“Lion, this is Falcon,” he said, keying his communicator. “We’ve got their tracks, boss, right where I said they’d be. Based on the number of tracks, I’d guess there were ten, maybe twelve Mashers besides the ones that got greased last night. Looks to me like they were all infantry grunts. I don’t see any signs of their walkers.”
“Got it,” Taggart acknowledged. “Anything else?”
“Yeah, there is, boss,” Black put in. “This is a guess, mind you. There are signs that at least one of the buggers was badly hurt when they pulled out. We’ve got a significant blood trail here. If these things aren’t some kind of Neo-Sov mutant, I’d say that shows at least a basic culture, if not a low-grade civilization.”
“How’s that?”
“They’re carrying off their wounded, sir,” Black replied. “We already know they appear to carry off their dead.”
“She’s right,” said Dr. Cortez, who, with Taggart’s grudging permission, had been listening in on the scout team’s report. “Caring for wounded individuals and respect for the dead are two signs of a basic culture. Remember, Captain, we make every effort to recover our own casualties. Does it surprise you that the Mashers do likewise?”
“Oh, c’mon, Doctor. For all you know, their so-called respect for the dead may be cannibalism.”
“Maybe,” Cortez allowed. “But we shouldn’t jump to conclusions.”
“Doctor, at this point, any conclusions we draw are going to be assumption and speculation at best.” Taggart’s voice sharpened. “I’m not going to consider the Mashers civilized just because they carry away their dead and wounded.”
“Besides, Doc, there’s a bigger issue at stake here,” Onawa Frost said.
“Oh? And just what is that, Sergeant?”
“A dozen or so of the little buggers escaped last night. They came back and hit one of our sentry posts,” Frost said with no trace of impatience in her level tone. “I’d say they were probably testing our defenses and our resolve. It’s entirely possible when we get to their base, or village, or whatever, that we’ll be facing a forewarned enemy. They’ve displayed a helluva lot more creativity so far than I’d have given them credit for.”
“Right,” Taggart agreed. “I hate to keep saying we can’t be certain, but it’s true. We can’t be certain that the Mashers didn’t disable those sensor pods as a way to lure us into an ambush. If it was, they did it slicker than grease on a wet rock. Since we can’t be certain, we’ve gotta give them credit for at least low cunning, if not intelligence.”
“That’s what I was saying!” Cortez’s tone was one of exasperation.
“No, Doctor, you were ascribing a culture and civilization to the Mashers that we don’t know they possess. I’m saying they’re clever the way a wolf pack is clever. There’s a big difference.”
“Captain, I hate to interrupt this cultural debate,” Frost said, laying a hand on the reinforced shoulder of Taggart’s combat environment suit. “But this isn’t our department. Let the brain-boys in T- and I-Corps figure out if the Mashers have a civilization or not. Our job is to go in and rescue the prisoners, assuming the little bastards haven’t eaten them yet.”
The Mohawk gunnery sergeant’s tone was one of by-the-book propriety, though Taggart knew the last half of her quiet reminder was a barb aimed at Dr. Cortez. From the look on what he could see of the medic’s visor-shrouded face, Cortez took it as such.
“Right, Gunny,” Taggart said. Keying his communicator, he passed his orders on to the scout team.
“Falcon, proceed with your recon. Maintain communications. If you make contact with the enemy, let us know, then pull back and let him pass. We may be going in against an alerted enemy, I’d rather not kick his alert status up any higher.”
“Roger, Lion, Falcon will comply.”
Dade switched his communicator to standby and looked at his partner.
“Okay, Krista, it’s showtime. Take the point, and don’t let them spot you.”
“Semper fi,” Black replied with a touch of sarcasm. Though junior in both rank and time in service to Dade, Black had exhibited an uncanny ability to locate and follow signs that Dade had missed on more than one occasion.
Black looked down at the trail the aliens had left when they withdrew from the ambush site and chuckled to herself. Her extraordinary talent wouldn’t be necessary to follow this particular set of signs, at least not yet. In their helter-skelter flight, the Mashers’ heavy, running feet left deep impressions in the soft, dusty soil. The tracks were more deeply imprinted at the toe and ball of the foot, indicating that the creatures had been running when they passed over this stretch of ground. A few were deeper than the rest, and closer together. Some were nearly obscured by long, shallow furrows scraped out of the earth. Black interpreted these as being made by aliens carrying or dragging their dead or wounded comrades. This analysis was confirmed by the dark purple-black bloodstains she found in and around those tracks.
With a quiet hum of satisfaction, Black started off, following the trail as it stretched away to the east. She moved easily through the low brushy weeds that dotted the rift valley. Her eyes flickered constantly between the trail and the surrounding terrain. Every few dozen meters, she would turn around to ensure that Rick Dade was still behind her. Too many scout teams had lost their lives because the point scout had failed to notice that an enemy had silently picked off the trailing man. Occasionally she stopped, dropping to one knee. For several moments, she remained still, listening, moving only her eyes as she searched her environs for any sign of a threat.
The scouts had gone less than a kilometer when Black came to a sudden halt. She brought her Pitbull’s buttstock to her shoulder, its muzzle held at chest level, in a low ready position. Without looking back, she knew that Rick Dade had moved to her right, taking up a covering position.
A few meters in front of her, Black could see what looked like a huddled corpse. The body was partially concealed by what, on Earth, would have been a mountain laurel bush, except for its dark blue leaves. Slowly, she released the Pitbull’s forestock and laid the flat of her left hand on the crown of her head, silently signaling Dade to cover her. Cautiously, Black sidled up to the body.
It was a dead Masher. The creature lay on its back, its cloudy, sightless eyes staring accusingly at the Marine bending over it. The Masher’s legs were covered with gashes, probably shrapnel wounds from a Bulldog’s twenty-millimeter grenades. A single bullet hole puckered the alien’s left breast. It clutched a loaded spike gun in both hands. A Thumper, fitted with a saw blade, obviously taken from Cabot’s engineering section, hung from its crude belt of poorly tanned leather.
From signs, Black figured the thing must have been wounded in the firefight with Gunny Frost’s team and the party sent out to rescue them. The Masher probably tried to make it back on its own, but, due to its injuries, fell farther and farther behind its comrades. Feeling death overtaking it, the creature had apparently crawled under this bush and died.
With a qualm of revulsion, Black prized the spike gun from the alien’s rigid grasp. As she straightened, the thick “power cable” attaching the weapon to the Masher’s body came free. The line’s end was surprisingly free of blood. Instead it was coated with fine black threads, which Krista thought were sections of the creature’s nervous system. Suppressing a need to gag, she tossed the weapon away into the underbrush.
Black took a few steps past the dead Masher and stopped once again. Taking several deep breaths, she made an effort to clear her mind of the image of the alien corpse, consciously willing her roiling stomach to settle down. She shook herself, hefted her rifle, and headed off down the trail.
Not far from the lone body, the thin, weedy brush gave way to short thorny trees, most of which seemed to be slowly dying of some kind of alien blight. Their broad, blue arrowhead-shaped leaves were mottled with unhealthy-looking yellow-orange rings. Many of the scrubby plants had no leaves at all on their twisted black branches.
It was in this dying wood that the scouts finally located the object of their search.
“Lion, this is Falcon,” Dade whispered into his helmet’s boom microphone. There was no need for the sotto voce. The aliens could not have heard the Marine Scout’s words unless he took off his helmet and shouted. “We have reached the objective. Objective is two kilometers east-northeast of the crash site. We are one-zero-zero meters west of what appears to be the enemy’s main base. It doesn’t look like a permanent installation, more like a long-term encampment. They have lean-tos and small huts erected, but nothing very solid-looking.
“We count eight aliens moving around. I see three sentries, stationed at intervals, about two-five meters from the center of the camp. Five creatures appear to be working around the camp. One laborer appears to be female. I guess the rest are still asleep. We see no vehicles or heavy weapons, and no sign of the spider-walkers. There are no hostages or prisoners in evidence, no signs of Neo-Sov troops.
“Falcon requests instructions,” Dade continued. “Do you want us to move in for a closer look? It doesn’t look like the bad guys have much of an alert status going. We might even be able to get right down into the camp and see if we can find the friendlies.”
“Negative, Falcon,” Taggart replied in a tone that left no doubt. “Do not approach the encampment. Find yourself a good hide, and hunker down. Maintain surveillance until the main body is up. Keep me posted if anything new develops.”
“Roger, Lion,” Dade said. “Maintain surveillance and report any changes. Falcon will comply. Falcon clear.”
“So an approach is no-go, huh?” Black whispered.
“That’s right.” Dade seemed a little disappointed. “Hold position, hunker down, observe, and report.”
“Hoo-rah.”
30
* * *
“O kay, Marine, report,” Taggart said, as he crawled on elbows and knees into the scouts’ hidden observation post. It had taken forty-five minutes for the main body to reach the outskirts of the Mashers’ encampment. During that time only a few more of the ugly little humanoids had awakened and emerged from their rude huts.
“Not much to tell, boss,” Dade answered. “We’ve got ten, maybe twelve aliens moving around down there, at least three of which are females. None of the females seem to be armed, and it looks like one of them is pregnant.”
“Oh that’s great!” Taggart growled. “Anything else? Any sign of heavy weapons or the walkers?”
“No, sir,” Dade replied. “No sign of any wounded Mashers, either. I think they may be in that big hut off to the right there, sir. The one off by itself. We’ve seen a couple of the females going into that hut, carrying what might have been food. If that ain’t a sick bay, then it’s probably the chief’s hut.”
Taggart nodded and lifted his head another centimeter above the camouflaged screen the scouts had erected around their hide. Located at the bottom of a shallow bowl-like area, the encampment was large. Eight huts and a double handful of crude lean-tos clustered around a large central clearing. As Dade had indicated, one large shack stood off by itself on the south edge of the encampment.
Taking a pair of electronic binoculars from Dade, Taggart studied the camp. On the north side of this clear space three Mashers, all of them female, one of them with a massively swollen belly, worked at a low wooden table. Taggart surmised that they were preparing food for the rest of the aliens living in the rude shebangs. As he watched the creatures work, he was not surprised to notice that the females were just as ugly and unkempt as the male Mashers they had seen. All three of the creatures wore dirty saronglike garments.
As the pregnant one stooped over the table, a yellow metallic flash twinkled at her throat. Taggart turned up the magnification on the electronic binoculars as far as it would go. He could not be absolutely certain, but it appeared as though the females were all wearing necklaces made of small gold lumps and plates. It was then that it struck him that none of them had so much as a single screw or bolt head grafted into her body. Why such decorations were the sole province of the males, he couldn’t say, nor did he especially care. That, as Gunny Frost might say, was not his department.
Taggart reduced the power on the binoculars and continued his scan of the compound. The guards were where Dade had said they were. All but one of the sentries seemed to be armed with spike guns. The remaining guard had a black Pitbull assault rifle grafted into its right forearm.
“All right, you two stay here. Keep an eye on things,” he said, passing the binoculars back to Dade. “You’ll get the word when we’re ready to move in.”
The Marine captain slithered out of the blind and crawled another ten meters before getting to his feet and returning to his troops.
“Okay, Gunny this is how we’re gonna play it,” he said. “Their camp is laid out like this—a small cluster of huts around a central area.” As he spoke, he cleared a small patch of dirt and traced a crude map with the tip of his Ka-Bar.
“First Squad is in the best shape. Take them around this way and deploy them along the north edge of the camp. Sweep south through the camp. Your primary concern is to drive the Mashers out of the camp, so you can search for prisoners. I’ll position Second Squad along the western edge of the camp to give you cover and fire support. I’ll keep our scouts with me for a little added firepower.
“Gunny, I’d like this operation to go off with as little shooting as possible. We don’t know where the friendlies are. This big hut here? That may be an infirmary, so try not to hose it down. And, just to make things more interesting, there are females down there, one of whom is probably pregnant. Tell your troops to be abso-frigging-lutely sure of their targets before they engage, but, under no circumstances are they to hold their fire if it puts their life or the lives of any friendlies at risk.”
“Got it, boss,” Frost said quietly.
“Dr. Cortez, you and your medical team will have to stay here. No arguments this time, Doctor. I don’t want any of you getting greased.” Taggart held up a hand to forestall the inevitable protest. “You may assign one medic to each squad, but you will stay here this time. I need you here to treat serious wounds. If you go in with the troops and get yourself killed, it might cost me some of my men, and I’m not willing to take that gamble, so you stay here. Understood?”
“Understood, Captain.” Cortez’s tone indicated that, though she would comply with Taggart’s orders, she did not like them.
“That’s it, then, Gunny,” Taggart said with a weary sigh. “Move ’em out. When you’re in position, give me a signal and we’ll kick this thing off.”
“A-ffirmative,” Frost said. “I’ll see you when it’s over.”
* * *
Gunnery Sergeant Onawa Frost froze in place. They were barely halfway along their circuit of the Masher camp when PFC Mark Scarpetti suddenly halted, his left hand clenched into a fist beside his head. The young Marine half-turned, catching her eye. He pointed toward the camp and held up two fingers, which he then turned downward, and wiggled in a walking motion.
Frost leaned first to her right, then her left, in an attempt to see the pair of aliens moving along the perimeter of the camp. She caught a brief flicker of movement. The dying, scrubby trees were too thick between her and the enemy to see anything else. She gave up trying to catch a glimpse of the enemy and fixed her attention on Scarpetti, who stood tensely, his rifle at low ready, watching the Mashers. After an agonizingly long interval, he relaxed, and with a jerk of his head, he signaled Frost to follow him.
Scarpetti had barely taken three steps, when a loud flat bang tore through the morning air.
Frost threw herself to the ground. A billow of white smoke marked the spot where PFC Scarpetti had been. The young Marine lay on his side at the base of a thorn tree. His left leg was missing below the hip.
“Dammit,” Frost swore. “The bastards have the area booby-trapped.”
A volley of spikes whistled through the air, landing closer th
an Frost liked to where she was lying. Beside her, Kevin Koll readied his big Bulldog support rifle. The weapon’s twenty-millimeter grenade launcher barked three times in rapid succession. Before the echoes had faded, a trio of sharp flat bangs assaulted Frost’s ears as the eighty-gram grenades burst in the air at preprogrammed spots, showering the area below with deadly steel splinters.
“That’s torn it,” she bellowed. “Everybody in! Let’s go!”
Lurching to her feet, Frost started down the gentle slope in a twisting lope, hoping her zigzag course would throw off the aim of any Masher trying to draw a bead on her.
A Masher stuck its head out through the curtained door of the nearest hut, surprise and confusion on its prognathous features. Frost gave it no time to recover. A load of buckshot from her Jackal punched it backward into the hut and blasted splinters from the wrist-thick branches used to construct the walls of the hovel.
Off to the south, she heard a long chattering roar as Winslow Jones, eager to redeem himself for the loss of his Pitbull, unleashed the Rottweiler machine gun that had until recently belonged to Lucas Panchard. That blast of fire meant that Captain Taggart’s Second Squad had gotten into the action.
Another creature, with a large flat piece of metal implanted in its chest like a crude breastplate, came at her wielding a big, two-handed version of the Thumper club. The weapon seemed to be constructed of a chain-saw blade mounted on a meter-long section of steel pipe. A section of thick insulated cable ran from the weapon’s bulky cross-guard into the Masher’s arm just above the wrist. As the Masher closed with her, its weapon let out a loud whining sound as the bladed chain started to move on its steel track.
Operation Sierra-75 Page 22