Starfist:Flashfire

by David Sherman; Dan Cragg

  Dean looked at him, offended. “That’s not funny, Pasquin. I had a good job on Earth. Then I got onboard this starship, and ever since I’ve been going places where people shoot at me!”

  Pasquin laughed again, but it was less raucous. He relaxed into a semifetal position and grinned at Dean. “And just who held a hand-blaster to your head and forced you to board the Keith Lopez?”

  Dean looked away and muttered, “Nobody.” Then, “You two!” he snapped at Godenov and PFC Quick, “Stop standing there playing switch and get your gear stowed!”

  Godenov looked at his thumbs; neither was in his mouth nor stuck up his rectum. “I’m not playing switch. Are you playing switch, Quick?”

  Quick glanced at his own thumbs. “I don’t believe so,” he answered.

  “Got you there, Rock,” Dornhofer laughed.

  Pasquin laughed again, then turned to Dornhofer with a mock-serious expression on his face. “You know, Dorny, we’re setting a bad example, making jokes at another fire team leader in front of the peons.”

  “Peons!” Lance Corporal Zumwald exclaimed. “I’m almost at the end of my enlistment, I ain’t no peon.”

  Pasquin chuckled and asked, “How many stripes you got, peon?”

  Dornhofer asked, “Are you sure you’re almost at the end of your enlistment?”

  Just that fast, the atmosphere in first squad’s compartment turned somber. Until the threat of the Skinks was removed, or their existence was made public, everyone in 34th FIST was in “for the duration.” All offworld leaves, ends of active service, and retirements were canceled.

  That was even more unpleasant than going into harm’s way. Other Marines knew that no matter how many times they went into battle, eventually, if they survived, they’d get out. For the Marines of 34th FIST, the only way out was death or injury so severe the doctors couldn’t patch them up well enough to return to duty.

  “You would have to bring that up,” Pasquin said sourly after a moment. He uncoiled from his semifetal position and swam to a handhold.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  * * *

  Ashburtonville, the primary population center on Ravenette, now host to the secessionist coalition’s government, had been founded 250 years earlier by Franklin Ashburton. Ashburton had been a determined and ruthless entrepreneur, cast in the mold common to most early explorers and adventurers of every age, willing to risk everything to stake out new worlds. The city that took his name had developed into the cultural and economic center of Ravenette, with a population of well over five hundred thousand before most of it was evacuated as a military necessity at the beginning of the war.

  The early settlers on Ravenette were pleased to discover that it was a world hospitable to human life, and many of the animal and plant species native to Earth thrived there. Although the world had its own diverse evolved and flourishing biosphere, the native fauna and flora proved surprisingly compatible to human needs. In fact, the world took its very name from a native species of birdlike viviparous creatures dubbed Corvus corvidae because of their striking resemblance to crows or ravens of Earth. The animals were smaller than their Terran namesakes, seldom growing over twenty centimeters in length. They carried a large, heavy proboscis; a long, wedge-shaped tail; and were covered with smooth, glossy scales, usually bluish-black in color. The name “Ravenette” caught on in the early days but eventually the people of Ravenette just started calling them “blackbirds,” naturally. Those early colonists found them to be intelligent creatures perfectly adaptable to life among humans. In fact, over the generations, for many families the blackbirds readily assumed the roles normally performed by dogs.

  Ashburtonville evolved into a comfortable and gracious metropolis with grand tree-lined boulevards and Earth-style homes constructed of native woods and stone, where the inhabitants raised large and vivacious families. Although Ravenette’s economy depended mostly on agriculture, the people of Ashburtonville did not have dirt under their fingernails all the time, and the lifestyle they developed was diverse and stimulating, drawing to its great advantage on a thousand years of mankind’s struggle to make life better for itself.

  When the order to evacuate the city came, the people, united in their desire for independence, complied willingly enough. Most moved without complaint into the far hinterlands to avoid the destruction that was coming. Some, remarkably independent souls even for an independent race like the people of Ravenette, just refused to move, a few others stayed because they were curious, and some remained behind because they would not leave their homes. But for the most part the once gracious city now lay in ruins, its broad boulevards, once fragrant with trees and shrubs, reduced to rubble-clogged pathways enveloped in the choking smoke of fires and the air everywhere reeking of high explosive. Burrowed deep into the ruins of the once magnificent dwellings the stay-behinds crouched timorously, praying for safe exit from the doomed city. But there was none.

  And everywhere were the soldiers, digging, burrowing, constructing, manning fighting points, tending to the monstrous machines of destruction, soldiers in their thousands, from every world of the Coalition, all waiting eagerly for one word: ATTACK!

  In the lulls between bombardments, only the blackbirds moved aboveground, soaring on the thermals of the fires, looking for carrion. They had learned to feed on the dead.

  A major military headquarters during a battle is a cauldron of organized chaos. Nothing in a battle headquarters can be done there today, all must have been done yesterday and if not, there is always that time between retreat and reveille when tasks left undone can be completed, because nobody there ever sleeps.

  General Davis Lyons established his headquarters on the far side of Ashburtonville in an abandoned school building. Not that he spent much time there. Lyons was the type of commander who believed that in order to manage a battle he had to be at the front, so he spent most of his time out with the troops, touring their fighting positions, talking to them, buoying morale, and conferring with his subordinate commanders. The sobriquet “Granny” that had been applied to him, mostly by politicians and people who did not know Lyons personally, was not the nickname his soldiers had for him: They called him “general.”

  The all-important tasks of managing an army’s sinews, its supplies, its food, clothing, equipment, ammunition, spare parts, fuels, and a myriad personnel matters, Lyons left to the experts on his staff. But late into the nights he read their daily reports, noted deficiencies to be corrected, actions that deserved commendation, and made decisions on a bewildering variety of problems ranging from what to do with civilians found hiding in the ruins to the decisions of courts-martial boards. To add to the complexity of his mission, Lyons also had to coordinate the activities of the Coalition fleet in orbit around Ravenette as well as a small naval contingent in the Ocean Sea just off Pohick Bay. And frequently he was called back to the new capital city of the Coalition government, Gilbert’s Corners, a small town 150 kilometers from Ashburtonville, in an area supposed to be safe from attack, to render in person justification for the way he was running the war. Those politicians were becoming very impatient with him.

  The initial anger Lyons had felt over the proximate cause of his son Tommy’s death had subsided as he became more and more involved in commanding his army. Now, instead of going out of his life on a wave of fire and destruction, Lyons concentrated on fighting the Confederation to the best of his considerable ability. Acts of self-destruction were just not in the nature of General Davis Lyons.

  Lyons knew as well as the politicians bugging him from the safety of their new senate chambers that the longer he kept his army idle in front of Cazombi’s fortified positions the worse it would be for morale as his men slowly slipped into a defensive mentality. He also knew that if the Confederation was successful in adequately reinforcing Cazombi the tide could well turn against him despite the numerical superiority of his army. So he found himself on the horns of a dilemma. He was certain a massive attack by his forces would crac
k Cazombi’s defenses and lead to the fall of his fortress, but if he did that then his grand strategy of luring the Confederation’s piecemeal reinforcements to their destruction would have to be revised. Time was not on his side. The longer the stalemate endured, the more opportunity the Confederation would have to mass first-class fighting forces. Once they got a toehold on Ravenette, they would commence a war of maneuver. Then, if Cazombi’s forces were well-led, and Lyons knew him to be a first-class tactical commander, his own superiority in numbers might not be sufficient to ensure victory.

  Well, General Davis Lyons had a few tricks up his sleeve, but first he had to know what was happening inside Cazombi’s lines.

  During the weeks since the capture of Fort Seymour, Lyons’s engineers and sappers had gradually closed the distance between them and General Cazombi’s fortifications on the Peninsula by extending a network of trenches and tunnels into the intervening no man’s land. Using these, Lyons’s troops had been able to advance protected in some places to within one hundred meters of Cazombi’s defenses.

  Trench warfare is an old tactic of static positional warfare. But the construction methods for Lyons’s entrenchments were very different than those used in commercial excavations. Compressed-air and rotary-percussion drilling equipment, blasting and heavy excavation machinery could not be used because they drew fire. Instead, military technicians had developed a special miniaturized laser that vaporized rock and soil at a very rapid rate and a ventilation system that expelled the gases from the excavations soundlessly and dissipated them into the surrounding environment. The laser drill also eliminated the problem of haulage and disposition of detritus. While this equipment was in operation the men using it had to wear protective gear. The connecting tunnels were short enough they did not require special ventilation systems. One had been successfully constructed to come up inside Cazombi’s defenses and thus far its existence had not been discovered.

  Lyons was meeting with a brigade commander and his officers in one sector of his lines to discuss a raid into Cazombi’s fortifications through this tunnel. Because of frequent power outages so close to the enemy lines, they were using paper maps and charts. “I want you to conduct two diversionary raids of battalion strength here and here,” Lyons told them, jabbing a forefinger at a map of the enemy positions, “while you send a small team through this tunnel to get inside.”

  “I’ll pick my best men,” the brigade commander replied. He looked at his three regimental commanders and selected two to provide the diversionary battalions. “I’ll hold the rest of my brigade in reserve to exploit the breakthrough. We can be ready in the morning.”

  Lyons shook his head vigorously. “No, Colonel, this raid is to get prisoners and information only. We shall not exploit the tunnel breakthrough. I want just a small detachment of lightly armed men to get inside, raise hell, and get out. Blow the tunnel behind them. I need to know what the state of affairs is inside there. I’m going to draw him out to us, but only in my good time. That’s why I need to know what’s going on in there. Colonel, any questions?”

  “Nossir.”

  “What time will they be able to jump off?” Lyons asked.

  “It’s thirteen hours now, we can be ready at zero three hours tomorrow. My men will be forming up in the tunnel not later than zero one hours. I’ll order a barrage to cover the explosion when the engineers blow the tunnel. The demolition charges will be set off by the last man of the assault force out.”

  “Very well. Colonel, if the raid fails, blow the tunnels so the enemy can’t use them to get into our positions.” Lyons looked up at each of the assembled officers and they nodded. “I’ll see you back here at zero one hours tomorrow. I want to talk to your men before they go in.” Lyons shook hands with both officers and left.

  Private Amitus Sparks’s pulse raced, but outwardly he remained calm. This would not be his first assault but the conditions this time were much different than in any of the other actions he’d seen so far in this war. Still, he was with his friends, men he knew he could rely on even if they were a bit peculiar in a noncombat environment. “Wellers, stop spitting that tobacco juice all over the gawdam floor,” he whispered to Private Wellford Brack, the second man in his three-man fire team.

  “Shee-it, Amie, what difference does it make where I spit?” he nodded at the solid rock all around them in the tunnel where they were crouching, waiting for the engineers to give them the signal to move forward. “This whole place is gonna go up in smoke before sunrise anyway.” The platoon had formed up just inside the tunnel mouth. The tunnel was four meters wide and four high, just wide enough to permit a single-file column of infantrymen with scaling equipment to move forward and leave enough room for the engineers to pass them. Dim fluorescent lamps strung along the ceiling at ten-meter intervals gave them just enough light to see by. At the far end of the tunnel they could just make out the figures of the engineers planting the charges that would blow out an exit at the height of the barrage.

  “Well, it’s a gawdam dirty habit, Wellers. Ya should of brought your bottle along.”

  “Yeah? Lug a spit bottle into combat? Sometimes I don’t know about you, boy. Anyways, when you make PFC you kin order me around.” He nudged their fire team leader, PFC Suey Ruston, who was crouching just in front of him. Brack had been a police officer on Mylex, and like all cops, he’d gotten into the habit of chewing tobacco.

  “They’s gonna blow up this tunnel, Amie, so who cares if Wellford spits tobacco juice in here? What I want to be assured of is he don’t let none of them killer farts of his.”

  “Hope it don’t blow while we’re still in here,” Brack whispered, spitting a brown stream across the tunnel. It splattered on the opposite wall. In the dim light, he grinned ferociously at Sparks, revealing the discolored stumps of his front teeth.

  “Cut it out!” a soldier behind them whispered. Brack turned and gave the man a rigid middle finger.

  “Well, if he swallows that chaw in the excitement, we’re gonna have to carry him out.”

  “Shut up!” their platoon leader whispered as he walked down the line of crouching infantrymen. “Noise discipline! Gen’rel Lyons is gonna be here in a minute. He wants to talk to us.”

  “Hee, hee, hee, somebody give the old boy a bullhorn!” Brack stage-whispered. The lieutenant glared at him as he passed on down the line and Brack self-consciously lapsed into silence.

  “Gawdam,” someone muttered, “the Gen’rel comin’ in here to talk to us? Man, that’s bad luck.” Someone else cursed the man into silence.

  These men were eager for the attack to begin. They had practiced it intensively over the last hours, studied the maps of the fortress, memorized every detail, each knew his assignment. Brack’s team was to break through into a specific bunker, if they could, and kill or capture the men in there; if time—ten minutes inside at the most, and then back into the tunnel—and circumstances permitted, they would infiltrate neighboring positions through the communications tunnels the engineers assumed branched off from every bunker, connecting them all into an integrated defensive system. It was really a very simple operation with the exception that they would have to run all the way back through the tunnel with their prisoners—if they got any—and wounded, which they definitely would have.

  Brack had never seen General Davis Lyons up close. That morning the general passed within inches of where they crouched, speaking quiet words of encouragement to each man, shaking hands with some, pausing to talk in whispers briefly with others. “I’m counting on you,” he said directly to Brack and making eye contact. He passed on, then turned around and came back. “Is that a chaw in your cheek, soldier?” he asked.

  “Um, yessir,” Brack mumbled, his lips stained dark with tobacco juice that was visible even in the poor light. He began to get to his feet to assume the position of attention but Lyons motioned for him to stay down.

  Lyons shook his head as Brack’s platoon commander, who was following the general, began to sa
y something. “Well, soldier, make sure you don’t swallow the damn thing,” Lyons said and, still shaking his head, passed on down the line. Brack gave Sparks a huge, vindicated grin and spit carefully but victoriously, onto the wall behind him. On his way out General Lyons paused before Brack again, laid a hand on his shoulder and squeezed it gently. Brack was astonished and enormously flattered that the general remembered him, but most invigorating of all, he realized, he had just had his brush with history and if he lived through this war, he’d have a story to tell the rest of his life.

  A few minutes later the lieutenant came back down the line whispering, “Forward! Forward! The engineers are ready!”

  “My name is Andantina Metzger,” the interrogator introduced herself, taking the chair opposite Ennis Shovell. “Smoke?” she asked, offering an open pack of cigarettes to Shovell, who shook his head. She shrugged. “You don’t mind if I have one then?” She lighted up, leaned back, and smiled. “So, Private Shovel, how’s things?”

  Ennis Shovell’s head was still bandaged from the blow that had knocked him unconscious and saved his life. He did not know what happened to his companions, Livny and Quimper, whom he presumed were killed in the raid. “I’ve been worse,” Shovell answered. He sized up Metzger warily, the way she sucked the smoke into her lungs and expelled it to one side, to avoid blowing it into his face; her posture in the chair; the way she looked at him; her hair, the bones in her face. She did not look at all threatening. He estimated her age as several years younger than himself, but no spring chicken. Ordinarily she might have been rather attractive to him but under these circumstances Shovell had other things to think about. “When do you start pulling out my fingernails?” he asked.

  “Oh, dear boy, don’t be so crude!” Metzger smiled slightly, revealing a set of good teeth, “we do so much hate crudity. Ah, hum,” she was silent for a moment, regarding Shovell in her turn. She knew something about him from the information contained in the standard-issue army ID bracelet he’d been wearing when captured. She saw a well-built man in his forties, probably, one side of his head covered with a field dressing, his tunic bloodstained. Her training was as a psychologist. In civilian life she conducted interviews with criminal suspects for the police and was considered good at obtaining confessions. “You’re from New Genesee? I’ve never been there. What’s it like? What’d you do there? How’s your family?”