Battlegroup (StarFight Series Book 2)

by T. Jackson King

  “Flame them!” cried Wayne to the two Marines that were closest to his flying trooper.

  The range of his own flamethrower was just ten meters. Thirty-three feet. But Wayne did not need to be that close. A green beam shot from his belly, impaling the topmost wasp flying toward the single flying trooper. Who now flipped over so his belly pointed upward. His own green laser joined the beaming of Auggie.

  In less than two seconds it was over.

  All eight wasps were down, either incinerated by napalm, shredded by birdshot or burned through by CO2 lasers. His mind told him his troopers had better aim with their lasers than the wasps did with their lightning rods due to the eye reticule targeting of their helmet systems. When they ‘saw’ a target and blinked, the snout of their belly laser shifted and shot the target. Green laser beams were just as swift as yellow lightning bolts. Final score was twenty wasps down, one trooper with a dead hard shell, and four Marines still mobile and deadly.

  “We got ‘em,” Wayne said quickly. “But Richard, we’re out of napalm. Arm reservoirs are empty. Four rockets left among the four of us. We’re grabbing José and heading out of this damned park!”

  “Head back to your Dart! But keep your claymore drones flying ahead of you! You can blow through any ambushes with the drones you have.”

  “Right, Richard,” Wayne said hurriedly. “José is breathing and his comlink is working. Martha is picking him up. Heading out. Ooh rah!”

  “Ooh rah!” Richard yelled just as he switched attention back to the wasp ship cross-section on his HUD. Auggie’s team was running down a top level tubeway. The cutaway said the Marines from Dart Three were now just 50 meters shy of the entry hole to his Dart.

  “Auggie! You’re getting close to my Dart. Howard! What’s the scene at our Dart and the entry hole?”

  “I’m out in my hard shell and in the tubeway, covering both directions with my drones,” Howard said hurriedly. “Got grenade laser tripwires at 20 meters down either end of the tubeway. Auggie! Make sure your hard shells are emitting their IFF signal! The grenades won’t blow on you if you’re signal active!”

  “We’re transmitting IFF!” yelled Auggie over the joint comlink.

  Richard briefly gave thanks his pilot had learned from the mass attack on Chao Lee. Then he worried about what other munitions the man might have dispersed. “Howard, what else do you have prepared in the tubeway?” he said, following close behind Jack as the trooper followed the running forms of Tim, Didier and Jane at front.

  “The laser tripwires for one,” the pilot said quickly. “Closer in I have C4 set up in floor to ceiling rings at 10 meters out. The charges should collapse the tubeway, or make it impassable to pursuers. And I’ve got my two mag mines set on the wall on either side of the entry hole as a last ditch defense. Uh, my two claymore drones are up and watching. Anything else I need to do?”

  Richard gave thanks the Marine had not just sat and waited inside the Dart. As soon as he had heard about the attack on Dart Three, maybe sooner, his pilot had gone proactive with setting up multiple lines of death-dealing along both ends of the tubeway. His people and Auggie’s group did not need to worry about the C4, the laser tripwire grenades or the magnetic mines. The IFF signals being broadcast by their hard shells would keep any automated system from detonating. But both his people and Auggie’s troopers had to watch out for the wasp lightning bolts. Those rods had a range as good as a laser. Was there any furniture or crates in nearby rooms that could act as a partial barricade to incoming bolts?

  “Howard! Check the closest door entries for any kind of furniture or crates inside that you can pile up in the tubeway to cover both approaches. But send your drone in first to confirm no wasps are inside!”

  “Ten four, chief,” Howard replied in his Mississippi drawl. “Already done that for every door that opens onto our tubeway, in both directions for 50 meters. Rooms were empty of wasps. A few held the benches and rod pedestals that you found in that sleeping room you dropped into. I moved stuff into the tubeway. Stacked it at 30 meters out on both ends of the tubeway. It’ll give you some shelter from lightning bolts.”

  “Just right,” Richard said quickly as the tubeway he was running down turned left, then straightened out. He looked at a different vidscreen. “Wayne! How goes things?” he asked, seeing that the green dots of Wayne’s people were moving along a tubeway and heading back to where their Dart had penetrated the wasp ship’s outer hull. That Dart lay near the front of the wasp ship.

  “Moving fast,” the man said, his breathing sounding fast. “Got two drones running ahead and behind us. Martha and José are in the middle. I’m bringing up the rear. Like you with your team. My Linda is setting up the laser tripwires and C4 demo rings that your Howard did. She’s out by our entry door, covering the approach with her drones.”

  Richard felt relief. It sounded as if the two surviving Darts would be ready for his Marines. And Wayne’s team needed the combat cover after the park ambush. “Tell Linda I’d give her a hug if I were anywhere close!” Richard said, giving thanks the master sergeant pilot had moved to defend her Dart’s entry hole.

  Wayne laughed. “Linda might just give you a wet kiss, boss!”

  Richard could handle that. Being divorced did not mean he was blind to smart, combat-capable women. “I’ll survive.”

  “We’re back up top,” Wayne said quickly. “Heading along the tubeway for our Dart. I think it’s just 50 meters ahead. I see you’re close to your own Dart. Will Auggie’s team fit inside?”

  “It’ll be tight but there’s room,” Richard said hurriedly as the ship cross-section showed them coming within 50 meters of his Dart. “Be prepared for an ambush! These flying buggers don’t seem to mind dying in mass. They just keep coming!”

  “Yeah, we saw that in the park,” Wayne said. “One of ‘em even landed on the back of Martha’s hard shell and tried to sting her with its tail stinger. The shell stopped it. She reached back, grabbed its head and squeezed, even while her belly laser took down one heading for her.”

  That fit what he knew of Sergeant Martha Boxley. The woman was a judo and taekwondo expert, and a sharpshooter with any kind of long gun, including a laser rifle. “Good to hear it. If you see any unarmed wasps, try to capture a few. Report when you’re all inside your Dart.”

  “Ten four,” Wayne said, sounding measured and calm.

  That was exactly how a Marine team leader should sound.

  Richard saw a welcome sight. The white hard shell of Howard stood far down the tubeway, his arms up and aiming his shotgun and napalm tubes toward the other end of the tubeway. He stood behind a pile of crates, covering the far end of the tubeway. Richard looked up. A black drone hovered just ahead of him and his team. It was Howard’s first line of defense on this end of the tubeway. Just beyond it was a pile of crates and metal rods.

  “Howard! We’re here!” Richard said fast. “We’ve got four captives. Get ready to take them into the Dart!”

  “Wasps are coming!” yelled Howard. “I’m firing on them!”

  His helmet vidscreen showed the view from Howard’s other claymore drone, which hovered five meters past the pilot, who was shielded by a stack of crates. That view showed two dozen black and red-striped wasps flying toward Howard. Yellow lightning bolts speared toward his pilot.

  “Down!” he yelled to his team as he realized the bolts that did not hit the crates would keep coming down the straight line of the tubeway. He and his four Marines were partly shielded by the pile of crates at this end of the tubeway.

  Yellow lightning bolts zipped by overhead.

  “Chief!” called Jane. “We can’t fight with these wasps in our hands! What do we do?”

  Time to do what was needed. “Push them up over the stack of crates! Let those wasps see them! Then it’s up and over! Marines, charge!”

  “Ooh rah!” Jane yelled as she surged over the crates with her wasp held in front of her.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Jaco
b gritted his teeth as he watched the image from Richard’s vidcam that now filled the middle of the front wallscreen. Four of the man’s Marines were surging over a pile of crates, their wasp captives held in front of them. Richard was following them, now moving to the right so his belly laser could shoot past them and over the head of his pilot Howard. Would they survive this attack? Movement in the left side of the wallscreen showed Wayne’s team arriving at their Dart entry hole in a tubeway. His pilot Linda Mabry was covering them as they piled up in front of the entry hole blown in the tubeway wall. Looking to the right he saw the image from Auggie’s hard shell as the man led his Marines along a tubeway that would link bring them to Richard’s Dart. Except a group of attacking wasps filled the tubeway between Auggie and Richard.

  “Launch napalm rockets!” cried Auggie over the team’s comlink.

  Four black rockets flamed out from the Marines’ modular backpacks even as each Marine fired a green beam from their belly laser domes.

  Too much happened at the same time.

  In the middle image he saw Howard’s claymore drone lung toward the attacking wasps. Its separate vidimage disappeared as the claymore exploded. A thick sheet of marble-sized steel pellets shot toward the approaching wasps even as the right side image showed Auggie’s four rockets arriving at the rear of the group of 24 wasps.

  “Kablam! Kablam!” screamed over the wallscreen’s speakers as the drone exploded in near synchrony with the arrival of the four napalm rockets.

  Clouds of yellow flame filled one end of the tubeway, rushing toward the wasps who were not far from Howard and his pile of crates.

  Red blood spurted out from the front line of wasps, splashing the metal walls of the tubeway even as the four balls of napalm flame engulfed the rear half of the attacking wasps.

  In less than two seconds it was over.

  “Howard!” yelled Auggie. “We’re heading your way. Any live ones at your end?”

  “None!” yelled the Dart pilot. “Come on in!”

  “We’re heading in too,” called Richard.

  Relief filled Jacob. His grip on the armrests eased.

  “No!” yelled Aaron from below.

  Jacob followed the Marine’s pointing arm.

  The left side of the wallscreen showed a crowd of yellow wasps dropping from the tubeway ceiling behind Wayne’s group and firing their lightning rods at the cluster of his Marines and his pilot.

  “Wayne!” yelled Daisy.

  Dismay filled him as he saw lightning bolts hit two of Wayne’s people.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Seven felt satisfaction as his Fighter Leader led the attack on the group of Soft Skins who had killed so many in the Practice Chamber. The two closest to his Swarmers fell as lightning hit their white hard shells, joining a third who was immobile. But one Soft Skin raised an arm and sent a sheet of yellow flame toward his Swarmers. The tubeway was filled with billowing flame that felt hotter than Nest’s sky light. Small black rocks flew through the flame, hitting some of his Swarmers. Their rods had fallen silent when the flames blocked their view of the invaders.

  “Send bolts through the flame!” scent cast the Fighter Leader.

  Seven glanced down at a disk he held. It used other radiations to look through space. It showed the black outlines of the six Soft Skins. Three of them were unmoving. The other three . . .

  “Upward!” he scent cast in a flood of signal pheromones. “Kill the flying rods!”

  Black rods pushed by red flame swept through the billowing yellow flames and flew fast toward him and his Fighters. A hovering black device also moved toward them, but slower than the three flying rods.

  “It dies!” cried the Fighter Leader in a rush of territorial pheromones as his bolt took down the slow flyer.

  “Dead also!” cried a Fighter as his rod’s beam of yellow electricity struck one of the incoming rods, causing it to die in a burst of yellow flame.

  “Another dies!” scent cast a hovering Fighter.

  The heat from the first group of flame was joined by heat from the destroyed rods.

  More yellow flame filled the tubeway.

  Through that yellow flame came three white Soft Skins, their arms uplifted and aimed at his people.

  The surviving black rod exploded over the front of his Swarmers.

  Death visited many, dropping them from flight as their wings curled into black shreds and their bodies became flaming torches.

  More flame came his way as the three Soft Skins, now flying on flames shooting from their bottom pair of legs, flew toward his surviving Swarmers faster than they could aim their lightning rods. But Swarmers know how to defend their fellows.

  Three Fighters rose on their wings and sped toward the oncoming Soft Skins.

  “Back!” he scent signaled in a flow of aggregation and trail pheromones. “Back to the topside tubeway hole! Let us fight from inside it!”

  Seven whirred his wings to take him back to the topside hole that had allowed him and his Fighters to drop down into the tubeway after the Soft Skins passed through. Ground bound as they were, the Soft Skins had not looked up at the hole in the tubeway they passed through. But now, it was the only flight path open to him and his Swarmers.

  He stopped just below the hole, aiming his rod at the flying Soft Skins.

  But his three Fighters reached them first, dodging with agility the black rocks that shot from their arms.

  Four Fighters winged up to Seven, then flew into the topside hole. He followed after them, then winged about to aim his rod down, down toward the hole that opened onto the tubeway. Above him he sensed his Fighters doing the same. Inside, he hoped a Soft Skin in his white hard shell would appear below. Surely, surely the combined bolts of five lightning rods would cut through the metal of the white shells!

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Richard stopped just short of the crowd of Auggie, the man’s Marines, his Marines and Howard. Jane was passing her unconscious wasp to Howard, who was shoving it into the tube that led through the tubeway wall and out to the side of their Dart. As his Marines moved to hand captives to Howard, Richard fixed on the vidscreen image of Wayne leading Linda and Martha to a flaming rendezvous with the attacking wasps. Who now grabbed hold of the three Marines using their four legs.

  “Ram them against the tubeway wall!” yelled Wayne as the man’s hard shell tilted to the right.

  Red blood spurted across the field of view of Wayne’s vidcam.

  To the left of the team leader, Marines wrestled in midair with yellow flying wasps. The wasps were pushing their tail stingers against the hard shells’ white armor. The Marines angled their legs to turn their flight sideways.

  Red blood and yellow body fragments spewed ahead of Wayne’s vidcam as the three Marines smashed the attacking wasps against the tubeway’s walls.

  Wayne’s vidcam image went still.

  “Where’d they go?” yelled Wayne angrily.

  “Up there!” called Martha. “Through that hole in the ceiling!”

  “Time to finish this,” said Linda, sounding pissed off.

  “No!” Richard called over the comlink connecting him with Wayne and his team. “Marines! Fall back! Grab your disabled and load them into your Dart!”

  “Chief!” yelled Wayne. “Maybe we can capture a few! Five of them escaped up that hole!”

  “No need! We’ve got four captives,” Richard said hard and loud. “You got bags of tech. So do we. So does Auggie. Marines! Leave this boarding now!”

  Richard shifted his attention from Wayne as the other team leader moved back to pick up the three fallen Marines whose hard shells had been immobilized by lightning bolts. He looked ahead. Howard stood facing him. As did Auggie. No one else was in the tubeway.

  “Jerry, any sign of mobile wasps?” he called to his suit’s AI.

  “None detected by infrared, ultraviolet, radar, motion-detectors and other sensors,” the AI said over their private com. “There are four living wasps nearby, on the other side o
f this tubeway. They are the ones you call captives.”

  “Good.” He looked to his fellow Marines. “Damn! That battle happened fast. Everyone’s inside?”

  Howard raised his gauntleted hand. His pilot gave him a thumbs-up. “All inside. Either in the Dart or leaving the airlock tube and climbing through the hatch.”

  Richard gave his pilot a clenched fist Thank You. “You did great fighting those wasps. And Auggie, I’m really glad your team had some napalm rockets left!”

  “Me too,” said the man who was godfather to his granddaughter. His visor went from black to clear. Auggie smiled, lifting his narrow mustache. “Thanks for the ride out.”

  “Any time,” Richard said, looking to another of his helmet vidscreens. His drone still hovered 30 meters back, near the pile of crates they had hid behind. “Howard, love that crate wall you built. Gave fine cover.”

  “Agreed,” his pilot drawled. The tall, middle-aged Marine turned his visor clear. The man’s brown eyes scanned him, then looked past him. “You gonna call in your drone?”

  Richard gave the word to Jerry to do it. “Did it just now. Howard, blow your C4 charges. At both ends. I want to close off this tubeway to any more wasp entries.”

  His drone whizzed to a stop above him.

  “Done,” the pilot said.

  “Kablam, kablam!” came over Richard’s external suit ears.

  He scanned the rear-looking infrared sensor vidscreen. Large red-glowing piles of metal filled the tubeway behind him and the tubeway on Auggie’s side.

  “Lead the way, Howard.”

  He waited as his pilot stepped through the tubeway entry hole, followed by Auggie’s white hard shell. Richard followed after the man who had lost his own pilot and Dart. As he waited for Howard to unlock the exit hatch into the room penetrated by their Dart, he gave thanks they had only one dead Marine. The hard shells knocked out by the lightning bolts still kept his other Marines alive, thanks to the backup batteries that moved air to the helmet of each Marine. Once they got back to the Philippine Sea, they could pull those Marines out of their hard shells and move the four wasps to the low gee holding cell Lieutenant Jefferson had set up on the Sea. He hoped the damaged hard shells could be repaired. If not, there had to be spare hard shells at Billy O’Sullivan’s star base. Along with ammo reloads for their backpacks. It was work he looked forward to doing, while the Lepanto took its turn at orbital repairs to the deep hull breaches on the nose, belly and top rear of the ship. And to the large areas on the hull where bolts had blasted the adaptive optics mirrors. Looking up, he jumped through the midbody airlock hatch of the Dart. As soon as he stepped inside, it closed behind him. His boots felt a vibration.