samurai tank. Holes in the ground were the entrances to the various bunkers.

  Petor, the single-eyebrowed Muscovite bodyguard, rose from where he squatted and snapped his fingers.

  Marten turned and pointed to himself. Petor nodded, his stimstick waggling in his mouth. Then Petor squatted again before the hole-in-the-ground entrance, with his carbine over his knees.

  Marten slipped past him and within the cramped command bunker. It was a simple hole with a thick slab of plasteel for a roof. Despite its crudeness, it was impervious to everything but a direct hit from one of the larger shells. A small bulb on a table provided muted light. Sigmir sat in the only chair, while Kang sat impassively on a stool. The Lot Six Highborn poured over a map of Tokyo.

  Sigmir noticed Marten, looking up long enough to say, “Lieutenant, good of you to show.” Then he went back to studying the map.

  There weren’t any more chairs or stools, so with his head bent Marten shuffled near and examined the map. A red circle had been drawn around the merculite missile battery that was now far away.