Steel Gauntlet (11 page)

He focused on one of the hot spots visible through his infras and flapped that screen up. He saw a fire in visible light. He dropped the infras back into place and focused on a different hot spot, then flipped the infras up again. Another fire. He methodically repeated the process, identifying a hot spot, then verifying it in visible light. After three minutes of searching, he found a hot spot that wasn’t there in visible light. Was it a glitch in the VR programming that the tank didn’t show in the visible? The Confederation Marine Corps didn’t have chameleon paint that could turn its vehicles as effectively transparent as the chameleon uniforms made the infantrymen. If the Marines didn’t have it, most likely nobody did. He wished his magnifying screen was stronger than four power. He checked the azimuth scale that ran across the top of his infra screen.

“Wolfman, give me the launcher, I want to look at something.” PFC “Wolfman” MacIlargie looked at him curiously, but didn’t say anything as he passed over the antitank rocket launcher. They were taking turns with the rocket launchers and it was his turn, so he was pretty sure Dornhofer would give it back unfired.

Dornhofer raised his screens and settled the launcher onto his shoulder. He peered through its sights, found his azimuth, and ratcheted the magnification to eight-to-one. He spent a long moment studying what he saw.

It looked like a pile of rubble, but it had shown red through his infras. Could it be the remnant of an earlier fire, the flames gone but the rubble still warm enough to show as a hot spot? No, if it was still that hot, there should at least be some sort of visible glow emanating from it. He double-checked the range.

Four thousand meters. Even if he couldn’t see a glow through his helmet magnifier, it should be visible at eight power. There was an operating power source in that rubble, that was the only explanation.

Dornhofer pulled away from the sights and glanced to his sides. Both of his men, MacIlargie and Lance Corporal Van Impe, were scanning the landscape through their magnifiers. He went back to his launcher’s view and swore. In a real war, he’d have let the rocket test the rubble, but his fire team would have only one opportunity to fire in the VR chamber.

He wasn’t positive, but he thought the rubble had moved while he was checking his men. It was in the same place, but some of its elements seemed to have shifted. What’s that? he wondered, and looked at the lower part of the pile. It seemed somehow too regular, like a series of nearly identical blocks. One of the uniform blocks fluttered. Like a skirt panel on an idling air-cushioned vehicle.

What kind of tank could move on an air cushion? Tanks were too heavy. Even the Marine Corps’

amphibious Dragons, which were classed as light armored vehicles, operated near the outer envelope of weight that could be supported by an air cushion. Wait a minute. Yesterday, Dornhofer recalled, during Van Impe’s turn with a launcher, they didn’t have an MBT as their target. That one was a scout car that went so fast it needed spoilers to keep it from lifting off the ground. Maybe this was a simulation of a different kind of scout car. It was a weird-looking scout car, though. He squinted, hoping to bring the pile of rubble into closer focus. There, on what could be the front end, a short tube stuck out. That might be a gun. He examined the pile bit by bit and saw more details that could be something. This sheet of something could be a hatch. That hole could be a vision port. The other nub could be a machine-gun muzzle. The more Dornhofer examined it, the more he became convinced it was an enemy vehicle. His fingers flexed over the trigger and his thumb caressed the safety.

No, it was MacIlargie’s turn. He’d have another chance later. This go-through, his job was spotter.

He glanced at the range finder and azimuth and fixed the numbers in his mind.

“Wolfman,” he said, handing the launcher back. “Target. One-four-two. Range, four-zero-five-zero.

Pile of rubble. See it?”

MacIlargie took the launcher and settled it on his shoulder. He looked blasé about it, showed none of the anxiety he felt when he’d seen Dornhofer’s hand on the trigger and thought his fire team leader was going to take the shot. He looked through the sights and found the aiming point. “Pile of rubble, check.” He waited for instructions for where to look from there.

“Kill it.”

Kill it? Kill the pile of rubble? He glanced at Dornhofer, half expecting the corporal to grin at him. But Dornhofer wasn’t grinning, and he was looking toward the rubble. MacIlargie looked through the sight again and studied the pile of rubble. Maybe Dornhofer was right, maybe there was something wrong with the pile of rubble. Yeah, maybe it did have too regular a shape. There weren’t any objects sticking out of it at odd angles, except the one cylinder that looked suspiciously like a gun tube. He pushed the lock-on tab and squeezed the trigger.

“Move!” Dornhofer shouted as soon as the rocket cleared the launcher. The three Marines dropped into the drainage ditch and ran. They stopped when they heard the explosion.

The shattered landscape winked out and was replaced by the plain white walls of the VR chamber.

“Very good,” Gunner Moeller’s voice said over the intercom. “That was a Mark 27 stealth light tank.

It came in several configurations. That one was called ‘urban destruction.’ The job of the Mark 27 was to sit in place and pick off targets of opporunity, like a sniper. You should have found it faster, but since you didn’t have any idea such a vehicle existed, I have to say you found it pretty damn fast.”
CHAPTER 8

During their eight days of training in the virtual reality chamber, every enlisted man in the 34th FIST

infantry battalion below the rank of platoon sergeant had a daily shot with an antitank weapon. They fired four different launchers, and had a different type of target on each shot. Not nearly enough to become proficient, but they were familiarized with the antitank weapons they might use and gained experience at identifying different types of targets. All officers and enlisted men in the FIST’s other units, including FIST

and battalion headquarters companies, the composite squadron, the artillery battery, and the transportation company, had one orientation shot with each of the launchers, at four different types of targets. That left them much further from proficient than the infantrymen, but at least they knew which end of the tubes the rockets came out of and could fight if they had to.

On the ninth day they began training with real antitank weapons, which had arrived the day before.

“I hate snow!” Dean said. Unsatisfied with the universe’s lack of response, he shouted the sentiment,

“I hate snow!” The words reverberated in the crisp air over the snowy training area designated as the tank-killing range.

“Enjoy the snow while you can,” Corporal Dornhofer said. “Pretty soon you’ll wish it wasn’t so hot.” Dean turned in his bulky cold weather gear, his mouth open to reply. He closed it with an audible snap when he realized what Dornhofer meant. He went pensive for a moment, then said, “Snow, beautiful snow. I could bury myself in it and stay here for a long time.”

“Bury yourself in it and you’re likely to stay here a lot longer than you want to,” Schultz said quietly.

He didn’t like the snow either, but he liked even less the prospect of facing tanks in combat. Particularly if they were anything like the tanks he’d practiced against in the VR chamber. Men should fight like men, he thought, not wrap themselves in armor like turtles.

Dean grumbled to himself. He wasn’t getting any of the sympathy he wanted. Snow now, combat soon. The Diamunde operation was already promising to be worse than Wanderjahr. It might be as bad as Elneal.

“Do you think this will be as rough as crossing the Martac was?” he asked.

Schultz spat. He’d been point man for the crossing of the Martac Waste.

Dornhofer looked at Dean. He’d never faced armor, but he knew something more about it than they’d been taught over the past three and a half weeks. “You’ll wish we were back on the Martac Waste,” he said softly. He’d been the second in command during that patrol. “We all lived through that. If we’d been up against even one light tank, maybe none of us would have made it out of there.” Dean didn’t want to think of a fight worse than the one they’d had against the Siad tribesmen; he always thought it was a miracle they survived Elneal. “Then we had best become as good as we can at killing tanks,” he finally said.

Dornhofer clapped him on the shoulder. “You get first shot,” he said.

They used specially prepared drones for the live-fire exercise. Quarter-ton, remotely piloted vehicles wore shells that mimicked the size and configuration of MBTs. Many of the shells had arrived from Earth along with the shipment of antitank weapons. The variety of shells was smaller than the number of simulations they’d faced in the VR chamber. Partly that was to make construction easier and faster.

Mostly, it was because by the time the weapons were ready to be shipped, more was known about the situation on Diamunde—and how St. Cyr’s forces were equipped. The drones were faster and more agile than the tanks they mimicked, which would make them harder to lock onto. The brass thought that would make better training.

The three Marines positioned themselves on the reverse slope of a hard-packed drift. Dornhofer was on the left, Schultz on the right, and Dean in the middle with an M-83 Falcon on his shoulder. Dean’s body lay at a forty-five-degree angle from the launcher.

“Target,” Schultz said. “Dead on. Three thousand.”

Dean looked through the eyepiece of the launcher. Schultz was right, a low-rider was straight ahead, churning directly toward them, a corona of thrown-up snow glistening around it. Painted in a mottled gray, red, and black pattern, it stood out clearly against the snow. Even if he aimed for the front glacis, Dean knew this would be an easy kill. “Got it,” he said. He rested his fingers on the trigger and his thumb hovered over the lock-on tab as he waited for Dornhofer’s commands.

“Ready to lock?” Dornhofer asked.

“Ready to lock,” Dean replied.

“Lock on.”

Dean pressed the lock-on tab. “Locked on,”

“Wait until it passes two thousand,” Dornhofer said. At the drone’s speed, it would only take it a few more seconds to close within two thousand meters.

Dean’s eye kept flicking back and forth between his lock-on point and the range finder. Twenty-two hundred meters. Twenty-one fifty. Twenty-one hundred. Twenty fifty. His fingers closed on the trigger.

Suddenly, the drone veered to its left. Dean twisted his shoulders and upper body to the right to keep it in his sights. The drone passed the two thousand meter mark in a straight line, crossing the Marines’

front. At the same time Dean squeezed the trigger he heard both Dornhofer and Schultz shout, “No!” There was more shouting, but he couldn’t make it out.

He screamed at the sudden pain that flashed over the backs of his legs. Before the scream was completely out of his mouth he felt himself being pummeled and rolled about, pressed deep into the snow.

The backs of his legs felt like they were on fire. He tried to draw in a deep breath to scream again but only filled his mouth and throat with snow. He gagged and choked, but couldn’t breathe. He struggled, but there was too much weight on him, too much pounding and wet on the backs of his legs. He couldn’t roll over, couldn’t sit up, couldn’t get rid of the snow in his mouth and throat. All he could see was black.

The black began to rim with red and he knew he was about to pass out.

Suddenly, he was yanked up and flopped over. A rough hand scooped snow away from his face, a finger forced itself into his mouth and pulled out snow. Hands grabbed his shoulders and yanked him to a sitting position. Something thumped his back hard, then something else shoved into his stomach and up.

The little air that was still in his lungs was expelled violently and forced the snow out of his throat. He gasped for breath and choked as some snow began to clog his tubes again. Again something thudded into his back, and he coughed until he could cough no more. Then he shook all over, but he was able to breathe.

“Slowly,” a voice next to him ordered. “Breathe slow and deep. Slowly. Do it with me. In.” He took in a breath. “Out.” He let it out. “In....out,” at a steady, slow pace. Dean breathed with the voice. After a moment his trembling stopped and he looked toward the voice. It was Doc Gordon, one of the medical corpsmen.

“Are you okay now? Can you breathe all right?” Gordon asked.

Dean gulped in more air and nodded.

“Say it. Let me hear your voice.”

“I’m okay. I can breathe.” His voice sounded foggy, but he thought it was clear enough.

“What were you trying to do, kill him?” Gordon snapped at Dornhofer and Schultz.

“We were trying to put out the damn fire,” Dornhofer snapped back. He was angry—at Dean for making the mistake he had, at the corpsman for snapping at him, and at himself, for not making sure Dean knew not to do what he did.

Schultz didn’t say anything, he just spat to the side.

“By burying his head in the snow and pounding on the backs of his legs? You should have laid him on his back and pressed his legs into the snow, that would have done it.” Gordon turned back to Dean.

“Lay down and roll over, I want to check you out.”

“Do I have to?” Lying on his stomach was how he’d gotten in trouble in the first place. He didn’t want to do it again.

“Lay your head on your arms, that’ll keep your face out of the snow.” Sometimes corpsmen seemed to be mind readers.

Reluctantly, Dean lay on his stomach. He flinched when he saw how close his nose and mouth were to the snow, but relaxed when he realized his folded arms really were holding his head up and he could still breathe.

Gordon’s exam only took a second. “We’ve got to get this man into a warm-tent.” Then to Dean,

“You aren’t badly hurt, but the back of your trousers are burnt off. You’ll get frostbite if we don’t get you into a warm-tent and get your clothes changed. Think you can walk?”

“Yeah.” He needed help standing up. He saw but didn’t really notice Moeller, Vanden Hoyt, and Bass standing nearby.