If the Marine inside was hurt but alive, then it might be best to simply leave him or her inside the PICS for whatever protection it could offer. However if someone was hurt badly, he or she might need medical care.
“Let’s crack it open and see,” Hondo said after a moment’s contemplation.
Every PICS had an interior and exterior molt lever. BK reached up high, opened the panel access, and pulled down on the red lever. Slowly, the back of the PICS began to crack open. Hondo leaned forward, afraid of what he’d see.
“Who’s there?” a weak voice called out.
“Corporal McKeever, First Platoon, Kilo Company.”
“Kilo? Three-Six? How the fuck did I get in with you guys? I’m Sergeant Derek Boister, Mike Three-Nine.”
Hondo looked back at BK in surprise. If the sergeant was with Three-Nine, then either he or the two of them—three with Sunrise—were way out of position. BK shrugged.
“Uh . . . are you OK, Sergeant?” he asked.
“No, I’m not fucking OK. I’m out of action, and I don’t know where the hell my squad is,” he answered, both stress and pain evident in his voice.
“I mean, do you need medical help?”
“Yes, I need it. Wait . . . I mean, I will need it, but I think I’m stable.”
“Do you want us to help you out, or do you want to stay inside until the battle’s over?”
“Are we winning?” the sergeant asked.
“Uh, I’m not sure. I mean, we just killed one here, but the fighting is still all around us,” Hondo said, looking around.
And 350 meters away, three Grubs appeared together, light tendrils hitting Marines.
“Oh, shit,” BK said.
“We’re leaving you inside, Sergeant. I think if you’re out-of-action that they’ll leave you alone.”
“Wait, what’s happening?”
“We’ve got company coming, three of them.”
He looked to the front of the PICS and saw the grappling hook on the combat suit’s right arm.
“Hey, Sergeant, is your hook cocked?”
“No, I got hit before I could cock it.”
“Can you do it manually? I think we might need it?”
“Manually? Maybe, but I’m not sure I can maneuver the arm,” he said, defeat in his voice. “Sorry, about that. I’m kind of hurting.”
“If you can cock it, I can take the thing and man-pack it.”
“What? How?”
“He already did it. Took out a fucking Grub, too,” BK said. “But you need to get at it, Sergeant. They’re coming now.”
“No shit? Uh, OK. Let me try.”
There was a pause, then Hondo could hear grunting from inside the PICS. He stepped over to the arm, and he could see the launcher string ease back ever-so-slowly.
The sound of coughing reached him, and the string stopped.
“Come, on, Sergeant, you’re almost there.”
The three Grubs were 200 meters to the north and engaging Marines who were swarming them.
The string started back again, and twenty seconds later, it slipped into the release slot.
“That’s it,” Hondo shouted as he released the pod and lowered it to the ground.
BK tried to help, but that wasn’t working, so Hondo said, “I’ve got it,” getting back in John Wayne mode.
“We’ll be back for you,” he shouted to the sergeant as he and BK started forward to join the fight.
“Wish I had a sling,” he said as they half-jogged, half-walked.
“You’re doing fine, Hondo. You’re the man.”
“You aren’t armed, BK. Hold back.”
“There ain’t no safe place here, Hondo. I’m sticking with you,” she said, brandishing her knife as if she was about to stick a Grub.
He was about to order her to hold back, but she was right. There wasn’t a safe place on the battlefield. At least this way, they knew where each other was.
At least 30 or even 40 Marines had swarmed the last Grub. Hondo didn’t have time to count, but it seemed as if fewer were in the fight to face the three in front of them. It didn’t look good.
Coming in from the Grub’s left flank, Hondo and BK were alone as they advanced. The Grubs ignored the two, which was good as a single touch of a light tendril would take care of them both. They had to cross some broken ground, and with Hondo lugging the module, it took them almost three minutes to cross 150 meters to get close to them.
“This is good enough. Be ready to run,” he told BK.
He knelt, aimed the best he could, and with a short prayer, jerked the trigger release. With a snap, the hook launched . . . and sailed right over his target . . . and hit the Grub behind it.
“Good shot,” BK shouted as the hook released its charge and the Grub raised up its front quarter and swung back and forth.
Hondo didn’t bother to correct her. He watched, hoping to see something more dramatic, but while the Grub was obviously bothered, it wasn’t out of action. It was still in the fight, dishing it out.
“Shit,” he said quietly.
“You hurt it,” BK told him.
“Not enough. Look at them. I see what, maybe ten Marines against three Grubs?” he said, not bothering to hide the bitterness in his voice.
One of the Grubs, his intended target, started convulsing, slinging light tendrils wildly. The three Grubs converged their tendrils, and the white beam shot up into the sky, knocking out the drone—or ship, Hondo didn’t want to contemplate—that had hit them.
A moment later, the three focused back on the Marines facing them, the closest Grub decidedly damaged but still alive.
“That’s about it here, then,” Hondo said.
He wished there was something the two of them could do, but this wasn’t a Hollybolly fantasy adventure flick. This was real life.
Two more Marines went down and he and BK watched, bitter bile rising in their throats. It seemed obscene that they were standing there, so close to the violence but little more than spectators.
Hondo was about to turn away, unable to watch anymore when the Grubs suddenly turned together away from the two Marines. Intense fire reached out to envelope the three Grubs. Within moments, the wounded Grub exploded.
“It’s about fucking time,” BK said. “The cavalry’s here.”
Hondo clambered up on a large rock to see. Four or five hundred meters away, he could see Klethos warriors rushing into the battle, an unstoppable tide of angry warriors.
He turned to look to the east. If everything was going according to plan, Task Force Pompeii was closing the pincher. He couldn’t see anything in that direction, but at least the Klethos had stuck to the operations order.
Now the question was if the Marines had been able to attrite the Grubs enough for the enveloping forces to close the deal. The Marines had paid a heavy price in blood with no assurances that it would be enough.
A low rumble reached him, the sound of Klethos voices as they rushed the Grubs.
Something almost pulled him off the rock, and he swung around ready to strike back, but it was BK, grabbing him by the waist so she could see. There wasn’t much room where they could stand, but with her leaning against him, they both had a grandstand view of this tiny part of the battle.
The Klethos were fearless—and crazy, but there was a method to the madness. These weren’t the Klethos of old, rushing into the melee. Hondo could see teamwork, something he hadn’t really observed back on Purgamentium when they were training together. Whoever had been working with them after the split had done wonders, he thought.
The two remaining grubs edged their hind ends together, spreading their heads out into a V as they engaged the Klethos. And they were effective. Klethos after Klethos fell, but more stepped into the fallen’s places.
At 100 meters away, the Klethos shifted to their grappling hooks, and wave after wave of the hooks reached out, slamming into the Grubs. At that point, Hondo knew the fight was over, even if the Grubs didn’t. They increase
d their output, light tendrils sweeping the Klethos, but without the duration needed to tally kills. This was the end game, and Hondo could feel the kill intensity of the Klethos as they closed in for the kills.
With a blinding flash of light, the two Grubs exploded, the pressure wave knocking the two Marines off the rock. Both jumped up, unhurt, and screaming out in unabashed exultation. They jumped back up on the rock, and there was nothing left of the Grubs. More Klethos were down, probably taken out by the Grub’s death knell explosions, but the fight was over—decidedly over.
Over here, but not in the entire AOR. The flashing lights and sounds of fighting were evidence enough that while this fight was done, the battle was not. Still, in his fire team’s small piece of ground in the AOR, Hondo had seen four Grubs killed. If this was by any means representational, then the human-Klethos task force had a chance of actually winning a battle. There were thousands more Grubs on the planet, but a victory here would be only the first as humanity mobilized. A victory here might convince the Brotherhood and the rest to rejoin the effort.
The surviving Klethos were not done fighting. They rushed past the two Marines, not sparing them a glance as they looked for another fight.
“I can’t believe it,” BK said. “I really didn’t think we could pull it off.”
“We haven’t pulled off anything yet,” Hondo reminded her. “The battle isn’t over.”
“Yes, it is, Hondo. The Grubs might not know it, but it’s over. We’ve beat them.”
Hondo wasn’t so sure about that. He was hopeful, but he wasn’t about to declare victory.
“Let’s go get that sergeant,” he said, refusing to give rise to false hope.
The two walked over to where Sergeant Boister was still in his PICS. The sergeant was noticeably weaker. Hondo had a suspicion that he was hurt more than he let on.
“We’re going to get you out of there,” Hondo said.
Molting out of a PICS took a little Cirque de Soleil maneuvering, and it quickly became clear that the sergeant wasn’t up to it.
“We’re going to have to get him,” he told BK as he started to climb up on the motionless PICS’ back.
BK pulled him back and said, “This is mine. I’m half your size.”
Hondo started to argue that he was stronger than her, but as she scrambled up the PICS, he bit that back. She had a point—she was smaller and could worm her way inside easier than he could. More than that, he realized she needed this. She’d been merely an observer while he lugged the heavy grappling hook pod into the last fight.
Her top half disappeared into the back of the PICS, and in a moment, her legs and butt were wiggling as she struggled with the sergeant. She started to slide back out when the sergeant let out a yell of agony. Hondo climbed up the side of the PICS, ready to help her. With a final heave, she pulled the sergeant into view, and Hondo helped get him out, then gently laid him on the ground.
And he didn’t know what to do with him.
All Marines had basic first aid, but there wasn’t a mark on the sergeant. What was wrong with him was on his inside, and Hondo didn’t have a clue what to do. He wasn’t sure any of the corpsmen would, either. He heeded a doctor’s care. The sergeant’s hands were curled within themselves, and Hondo vaguely remembered that meant something, only he didn’t remember what.
“Just relax, Sergeant. Someone’s going to be here, soon,” he said.
“Did we win?” the sergeant asked, barely coherent.
Hondo shot a glance at BK, who was mouthing “yes.”
“Sure did, Sergeant. We’ve won. We’re just waiting on Doc to get here to get you fixed up.”
“Fucking A skippy. Of course, we won. We’re fucking Marines,” he muttered before slipping into unconsciousness.
The sounds of fighting began to die down. An hour later, the AOR was silent. BK took that for granted. She knew they’d carried the day. Hondo hoped they had.
Thirty minutes later, as the two watched over the sergeant, two PICS Marines came striding into view. They spotted the two Marines and veered to meet them. Hondo felt a surge of relief. He’d been imagining all sorts of bad scenarios, all centered on the three of them being alone on the planet.
They stood up as the two PICS Marines approached them.
“That you, Corporal Mckeever?” a familiar voice reached them over one of the PICS exterior speakers.
“PFC Xeras?”
“One and the same. We thought you two had bought it. We came back to try and recover your bodies, so, you know . . .”
“Sunrise is KIA,” Hondo said.
“Are you sure?” BK asked, her voice catching.
Hondo realized he hadn’t told her, and he said, “Very sure.”
“Shit,” she said quietly.
“Hey, I’ve got to keep going,” the other Marine spoke for the first time. “We’ve only got an hour.”
“OK, see you back at the AA,” PFC Xeras said.
“An hour?” Hondo asked.
“Well, we’ve been given an hour to try and recover the KIA . . . uh, and the WIA, and then get back to the Assembly Areas so we can load out. Can you make it? And who is that?” she asked, pointing with her gauntlet.
“That’s a sergeant from Three-Nine. He’s in rough shape,” BK answered.
“OK, I’ll call in for a medevac.”
“Wait a minute. You said, ‘Load out.’ Where’re we going now? The main city?”
“Right now? We’re going to the ships and sit in orbit for a while, then back to Purgamentium, Corporal. We’ve won.”
“This battle, yes. But there are a lot more Grubs here.”
“Not for long. I guess you hadn’t heard. We really won. The Grubs are taking off, in droves. We’re going to sit in orbit until the last one leaves, then send in recovery teams for the rest of our KIA, but it looks like we kicked their asses. They’re running away.”
“Running away?” Hondo said. “Just like that?”
“Just like that. I mean, the CG, he doesn’t completely trust them, so that’s why we’re hanging around to make sure, but we killed us every one of them here. Us and the local Klucks.”
“I knew it,” BK said. “We’re fucking Marines, and no one can stand against us.”
Marines, Confeds, Rangers, Legionnaires, and a host of others. Not to mention the Klucks. But yeah, I guess we did win, he thought. Holy shit, we did it!
PURGAMENTIUM
Chapter 31
Skylar
“That’s it. The last Dictymorph has left the planet and is in full flight mode,” Christoff Hans shouted out.
Sky joined the rest in cheers. Someone hugged her, and she didn’t care. She jumped up and down in excitement, excitement that had been building once it was clear that the battle had turned into their favor.
“We did it!” L’Teesha shouted as she ran up to Sky and pounded on her shoulders.
“You did it, L’Teesha. Those disruption hooks were your idea. You won the battle,” Sky insisted.
Knight Hastert grabbed L’Teesha by the shoulder and spun her around, giving her a huge kiss.
More than a few of the scientists were half-sloshed. Sky had held off drinking until the last Dictymorph had left, and now she was ready. Gentle Bosovitch was walking by, a can of Mountain Amber Ale in his hand. Sky snagged it and took a deep swallow before holding it back out.
“Keep it,” Gentle said. There’s more where it came from.
Sky was still trying to comprehend what had just happened. The Marines, the “fixing force,” as some called them, the “bait” as others called them, had fought hard, but they were losing the battle. Then, just like in the animations shown to them in the brief, the rest of the human forces and the wonderful Klethos and converged on the enemy, crushing them in a pincher movement. One side of the pincher had done a lot more damage. The Confederation force, Task Force Pompeii, had barely reached the battlefield and engaged the Dictymorphs by the time the Klethos had swept through, saving the remai
ning Marines and killing the last of the enemy.
Sky had been serious in what she said to L’Teesha. The disruption hooks had been proven effective in the hands of the Marines, but they’d been deadly in the hands of the Klethos. Their allies had attacked as if possessed, and as Sky had watched the feeds, she was suddenly very glad they were on the same side. Some of her colleagues had begun to dismiss the Klethos given their lack of human tactical theory, but the fight had been a reminder as to why the first Klethos-human engagements a century before had been decidedly lopsided, and not in the humans’ favor.
Then, the miracle occurred. Not only were the 200-plus Dictymorphs in the battle defeated, but even before the last one fell, Dictymorphs from around the planet began to engage their space-going capability. Like the dead rising on Judgment Day, they simply began to rise off the planet’s surface, reaching space and accelerating out of the system.
Ale still in her hand, she accepted a hug from someone she didn’t recognize.
“Dicty, Dicty, run so fast . . . Dicty, Dicty we kicked your ass!” someone shouted in a chant before repeating it. Within moments, others joined in, jumping up and down and yelling the “kicked your ass” part at the top of their lungs. A conga line formed, thirty strong, chanting the little made-up ditty over and over again as it wended its way through the revelry.
Sky was about to join when she saw Bill Boswell standing to the side, his face frozen in a frown.
“Hey, there, sourpuss. Get happy. Like they’re saying,” she said as she reached the Marine, “we kicked their asses.”
He shrugged, then took her ale and drained it. The smile she expected failed to make an appearance.
“What’s a matter with you? This is our first victory, the first of many.”
“We kicked their asses, Sky? Really?”
“Yeah, really. There aren’t any more of them on the planet. We did it. L’Teesha over there,” she said, pointing at her fellow scientist, number four in the conga line, “her hooks did it, I think.”
“Grappling hooks deployed by Marines, soldiers, and Klucks, Sky.”
“Well, yeah. But we developed it,” she said, sweeping her arm around to encompass all the scientists and engineers.
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