Orphan Brigade

by Henry V. O'Neil

  “That is fantastic. We are going to kill anybody who comes at us from behind. Well done, First Platoon.” Noonan’s voice almost dripped with anticipation, as if the company commander was hoping the enemy found a way to infiltrate that far south. Noonan switched over to Second and Third Platoons, directing them to begin working up similar fire plans.

  Mortas made sure his radio wasn’t transmitting, and whispered to Berland, “I think the CO likes killing Sims almost as much as Daederus does.”

  “Oh, I could have told you that, sir. That last mission, hunting the Sims in that mountain chain, Captain Noonan was practically losing his mind because he wasn’t in on the action. We had patrols and ambushes all over the place, and he had to manage all of that instead of actually being out there.

  “After a few days, he started moving the command group a lot. Kept saying he was having trouble communicating with everybody. The company ASSL told me that Noonan basically turned the command group into a tiny patrol, hoping to run into Sam.

  “I think the CO spent his platoon leader time in one of those outfits where the whole company was always together in one place. Probably had a boss who didn’t let him do too much, so when the shooting started he got to join in. From what I saw on that last mission, I think he developed a taste for it.”

  Mortas’s earpieces pressed down just a bit, and an unfamiliar voice spoke to him.

  “Engineer survey team to your west, heading toward you. Don’t shoot us up.”

  He flipped his radio back to transmission mode. “Come on.”

  Berland was already facing outward, the handheld stowed and his Scorpion in his hands. Recognition signals were exchanged with the incoming patrol, first using the goggles and then the radio once the engineers were in sight. It was a three-­man team led by a tall lieutenant who was mapping out the next phase of the lane clearance.

  The newcomers joined them in the concealed hollow, and Mortas greeted his fellow officer.

  “I’m Jander Mortas. Can’t tell you how happy I am to see you.”

  “Lar Tottleman, good to meet you too.” The engineer shook hands with Mortas and Berland. “Try not to be too happy. I’m only this far up because I got tired of sitting around back there. We are way behind on the timetable, and it’s getting worse.”

  “What’s the holdup?”

  “Most of the mines we’re encountering are really old, both ours and theirs. Command wants us to disarm every one of them without making any noise, but some of these devices are really unstable. Even when we’re familiar with them, there’s a good chance they’ll go off while we’re working. It’s crazy.”

  “But you’re making progress, right?”

  “Sure. And there are some open stretches, too, so we’re not exactly crawling back there.” Tottleman slid his goggles up and wiped sweat from around his eyes with a rag. “This junk in the air doesn’t help, either, but at least it’s keeping any aerobots from finding us.”

  Berland spoke up. “How many ­people you got back there? Shouldn’t be enough to get Sam interested, especially if it’s going so slow.”

  “It isn’t us. We’ve got only as many engineers in the lane as necessary, which may be part of the problem. Somebody on high is just raring to go, and we have to keep shooing the cavalry scouts away.”

  “You’re kidding me.”

  “I wish I was. We’d been on the job for just a few hours when a whole platoon of them rattled up behind us. We chased them off, but that armored division is pretty lathered up to run the pass as soon as it’s clear. They’re spread out pretty well now, but for a while there they were stacked up like we were going to give them the go-­ahead at any second.”

  Tottleman’s head moved in a jerky fashion just then, as if he hadn’t been aware Mortas and Berland were in front of him. Squinting, he leaned over to inspect the dust-­covered tiger striping on Mortas’s fatigues.

  “Now I know we’re fucked. What jungle did they pull you guys out of?”

  It was night, but the thickening cloud of dust had kept the platoon’s positions in the dark for many hours before the sun set. Mortas was on his third filter mask and already beginning to calculate how long the platoon’s supply would last. He was back on his stomach again, between Daederus and Smashy, and wondering if the pain in his chest was from lying prone for so many hours or a lung infection from the tainted air.

  “Ah, that’s no good.” The ASSL spoke to himself, but both Mortas and Smashy looked in his direction, knowing his radio gave him information that was denied to them. The fire support man finally whispered in explanation. “Orbital Command has lost contact with the southernmost brigade scout team.”

  Mortas placed both palms on the dust-­covered stone and pushed himself onto his knees. He squinted inside the goggles, as if that would allow him to see through the darkness or the drifting soot that he couldn’t keep off of his lenses no matter how many times he wiped them.

  The plain in front of him got murky and then vanished long before the high ground miles across from them, where the brigade’s scouts were on lookout. Only one team was out of contact according to that report, so it could be something as simple as malfunctioning equipment, but it was a bad sign that it was the scout team farthest to the south. If the Sims were trying to swing north around the giant hole that they’d created, the first scout team they would have encountered would be the one that was out of contact.

  Mortas had personally taken a three-­man patrol through the platoon zone only a few hours earlier, and had come back convinced that the only presence on their part of the ridge was human. So far there had been no reports of infiltrators anywhere in the brigade sector, but the opportunity created by the reduced visibility could not be dismissed.

  Sliding back down onto his chest between Daederus and Smashy, Mortas fought the odd combination of fatigue and apprehension. The entire platoon had been going on less and less sleep because of the heightened patrolling, and it was beginning to take its toll. At one point his mind felt sluggish and dull, and the next it was racing through all of the unpleasant possibilities suggested by their position and recent developments. No aerial support beyond orbital rockets. Natural depressions and a few old shell holes their only protection if they got hit with artillery or rockets. If they had to abandon their positions, their path to safety went uphill and then over ground that still hadn’t been cleared of mines.

  Mortas blinked hard, cursing the grit that had slipped past the goggles, and in his mind he saw the enemy foot patrol that had passed directly in front of them the previous night. The armored cars that had followed them. The solid ground that still existed along the ridges to the east and to the south.

  “Hey, ASSL.”

  “Yeah?”

  “If they send armor at us, who’s going to shoot that minefield onto the plain?”

  “Right now we’re covered by the artillery of the armored division that’s waiting for the lane to be cleared. Don’t worry; I gave them detailed coordinates for a mixed obstacle belt right after we got here. They could shoot it blindfolded.”

  “When are you authorized to put that in place?”

  “Only if we see Sim armor.”

  “Right. That’s what’s got me worried. An engineer lieutenant told me our tankers are all fired up to run the pass when the lanes are cleared, but it’s taking longer than planned. What do you think they’ll do, that armored division with the artillery that’s supposed to deliver our minefield, if they hear enemy tanks are out on this plain while the pass is still blocked?”

  Daederus didn’t reply for almost a minute, and Mortas began to wonder if the ASSL’s brain was getting as foggy as his own. To his right, Smashy began to fidget as if the conversation were giving him a rash. Finally Daederus responded.

  “You got a good point. Our tankers will want to get out onto this ground right here, to fight Sam’s tankers. Even if thei
r artillery wanted to shoot that minefield, their commander might countermand them.”

  “They’re stacked up waiting to run the passes, so it would take them a while to get down here. We could get overrun before that happened if they didn’t shoot that obstacle belt into position.”

  Daederus began muttering over the radio again, a hurried conversation that quickly got heated. “Don’t tell me they’ll lay the field before they move out! As soon as they know there are tanks out here, we lose them as our priority support! And you wouldn’t know this because you’re not down here, but the dust is so thick that nothing is going to fly in to help us.”

  A pause.

  “Thanks bunches. You’re all heart.” Daederus turned grime-­covered goggles in his direction. “Command says we’ve still got orbital rocket priority if things get rough.”

  “What do you think of that?”

  “Not much. When it’s there it’s the best thing to have, but I usually have the drones and artillery as backup. I don’t like relying on one system, not in a spot like this. And we still don’t know what happened to that scout team.” His chin dropped, then came back up. “Fuck it. I’m gonna seed those mines right now.”

  “Really?” Mortas almost laughed out loud, as if the ASSL were performing some kind of harmless prank.

  “Yes. What are they gonna do? Take away my wings and make me walk with the infantry?” He focused his attention on the dark plain, and began calling in the code that would start the heavy guns miles behind them firing antiarmor and antipersonnel mines across the company front. Mortas flipped to the fire control net, certain that the request would be denied, and he wasn’t disappointed.

  “Wait wait wait wait wait.” A bored voice broke in. “What are you seeing? Why are you calling this mission?”

  Daederus reached up and pulled his grimy filter mask aside just long enough to show Mortas a huge smile. The lieutenant was about to ask the reason for his mirth when the fire control net jumped with communications from the rest of the battalion’s ASSLs. The same code message was repeated over and over, some voices speaking softly while others were shouting. He had just noticed that no one had claimed to have seen the enemy when the bored voice came back with urgency.

  “Understood! Mission cleared!”

  Mortas flipped back to the platoon frequency. “Get ready! The artillery is going to shoot the minefield in front of us!”

  He heard Berland and Dak respond in the affirmative just as several burps sounded from behind him. Far back, on the other side of the high ground that held the passes, the massive tubes of the field artillery were already firing the mission.

  Mortas turned his attention to the dark expanse, remembering the original dimensions of the planned obstacle belt and wondering just how many of the munitions would land in the newly collapsed mud field. It wouldn’t matter because the crater was its own obstacle, but in his mind he saw the heavy projectiles arching through the dust cloud, passing overhead before nosing over and hurtling toward the deck.

  More burps from behind him, then the first impacts. The projectiles carrying the different mines were hot from the launch, and he could pick them out even in the dust cloud. They started seeding the ground a thousand yards out, then moved so close to the opposing ridgeline that he actually saw one of the falling canisters bounce off the far cliffs. Dirt and dust swirling as more and more of the rounds plummeted from the sky, the ASSL sending words of encouragement, and the guns finding a rhythm.

  The first row of glowing canisters reached across the solid ground and found the muddy bog, the shining orbs dropping and disappearing. The ASSL let the mission continue, marking the estimated dimensions of the mud field and discussing the adjustment with the artillery’s fire control personnel. More and more burps, heated metal falling like meteors through the grayness, and the belt started anew to the west, in front of A Company.

  Watching the light fade as the first projectiles cooled, Mortas began to feel a lightness entering his body. In no time at all they would have an extensive obstacle belt in place, shielding them from enemy armor approaching from the plain. The Sims were adept at breaching minefields, but the belt would slow them down, and orbital rockets would take over from there. Drowsiness began tugging at his brain, and he was drifting pleasantly when it all came to an end.

  Directly behind them, close to the pass, a massive explosion leapt out of the darkness. The shock wave went right through his chest armor where it rested on the ground, and the floating dust jumped as if startled.

  “Short round! Short round!” An unidentified voice screamed over the radio. Another concussion, farther out, slapping the air over their heads where the three men pressed themselves into the dirt.

  “Those aren’t ours! That’s enemy!” Daederus’s voice sounded incredibly distant even though he was so close to Mortas that their sleeves were touching.

  The sound dampers in his helmet kept the next explosions from deafening him, but Mortas was forced to endure the rest. High-­explosive rounds landed only yards behind them, heart-­stopping in their suddenness, the blast traveling through the rock like an electrical charge, stone splinters flying over them, dirt and stones landing on their legs and helmets and chest armor, one explosion after another until they were being yanked back and forth by the concussions.

  Pressing into the stone for all he was worth, his hands up under his jaw, his rifle forgotten next to him, every flying pebble the hard finger of the Reaper, tapping on his armor. The shock waves fluttering his fatigue pants, imagining a chunk of steel shooting straight for his unprotected groin, sensing the slope ahead of him and wanting to madly crawl down it, down and away, below the lethal, flailing, unseen claws, but too afraid to move.

  Voices in his ears, remarkably clear because of the dampers.

  “Hold your positions! Hunker down!”

  “Watch the plain! Anybody seeing anything?”

  “Shit goddamn motherfucking son of a bitch will somebody make it stop!”

  The last words scaring him past the terror of the shelling because for a moment he thought the voice might be his own. His hands coming up over his mask, but it wasn’t him because the screaming continued and then was muffled as if someone had landed on the screamer. Someone or something.

  “Lieutenant? You there?” Berland’s voice, shouting but calm. He pulled his hands away, desperate to answer.

  “Yes! Yes! Still here! What’s going on?”

  A pause that seemed to last for days.

  “I think they’re shelling us. I could be wrong.”

  Another blast, not so close this time, but more dirt and stones bouncing over his helmet. Unable to process his platoon sergeant’s words, frightened for a moment that Berland had lost his mind, then understanding. His own words were the ones that didn’t make sense. Mortas let out a shaky laugh, then forced his head up just enough to see out over the plain.

  “I’m not seeing anything to my front. How about you?”

  “Nothing so far. But they’re coming. Too much artillery for it to be anything else.”

  The explosions mercifully shifted back, toward the pass, and he tried not to think about how easily they could return. Looking at the ASSL, who was now peering out from under his helmet, studying the open ground.

  A voice Mortas knew but couldn’t place, calm, confident. It was a moment before he recognized it as the brigade commander, talking to every Orphan facing the plain.

  “They’re going to follow this up with armor. ASSLs, kill the tanks. Orphans, protect the ASSLs.”

  The glowing orbs reappeared, dropping through the mist and continuing to lay the minefield. Behind them, a pulsating succession of blasts made the stone shake, and continued.

  Dak’s voice, vibrating, from the platoon’s position closest to the mouth of the pass. “They’re throwing concussion rounds at the lane! Airbursts! They’re trying to open
the pass from this end!”

  Similar reports came in then, confirmation from Second and Third Battalion that the same kind of ordnance was landing on lanes Two and Three. The concussion rounds were meant to set off the mines that choked the passes without creating the debris that would have been generated by high explosives.

  Mortas felt his sphincter clench, and a coldness invaded his entrails. It all fell into place perfectly, and for an instant he was miles over the battlefield, seeing it all for the first time. Command wasn’t the only entity that had seen an advantage in the mud field’s continued growth to the south. Although the Sims had initially tried to slip past the steadily enlarging obstacle on ground that would give them room to run, they had also taken note of the passes through the southernmost tip of the mountain chain to the north. They’d shifted forces in a way that had avoided detection, one of their specialties, and now they were going to force the passes.

  Somewhere across the flat, massed inside the dust cloud, would be thousands of Sim soldiers in tanks and armored personnel carriers. They’d managed to kill one of the brigade’s scout teams on their side of the open ground, but when the humans had started to seed the minefield they’d been forced to move.

  Daederus grabbed his arm. His words rattled with the continued vibration of the ground. “Tell your ­people to be ready with the dragonflies, and to take over for me if anything happens.”

  Mortas almost asked why the ASSL hadn’t told him, an officer, to take over directing the aerial fire. But then he realized that anything that happened to Daederus would probably happen to the men right around him. He relayed the instructions and received terse acknowledgment from Berland and the squad leaders, who as veterans were no doubt ready to assume the role without being reminded.

  The blasts behind them took on a hollow sound, and the rock beneath them shook even more. The Sim concussion rounds were landing directly in the pass, and Mortas pulled his eyes away from the plain to look back up the slope. No air assets were able to fly in the dust, and the Sims had no ships in orbit, so how could be their fire be so accurate?