by Tanya Huff
Ears and turquoise hair clamped tight against his head, the di’Taykan returned her grin. “You’re breaking my heart!”
“I’ll break something else if you don’t put your damned helmet on!”
The di’Taykans were believed to be the most enthusiastically non-discriminating sexual adventurers in known space and Private Haysole di’Stenjic seemed to want to enthusiastically prove he was more di’Taykan than most. While allowances were made within both branches of the military for species-specific behavior, Haysole delighted in stepping over the line—although in his defense he often didn’t seem to know just where the line was. He’d made corporal twice and was likely never going to get there again unless casualties in the Corps got much, much worse. Given that he was the stereotypical good-humored, well-liked, bad boy of the platoon, Torin was always amazed when he came out of an engagement in one piece.
“Staff.” Corporal Hollice’s voice sounded in her helmet. His fireteam anchored the far end of the wall. “Picking up unfriendlies approaching our sector.”
Torin glanced over at the lieutenant who was obviously— obvious to her anyway—fighting the urge to charge over to that sector and face the unfriendlies himself, mano a mano. “Mark your targets, people, the official number seems to be one fuk of a lot and we’re not carrying unlimited ammo.”
“Looks like some of them are running four on the floor. Fuk, they can really motor!”
“What?”
“Uh, sorry, Staff, old human saying. One group has four legs and they’re running really fast.”
“Thank you. I’m guessing they’re also climbers or they wouldn’t be first...” And then she was shouting in the sudden silence. “...at the wall,” she finished a little more quietly. “Stay sharp.”
“Artillery seems to have finished smashing things up,” Franks murmured as he cautiously stood and took a look around.
The two lower levels were still more or less intact, the upper levels not so much. The question was, had the port survived? And the answer seemed to be yes as a Marine escort screamed in and another civilian carrier lifted off.
The distinct sound of a KC-7 turned Torin’s attention back to the plains.
“Our turn,” Franks murmured. “Our turn to stand fast and say you shall not pass.”
Had that rhymed? “Sir?”
His cheeks darkened slightly. “Nothing.”
“Yes, sir.”
All Marines qualified on the KC-7. Some of them were better shots than others but every single one of them knew how to make those shots count. The problem was, for every one of the enemy shot, another three raced forward to take their place.
“I hate this kind of thing.” Franks aimed and fired. “There’s no honor in it. They charge at us, we shoot them. It’s...”
“Better than the other way around?” Torin suggested.
He shrugged. Aimed. Fired. “I guess so.”
Torin knew so.
The enemy wore what looked like a desert camouflage that made them difficult to see against the dead brown grasses on the plains. Sh’quo company was in urban camouflage—black and grey and a dirty white—that hopefully made them difficult to see against the walls of Simunthitir. Most were on foot but there were a scattering of small vehicles in the line. Some the heavy gunners took out—the remains of these were used as cover at varying distances from the wall. Some kept coming.
Torin pulled the tab on a demo charge, counted to four, leaned over the wall and dropped it. The enemy vehicle blew big, the concussion rattling teeth on the wall and windows behind them in the port.
“I suspect they were going to set a sapper charge.”
“Odds are good, sir.”
“Why didn’t you drop a cart on them?”
“Thought we’d best leave that to the end, sir. Get a few carts stacked up down there and they’ll be able to use them to get up the... Damn!”
The quadrupeds were climbers and they were, indeed, fast. One moment there were only Marines on the wall, the next there was a large soldier with four heavily clawed legs and two arms holding a weapon gripping the edge of the parapet. One of the heavies went down but before the quad could fire again, Lieutenant Franks charged forward, swung his weapon so that the stock slammed in hard between the front legs and then shot it twice in the air as it fell backwards off the wall.
He flushed slightly as Marines cheered and almost looked as though he was about to throw himself off the wall after it to finish the job. “I was closest,” he explained, returning to Torin’s side.
He wasn’t. She hid a smile. Aimed. Fired. Hid a second smile as the lieutenant sighed and did the same. He wanted deeds of daring and he got target practice instead. Life was rough. Better than the alternative though, no matter how little the lieutenant might think so. Do or die might have more of a ring to it but she much preferred do and live and did her damnedest to ensure that was what happened for the Marines under her care.
Another civilian carrier lifted off. So far they were three for three.
“Artillery seems to have neutralized each other,” Franks murmured, sweeping his scanner over the plain. “That’s some nice shooting by Arver’s... What the hell?”
With the approaching ground troops dug in or pulling back, Torin slaved her scanner to the lieutenant’s. The inert masses she’d spotted earlier were being moved forward—no, pushed forward, their bulk shielding the pushers from Marine fire.
“Know what they are, Staff?”
“No idea, sir.”
He glanced over at her with exaggerated disbelief, as he activated his com. “Anyone?”
“I think they’re catapults, sir.”
“Catapults, Corporal Hollice?”
“Yes, sir, it’s a pre-tech weapon.”
“And they’re going to what? Throw cats at us?”
“No, sir. Probably rocks.”
Franks glanced at Torin again. She shrugged. This was new to her.
“They’re going to throw rocks at us?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’m not reading a power source, Hollice.”
“They use, uh, kind of a, uh, spring thing. Sir.”
“You have no idea, do you, Corporal?”
“Not really, sir. But I’ve read about them.”
Franks took another look through the scanner. “How do the mortars target something with no energy read?”
“Aim and fire, sir. They’re not that far away.”
“Not so easy with an emmy, Staff.” Franks mimed manually aiming one of the mortars and Torin grinned.
Then she stopped grinning as the first of the catapult things fired and watched in disbelief as a massive hunk of ore-laced rock arced overhead and slammed into level five. The wall shattered under the impact flinging debris far and wide.
“Cover!”
Then BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! Not as deafening as artillery but considerably more primal.
Most of the rock screamed over their heads, aimed at the remaining emmies now beginning to return fire from level four.
Most.
One of the rocks grew larger, and larger, and...
The wall bucked under foot, flexed and kicked like a living thing trying to throw them off. A gust of wind blew the rock dust clear and Torin saw that a crescent shaped bite had been taken out of the top of the wall. “Chou?”
“Two dead, three injured, Staff. I’m on it.”
What if they gave a war and nobody died... Never going to happen. “Listen up, people, next time you see a great hunk of rock sailing toward you, get the fuk out of the way! These things are moving a lot slower than what we’re used to!”
Only one emmy spat back an answer blowing one of the incoming rocks out of the sky.
“Oh for... COVER!” A piece of debris bounced off Torin’s helmet with enough force to rattle her teeth and a second slammed into her upper back, fortunately moving fast enough that her vest absorbed most of the impact.
“Arver!” Spitting out a mouthful of blood
from a split lip, Franks screamed the artillery lieutenant’s name into his com. “You want to watch where you’re dropping that shit!”
“You want to come up here and try and aim this thing manually?”
“I don’t think you’re going to have time for that, sir.” Torin nodded out over the wall. Under cover of the rocks, which were probably intended to be as much of a distraction as a danger, the Others had started a second charge, the faster quadrupeds out front once again and everyone else close behind.
The odds of deliberately hitting a randomly moving object were slim. The Marines switched to full automatic and sprayed rounds into the advancing enemy. Bodies started hitting the dirt. The enemy kept coming.
“As soon as you can take out multiple targets, start dropping the carts!”
Out of the corner of one eye, Torin saw Juan Checya, one of the heavy gunners, sling his weapon, flick on a hovercraft, and, as it lifted on its cushion of air, grab the rear rail with both augmented hands and push it to the back of the wall. As soon as he had the maximum wind-up available, he braced himself and whipped around, releasing the cart at the front of the arc. It traveled an impressive distance before gravity negated the forward momentum.
The quadrupeds closest to the casualties keened at the loss of their companions and seemed to double their speed. Torin found it encouraging, in a slightly soul-deadening way, that they grieved so obviously. Grief was distracting. Unfortunately, not only distracting for the enemy. “Sir...”
Franks rubbed a grimy hand over his face, rock dust mixing with sweat and drawing vertical grey streaks. “I’m okay, Staff.”
“Never doubted it, sir.”
Above and behind them, a fourth civilian carrier rose toward safety.
“One carrier remaining.” Captain Rose’s voice on the command channel. Torin almost thought she could hear screaming in the background. She’d rather face a well armed enemy than civilians any day. “Lieutenant Franks, move your platoon back to level three and take over stretcher duty from Lieutenant Garly who will hold level two!”
“Captain!” Lieutenant Franks slid two steps sideways and blew a biped off the wall. Although it might be a new species, Torin missed any other distinguishing features—after a while, the only thing that registered was the uniform. “Unfriendlies have broken the perimeter!”
“That’s why we’re moving the perimeter, Franks. Fall back!”
“Yes, sir! Staff...”
“Sir! Fall back by numbers, people! You know the drill! Keep low so the second level has as clear a shot as possible! And Amanda, I want that covering fire thick enough to keep out rain!”
“You got it, Torin!”
The word retreat was not in the Corps vocabulary. Marines fell back and regrouped. In this particular instance it wasn’t so much back as down. The heavies leapt off the wall into the city and then joined in, providing covering fire so that those without exo-skeletons to take up the impact could come off the wall a little more slowly. And then it was a fast run up the lowest level of the spiraling street, squads leapfrogging each other as Lieutenant Garly’s platoon swept the first level wall, keeping the enemy too occupied to shoot down into the city.
Given the fire from the second level, a number of the enemy decided that the safest thing to do was to follow the Marines down to the street.
Also, without Marines on the outside wall to keep the sappers away...
The explosion smelled like scorched iron and filled the street with smoke and dust. Swearing for the sake of swearing, Torin ducked yet another rain of debris.
“They’re in!”
Squad one made it through the second level gate. Torin and the lieutenant crouched behind a rough barricade as squad two followed. As a clump of the enemy rounded the curve of a building, a hovercraft sailed off level two, plummeted downwards, and squashed half of them flat.
“I think that’s our cue, Staff.”
“Works for me, sir.”
They moved back with the squad, Torin keeping herself between the lieutenant and the enemy. The largest part of her job was, after all, keeping him alive.
They were no more than four meters from the gate when a pair of the quadrupeds charged over the wreckage of the hovercraft, keening and firing wildly as they ran. Their weapon was, like the KC, a chemically powered projectile. The rounds whined through the air in such numbers that it almost seemed as though they were being attacked by a swarm of angry wasps. No choice but to dive for dirt and hope the distinctly inadequate cover would be enough.
Shots from the second level took the quads out just before they reached the squad.
Torin scrambled to her feet. “Let’s go before more show up.”
No one expected the quads to have riders; smaller bipeds who launched themselves from the bodies. One of them died in the air, the other wrapped itself around Haysole and drew its sidearm. Haysole spun sideways, his helmet flying off to bounce down the street, and got enough of an elbow free to deflect the first shot. Between the frenzied movement, and the certainty that taking out the enemy would also take out Haysole, no one dared shoot. Torin felt rather than saw Franks charge forward. He was a big man—because he was a second lieutenant she sometimes forgot that. Large hands wrapped around the enemy’s head and twisted. Sentient evolution was somewhat unimaginative. With very few exceptions, a broken neck meant the brain was separated from the body.
Turned out, this was not one of the exceptions.
“You okay?” Franks asked as he let the body drop.
“Yes, sir.”
“Then let’s go...”
They stepped over the body which was when pretty much everyone left on the street noticed that the harness strapped to the outside of the uniform was festooned with multiple small packets and what was obviously a detonation device.
Rough guess, Torin figured there were enough explosives to take out the gate to the second level. The high ground didn’t mean much if you couldn’t keep the enemy off it.
Franks gave Haysole a push that sent him stumbling into Torin. “Move!” Then he grabbed the body by the feet and stood, heaving him up and into the air. The explosion was messy. Loud and messy.
It wasn’t until Franks slumped onto her shoulder as she wrestled him through the gate that she realized not all the blood soaking his uniform had rained down out of the sky.
He’d been hit in the neck with a piece of debris.
As the last squad through got the heavy metal gate closed and locked, he slid down her body, onto his knees, and then toppled slowly to the ground.
Torin grabbed a pressure seal from her vest but it was too late.
The lower side of his neck was missing. Veins and arteries both had been severed. He’d bled out fast and was probably dead before he hit the ground. There were a lot of things the medics up in orbit could repair; this wasn’t one of them.
“Damn, the lieutenant really saved our asses.” Sergeant Chou turned from the gate, ignoring the multiple impacts against the other side. “If they’d blown this sucker we’d have been in a running fight to the next level. Is he okay?”
Torin leaned away from the body.
“Fuk.” Haysole. The di’Taykan had a way with words.
Chou touched her shoulder. “Do you...?”
“I’ve got it.”
A carrier roared up from the port, its escort screaming in from both sides.
“That’s it Marines, we’re out of here!”
“Staff...”
“Go on, I’m right behind you.”
They still had to make it up to the port but, holding the high ground as they did, it shouldn’t be a problem. She spread the body bag over Second Lieutenant Franks and sealed the edges as Lieutenant Garly’s platoon started spending their heavy ordinance. From the smell of things, they’d dropped something big and flammable onto the street behind the gate.
This wasn’t the kind of war people made songs about. The Confederation fought only because the Others fought and no one knew why
the Others kept coming. Diplomacy resulted in dead diplomats. Backing away only encouraged them.
But perhaps a war without one single defining ideology was exactly the kind of war that needed an infinite number of smaller defining moments.
Torin smoothed out the bag with one bloody hand then sat back and keyed the charge.
Maybe, she thought as she slid the tiny canister that now held Lieutenant Franks into an inner pocket on her combat vest, maybe it was time they had a few songs...