David Sherman & Dan Cragg - [Starfist 12]

by Firestorm (lit)

  Ensign Rynchus didn’t waste time going all the way to an aid station; the pain in his shoulder was bad enough that he knew a surgeon would order him sedated and probably have him evacuated. That was unacceptable to him. He was positive that if he got a painblocker and had the shoulder immobilized, he could stay active through the rest of the raid and be where he belonged—at the side of his commander, keeping the general alive and functioning. Finding a corpsman was a breeze for someone who’d been in the Marines for as long as Rynchus.

  “What can I do for you, sir?” the corpsman, someone from 17th FIST, asked when Rynchus raised his helmet shields so the corpsman could see his face—everybody knew Lieutenant General Godalgonz and his salty aide.

  “Hi, Doc. I banged my shoulder. Need a painblocker and some taping.”

  “Then come into my examination room and let me take a look.” The corpsman led Rynchus into a nearby trench. “Shuck your shirt so I can get to your shoulder,” the corpsman said as soon as both of them ducked below ground level. He reached for a cutter when he saw the difficulty Rynchus was having getting his shirt off.

  “No cutting, Doc, I’m going right back out as soon as you patch me up, and I need my chameleons to work.”

  “Whatever you say,” the corpsman said, and helped Rynchus remove his shirt. He whistled softly when he saw the broad bruising on the ensign’s shoulder, back, and chest. “How’d you do that?” he asked as he began probing.

  “You heard that big explosion a few minutes ago? It caught me.”

  “You’re lucky.” The corpsman finished probing and reached into his medkit. “A preliminary exam doesn’t reveal any broken bones”—he gave Rynchus a sharp look—“which doesn’t mean nothing’s broken. Understand?”

  “Yeah, Doc, I know there could be all kinds of stuff busted up in there.”

  “Including broken blood vessels, torn muscles, and disconnected tendons. Ensign, you’ve got to get yourself to a surgeon and get evacuated.”

  Rynchus gave him a grin that was half grimace. “Doc, that’s why I came to you instead of going to an aid station. I need to get back to the general, take care of his ass.”

  “Top.” He briefly ignored Rynchus’s commission. “I know better than to pull rank on you, so I won’t try. But I’ve got to give you more than a painblocker. Hang in there, this’ll take a few minutes.” The corpsman proceeded to give Rynchus a series of injections, beginning with a painblocker and continuing through blood thinners to prevent clots from forming and breaking loose and winding up with a coolant to prevent additional swelling. Then he applied a few patches on and around the bruising to provide time-release blood thinners and painblockers. When that was done, he covered the entire shoulder with a synthskin bandage. When the shoulder was bandaged, he helped Rynchus put his shirt back on, then applied another synthskin bandage that secured Rynchus’s upper arm to his side.

  “Got to keep this thing immobile to prevent further injury,” the corpsman said. He shook his head and added, “Not that there won’t be further injury with you running around out there instead of being hospitalized.”

  Rynchus looked at his immobilized upper arm. The synthskin bandage was clearly visible. He shook his head. “You know, Doc, if I get shot and killed because one of the bad guys sees that, I’m going to come back and haunt your scuzzy ass.”

  The corpsman laughed. “Sure you will. Now get out of my examination room before I come to my senses and hit you with a knockout so you can be medevaced and taken care of properly.”

  Rynchus laughed with him, then punched him lightly on the shoulder. “You’re a good guy, Doc.” Using only his good arm for leverage, he clambered out of the trench and went in search of his boss.

  Lieutenant General Godalgonz saw that 17th FIST, with the aid of a company from 29th FIST, would be able to handle the Coalition force attacking from the southeast. Thirty-fourth FIST, on the other hand, had as much as it could manage and then some, even with the assistance of the rest of 29th FIST. Lima 34, being overrun by large numbers of enemy armored vehicles, was in particular trouble. He didn’t hesitate, but headed directly toward the heaviest fighting, the place where his Marines would be most heartened by the presence of their commander—straight for where Company L was being overrun.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “Second Squad, kill them!” Sergeant Kerr shouted into his squad circuit. He knew that was a horribly inadequate command, but what do you tell a squad of infantrymen being overrun by armored vehicles? “Move, stay out of their line of fire!” The way the vehicles were milling about, that was easier said than done, but it was better than simply ordering his men to kill the beasts.

  Corporal Claypoole broke in with, “Remember the Hammer on Diamunde!”

  Kerr hadn’t been on the Diamunde campaign, he’d been in the hospital recuperating from near death on Elneal; it took him a moment to remember what he’d heard. Lance Corporal Schultz had climbed on top of the Teufelpanzers the Marines had faced in a climactic battle, melted holes in weak spots in the tanks’ armor, and fired his blaster through the openings to kill the crews and set off their armaments. By the time he remembered, most of his men were already scrambling onto the moving vehicles.

  Second fire team was the first; Lance Corporal MacIlargie had been on Diamunde along with Claypoole and Schultz; they were already moving when Claypoole shouted the reminder. First fire team took a little longer. Even though Corporal Chan had been on Diamunde, neither Lance Corporal Little nor PFC Fisher had, and Chan had to tell them what to do. Corporal Doyle hadn’t been in the close-quarters infantry-tank fight, but he’d been on-planet at the time and knew about it. He hustled PFCs Summers and Smedley onto a passing armored vehicle. The word spread like wildfire, and in moments all of the Marines of Company L were scrambling aboard Coalition vehicles. One Marine from first platoon tried to climb the front of a charging vehicle, lost his grip, and fell below the churning tracks, killed. Otherwise, nobody suffered worse than minor burns from grasping hot gun barrels or scrambling across hot engine compartments.

  The Coalition’s vehicles were armored, but they weren’t tanks like the Marines had faced on Diamunde, and their armor was much thinner. Schultz instinctively understood that these vehicles would be vulnerable to rapid fire from Marine blasters at point-blank range. He hopped aboard a vehicle and straddled its main gun, then held the muzzle of his blaster centimeters from the barrel. Ignoring the heat that radiated back at his legs, he fired six bolts as fast as he could. The barrel glowed red, then white, and then bent. Schultz turned his attention to the secondary guns that jutted out of the front of the vehicle, to the sides of the now-useless main gun, and disabled them by putting two bolts into each gun’s flexible mount. A clang from the vehicle’s top jerked his head and blaster in that direction as the vehicle commander emerged through a hatch and reached for the gun mounted next to the hatch. Schultz fired one bolt by reflex, and the vehicle commander flopped backward like a broken doll. Schultz lunged forward, poked the muzzle of his blaster past the commander’s hips, aimed down into the compartment, and began firing, twisting around to fire all around inside. There were brief screams, and then silence, from inside as the vehicle lurched and rolled aimlessly forward. Schultz looked through his infra for another vehicle to attack.

  Lieutenant Colonel Roy Glukster, the commander of the 504th Sagunto Scout Battalion, quickly realized that the Confederation Marines he had expected to overrun easily, once his vehicles reached them, were mounting his vehicles and fighting them at so close a range that the scout cars couldn’t defend themselves.

  “Scouts, violent maneuver!” Glukster ordered. “You’ve got climbers, throw them off. Do not fire at climbers on other vehicles!” That last because he knew the armor on his scout cars couldn’t withstand the fire of their own main guns—if they attempted to sweep the Marines off other vehicles, they’d risk killing their own.

  Glukster watched anxiously as his scout cars began jinking and swerving violently in their
attempts to throw off the Marines. He tried to observe the scout cars through the thermal sight on his own car, but he had trouble focusing on any one scout car for long enough to see clearly if the violent movements were throwing the Marines off. What he could see here and there—in entirely too many places—was guns being disabled by the close-up plasma fire from Marine blasters, holes being melted through the skin of the vehicles, and scout cars careening out of control as their drivers and crews were killed by the Marines. He winced when he saw two scout cars crash into each other. But that was nothing compared to the jolt he suffered when his own scout car collided with another and threw him from his seat into the bulkhead.

  Dazed, Glukster grabbed his comm and reversed his earlier order. “All units, use secondary guns, sweep that vermin off your mates!”

  One by one, then a few at a time, and finally every car began firing their secondary guns at one another, attempting to kill the Marines clinging to their sides and tops. But too few had their guns still active.

  PFC Lary Smedley gripped the barrel of a scout car’s secondary gun, holding himself between it and the main gun with one hand, while he fired his blaster at the driver’s aperture with the other. Blinded by the damage to his periscope, and distracted by the molten glass dripping from it, the driver yanked his steering yoke wildly, careening about violently. Smedley held on with difficulty, and many of his bolts struck the armor around the aperture.

  Suddenly, Corporal Doyle was on the other side of the gun mount Smedley was holding. “You’ve blinded the driver,” Doyle said, “now knock out the main gun! I’ll hold you.” He grasped the flexible mount of the secondary gun with one hand, and blaster slung over his shoulder, snagged the back of Smedley’s belt with the other.

  Smedley fired two more bolts before Doyle’s orders sunk in. “Main gun, right,” he muttered, and turned his blaster to it.

  “Both hands,” Doyle said when he saw Smedley was still holding the secondary gun. “I’ve got you secure. Use both hands on your blaster.”

  “Both hands, both hands.” Smedley sounded distracted, as if he was having trouble focusing his thoughts, or in a daze. Still, he released his grasp on the secondary gun and gripped his blaster with both hands. The violent and unpredictable movement of the armored vehicle made holding his aim difficult, but it took only ten plasma bolts to soften the barrel of the main gun enough for it to begin bending.

  As soon as Doyle saw the main gun begin to bend, he told Smedley to disable the other secondary gun, which had just started firing. But before Smedley could knock that gun out of action, he heard a clang from the top of the scout car. “Grab a handhold!” Doyle shouted, as he released his grip on Smedley’s belt and whipped his blaster off his shoulder. His toes scrabbled for a grip on the front of the scout car and he pointed his blaster at the vehicle’s top, where he saw a soldier jumping up through the top hatch to grasp the commander’s gun. As fast as he could, Doyle squeezed his blaster’s firing lever three times, and saw the soldier drop back down through the hatch. Using his feet and one hand, he climbed to the top and thrust his blaster inside, firing as he did so. He heard screams and sizzling from within as the bolts found flesh and electronics, then his blaster jerked in his hands, followed by a fresh scream—someone inside had grabbed the blaster by its barrel but was burned by the hot barrel. He twisted around to fire in the direction he thought the scream had come from.

  And then the armored car stopped its jinking and yawing and began rolling in an arc that would become a circle if nothing stopped it.

  “Smedley, let’s move,” Doyle ordered, looking around for another vehicle to attack.

  Smedley didn’t answer him. He turned his head to where Smedley had been, but only saw blood-stained gouges in the armor of the scout car.

  “Smedley!” Doyle called. “Where are you, Smedley!” There was no answer. Then, back along the path the scout car had taken, his infra showed the shape of a man lying broken, run over by the vehicle’s tracks. Doyle lay atop the scout car, gaping at the broken body, certain it was Smedley, but still telling himself it wasn’t. “Smedley,” he murmured, almost whimpered.

  “Doyle, move!” Sergeant Kerr’s voice boomed in Doyle’s helmet. Doyle shook himself and suddenly became aware of the impact of armor-piercing rounds against the skin of the vehicle he rode. “I’m moving!” he shouted back, and rolled off the scout car on the side away from the rounds bursting through the vehicle’s skin.

  Quietly cursing himself for leaving the three FISTs’ Dragons behind, Lieutenant General Kyr Godalgonz panted as he ran toward the close-quarters infantry-tank battle. He had run daily to keep himself in shape when he was at HQMC, and at every station since he’d been promoted to major general, but the daily run in jogging shorts and sweatshirt on a properly constructed running course was very different from running across a battlefield in chameleons and combat gear under sporadic fire—he wasn’t really in proper shape to cover the three kilometers at this speed. But he didn’t let that slow him down; he was in command there—the battle and the Marines fighting it were his responsibility.

  Lance Corporal MacIlargie hadn’t bothered disabling the guns on the first scout car he killed, he’d gone straight to the top, anchored himself to the gimbal mount of the top gun, and burned a hole through the commanders hatch. Then he killed the crew.

  Now, having mounted a second armored vehicle, his tactic was exactly the same. He sat cross-legged on the forward edge of the scout car’s flat top with his legs wrapped snugly around the mount and his side pressed tightly against it. He held his blaster as nearly vertical as he could, close to the far edge of the hatch so the heat wouldn’t be too close to him and any ricochets wouldn’t come his way, and began firing as fast as he could pull the firing lever. In seconds, the metal began to glow, turned red, then white, and sagged.

  Suddenly, MacIlargie heard—and felt—the scout car’s guns begin firing behind him, and became aware of guns being fired from other scout cars. They’re trying to sweep us off! Ignoring the damage it might do to his blaster, he jabbed its muzzle at the sagging white spot at the rear edge of the hatch. Sparks flew as the muzzle broke through, and he heard a satisfying scream from inside as one of the crewmen was hit by molten metal. Keeping his legs wrapped around the gun mount, he leaned forward from the hips and thrust the muzzle of his blaster through the hole, aimed back underneath himself. He worked the firing lever as he swiveled the blaster side to side.

  A clang sounded to the side, too close to be the hatch opening on another armored vehicle. Still firing into the scout car’s interior, he turned his head toward the noise. A crewman, clutching the top of the vehicle with one hand, dragged himself out of a hatch on the side. With his other hand, the soldier waved a sidearm as his eyes sought a target. The soldier found a target when MacIlargie wrenched his blaster out of the hole he’d burned in the top of the scout car. The soldier quickly pointed and fired—and managed to hit the side of the blaster.

  The impact of the slug hitting the blaster knocked it from MacIlargie’s one-handed grip. The Marine almost lost his leghold on the gun mount as he reached out to catch his blaster before it tumbled off the side of the vehicle, but his fingers closed on it just in time. The soldier fired again, barely missing MacIlargie’s arm. MacIlargie yanked the blaster into a two-handed grip, and screaming a battle cry, lunged toward the soldier, aiming the muzzle of his weapon at the man’s face. On the wrong side of the gun gimbal, the side away from the soldier, his reach was short—instead of landing a bone-crushing blow that would slam his opponent away, he merely gouged the man’s cheek.

  Again, the scout car crewman found his target and shifted his aim. This time he got it right, and the slug tore into MacIlargie’s right side, centimeters below his armpit. MacIlargie felt ribs crack, but didn’t feel any pain when he repositioned his blaster slightly and pressed the firing lever. The bolt of plasma from MacIlargie’s weapon shattered when it hit the soldier’s face, and bits of starstuff sprayed a
ll about—including three or more that landed on MacIlargie.

  Now MacIlargie screamed in agony; the burning from the plasma on his leg, arm, and forehead was greater pain than he’d ever felt before. But as much pain as he was in, he let go of the gun mount with one leg and threw himself across the top of the car to lean over the side and make sure his antagonist was down. He saw the soldier receding to the rear of the vehicle, then stretched himself farther so he could bend his head down and look inside the scout car’s cabin. Both the remaining crewmen were dead, each with multiple burns from the plasma bolts MacIlargie had fired before the survivor came outside to confront him.

  Gasping with pain, MacIlargie looked about to see where he might safely drop off the still-rolling vehicle. There didn’t seem to be anyplace he could dismount where he wouldn’t have to dodge armored cars, and his wounds felt too severe to allow that much agility. He decided to stay where he was for the moment.

  Ensign Cooper Rynchus, with his shoulder secured, paused in thought. Where would General Godalgonz go? He could call him on his comm, but he had an uncomfortable feeling that the Coalition forces at Gilbert’s Corners were listening in on that circuit. He hadn’t seen anything that told him they were, it just felt that way to him. So instead of contacting his commander directly to find out where he was, he sought him by intuition. Besides, if he called Godalgonz this soon after being ordered to a battalion aid station, the general would know he’d disobeyed the order to report to the surgeon.

  So where would Rynchus’s boss go? To the thickest fighting, that’s where. Rynchus didn’t need a UPUD to tell him where the thickest fighting was, he could hear it, three kilometers to the northeast. He headed that way at a trot slightly faster than Godalgonz had used. But Rynchus really had always been faster than his boss, and the run didn’t wear on him as quickly as it had the general.