Issue In Doubt (23 page)

When they were seated, Bauer asked, “Is it usually that windy here?”

“No, sir. It’s just that the ground has been so thoroughly cleared around the air field that there’s nothing to break the wind.”

Bauer nodded his understanding, then got to the reason he was visiting the Marines in Jordan.

“You haven’t found any way they could have gotten into the basements before the attacks?”

“That’s right, sir. That’s why I requested engineers with ground penetrating radar. There have to be tunnels below the houses, and hidden entrance into the basements. So far, none of my people have been able to find an egress.”

“You’re going to show me some of the houses.” It wasn’t a question.

“Our first stop is one of the houses India Company’s third platoon was in. It was one of the most successful at fighting off the aliens.”

Bauer thought for a moment. “India’s first platoon. One of its squads wiped out a couple of squads worth of the aliens on Mini Mouse, didn’t it?”

“Yes, sir. The very squad we’re about to visit, as a matter of fact.”

“And they were one of the most successful in repelling the aliens here?”

“That’s right, sir.”

Bauer grunted. “Experience makes all the difference in the world.”

Number 8, Sugar Clover Place, Jordan, Eastern Shapland

“Attention on deck!” Lance Corporal Mackie shouted when he saw Bauer and the other officers step onto the house’s veranda. He raced to the door, threw it open, and stepped aside at attention. Bauer graced him with a curt nod as he walked in.

“Who’s in command here?” he asked.

“Second Lieutenant Commiskey, sir,” Davis answered.

“Were you in this house during the fight, Mr. Commiskey?” Bauer asked.

“No, sir. That was Sergeant Martin,” Commiskey said. “He was in command here during the fight.”

“You were involved in your own firefight at the time?”

“That’s right, sir.”

“We’ll get to that later. Right now I want to find out about this one.” Bauer looked at the other Marines in the room. “Sergeant Martin?”

“Here, sir.” Martin took a step toward the general.

“Walk me through it, Sergeant.”

“Aye aye, sir. It started when Lance Corporal Mackie, he’s the one by the door, saw a Duster in the doorway. . .”

“Duster?” Bauer interrupted Martin.

“Yes, sir. Those feather things on their tails make them look like feather dusters. So we’re calling them ‘Dusters’ for short.”

“This squad has had more contact with them than any other, you’ve earned the right to name them. So that’s what I’ll call the aliens, too. Dusters. Continue, please.”

“Yes, sir. Mackie saw a Duster in the dining room door and blew him away.”

“Sir,” Mackie said, “by your leave, General, sir, it was PFC Orndoff who saw the Duster first.”

“But you shot it?”

“Yes, sir, I did.”

“Very good.” Bauer turned back to Martin. “You were saying, Sergeant.”

“Right, sir. After PFC Orndoff saw the Duster and Lance Corporal Mackie shot it. . . .” Martin related the battle, showing Bauer the captured weapons, the blood stains on the flooring, and the rooms the action took place in, finishing in the basement. “We can’t figure out how they got down here. There has to be a hidden doorway, because we checked this place from top to bottom when we first moved in, and the basement was empty.”

“Are you saying you checked because you wanted to make sure there wasn’t anybody hiding here?”

“No, sir,” Martin said with an embarrassed laugh. “We were looking to see if there was anything left behind that we could use.”

“Of course. Now, where are the bodies?”

“They’re in the back, sir,” Commiskey said, “waiting to be picked up.”

“Show me.”

Behind the house were two rows of bent corpses; legs that wouldn’t go straight along the axis of the bodies, long necks that held serpentine curves even in death. There were ten corpses in each row, naked except for leather-like straps with pouches on them.

Bauer looked at Martin. “Now your casualties.”

“Lance Corporal Garcia, sir.” Martin indicated a Marine with bandaged arms. “He’s the only one.”

“And you had two prisoners?”

“
Had
is the right word, sir. One of them died. That one.” He pointed to a corpse at the end of the nearer row. “Battalion S2 collected the live one.”

Bauer spent a moment looking at the alien corpses, then at Garcia.

“Mr. Commiskey, how many casualties did your platoon have in total?”

“Sir, we had two KIA and six wounded, including Lance Corporal Garcia.”

“Against how many aliens?”

“More than sixty, sir.”

Bauer nodded, as though to himself. “All in confined spaces, rather than in the open.”

“That’s right, sir.”

The general turned back to Martin. “You have an outstanding squad, Sergeant. He looked at the rest of the squad. “All of you. You performed here today in the highest tradition of the Marine Corps.” Back to Martin: “Is there anything you could have used to make your victory more decisive?”

“Yes, sir, there is.” Martin glanced at the bodies. “They move fast, and really jink when they run. Just like in the vids we saw onboard ship coming here, and like we ran into on Mini Mouse. We need scatter guns. Weapons that will hit a rapidly moving target with something other than a lucky shot. If they hadn’t been in confined spaces, if they’d been able to move like they can in the open, we might have been in serious trouble.”

“I’ll see what I can do. Semper Fi, Marines. Let me say again, you did an outstanding job.” Bauer turned to walk around the side of the house.

“I want to see a couple more squads, make sure one of them is one that didn’t do so well,” Bauer said to Davis. “I also want to see a company command element and your headquarters.”

He said to Upshur, “Make a note, I am requesting thirty thousand shotguns, and a month’s supply of ammunition for them.”

Back to Davis, “I understand that your command elements had higher casualty rates than the squads did, is that correct?”

“Yes, sir, it is,” Davis said, sounding distinctly unhappy. “I lost twenty-three officers and seventeen staff NCOs. Most of the elements were smaller than the squads, and none of them were as well armed.”

“Do whatever reorganizing you have to in order to rebuild your command structures. I’ll see what I can do about replacing officers and senior NCOs.” He paused in thought for a second. “Some of the losses can be made up with promotions and brevet commissions from the ranks. Look into who deserves it.”

They reached the ground car. Bauer paused before getting in, looking at the sky and surrounding trees. “It’s amazing how trees can cut down on the wind.”

After Davis gave the driver direction to their next stop, Bauer asked Davis about the rest of the battalion’s casualties.

“In addition to the casualties in the various command groups, I lost more than fifty NCOs and junior enlisted, both KIA and wounded badly enough to require evacuation to ship-board medical facilities.”

Bauer refrained from asking how many aliens had died. “Let’s get on with this show.”

Admiral’s Cabin, NAUS Durango, in Orbit Around Troy

Ships of the NAU Navy that were configured for flagship designation had marvelous capabilities undreamt of by any other than the most pie-in-the-sky dreamers of earlier naval planners. Among them was the automatic monitoring of all friendly communications in nearby space, including planetary surfaces and atmospheres. And monitor surface communications was exactly what Rear Admiral Avery did during the alien attack on the Marines in Jordan.

“Distraught” was not too strong a word to use in describing Avery’s state of mind at the time. He was still extremely upset over the nearly total loss of ARG 17 and still blamed himself for the loss. As distraught as Admiral Avery was, and as intent as he was on listening to the communications among the squads in Jordan, it didn’t occur to him to also monitor communications from the Marines in and around Millerton and the McKinzie Elevator Base. If it had occurred to him, and if he had acted on it, he would have realized that the only combat was in Jordan, and only involved one battalion of Marines—a fairly small portion of the Marine strength on Troy.

Being distraught and possessing only limited intelligence is a very bad combination for a commander—it can lead to mistakes.

Avery made a mistake. More than one, as a matter of fact.

His first was continuing to blame himself for the loss of most of ARG17. After paying attention to an entirely too small part of Troy, he blamed himself for the alien attack on the Marines in Jordan, and—without consulting anyone more familiar with ground combat than he was—assumed the results of the battle were worse than they in fact were.

His greatest mistake was concluding that the Marines planetside were being defeated, were about to be driven out of their planethead. Or at least from Jordan and probably all of Eastern Shapland.

He quickly, again without conferring with anyone, prepared a message to be sent via drone to the North American Union’s Supreme Military Headquarters on Earth. After drawing a bleak picture of what had happened to ARG17 and was happening planetside the message concluded:

Issue in doubt.

Three words immediately recognizable to anyone familiar with the first days of the old United States of America’s involvement in the world-spanning war that took place in the middle of the twentieth century.

First MCF Headquarters, Outside Millerton

“Captain Upshur,” Bauer said as he entered his HQ building, “prepare a message to send to Earth via Navy drone. I don’t care if they have to open a wormhole for just this purpose.”

Upshur positioned his comp to take the information needed for Bauer’s message. “Ready, sir.”

“You heard the replacements Chambers and Davis asked for? Double the number. You have my note about shotguns and shells? Add a month’s supply of grapeshot for our artillery. Add a company of engineers with lots of ground penetrating radar and tunneling equipment. Say why I want them. Got it all?”

“All of it, sir.”

“Hand deliver it to Townsend on the
Durango
. I don’t want to take the chance of it getting misplaced, or put into routine routing.”

“Aye aye, sir. By your leave?”

“Go. Let me know when you get back.”

Comm Shack, NAUS Durango, in Orbit

“Captain Upshur!” Lieutenant Townsend exclaimed on seeing Bauer’s aide. “What brings you to orbit?”

“Lieutenant,” Upshur said, extending a hand to his Navy counterpart. “I heard a rumor, probably false, that the Navy has excellent coffee, and thought I’d come up for a mug of it.”

Townsend laughed. “Not false. The NAU Navy has the best coffee in the entire universe. And you’re more than welcome to a mug—or more. Let’s head for the ward room and you can tell me why else you’re here.”

“Before we go to the ward room for some of that delicious coffee, I need a favor. Or General Bauer needs it.”

“Oh? And what might the distinguished general want?”

Upshur drew a crystal from his jacket pocket. “A message to SecWar and the President.”

“Has Admiral Avery seen it?” Townsend said, taken aback.

Upshur shook his head. “Not unless he radioed a copy to him since I left his HQ. He said he doesn’t want this to get bogged down in any routine handling. He also said that if necessary I should make you open a wormhole to send it.”

Townsend considered the crystal before taking it. “All right. It so happens that a wormhole is opening in a few hours. I just sent a drone to Earth from the admiral. I can send off another drone right now and it should reach the wormhole before it closes again.”

“Thanks, Julius. You’ve just earned the gratitude of a Marine lieutenant general.”

“Not something to be taken lightly.” Townsend set about getting the crystal into a drone for immediate launch for Earth.

The ward room coffee was just as good as rumored.

The War Room, Supreme Military Headquarters, Bellevue, Sarpy County, Federal Zone, NAU

A day after Admiral Avery’s two messages about the attack on ARG17 reached Earth, his “issue in doubt” message arrived.

It took a week for the messages to reach Earth, where they were promptly delivered to NAU President Mills and Secretary of War Hobson. Hobson took no action on receipt of the initial messages; he needed more information. But when he read the third one. . .

Knowing that the President didn’t necessarily read his messages from offworld as soon as he received them, Hobson chose to call him rather than wait for the President to contact him first. He was right, Mills hadn’t yet gotten around to reading the message.

“‘Issue in doubt,’ what does that mean?” Mills asked when he finished reading.

“It means, sir, that Admiral Avery thinks the Marines on Troy will be defeated by the aliens.”

There was silence for a moment before Mills asked somewhat shakily, “When was the last time that happened? That anybody defeated our Marines?”

Hobson didn’t have to think about it, he knew. “Not in my lifetime or yours.”

“Then how can it happen this time?”

“We went in having no idea of the enemy’s strength. If there are enough of them, or if they’re heavily enough armed, they could do it.”

“So what can we do?

“I don’t know yet. Nobody but you and I know about Avery’s messages. I am meeting with the Joint Chiefs this afternoon.”

“Now, now this message is from the Navy commander. What does the Marine commander have to say about the situation?”

“We haven’t heard from General Bauer. For all I know, he was killed in the action Avery describes.”

“Gods,” Mills murmured, remembering the pics and vids he’d seen of the original alien attack on Troy. He pulled himself together and asked in a firm voice, “Didn’t you order a large follow-on force to be stood up?”

“Yes, I did. The Second Army.”

“What’s its status?”