by Rod Carstens
"First squad on my command jump on top the nearest cover."
"What?!"
"We are going to draw the fire away from Borges until she gets to cover."
"Shit."
"Now."
Marines in the first squad jumped up on the nearest building, vehicle, or stack of construction material and began firing as fast as they could into the crystal refining center. The sight of so many targets suddenly appearing drew the fire away from Borges. She was able to get the two wounded Marines behind cover. When Nani saw that the three of them had made it behind cover, she said, "Down!"
Her squad jumped down as one at her command. Nani held her breath and quickly checked her squad’s medical readouts. They had managed to pull it off without a single Marine being wounded. Maybe their luck was changing. She glanced over at Borges. She had collapsed next to the two wounded, Marines. Suddenly, rounds began to strike the ground to her rear. Now the Xotoli were on their left flank. They were surrounded! It looked like that extract wasn’t going to make it on time.
#
Sweat stung Lee’s eyes as he pulled the ship up from the dive and started a wide right turn to bring the ship around for the extract.
"Warning! Warning! Missile launched," the ship’s countermeasures computer squawked.
"Fuck! Where did that come from?" Lee said.
"I'm on it! I'm on it!" Odaka yelled in response.
Lee watched as the missile turned to follow them as they made a hard turn. Anti-ship missiles could turn inside of them and get on their tail. If Odaka didn't destroy it, it would certainly destroy them. Odaka fired an antimissile ballistic and their chain gun at the closing target. Lee watched the missile close on them. They weren’t going to make it. Then the blip representing the missile disappeared in a flash of orange.
"Got him!" Odaka said with satisfaction.
"Where did that thing come from?"
"I don't know, but wherever it came from is about eat a couple of Riders."
Rider was the nickname for the missiles that rode the electronic trail of a missile to its launching point. The ship rocked as the antimissile ballistics launched.
"They weren't supposed to have any anti-ship defenses," Odaka said.
"Yeah, this whole thing has been a goat fuck from the beginning."
Lee brought the ship in and made his final descent for the extraction point, an open area behind the marines. Alien ground fire was heavy, but it was only small arms and it bounced off the heavily armored sides of the SOC. He slowed the craft, flared, and brought the ship in for a landing in the open area near the Marines. Toland was working her weapons on aliens that were firing on the ship. When the ship touched down, a swirl of snow and debris was thrown up by the thrusters. Larger pieces of debris were closer to the surface. He began to realize what he had tossed up with the SOC, but Lee couldn't believe what he was seeing. Then one of the pieces of remains landed on his windshield with a wet smack. It was a human arm. Then Lee realized that all of the large pieces of debris were human body parts: legs, arms, heads, and even torsos.
"Dear God.…" Odaka said.
"What. The. Fuck." Lee said, unable to take his eyes off the arm.
"You landed in the area where they threw all the body parts of the civilians they killed," a voice behind them said.
Lee turned to see the armored face of the marine lieutenant who had just boarded.
"God, what kind of things would do that?" Lee said, incredulous.
"You have no idea," the lieutenant said with sadness in his voice.
Lee watched as the last of the Marines boarded and Toland said, "All aboard, Chief."
"Roger."
Lee pushed the throttles forward and the ship lifted off. Lee brought the nose of the ship up and pushed the throttles to the firewall. The SOC, despite all of the damage it had sustained and being overloaded with Marines, responded easily, pushing through the turbulent atmosphere as if it wanted to get back to the Tarawa as badly as Lee did.
"Dragon Eight, this is Tarawa."
"Dragon Eight Tarawa."
"You guys inbound yet?"
"Roger, Tarawa. We just cleared the area."
"Roger. You might want to watch the light show that’s about to take place. The destroyers are inbound."
"Roger, Tarawa. Have medics meet us. We have wounded onboard."
Lee switched on the rear cameras so they could watch the bombardment of the facility. They couldn't see the destroyers, but suddenly, huge orange and red streaks appeared behind them. They looked for all the world like meteors. He had never seen a kinetic bombardment up close before. The depleted uranium rounds were almost beautiful as they burned through the atmosphere. When they struck, the explosion was enormous. Huge orange flames with blue and white streaks burst upward violently as the rounds struck the facility. Round after round tore into the complex, destroying it as a useful refining site and killing any living thing on the ground. Lee might’ve felt sorry for anyone on the receiving end of such violence, except he couldn’t get the vision of a field full of arms and legs out of his mind.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Xotoli Outpost
Exoplanet 1123.567
Von Fleet Planet 703
1st Marine Raider Battalion
Major Axec Aijuba and the rest of her react team were running for their lives. The naval gunfire support had destroyed the positions in the cliff that had kept them pinned down, but the clock was running out. It was all taking too much time. The Xotoli landing party would be here soon, and Aijuba still had two more platoons to relieve.
Aijuba jumped over a rock outcropping, breaking her own rule about showing yourself when you didn't have to. Sure enough, a sniper was waiting. The round caught her in the side at the height of her jump. The force of it threw her against a rock. She dropped to the ground and the last thing she felt was her armor beginning to treat her wound before she lost consciousness.
When she began to regain consciousness, she had no idea how long she’d been out. A few minutes or a few hours, she wondered. She glanced up at the mission clock. Fifteen precious minutes had passed. She was getting careless. This wasn’t like her, but her desperation meant she was making mistakes. She tried to move, but her suit was locked as her wounds were still being treated.
"It won't be long now, Major," a voice said. "You'll be able to move soon."
It was only then that Aijuba became aware of her surroundings. Davius, their medic, was kneeling next to her with his medical systems hooked into her armor.
"The others?"
"The team has formed a perimeter around us. They’re ready to move out when you’re ready."
"No, no. Go on without me."
"Sorry, nobody's leaving without you, Major."
"Goddammit..."
"We decided you could court martial us if we live through this one."
Aijuba couldn't see through Davius's faceplate to see the expression on his face, but she knew that sarcastic tone in his voice. This whole raid hadn’t gone right from the very beginning, and it was becoming more and more obvious with every minute that ticked by that not everyone was going to get off this kaking rock alive. The light inside her helmet stopped blinking red, signifying the armor was treating her wound. It turned green, and she was able to move. She felt the painkillers and go juice fill her veins as the medical system injected them into her body. Slowly, she stood.
"Where's Wakiza?"
"Right here, Major. You ready to move now?"
"Yeah. What’s our situation?"
"We're about a quarter of a mile away from Bravo Company's first platoon. They’re pinned down like the last platoon. I scouted ahead, thinking that I could call down some naval gunfire and free them up."
"But?"
"The kaking hybrids are right on top of the platoon. They can't move, and we can't call in the naval gunfire without killing the whole platoon along with the hybrids.
There’re no more SOCs available for gun runs. They’
re all on extraction missions. So I figured we would use the scrams and our covering fire so first platoon can get out of there."
"Then what?"
Wakiza laughed.
"Well, Major, that’s why you’re the major and I'm only a sergeant."
Aijuba knew what she meant. If they covered the Bravo Company platoon so they could escape, they would be in the same spot the platoon was in now: pinned down by the hybrids. Aijuba switched to Bravo Company's combat network. The icons for the Marines and the hybrids looked like they were in the same position. She zoomed in for a closer look. Bravo Company's target was a series of buildings that ran the factory, converting the raw materials brought in by the robotic trucks into usable ore. The hybrids had let them get almost to the front door, and then opened up from very well-placed positions in the cliffs on either side of the outbuildings. Again, the hybrids had the high ground, firing down on the marines, who were basically sitting ducks. Wakiza was right. They were too close together to call in the naval gunfire, and they couldn’t disengage.
"React, get online and prepare to fire. Bravo platoon, be prepared to disengage and move to your extraction point."
Aijuba watched as her react platoon moved cautiously into position. Even moving carefully, she lost two to yellow status. They were down and unable to move. When they finally made it into position, Aijuba carefully designated the known heavy weapons positions to a specific scram until they all had one.
"On my mark, React. Three, two, one. Fire."
The fire from the react platoon’s weapons and scrams was accurate and devastating. The Bravo platoon began to retreat, carrying wounded comrades with them and running a zigzag course through the rocks and outcroppings away from the cliff. Hybrid rounds still exploded against rocks and in the dirty snow, throwing debris into the air. When the last of the Bravo platoon was through their line, Aijuba and the rest of the react team continued to exchange fire with the hybrids. After the barrage of scrams and other weapons, the hybrid fire seemed to have diminished little. It was just as she’d predicted. They were now in the same position as the Bravo platoon: pinned down and too close for naval gunfire.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Xotoli Outpost
Exoplanet 1123.567
Von Fleet Planet 703
Geosynchronous Orbit
Landing Ship Dock
Tarawa
It was a long and silent flight back to the Tarawa. The only sounds Lee heard were the heavy breathing of the Marines in the back of the SOC. It was the sound of men and women who had pushed themselves to the limit of their endurance and had nothing left. He knew how they felt; it was everything he could do to keep his concentration on the flight back to the Tarawa.
"Dragon Eight to flight. Permission to land."
"Go ahead, Dragon Eight you are cleared to land."
Lee turned on the landing assist system and the flexible tube that gave him his approach angle and speed appeared in his heads up. He put the SOC in the middle of the tube for his approach to the Tarawa's flight deck. The huge hangar doors were open and the lights on it looked awfully welcoming. As he approached the deck, red lights began to flash, guiding him to his ship’s lockdown position on the flight line. Lee brought the SOC in perfectly and followed the lights to his ship’s position. He set it down gently and went through the shutdown procedure with Odaka. As they did, all of their main systems went red. Dragon Eight couldn’t fly again without extensive repairs. Lee glanced over at Odaka.
"She took everything they threw at her and got us home. She’s a great ship," Lee said.
"The best," Odaka replied.
Once they shut down the engines, Odaka lowered the rear ramp. Three teams of medics ran toward the ship, pulling floating stretchers for the wounded. Lee had just finished the last of his shutdown checklist when the lieutenant from the platoon stuck his head inside the cockpit.
"You SWCCs aren't too bad considering your swabbies. Thanks a lot. You pulled our ass out of the fire on that one!"
"Anytime there, Jarhead," Lee said with a chuckle.
The lieutenant slapped him on the shoulder and turned to follow his men and women down the ramp. Lee went to pull his helmet off and found he was too weak after the adrenaline letdown. He rested for a minute or two, and then he still had to focus just to get it off. His hair was sweat matted to his head and his neck ached from wearing his flight helmet for so long. He looked over at Odaka. Their eyes met and they exchanged a glance.
"Let's try and not do that again."
"I'm all for that," Odaka agreed.
Lee unbuckled his straps and opened the pilot’s door. He turned in the seat and hopped down from the ship, but his legs wouldn't hold him up, and he fell to his knees. When he did, he was eye-to-eye with the barrels of the rails on the front of his ship. Caught between the barrels was the arm of a woman who’d once had small hands with long slender fingers. It had been ripped off at the shoulder, and the socket and skin around it was torn and ragged. Suddenly, all of the arms and legs that the ship had kicked up during the landing came flashing back into Lee’s mind. He vomited on the deck. Odaka came over and saw the arm.
"Oh, God," he breathed.
He reached down and helped Lee to his feet. Toland stepped down the ramp at the rear of Dragon Eight. She was staring at the ship. Lee and Odaka walked up to her.
"You alright?" Lee asked.
"Yeah, sure. Did you see what was in that field that we took off from on that last extract?"
"Yeah, we did."
"Fuck, Chief! Just plain fuck! I got nothin' that even comes close to describing it."
"Yeah, we know."
The three exchanged a look that seemed to say it all. Then Toland nodded toward the ship.
"Shit!”
They turned. What they saw amazed them. Both wings had multiple holes in them, and the tail was half shot off. There were gouges and holes in the armor that had been filled by the nanos. The cowling to the engine was almost completely torn away as well.
"She should never have been able to fly that last mission," Odaka said quietly.
"No, we should be a greasy spot back on 703." Toland agreed.
Lee just stared, trying to absorb how the ship had stayed in the air, and then managed not to leak all of the air out of any one of the numerous nano-repaired holes covering her, not to mention the damage that must’ve been done to the engine. Lee reached up and patted Dragon Eight.
"She got us home, though."
Toland and Odaka followed Lee's example and affectionately patted her side. Then they slowly walked toward the flight crew’s room, none of them saying another word.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Xotoli Outpost
Exoplanet 1123.567
Von Fleet Planet 703
Geosynchronous Orbit
Landing Ship Dock
Tarawa
1st Marine Raider Battalion
Combat Information Center
General Dasan Sand had been monitoring the communications from the surface throughout the extraction. The operations clock was almost down to zero, and he still had Marines on the ground, including Aijuba. He looked at the situation board again. The platoon she had just relieved was now leaving the planet’s surface in the last flyable SOC. Sand glanced over at Lieutenant Chuto. He looked exhausted as he tried to squeeze one more mission out of his beleaguered squadron. He was standing with a stricken look on his face..
"What do you mean there are no more SOCs capable of flying?" he snapped.
He paused as he listened to the poor subordinate on the other end of the line.
"They have that much damage?"
Again, he paused.
"How many wounded and dead?" Chuto’s voice was no longer strident.
Again, the pause.
"That many?" Chuto slowly sat down in his chair, his hand covering his face as he listened to the numbers.
"Lieutenant Chuto, I need a sit rep," Sand said, knowing what he was going to he
ar.
Chuto slowly stood and turned to face Sand.
"General, I have no more SOCs capable of flying. The inbound SOC has declared an emergency. They should be able to make it, but that will be it for that ship. The rest of the surviving ships are in the same shape. They are so badly damaged that they can no longer make the flight."
"How many dead and wounded?"
"They’re still counting, but there are over forty-percent casualties in my crews so far."
"Thank you, Lieutenant. Your squadron has performed to the highest standards of the navy. Please let your men and women know that. Have the combat log please note that the 1st Special Warfare Combatant Squadron will receive the Confederation unit citation for their action on this date."
Sand was quiet. He knew what he had to do. He had to tell the woman he loved that she was about to die and there was nothing that he could do to stop it from happening. He had failed her and her unit.
"Excuse me, sir." It was Captain Kitmura.
Sand turned to him.
"General, this is my fault. It was my interpretation of the data. It was my idea for this raid. I take full responsibility."
Sand looked at Kitmura. His usual composed face was almost contorted in guilt.
"No, the responsibility always lies with the commanding officer," Sand said.
"Sir, if you can find any consolation, our scientists have already begun to examine the drugs brought up and the server you secured from the raid. They feel that both of those finds will be very significant, even from just a cursory examination. One went so far as to say they thought the information on the server could prove invaluable in the war effort. So the raid bore fruit, even if it wasn’t what we expected."
Sand glanced at him. He wasn’t sure if Kitmura was trying to convince himself or him.
"Thank you, Captain. That will be all."
Kitmura came to attention, about faced, and strode off the command platform. It was time for the hardest thing he would ever do.