The Conscripts: Fight or Die (Blood War Book 3)

by Rod Carstens

  “First squad, down and watch your spacing. Face the ridgeline,” Fenes said.

  Fenes landed at the top of the dune and watched in his heads-up as the squad spread out in a U around him. Striker and the second squad took the dune behind him and third the dune behind that.

  When everyone was in place, Striker said, “Squad leaders on me with first squad.”

  Striker skimmed over the top of the dune behind Fenes and landed next to him. Ardan and Minga were not far behind. Striker switched to the squad leaders’ frequency.

  “Listen, I’ve been monitoring the company’s command net. We are the only intact platoon, the best I can determine. In addition to our lieutenant, the other platoon leaders and sergeants are all either down or dead. We’re stuck out here on a limb. We can’t depend on any others from the company getting out here you saw what the LZ was like and without officer or NCO's they are going to make it. We’re it. The VF armor is supposed to be landing now, so it shouldn't be long before we see some organization of the units.”

  Fenes had known it was going to be bad when they decided to use the penal battalion as the first wave, but he hadn’t known it was going to be this bad.

  “What about the Marines at LZ Sol when will they hook up with us,” Ardan asked.

  “Unknown. Until we know more, assume they are in as deep as we were on our LZ so we are going to dig in and prepare to wait this out. Let’s scout around and find a dune large enough for us to set a platoon-sized perimeter. Fenes, you’re it.”

  “Roger that.”

  Fenes turned and moved to the top of the dune. He peeked over the edge. The ridge was still lit up like a Christmas tree, but none of the fire was aimed in their direction. He needed to find a vantage point from which he could get a good look at the terrain instead of bouncing around trying to find the right dune.

  There was a dune at least twenty feet higher than the rest to his right. It had what looked like some type of spiny plant sticking out of the top. He moved as quickly as he could through the dunes, always varying the timing and height of his jumps. He managed to make the distance in good time. He landed at the bottom of the huge dune and looked around. There were a few rocks on the ground. He climbed the steep slope until he reached the top. What had looked like a spiny plant turned out to be wind-eroded rock that was razor-sharp. When he grabbed it to keep from falling, he realized the rock went deep into the dune. He pulled his axe off his leg and scraped away the sand. The rock got larger as it went down. It was what the sand had been shaped by—that meant it went all the way to the surface. He turned and saw that the dune formed a bowl about three hundred yards across, with rocky spikes at the top of all of the walls. This was it. This dune field was really a rock formation. This would work.

  “Striker, this is Fenes.”

  “Striker, go.”

  “I got us a good spot. Want me to come back and guide you?”

  “Negative, stay there. Squawk me your position.”

  Fenes hit the encrypted location alert. Then he turned back to keep an eye out while the rest of the platoon came to his position. That was when he realized he wasn’t shaking anymore. Sure, he was scared, but as Ura had said, scared is what keeps you alive. Being brave is being scared and doing it anyway. Now he knew he could do it.

  LSD Tarawa

  Tactical Operations Center

  Combined Confederation Expeditionary Force

  General Dasan Sand paced on his command platform at the back of the Tactical Operations Center. He stopped behind his chair and display desk and stared at the huge multicolor display that spread across the entire front of the large room. Before him lay the tools that allowed him to command the joint operations of the battle on Chika. Systems for planning, communication, and visualization for the invasion was fully manned and staffed at all the stations. There were representatives from Von Fleet, Wolf, and Rift, as well as naval and Marine officers who traced the various operations and provided coordination between the TOC and the specific combat information centers for each of those participants.

  The wall displayed the objectives of the operation for each unit. They changed as each of the scheduled objectives was completed. Sand glanced at the mission clock in the right corner on the front wall. H-hour plus one-point-five, yet none of the objectives had been met.

  “Raider, I want a situation report on the spaceport,” Sand snapped.

  The display at the front of the room changed to a real-time infrared image of the spaceport. The Raider operator knew Sand liked to be able to see the individuals instead of a group of symbols signifying the units’ current positions and statuses.

  “Sir, the drop was disrupted by heavy ground fire. We have lost a number of the Mike boats, and the units are experiencing heavy resistance on the ground. While they are progressing toward their objectives, none of the units have reached them yet.”

  Sand watched the movements of the Raiders on the ground. They appeared as small white figures on a black background. They were moving in small groups and as individuals toward the objectives that were superimposed on the image. He saw one then another go down. The armor went to yellow on both of them. They were wounded but still viable, their armor’s medical systems treating their wounds until the corpsmen could get to them.

  “Casualties?”

  The captain hesitated then said, “Heavy, sir. But the resistance isn’t organized. There were more on-site personnel than we had anticipated.”

  “So we dropped them into a hornets’ nest. Doesn’t matter if it’s organized or not. You still get a lot of stings.”

  Sand shook his head. Once, just once, he wanted intel good enough that he didn’t lose troops because of the unforeseen.

  “Very well. Von Fleet, what is the status of the landings?”

  Again the view changed. Instead of individuals, the display showed military symbols representing the 135th Penal Battalion’s units’ positions on the ground.

  “Sir, the landing has taken place and the units are moving toward their assigned objectives,” the Von Fleet captain said.

  “Switch the view to one that shows the battlefield itself.”

  The display flickered, then showed the Von Fleet landing zone just to the south of the crater. The scene was one of chaos. Sand could see at least six of the APCs down and burning. There were bodies all over the LZ. Heavy fire from off the screen was raking the LZ. As Sand watched, a whole load of troops from an APC was cut down by fire as they exited the ship. There was no organized movement on the ground—only an individual here or there moving.

  Then he saw what looked like an organized movement of troops to the west of the LZ. A platoon-sized unit was moving out of the LZ toward a dune field.

  “Who is that, Captain?”

  “Uh…I’m not sure, sir. Things are very confused on the ground and we have received no progress reports from the units in the landing zone.”

  “No shit. Now find out who the fuck is moving to the left flank!”

  Sand almost cringed as he watched APC after APC destroyed or damaged as it tried to land its troops. It was a true horror show. Von Fleet was the center of the line between the two marine LZ’s. He had assigned them the center hoping that the marines on their flanks could provide glue that would hold the three different LZ’s together. It was as he had feared—it appeared that the penal battalion was being decimated.

  “Sir, uh, that would appear to be a platoon from the 3rd Company. They were assigned to the far west to link up with the Marines at LZ Sol.”

  “You don’t know which one?”

  “No, sir. We didn’t give the penal battalion any personal or platoon locators. We only gave them to the company commanders and their command post staff.”

  “Then where is the company CP?”

  “Uh, sir, none has been established. In fact, we have heard nothing from them since they reported landing.”

  “So you are in the dark as to where your units are and what their status is?”


  “Uh…yes, sir,” the young captain said. “Sir, we’ve never landed on a planet like this. I would expect there to be some confusion.”

  Sand’s face turned red before he exploded, “You fuckin’ logo soldiers are a piece of fucking work! No human has ever made a landing against an alien race before. That is why we spent so much time planning! Now I’ve got the center of my beachhead on a planet in jeopardy because Von Fleet sends in a penal battalion in the first wave despite my wishes!”

  “Sir, I.…”

  “Shut the fuck up. The next time I ask for a sitrep and you give that kind of bullshit, I will have security pull you out of here and I’ll find somebody who can do the job.”

  Sand turned his back on the room and walked to his commander’s station. He knew he should not have exploded, but there had been a long and complicated fight with Von Fleet about this very subject during the planning of this landing. He had taken it all the way to Admiral Raurk, and she had been overruled by the secretary general. It had been a political decision designed to placate the planets using Von Fleet to make their contributions to the Confederation’s military. Now there were young men and women paying the price for a political decision down on Chika.

  He took several deep breaths and turned back to the room. He still had his Marine Corps Expeditionary Force, which was comprised of three regiments with additional naval and Marine units attached along with a bootstrapped division of Rifts and Wolfs—a regiment of each with a Wolf general in command. He had to depend on Von Fleet taking the center of the beachhead, because they had all of the equipment to construct the forward operating base, which this very TOC was designed to become a part of once the beachhead had been secured. He turned back to the room.

  “1st Marines, report.”

  The display switched to Landing Zone Sol. He could see they too were experiencing stiff resistance, but he saw organized units moving toward the assigned objectives.

  “Sir, the first wave of 1st Battalion has landed and is moving against heavy resistance. Second Battalion is now entering the atmosphere and should be reinforcing the 1st soon.”

  “Casualties?”

  “Heavy, sir. A casualty collection point has been established and some of the wounded are already being evacuated.”

  “Very well. LZ Rift.”

  Again the display switched, this time to Landing Zone Rift, where the Rifts and Wolfs had landed. It too showed units meeting stiff resistance but slowly moving forward.

  “Sir, we too are facing strong resistance,” the young Wolf lieutenant reported. “We have the 1st Wolf and the 1st Rift Battalions both down on the ground, but they are closest to the ridgeline where the fire is coming from and are having a hard time moving off the LZ. The defensive fire is heavy and accurate.”

  Sand could see the fire from the ridgeline when LZ Rift was shown. It was intense and deadly. The Wolf and Rift troops were returning fire, but it did not seem to be making a difference. It was obvious that the pressure was coming from fortified positions in the ridge. A trooper on the screen fired one of the shoulder-fired scram rockets at the ridge. It struck and the display showed the white blossom of an explosion. It blew debris out from the ridgeline. The fire from that area stopped, then almost immediately began again.

  Sand was hugely frustrated. He had troops in armor that allowed them to move at close to thirty miles per hour all day long, yet he could not get them off the ground. When one would try and stand they were immediately cut down. He was in another slugging match with the Xotoli on their terms.

  “Can you get me a drone view of that ridgeline?”

  “Yes, sir. The units have several up, but the Xotoli keep knocking them down. I’ll find a good feed.”

  It was several moments before he got an aerial view of LZ Rift. As he watched, a destroyer-fired five-inch rail struck the top of the ridgeline creating a huge plume of rock and sand, but it did nothing to slow the fire. Then another struck just in front of the line. Again, a tremendous explosion sent debris flying, but there was no change in the fire.

  “Naval gunfire, are you seeing this?”

  He had a naval gunfire liaison who was coordinating the destroyers and other ships as they supported the landing. She stood at her station. “Yes, sir. I’m on it. Let me see if we can get at that.”

  Lieutenant Chuto, the commander of the Naval Special Warfare Squadron, stood.

  “Sir, I might be able to break away some of my Mike boats at the port to make some runs. They would be able to get in close without too much trouble.”

  “Sounds good. Get on it. But I can’t afford to leave the Raiders hanging without them. Let me know what you come up with soonest.”

  “Yes, sir.” Chuto sat back down at his station and got busy.

  Sand needed to get an overall view. He was getting into the weeds. “Display. Pull back and give me a real-time view of the spaceport and surrounding area.”

  The tech running the display switched to one of the satellites they had placed in orbit around Chika for aerial reconnaissance. The spaceport sat on a football-shaped escarpment that was raised anywhere from a hundred to three hundred feet above the surface of the planet. It was now obvious why the Xotoli had put the port on the escarpment—they had turned it into a huge underground fortress. He guessed that in addition to defenses there were warehouses, communication centers, and anything else they might need to run the spaceport.

  They are too fucking smart, Sand thought. They had simply expanded the space port to create this huge fortress. It was the reason that none of the flybys had shown anything military, yet the electronic signature from Chika was huge. There had been heated arguments during the planning process, and it looked like those arguing for a much tougher defense were right. By placing everything underground, the Xotoli had made it so there was simply no way to tell how many aliens and hybrids they had defending this planet. It also meant Sand had no way of knowing if there were other fortresses hidden on Chika.

  “Sir,” a tentative voice said.

  Sand looked up to see the Von Fleet captain standing.

  “Sir, the Von Fleet armor and armored infantry have just left their ships and are headed for the surface.”

  Sand glanced at the mission clock. They were right on time—he had to give them that. Now he would see if they could take a heavily defended beachhead, because if they couldn’t, he would have two LZ’s cut off. He would have to commit his reserve regiment if things did not improve soon. If the Xotoli decided to, they could overrun one or both of them before he could get enough people on the ground. If he committed his reserves, he would have nothing left for taking the rest of the planet. It looked like it was now up to the logo soldiers.

  Lyten System

  Rift

  Internal Security Headquarters

  Commanding Officer’s Office

  “We were required to learn the history of the Xotoli in detail. In fact it was the majority of what we learned. The Xotoli believe that their god Engai gave them all the resources that exist. In the beginning there were other races besides the Xotoli on Breon, their home planet, but because they believed Engai gave them all of the food, water, and land, the Xotoli exterminated all of them through a series of wars that lasted hundreds of years. With only Xotoli left on the planet, they began to fight among themselves. Then a leader emerged: the Great Bilri. He brought the clans together and led the Xotoli off world toward the conquest of what was theirs in space. He taught them that Engai did not mean for them just to have Breon but to have all of the universe. So the Xotoli began to move off Breon to claim other worlds. Some were unoccupied, but others had large populations. The Xotoli simply killed them and took what they felt had been given to them by Engai,” Netis said.

  “So this is a religious war to them. Their god gave them all of our resources. It is simply a matter of them taking what is already theirs.”

  “Yes. They feel that you occupy and use resources that are not yours but theirs. So you are seen as thieves,
and enemies of Engai.”

  “The worst type of enemy, one driven by religious beliefs,” the Anjin Mother said. “There is no reasoning or negotiating with them. You can only kill them.”

  “Why did they choose the Confederation and the human race? We are not an inconsequential foe, as you have said. We have resources, and they have seen that we are capable of violence close to being equal to their own.”

  “That is why. The Xotoli culture is run by a council of elder males and some retired elders. Every fifty years a new individually named generation of warriors is initiated into manhood. This latest group of warriors is headed by a leader who is very ambitious. His name is Askars. He wishes to go down in history as being as great as Bilri. To do so he must have as large an impact on the Xotoli as Bilri did.

  “Each generation of warriors decides on what raid or war will define their generation. Askars has convinced them and the elders that they must destroy the human race. It is the only spacefaring race as numerous as the Xotoli in a nearby area of the galaxy. In the Xotolis’ eyes, you are judged by how powerful your enemies are, and the human race is the only race as powerful as the Xotoli in this part of space.

  “By leading this generation of warriors into a war that will more than double the size of the Xotoli empire, he will be able to claim his place in history. He has convinced the elders and his generation of warriors that the fate of the Xotoli rests on the destruction of the human race. It is the only race that could threaten the Xotoli. If he is able to destroy humanity, when he reaches elder age he will be seen as being as important as Bilri. He will become the supreme elder. He will go down in Xotoli history as the one who led the Xotoli to their greatest heights.”

  Istas was silent as she contemplated the ramifications all of what Netis had told her. Someone whose ambitions were that great, with the power of the Xotoli behind them, would be a very, very difficult foe to defeat. With religion behind the beliefs of the warriors and their leaders, the only way to stop the Xotoli would be to kill them. This would truly be a blood war—a fight to the death between two races used to using violence to settle disputes.