Starfist:Flashfire

by David Sherman; Dan Cragg

  “Incoming from Infantry, sir,” Shadeh said.

  “FIST Actual,” Sturgeon said into the comm. “Over.”

  “FIST Actual, Infantry Six Actual,” Commander van Winkle’s voice came over the comm. “We have pursued the enemy and have them pinned at the foot of a hill.”

  “Can you overrun them?” Sturgeon asked. He didn’t mention that the infantry was supposed to have held in place when they drove the Coalition forces away from their breakthrough.

  “Not quickly, FIST Actual. At the moment, all we can do is hold them in place. There is another battalion of them dug in on top of the hill and they’ve started calling for artillery. All we can do right now is hold them in place. Over.”

  “Wait one.” Sturgeon turned to Colonel Ramadan. “Contact Commander Wolfe, I want him to put his entire squadron on that hill to knock out a dug-in infantry battalion. And my compliments to Lieutenant General Cazombi, I’d appreciate it if he would have his artillery put some counterbattery fire on the artillery firing at my infantrymen.”

  “Right away, sir,” Ramadan said, turning away to issue the order to the FIST’s composite squadron and make the request to the army. He permitted himself a slight smile. Going direct to Cazombi would get the FIST’s infantry the artillery support it needed; going to General Billie’s HQ would probably only get an order to have the infantry immediately break contact and withdraw.

  “Infantry Actual,” Sturgeon returned to his comm, “air support is on its way, and I’ve requested counterbattery fire. How exposed are you?” The sitmap showed a webbery of narrow trenches spidering their way out from the hill; tiny blips indicated that the Marines were in the trenches.

  “Artillery is light so far, and no reports of casualties. We’re moving forward; I want to get so close to the enemy positions at the foot of the hill that their artillery will risk hitting their own people if they keep firing at us.”

  “Do it. FIST Actual out.”

  Sturgeon looked reflective as he put the comm down. General Billie’s orders had been quite clear—and he’d been just as clear in passing them on: Thirty-fourth FIST was to remain in place after driving the enemy out. He, Sturgeon, hadn’t countermanded those orders; therefore van Winkle had acted on his own initiative in pursuing the enemy.

  Sturgeon allowed a smile to flicker across his face. Marines only defend when they have to, they prefer attacking. Van Winkle had acted in the highest traditions of the Marine Corps. Besides, when you’ve got the bastards by the short and curlies, you don’t let go. If you knock them out now, they just might not come back later. That means you win. And in war, winning is the only thing that matters.

  He heard aircraft overhead and looked out the gunport of the bunker where he’d established his temporary headquarters. High up he saw the six Raptors of the composite squadron arrowing in formation toward the hill the infantry battalion was attacking. Trailing lower were the eleven hoppers of the squadron’s hopper section. Without being told, he knew that each of the hoppers was loaded with guns and rockets, even though normally no more than two of the tactical transport aircraft were so armed. At a distance, echoing so he couldn’t tell exactly where they were firing from, he heard the first salvos of the army’s counterbattery fire.

  This time, he didn’t allow his smile to only flicker.

  Corporal Joe Dean was so perturbed he didn’t know whether to mutter his displeasure to any gods who might be listening, or loudly swear at them for the predicament he found himself in. So he compromised, and swore under his breath. Normally in a movement like this, Lance Corporal Schultz would be on the platoon point—or the point of whichever squad was most likely to make first contact. But Schultz was out of action for who knew how long. Which was why Dean and Lance Corporal Isadore “Izzy” Godenov were leading first squad along one of the narrow trenches that led to the foot of the hill the remnants of the Coalition attackers were pinned against.

  Now, there wasn’t any doubt about it, Izzy was good enough. But PFC Quick was also out of action, which left only the two of them in the fire team, and Dean really didn’t think the two of them were enough to hold the most vulnerable position in the platoon. He felt a sudden jolt—maybe Rabbit, Sergeant Ratliff, thought he and Izzy were just as good as the Hammer. Then he almost doubled over with a different kind of jolt when he thought maybe Rabbit thought he and Izzy were expendable.

  Dean ducked lower in the trench and tried to pay even closer attention to his surroundings. Not that he could see much from below the lip of the zig-zagging trench. The trench turned every ten meters or so, sometimes almost doubling back on itself. None of its straights were in line of sight of the hill or the Marines would have been in line of sight of the defenders’ trench lines. So the enemy on the hilltop couldn’t fire into a trench at the advancing Marines except at its corners and bends. So far, none of the artillery rounds impacting in the area had hit inside any of the trenches—at least not as far as Dean knew—though he’d been spattered a couple of times by dirt and debris kicked up by near misses.

  So just about all he could see was the stretch of trench in front of him and the sky above. He had to keep flipping his infra screen into place to see Godenov in front of him. It was around the next corner that he—and Godenov—needed to be able to see.

  Godenov had just stopped to cautiously peer around another corner when a shrieking in the sky made Dean look up. He didn’t see the source of the bone-piercing noise immediately, but when he did he let out a whoop. It was the FIST’s six Raptors diving on the hill. Their cannons opened up, ripping pulses of plasma groundward in such a rapid stream they looked like a solid line of star-stuff. The Raptors reached the bottom of their dives then bounced skyward, their plasma streams battering the hilltop and setting off secondary explosions. Then the hilltop just erupted, and there was a rapidly expanding cloud of dirt racing skyward in which larger objects could be seen twisting and tumbling.

  The shockwave of the eruption almost knocked Dean off his feet, even though he was low enough in the trench. His helmet’s ears, which he’d had turned up to detect the sounds of soldiers who might be in the trench ahead of him, struggled to damp out the noise of the explosion. Then the shockwave struck before he regained his balance, and he thudded to the bottom of the trench, the breath squeezed from his body. Gasping, he pushed himself up to hands and knees, one hand automatically groping for his blaster.

  “Izzy!” he croaked into the fire team circuit. His ears were ringing and he barely heard his own voice, so he called again, louder.

  “I think I’ve got all my parts,” Godenov replied, but his voice wasn’t strong. “I’m not sure they all work, but I’m pretty sure they’re still here.”

  Dean slid his infra into place and looked toward Godenov. He saw a man-shaped red blur on the trench’s floor. “Can you stand?” he asked, rising to a crouch himself. The red blur humped up and part of it detached from the ground.

  “On my feet,” Godenov said.

  Dean started to say something more, but stopped when Ensign Bass’s voice came over the platoon circuit.

  “If that knocked us down, how do you think it made the bad guys feel? Move out, fast, before they can recover.” To Dean, Bass sounded as bad as he felt.

  “You heard the man, Izzy,” Dean said into the squad circuit. “Let’s move.”

  Just then, the hoppers whooshed by overhead. Their guns and rockets blasting the foot of the hill weren’t as loud as the Raptors’ plasma barrage nor did they start a shockwave to rock the Marines in the trenches—but when the Marines reached the foot of the hill, the surviving rebel soldiers surrendered without firing a shot.

  Commander van Winkle checked his sitmaps and ordered his companies to advance to the next Coalition position, six kilometers farther out. General Cazombi’s counterbattery fire had been effective at silencing the rebel artillery firing at the Marines, so Brigadier Sturgeon asked him to have his artillery fire on the infantry’s next objective.

  Brigadi
er Sturgeon ignored the sussuration of voices in his temporary command center; they were the background a commander lived in. If anybody had something important that he needed to act on, they’d get his attention. His people knew what to do, and once he gave them their orders, he got out of their way and let them do their jobs. The squadron was busy refueling, rearming, and relaunching its aircraft so the Raptors would be in position to strike the next hilltop as soon as the infantry was in position and the hoppers could give direct support to the infantry assault. Intelligence was keeping tabs on enemy movement and analyzing the data being beamed down from the string-of-pearls satellites, as well as intercepting and attempting to decode enemy radio messages broadcast rather than tight-beamed. Logistics was readying pallets of the three Bs—“Bullets, Beans, and Bandages” was what they used to be called—and speeding them off to catch up with the infantry so they’d be close at hand when the Marines needed them. The medical section was dealing with the casualties from the initial fight and preparing to patch up casualties from the next fight. Operations was keeping close track of everything everybody else was doing, so they could draw or revise battle plans as needed or on Sturgeon’s order.

  All Sturgeon had to do was sit back and watch—and be prepared for the next time he had to make a decision or give an order. That was the atmosphere into which an officious voice intruded.

  “What’s going on here?”

  The background of voices paused as the Marines glanced at the entrance of the bunker, then resumed almost immediately.

  Sturgeon looked up more casually; he recognized the voice from having heard it before. He stood.

  “General,” he said, and politely gestured General Billie into the bunker. If he was surprised by Billie’s well-groomed and tailored appearance in the middle of a battle, he didn’t show it. Nor did he react to Billie’s expression of supercilious superiority.

  Billie strode into the command bunker and haughtily looked around at the busy staff before bestowing his imperial gaze on the Marine commander. His eyes widened slightly and his nostrils flared when he saw Sturgeon’s back—the FIST commander had returned his attention to his sitmaps.

  “If the general would look at this, I’ll bring you up to date, sir,” Sturgeon said without looking back at Billie.

  Billie rigidly stepped to Sturgeon’s side. Who did this mere Marine think he was, turning his back on the Supreme Commander like that?

  “Sir, as you can see,” Sturgeon said, pointing from place to place on the sitmap as he briefed Billie, “my Marines successfully threw the rebels back from their breakthrough. They have maintained contact with the Coalition forces and taken Hill 140, from which the attack was launched. They are continuing to pursue the enemy, and will shortly assault their position on Hill 161. Given our experience on Hill 140,” he finally looked from the sitmap to the commanding general, “I fully expect them to move on and take Hill 521 shortly after they deal with 161. Then,” he looked back at the map, “depending on the situation, they may continue to pursue the enemy and drive him completely off the Bataan Peninsula.”

  Billie cleared his throat to give himself a few seconds to recover from the shock of what he’d just heard. He needed to wrest control of the situation or the Marines would make him look bad and ineffectual.

  “That’s all very interesting—and impressive—Brigadier. But what about this?” He pointed at a beach on Pohick Bay on the west side of the peninsula, just below Hill 140.

  “Yessir, I saw that beach on my way planetside. Had we come ashore there, we would have met resistance from prepared positions and likely suffered an unacceptable level of casualties. Moreover, we wouldn’t have been able to provide immediate relief in the area of the breakthrough, and the Coalition brigade that broke through would have been able to raise havoc in your outer positions, perhaps even your inner defenses, before I was able to turn my FIST to deal with them.” He kept his expression neutral while stating the obvious.

  Billie tilted his head so back he could look down his nose at Sturgeon. “Sir, you miss my point!” He jabbed a finger at the rejected landing beach. “Of course, you would have met with disastrous results had you made your landing there. Hasn’t it occurred to you that the enemy could make an unopposed landing on that beach and cut your Marines off from assistance from my overstretched forces?”

  Sturgeon gave Billie a steady look that, had General Billie been capable of interpreting it, would have thrown the army general into an apopletic fit, then calmly said, “Sir, that potential threat can be dealt with easily enough. One of your battalions, properly led, could successfully defend Hill 140 against a multiregimental landing by the Coalition forces.”

  Billie’s face flushed. “And stretch my resources even farther than they already are? Then what do I do if the rebels attempt a breakthrough someplace else on the perimeter if I’ve weakened my defenses by manning that hill and your Marines are off gallivanting all around the base of the Peninsula?”

  “With all due respect, sir,” Sturgeon said with a great deal more patience than he felt. “If my Marines are ‘gallivanting all around the base of the Peninsula,’ as you put it, the Coalition forces will be too busy attempting to stop them to mount an assault anywhere on your perimeter.”

  Billie’s already red face turned even darker. “Brigadier, you don’t know what capabilities the rebel commanders have. You just got here, man! I cannot afford to spare any of my too-few forces outside the perimeter. You will break contact with the rebels now and bring your Marines back inside the perimeter. Is that understood, Brigadier?”

  “Yessir,” Sturgeon said, stone-faced. He turned to his chief of staff, who had been listening intently from his own station, only a couple of meters away. “Colonel Ramadan, you heard the general’s orders. Instruct Commander van Winkle to disengage immediately and return to the perimeter.”

  “Aye aye, sir. And air?”

  Sturgeon paused for half a beat to decide, then said, “The aircraft that are already airborne are to discharge their munitions on Hill 161 and any nearby ground forces, then return to base. Aircraft currently on the ground will launch and provide air cover for the infantry as they withdraw.”

  “Aye aye, sir.” Ramadan turned to his station and transmitted Sturgeon’s orders to van Winkle. He took his time about contacting Commander Wolfe with the new orders for the squadron; he knew the squadron’s aircraft were all on the ground, and wanted to give them time to launch again before giving the new order to the squadron commander. By the time he turned to report to his commander that the orders had been given, General Billie had left the bunker.

  “I’ve heard ‘hurry up and wait’ so many times it seems like ‘hurry up’ means ‘wait,’ ” Lance Corporal MacIlargie grumbled. “And I’ve had to dig a hole and fill it up again so many times that I know that a hole is only temporary, no matter how important it was to dig it in the first place. But break contact and withdraw? When we were doing some serious ass-kicking? I ask you, Rock, what fucking sense does that make?” MacIlargie may have been disgruntled about having to trudge back to the trench-and-tunnel complex on Bataan, but he wasn’t so upset that he didn’t make sure his complaining was on the fire team circuit, where only Corporal Claypoole could hear him.

  “Damned if I know, Wolfman,” Claypoole grumbled back. “I’m just a fire team leader, I don’t even know how everybody else in the squad was doing. For all I know, the rest of the battalion was getting its ass kicked. Or maybe the bad guys are breaking through the perimeter someplace else and we have to go and plug another hole in the line.”

  They went on for several more paces while Claypoole thought over what he’d just said, then he picked it up again. “Nah. If they needed us to close another breakthrough, they’d be hustling us, maybe even send the Dragons to pick us up. And no way do I believe the rest of the battalion was getting its ass kicked.”

  “So why’d we have to break contact and pull back to the trenches?”

  “You’ll have
to ask the Brigadier that one.”

  “When we get back, I think I’ll look him up and do just that,” MacIlargie said. He snorted. “Right, just drop in on him, ‘Hey, Ted, ole buddy, howcome-for-why you made us pull back when we were putting a serious hurting on them rebels? If you’d let us go, we could of ended this war by morning chow tomorrow.’ Yeah, sure I will.”

  Claypoole grunted. He didn’t think they were as close to winning the war as MacIlargie said, but he did believe that they were seriously screwing up the Coalition army’s plans—until they got called back, that is.

  “Aargh!” MacIlargie growled. “This war was all army until we showed up. The Brigadier has to report to that doggie general, what’s his name. You know how the army is. They get in a jam, the Marines go in to save their sorry asses, and they get their noses all out of joint about us making them look bad.”

  “Don’t think so,” Claypoole said back. “The doggie general in command here is that Cazombi guy, you know, the one who ran the operation on Avionia, the one where we had to catch the smugglers with the birdmen. He’s the kind of general who’s wasted on the doggies; he’s good enough to be a Marine.”

  Claypoole and MacIlargie only thought their conversation was private; they’d forgotten that squad leaders could listen in on their fire teams’ circuits and break into anything that was being said on them—this was to aid the squad leaders in monitoring and controlling their fire teams. Sergeant Linsman had been listening in, and he chose this point to break in.

  “You’re wrong, Rock,” he said, making both Claypoole and MacIlargie jump. “General Cazombi’s here, but I guess you were sleeping at the end of the Skipper’s briefing. Cazombi’s not in command anymore. The Combined Chiefs sent a general from the Heptagon to take command of this operation.”