by Jay Allan
Chapter 7
2252 AD
McCraw’s Ridge
Central Sector – “The Cauldron”
Day Two – Morning
Delta Trianguli
They’d hit us five times the day before. Of course, the days were our own construct, existing largely on our suits’ chronometers. Tombstone took over sixty Earth hours to complete its rotation, and it was never really dark, not even at night, thanks to the electrical activity and chemical reactions in the upper atmosphere. The eerie glowing clouds didn’t give off the light the sun did, but it was enough to see by, especially with your visor set to mag 2 or 3.
Now we were on day two of the battle, though we’d fought more or less continuously. The second day notation had more importance for record-keeping than any real tactical significance. You’d want it to be correctly noted what day of the battle you were killed on, after all.
I was only a private, barely a rung above the lowly position of “new guy,” so keeping track of planetwide resources wasn’t something I spent much time on. But to my knowledge, our total strength on Tombstone was approximately three battalions. The enemy had more, but only marginally so – about two and a half of their tac-forces – the rough equivalent of four battalions. Now they’d deployed what appeared to be an entire tac-force against us, which was an unprecedented troop concentration on Tombstone. A ten-year struggle between widely-dispersed patrols and platoons was seeing its first pitched battle.
We’d been taken by surprise by the enemy build-up, but the colonel responded quickly, shifting forces from all over to reinforce our position. It’s amazing how minutes can drag into eternity when you’re outnumbered 5-1 and waiting for reserves that are “almost there.”
I hadn’t moved more than 50 meters in the last 24 hours. I was behind the rocky crest of the ridge when the attacks started, with a good field of fire across the broad plain in front of us. Just to my right there was a spur of the outcropping that ran perpendicular out from our location. Any attack on our position forced the enemy to either split his forces or concentrate on one side or the other.
The first attack came right at me, with all the strength to the left of the rocky spine. We hit them hard with fire on the way in, but there were a lot of them, and it looked like they might overrun us. They almost did, but they’d made a mistake in ignoring the other side of the rock spine. The lieutenant swung around with one of our squads, firing at the enemy flank from the cover of the perpendicular line of rock. Faced with heavy fire from two directions they withdrew with heavy casualties.
The lieutenant pulled back the advanced squad before they were exposed to the resumption of enemy long-ranged fire. The Caliphate forces had suffered at least 40 casualties; we’d lost 3, and two of those were wounded. We got them both patched up and stabilized before Tombstone finished them off. The enemy casualties were mostly KIA, either from the initial hit or the consequences of their suits being breached.
The second time they didn’t make the same mistake; they split their forces evenly on the two sides of the spur, but the lack of force concentration did them in. The two groups, unable to support each other, were both beaten back, again with heavy losses.
There was a brief lull, probably while they brought a fresh unit up to attack. When they had reinforced they charged us again, and the last two assaults came close to taking our position. The enemy commander sent a small group against the left side of the spur, just enough to demonstrate and prevent a repetition of the lieutenant’s flanking maneuver, while the main force concentrated against the right. They came at us twice that way, but our lines barely held, reinforced at the last minute by arriving reserves fed in squad by squad.
Things quieted down for a few hours, giving us the “night” respite between our Earth days. We had more troops arriving all the time, and we finally got the orders to pull back. The entire company was being rotated to the reserve to rest, replaced by a fresh unit that had just marched up.
I was positioned between Corporal Vincennes, my team leader, and Harden and Quincy with the SAW. Harden had been the team’s lead SAW operator since before I got to Tombstone, and he’d been through four partners since then. It was considered something of a jinx posting, but I escaped this far because of my marksmanship ratings. I hadn’t gone through sniper school, but the lieutenant kept me as an informal sharpshooter rather than a body managing Harden’s ammo feed. So I stayed in the line on a standing order to try and target enemy officers and non-coms if I could identify them.
“Hey, Sam, how’s it going over there?” Harden and I had become pretty good friends. Most commanders probably would have forbidden this type of chatting over the com, but the lieutenant believed the unit was a living organism. As long as it didn’t interfere with vital communications, he encouraged limited banter.”
“Not too bad. I’d say we held pretty damned well.” He paused, and I could hear him taking a deep breath. Not a bad use of a couple million rounds of ammo.” Harden was a little bloodthirsty; he’d lost a brother in the service and I don’t even know how many partners. I didn’t know it then, mostly because I’d had no one really close to me since my dad died, but you get that way if you lose enough people. We’re professionals, but that only goes so far…enough pain will make any of us into vengeful sadists howling for blood.
“Yeah, we did ok.” I was a little more circumspect. I wasn’t all that comfortable with the killing yet, and I found it hard to rejoice as he did in the enemy dead littering the field. After all, most of them were just conscripts with no choice in the matter. The Caliphate was pretty rough with its recruiting; it was a theocracy and a dictatorship that made the Alliance look like a big happy family. Its recruiters could pressgang just about anyone except the clergy and the nobility.
“Just ok? It was a shooting gallery, baby!” Harden was overstating things. We did give the enemy a bloody nose, but it was hardly a walkover. We were pulling back with 31 troops; we’d gotten here at full strength with 50. I couldn’t get over the losses, even if we did inflict almost ten times that on the enemy.
“We lost a lot of friends today, Sam.” My voice was soft; I was trying hard not to sound like I was scolding him.
“Yes, we did.” His spoke more slowly, his tone darker. I think he got the point. “But it could have been a lot worse…a lot worse. If we’d been overrun, the whole unit could have been wiped.” He paused, and sighed. “But we did pay the price.”
“Yes, we paid the price.” The last of our wounded had been evac’d, but we were leaving seven dead on the field. I thought quietly to myself for a few seconds then I shifted my mind to more relevant things, with the soldier’s knack for mourning the dead one minute and focusing on duty the next. “You need help packing up that thing?”
“Nah, let the newb handle it.” The light auto-cannon really wasn’t all that large, just a bit unwieldy. Still, I had a twinge of sympathy for Quincy. It wasn’t that long ago I was the newb.
I climbed down carefully from the perch I’d occupied for the last twenty hours. Keep your head down, I thought. Although the fighting was in a lull, the sporadic sniper fire had never stopped. What a stupid way to get killed, losing focus on your way to the rear to rest. I took one last look out over the field, thinking the worst of it was over. I was wrong.
Chapter 8
2252 AD
McCraw’s Ridge
Central Sector – “The Cauldron”
Day Two – Afternoon
Delta Trianguli I
We pulled back about five klicks, just behind the next ridge. We were well within range of enemy mortars and other ordnance, and we wanted some cover. On a more hospitable world we might have popped our helmets and actually eaten some solid food, but that wasn’t an option on a planet like Tombstone. So I enjoyed the epicurean delight of another shot of high-energy intravenous nutritional formula, kindly served by my suit’s AI. It wasn’t exactly a stick-to-your-ribs meal, but you could definitely feel the increased energ
y level.
Sleep was another issue. We’d been going for about 40 hours, the last 24 under combat conditions. I was tired. You could go for several days on stims injected through the armor’s medical maintenance system, but there was no substitute for actual rest. Plus, the less you relied on the stims, the longer you could go on them before getting really strung out. The armor is more tolerable than anyone who hasn’t worn it would think, but it wasn’t built for taking a nap. The most comfortable position was sitting on the ground leaning against something. I staked out a fairly choice spot against a good-sized rock outcropping and closed my eyes. I fell asleep in a few minutes.
When I’d first gotten to Tombstone, a well-trained but completely untried Marine, I found it very difficult to relax at all. Even in base when we sat around, waiting days, even weeks before getting the orders to suit up, I was nervous as a cat, expecting the alarm to sound any minute and scared to death about going outside, going into battle. There are certain clichés about soldiers, and I have found that many of them are true. One of these is the fact that we can sleep anywhere, and it wasn’t long before I’d joined that club. I was still scared to death whenever we fought; I still am to this day, though I have since learned to more or less ignore it. But even back then, if the shooting stopped for a few minutes, I could take a nap.
We’re good scroungers too, another military stereotype that turns out to be true. Despite living in the most hostile environment imaginable, cut off from virtually everything except official supply routes, there was a fairly active black market in the firebase. I never understood how the most active participants got some of the items that did. Later I came to realize that the officer didn’t just look the other way – they actually helped things along a little behind the scenes. All of our officers start as privates, and they knew very well that a posting on a place like Tombstone was a cheerless enough existence. As long as nothing degraded combat readiness, it was helpful to boost morale any way possible.
I’d gotten maybe 45 minutes’ sleep when I woke up to a jarring on my leg. My visor automatically went transparent and I could see Harden standing above me, kicking my leg. It was a gesture best performed by veterans; a little too much power behind the kick and the force amplification system in his suit could have damaged my armor. It was best done to a seasoned Marine too…startle a sleeping newb and you may end up getting shot to pieces or sliced in half with a molecular blade.
I was seasoned enough not to over-react. “I was sleeping, asshole.” Not normal chatter for the comlink, but I was mildly annoyed, and my tone conveyed it.
“What are you gonna do, sleep your life away?” He was always cheerful, which was surprisingly irritating at times. Now, though, it seemed like a facade. Something was bothering him.
“Wouldn’t want to waste a minute of the Tombstone experience, would we?” I wanted to be pissed, but he was a good guy; he just never shut up. “I think it will be a big vacation spot once we’re done fighting for it.”
He sat down next to me, leaning back against the rock wall. “I wonder how long we’ll be posted here.” His upbeat tone was gradually fading, becoming a little more somber. Tombstone wore everyone down. “The unit we replaced had been here six months. We’re almost there, but I haven’t heard squat about us getting rotated out.”
Of course, I’d considered it too, but I wasn’t sure I should tell him what I really thought. It looked to me like both sides were increasing the strength deployed here, and they were probably going to do it by extending the tours. “I think we’ll be here awhile.” What the hell, I thought. Tell him what you think. “It’s obvious the expeditionary force here is being increased. If they bump the postings to a year they can bring in the unit that was going to replace us as an incremental force.”
“Fuuuuck.” He stretched the word out impressively. “I hadn’t thought about it that way, but you’re right.” He paused for five or ten seconds, both of us silent as we thought about that unpleasant prospect. “Man, I hate this shithole.” He slapped his hand lightly against the ground as he spoke.
I nodded, though it wasn’t all that obvious a gesture in armor. “We made it this far; we’ll make it a year if we have to.” I said it, but I wasn’t sure I believed it. A lot of us hadn’t made it this far, and it was anyone’s guess how many would get through another seven months on this hellhole.
I expected him to say something - he always had something to say, but not this time. What was there to say? We were here, and we had a job to do. That was all there was to it. Whether we liked it or not wasn’t part of the equation.
“I’m getting the shakes.” He’d switched to direct laser com. “The last month, maybe more.” His voice was serious, more so than I’d ever heard it.
I let out a short breath, thinking about what to say, wishing he’d gone to one of the real veterans who might have something wise to tell him. But he’d come to me, and we were Marines…we were there for each other. Always. “It can’t be too bad, Sam. I lost count of how many you dropped this morning. It’s not affecting your shooting any.”
“I’ve managed to control it when we’re fighting. I guess it’s the adrenalin or something. Focuses me.” He paused. “But it’s bad before, and it’s starting to get that way after too. It took me the whole walk back here to settle down.” His voice was edgy; he was really worried.
Sam Harden was a decorated Marine who’d been in half a dozen engagements. He was sure to be bumped to corporal and given his own team after this posting. But none of us were immune to the nerves, the fear. It gnawed at you, even as you pushed it aside, and it could come out at any time. We all controlled it in our own ways. Over the years I’ve known guys who had lucky charms, some who prayed before battle, still others who played different mind games with themselves. Some of them focused anger and rage; others relied on a sense of discipline.
When you start to lose your control, even a little, it becomes harder to get it back. Doubts prey on your confidence, and eventually the fear that you won’t be able to regain control adds its own pressure. Marines, especially veterans like Harden, didn’t like to talk about this kind of thing, so if he was coming to me it was probably really bad.
“Sam, you’re one of the guys who pulled me through when I got here. You’ve done it for other guys too…I’ve seen it.” I was trying to sound upbeat and supportive, but I really had no idea what to say. I was so green I barely knew how I kept myself together. “This place gets to everybody sooner or later. Don’t let it eat away at you. When it’s important, you’ll be ready. There’s no one here I’d rather have backing me up.”
He sat quietly for a minute then he turned and looked at me. “Four partners. Four partners I’ve lost here.” He looked down at his feet.
“Sam, that has nothing to do with you. We’re in a dangerous business.” I frowned, though of course he couldn’t see that in armor. The next time I heard that jinx bullshit being joked about I was going to have a talk with whoever started it. “Not one of them got hit because of anything you did.”
“I know you’re right.” His voice was really unsteady. “But still, I should have been able to do something, kept them safer somehow.”
He really sounded like shit. I was in way over my head. My first thought was, he shouldn’t be in battle right now. But what could I do? I wanted to run to the lieutenant and tell him about this, or at least the squad leader. It was the hardest situation I’d run into since I’d been in the Corps. Harden had come to me in confidence. He’d be furious if I ratted him out. It felt wrong. But letting him go back to the line in his current condition didn’t seem any better. I talked to him a while longer, trying to make him feel better, all the while trying to decide what to do.
In the end, I got up and walked away and kept my mouth shut. It was a mistake I have regretted ever since. I didn’t know it then, but we were about to get called back to the lines, and Harden would be dead in two hours, him and Quincy both. I was never sure exactly what happened; I thin
k he got rattled and decided to move the SAW, and they ended up exposed and were chopped up by enemy fire. By the time I got over there they were both dead, riddled by half a dozen rounds each. They’d had a good position; if they’d stayed put they probably would have been fine.
Things were hot on the line when they got hit, so I didn’t have time for grief or guilt. But a few hours later, when the situation calmed down for a while, I just sat on the ground in shock. My stomach clenched, and I wretched, though there wasn’t much in my digestive tract to come up but a little foam. My suit’s systems tried to clean up inside my helmet, doing a fairly reasonable job.
It was my fault; I knew it was my fault. I didn’t want to betray Harden’s confidence…I wanted to be a good friend. So I didn’t tell anybody he was too unnerved to go back into the line. I didn’t do anything.
Harden died thinking of me as a friend, but I failed him when he needed me. We were more than friends; we were comrades in arms. I owed him more than he got from me. He was my brother, and I didn’t have his back. He thought I did, and I thought so too, but that was superficial. I could have saved his life, but I didn’t. A live Harden who hated me the rest of his life would have been a thousand times better than a dead friend whose confidence I’d kept.
I never forgot the lesson I learned that day.
Chapter 9
2252 AD
McCraw’s Ridge
Central Sector – “The Cauldron”
Day Three
Delta Trianguli I
We were in the middle of the third day of the biggest battle ever fought on Tombstone. Our estimates of enemy strength on the planet turned out to be wildly inaccurate. My distrust of intelligence services, which would continue to increase at an exponential rate over the years, started that day. It wasn’t the last time I’d see bad intel, but it was the last time I’d believe it.