Star Corps

by Ian Douglas

  “Makes sense, I guess,” Ramsey added. “What about plasma guns and lasers, though? Those don’t require chemicals that would go unstable after a few centuries.”

  Anderson shrugged. “They may have some, and we just haven’t seen them yet…lasers, anyway. Plasma guns require a pretty sophisticated mechanism for fusing water or some other projectile mass, though, and they need to operate at such high temperatures and muzzle velocities that a primitive culture simply couldn’t support them. That’s just a guess, though. Gauss guns…all you need for a projectile is something with iron in it or wrapped around it. A nail would work. And you don’t need really high muzzle velocities. A few kilometers per second would be just fine for a nail or a small iron slug.”

  “Coming up on the east side of Suribachi, sir,” the Walker Seven technician reported. “But I’m taking some damage.”

  On the big monitor, the watching officers had a clear view now of the pyramid from street level, with no intervening buildings. The steps leading up the steeply sloping east face were clear, and there was no sign of any enemy warriors at the top.

  “That’s what we needed to see,” Ramsey said. “No nasty surprises waiting for us on the side we can’t see from here.” He looked at King. “General? Permission to commence the assault on Suribachi.”

  King looked at the monitor a moment, then sighed. “Permission granted, Colonel. Give ’em hell.”

  “Aye aye, sir!” Ramsey picked up a microphone. “Dragon Flight, this is Dragon Nest. The word is go! Go! I say again, go!”

  “Roger that, Nest,” a voice came back over the speaker system. “Dragon Flight One, en route.”

  “Here we go, then,” Ramsey said. “Watch that first step!”

  Dragon One

  New Sumer, Ishtar

  1557 hours ALT

  Garroway was snapped into the air, the ground dropping away beneath his dangling feet. He closed his eyes until he could get used to the sharp, stomach-dropping feeling of acceleration, then opened them again. They were airborne.

  Encased in full armor, his LR-2120 strapped across his torso, Garroway was suspended from the tail boom of the Dragonfly by a harness securing his thighs, back, and shoulders, with a quick release at his waist. Twenty-three other Marines dangled with him, two by two, facing outward as the Dragonfly canted nose down and streaked low across the eastern reaches of the compound, banking sharply toward the Pyramid of the Eye. Looking down, he saw the streets and buildings and the eastern wall of the Legation blurring past less than a hundred meters below.

  He was hanging literally shoulder-to-shoulder with Corporal Womicki and a sergeant from First Platoon named Couch. He could hear a retching sound over the squad tactical net and knew someone was being sick inside his helmet, with its sound-activated mike. He tried not to think about that.

  “Hey, the Marine Corps is great,” he heard Dunne say as the retching subsided. “First-class accommodations all the way!”

  “Cut the chatter, people,” Master Sergeant Barnes said. “Jennings! Cut your damned mike so we all don’t have to listen to you and your breakfast!”

  The Dragonfly went nose high and started to climb sharply. Garroway wished he could tap into the net for a camera feed to his helmet display…then thought better of it. There were some things he might be happier not seeing.

  “Okay, people,” Captain Warhurst’s voice said over the tactical channel. “I can see the objective…range, another two hundred meters. No sign of bad guys on the top.”

  Garroway heard a loud clang from somewhere forward and above him and realized they were being shot at. There were bad guys down there, and they knew the Marines were coming.

  “I think the gunwalkers drew off some of the pyramid defenders,” Warhurst went on, his running commentary oddly comforting. Garroway closed his eyes and focused on the captain’s words. “I see two…three humans on the south steps, halfway up. There are some Annies inside the Chamber of the Eye on the west side. I can see them peering out at us.”

  Garroway felt momentarily weightless as the Dragonfly began descending. Looking down past his feet, he saw the gleaming white stone of the pyramid’s south slope fifty meters below, coming up fast….

  The Pyramid of the Eye had a broad, open, truncated peak fifteen meters across, with a small temple or sky observatory, a dome-topped building rising from the center. Despite the obstruction, there was plenty of room for the TAV-S to set down, but the operational plan called for a quick drop-and-go so the Dragonfly was free to become a ground-support asset as soon as the Marine assault force hit the pyramid roof.

  “Twenty seconds, Marines,” Warhurst called. “Remember. Keep your knees loose. Don’t lock ’em. Fifteen seconds…we’re at thirty meters…get ready. Five seconds…four…three…two…release!”

  Garroway stabbed at the quick-release buckle on his waist and felt the suspension harness open around him. He dropped, a dead weight, falling perhaps three meters to the stone surface of the upper platform of the pyramid. His armor took the shock of the landing, cushioning him as he fell into a loose-kneed tumble-and-roll.

  He came out of the roll with his laser rifle at the ready, bracing himself on his elbows as he scanned the pyramid roof. The twenty-four Marines had dropped in a ragged double row on the south side of the upper tier. The Dragonfly hovered just overhead, its thrusters shrieking as the pilot gunned it into a swift climb away from the drop zone.

  “On your feet, Marines!” Warhurst yelled. “Perimeter defense!”

  Hot wind swirled clouds of dust about them as the Dragonfly gained altitude. Garroway leaned forward into the blast and started moving. He heard shouts and the snap of laser fire but could see no targets ahead of him.

  To his right, five meters away, was the small domed structure at the center of the pyramid’s peak, a kind of cupola with four arched, wide-open entryways facing the four quarters of the compass.

  And then he saw the large, hulking figures spilling out of the building. “Trolls!” he yelled, bringing his 2120 to his shoulder. “Trolls at three-six-zero!”

  There were a lot of the creatures, and they all appeared armed with massive gauss weapons at least two meters long.

  “Fire at will!” Warhurst yelled…and the Battle of the Pyramid began in earnest.

  24

  27 JUNE 2148

  Lance Corporal Garroway

  Pyramid of the Eye

  New Sumer, Ishtar

  1612 hours ALT

  “Let’s go, Marines! Take ’em down!”

  Garroway triggered his 2120, sending a burst of rapidly pulsed laser fire through the tangle of Ahannu trolls spilling from the domed building. Overhead, the Dragonfly circled, banking hard, bringing its chin Gatling to bear on the threat. The trolls were still falling into a ragged line, aiming their weapons together in a fair re-creation of a musket firing line from the eighteenth or nineteenth century on Earth, when the deadly scythes of coherent light sliced through them in bloody execution.

  Firing as he moved, Garroway jogged across the stone platform, while the enemy line—what was left of it—dissolved and rolled back. Parts of the domed building flared into an incandescent spray of molten stone as Sergeant Tomlin, the assault team’s plasma gunner, turned his weapon on the archway. Scattering beneath the onslaught, Ahannu troll-warriors shrieked and burned in the deadly cross fire between air and ground, and the central building collapsed in smoking ruin.

  And not the building alone. A portion of the stone pavement beneath the building canted suddenly, spilling debris into a gaping hole that rapidly grew larger. More and more stone blocks fell into the widening gap beneath a boiling cloud of dust and smoke. Garroway skidded to a stop at the edge of the dropoff. The collapse of a portion of the pyramid’s roof had revealed a sunken, open chamber five meters across, partially filled now with fallen blocks of stone and with a squirming, crawling mass of Ahannu struggling up out of the pyramid’s depths and into the light.

  Dropping to one knee, he brou
ght his laser rifle up and began triggering it…before switching to RPGs with the idea that repeated explosions would cause more damage to that writhing mass and concuss the survivors.

  The other Marines in the charging line had the same idea, concentrating their grenade fire, and in seconds the crater in the pyramid’s roof was a thundering, bloody pit of chaotic flame and detonations, blast following savage blast with murderous effect. The circling Dragonfly added to the slaughter hovering above the pit and spraying the opening with Gatling fire.

  “Cease fire!” Warhurst commanded. “Marines, cease fire! We want prisoners!”

  Most of the movement within the pit had stopped now, but a few dazed survivors were pulling themselves out from under shredded Ahannu bodies and fallen stone blocks. Garroway grabbed one by the wrist, pulled him roughly to the pavement, and pinned him there facedown while Corporal Hazely tied his hands.

  The second Dragonfly was inbound now, with twenty-four Marines dangling two by two beneath the slender, slightly arched boom between its forward fuselage and the power plant at the tail. It settled toward the smoking pyramid roof, nose angling up, belly thrusters shrieking, coming to a hover two meters off the pavement.

  The Marines dropped from their harnesses in a ragged spill and spread out, joining the first section. The Dragonfly continued its descent and gentled onto wide-splayed landing jacks on the roof.

  “Section Two,” Warhurst ordered the newly arrived Marines. “On the perimeter, south and east sides! Section One…1st Squad, take the north side. Second Squad, keep digging out those Annies.”

  More and more Ahannu warriors were dragging themselves up the fallen blocks of pavement stone to the pyramid roof, where 2nd Squad Marines grabbed them, pushed them down, and used plastic stripper-ties to secure their hands behind their backs. None appeared to be in any shape to put up a fight, but as quickly as each was secured, a couple of Marines would drag the captive across the roof to the grounded Dragonfly and secure the prisoner to an open harness. In moments they’d collared five of the regular Ahannu, two trolls, and three human slave-warriors.

  Garroway was 1st Squad, so he joined the others and trotted across to the northern edge of the pyramid roof. From that vantage point, he had a spectacular view of the city of New Sumer and the Legation compound to the west. Marines were spilling out through the east gate in the wall, sixty meters below, and rushing toward the pyramid’s base. Ahannu warriors were everywhere down there. The sudden attack on the Pyramid of the Eye appeared to have had the effect of kicking over an anthill, sending the defenders scurrying. The movement seemed random at first, but as moment followed moment, it was clear that the enemy was gathering for a concerted rush of the pyramid.

  Garroway joined the eleven other Marines in his squad, marking down individual running Ahannu. If enough of them died, shouldn’t the others scatter?

  Perhaps that was what was written in the manual, but the Ahannu, evidently, hadn’t read it. From the top of the pyramid it appeared that a black tide was surging up the north and west faces of the structure.

  “Pour it on ’em!” Sergeant Barnes bellowed, and the volume of fire from the pyramid’s top swept through the climbing horde with hot-burning fury. Dozens of the Ahannu and Sag-ura in the leading ranks toppled backward, but there were hundreds, thousands, more to surge forward, scrambling over the bodies, snatching up banners and weapons, keening a piercing battle cry that was part hiss, part shrieking wail.

  For Garroway, the universe again seemed to dwindle to a tiny slice of its former scope and depth and richness. He heard the infernal noise—the screams, shrieks, battle yells, the incessant snap and hiss of lasers and plasma bolts. His awareness narrowed down almost solely to the enhanced and magnified image projected within his helmet visor, to the faces—human and nonhuman—scrambling up the steps of the pyramid in a headlong charge.

  He fired…fired…fired again, sweeping his weapon back and forth as he loosed triple bursts into the oncoming horde, confident that any bolt loosed at the attackers would find a target, if not in the front rank, than in the one behind…or the one behind that. Ahannu god-warriors stumbled and collapsed as they advanced, the bodies crumpling onto the steps and immediately engulfed by the surging rush of Ahannu and Sag-ura still living, still howling and hissing their battle rage.

  The pyramid steps, he noticed with detached interest, were each a half meter high…higher than most of the diminutive Ahannu could manage comfortably. Those precipitous steps were wearing even on the trolls and humans in the attack…though they were quickly outdistancing the Ahannu god-warriors in their mad race up the sides of the pyramid. More and more of the front-rank attackers glimpsed through the magnified HDO scope projection were screaming, grimacing, tattooed human faces, mingled with Ahannu troll faces, blunt, thick, and heavy, or the visages of a few of the hardier or more determined of the Frog god-warriors. For a time, Garroway tried to spot the ones with god-weapons—gauss rifles or other modern weaponry, some of it obviously of recent human manufacture—and kill the ones carrying them. Before long, though, all he could do was point and fire, point and fire…until the red light on his helmet display winked red, warning of power drain and overheating. He switched to smart RPGs to let the weapon cool.

  With a shrieking roar of high-pitched thunder, one of the Dragonflies howled low overhead, arrowing toward the Legation compound. Garroway glanced up and noted that it was the TAV-S bearing Ahannu and Sag-ura prisoners from the initial fight atop the Pyramid of the Eye. The other Dragonfly orbited slowly over the alien city north of the pyramid, turning its Gatling laser on the hordes at the pyramid’s base, burning down the attackers in broad, scything sweeps of destruction.

  As he watched, oily black smoke began spilling from the forward fuselage of the second Dragonfly. Ahannu gauss gunners must have been concentrating their fire on it from across half of the city. The TAV-S started to turn back toward the compound, then appeared to stagger in mid-flight, its bank turning into an ungainly roll. It crashed half a kilometer north of the pyramid, throwing up a tremendous pillar of smoke and cascading debris.

  There was no time to think about that, however, beyond a numb acceptance of the fact. Ahannu and Sag-ura were more than halfway up the north side of the pyramid now. As quickly as the Marine defenders could burn them down, more appeared to take their place. Where were they all coming from?

  Radio chatter crackled over his helmet earphones. “Hey, it’s another great day on the firing range! Let’s have some more targets!”

  “Can that, Lassiter.”

  “Yeah, these targets are shooting back!”

  “This is Nakamura, on the west side! We need more people over here, ASAP!”

  “Nakamura, Warhurst. Roger that. Hold your line.”

  “We’re not stopping them! We’re not stopping them!”

  “Lower your fire, people. Aim for the front ranks!”

  A cascade of rockets sprayed into the sky on twisting white contrails, arcing over, descending. Several exploded inside the compound to the west. Others detonated on the sides of the pyramid, hurling chunks of broken stone into the crowds below. One exploded squarely atop the pyramid, and Garroway heard a Marine scream with pain.

  “Hell, I think we went and made the bastards mad at us,” Sergeant Dunne said at Garroway’s left.

  “What makes you think that, Sarge?” Garroway asked. His helmet warning display shifted from red to amber, and he thought-clicked back to his laser to save his fast-dwindling supply of RPGs.

  “I dunno. Something about the hate mail they’re sending us.”

  The screaming over the radio net abruptly stopped. Either someone had killed the wounded man’s open mike or the wound had been fatal.

  “Whose bright idea was this, anyway?” Lance Corporal Jennings asked. He was kneeling at Garroway’s right, calmly pumping laser pulses into the oncoming warriors.

  “Beats me,” Garroway replied. “If you find him, let me know so I can thank him personally!”


  The idea had been to land on the roof of the Pyramid of the Eye and fight down, a vertical envelopment, in classic Marine tactical doctrine, while Marines from the Legation compound emerged from the east gate and fought their way up, trapping the Ahannu defenders between the two groups. Somehow, though, things were going badly awry. There were way too many of the Ahannu god-warriors, hordes threatening to overwhelm the human defenders in a black, rolling tide.

  A volley of gauss-gun fire from the north ripped through the line of Marines. Three fell. Lance Corporal Jennings tottered a moment, fist-sized holes in his faceplate and the back curve of his helmet spilling smoke and a splatter of blood. He started to fall over the edge, but Garroway snagged him by his power pack harness and yanked him back. Fighting down the urge to retch, he pulled the RPG magazine pouch from the right side of Jennings’s armor. He also checked the backpack power indicator on Jennings’s 2120. Hell, Jennings wasn’t much better off than Garroway in the power department.

  Garroway continued to fire his own weapon, alternating now between laser pulses and M-12 RPG rounds. He tried to slow the pace of his fire; the temptation was to blaze away as quickly as possible, but that, he reasoned, was a great way to end up dry and empty by the time those hordes reached the top of the structure.

  And they would reach it. He had no doubts whatsoever about that. If anything, there were more Ahannu god-warriors, trolls, and Sag-ura slaves below than there’d been at the beginning of this engagement. Garroway accepted that with a Marine’s stoic inner shrug. Either the Ahannu would break themselves on this rock, or the Marines themselves would be broken.

  If there were other alternatives, he couldn’t see them at the moment.

  MIEU Command Center

  Legation Compound

  New Sumer, Ishtar

  1635 hours ALT

  Ramsey listened to the incoming radio messages from the top of the pyramid. The battle was not going well…not going well at all. Task Force Warhurst was on top of the building, but a major enemy counterattack was developing. The Marine company deployed through the east gate to relieve the Suribachi assault force had met heavy enemy forces and been stopped cold.