Operation Sierra-75

by Thomas S. Gressman

  “Some of our gear is missing,” Cortez blustered to cover her embarrassment. Taggart was right on one point. She knew that she should not have confronted him in front of his troops. “A surgical pack and some drugs. If your goddamn jarheads took them as a joke, it isn’t funny. And whoever took them also took Dr. Grippo’s watch and personal notepad computer. It’s not funny,” she repeated.

  “Doctor,” Taggart said, gritting his teeth. “My men are professionals. They may not be above pulling some bonehead stunts when they’re off duty. But when they’re in the field, they know lives are on the line, and they don’t act like addled fraternity rats.

  “May I remind you, Doctor, that this isn’t the first equipment that’s gone missing on this trip?”

  “What?” Cortez came up short, confusion warring with anger on her face. Realization won out over both. “The cliff. Your man Kowalski, they never found his rifle, did they?”

  “No they didn’t,” Taggart snapped. “All they found was his pistol, a few spent shell casings and Dr. Ake’s helmet, and remember the condition they found that in. We’ve been calling that a climbing accident, when Kowalski got hurt, I mean.” Taggart shook his head and sighed. “I’m starting to wonder if it was a climbing accident.”

  “What are you trying to say, Captain, that it was deliberate?”

  “That is exactly what I’m saying, Doctor.” He gave less of a sarcastic edge to Cortez’s title this time. “I’m starting to wonder if that ‘accident’ wasn’t the result of some kind of booby trap we didn’t see. We know we aren’t alone on this rock. The footprints Dade and Black have been finding and those shapes in the dark prove that. I’m starting to wonder if whoever else is on-planet killed those two men and took their bodies and their gear. They’re probably the same ones who stole your equipment and supplies last night.”

  “Right,” Cortez scoffed. Her heart said he was lying to cover for his men, though her mind told her what he was saying was probably correct. “Are you seriously trying to tell me that some intruder sneaked into this encampment, past armed Marines on sentry duty, stole our stuff, and only our stuff, and then sneaked out again without being noticed? Come on, Captain, I don’t buy it.”

  “Why not? Black and Dade could probably manage it, if conditions were right, and they’re only human. What about aliens, eh? According to our briefings, the Zhykee seem to have the ability to move unseen among humans. Is it inconceivable that another race might have developed a similar ability?”

  Cortez stared at the Marine captain for a few seconds. What he said made sense, but she didn’t like to think that she had misjudged the situation.

  “Boss, I hate to bother you, but we’ve got another problem.”

  There was something in the way Gunnery Sergeant Frost looked at her that made Cortez wonder if the noncom hadn’t been listening in on the argument with Taggart.

  “What is it, Gunny?” Taggart asked, his eyes never leaving Cortez’s.

  “Two of my men, Jones and Persio, are missing their weapons,” Frost said, her voice a level monotone that carried more accusation than if she had jabbed a finger into the doctor’s face. “A couple of the other guys are missing some of their gear and small personal items, too.”

  Taggart half turned to look at Frost, who was standing two meters behind his left shoulder.

  “So, Doctor, what happened here?” he said with a surprising evenness in his voice. “Did your medics steal my guys’ guns? Or did my men lose their weapons and then raid your supplies to cover their own stupidity? Or is it possible that someone or something slipped into this bivouac, swiped the missing gear, and then sneaked out again, without being spotted? If you say no, Doctor, then you’re an even bigger fool than I thought you were.”

  For a moment, her temper, which had been waning, flared again, as Taggart touched a raw nerve. She was not a fool! Then Rebecca Cortez was forced to agree that the Marine captain was probably correct in his assessment of what happened to the missing equipment.

  “All right, Captain,” she said wearily. “Now what? I suppose you want to launch a search for whoever stole the stuff?”

  “Gunny?”

  “Already under way, boss,” Frost replied. “I got Dade and Black working on it now. Thing is, there are so damn many of our own footprints around the camp that they don’t think they’ll be able to turn up much in the way of a trail, unless you want them to widen their search.”

  “Captain,” Cortez cut in. “Our missing gear may be expensive, but it isn’t really critical. I planned for redundancy in our supplies and equipment. If you allow your scouts to spend too much time hunting for the stolen equipment, it’s going to cost us another day. No matter what we saw, or think we saw, last night, I don’t want to leave those people unattended for another twenty-four hours.”

  “I think the doctor is right, sir,” Frost added. “The scouts aren’t too hopeful about finding a trail. We might as well get started.”

  “All right, Doctor. Finish up your equipment check and get your people ready to move as soon as possible.” Taggart turned to Frost. “Gunny, tell Jones and Persio I want to see them.”

  The doctor and the noncom moved off to complete their assigned tasks, while Captain Taggart remained behind. With a sigh, he sat on a large flat stone, and waited.

  Privates Winslow Jones and Adrian Persio appeared in short order. Their body language told Taggart that the Marines were feeling a mixture of apprehension, embarrassment, and self-condemning anger. They were professionals; more than that, they were Marines, and every Marine, regardless of his military occupation specialty, was considered a rifleman first. One of the Corps’ oldest traditions was that every Marine was expected to take care of his rifle. Losing one’s weapon was a serious violation of that tradition.

  “Well, gentlemen,” Taggart said, as the Marines stood at rigid attention before him. “I’m waiting.”

  “Sir, we don’t know what happened, sir,” Persio said. His accent proclaimed him to be a member of the Canadian Contribution Forces. “We both had our weapons when we turned in last night. I don’t know how anybody could have stolen them, sir.”

  “That right, Jones?”

  “Sir, that’s right, sir,” Jones replied, the concrete canyons of New York City echoing in his voice. “Persio ’n’ me, we came off guard duty about oh-four-hunnerd. I rolled right inta da’ sack. We was both sleepin’ onna ground in the open between the south perimeter and the docs’ tents.” Jones halfheartedly gestured in that direction. “I had my ’bull, right beside me all night long, or at least I t’ought so. When I woke up this mornin’, it was gone.”

  “I see. Well, gentlemen, now what am I supposed to do with you?” Taggart pushed himself up from his stony seat and stood in front of his chagrined troopers. “I have two combat Marines who managed to lose their rifles. What are you two going to do if we run into a firefight, throw rocks? I’d really like to know, gentlemen, because unless you figure out a way to build a couple of M-18s in the next five minutes, you’re going to be useless if we run into a spit-storm. No! You’ll be worse than useless, you’ll be a bloody hazard, ’cause instead of looking out for your buddies, you’ll have to look out for yourselves, and the rest of this platoon will still have to be looking out for your sorry hides.”

  “Sir, we still have our Pugs, sir,” Persio said hopefully. “And I’ve got grenades.”

  “Oh, that’s great.” Taggart had yet to raise his voice, which somehow made the chewing out sound even worse. The harsh, quiet tone told them he was more disappointed in them than he was angry.

  “That’s just great,” he repeated. “Pistols and hand grenades. And what if we run into something bigger than a cockroach, huh? What if there are Growlers out there, or Zhykee? What if it is only the Neo-Soviets, but they really have got a Cyclops with them? What good are your Pugs and grenades gonna do then? All right,” Taggart snorted and shook his head in disgusted amazement. “You’re both on report. I’ll figure out what to do w
ith you when we make it back to Luna. Meantime, go see Gunny Frost, see if she can’t figure out a way to straighten out this damn mess you’ve gotten us into. Dismissed.”

  As harsh as the reprimand might seem to a civilian, the situation warranted a response. Taggart might have chewed them out for a lack of vigilance, but whoever stole the rifles and the medical team’s supplies had sneaked past the unit’s sentries, who hadn’t lapsed in their watchfulness. The captain would have bet his life on that.

  Jones and Persio snapped him a pair of mirror-image salutes, then the pair executed a crisp about face and went off in search of Gunny Frost. Taggart knew the Gunnery Sergeant would ream them out in a more powerful and colorful manner than he did. He also knew that Frost would come up with a way for the now rifleless men to redeem themselves.

  15

  * * *

  I t was an hour past dawn by the time Cortez and her medical team completed their equipment check. During that time, Rick Dade and Krista Black had scoured the area around the bivouac, searching both for any traces of the stolen equipment and for an easy way down into the valley below.

  The scouts found a number of false leads on both trails. One set of tracks, identical to the single imprint they’d found earlier, led northward into the hills in a straight line. Along that trail, the scouts recovered a drab green case with a black caduceus printed on the surface. The box contained the missing antibiotics. Unfortunately the trail petered out before any more equipment could be recovered.

  The scouts had better luck finding a trail down into the valley.

  At first, there seemed to be no path leading down the almost-sheer sides of the rift. But after an hour’s worth of passing back and forth along the edge of the plateau where the rescue team had spent the night, Rick Dade spotted a steep, narrow path running to the south.

  “I’ll be a son of a . . .” Dade cursed under his breath. “I can’t believe we missed this.”

  He looked at the trail, assessing it as a pathway into the valley below. Though it was narrow, no more than a meter wide in some places, the grade was not severe, perhaps only ten or twelve percent. An unburdened man might walk it with ease. The burdened Marines and medics of the rescue team would need to exercise caution, but they should have no major problems following the trail.

  “What do you think, Rick?” Krista Black asked.

  “I think this is our best bet. I can’t understand how we missed it. We walked past the dang thing at least four times.”

  “I know,” Black replied. “I’m starting to wonder if the laws of physics apply on this freaking planet.”

  “I don’t know, Krista,” Dade said. “That isn’t in my department.”

  The scout switched channels, contacting his platoon leader.

  “Lion, this is Falcon. We’ve got a trailhead about two-zero-zero meters south of the bivouac. It looks like it runs straight down to the valley floor. Should Falcon investigate?”

  “Falcon, this is Lion,” Taggart replied. “Mark your spot, and then go ahead and take a look. If the trail pans out, advise us, and continue your reconnaissance along the designated route. We’ll be about ten minutes behind you.”

  “Roger, Lion. Falcon will comply.” Dade turned to his partner. “Okay, we’re on the clock.”

  Descending the sloping pathway into the valley proved to be easier than the scouts had anticipated. The ten-degree downslope was gentle enough that safety ropes would not be needed. Though there were narrow places, most of the trail was wide enough that even the untrained medics would be able to negotiate it with relative ease. Dade and Black made the descent in less than half an hour.

  There was one odd thing. About halfway down the trail, they discovered a patch of light-colored stones. Among the flat, off-beige rocks there lay a dozen or so of a chocolate-brown color. When Black investigated the disparity, she perceived that the darker stones had been kicked out of their original resting places. Though the environment suit’s thick gloves prevented her from touching the displaced stones, she felt certain that the dark surface would be cool and slightly moist to the touch. To her skilled tracker’s mind, such a trace indicated that the rocks had been kicked over less than twelve hours previously, probably sometime during the night. Otherwise, the heat of the previous day would have dried the dark brown soil clinging to the now exposed underside of the stones to the same tan powder adhering to the surrounding rocks.

  “You think it was the guys who raided the camp last night?” Dade asked, already knowing the answer.

  “I’d bet on it,” Black said, brushing the dust from her knees as she straightened. “If the bad guys are using this trail, I’d say we’ve got a ‘proceed with caution’ going here.”

  “A-ffirmative,” Dade said. He spoke quickly into his helmet communicator, apprising Captain Taggart of their find. Then, closing the connection, he addressed his partner. “I gotta tell ya, Krista, this whole mission gives me the creeps. If it was the Neo-Sovs who shot Cabot down, why didn’t they finish her off? If they’re the ones who have been dogging us ever since we landed on this frigging rock, why haven’t they ambushed us, instead of pulling all this Twilight Zone crud? Why would the Sovs sneak into camp and steal some of our gear instead of greasing us all? I’m telling you, it just doesn’t add up.”

  “You don’t think it might be the Sovs, using us to test out a new kind of mutant or something like that?”

  “It could be,” Dade allowed. For a moment he let his rifle hang from its assault sling. He tugged at his combat harness, shifting the nylon straps and pouches into a more comfortable position. “But that’s kind of a stretch, don’t you think? They set up a base all the way out here, lure in a survey ship, shoot it down, and use it as bait. That’s pretty thin, Krista.”

  “Yeah, but it’s happened before,” she replied. “Remember the brushfire wars in Southeast Asia? The bad guys there would use captured distress radios to call in rescue birds, and then shoot them down.”

  “I know all that,” Dade said. “But it doesn’t feel right. Personally? I think we’re in a first-contact situation here, and the bad guys are as curious about us as we are about them.”

  “And that’s why they greased Kowalski and Ake, and then carried off their bodies?”

  “Makes sense, doesn’t it? I mean, unless they’re cannibals.”

  “Oh thanks for the wonderful image, Rick,” Black said with a grim cheerfulness. “Just for that, you can lead off for a while.”

  Dade chuckled wryly, hefted his Pitbull, and started down the trail.

  * * *

  As the scouts made their way down the narrow trail, Captain Taggart and Dr. Cortez walked to the edge of the small plateau that had been the team’s bivouac, to have another look at the wrecked survey ship. Cabot looked to be in no better shape by daylight than she did the evening before. Nothing moved in the valley below, reinforcing Taggart’s impression of the crash site as little more than a giant diorama.

  “Odd, don’t you think?” Cortez said, more to herself than to the Marine officer. “Last night there was all sorts of activity down there. Now the site might well be abandoned.”

  “Yeah,” Taggart answered. Then after a brief pause. “Doctor, there is something else that we haven’t considered. Up until now, we’ve been assuming that the figures we saw last night were survivors of Cabot’s crew. I think we have to face the possibility that they could have been Neo-Sovs, or they could have been aliens.”

  Cortez stepped back, lowering her binoculars. Clearly the notion had not occurred to her either.

  “But that would mean . . .”

  “Yes, Doctor,” Taggart agreed grimly. “That would mean that any survivors have been taken prisoner, or there was never anyone left alive down there to rescue.”

  * * *

  While Taggart and Cortez looked over the crash site, the scouts descended the narrow sloping pathway without discovering any more traces of the mysterious individuals who seemed to have taken such an interest in the
rescue party. They paused briefly to check the strip map Captain Taggart had given them. The route laid out on the narrow, computer-generated chart showed the path they were supposed to follow toward the downed survey ship. The scouts knew that, though the course had been laid out by their commanding officer, they were not obligated to follow it blindly. As highly trained professional warriors whose particular skills gave them an almost instinctive feel for terrain, lines of march, enemy presence and the like, they could leave the predetermined route at their discretion, should circumstances warrant it.

  The road Taggart had selected was easy going, a broad, flat section of valley floor that seemed to be relatively free of obstacles or of enclosed places that might conceal an enemy ambush. The scouts moved in an easy, energy-conserving walk. At irregular intervals, one or both of them would pause to look and listen, searching for signs of the presence of an unseen enemy. It was not long before they found such a trace.

  Only a kilometer from the bottom of the trail, Dade came to a halt, dropping to one knee. He felt, rather than saw, Krista Black do the same. Looking around, he strained his eyes and ears for sounds or movements that might indicate danger. When he saw none, he held out his left hand, the first two fingers pointed at the ground. He wiggled those digits to indicate a man walking and pointed again at the ground in front of him. Then, with a choppy wave of his hand, he motioned Black to join him.

  When his partner arrived, they set themselves back-to-back. Dade knew Krista was marginally the better tracker. He positioned himself to watch the team’s back trail. Black knelt behind him, where she could examine the tracks.

  “Hmmm. Looks like eight, maybe ten, of those barefoot mutants,” Black said. “Tracks are a little scuffed, though. Looks like they might be packing heavy.” She touched the long gouges with a gloved forefinger. “Looks like another of those spider-walkers, or else the same one again. I gotta tell you, Rick, the more we see these tracks, the less it feels like the Neo-Sovs. You think we just might be in a first-contact situation here?”