by Michael Ryan
Platoon Leader Maybeeta kept us on a twenty-minute rotation for point whenever we moved in a ragged column, which wasn’t often. Whenever possible, we advanced in a line, checking for signs of a military presence.
For all any of us knew, the lab wasn’t anywhere near our grid.
It was possible it didn’t exist at all.
Fourth Platoon’s A of R was grid bravo seven, roughly nine thousand square kilometers.
Command had sectioned the jungle into quadrants ten kilometers wide, which allowed our line spacing to remain under half a click. We staggered it depending on the terrain, the weather, and the threat assessment made by the squad leaders, which was often of dubious worth. We weren’t allowed to send up drones; nothing short of blowing things up would announce our presence faster than a drone above the tree line.
Satellite scans hadn’t revealed anything except small native tribes in the region, but the jungle’s density could hide a regiment; and besides, the lab likely would be underground.
The only good news was that there was no chance of being trapped in ice.
~~~
On day four, one of Red Squad’s privates killed a tribesman.
We had a meeting that night.
“Killing natives is not part of our mission,” Lieutenant Maybeeta warned. “I don’t want to get another report like today’s.”
“Sir,” the guilty private explained, “he fired at me.”
“With a bow and arrow, as I understand from the field report,” the lieutenant clarified.
“Sir, yes, sir. But I didn’t think…I reacted as I was trained. There could have been explosives involved.”
Maybeeta’s countenance was stony. “Explosives, Private? Really?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You’re not joking?”
“No, sir.”
He shook his head. “You’re so damned green I’m going to forget this, but don’t do shit like that again. Your armor is about three thousand years more advanced than anything being carried by the native population, Private. Avoid them and refrain from killing anything out here, even the wildlife, unless there’s a valid tactical reason for doing so. Am I crystal clear?”
“Sir, yes, sir.”
“Next on our agenda are the field reports and observations from squad leaders. Gentlemen?”
Our line moved during the day, and we slept and recovered at night. The primary reason for moving during daylight hours was to have an optimal chance of finding indications of advanced purvast activity. An underground laboratory would need to have supplies brought in, and to protect the lab’s location, those would be likely be supplied via ground transportation, not air. We searched for roads, tracks, and the purvast equivalent of a cigarette butt.
“We got nothing, sir,” the Red Team leader said.
“Ditto that, sir,” the Purple Team leader announced.
It was the same with all five leaders, as it had been for the last three days. We hadn’t come across anything in the jungle so far except a few animals and an unfortunate native.
“Any equipment issues?” Maybeeta asked.
There were none.
“Okay, switch up,” he said. “The rest of you grunts get some sleep. Dismissed.”
When the daily report was finished, I toggled to the private comm so Callie and I could talk. I was in a little nest with her, in a tall tree ten meters off the jungle floor. Being near her when we were suited up was more a mental comfort than anything.
“Your legs holding out okay?” I asked. We’d traveled forty kilometers straight-line on our map that day, nearly forty-five actual on the ground.
“I’m good,” she said. “We’re covering a lot of territory.”
“I think fifty clicks is on the agenda tomorrow,” I said.
“Always looking ahead.”
“Sure. Gives me something to do.”
“I prefer to wait until morning.”
“I like knowing.”
“You want to watch a movie with me?” she asked.
“Sure, if you keep the comm open.”
“Okay, but keep the commentary to a minimum.”
“Pick a good movie, then.”
“Ass.”
“I’m going to miss eating popcorn.”
~~~
Day five began as usual.
We received a ten-minute heads-up prior to marching. I verified that all my systems were green and sent a report to our SL. I opened a window in my DS with my assigned A of R mapped out with a progress bar. A bit anal, but I liked knowing how far I’d walked and how far I had to go. I sent Callie a short personal message. I checked in with the other partner team in our squad, which was Andrew and Maaly.
Everything was green.
Everything was boring.
Boring is fine when you’re in the infantry. It’s kind of the preferred state. But the problem in the field is that if you’re not ready for a transition to craziness in an instant, being bored can be the last thing you ever do. I helped myself stay focused by playing music in my suit and monitoring a few small windows on my DS.
Walking my assignment, I saw animal tracks, scat, and various holes in the ground. I didn’t see anything bigger than a bird or a rodent. I started wishing we’d at least run into a big snake or something.
Our suits provided nutrition and water, so technically a lunch break wasn’t necessary, but it was part of our routine. I think army psychologists determined a thirty-minute break in the middle of the day gave enough of a morale benefit that the time spent returned more than was lost. Besides, we could always march an extra half hour in the evening.
What mattered was adequate sleep.
Platoon messages could be sent up and down the line as long as none of the gaps got too large and nothing too solid, like a mountain, got between soldiers. Our PL was a real stickler about staying in touch at all times. I think his worst nightmare was being flanked and not finding out until the enemy had worked through half the platoon.
“Let’s move out,” he said. “I hope everyone had a nice lunch.”
“I had a roasted turkey sandwich,” someone joked.
“I had roasted pialentia,” said someone else, obviously a full-blooded Gurt. I hadn’t yet met a human that liked pialentia.
I climbed down from my perch. I’d actually dozed for a few minutes. I’d dreamt of pizza. I’m not sure if it was helpful or distracting, but I decided if I lived through this mission, a large pepperoni would be my celebratory meal.
We began our trek again, and fifteen minutes into it, a warning light triggered on my screen.
I issued an all-freeze-and-hold command.
“Contact.” This was one of a few commands that didn’t have to go up the chain.
Red Queen problems were a constant in warfare detection. Whether bouncing sound, electromagnetic energy, or even concentrated light off an enemy, the enemy notices. Avoidance systems are engineered, and countermeasures developed. Which then requires that counter-countermeasures be developed.
The Red Queen is a merciless bitch.
The sun during the day is ubiquitous. This creates an opportunity, because light bouncing off an enemy comes from 150 million kilometers away on Earth and about 162 million kilometers away on Purvas, making it impossible to trace back whether someone or something has seen you move in the jungle.
Photons are bouncing around everywhere.
I switched on my LBCS. I hadn’t been noticed, because the contact hadn’t stopped advancing. We generally don’t travel with our light-bending camouflage system running. It requires too much power, and due to another Red Queen, moving light-bending camo is reasonably easy to detect. But I was prone on the jungle floor, partially behind a tree, with my camo running, so I was as close to invisible as possible.
The contact wasn’t alone.
“Contact times two. Undetected. Two hundred meters. Tactical advance.”
“Armament?” the lieutenant asked.
“Armor. Appears t
o be TCI class. Wait one to confirm.”
“Maintain no contact,” he messaged over the all-platoon comm.
Firefights were to be avoided at all costs. I remained locked down, completely still, when the enemy point walked past me. It appeared to be a patrol without heavy armament, most likely guards or scouts, which could mean any number of things: there could be an outpost somewhere nearby, or the troops could have been sent specifically to search for us if we’d been detected. And of course, the one we were hoping for: we were close to the laboratory.
“Avery,” the platoon leader said.
“Sir?”
“Status?”
“Point is beyond me, plus or minus a hundred meters. I have three…check that…four troops in view.”
“Your instinct?”
“It’s a patrol. But stand by.”
The Teds usually ran their recon patrols with a dozen soldiers. If this scouting party was similar, I’d find out in a few more minutes.
I reported each troop as they passed. After the last of the dozen Teds entered my view, I waited the average time it took for a patrol spacing to pass, and then messaged the lieutenant.
“Sir, that makes twelve.”
“Okay, hold tight. Let’s make sure.”
“Sir.”
Five minutes passed.
“Blue Squad, listen up,” Sergeant Veetea said. “We’re being detached to pursue. Make a line on me. At first contact, we’ll make a file on Avery.”
“Acknowledged.”
Being point when pursuing a known entity isn’t as nerve-racking as being the point in the middle of uncharted territory, but it still heightens the senses. At least I wouldn’t be bored.
After fifteen minutes, Sergeant Veetea switched up our formation and spread us out in an inverted V shape, with himself in the center. We moved cautiously for an hour before we reestablished contact with the Ted patrol.
“Avery, move up to me,” he ordered. “Everyone else fall in line. Callie, Andrew, Maaly, bring up the rear.”
“On my way,” I said, and picked up my pace. I could see most of his tracks; armor was heavy and the rainforest floor soft. I was reasonably confident moving through the jungle behind the sergeant – if there were any traps, he’d have hit them first. When I reached him, he was in a tree, observing the patrol from a safe distance.
“Take it easy, Avery,” he said. “We don’t want to engage them. We just want to see where they lead us.”
“Understood.”
~~~
We followed the patrol for eight hours. When they stopped, I notified our squad leader.
“Does it look like they’re setting up for the night?” he asked.
“Hold one.” I waited another twenty minutes before reporting back. “They’ve got a clump of ten, with two posted guards. Looks like they’re camped for the duration.”
“Okay. Let’s set a rotation for sleep. Callie, you take first watch.”
“Roger that,” she said. “Avery, I’m moving to you now.”
I wanted to sit with Callie, but our tactical orders were to spread out instead of remaining clumped, as the Teds were. Both possible formations had pros and cons. A clump provided a stronger defense, but was also easier to detect. Once I released the point and first shift to Callie, I moved to the rear and found a good tree to climb. I slept for six hours in its branches before a beeping in my ear insert woke me up.
“Sergeant?”
“The group is on the move. I’ve got Andrew on point. You and Callie fall behind them.”
“Done.”
We followed uneventfully until late morning.
Andrew’s computerized voice echoed in my mind, “Gahhh…”
It was his final communication. In retrospect, I wish I’d set his messages to text. I didn’t know he’d been killed instantly until later during debriefing. A high-density round had blown a neat hole through his chest.
“Maaly, fall back,” Veetea said.
The downside to having a partner on the battlefield is that the shock of their death can make a soldier do stupid things. For a few minutes, the loss of one was considered the loss of both. Sometimes the reaction transformed the surviving soldier into a super-warrior, and sometimes it turned them into a wreck.
Maaly fell back as ordered, and I mourned for her loss.
“Avery, get over here,” Veetea said. “Callie, I want you to flank. Plant yourself way out there. Maaly, give yourself a few minutes and then take the mirror to Callie. Last-alive rules apply.”
The last-alive rule simply meant that when there was only one of us left, the mission for the survivor changed to escaping to the main group with all collected data.
I climbed into a tree not far from Sergeant Veetea and observed the enemy defenses. They’d reached an outpost, and I could see two heavily fortified bunkers with rail-cannons and one bunker with a centrifugal gun. The most obvious question was what they were guarding, and the obvious answer was a secret laboratory.
But that was conjecture.
They could just as easily be protecting a communications installation or a weapons depot.
“Avery?”
“Yes.”
“Upload your cache to me. I’m sending Maaly back.”
“I’m on it.” We couldn’t risk transmitting anything for fear that the signal would pinpoint our location and draw the Teds straight to us. I took more pictures of the defenses, made a few written observations, and transmitted everything to our squad leader. I thought at the time that sending Maaly back to the platoon was a smart move, but it wasn’t much after that I was wishing we had more personnel with us. Several days later, I learned that she’d never made it back.
~~~
Two hours later Callie sent a short burst message.
<<6 clicks. No contact. Advise>>
Veetea recalled her to our position. The three of us sat in the treetops for another day.
“They’re waiting for us to retreat with data,” Veetea said. “Or attack their position.”
“So what do we do?” Callie asked. “We can’t exactly–”
“No, a straight assault would be suicide,” he agreed, finishing Callie’s sentence for her. “I’m not going to waste our lives, but let’s not get all misty eyed here. Reality is bleak unless Maaly’s able to get to the platoon and someone decides this place is the target. If that happens, Command might send the entire company.”
“Until then?” I asked.
“Observe and sit tight. Maybe we’ll learn something.”
We remained in the treetops for six more days.
On the seventh day, one of the rail-cannons fired in the opposite direction. We picked up a short burst from the suit of the soldier the volley had killed. She’d been in the Second Platoon, Delta Company, and had apparently made the same mistake Andrew had. In any case, she wasn’t part of a small recon squad, she was the point in a platoon-strong movement, so the moment she was down, the rest of her platoon launched an offensive.
“Sergeant?”
“Hold one,” he said. “Let’s give this time to play out.”
Five minutes later, he dropped to the jungle floor and said, “Okay, follow me. I’ve got the makings of a plan.”
~~~
Veetea finished outlining his proposal, and we sat in silence for a moment.
“You call that a plan?” I finally asked.
“It’s as good as any,” he answered. “You got any other suggestions?”
I mulled it over. “I suppose it’s workable.”
“We should take this route,” Callie said. She sent a pic with an approach marked.
“I like it,” Veetea said. “Get your shit programmed. Launch in two minutes.”
“Okay,” I said.
“I only need a minute,” Callie said. “But I can wait for you Neanderthal programmers…”
“There’s always one in my squad,” Veetea said. “How up to date are your skills with their gear?” He pointed towards the en
emy.
“Just get me to the interface. Ted military shares computer languages with the tech industry. I’ll be fine,” Callie said.
I was slower than Callie, but not inadequate. When the count hit zero, I launched all ten HE missiles I was carrying.
We ran at full speed the moment the missiles were in the air. All thirty weapons were programmed to hit the rail-cannon closest to us; however, we’d sent them in a wide arc so that they’d be coming in over the heads of Second Platoon. Veetea’s scheme required a bit of luck – good luck from our perspective, bad luck from the perspective of the troops we were attacking. Because we were firing on a fixed position, the missiles were programmed to ignore countermeasures. The bunker with the rail-cannon crew would be firing at the incoming ordnance with thousands of mini-rounds, attempting to destroy them in flight.
We ran the route Callie had mapped. Gauss rounds ricocheted off our suits, and more than a few mini-HE grenades came close to ending my advance. I used my Gauss assault rifle to knock the grenades off course; it was the most versatile weapon to have out, and I was used to running with it. Our path took us down the sloping bank of a brook, getting us out of the Teds’ line of sight. For a few moments, the only worry we had was grenades coming at us over the trees.
I had a small window open in my DS to track the missiles we’d launched. They appeared as tiny dots on a map, and I watched the first twenty flicker out well before the Ted bunkers. The next five got closer.
The final five had been programmed by Callie. She’d done her job well. I glanced at the screen as we changed course and came out of the stream on the flank of the first rail-cannon. Because the incoming missiles and the general assault were coming from the direction of the second, the rail-cannons and enemy machine guns were all pointed away from us. We took thousands of Gauss rounds from regular ground troops outside the bunkers, and we had to dodge a slew of their grenades, but the two weapons that would bring insta-death were firing in the opposite direction at Second Platoon.
Callie’s last set of missiles adjusted to overfly the bunker and detonated behind it in a line. We used the explosions as cover. Running flat out with our jet-pack assists, we crossed open ground and dove behind the bunker.