by Jay Allan
Still, we were gradually being pushed back from the ridgeline. The enemy’s third wave came pouring over the rocks, and we had nothing left to face them. I was standing against the outcropping, with enemy troops climbing over to my right and left. I crouched down and fired as they came over, facing left for a second than switching to the right. I heard the autoloader slamming my last clip into place, and I knew things would be over soon. We were being overrun at every point, and enemy troops were racing to the rear. The snipers’ positions were compromised, and one by one they were taken out.
I was determined to go down fighting and not panic, but it’s hard to stay cool when you know you’re likely to die at any instant. I just kept firing, using small bursts now to conserve my last ammo, and somehow I didn’t get hit. My heart was pounding and I could feel the sweat trickling down my back. I just kept fighting, waiting for the inevitable end. My resolve was strong, but my mind wandered. I wondered if it would hurt. Would I die in an instant, never knowing what hit me? Or in agony, bleeding into my armor, choking on the Tombstone’s toxic atmosphere?
I was so focused I wasn’t even watching the scanner. If I had been I would have seen them. Reinforcements, a whole company, running forward with blades out, into the melee. The enemy, weakened by the staggering losses they had already taken, turned to face the new threat. But now they were on the defensive, their momentum lost. They fought bitterly, but in the end our fresh reserves were too much for them. The troops who’d made it over the ridge were almost entirely wiped out and their reserve waves, seeing that the attack had failed, retreated.
It was the first significant battle I’d been in, and we’d won. I was glad, but I didn’t feel the elation I’d expected, just crushing fatigue, and the somber realization of the losses we’d suffered. As the adrenalin and anger subsided, pain and sadness took its place. It had been a hard several days, but we’d proven our worth. And we’d met the Janissaries head on and bested them.
It had been a difficult and costly day, but it wasn’t over yet. The enemy had spent their strength on that last attack and, while we were just as battered, we’d managed to stabilize our greatly thinned line. A counterattack was out of the question, but we were in good shape to repel anything they had left to throw at us. But both sides remained on their respective ridges, trading sporadic long-range fire.
The lieutenant walked over to me, crouched low behind the ridge. He was working his way down the reduced frontage of the vastly shrunken platoon, checking on each of us. There were only fifteen of us left in the line, though of the 35 casualties, about 20 were wounded or suffering from suit malfunctions. Maybe ten were wounded lightly enough that they’d be treated right here on Tombstone and return to duty fairly quickly. The rest would be shipped off to one of the Marine hospitals, probably Armstrong, and likely be reassigned elsewhere when they recovered.
A unit is an odd thing; it has a life of its own. The traditions, history, and achievements create a culture that survives, even as the soldiers themselves come and go. The men and women die or get reassigned, but the unit goes on, remaining much the same as it was…as long as it doesn’t lose too many people too quickly. With about half of the personnel still standing or likely to return soon, I was confident the platoon would remain the place I’d come to think of as home. Especially with the lieutenant. I knew he’d make sure it stayed the same.
He was about ten meters from me when it happened. He was facing in my direction, walking right toward me. He was very hands on, and he wanted to see firsthand that each of us was ok. He was just passing a section of the rocky wall that dipped low, forcing him to crouch further down to stay in cover. I saw it all, and to this day I remember it as it were in slow motion.
He turned suddenly. I don’t know if someone from behind commed him, and he instinctively turned or he saw something on his scanner, but he spun around, and when he did he came up out of his crouch. It was careless, a small slip made by the most careful and consistent man I’d ever met. That one time he lost his focus, let his guard slip. One small mistake that 99 times out of 100 would have been harmless. But that day it was tragic.
I saw his head snap back hard. His body seemed suspended in the air, though I know that is just my memory of it. He crumpled and fell, sliding down the slight embankment and landing on his back.
I rushed over, screaming into the com for a medic as I did. I can’t remember if I kept my own head down in my panic, but if I was careless, my fortune was stronger that day than the lieutenant’s. He was lying with his head on the low side of the slope. I reached over and cradled his upper body, lifting his head as I did.
The sniper’s shot had struck him in the neck, tearing a huge gash in his armor. The suit’s repair circuits had managed to patch the breach with self-expanding polymer, and while it didn’t look too secure, it was keeping out Tombstone’s heat and toxins for the moment.
But the wound itself was mortal. In a hospital he could have been easily saved. If I could have opened his armor, a medic could probably have kept him alive until he was evac’d…even I might have managed it. But opening the suit would kill him on the spot, and the wound was just too much for the suit’s trauma control system, which was damaged by the shot and only partially functional.
He turned his head slightly to look up at me. “Darius…” His voice was throaty, labored. His lungs were filling with his own blood.
“Yes, sir? I’m here.” My heart was pounding, and I was in shock, but I was determined to be strong for him, as I knew we would be for me. “What can I do for you, sir?”
“Tell the men and women.” He was rasping, coughing up blood, trying to get the words out. “Tell them I am proud…” - he coughed again, trying to continue speaking through the gurgling sounds - “…proud of them. Tell them I was honored to lead them, and…” - more coughing - “…and tell them I know they will always make me proud.”
“Yes, sir.” I was fighting back a sea of tears, but there was nothing more important to me than to be there for this man in that place.
“Darius?” He turned his head. “Darius?” He was slipping away, not sure where he was.
“I’m here, sir. It’s Darius.”
His voice was weak, almost inaudible. My AI automatically cranked up the volume so I could hear. “Tell them I’m proud to die here with so many of our brothers and sisters.” He went into another coughing spasm and he started speaking incomprehensibly, hallucinating about something, though I couldn’t tell what. I had lots of chatter on my com, from others in the platoon, from the medic I could see trotting over…but I shut it all down except for the lieutenant’s line.
Finally, he stopped the random talking and his coughing subsided. He turned his head slightly, further in my direction, and he said, “The Corps forever.” He was silent after that, and I knew he was gone. The medic knelt down, but I told him it was too late. A great Marine was dead.
His last thoughts, dying painfully on a hellish world far from home, were for us, for the platoon he’d loved and protected and led with such dedication. People speak of duty and devotion, but the lieutenant had lived it to his last breath. He was a good man sent to an impossible place, and I can’t even count how many of his soldiers he pulled through that nightmarish campaign. We lived, many of us, to leave Tombstone, but we left him behind, having given his last full measure to the Corps.
Chapter 10
2253 AD
Armstrong Medical Center
Armstrong Colony
Gamma Pavonis III
I'd like to say I left Tombstone triumphantly, amid victory parades and celebrations, but that's not how it happened. I didn't march out at all; I left as a casualty, unconscious and kept alive by machines. I'd come through the battle of McCraw's Ridge, fighting non-stop for three days without a scratch, but it was a tiny skirmish three weeks later that took me down. My squad was on a routine sweep of the perimeter when my luck ran out. We encountered an enemy patrol and exchanged a few shots before both side
s broke off. Nobody had a stomach for a serious fight, not so soon after the Cauldron.
But those few shots were enough. One of the rounds caught me in the shoulder, and as far as I know, I was the only one hit. It wasn't a bad wound, but it impacted at a strange angle, tearing a large chunk off my armor. On a more hospitable world it would have been minor, but we were on Tombstone. The repair system in my suit tried to restore atmospheric integrity, but the hole was just too big. The corporal managed to get a manual patch over it, but not before I'd breathed a half a lungful of Tombstone's noxious atmosphere. It was as if I'd inhaled fire; the pain was unbearable. I felt like I was suffocating and burning to death both. I could feel the blood pouring out of my nose and welling up in my throat. It was only a second or two before the suit's trauma control kicked in and flooded my system with painkillers and tranqs, but that instant stretched out like an eternity, and it was nothing but relief when the darkness finally took me.
As I faded away I was sure I was done, but they got me out of there and into a med unit back at base. My lungs were a total loss; the unit would be doing my breathing until I was evac'd to a facility with regeneration capability. My suit’s trauma control had put me out on the field, and the medical AI kept me in an induced coma, so my last view of Tombstone was the one I had just after I was shot. When I finally came to it was weeks later and in a much more hospitable environment - the Marine hospital on Armstrong, surrounded by doctors and med techs. I woke up and took a painless deep breath, and it was a minute before I'd regained enough presence of mind to be surprised by that fact.
My chest was a little sore from the transplantation surgery, but my brand new lungs, exact copies of the ones I had before, worked perfectly, and my shoulder and other injuries had long since healed. I had a few weeks of observation and physical therapy ahead of me, but then I was on my way to a month's leave and a new posting.
The Corps tried to return wounded soldiers to their original units, but with the time and distances involved it just wasn't always feasible. Although I wouldn't miss Tombstone, I was sorry I wasn't going back to my old platoon. They were my brothers and sisters; I'd shared the danger and death of the front lines with them, and they had carried me back when I got hit, when even I had given myself up as lost. They saved my life; they were there for me when I needed them. Just like Captain Jackson had told me more than six years before.
I hated leaving for another reason. A unit is like a living organism; it can wither and die without the support it needs. When I left, the platoon was still reeling from the loss of the lieutenant. The wound was still raw, the grief palpable. They'd get a new CO - they probably had one already - but it would be a long time before anyone filled the void left behind.
The platoon is a dynamic entity. It's pride, its battle history, its traditions - they remain. But the men and women come and go. Marines die, they get wounded, they get promoted or transferred. Slowly but steadily, the living memory of the lieutenant would fade. He would become less the source of raw pain and loss and more an honored entry in the unit's history.
For me, though, the memory would always be there, and it would never fade. Up to that point, no one had impacted my life as strongly as the lieutenant had, and I can't begin to list the things he taught me. I only knew him for the six months I'd served under him, but he was the first person who truly won my unreserved respect. I can't think of anything more meaningful to say than this - Lieutenant Brett Reynolds was a truly good man in a universe that had very few of those. I resolved that my career would be a tribute to him. I would live up to his expectations; I would become the type of Marine he had been, the kind he wanted me to be.
I wish I could say that the years long struggle on Tombstone ended in glorious victory, but I can't. When the war became official, the Caliphate hit the planet with thousands of new troops, backed up with a naval task force. Cut off from resupply or reinforcement, our units on the ground held out the best they could. One by one the enemy captured our firebases and mining settlements, pushing our people into an ever-shrinking perimeter. As far as I know, none of the troops posted on Tombstone when war was declared ever made it out. My old unit had rotated off-planet long before then, so I didn't know any of the men and women who were sacrificed there. But they all hurt. They were all my brothers and sisters...all Marines.
The soldiers that had been lost there over a decade were expended wastefully, sent by a government that was too greedy to share the wealth of the planet and too cowardly to fight hard enough to win. The politicians had viewed the monthly loss rates on Tombstone as a cost of doing business. That sort of calculus repulsed me, and for the first time I thought – really thought – about how the Alliance was governed. The ultimate futility of if all only made the suffering and waste that much more bitter.
Chapter 11
2257 AD
AS Guadalcanal
En route to Tau Ceti III
The wardroom of the Guadalcanal was sparse, just a few bare metal tables and about a dozen chairs. She was an older ship, a fast assault vessel of the Peleliu class, and she showed her age. My last posting had been on the Gallipoli, one of the first ships of the new Ypres class, slated to replace the old Pelelius. The newer ships were no more spacious - real estate on a spaceship was always at a premium - but the common areas were definitely nicer.
I'd bounced around to several units over the last few years, the result of my unfortunate streak of getting wounded in each of my first three assignments. After my third wound I got another transfer and my promotion to corporal. I made two drops as the junior two-striper in the squad and then I was transferred here to take over my own fire team. Just about half my military career had been spent in the hospital, and each time I got the best care possible, just as Captain Jackson said I would.
The war that everyone had been anticipating while I was on Tombstone finally became official. The Third Frontier War had begun, and we were fighting both the Caliphate and the Central Asian Combine. We had our hands full, outnumbered and facing more threats that we could effectively counter.
I was waiting in the wardroom to meet the platoon's senior corporal, who was going to help me get acclimated and introduce me to the four other members of my fire team. I needed to get them comfortable with me quickly, because we were on the way to an assault, and it was a big one. Tau Ceti III was the Caliphate's largest and most important colony world, and a major strategic hub. We’d been pushed back in the first two years of widespread fighting, but now we were taking the offensive; we were taking the war to the enemy. Operation Achilles would be the biggest assault in the history of warfare in space, and every reserve, every logistical asset that could be scraped up had been committed. I was anxious and hopeful, determined that my fire team would be among the best in the entire operation.
My thoughts were interrupted when the hatch slid open and a man in a slightly rumpled set of duty fatigues walked in. He was around my age, maybe a year or two younger. His brown hair was closely cut but still somehow just slightly messy. I'd become very "by the book" military, and I was always meticulous with my uniform and my appearance, a trait I obviously didn't share with my new acquaintance.
"Corporal Jax?" I got up as he walked over. "I'm Erik Cain." He extended his hand. "I'd like to welcome you to the platoon."
I clasped his hand and we shook. He was fairly tall, but when I stood up I towered over him. "The pleasure is mine Corporal Cain."
"Please, sit." He motioned toward the chair where I'd been seated, and he dropped into the one next to it. "You are taking over a good team, one of the best. I know, because they were mine." He was friendly, but I could also tell he was taking his measure of me. As I was doing with him.
"I can promise you I will do my best to look after them, Corporal Cain."
He smiled and leaned back in his chair. "I appreciate that. And it's Erik, please."
"I'm Darius." I relaxed a bit in my chair, though my posture was still better than his. "I want to thank you
for taking the time to welcome me into the unit. I know how close-knit a group a good platoon can be. The troops can be a little apprehensive when they get a commander from outside rather than one promoted from within."
He nodded approvingly; it was clear he had similar thoughts. "I completely agree." He was looking right at me, his eyes boring into mine. "I've read your file, Darius. I'm sure you'll be a great addition. But if I can help get you off on the right foot with the troops, it's the least I can do." There was a soft buzzing sound - he was getting a message on his earpiece. "Excuse me, Darius, I just have to attend to something quickly." He was getting up as he spoke. "I shouldn't be more than ten minutes, and then we'll go meet your team."
"No rush. I'll be here when you get back."
He looked back over his shoulder. "Help yourself." He pointed toward the dispensers on the far wall. "Believe it or not, the coffee's actually pretty good." The hatch slid open. "I'll be right back." He walked out into the corridor, and the door closed behind him.
I didn't know it then, of course, but I had just met someone who would be very important to me, a trusted colleague and my closest friend. I had respected the lieutenant and some of the other troops I'd fought with, but Erik was the first real friend I ever had. We would fight side by side for years, and climb the ranks together. He would save my life more than once, and I would save his, and the two of us would face challenges neither of us could have imagined sitting in that wardroom.
But looming ahead of us before any of that was Operation Achilles. Morale was good; we were anxious to get at the enemy, to end the war in one bold stroke. Of course, that wasn't to be. Achilles turned out to be a bloody mess, a disaster that almost lost us the war then and there. We had some dark and difficult days ahead of us.