by Jay Allan
"I've never met any officer with a mind like his." I looked up from the screen over to Aoki. "He sees everything, and he anticipates every possibility. I still don't know how we managed to hold Columbia, or how he knew the enemy had that third wave coming. Jax and I were only sergeants at the time, but Holm was aware of everything that was going on during every minute of that battle. And with all he had going on at the end. he still had the time to track one wounded sergeant and send out the party that pulled me from under a pile of radioactive debris."
"He did more than that, Erik," Jax said. "He led the search party himself. We counter-attacked right after we repulsed the enemy advance - your emplacements were spot on, by the way...I've never seen troops melt away like they did in those fields of fire - we counterattacked. We ended up four or five klicks away by the time the fighting was over. I was sure you were dead, but the general - colonel then - commed me and said you were alive and ordered us to head back and find you. By the time we got back, he was already there, with two medics and a couple squads of infantry searching."
I hadn't known the whole story before then, and I sat there quietly for a few minutes thinking about it. All three of us were silent, in fact, until the first units started to hit ground.
The assault went very much according to plan. The planet, which the enemy called Al'Kebir, was one large landmass dotted with small lakes and seas. It was hot, almost too hot to sustain habitation, but like so many worlds on the rim, it was rich in resources rare and valuable on Earth, so men lived there. The assault was a complex one. On most colony worlds the limited populations were clustered in relatively small areas near resources or the original settlements. But Al'Kebir was mostly barren desert with dense areas of rainforest surrounding the many small landlocked seas. The rainforests were full of dangerous plants and animals, but also a wide variety of useful and valuable resources. The population was dispersed into the small, moderately habitable bands between the rainforests and the surrounding deserts. There were no major cities or towns, just tiny villages spread in the habitable zones all over the planet.
This invasion would have no battle lines, no major objectives, and no concentration. It was a series of widely scattered search and destroy missions to wipe out the garrisons and take control of a hundred tiny villages. We knew there were regulars stationed on the planet, though intel didn't think there were any first line Janissaries. The native troops would probably be a cut above the average colonial militia - they usually were on these inhospitable worlds.
We had 1,800 troops in the first wave, all powered infantry. There were ten initial LZs, all in the deserts about 15 klicks from the habitable zones. The primary maneuver element was the platoon, and the companies were spread out over a wide area. The invasion forces went from village to village, systematically taking each and then moving on to the next target. Localized rally points were set up to evacuate the wounded and deliver resupply to the committed units.
Things went pretty well. The regular garrison troops defended the villages, but they were second line troops and heavily outnumbered. Also, unlike the Janissaries, many of them were willing to surrender rather than be wiped out.
It was the locals and not the regulars that gave us the hardest time. They withdrew into the rainforests, forcing our troops to follow them into the dense terrain and root them out. Combat in the jungles was difficult and slow. The fighting suits protected our troops the biggest dangers of the environment, but the swamps and quicksand were huge impediments to maneuver. Finally, the general sent down some teams with heavy incendiaries, and we leveled the jungle wherever there were heavy pockets of resistance. Quite a few of the defenders were incinerated in these attacks, and most of the rest surrendered rather than face the same fate.
The destruction of large stretches of rainforest would damage the planet's economy, perhaps permanently. But this was war, and we did what we had to do. The mop up took another week, but the planet was ours. It was an unpleasant battle for the troops that fought it, but our losses were actually fairly light. The locals in the jungle gave us fits trying to run them down, but they didn't have the weaponry to really inflict heavy casualties on our assault units.
We burned through a lot of ammunition and supplies, about 40% over projected expenditures. Since this was a campaign with three objectives, budgeting our supply was crucial. The moons campaign had been the first multi-objective operation we'd mounted; this was the second. It marked a significant expansion of scope in strategy and planning. Instead of targeted a single world and launching an assault, our operations were starting to fit more into an overall strategic plan. We were no longer taking A because it was a juicy target; we were taking it because it led to B and that led to C.
We had about 60 dead and 175 seriously wounded. One of the transports was detached to take the wounded and prisoners back to Gliese, and the task force reformed and made a course for the only other warp gate in the system - the one to 79 Ceti.
The transit took six days, and then we decelerated into the 79 Ceti system and revectored toward our target, the fifth planet. I have landed on many worlds, some virtual paradise and others difficult environments, but 79 Ceti V was the most hellish world I've ever experienced.
The system's seventh planet was an enormous gas giant, with almost 100 times the mass of Jupiter, and the forces exerted by this gargantuan neighbor distorted the orbit of world number five. Highly elliptical in nature, the resulting orbit caused the planet, called Eridu by its occupants, to be bombarded by intense heat and radiation during its long summers and to become a frozen wasteland in winter. The atmosphere was noxious, though not immediately lethal. But between the overall environment and the massive radiation from both 70 Ceti and planet 7, Eridu was one of the unhealthiest environments ever occupied by man.
But the planet had large, naturally occurring stable isotopes of certain trans-uranium elements, which existed only in trace quantities in laboratories on Earth. These elements were extremely useful in starship drives, and they were almost incalculably expensive. Eridu was the only known location where these elements occurred naturally in significant quantities, and where there is such value men will find a way to extract it.
According to intel reports, the planet was primarily inhabited by bonded workers, citizens of the Caliphate who had committed some offense or failed to pay a tax and were sent to Eridu to work off the debt. Poorly equipped with protective gear and working under dismal conditions, the median life expectancy for a new worker was less than eighteen months. Few who were sent there ever returned.
The supervisors lived in better shielded quarters and were equipped with superior protective suits. They were rotated out after a two-year assignment, generally quite wealthy after their stint. With no permanent population, there was no militia or local defense force, and the planet's garrison consisted entirely of regulars. Because of the savage environment, the garrison was all powered infantry, which meant we were likely to have a significant fight on our hands.
My battalion made up the lead assault wave. Eridu was the toughest objective of the campaign, and the general was counting on me to make sure the landing went smoothly. Or as smoothly as possible. Landing on Eridu was not an easy task. It was mid-winter, and the planet was wracked with massive ammonia blizzards. The dense, radioactive snow played havoc with scanners, but was even tougher on visibility. We sent down three automated drones, each with a very high-powered beacon that would serve as guidance for the landers. One of the landers crashed, and a second had a very hard touchdown but managed to deploy its beacon. On the third we got lucky; it landed perfectly.
We used the two functioning beacons as ground zero for two groups of landers. The general left all the details of the landing up to me, and I decided to land two companies in the first wave, and after they were down, send in the battalion assets and the third company.
I went in with the first company, though I suspected I might get a lecture about it after the battle. But if my troops we
re going into this hell, I was going with them. It was a rough ride down, but my lander made it without any damage. A few of the others landed hard and eleven troops were wounded. One crashed, killing all five occupants.
The conditions were even worse than I expected. Visibility was less than ten meters, and even with Hector constantly enhancing the constructed images, the data from my scanners was fuzzy and difficult to read. The wind was fierce, and I could feel myself pushing against it even in my suit. It would have blown an unarmored man away like a dry leaf.
I had assigned one platoon from each company form a circular picket line all around the LZ. I didn't seriously expect the enemy to come out of their bunkers to fight us here, but long-range scanning was next to useless, and I wasn't going to risk a surprise. The rest of us cleared the LZ. The Gordons were shot, but they had enough juice left to lift off and fly a few klicks before crashing. I wanted the landing zone clear. Dealing with the conditions was bad enough, I didn't want the second wave having to deal with the debris from the first. God damn it, I wasn't losing any more of my troops in crashes we could avoid.
We had a couple of hard landings and a few more minor wounds, but the second wave made it in more or less unscathed. I formed the battalion up with two companies abreast, covering a frontage of about 6 klicks. I had a company and the battalion assets in reserve about three klicks back.
There were two major mining operations on the planet, and they were the only population centers. We were assaulting one of them, and as soon as we were engaged, the 2nd battalion would commence their landing against the other one.
Our advance was slow. Even in powered armor, it's not easy to make time slogging through waste deep ammonia snow, with almost no visibility and your scanners only half working. I didn't want any stupid accidents causing unnecessary casualties, so I kept the pace very deliberate.
We had a rough projection of the location of enemy bunkers, but we really had no idea what they'd managed to do since we burst through the warp gate and triggered the alarm systems. We didn't even have a reliable estimate of enemy strength. At least their visibility and scanning would be as fouled up as ours, but I figured they'd probably have some type of detection net set up. I gave orders for any squads that drew fire to fall back and report.
I wanted to be in the forward line, but I knew the general didn't want me there, so I took position back with the battalion assets. Not that he'd know unless I got hit. We had verbal communication with the fleet, but the radioactivity and the vicious storm cut the normal link with the battle computers on the flagship. We were on our own, much more than any strike force I'd been part of.
We got to within one klick of where we had intermittent readings of some type of energy source, when automatic fire ripped across the frontage of one of my squads. They followed orders and pulled back, carrying their two casualties with them. The guys who were hit were just wounded, but both of them died before their comrades got them back to the medic. The cold, and the atmosphere were a rough combination for the wounded to survive.
I commed the entire battalion and told them to prioritize patching the armor of wounded personnel. The suit's trauma control would stabilize most wounds, at least for a while. But it wouldn't help if the injured marines were exposed to the elements for too long. The suits did have a self-repair system, but it was only good for patching small breaches. We had adjustable patches that could be used for temporary repair jobs, but they had to be applied manually, usually by someone other than the wearer of the damaged suit.
I ordered a platoon to move around the flank of the position that had opened fire, but they took fire from another direction and pulled back with one man down. Trying to flank the second enemy position we took fire from a third. I had Hector chewing on the probably locations, and he projected that there was an enemy position every 1,000 meters along a circle 3 klicks in radius out from the settlement. I had him transmit his best calculated locations to the platoon commanders.
We still had no idea how big or well armed the strongpoints were. The fire was heavy, a SAW or equivalent at least, maybe something heavier. Frontally assaulting these things was going to be expensive, maybe even impossible in these conditions. If we could get clear line of sight we could try to take them out with heavy weapons fire, but a direct hit in this storm would be dumb luck.
I had a plan, but it dug at my weak spot. It wasn't exactly a suicide mission I had to give out, but it was close enough to gnaw at me. Unfortunately, it was the only decent idea I could come up with. "Hector, give me the four most experienced scouts."
"Garrison, Evers, Connors, and Rodriguez have the most months of service. Garrison, Harris, Connors, and Janek have the most assaults. Alvarez has fewer assaults and less time in service, but has been in two battles on worlds with extreme cold conditions. Recommendation of four most qualified candidates: Garrison, Connors, Janek, and Alvarez."
Wow. Not even one obnoxious remark. Hector was mellowing. I thought for a second before making my decision. "Ok, Hector. Put me on com with Garrison, Connors, Janek, and Alvarez. Get Captain Frost on the line too."
"Of course," came the immediate reply. "I am glad to see you accepting my recommendations. I anticipated some emotion-based need to adjust my determinations."
Oh well. Spoke too soon about Hector. "Just do it."
There were a few seconds of silence while he established the links. "You are connected with the requested parties."
I just launched right into it. "I have a mission for the four of you. We need to breach this ring of strongpoints, and we don't have time to take potshots at them in this storm. I'm going to use specials to take them out, but we need better targeting than we have. These things are reinforced, and if we're going to use warheads that won't force us to fall back from here we're going to have to land them right on the mark.
"I want you to move out in two pairs, each toward one emplacement. We're going to start popping grenades and rockets at them to get their attention, and you are going to sneak up and get close enough to hit the structures with a laser sight. You're going to have to get really close, even with a high-powered laser - maybe 20-30 meters. I want you to take your time on the approach. Crawl the whole way; don't raise anything high enough to get it shot off.
"Here's the tough part. They're going to have the same trouble scanning you as we have with them, but when you hit them with that laser there's a good chance they'll detect it. We have no idea what's behind that outer ring, but I want this whole thing to be a surprise, so I can only give you 5 minutes to get out of the blast radius. You guys crawl back as fast as you can, but at 4:45 I'm going to give you the warning, and you hug the ground as tightly as you can.
"I'm sending two companies through the gap as soon as the shockwave passes, and we're going to charge right into whatever is behind these bunkers before they have time to react. It's enough time for you to get away from the blast, but just barely. So once one of you gets the sighting on a structure I want both of you on the way back instantly."
I paused to a few seconds to let them process what I was saying. "One other thing. When you have visual and think you can get a laser spot, check in before moving ahead. We've got to get both teams in position before anyone paints the target. That 5 minutes starts when the first beam hits, so if the other team isn't in position they're not going to have time to get the spot done and get out in time. I know this is high risk, but it's the only way we can get through these defenses without getting half the battalion shot up. Any questions?"
I didn't expect any, so I wasn't surprised when there were none. Just four quick "no sirs." I had Hector terminate the link, then told Hector to get Frost back on the line.
"Frost here, sir."
"Dan, I want you to supervise the scouts. Split them into two pairs and monitor them every step of the way. I'm going to supervise the firing myself. Five minutes to the second after we get the first spot those nukes are going to fly. I want all four of those scouts to get back. Make
sure they don't spot until both are in position."
"Understood, sir. Consider it done."
I cut that line and got Jax on. I filled him in on the plan and told him to have the two companies ready to get low when the warheads went off and prepare to attack immediately. I put Jax in command of the charge, but I really wanted to go myself.
Ten minutes later two platoons supported by two heavy weapons teams from the battalion reserve opened fire with grenades and rocket launchers, while the four scouts started to move forward from the line. It takes a long time to crawl a kilometer, and the next fifteen minutes was just about the longest in my life. It didn't look like the enemy had spotted any of the scouts, but that wasn't surprising. Crawling like they were the snow completely covered them. Scout suits had the best camo our technology could produce, and they also had a coating that interfered with scans. Not that any scans were worth a damn here anyway.
The team on our right, Janek and Alvarez, got into position first. Alvarez commed a quick description of the structure. It looked like a hardened plasti-crete bunker mounting three heavy auto-cannons. Shit, I was right. We'd have been slaughtered if we'd advanced straight into that fire. They had only been firing one of the guns. Clever bastards. Trying to sucker us into a frontal assault.
It didn't take more than another minute before Garrison commed that he was in position. The left structure seemed to be a copy of the one on the right. I gave Frost to go ahead, and he had the scouts paint the targets. The second the laser sights hit the bunkers the position was relayed to the mortar teams I had ready. I had Hector counting down 300 seconds, giving me a warning every 30 until the last 30 and then counting down by ones.
Without our normal scanner capability I didn't have reliable location data on the returning scouts, so I really had no idea how they were doing. I felt myself willing them forward, as if I could pull them back with my mental powers.