“Here it comes,” Jasper said, Mr. Obvious.
JJ had tuned him out, though. He was focusing on the tank, coming forward at maybe 15 KPH. It wasn’t fast, but JJ didn’t have any experience even remotely related to this.
The tank reached the small bush that was his target, and JJ released the switch. There was a low boom, and a heat and shockwave rushed over the three prone men, making them flinch. JJ had his eyes on the rock, however, and he almost shouted in excitement as the rock tipped over and fell, or rather slid down the first slope instead of bouncing its way down. It reached the first switchback, and for a moment, JJ thought it was going to stop there. Somehow, though, the bottom caught, and the overall momentum picked the uphill side and flipped in over, crushing the downhill edge of the trail bed. The rock barely paused as it continued down—and JJ knew he’d failed. He’d detonated the charge too late.
Except for a horrendous brain fart from the driver.
JJ didn’t know if the driver could see the rock coming down. He didn’t know if the explosion itself had startled him. But for whatever reason, he stopped dead in the trail. A moment later, several tons of local rock bounced once and landed smack dab on the top of the tank, pushing it to the side of the trail and over the edge. Both tank and rock continued downhill, the tank rolling, the rock bouncing. At the next level of the trail, the tank landed on its top and stuck while the rock, gaining steam, kept on going, bounding its way to the bottom in a cloud of dust, and smashing into some trees above the lake itself.
“Holy shit!” JJ muttered.
Jasper pounded him on the back while Mountie just said, “I . . . I didn’t think you could really do it. I’m sorry for doubting.”
JJ didn’t mention that the outcome had taken him completely by surprise. He hadn’t even wanted to try it, yet, the results could speak for themselves.
As the dust started to clear, JJ could see the bottom escape hatch, now exposed to the sky, started to open. He whipped up his M90 and fired a burst at the hatch, which quickly closed.
“Down!” Mountie shouted as the tank on the far ridge opened up, joined by a few of the other vehicles.
As before, they only had to pull back less than a meter, and the tank’s guns couldn’t touch them. They made a lot of noise, though, and the three hugged the ground as rounds whizzed past just above their heads.
“Think that will stop them?” Jasper asked.
“Nah, but it’s sure going to slow them down some.”
“But that tank, it’s blocking the road up.”
“They can get one of the other tanks up there and just push it off the road. But they’ve got to be wondering if we’ve got anything else up our sleeves.”
A drone swooped in low, and JJ fired off a burst, not hitting it but driving it away.
“No, if I were them, I’d be sending up the infantry to dig us out,” he continued.
“We can fight them, right?”
“Sure,” Mountie said. “And we can drop some. But there’s a hell of a lot more of them than us.
“I think JJ’s right. I don’t see any signs of mortars, thank God. And I think they’re under some huge time constraints. So, they’re going to have to go with what they have, and that looks to be infantry.”
He carefully edged back up, looked, and then said, “And that’s that. They’re dismounting their troops now.”
“What, you figure two hours? They’ve got to come up to our right, off the road.”
The mountainside to the west bent back away from the lake. Merc troops could climb that in defilade to the three of them. The same reasons why the mercs couldn’t bring much to bear on the three of them from down there also worked to the mercs’ advantage when it came to the three of them taking the mercs under fire.
“Do you think we can get around them somehow and hit them while they’re climbing?” Mountie asked, seemingly just thinking out loud.
All three turned on their backs to look up the steep slopes to the top of the mountain.
“I doubt it, sir. I think it would take us longer to get up there than it will take them to get here.”
“Yeah, I think you’re right. So, if we want to stop them, it’ll have to be right here.”
“Horatius at the Bridge,” Jasper said.
“That’s the second time you guys have said this Horatio guy’s name,” JJ said.
“Horatius, not Horatio. Horatius Cocles,” Mountie said. “During the Clusium War before Rome was an empire. The Etruscans were attacking Rome, and most of the Roman soldiers were running for their lives. Horatius decided that enough was enough, and on the Pons Sublicius, the first bridge over the Tiber, he took a stand and held off the advancing army. Because the bridge was narrow, they couldn’t get enough soldiers at him to bring him down, and he piled the bodies in front of him.”
“One guy held off an army?” JJ said, not believing it.
“Well, that’s the legend, at least. Who knows how true it is? Maybe he held them off long enough for the Roman army to reform and attack. Still, it’s pretty ballsy.”
“Most accounts have it that there were three of them. Horatius, Spurius Lartius, and Titus Aquilinus, all standing shoulder to shoulder,” Jasper added.
“Really? Three of them? I hadn’t realized that,” Mountie said. “Not bad knowledge of history—for a militiaman.”
Jasper laughed and said, “Not all farmers as just dumb hicks, you know.”
JJ took in the history lesson, then said, “The Romans, they were some bad asses, right? I’ve seen the flicks.”
“Aye-yah, JJ.”
“Well, no one is as bad as the Marines. There were three of them back there, and there are three of us here. So, let’s make our own legend, OK?”
“Ooh-rah!” Mountie shouted, joined a moment later by Jasper. “It’s legend time!”
Chapter 27
Mountie
JJ fired another burst from his M90 at the mercs climbing the mountain. It caused the mercs to dive for cover, but not much else. The light hypervelocity darts were deadly within 800 meters, and being mag-propelled, could be fired in the vacuum of space, but their mass could easily be blown off target at long distances. If they had one of the old M44s that used to be the Corps’ prime combat weapon, they could actually do some damage to the mercs instead of just harassing them.
The Gescards that he and Jasper still carried weren’t much better. It was a bullpup assault weapon, suited for throwing out lots of slugs, but with only a max effective range of 500 meters.
Mountie was wracking his brain for some sort of plan. He was an officer, and that is what officers were supposed to do, right? But all he could come up with was basically what Horatius had done. Just slug it out with the enemy.
Maybe something will come up.
But he knew he was running out of time. Already, at least a platoon of mercs had reached their level on the mountainside, and more were climbing to join them. All they had to do was to come across now to hit them. The mercs could get to within 150 meters or so before both groups were within sight of each other, and with all the vehicles lined up below them, Mountie knew they would simply pour fire at the three of them, giving the infantry cover to close that 150 meters. Mountie had the sinking feeling that this was going to come down to a very close-range fight, and one they couldn’t win.
He looked back along the trail. It had been three hours since the women and children had left. He wondered if they had made it, and not for the first time, he thought about just picking up and getting out of there. But this had grown to more than just Jasper’s family and friends. With the armored column down there waiting to get through the pass, they had to delay them until word got back to the ground commander and a response could be mobilized to meet them. It might sound like hyperbole, but the fate of the war on the planet could very well be decided right here.
“Ha! I think I got one!” JJ crowed.
“No, he’s getting back up,” Jasper responded. “Look, he’s running
.”
Mountie listened to the two. All of their lives could probably be measured in tens of minutes, but here they were, voices as calm as if they were playing the latest IR game.
He was scared; there was no getting around it. Scared of dying, scared of failure. But if he was going to die, he couldn’t have asked for two better companions. He hadn’t known either of them five days before, but an amazing bond had grown.
“Hey, you two,” he said, waiting for them to turn to him. “Thanks.”
“Thanks?” JJ asked.
But Jasper nodded and said, “You, too. Thanks.”
Mountie had given Jasper the chance to get away, to live, but the older man had decided to stay. It might have been foolish. It might have been wasteful. But it was appreciated.
Another drone flitted by, and Mountie instinctively fired a burst at it, as he’d been doing all day. To his surprise, there was a pinging sound, and the drone sputtered, spiraling in to crash first against the rock wall, then to bounce down the side to land on the road. JJ scooted farther back, then got up in a crouch and ran to it.
The drone hopped and jerked like a living animal, but JJ grabbed it, and holding it like a live lobster, carried it back to the other two.
“It’s still broadcasting, right?” he asked.
Mountie saw the tiny green indicator light on top and said, “Yes.”
“OK, OK, here, Gyver, hold it.”
He handed it to Jasper, then undid his waist cinch.
“Point the lens at me,” he said, bending over and exposing his bare ass at it. “Like what you see, assholes!”
“I see your asshole, JJ. Not theirs,” Jasper said as both men broke into laughter.
“Wait, I’m going to shit on it! Let some drilot see a brown avalanche.”
“No!” Mountie shouted as a laugh finally erupted from him as well. “If this is my last hour, I don’t want to go out smelling your shit!”
“Oh, man! But it would be so good,” JJ said as he pulled up his trousers.
He took the drone back from Jasper.
“Hey, Mr. Drilot,” he said to the remote drone-pilot. “The lieutenant saved you from my ass, but your time’s up.”
He dropped the little drone and stomped on it.
The whine of green-diesel engines interrupted them, and all three dropped back down and crawled forward. Down below, two tanks and two half-tracs were moving forward along the basin up to the start of the switchbacks. All four had their machine guns pointed high.
“They coming up here?” JJ asked.
“Not until the infantry clears the pass of us, I’d have to guess,” Mountie answered.
But the four vehicles didn’t stop. They chugged right past the first turn and started up. The three Federation men simply watched. It was not as if they could do anything. But after the third switchback, the four vehicles came to a halt.
“Pretty stupid,” JJ noted. “They should have stayed back. Now the angle to us is too steep. They won’t be able to bring any fire to bear on us.”
“The ones over there will,” Mountie said, pointing to the rest of the vehicles staged by the lake-view crest.
“Can’t hit much from there,” JJ muttered.
“But they can throw a lot of fire.”
Mountie watched the four vehicles below, wondering if they were there to try and rescue the crew of the upside-down Pecker-3. Twice, at least one person had tried to open the escape hatch, but a few well-placed darts and convinced them to stay buttoned-up.
“Hey, how far do you think it is to them,” Mountie asked.
“From here?” Jasper said. “Maybe 50, 60 meters down.”
“How far horizontally?”
“I don’t know. A little more.”
Mountie pulled out the toad JJ had given him earlier and bounced it up and down in his hand.
“Why? What’re you gonna do?” JJ asked.
“I think I can bounce one down to them. How do you set the timer on this,” he asked. “Oh, I guess these numbers that are staring me in the face. Five seconds should do it.”
“Officers,” JJ said with mock exasperation.
Mountie checked the position of the merc armor, then retreated until he could stand up. He took five large steps back, armed the toad, then ran forward, launching it high into the air before falling on his belly to watch.
Forty or fifty meters was a long, long throw, and the toad hit two switchbacks before the armor. It bounced high, then over the next level, and to his great surprise, clanked off one of the half-tracs. The toad skittered away, just reaching the next drop-off when it erupted into a small, burning star. Immediately the small scrub on the slope caught on fire, and black smoke mixed with the toad’s white.
“Oh, man! Close!” JJ said.
All four vehicles immediately lurched into motion, retreating back down the trail. A tank and half-trac collided at the turn, but with no obvious damage. Each of the four made it all the way back to the start of the switchbacks.
“Well, you got their attention,” Jasper said. “Wish you could have nailed one, though.”
The toad petered out, and the bushes, no longer fed by the intense heat, started going out as well.
Mountie felt more than a little let down. He knew the chances of actually taking out a tank had been minimal, but to have the toad actually hit one of the half-tracs and then bounce off was disheartening.
“I think all the grunts that are coming are up here now,” JJ said.
Mountie turned to where the merc infantry had climbed the slope. He couldn’t see any of them. That meant that about 30 mercs were at their same elevation, moving towards them, and there was nothing they could do but wait. It was getting to be go-time.
“OK, no more messing around. JJ, I want you in as close to the wall as you can, aiming right at the edge where the face bends. The second you see anything, I want a full mag emptied. Let them know they’re going to have to fight for every centimeter.
“Jasper, hang back out of the line of fire. When JJ or I tell you, throw those breaching charges at them; then you’re weapons free with your merc rifle there.”
Mountie hoped the breaching charges would do some damage. They packed a good punch, but they were not anti-personnel grenades. JJ had rigged them to override the minimum detonation time—they should explode four seconds after being thrown.
“Roger that, sir. Let them come,” JJ said.
Mountie was expecting to wait twenty or thirty minutes, but almost as soon as JJ was ready, the first merc carefully stepped into view. He jerked back at the drone of JJ’s M90, but not fast enough, tumbling head-first down the scree.
Immediately, the now-30 vehicles from below opened up, sending a barrage of heavy machinegun and 60mm fire up to them, rounds impacting over seemingly every square centimeter of rock.
“Shit!” JJ shouted slapping his neck where blood started welling.
Pieces of blasted rock stung Mountie’s face as he stumbled back.
“Are you OK?” he shouted at JJ, who was also scrambling back.
“Fucking rock hit me!” he shouted to be heard over the cacophony of sound as he looked at his bloody hand where he’d wiped his neck.
“Do I throw the charges now?” Jasper asked.
“No, wait for a break in the firing,” Mountie said, knowing that as soon as any of them exposed themselves, it would be over. “They can’t keep going forever!”
But he knew that right now, when they couldn’t fight back, the merc infantry was closing in, taking full advantage of the covering fire from their armor.
The crescendo of fire slackened only slightly to a more measured, disciplined rate. Pulverized rock filled the air in choking dust, and shards flew with stinging speed. Mountie knew he’d been cut several times, but he couldn’t afford to think of that now.
He wasn’t just going to sit there, lambs to the slaughter. He picked up one of Jasper’s breaching charges, pushed the arming button five times, then without lookin
g or exposing himself more than his arm, flung it blindly around the edge and towards where the mercs were advancing. He was rewarded with a low boom that overwhelmed the sound of firing for a moment, but he didn’t know if he’d taken anyone out.
“OK, back up. They still have to come in here. We’ll just retreat ten and let them have it,” he ordered.
All three ran back, then fell on their bellies, weapons pointed to the opening. A round ricocheted off the rock face and hit the trail-bed by Mountie’s side, but he ignored it.
The high rounds continued unabated, but there was a shift in the sounds; to their right, the firing slowed, then stopped.
“Get ready,” Mountie told the other two, knowing the shift in the base of fire meant that the mercs were right there, ready to rush in.
A minute later, an arm came whipping around the edge of the opening, and a small object came at them, flying over to land behind.
“Grenade!” JJ shouted. “Get ready!”
Luckily, the grenade went too far, and it exploded with a whump that Mountie felt in his core, but without an accompanying sting of shrapnel.
Immediately, four mercs came screaming around the side and onto the roadbed, firing blindly. All three fired into the mercs, dropping them with a fusillade of darts and rounds.
“Push to the sides!” JJ shouted, with JJ and him scooting to the right and Mountie scooting to the left, all up against the mountain walls.
That exposed Mountie, and in the next group of five to charge out onto the road, one merc immediately saw him and started sweeping his Gescard down to spray him when one of the other mercs either pushed or stepped on his foot in his eagerness to get some cover, and the .370 cal slugs ripped in front of Mountie, missing his face by centimeters.
Two mercs fell to JJ or Jasper’s fire, and Mountie hit one more, who fell onto his ass and tried to back out of the line of fire. Two more had escaped the large volume of Federation fire and had hit the deck. They were prone, firing at Mountie and the other two while all three of them were firing at the mercs, both sides only ten meters apart. Amazingly—impossibly—no one was hit. One of the mercs lost his nerve, and he bolted back, diving out of sight to the left. A moment later, the last merc shuddered and slumped, blood pouring from under his helmet.
Behind Enemy Lines: A United Federation Marine Corps Novel Page 21