L13TH 03 Jump Pay

by Rick Shelley

  Blue eight, Will Tarkel’s fighter, lost power without warning as Blue Flight was heading east for another strike against the Schlinal defensive positions. Both antigrav drives quit at once. There was no time to attempt diagnostics, scarcely time for one try at restarting the engines. The Wasp had the glide characteristics of a six-ton rock without power. There was no possibility of landing one safely without the drives. Will managed to eject behind the 13th’s Iine. His fighter’s momentum carried it almost to the first warehouse in its path. It crashed about twenty meters short.

  A squad from Echo’s 4th platoon picked up Will Tarkel within two minutes after the escape pod landed.

  Zel Paitcher watched the pod float down, in constant contact with Will until he was certain that Will was safe and unhurt. Then he turned his attention back to the Heggies. The fight for Tamkailo was barely six hours old, and he had already lost three-eighths of his flight.

  * * *

  Ezra Frain was barely twenty-one years old. At that, he missed being the youngest sergeant in the 13th SAT by nearly a full year. He had been in the military since his eighteenth birthday, first in his homeworld defense force, on Highland, and then in the 13th. He had been Joe Baerclau’s assistant squad leader, then moved up a slot when Joe took over the platoon. Ezra did not feel twenty-one. Combat and responsibility had made him feel ancient. Every step he took toward the Schlinal defenders at Site Alpha added a year to the way he felt.

  “Keep marking possible cover,” he warned his men. “Know where you’re going to dive before you have to.” Advancing across open ground, even when it was as uneven as this rocky stretch, made him feel particularly vulnerable. It seemed to be something out of military ancient history, a style of combat that had been impractical–and excessively bloody–hundreds of years before men first left Earth to settle other worlds. The fact that standard-issue weapons were not intended for this sort of combat made the feeling of exposure even worse. Ezra no longer thought about the heat that made each breath difficult and uncomfortable, or about the sun-heated rocks that had burned his hands, arms, and legs. Those pains had faded long before, even though his hands were blistered. The enemy was only 150 meters away now.

  Wire could be a hazard on unprotected areas of the body at this distance. Ezra crouched a little lower and kept moving forward. Olly Wytten and Pit Tymphe flanked their squad leader, OIly to the left, Pit to the right. The men were spaced no more than four meters apart. The entire line was like that, but that line did remain fairly straight, as near as the terrain permitted.

  Olly advanced in his usual intense manner. Anything he did, he gave it his all. Of the replacements who had come to first squad since its first time in combat, OIly was the best. He.had all of the tools and knew how, and when, to use them. Pit had to hold himself back. He was well below average in size, almost as short and thin as Joe Baerclau. He tried harder, as if he constantly felt the need to prove himself. Recklessness was never far from the surface for Pit Tymphe. But this was his second campaign. He was getting better.

  Al Bergon was to Pit’s right. In the SATs, a medic was just a rifleman with additional duties. In combat, being a medic took precedence when there were casualties to treat. At other times, the medic was expected to pull his weight as a combatant. Al kept his place between the two fire teams of first squad. None of “his” men had been hit. So far, the only casualty of the day had been Mal. The last time Al had checked, Underwood was recovering from his heatstroke, but was not ready yet to rejoin his comrades.

  Wiz Mackey was to AI’s right. Wiz had once been a hothead like Pit, but combat and the loss of his best friend had tempered his recklessness. In close combat, he was still the most ferocious man in the squad, but he no longer took unnecessary chances. His anger had tempered him, made him coldly methodical, even in fury.

  Mort anchored the squad on the right. He was his usual steady, reliable self. He had always approached his work methodically, as if being a combat infantryman was no more exceptional than being an associate professor teaching introductory courses in history and political science. He had been good at that. He was better at this.

  Joe Baerclau was no more than two steps behind the line now, sometimes closer; between first and fourth squads.

  Heggie wire started ricocheting off of the rocks around the men of first squad with some regularity. They were still somewhat more than a hundred meters away from the Schlinal rifles, so the wire no longer carried enough momentum to penetrate net armor, and the ricochets would do no more than scratch exposed skin. A direct hit on unprotected skin would be different though.

  “Cover!’’ Joe shouted over his platoon channel, repeating a command that had come over the company channel from Captain Keye.

  On the noncoms’ net, Keye had additional instructions. “When we start up again, it’ll be fire and maneuver, by squads. Keep the jumps short.”

  Joe gave his orders quickly. The squads would move odd and even. “Start using wire when we go,” he added. “Even if we’re not close enough for it to do much damage, it’ll give them something to think about.”

  This was no long rest break. Joe had scarcely finished his instructions before the order came to start moving again. He got off a three-second burst of wire as he got back to his feet. His wire had a lot of company. In both directions.

  The fight was finally going to be joined at close quarters.

  ALL OF the buildings in the Schlinal compound had been constructed of native rock quarried near the base. For the most part, it appeared that the builders had used very large square-cut blocks. Even in the buildings that appeared to be barracks, windows were few and small. The only breaks in the walls of the warehouses and other buildings appeared to be doors.

  The rusty color of the stone testified to its high iron content. That there were other metals and minerals present was of little interest to anyone on either side at the moment. A foundry and mill had been built on the site. Steel girders and trusses had been fashioned to frame the stone buildings. Stone cut into sheets as much as fifty centimeters thick had been used for roofing. The Accord intelligence estimate was simple: “Left to themselves, those buildings might last as long as the Egyptian pyramids back on Earth. The slightly lower oxygen content of the atmosphere (and low average humidity) suggests that even the interior steel framing might last almost indefinitely.” Schlinal construction was not routinely designed to be that permanent. But the use of prison labor and the lack of more ephemeral building materials on Tamkailo had made these exceptions possible, almost mandatory.

  It certainly made for unusually solid construction. Those buildings could stand up to a lot of abuse, even the abuse of rocket warheads and artillery shells. Missiles exploded and punched holes, scattering stony shrapnel (more outside than in), but it would.take a great many such hits to inflict serious structural damage.

  The Schlinal designers of the compound had given little thought to providing a solid defensive perimeter around the base. The installation had originally been built as merely a depot on an otherwise uninviting world, not a base for an occupying force. The mesh fencing had been intended to contain garrison and prisoners, not to keep out an enemy or to provide more secure firing posts. There were automatic weapons positions, at the corners, and spaced at wide intervals in between. And small pavilions had been spaced inside the fence to give sentries a place to get out of the heat of Tamkailo’s sun. On this world, the pavilions were no luxury, but necessity. But those defensive measures were pro forma, to give soldiers something to do. The Schlinal overlords had no real concern about escaping prisoners. The only escape from penal servitude on Tamkailo was death.

  Long before the leading units of the 13th got close to the base perimeter, there were extensive gaps in the fence. Most of the pavilions had been destroyed, as well as those machine gun positions on the three sides of the base that the Accord was attacking.

  One unavoidable result of the air
attacks was that there were plenty of shallow craters to give cover to the Schlinal defenders, and they were quick to take advantage of them. More were sheltered within and between the nearest rank of buildings. Again, shell damage had provided a few gun ports, holes in the sides of buildings. Other troops were on the roofs now, behind Iow parapets, many of them armed with rocket launchers to take their toll on any aircraft that returned.

  The 13th’s Red Flight lost two Wasps within seconds of each other, leaving the flight with only five planes. Yellow Flight lost its third plane of the day. At the moment, Blue Flight was away from the action, heading back to land and replenish munitions and get fresh batteries. The air wing of the 8th SAT and two squadrons of the 17th Independent Air Wing were coming in as well now, attacking the northem and southern sections of the perimeter and striking at targets in the middle of the base. The 97th LIR was attacking on the ground from the south. The 8th SAT was moving against the north side of the base.

  On all three sides where they were attacking on the ground, the Accord infantry had closed to within one hundred meters of the Schlinal defenses. It was seven minutes past local noon. The first Accord soldiers had landed five hours and fifty-three minutes earlier. The invasion was already more than four hours behind schedule.

  * * *

  Up and forward, down and shoot. Concentrate. Wire rifles show no muzzle flashes to guide return fire. Spot likely shooting positions. Concentrate fire on holes in the walls and at the lips of craters on the ground. If you see movement of any kind, shoot. Anything in front of you is hostile. Maybe you won’t hit anything vulnerable. Maybe you will. In either case, you’ll give the enemy something to think about. You’ll reduce the amount of enemy fire coming at you, and you’ll make the fire that does come less accurate. The better you do your job, the harder it’ll be for the enemy to do his. You know the statistics: hundreds of meters of wire expended for every casualty inflicted. Do your share. And then some.

  None of the 13th’s troopers really had to think about those things. They were the basics of combat training, instilled through hard repetition and swift discipline throughout the weeks of boot camp, reinforced constantly on training maneuvers in every unit–and brought home by deadly example in actual combat. Recruits were taught to go into training exercises with the battle cry, “Kill, kill, kill!” Lectures told them about the evils of the Schlinal system and the dangers to any world that fell to them. The enemy is evil. We are the force of Good in the galaxy. Men being put through long hours of very intensive physical training were especially receptive to such psychological preparation, on deep subconscious levels. Under stress, the mind held to those precepts.

  Joe Baerclau felt oddly peaceful. His earlier jitters had disappeared as soon as he was close enough to return fire with some hope of scoring telling hits on the enemy. His concentration was total, balancing the needs of his own fire and movement with the continuing need to keep an eye on what his men were doing. There was no useless radio chatter now. He gave terse instructions and received them. He took reports and gave them. Each man in the 2nd platoon of Echo Company knew his job. And did it.

  Joe moved his aim from target to target, limiting himself to short bursts of wire. He left fire suppression to others, preferring to conserve as much ammunition as possible for times of greater need. Across a 40-degree zone in front of him, he shot at anything that looked as if it might be an enemy soldier. The 13th’s forward movement was slow now. A single squad would scuttle forward two or three meters from cover to cover while the rest of the platoon provided covering fire. The rest of the companies in the skirmish line were moving in the same methodical fashion.

  But the cover of the rock field ended sixty meters from the Schlinal perimeter. Beyond that point, the ground had been leveled prior to the construction of the base. The ground beyond the mossy rocks was a combination of clay and stone, and there was no vegetation of any sort. There was, in particular, none of the moss that had proved so treacherous. But there would be no cover at all for the 13th once they got clear of the rocks.

  * * *

  Ezra Frain marked one Schlinal helmet in a shallow crater. Very little of the helmet showed behind the soldier’s wire rifle. When Ezra first spotted it, there was only a thin sliver of the helmet showing, perhaps two centimeters high in the center. And no rifle. Ezra waited. The Schlinal soldier came up just far enough to squeeze off a short burst and then ducked again. The pattern repeated. The man moved a little to one side or the other before he came up each time.

  “I’Il get you yet,” Ezra said, after shooting at the vanishing helmet for the third time. He slipped a fresh spool of wire into his Armanoc, saving the old spool. There were still a few meters of wire on it, too much to waste.

  Ezra held his breath, silently counting off the seconds since the helmet had disappeared. Fourth squad moved forward and took new positions. “Let’ s go,” Ezra told his squad.

  He started forward without looking to make sure that his five remaining men were moving with him. He knew that they would be, no matter how frightened they might be. While he crawled to the next slight cover, Ezra kept his eyes on the crater ahead. That helmet had stayed down longer than usual this time. Any second now. . .

  When the helmet popped up the next time, Ezra raised himself to his knees and held down the trigger on his zipper, ready to pour an entire spool of wire into the helmet and the lip of ground in front of it if he had to. More of the helmet appeared, pushed back and up as wire sprayed off of it. Wire might not damage a helmet, but the impact would be felt by the man wearing it. Ezra extended himself getting one foot out in front of him, lifting a little more, trying for a slightly better angle of fire.

  Wire from at least two Heggie rifles found Ezra as the man in the crater came up and went down. Ezra didn’t see the Heggie fall, dead. More than fifty snips of wire had cut into Ezra at the same time. Some had found the gaps in his net armor. The rest had penetrated it.

  Al Bergon saw Ezra go down and stopped firing immediately. He crawled sideways to the squad leader. Before Al got to him though, Ezra Frain was too far gone for help. His eyes were open, expressionless, as Al slid him back to better cover.

  Then the eyes closed and Ezra was dead.

  * * *

  Joe Baerclau swallowed hard when he heard the news from Al Bergon. After acknowledging the medic’s report, Joe switched channels to talk to Mort Jaiffer.

  “You’ve got first squad now, Professor. Ezra’s dead. We’ll run first squad as a single fire team for now, reorganize when we get a chance.”

  On the other end of that call, Mort squeezed his eyes shut, hard, for just a second. “I hear you.” Mort glanced toward where Ezra had fallen. Al had already moved back into his place in the line.

  “Be careful, Prof,” Joe said.

  “Yeah.” Then Mort switched to the squad frequency. “Let’s spread out to cover the gap,” he said after confirming that they had lost Ezra. “And keep your heads down.” There was always continuity. The gaps in the table of organization always slid to the bottom of the unit. Whenever an officer or noncom went down, there was always someone to replace him.

  In the TO at least.

  * * *

  Major General Kleffer Dacik and his headquarters staff had landed twenty minutes after the first assault waves. The general had established his command post west of the landing zones for the attack on Site Alpha. With two concurrent operations going on, Dacik had plenty to keep him occupied. During the first hours, he left operational control of the attack on Site Alpha to Colonel Stossen, the senior regimental commander, and then–after Stossen became a casualty–to Colonel Napier Foss, commander of the 8th SAT. Foss had only recently been promoted to full colonel, and he was new in command of the 8th, but he was the next senior man. On the other continent, Colonel Jesiah Kane of the 5th SAT was in local operational control.

  “I hope Stossen’s not out of commission long
,” Dacik told Colonel Ruman, his operations officer, after learning that Stossen had been taken to the hospital. “Foss, may be good, but he doesn’t have Van’s experience.”

  “I’ve already sent a man over to check with the doctor,” Ruman said. “Should be heating from him soon.”

  “Van’s going to miss this first fight in any case, and that’s bad enough.” Dacik looked down at the large mapboard laid out on the ground between them. “This whole operation depended on timing, and that damned moss screwed it from the first pair of boots that touched down. There’s no way we can make up five hours.”

  “We knew we’d have to improvise, General,” Ruman said. “You emphasized that hard enough. Besides, the 8th and 13th are used to improvisation.”

  “But it’s that much longer that the 5th and 34th are going to have to hold on without reinforcements on the northern continent,” Dacik said. “As far under strength as they are, it’s going to be dicey as hell.”

  Colonel Ruman didn’t say anything. This entire operation had been dicey from its inception.

  * * *

  An hour past noon, the Accord had moved its lines within sixty and seventy meters of the Schlinal defensive lines on three sides. Recon platoons from both the 8th and 13th were operating on the fourth, the east, side, to keep the Schlinal garrison from getting out where they could maneuver and endanger the entire Accord line. Sergeant Dem Nimz had the 13th’s 3rd recon platoon. SAT recon platoons were twice the size of line platoons–sixty men at least in theory. None were at full strength for the landing on Tamkailo. Of the four in the 13th, only the 1st recon platoon had a lieutenant, a platoon leader. The rest were commanded by sergeants. Junior Iieutenants were in short supply throughout the spaceborne assault teams, and reccer lieutenants had to be a cut above their peers in the line companies. Just as enlisted reccers were an elite within the elite SATs.