Planetside

by Michael Mammay

  “Right,” I said. “So we don’t transmit for a while. We get as much ground as we can get before things go to shit.”

  She nodded once to acknowledge. “Right. We move in three. They’ve stopped jamming internal frequency, so I’ll put it out.”

  “Wait—why’d they stop jamming it? They might be listening in,” I said.

  She shrugged. “Yes, sir. If they broke the crypto. But I don’t have all of our people here, and I’m not leaving the rest of the team without telling them where we’re headed. Satellite comms are still down. I think we’ve just got to hope we got lucky here. If not, we’re screwed anyway.”

  “Roger,” I said. She had it right, but I’d have agreed with her either way. No time for second-guessing. We needed a plan and we needed to execute it before the enemy came down on us. Another rocket cracked nearby, followed by a secondary explosion. A fuel tank, maybe. One of the generators.

  “White platoon, this is White Leader. We’re moving out to the southwest. We’ll blow a hole in the wall. Consolidate as much ammo and water as you can carry. Jackson, you take two soldiers and provide cover for ninety seconds.”

  “Ma’am, what about wounded?” A male voice over the radio I didn’t recognize.

  A pause lingered on the channel. “Take them if you can, leave them if you have to. We’ve got a long move. It’s all we can do.”

  Nobody responded. “Let’s move,” she said.

  I heard someone moving on the roof. At least somebody survived that blast. I had no idea how. Inside, the half dozen soldiers scrambled to grab ammo magazines and check their kit.

  Baxter opened the door and two soldiers led her out. I followed close behind, ducking into a crouch for a moment as a rocket hit back toward the headquarters. The barrage had me spooked. I shouldn’t have paused. It hadn’t been close enough to hurt me. I jumped back up and kept going.

  Someone threw more smoke into the open area in front of our building to mask our movement. We sprinted toward the back of the building and across the open area to the larger headquarters, which now had smoke pouring from the roof in two different places. A demolition charge ripped the air in front of us, a sharper crack than those of the rocket explosions. Some of the smoke and dust cleared, revealing a hole in the outer wall.

  A heavy gun opened up somewhere behind us, but the bullets didn’t come close. From the sound of it, maybe they were still shooting our vacated building.

  I flipped my air purifier on to stop the smoke as I ran through and found cover on the far side. I whipped my head around and took a quick head count. Eleven, including me. At least two wounded. One had a bandage wrapped around her arm, blood showing dark on the outside of it. The other limped from what looked like a calf wound. I ran to him. “Can you run?”

  “Yes, sir,” he said, grimacing. “For a bit.”

  I met his eyes, then glanced at his name on my heads-up display. “Okay, Billings. Don’t be afraid to lean on someone. We’ve got a long way to go.”

  “I’ll make it, sir,” he said. “I’m sure as shit not staying here.”

  “I’m with you on that. Let’s move now, we’ll get a head start.”

  “Roger that, sir.” He and I took off running directly away from the compound. Baxter could catch us soon enough and choose the route. We needed to get to the first hill. Get to the trees, and out of the open.

  Toward what, I didn’t know.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  We reached the second hill before we came under fire. Forty-five minutes. That was longer than I’d thought we’d get. Scattered stubby trees provided some cover, but not enough. The enemy fired in a wide pattern. They didn’t hit us, but it did enough to slow us down.

  Billings gasped as he crouched, grabbing at his leg. He’d taken a piece of shrapnel in the calf, which wasn’t a horrible wound if you got it treated. But with the jagged metal still embedded, it had to be torture every time he moved. A dark stain covered the entire lower portion of his pant leg.

  “I’m done,” he said.

  “You can make it,” I told him.

  “How far, sir?”

  I didn’t respond.

  “Lieutenant Baxter,” he called.

  “What is it, Billings?”

  “Take the rest of the group and go. I’ll hold them up here for a while.” He grimaced as he spoke.

  Baxter looked like she might say something, then after a moment she nodded. “You have grenades?”

  “Two. I could use one more.”

  Baxter took one off of her own kit and tossed it to him. “Make it count,” she said.

  Billings forced a smile. “Always.”

  “Let’s move. Do not return fire.” Baxter’s voice over the radio. “Keep radio silence except for Billings. Billings, you open a channel as soon as we move.”

  “Roger,” he answered.

  Smart. If he keyed his radio from the current position, anybody looking for an electronic signal would home in on him, which would buy us another couple of minutes.

  “Moving,” called another voice. Jackson, the second in charge of the group.

  “Roger,” said Baxter. “Move.”

  The rest of us half sprinted, half jogged, using the hill as cover, trying to put it between us and where we imagined the enemy.

  “They’re getting closer,” said Billings. “I’m going to lay down some fire.” We’d been running less than a minute when he opened up with a dozen shots that echoed through the open microphone as well as the air. “Didn’t hit anyone,” he called. “But they know I’m here.”

  He squeezed off three more rounds, more controlled this time. “Got one that time. There’s a human with them. No, two. Shit. They’re not wearing our gear, though. I don’t think they were Special Ops guys. They’re too coordinated with the Cappans. Definitely human, though.”

  Nobody responded, but I could tell from the glances among the running soldiers that they all had the same thought. This was fucked up.

  “I’m going to put one of the humans down. Grenade, first, to force them to cover up.” A few seconds later the bass of the grenade exploding added to the symphony of higher-pitched snapping bullets. “I’m hit!” Silence on the radio for several seconds. “I’m okay. They’ve zeroed in on me, though.”

  Whump. Another grenade, farther away from us, or maybe it just sounded that way because we kept running, adding distance. No way to know if it was Billings’s or the enemy’s. Rifle fire from close to the microphone said that Billings still had some fight left.

  “Holy shit!” he called. “I had one of the humans dead on, but he jumped like five meters into the air. Damn that guy is fast!”

  My breathing echoed in my helmet between Billings’s reports. Even with my mind on survival, his image registered. The guy who attacked me spaceside had been fast. It had to be related.

  “There’s at least two of them,” called Billings. “They’re covering each other. Too fast for me to get a bead on them, even with guided bullets. I’m switching to explosive. Going to try to get lucky.”

  Silence for a couple seconds. “Here I go,” he said. “Keep running. If this doesn’t work, you won’t have long. There’s something weird here.”

  Four shots rang over the net, then silence. With the radio quiet, the shots sounded in the distance. Probably half a klick. If we were lucky, we’d get farther before they realized that Billings was alone. We needed some luck.

  Nothing else came over the net for what felt like a minute. Hard to say exactly, since I still pounded across tough terrain, trying to keep pace with a bunch of young people.

  “Over here!” It came across the net, but sounded distant. Someone not near the microphone. “There’s only one. Decoy!”

  “Is he alive?” A second male voice, human, not translated Cappan.

  “No. Bullet through the neck.” The first voice.

  Billings died with his transmitter still on. “Tracks lead that way. The rest of them can’t be far. Shit, he’s still b
roadcasting.” The voice grew stronger, more distinct, until it sounded like he spoke directly into the transmitter.

  “This is Captain Trey Mallot. I’m one of you. All we want is the colonel. If you give him up, I promise no harm will come to you. If not . . . ?”

  I tripped and slammed to the ground, scraping my hands as I caught myself. My mind shut down for a minute, and I couldn’t seem to find my way back to my feet. Even though I had talked to him before, somehow this made it more real.

  “There are hundreds of Cappans here,” Mallot continued. “They know where you are, and I’m afraid I can’t protect you. You all know what Cappans do to prisoners.”

  A soldier grabbed me by the arm and helped me to my feet. She had her visor up, and I searched her face, trying to see if the propaganda had made her think. She breathed through her mouth, tired from the run. I couldn’t read her.

  Baxter signaled two fingers to everyone.

  “What does that mean?” I asked the soldier.

  “Alternate frequency. It should already be in your helmet, just flip it, sir.”

  I toggled it with my eyes, but didn’t check in. We were still keeping net silence to hide our location. I reopened the initial channel as well, on monitor only. Baxter switched her people off of it because she didn’t want them hearing any more of Mallot’s crap, but it didn’t bother me beyond that initial shock. Maybe I’d learn something listening to him. More important, anyone we left behind wouldn’t know to switch channels. If they came looking for us, it would be on channel one. Mac was back there. Hopefully.

  Mallot was working with the Cappans. The whole reason we were here, and he was trying to kill us. Trying to turn my own soldiers against me. Asshole.

  A dull, thumping explosion thundered in the distance and Billings’s transmitter cut out. His last grenade, probably. He must have booby trapped himself with it. I hoped he got Mallot.

  The trees around us now reached more than twice the height of a person, and grew about three or four meters apart. They’d give us some concealment from a distance, but up close they wouldn’t do a lot of good.

  After a minute for water, we started jogging again, circling the hill about halfway up. The soft ground kept wanting to slide out from under my feet. We needed another hill between us and the enemy. As it got steeper, more than one soldier fell, sliding downward until they found something to grab at.

  Mallot and the Cappans. I couldn’t concentrate.

  An explosion rumbled from the low ground in front of us, maybe a klick and a half away. We stopped in unison. Baxter glanced at me, and I trotted over to her.

  “That’s bad,” she said.

  I wiped sweat from my forehead and eyes. “It’s good. If their rockets are that far off, they don’t know where we are.”

  “But they’re shooting in front of us,” she said. “They know where we’re going, and they’re trying to keep us from traveling that direction.”

  I didn’t want that thought to take root. “What are the odds that they hit you with an unobserved one ten?” One-hundred-ten-millimeter rockets were notoriously inaccurate. “One in a thousand? We can accept those odds at this point.”

  “Roger, sir. Thanks.”

  “No problem.” I didn’t mention how much worse our odds got if they planted someone on top of one of the taller hills to direct the fire.

  I think a lot of guys would have simply taken over command. I considered it more than once. Nobody would have balked at the idea, but Baxter’s people trusted her, and she was getting the job done. I could always take over later if I had to.

  Rockets slammed on all sides with increasing frequency as we continued to trot forward. We avoided the center of the next low ground, as if that was somehow the aim point. In reality, the fire appeared random. Some hit closer, but none near enough to cause damage.

  Several shacks sprouted, scattered across the next hill. Rural Cappans. They didn’t cluster together the way humans would in a settlement, but close enough to support each other. Farmers, maybe, or perhaps there was a mine nearby. We had definitely entered mine country.

  I didn’t know how the locals would react, or if their presence would keep the other Cappans from shooting at us. Everything we knew from our intelligence said that the locals didn’t support the insurgency, but I didn’t trust those reports—hell, Karikov’s team had provided a lot of the intelligence.

  The trees here in the lowland grew larger, with sharp, rigid leaves the size of a human head. We could avoid the lower branches easily enough during the day, but the shadows grew long. Nightfall would be a mixed blessing. We had better night vision, but the enemy knew the terrain. The cold wouldn’t bother us as long as we kept moving, but we were soaked with perspiration. If we stopped too long, we’d freeze.

  Baxter steered us away from the huts as long as she could. Even if the locals didn’t directly impede us, it only took one calling in our location to give us away to those who followed.

  Our run slowed to a jog, then further to a fast walk. When the first bullet skipped off of the ground in our midst it came as a shock, but not a surprise. Before much longer, rounds whipped through the trees all over. They definitely had our position, directing in additional forces. They still fired from long range—maybe five or six hundred meters—but we didn’t have long.

  Baxter trotted over and walked next to me. “Do you think we’ve gone far enough to get out from under the jam?”

  I had no idea. “We’re probably only going to get one shot at it. And if it’s a mobile jammer that they brought with them, we’ve got no chance. Thing is, I don’t know enough about their technology.”

  “I’d really like to have that next high ground. Map says there’s a mine there, but if we have to fight—” Her words trailed off.

  “It’s a good plan. But if there’s a mine in that hill, there will be more Cappans.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said. “I think we have to risk that. We know the guys behind us want us dead. So we worry about the known.”

  “Let’s do it.”

  The enemy had other ideas. They always do. Fire ripped into us from the opposite direction, and one female soldier went down with a scream. The rest of us hit the ground. They’d either gotten someone around us or called in another force. Regardless, they had us from two directions. Pinned down.

  Baxter shouted orders and gestured with her hands, orienting some of her people in each direction. Soldiers began to scan the sector looking for targets, but didn’t fire. Smart. We had to be disciplined. We only had the ammo we’d carried with us.

  Someone crawled over to the wounded soldier, then shook his head.

  Baxter crawled over to me. “I’m going to try the satcom. We don’t have enough firepower to fight through this new blocking position with another force coming up behind us.”

  “If it doesn’t work and we stay here, they’re going to dial in on us with heavy weapons,” I said. A bullet cracked into the tree a meter above us, raining splinters down on my helmet. “But I think you’ve got to try.”

  She nodded. I didn’t follow her progress. A figure zipped across my sightline and I fired. I tried to guide the round into him, but I had the wrong ammo loaded. My explosive bullet detonated harmlessly well beyond the target. I’m not sure I’d have gotten him even with the right ammunition. Too fast.

  How many superhuman soldiers did they have? I dismissed the thought. It didn’t matter. At least thirty enemy fired at us now, so at a minimum they had us by three to one, and they had the ability to reinforce. We didn’t. Superhuman or no, we were in trouble.

  I glanced to Baxter who had her head down and her ears covered against the noise. We had one shot. If it didn’t work, we could measure our remaining time in minutes. As if to punctuate my thought, a rocket exploded about eighty meters short of our position, flinging up dirt and dust. No way to tell where it came from, but when the next one fell on the opposite side of our position, it didn’t matter. They had our range.

 
Chapter Twenty-Nine

  “Cappa Base, this is White Leader, contact my coordinates. Request air support and extraction.” Baxter spoke into the transmitter, but I didn’t have her feed, so I couldn’t tell if anyone answered. Someone opened up on us with a heavy weapon, and large-caliber bullets ripped the ground around our position. I hugged the ground and tried to make myself smaller. Splinters from a nearby tree pelted me, but my armor absorbed it. How the bullets didn’t hit me, I’ll never know. Lucky, I guess, but I was due some luck.

  They had at least three heavy guns by the sounds of it, maybe four, and they used them all to tear at us. Screams cut through the sounds of fire, but between the rockets impacting and the bullets flying everywhere, the dust made it impossible to tell who’d been hit, or how many. I could barely make out the enemy advancing on us in two waves, half at a time. One group fired while the other moved.

  They’d drawn within two hundred meters, their shapes showing up in the dying light by heat signature in my night optics. The thermal imagery made it hard to get an exact count, but it had to be more than forty. Cappan or human, I couldn’t distinguish at that distance.

  “Six minutes until air cover, eleven minutes to extraction!” Baxter transmitted to me across a private channel.

  Eleven minutes. That meant that our team had something down near the planet waiting on our call, not all the way back at Cappa Base. Good. Unfortunately we didn’t have eleven minutes. We had about two minutes until the enemy assaulted through our position.

  A target flashed from behind a tree, forty meters away. I fired off three rounds, guided, but they all slammed into the trunk. The figure closed the ground to the next cover before I could aim again. One of the humans. It had to be. Cappans weren’t that fast.

  Then again, neither were humans.

  The enemy fire slowed. It had to, because they’d risk hitting their own assault force. That came as sort of a mixed blessing for us.

  They could have sat back and worn us down with their superior fire and eventually beat us. We’d have run out of ammo. But that would have taken time. Maybe they knew we had air support inbound, and that they only had minutes. So they didn’t wait.