He immediately jumped up and sprinted down the road and across, slowing down and gathering himself as he reached the other side. It looked like an easier jump down, so he twisted himself so he would land facing the road and ready for anyone who might have spotted him. Just as he started to jump, a head popped up in his way, a rather confused look on his face. JJ’s knee collided with the merc’s forehead, knocking him to the ground.
JJ was knocked off balance as well, and he landed awkwardly on the ground before falling on his face. With a roll, JJ brought his M90 to bear on the merc as the man scrambled back to the culvert, reaching inside it just as JJ sent a stream of darts into his chest.
The merc was in his skivvy shirt, and the darts tore his chest apart.
Voices shouted out from inside the culvert, and JJ got to his feet just as someone inside fired. JJ fumbled for a frag, depressed the arming slot three times, and with his back up against the raised roadbed, swung his arm around and flung the grenade into the mouth of the culvert.
Three presses of the thumb set the frag for two seconds. JJ heard the frag hit the deck, then a shout of panic reached him just before a loud whump filled the air, a shock wave barreling down to rush past him. JJ immediately stepped in front of the mouth and sent off another burst of darts before stopping. There was no need. What had been two men and what looked to be an old-fashioned tea samovar were nothing more than a bloody mess.
“Portillo!” the sergeant shouted from across the road. “What’s going on?”
JJ clambered up the raised roadbed a few steps until his head was clear. “Three mercs. I zeroed them.”
There was a snap behind him, and JJ whirled to see someone rushing out of the trees, a roll of toilet paper in his hand. Before JJ could react, the startled face turned and disappeared. JJ fired off a burst, but he was sure he’d missed.
“There’s another guy here, too. He got away.”
“Fuck no! Go get him!” Sergeant Go shouted as he jumped out and onto the road.
JJ wheeled and blindly ran, trying to close the distance. The merc hadn’t fully exposed himself before running, and JJ wasn’t sure if he’d been armed. Chasing as wildly as he was, all the merc had to do was stop and nail JJ as he rushed up.
The sound of someone crashing through the underbrush just ahead of him spurred him on. He fired a few times in the direction of the sound, hoping for a lucky hit.
“Feddies. . . platoon-sized. . .send help. . .” JJ caught from ahead.
Shit! He’s reporting us!
The merc had been in trou and a skivvy shirt. JJ had 50 kg of battle rattle. There was no way he was going to keep up. He slapped the release on his left pauldron, and like a zipper, his armor peeled off, taking his harness and engineer kit with it. JJ had to kick free of the leg pieces, but within ten seconds, he was free of their weight, and he forced his legs to move.
He still couldn’t see the merc, and it seemed like the man had increased his lead when the trees started to thin out. And then, maybe 30 meters ahead, JJ finally spotted the merc’s back. On instinct, he pulled his trigger, starting low and to the left and sweeping the muzzle up and to the right. The M90 had negligible recoil, but while running and becoming out of breath, JJ wasn’t sure he had a well-aimed shot in him. The merc looked like he was going to dart around a stand of trees as several of the darts struck his back, sending him falling forward on his face. The body bounced once, then bent at the waist to land on its side.
JJ ran up, combat changing his mag. He kept the muzzle on the merc while he reached out with his foot and nudged the man. The man was dead, blood oozing from his back.
JJ could barely make out an anxious voice coming out of the man’s earbuds.
“Portillo!” Sergeant Go half-shouted, half-whispered from somewhere behind him.
“All clear!” he said as he started back.
The light breeze felt good on his chest, clad now only in his own underlayer shirt. He hadn’t been out of his armor now for over three days, and he’d forgotten how uncomfortable it could be. With the muggy weather, he knew why the mercs had been out of their own hardshells. They paid the price for that momentary comfort, though. The Marines hypervelocity darts could penetrate the mercs’ standard body armor, but those hardshells would have been enough protection against JJ’s frag.
Sergeant Go was standing over JJ’s discarded combat armor as he walked up.
“What the fuck, Portillo?”
“He was getting away. I had to go light.”
“Did you at least get him?”
“Aye-yah,” he said mimicking one of Jasper’s pet words. “But he reported us. Sounded like he said we were an entire platoon.”
“A platoon?” the sergeant said with a bemused expression.
“Aye-yah, Sergeant.”
“I’ll fucking ‘aye-yah’ you, Portillo,” the sergeant said without rancor. “But unless you want to fight in your underlayers, we need to see what we can do about your armor. It’ll be pretty fucking hard to patch it back together since you went and did an emergency molt.”
Marine Corps polydeflexion plate armor was the best available, but it was rather unwieldy to put on and take off. When a Marine initiated an emergency molt, many of the connections were cut, and without an armorer, they could not be repaired. JJ knew he could jury-rig something, but it wouldn’t be the same.
“Come on, pick this stuff up. If your merc reported us, we need to get far away before they get enough of a force to come battle this Marine platoon.”
Between the two of them, they managed to pick up all the pieces of JJ’s armor, harness, and engineer kit. It seemed much heavier than when on his body, but the sergeant was right. They had to gather up the other two and get the hell out of there.
Chapter 14
Jasper
“I don’t think it’s going to get back together,” Jasper told JJ.
“Sure it is. Just force it in there.”
“I am. But it won’t snap in.”
Jasper quit kneeling on JJ’s back where he’d been trying to force the pieces of his armor to reconnect. The breastplate attached to the backplate, and the pauldrons, JJ had called them, fit loosely over them. The greaves hung loosely from the cuisse—the thigh protection—but nothing kept them up until JJ had used some line to tie them to his combat harness.
When covered by the camo cloth, the Marine armor simply made Sergeant Go look a little bulky. On JJ now, they looked like some Carnival revelers had tried to put together bits and pieces of odds and ends as a costume. Jasper didn’t see how the lance corporal would be able to move well.
The armor plates themselves seemed surprisingly light to Jasper, and they had a degree of flexibility. But most of the flexibility seemed to come from the clever interlocking of each piece to the next. After his emergency molt, many of the fastenings were inoperable, so the pieces wouldn’t snap back together. Jasper considered himself a decent back-yard engineer—a man almost had to be in order to be an independent farmer—but this armor, looking deceptively simple, was actually pretty high tech.
“What’s this piece?” Jasper asked, holding a strip of polydeflexion about 15 centimeters wide.
“You got me,” JJ said. “But it doesn’t look important.”
Jasper wasn’t so sure about that. The close tolerances and obvious manufacturing skill used in making the armor left little doubt in his mind that each and every piece of it was important to the overall effectiveness.
“You two about done there?” Sergeant Go asked. “The lieutenant wants us to keep moving.”
They’d only left the site of the battle 30 minutes ago, but it was obvious that JJ was ineffective with his arms full of his armor pieces. Mountie had called for a halt, then asked Jasper to try and help JJ get the armor back on. The big pieces were sort of in place, but many of the smaller pieces were a lost cause. Even if they knew where each piece fit in, the fastening points were toast.
“We can’t figure out some of these parts,”
Jasper said, holding the strip.
“That connects the gorget to the breastplate at the front,” the sergeant said, “but without a clip gun, you’re not going to be able to connect the two.”
“Do you have one of these clip guns?” Jasper asked.
“Only an armorer does,” JJ said. “Too easy for us mere grunts to screw the armor up. It has to be handled gently, don’t you know.”
Jasper’s mouth dropped open as he looked at the piece in his hand, then down at those on the ground that they couldn’t attach.
Handle gently?
He shook his head and broke out into a laugh. It took a moment, but JJ joined him as he tugged up and down on the line holding up his leg armor.
Even Sergeant Go cracked a smile and said, “Yeah, Portillo, fucking gently!”
“Hey, why don’t you just advertise to the entire merc army that we’re here,” Mountie said, rushing up to them with a scowl on his face. “What the hell’s so funny?”
“Nothing, sir,” Sergeant Go said as Jasper tried to stop laughing.
It really hadn’t been that funny, but then again, maybe it was. More likely, though, Jasper knew he needed the relief from the excitement and stress of the fight. Still, Mountie was right. They shouldn’t be making so much noise.
“That doesn’t look right,” Mountie said, pointing at JJ.
“I think it’s good enough for Federation work, sir,” JJ said as he rotated his arms and twisted his body. “Not 100%, but I can still move about, and I still get some protection.”
He slammed his fist hard into his chest, where it hit with a solid-sounding thunk.
“See?”
Mountie didn’t seem convinced, but he shrugged and said, “Well, then, I think we need to keep moving.
As if on cue, the whine of a large copter approached from the east. All four men froze in place. Jasper could hear the approach, getting closer and closer until he was sure they’d been spotted. The pitch of the whine suddenly started getting lower, and the copter passed beyond, going on its way.
“Do you think they saw us?” Jasper asked, fearing the answer.
“If they had their heat arrays on, they would’ve,” Mountie said. “We would have stood out like roman candles.”
“But they flew on,” Jasper said.
He thought—hoped—they hadn’t been spotted, but he wanted confirmation from one of the military guys.
“So, they either weren’t searching—” Mountie started.
“—or they acquired us and are sending ground troops to scoop us up,” Sergeant Go interrupted.
“Yes, there’s that. So, all the more reason for us to get moving, right? Lance Corporal Portillo, you ready to resume point?” Mountie asked, turning to Jasper before JJ could answer.
“How much farther to the river, Jasper?”
“I don’t rightly know, Mountie. Not too far, I’d guess.”
“You don’t know? I thought this was your home,” Sergeant Go said, the slightest sound of exasperation tingeing his voice.
“Donkerbroek’s my home. I’ve been down to Wieksloot often enough, and down to the capital once since I made planetfall. But I’ve never been up here.”
“But it’s only, what 15 klicks from your village?”
“Some of us have to work for a living, Sergeant,” Jasper said, a bit of steel in his voice.
Paying off an indentured contract doesn’t leave much free time for a vacation, he thought. Not that you’d know about that.
“OK, OK,” Mountie said, physically stepping between the two. “If Jasper’s never been here, he hasn’t. We’ll make the river when we do, and the sooner we step off, the sooner that will be, so Lance Corporal Portillo, if you will?”
Jasper gave the sergeant a long look before stepping off behind JJ. He gave the sergeant full props for his expertise, but he wasn’t going to take any guff from the man. He’d never been much beyond Pirate’s Cave, at least to the north. He knew where Red Rock Trail and the highway led, and he knew the general geography to the north, but he was hardly a navigation comp that could calculate positions and distances.
He let his mind wander as he marched. It shouldn’t bother him so much, he knew, but it did. And he also knew he had to keep on the alert. But the more he tried to forget the sergeant’s questions, the more they stayed in his mind. Finally, though, as the sun began to sink towards the horizon, he was able to let it go.
Right about then, he became aware of a faint, low rumble. It had to be the Beneden Merwede. He turned back to catch Mountie’s eye, and he pointed forward. Mountie nodded.
Of course, he already realized it. He’s been paying attention, not worrying about a slight that probably wasn’t even there. Don’t be so blooming sensitive, van Ruiker!
JJ, on point, slowed down. That made sense to Jasper. With so much of the planet undeveloped, rivers constituted not only a means of waterborne transportation, but roads were often built alongside them.
It still took them almost 30 minutes to reach a point where they had eyes on the river.
“Up or down, Jasper?” Mountie asked.
Jasper tried to look back to get his bearings, but the trees blocked the way.
We broke off Red Rock Trail on the left. There’s the footbridge at Camberet, he considered as he tried to bring up the map in his mind. The Blue Trail Highway crosses further to the west at Klipspringer Station.
He knew they hadn’t crossed the highway, but had they bypassed the Camberet footbridge? He wished he could get closer to the river to see if there was a road there. If there was, they had to head east. If not, then the crossing was still to the west of them.
“I think to the west,” he said. “But I’m not positive. If there’s a paved road down on this side of the river, then the footbridge is east of us.”
“To the west we go, then. Sergeant Go, do you concur?”
“I’m not sure we should start off in that direction, then have to double back. The river itself can’t be more than a klick away. Why don’t you two hunker down here and let Portillo and me take a quick look to see if we can spot if there’s an improved road down there or not.”
Mountie looked up towards the sun, then checked the sleeve readout from his flight PA, checking the time. Jasper wasn’t sure why. None of the three of them had switched from standard time, while Nieuwe Utrecht was on a 21-hour, 12-minute rotation. Sunset here went on local time, today about 1630. Jasper had no idea when that would be on standard time.
“I think we have about 50 minutes until sunset,” Jasper offered.
Mountie seemed to consider that, then he said, “You two see if you can spot the road. I want you back here in 30 minutes, though, understand?”
“Roger that, sir,” the sergeant said. “Come on, Portillo.”
The two broke away, and within a minute were out of sight in the trees.
Jasper wanted to say something to Mountie about not knowing the area, but he didn’t know how to begin. He didn’t want to sound like he was making an excuse. The pilot spoke first, though.
“So, are we still going in the right direction? I mean, for your family?”
“I . . . I really don’t know. Over there, those are the Grangers,” he said, lifting his chin to point at the mountains in the distance, their tops still in the direct sunlight. “But exactly where the trail to get up to Spirit Lake is, I’m not sure.”
“But we’re all still going in the same direction, right?”
“Aye-yah, we are at that.”
“OK, then, that’s good enough for me,” Mountie said, then asked, “But the river there, how would they have crossed it?”
Jasper’s heart fell. He looked up in surprise, never having considered that. He’d assumed the group would split up after coming out of the hills, but there weren’t many places to cross the river, which was too deep and fast to swim. Down by Azure Lake, it spread out and slowed down, but that had to be 200 klicks downstream.
“I don’t know. We never discu
ssed it. None of us thought we’d be in a position to even try and rendezvous with them.”
If Mountie had anything to add, he was interrupted when Sergeant Go and JJ came back out of the woods.
“It’s been only five minutes. Is the road below us?” Mountie asked.
“No, it’s not,” the sergeant said.
“So, we have go west,” Jasper said, anxious to see if the women and children were in Camberet.
“No, to the east. We got a good look at the bridge. It’s only two klicks. But it’s got a dozen mercs on it, with guardposts on both sides. They’re checking whoever is trying to cross.”
“People are crossing?” Jasper asked, too loudly.
“Yeah. We saw a woman with two kids in tow. She got checked on the near side, then again on the far side. There’s no way we can just walk across, and if we take out one post, that’s a long way across with nowhere to hide to take out the second post,” JJ said.
“The woman, what did she look like?” Jasper asked.
“The woman? I don’t know. We were glassing the bridge, not checking out faces,” Sergeant Go said. “Just a woman.
“But what Lance Corporal Portillo didn’t say is that in the little village, there’s two APTs.”
“Two personnel transports? So, there’re at least 24 mercs there,” Mountie said more to himself than to the other three.
“Right, sir. Twelve apiece, not counting drivers. A little much for us to take on.”
“Jasper, there isn’t another bridge?”
“Well, aye-ah, but down on the Blue Trail Highway. If they’ve got mercs on this bridge, then for sure there’re more on that one.”
“So, we swim it,” Mountie said with conviction.
The two Marines didn’t blink, but Jasper said, “It’s kind of swift in this valley. I’m not sure we can do it.”
“Well, it’s either that or we sit here on our asses until the fight is over. If the road ends over there by the footbridge, I’m guessing there won’t be much in the way of patrols farther east. So, let’s keep up here moving east until dark. In the morning, we can go down and find a place where we can cross. Are we onboard with that?”
Behind Enemy Lines: A United Federation Marine Corps Novel Page 9