by Rick Shelley
It’ll be easier after you’ve been under fire for the first time and survived, he told himself. Don’t worry about it now. You’ve done everything possible to prepare.
He went back to picturing the LZ, rehearsing in his mind the things he was supposed to do when the shuttle touched down and the doors opened. He concentrated on recalling every detail of the pictures of the LZ—hills on two sides, trees on the other sides, the direction that the squad was supposed to go to establish its section of the LZ perimeter.
“The hangar has been depressurized,” the shuttle crew chief’s voice said over a speaker. “We’re opening the outer door now.” Lon could feel, rather than hear, the heavy gears that lifted the door open. With no air in the hangar, the vibrations were transferred through the metal of lander and hangar floor. The door was eighty feet by a hundred, seventeen feet thick.
The grapple lifted the shuttle from the hangar floor and moved it out through the door, its boom telescoping to full extension. As a final gesture, nozzles in the grapple head released bursts of compressed air to move the shuttle farther from the ship before the lander’s own maneuvering thrusters were used. The motions were gentle, easy. The hangar crew and the shuttle’s pilots were all experienced, capable.
We’re on our way, Lon thought as he felt himself moving against the straps of his safety harness when the shuttle lost the ship’s artificial gravity. More than thirty minutes had passed since he had strapped himself in. He tried not to think of the next wait, while the entire battalion formed up near Long Snake. This one would not be as long. There were only nine shuttles in the assault group—two for each line company, the last for Colonel Flowers and battalion headquarters.
Eight minutes later, Lieutenant Taiters announced, “Hang on, we’re going in hot,” over his all-hands radio channel. Twenty seconds after that, the shuttle’s main engines throttled up and the craft started accelerating toward Norbank.
A civilian passenger shuttle would let gravity do most of the work of taking it from orbit to the surface of a world, perhaps taking half an orbit of the planet to get to the ground. A “hot” landing by military assault shuttles was different. They would nose over, aiming almost directly for the landing zone, and use their rockets to push their acceleration well beyond that of gravity, trusting in the materials they were constructed of to resist the incredible heat and stresses as they entered the atmosphere. Air would do some of the braking for the shuttle. Then it would spread air brakes and fire retrorockets—as late as possible—to slow it for a short landing. The idea was to give any waiting defenders as little time as possible to react.
The push and pull of gravity stresses were calculated to the limits of human endurance. For troops in the back of a shuttle there could be thirty seconds of near grayout. Lon felt as if he were being compressed into a two-dimensional object as the shuttle’s acceleration peaked. Then the pull was reversed. He hurt. Blood pressed against his skin, as if seeking to escape. His face tingled painfully, as if thawing from frostbite.
Then the shuttle was on the ground. The craft continued to use its engines to brake. Lon was thrown against his straps, then back. For the first time in what seemed like an hour, he was able to take a full breath without difficulty.
“Lock and load!” Lieutenant Taiters shouted over his all-hands channel. Bolts were run on rifles to put a round in the chamber; safeties were switched off. “Up and out!” Noncoms echoed the call. Hatches opened. Squads started moving toward their assigned exits. Everyone knew which door to use.
Lon stayed right on Tebba Girana’s heels as they left the shuttle. The corporal veered left, and trotted toward the tree line some eighty yards away. Lon moved in perfect formation, bringing his rifle up to port arms. Weighed down with more than sixty pounds of equipment, neither man moved particularly fast.
For one brief moment, Lon had the vertiginous sensation of having stepped into a photograph. The angle was not the same, but there was enough in the view that clicked for the feeling to grab him. He squeezed his eyes shut, just slightly longer than a blink, and looked around, forcing himself past the moment.
The rest of the squad was close by, moving in a shallow wedge on either side of Tebba and Lon. They could all hear the sounds of the other shuttles starting to come in, before they reached the treeline and the perimeter they were to establish. The one thing they did not hear was gunfire.
I guess it worked, Lon thought as he went to ground. We got down safely, away from any rebels. The window of vulnerability was already near its end. The last shuttles were landing. Half of the battalion was moving to defensive positions, while the shuttle crews manned their guns and rocket launchers. An enemy attacking now would find its hands full.
The line of afternoon shadows encompassed most of the clearing, but sun still shined brightly on the slopes of the hills on the other side of the landing zone. It was not yet dark, even under the trees, but the shadows were thick, the lighting dim and green-tinged. There was a thick, earthy smell—soil and rotting organic debris. Where the duff was disturbed, the odor was more noticeable. Lon’s nose twitched, and he fought the urge to sneeze.
He concentrated on scanning the forest in front of him. The squad, the entire company, was down on the ground in a loose line twenty yards inside the forested area. There was little undergrowth. The life here was high, in the canopy, where there was sunlight to fight for. Most of the trees snowed no branches lower than fifteen feet, and some extended twice that high before branching. Most of the trees were deciduous. They appeared something like oaks or maples from Earth, though Lon thought that they were almost certainly species native to Norbank. The colony had not been in existence long enough for imported species to take over a wild area so completely and grow to such heights.
There’s nothing moving out there, Lon thought, looking over the barrel of his rifle. He had more than just his own eyes to base that conclusion on. Sensors in his helmet, cameras and directional microphones, were far more sensitive—in both frequency and range. They were showing nothing man-high moving in the shadows, where Lon could not see. Nor were there any alarms from anyone else.
“Okay, people, we’re moving,” Platoon Sergeant Dendrow said over third platoon’s channel. “The vector is two-six-five degrees. First and second platoons, skirmish line. Third and fourth, follow thirty yards back. The shuttles are ready to take off. We’ve got to make sure there are no surprises close enough to be dangerous.” The shuttles were too important, and too inviting as targets, to leave them on the ground idle. They would return to the ship, although—with no enemy flyers to worry about—one or two might be kept available to provide close air support, flying a pattern over the area high enough to be safe from ground-fired rockets.
Lon got to his feet as soon as Corporal Girana did. The first two platoons moved away from the initial perimeter. As soon as they were thirty yards out, Lieutenant Taiters had his two platoons moving into position behind them. Lon checked the compass reading on the head-up display on his visor, making certain that they were on the right heading. Then he noticed Girana turning to make sure that the cadet was where he had been told to be. Tebba nodded, just slightly, satisfied.
“Keep your eyes open, Nolan,” he said over a private channel. “This may look like a piece of cake right now, but things can change in a hurry.” Lon nodded back, and Girana turned his eyes to the front again.
The first skirmish line had gone only a hundred yards before Lon heard the shuttles throttling up and taking off. There was little separation between one and the next. They took off toward the east, away from Norbank City and the greatest concentration of rebel forces. Once they were out of the atmosphere, and far away from the threat of rebel attack, they could stooge around until all of them could dock with Long Snake, or be assigned to stay out to provide surveillance and ground support.
At least we’ll have a ride out of here when this is over, Lon thought, trying to combat the irrational feeling that they had been deserted by the shuttle
s.
The advance of A Company was stopped by Colonel Flowers. The four platoons took up defensive positions, first and second across the front, third and fourth on the flanks and rear. The men were told not to dig in. “We won’t be here that long.”
The wait seemed long enough to Lon. He was prone, looking around one side of a tree. Corporal Girana was next to him, his rifle on the other side of the tree. If an attack came, there was not much cover for either man.
“They’re getting everyone situated so we can move toward the city,” Girana explained to Nolan after getting that information on a noncoms’ circuit. “Delta Company has the farthest to go. It’ll be ten minutes before they’re in position.” The corporal switched to his squad channel before he continued. “Get a drink, whether you’re thirsty or not. And keep your eyes open. Bravo Company will be moving up on our flank. I don’t want anyone getting trigger-happy and shooting at them.”
The battalion would move in three separate columns, A, B, and C companies. D Company would provide rear guard, spread across all three columns. In the center would be Company A, B to the left, C to the right. The latter two companies would send flankers out. A Company would be responsible for sending scouts out in front. The platoons would take turns, if necessary, providing a squad for scouting. Fourth platoon would be followed by third. Corporal Girana had already been told that his squad would get the call. “We’ll catch all the pit scraps this contract,” Girana had told Nolan aboard ship. “That goes with having a cadet to baptize.”
The shadows were deepening into darkness. Twilight faded rapidly under the forest canopy. Night-vision systems switched on automatically, giving a more garish green tinge to the scene. The system was not perfect. It gave a man about 70 percent of daylight vision. Contrasts were reduced, and resolution faded with distance, more rapidly than it did in daylight, but there was enough to let an infantryman operate freely in the dark.
Lon looked around. In camouflage battledress and helmets, it was impossible to distinguish who was who. Janno and Gen were easy. They were the largest men in the squad, Janno thin and Gen Radnor stocky. Phip was the shortest, but only by a narrow margin; still, Lon was used to the way Phip moved, the way he held himself. He was close to Lon, as was Janno. The man just beyond Janno was probably Dean Ericks, but only because that was the usual arrangement.
There was movement, finally, off to the left, in the distance. Lon tapped Tebba Girana on the shoulder and pointed. Girana nodded. “That’s Bravo moving in,” he said. “We’ve already verified that.”
Meaning I didn’t spot them soon enough, Lon thought.
Less than a minute later, Girana was on the squad channel. “There’s been one slight change in plan. We’re going out on point first instead of fourth platoon.”
My fault, Lon thought. They want to get me out where something’s likely to happen as soon as possible. See what I do.
“On your feet; let’s go,” Girana said, matching his own actions to the words. “Two columns, by fire teams. Keep the columns close until we pass first and second platoons. Then we’ll separate, thirty yards between columns, ten yards between men.” He switched channels to talk to Lon. “I don’t want you quite that far from me, Nolan, five yards, right behind me.”
Inside their thin camouflage gloves, Lon’s palms were sweating. “I’ll be there, Tebba,” he said.
Girana was the third man back in the left-hand column. He put Janno and Dean out in front, on point. They were the squad’s best men for that job. They would alternate positions if the squad remained on scout duty for long.
“We’ve got to move fast until we get out where we’re supposed to be,” Girana said after his squad had started moving. “Then we play it slow and cautious, the way it’s supposed to be. But the battalion is going to be ready to move in four minutes. Anything past that is our holdup.”
The scouts would determine the speed of the advance. It was up to the advance squad to search for any enemy or their land mines and booby traps, to trigger any ambushes, or spot them before they could be sprung, and make certain that the route was as safe as possible.
“We’re not picking up any enemy electronics,” Girana said as they neared the line that the first two platoons of A Company were holding, “but we can’t count on that as meaning anything against amateurs. They might not have electronics for most of their people.”
It would be different up against a well-equipped enemy. Standard battle helmets with their radios, sensors, and computers provided a means of locating and identifying them, unless their shielding was better than the detecting ability of the enemy.
Lon’s squad passed through the gap between first and second platoons and spread out. Intervals were easy to measure—the sensors in each battle helmet could give it to within inches—but everyone knew not to make them too exact. That would make it too easy for an enemy to target them. The “ten yards” between men varied between eight and fifteen. The columns varied the distance between them as well, only partly in response to changes in the lay of the land, getting closer or farther apart.
As soon as he passed the line of prone infantrymen that marked the front of A Company, Lon felt a difference. He knew that it was all in his mind, but the forest felt different once the squad was out in front of the rest of the battalion, alone, exposed, expected to make first contact with any waiting enemy. His pulse quickened. His senses seemed to become more acute, more alert. He kept his eyes moving from side to side—not erratically but in a careful pattern—searching for anything that might be the harbinger of trouble. He strained to hear even the softest sound in the green darkness.
Once they were well out in front of their comrades, the squad did not move at any great speed. The pace was more that of a casual stroll, with the man on point stopping occasionally to scan a hundred and eighty degrees. When the point stopped, the rest of the squad stopped as well, waiting for the man in front to signal that all was well and to start moving forward again.
There shouldn’t be any mines or booby traps anywhere along here, Lon reasoned. The rebels didn’t have any warning where we would set down. They couldn’t know where to plant them, and they can’t have so many that they could put them everywhere we might land. The logic was irrefutable—but almost irrelevant. It would only take one. Lon swallowed. His mouth was dry. The rest of him was bathed in sweat.
He glanced over his shoulder. The rest of A Company was moving now, more than a hundred yards behind the last man in the point squad. The other columns must be moving as well, Lon thought, but he could not see them. Their points would be a bit behind A Company as well. The overall deployment would look something like an arrow, with the center column’s point squad a barb on the tip of the arrowhead.
In the first half hour, the battalion covered little more than a single mile. When Colonel Flowers ordered a five-minute halt, the point squad went on another fifty yards, giving themselves that much more of a lead over the rest before stopping—just long enough for the men to squat and take a drink of water, arranged in a semicircle, everyone looking out, still watching for the enemy.
“Remember, don’t count on spotting electronics first,” Girana warned the squad. “There could be several hundred of them waiting without anything to give them away.”
A half dozen rifles opened up at once—semiautomatic weapons—and without the warning of helmet electronics. Fifteen minutes had passed since the battalion had finished its break and started moving again. The point squad was a hundred and fifty yards in front of the rest of A Company. The gunfire came from their left, and farther ahead, at about a thirty-degree angle to the line of march.
Lon heard someone fairly close to him grunt in pain, but he could not tell who it was. He was already diving for the ground, and bringing his rifle into firing position. He had seen the bright dots of muzzle flashes.
“About a hundred and twenty yards,” Lon said on his channel to Corporal Girana. “I saw where they were.”
Girana did not an
swer directly. On the squad frequency, he said, “Return fire, and get yourselves into the best cover you can.” There was a pause before he asked, “Who got hit?”
“Me, Raiz,” a voice said, obviously through clenched teeth. “Left shoulder. Something’s broke.”
“I’m with him, Tebba,” Harvey Fehr’s voice said. “I’ll get him patched up.”
“Right,” Girana said. “Dav, you stay with them. The rest of you, let’s go. We’ve got to keep those guns occupied until Bravo Company can get a platoon around to the side.”
As soon as they got to their feet again, moving low, bent over almost double, the men of Lon’s squad came under fire again. There were more than six rebel weapons being shot now.
7
The squad shifted into a skirmish line as they got up and started running, and they spread out. Lon stayed close to Tebba, never more than five or six yards to the side, and usually a step or two behind. They all ran from cover to cover, firing on the move, stopping to get better shots whenever they had a tree to shelter behind. Half of the squad would lay down covering fire with rifles and grenade launchers while the rest moved forward to the next cover. They did not charge directly at the enemy positions, but angled to the right, closing only slowly, more interested in taking the least dangerous route.
Air came hard to Lon. I shouldn’t be gasping for breath, he thought as he squatted behind a tree and dragged in a lungful, and then a second. We haven’t run that far. He held his breath long enough to sight in on a muzzle flash and fire a short burst toward it. He repeated that with the next spot of light he saw in the distance. Then it was time to get up and move again.