Starfist:Flashfire

by David Sherman; Dan Cragg

  Brigadier Sturgeon, in a rumpled but clean garrison utility uniform, didn’t exactly snap to attention, nor was the posture he assumed strictly the called-for stance. Not that there was any specific thing a critic could point to and say, “That’s not the proper position of attention.” Still, there was something about the way Sturgeon stood erect, heels together, feet at a forty-five degree angle, thumbs along the seams of his trousers, stomach in, chest out, shoulders back, head and eyes straight ahead, face expressionless, that quite clearly proclaimed, “You don’t deserve to have anyone stand at attention for you.”

  Billie’s aide noticed and a thundercloud formed on his brow. But there was nothing he quite dared to say to this Marine who technically outranked him by a couple of notches.

  The aide’s thundercloud didn’t last for even a second; General Billie strode into the briefing room on the heels of the call to attention and the aide stood at rigid attention. Major General Sorca mimicked Billie, a step too far back to properly be a shadow, though his movements were precisely those of his leader. Lieutenant General Cazombi brought up the rear of Billie’s parade at a gait accurately called an amble. Cazombi cast a glance at the assembled commanders that was innocuous enough that the captain didn’t catch it, but those who knew Cazombi well enough clearly understood it to mean that he was distinctly unhappy about the way Billie was wasting their time.

  Billie was fully aware of the effect stars had on lesser personages. So the stars he wore on his collars were a tad larger than specified in army regulations, and ruthlessly polished to the highest possible degree. He stood facing his subordinate commanders, and shifted his shoulders in a practiced movement that reflected the room’s lights from his stars into the eyes of everyone standing in front of him—he’d had the room’s lights positioned to allow him to do exactly that. A quite unsubtle reminder to all of who was in command.

  “Seats!” he said in an imperious tone; the lord of the manor bestowing a boon on the commoners gathered in supplication at his feet. There was a brief clatter of chairs being taken. Billie adjusted his position slightly so his collar stars could catch different lights and reflect them into the eyes of seated commanders. There’s no such thing as too many reminders of who’s in command.

  “The Coalition rebels have made numerous assaults on our lines,” he announced, as though every man he was speaking to didn’t know about the assaults better than he did. “Our soldiers have successfully repulsed every one of them.” Again, nothing nobody didn’t know. And they all noticed that he failed to mention that there had been more than one instance where the Coalition forces had broken through the defensive lines, and were only repelled by a powerful counterattack by the Marines.

  “I have received communications from the Heptagon. Our hard-line holdout will soon end. The 106th Division is due in orbit within a week, standard. At which time we will have a full corps on planet. The 106th will rotate into positions currently held by the 3rd Division. Several days later, the 85th Division will arrive and relieve the 27th Division on the line. These reliefs will allow the 3rd and 27th Divisions to rest and recuperate from their strenuous efforts in holding the line, so they will be ready to go on the offensive when the 54th and 60th Divisions arrive.

  “Gentlemen, we only need to hold out for a few more days before major reinforcements begin arriving.”

  There were a few sounds of uncomfortable movement from the commanders; a couple of them cast quick glances at Sturgeon. They resented the fact that Billie had made no mention of the role 34th FIST had played in the defense of the Bataan redoubts.

  Sturgeon didn’t shift position; he knew Billie disliked the Marines, and hadn’t expected him to give 34th FIST any credit for driving out forces that had achieved breakthroughs, and then holding their positions until fresh army units arrived to relieve them.

  “The best intelligence we have,” Billie went on, smiling, “indicates that the Coalition forces know that our reinforcements are due shortly, and are preparing for a defensive in depth of their own for when we commence offensive operations, so we should face little opposition before we are ready to take the battle to the enemy.”

  Sturgeon did react to that statement. He reacted so strongly that he broke protocol by standing up and interrupting the Supreme Commander’s speech.

  “Sir, by your leave!” he said. Without waiting for permission to speak, he went on, “I beg to differ with the general. According to the intelligence developed by Force Recon assets operating behind Coalition lines, while they may be digging in for a defense in depth, they are also preparing a stronger assault against our lines than any they have attempted so far.”

  Billie curled his lip at Sturgeon. “Yes, Brigadier,” he said, in a tone that left no doubt about how he felt about being interrupted—or how much higher ranking an army full general was over a mere Marine brigadier, “I have seen the reports from Force Recon. I don’t know in which tavern those prima donnas are gathering their so-called ‘intelligence,’ but I assure you, I have far better intelligence than anything they can ‘develop.’

  “Kindly resume your seat.”

  Major General Koval and three of the brigade commanders looked at Sturgeon with sympathy, the other brigade commanders briefly looked at Billie with expressions of disbelief at his off-hand dismissal of the Force Recon reports. Lieutenant General Cazombi looked blank-faced at Sturgeon and almost imperceptibly shook his head. Sturgeon, who was about to say something more, caught Cazombi’s signal and sat down without saying anything more.

  Billie smiled at his perceived victory over the Marine. His aide pompously sneered at Sturgeon.

  Sturgeon tuned out the rest of Billie’s commanders’ meeting. Billie had called Force Recon “prima donnas.” Force Recon Marines might think they were better and more capable than other Marines, but he’d never known them to be wrong when they developed intelligence. If Force Recon said the Coalition forces were planning a combined airborne and amphibious assault by a reinforced division against the Pohick Bay flank of the defenses, he believed the assault was imminent.

  In order to keep 34th FIST available to repel breakthroughs, Billie had assigned it to a section of the line that he felt was least likely to come under assault—the Pohick Bay flank.

  Waiting for Billie to finish his meeting, Sturgeon began planning his defense. One Marine FIST against a reinforced division, perhaps twenty-to-one odds in favor of the attackers. Well, Marines had prevailed against such odds in the past. Thirty-fourth FIST would do it again. He just didn’t know how.

  At length, the supercilious aide called the commanders to attention while Billie marched out of the room. He brought up the rear and trailed after his master like a puppy.

  Before Sturgeon could leave to brief his staff and put them to work on battle plans that wouldn’t rely on help from the army, Major General Koval stepped in front of him. The brigade commanders hovered nearby.

  “Ted,” Koval said in a low voice, “that Force Recon report you mentioned. The Supreme Commander didn’t deign to share it with me. Could you let me have a copy?”

  Sturgeon looked at him, and the brigade commanders politely waiting just out of hearing distance, but couldn’t remember Koval’s first name. “General,” he said, “it will be my pleasure. One of your brigades is on my left flank, and they should know about it as well. There’s a major assault coming, centered on my part of the line, so it will affect your division as well.”

  “Thanks, Ted. I’ll see to it that every brigade commander who needs to know about it also gets a copy of the report.” Koval turned on his heel and marched out, the brigade commanders followed him, anxious to learn why he’d spoken quietly to Sturgeon, but turned back when Sturgeon offered:

  “I’ll give you a feed to the string-of-pearls tactical download as well.”

  “You know, Hammer, when I saw your back when we were chasing those bad guys down the tunnel, I thought for sure I’d be losing you for a long time.” Corporal Claypoole looked a
t Lance Corporal Schultz with unaccustomed concern. “I was afraid of what your front looked like.”

  Schultz barely grunted in reply, and didn’t bother looking at his fire team leader; instead he kept watching out the aperture of the strongpoint overlooking Pohick Bay.

  “Yeah, Hammer, you were a mess,” Lance Corporal MacIlargie said, with a wary glance at Schultz. “I didn’t know how you kept going.” He noticed how carefully Schultz rolled his shoulders.

  During the fight where third platoon stopped the Coalition pursuit of the defending soldiers, and the subsequent battle when the Marines chased the rebels back out of the tunnel, patches of synthskin on Schultz’s back had torn loose and he began bleeding again. By the time the Marines reached the open air, Schultz’s back was drenched with blood. Claypoole had worried that the bleeding was from exit wounds, that Schultz had been shot many times and was probably dying.

  Doc Hough rushed him back to the battalion aid station before the last shot was fired. Schultz only permitted that because he knew the fight was over and the Marines would have to hold in place.

  At the BAS, they began pumping plasma into him while Lieutenant Brauner, the battalion surgeon, and HM1 Horner were stanching the bleeding. After the bleeding was stopped, they applied a fresh layer of synthskin to his back and thighs, then pumped four units of whole blood into him to replace what he’d lost.

  Schultz lay naked under a sheet; they’d had to cut his chameleons off to get to his injuries. When the sedative wore off and he was once more fully conscious, he threw the sheet aside and stood up, and demanded his weapons and helmet and a fresh set of chameleons.

  “You get back in bed, Marine!” Lieutenant Brauner snapped. “I’m not letting you leave here again before you’re healed.” He flashed a signal at a corpsman sorting vials into a medical cabinet.

  The big man turned a stone-hard gaze on the medical officer and growled, “Weapons. Helmet. Chameleons.”

  “You heard me, Marine. I said get back in bed. That’s an order.” Brauner had treated many injured Marines who wanted to return to their units before they were fit for duty and knew the way to deal with them was to speak firmly. Schultz just looked at him and held out a hand for his weapons. Brauner stepped close and put a hand on Schultz’s chest to push him back to the bed.

  It was like pushing on a flesh-warm marble sculpture.

  “Not a good idea, sir,” Horner said, cautiously sidling close. To Schultz, he said, “We don’t have an extra set of chameleons in your size, Hammer. We’ll have to requisition a set from Supply. So just lay back down on your bed and rest for a while, and we’ll let you go as soon as the requisition comes in.” Schultz turned his gaze on Horner, and the senior corpsman took an involuntary step back.

  “Weapons. Helmet,” Schultz growled. He lashed out and knocked the shotgun out of the hand of a corpsman who was sneaking up behind him to slap him with a fast-acting sedative. “Now!”

  Brauner gaped at him. How had the big Marine seen the corpsman behind him and known what he was doing?

  Schultz looked around and saw what he was looking for. The doctor managed to jump out of his way in time to keep from being bowled over when Schultz went to the pile of weapons and blood-soaked uniforms cut from the bodies of wounded Marines. It took just seconds for him to find his own. Still naked, but armed and with his helmet tucked under an arm, he headed for the exit from the BAS.

  At the door, he paused and looked back. “Where?” he asked, then nodded when Horner pointed in the general direction of third platoon, and set out to rejoin his unit.

  “If you start bleeding again, I’m not responsible!” Brauner called after Schultz when he found his voice again.

  Schultz ignored him, just as he ignored the pounding footfalls hurrying behind him a moment later.

  “Hammer, you can’t go back like that,” Horner said when he caught up with the big man. “Come on, I’ll take you to Supply, and you can get a fresh set of chameleons.”

  Schultz stopped, and gestured for the corpsman to lead the way.

  And that was how he came to be wearing new chameleons when Claypoole said he thought Schultz was dying on him and MacIlargie noticed how carefully the big man rolled his shoulders.

  Of course, Schultz was careful when he rolled his shoulders, just as he was careful of how he stood, and sat, or made other movements. He may not have been willing to stay on bed rest in the BAS, but he wasn’t willingly going to do anything that would tear his wounds open again.

  Brigadier Sturgeon briefed his primary staff and major unit commanders on the important items in Lieutenant General Billie’s meeting: when reinforcements would begin arriving; and the Supreme Commander’s total disregard for the Force Recon reports. So, he said, 34th FIST had to come up with its own plans to defend against an assault by overwhelming forces.

  Commander Daana, the FIST F2, intelligence officer, accented the need for defensive plans when he summarized the latest reports from the FIST’s own reconnaissance squad—“someone” had been clearing lanes through the passive defenses along the waterline; disarming mines and prepping underwater obstacles for demolition.

  While the others got to work setting their defenses, Sturgeon took Captain Shadeh, the FIST F1, personnel officer, aside to put him to work reassigning Marines from Whiskey Company to the infantry battalion. Sturgeon then notified Commander van Winkle to expect the new Marines and to have his S1 ready to distribute them to the companies.

  It was a solemn third platoon that gathered for a platoon meeting following the memorial ceremony. The platoon hadn’t lost any men killed or too badly wounded to return to duty since early on the Kingdom campaign, before the Marines learned how to defend against Skink rail guns. That was also the last time they had lost a squad or fire team leader. Sergeant Bladon, who was then the second squad leader, had lost an arm then, and enough time had passed between the injury and when he began undergoing the regeneration process that his arm might not grow back. Even if it did, he would have to go through extensive rehabilitative therapy before he could be returned to duty. Either way, he wasn’t there to resume leadership of second squad. First squad’s Corporal Goudanis had also been too severely wounded to return to duty, and might never be well enough.

  On that occasion, then-Corporal Linsman and then-Lance Corporals Claypoole and Dean were promoted to fill Bladon and Goudanis’s positions and the vacancy created by Linsman’s promotion. Now Sergeant Linsman was dead, and so was the gun squad’s Corporal Barber.

  Ensign Charlie Bass didn’t look at the three new men who stood together at the rear of the platoon, the only Marines present who were fully visible—the rest of them were in chameleons, with only their heads and hands visible. Staff Sergeant Hyakowa kept close but unobtrusive watch on the new men—he wanted to see how they reacted to the platoon’s response to the loss of men and promotions from within.

  “No Marine is expendable,” Bass told his platoon, “we all know that. But it’s also true that no Marine is irreplaceable. Today we have to replace two good Marines. I’m not going to go into how good Sergeant Linsman and Corporal Barber were, I already said that at the memorial service.” His voice broke and he had to pause for a moment; both of them had been with him as long as he’d been with the platoon. They were the twelfth and thirteenth Marines who had been with third platoon when he joined it as platoon sergeant who had died or been wounded too badly to return.

  He found his voice again and continued. “I’ve discussed matters with the Skipper, the Top, the Gunny, and Staff Sergeant Hyakowa, as well as Sergeants Ratliff and Kelly. First, we’re all in agreement that it’s past time that Corporal Kerr became squad leader and got a promotion to Sergeant. Congratulations, Tim.”

  He paused for a moment to give the members of second squad a chance to add their congratulations, then said, “As you were, people! And remember, nobody who isn’t already a sergeant gets to pin the new stripes on Kerr, and then not until after he is formally promoted.” He paused
again as a wave of good-natured laughter ran through the platoon. The laughter raised his spirits; the platoon’s morale was already rising.

  “Lance Corporal Kindrachuk has been known to get particularly rowdy and barbaric on liberty, but he’s a solid gunner who knows his business. He’s taking over first gun team.” Again, there was a round of congratulations, before Bass quieted the platoon.

  “Now we’ve got a fire team leader slot to fill,” he said, and looked innocently at all the expectant lance corporals in the platoon. “This personnel change shouldn’t come as a surprise to anybody. Corporal Doyle is taking over as fire team leader.”

  The announcement was met with dead silence, except for a strangled gasp from Corporal Doyle. The three replacements exchanged nervous glances; they didn’t know what the problem was, but they all realized something was wrong.

  “Come on, people,” Bass snapped. “What’s your problem? Doyle’s already got the rank. He’s proven himself more willing than most to speak his mind when he knows he’s right.” That drew loud laughter. “And he’s demonstrated that he knows enough, even teaching men junior to him things they need to know. Corporal Doyle has a lot of fear when we go into action, fear that would paralyze anyone not a Marine—and would paralyze a lot of Marines. But he’s able to overcome it and function through his fear. And he’s got leadership experience from when he was the company chief clerk.

  “Maybe you haven’t been paying attention, but I’ve been watching Doyle ever since he was on that patrol with me on Elneal. I’ve seen him grow since then, and even more since he joined the platoon. Everybody involved in making the decision to move him into that slot agrees that Corporal Doyle deserves to be a fire team leader.”

  Well, not everybody. First Sergeant Myer had roared with outrage when Bass nominated Doyle for the slot and Hyakowa seconded the nomination. The Top still wanted Doyle court-martialed for insubordination for forcing his hand during the Avionia deployment. It didn’t matter to Myer that the operation wouldn’t have succeeded in its final, successful, step had Doyle not gotten his way; he’d been insubordinate!