Authors: Tanya Huff
In Staff Sergeant Torin Kerr’s not inconsiderable experience, even the best officers liked to state the obvious. For example:
significantly outnumbered.
Sh’quo Company had been sent off to this mining colony theoretically to make a statement of force to the Others’ scouts. They’d since participated in a rout and now were about to make one of those heroic last stands that played so well on the evening news. No one had apparently told the enemy that they were merely doing reconnaissance and they had, as a result, sent two full battalions—or the Others’ equivalent—to take the mines.
“Lieutenant Arver, make sure your remaining STA’s...”
And what fun, they’d already lost two of their six surface to air missiles.
“...are positioned to cover the airspace immediately over the launch platform. See if you can move one of them up here.”
A red light flared on the targeting grid overlaying the map.
“Yes sir.” The lieutenant keyed the position into her slate.
“Set your mortars up on level four. I want them high enough to have some range but not so high any return fire they draw may damage the port. You’re going to have to take out their artillery or we are, to put it bluntly, well and truly screwed. Staff Sergeant Doctorow...”
“Sir.”
Doctorow’s platoon had lost its 2nd Lieutenant in the first exchange.
“...I want all accesses to the launch platform in our hands ASAP. We don’t need a repeat of Beniger.”
With the Others beating down the door, the civilians of Beniger had rushed the ships. The first had taken off so overloaded it had crashed back, blown the launch pad and half the port. Granted, any enemy in the immediate area had also been fried but Torin figured the dead of Beniger considered that cold comfort.
“Lieutenant Garly, I want one of your squads on stretcher duty. Get our wounded up into port reception and ready to be loaded once all the civilians are clear. Take position on the second level but mark a second squad in case things get bad.”
“Sir.”
“Lieutenant Franks...”
Torin felt the big man beside her practically quiver in anticipation.
“...you’ll hold the first level.”
“Sir!”
Just on the periphery of her vision, Torin saw Staff Sergeant Amanda Aman’s mouth twitch and Torin barely resisted the urge to smack her. Franks, Torin’s personal responsibility, while no longer a rookie, still had a few shiny expectations that flared up at inconvenient moments. He no longer bought into the romance of war—his first time out had taken care of that —but he continued to buy into the romance of the warrior. Every now and then, she could see the desire to do great things rise in his eyes.
“You want to live on after you die, Staff...” He danced his fingers over his touchpad, drawing out a martial melody. “...do something that makes it into a song.”
Torin didn’t so much want Lieutenant Franks to live on after he died as to live on for a good long time so she smacked that desire down every time she saw it and worried about what would happen should it make an appearance when she wasn’t around. The enemy smacked down with considerably more force. And their music sucked.
The captain swept a level stare around the gathered Marines. “Remember that our primary objective is to get the civilians out and then haul ass off this rock. We hold the port long enough to achieve this.”
“Captain.”
First Sergeant Chigma’s voice came in on the company channel. “
We’ve got a reading on the unfriendlies.”
“On my way.” He swept a final gaze over the Marines in the room and nodded. “You’ve got your orders, people.”
Emerging out of the briefing room—previously known as the Simunthitir Council Chamber—the noise of terrified civilians hit Torin like a physical blow. While no one out of diapers was actually screaming, everyone seemed to feel the need to express their fear. Loudly. As if maybe Captain Allon would send down more frequent escorts from the orbiting carrier if he could only hear how desperate things had gotten.
Captain Rose stared around at the milling crowds. “Why are these people not at the port, First?”
“Port Authorities are taking their time processing, sir.”
“Processing?”
“Rakva.”
Although many of the Confederation’s Elder Races took bureaucracy to a fine art, the Rakva reveled in it. Torin, who after twelve years in the Corps wasn’t surprised by much, had once watched a line of the avians patiently filling out forms in triplicate in order to use a species-specific sanitary facility. Apparently the feathers and rudimentary beaks weren’t sufficient proof of species identification.
“They’re insisting that everyone fill out emergency evacuation forms.”
“Oh for the love of God... Deal with it.”
Chigma showed teeth—a distinctly threatening gesture from a species that would eat pretty much anything it could fit down its throat and was remarkably adaptable about the latter. “Yes, sir.”
“Captain...” Lieutenant Franks’ golden brows drew in and he frowned after the First Sergeant. “Begging your pardon, sir, but a Krai may not be the most diplomatic...”
“Diplomatic?” the captain interrupted. “We’ve got a few thousand civilians to get off this rock before a whole crapload of Others climb right up their butts. If they wanted it done diplomatically, they shouldn’t have called in the Corps.” He paused and shot the lieutenant a frown of his own. “Shouldn’t you be at the first level by now?”
“Sir!”
Torin fell into step at his right shoulder as Franks hurried off the concourse and out onto the road that joined the seven levels of Simunthitir into one continuous spiral. Designed for the easy transportation of ore carriers up to the port, it was also a strong defensive position with heavy gates to close each level off from those below and the layout ensured that Sh’quo Company would maintain the high ground as they withdrew to the port. If not for the certain fact that the Others were traveling with heavy artillery—significantly heavier than their own EM223s— and sufficient numbers to climb to the high ground over the piled bodies of their dead, she’d be thinking this was a highly survivable engagement. Ignoring the possibility that the Others’ air support would get off a lucky drop.
“Well, Staff, it looks like we’ve got the keys to the city. It’s up to us to hold the gates at all costs.”
And provided she could keep Lieutenant Franks from getting them all killed—but
that
was pretty much business as usual.
* * *
“Anything happen while I was gone?”
Sergeant Anne Chou shook her head without taking her attention from the scanner. “Not a thing. Looks like they waited until you got back.”
Torin peered out over the undulating plain but couldn’t see that anything had changed. “What are you getting?”
“Just picked up the leading edge of the unfriendlies but they’re packed too close together to get a clear reading on numbers.”
“Professional opinion?”
The other woman looked over at that and grinned. “One fuk of a lot, Staff.”
“Great.” Torin switched her com to command channel. “Lieutenant, we’ve got a reading on the perimeter.”
“Is their artillery in range?”
“Not yet, sir.” Torin glanced up into a sky empty of all but the distant flashes of the battle going on up above the atmosphere where the vacuum jockeys from both sides kept the other side from controlling the ultimate high ground. “I imagine they’ll let us know.”
“Keep me informed.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You think he’s up to this?” Anne asked when Torin tongued off her microphone.
“Since the entire plan is that we shoot and back up, shoot and back up, rinse and repeat, I think we’ll be fine.” The lieutenant had to be watched more closely moving forward.
Anne nodded, well aware of the subtext. “Glad to hear it.”
The outer walls of Simunthitir’s lowest level of buildings presented a curved stone face to the world about seven meters high, broken by a single gate. Running along the top of those buildings was a continuous line of battlements fronted by a stone balustrade about a meter and a half high.
Battlements and balustrades,
Torin thought as she made her way to the gate.
Nothing like getting back to the basics.
“Trey, how’s it going?”
The di’Taykan Sergeant glanced up, her hair a brilliant cerulean corona around her head. “She’s packed tight, Staff. We’re just about to fuse the plug.”
They’d stuffed the gate full of the hovercraft used to move people and goods inside the city. Individually, each cart weighed about two hundred kilos, hardly enough to stop even a lackluster assault, but crammed into the gateway—wrestled into position by the heavy gunners and their exo-skeletons—and then fused into one solid mass by a few well placed demo charges, the gate would disappear and the city presents a solid face to the enemy.
As Trey moved the heavies away, Lance Corporal Sluun moved forward keying the final parameters into his slate.
“First in Go and Blow, eh?” Lieutenant Franks said quietly by Torin’s left shoulder.
“Yes, sir.” Sluun had kicked ass at his TS3 demolition course.
A trio of planes screamed by closely followed by three Marine 774s keeping up a steady stream of fire. Two of the enemy managed to drop their loads—both missed the city—while the third peeled off in an attempt to engage their pursuers. The entire tableau shrieked out of sight in less than a minute.
“I only mention it,” the lieutenant continued when they could hear themselves think again, “because there’s always the chance we could blow not only the gate but a section of the wall as well.”
“Trust in the training, sir. Apparently Sluun paid attention in class.”
“Firing in five...”
“We might want to step back, sir.”
“...four...”
“Trust in the training, Staff?”
“...three...”
“Yes, sir. But there’s no harm in hedging our bets.”
“...two...”
They stopped four meters back.
“...one. Fire in the hole.”
The stones vibrated gently under their feet.
And a moment later... “
We’ve got a good solid plug, Lieutenant.”
Trey’s voice came over the group channel. “
They’ll need the really big guns to get through it.”
Right on cue: the distinctive whine of incoming artillery.
This time, the vibrations underfoot were less than gentle.
Four, five, six impacts... and a pause.
“Damage?”
“Got a hole in one of the warehouses, Staff.”
Corporal Dave Hayman’s voice came over the com. “
Demo team’s filling in the hole now.”
“Good.” She tongued off the microphone. “Everything else hit higher up, sir. I imagine we’ve got civilian casualties.”
Franks lips thinned. “Why the hell isn’t Arver pulsing their targeting computers?” he demanded grimly.
Shots seven, eight, and nine missed the port entirely.
“I think it took them a moment to get the frequency, sir.”
Ten, eleven, and twelve blew in the air.
Confident that the specialists were doing their jobs, the Marines on the wall ignored the barrage. They all knew there’d be plenty to get excited about later. Electronics were easy for both sides to block, which was why the weapon of choice in the Corps was a KC-7, a chemically operated projectile weapon. Nothing disrupted it but hands-on physical force and the weighted stock made a handy club in a pinch. Torin appreciated a philosophy that expected to get pinched.
Eventually, it would come down to flesh versus flesh. It always did.
As another four planes screamed by, Torin took a look over the front parapet and then turned to look back in over the gate. “Trey, you got any more of those carts down there?”
“Plenty of them, Staff.”
“All right, let’s run as many as will fit up here to the top of the wall and send those that don’t fit up a level.”
“Planning on dropping them on the enemy?” Lieutenant Franks grinned.
“Yes, sir.”
“Oh.” Somewhat taken aback, he frowned and one of those remaining shiny patches flared up. “Isn’t dropping scrap on the enemy, I don’t know...”
Torin waited patiently as, still frowning, he searched for the right word.
“UnMarinelike?”
Or perhaps he’d needed the time to make up a new word.
“Look at it this way, sir, if you were them and you thought there was a chance of having two hundred kilos dropped on your head, wouldn’t you be a little hesitant in approaching the wall?”
“I guess I would...”
He guessed. Torin, on the other hand, knew full well that were the situations reversed, Lieutenant Franks would be dying to gallantly charge the port screaming
once more into the breach!
And since her place was beside him and dying would be the operative word, she had further reason to be happy they were on this side of the wall. If people were going to sing about her, she’d just as soon they sang about a long career and a productive retirement.
* * *
The Others came over the ridge in a solid line of soldiers and machines, the sound of their approach all but drowning out the scream of the first civilian transport lifting off. Marine flyers escorted it as far as the edge of the atmosphere where the Navy took over and the Marines raced back to face the bomber the Others had sent to the port. One of Lieutenant Arver’s sammies took it out before it had a chance to drop its load. The pilot arced around the falling plume of wreckage and laid a contrail off toward the mountains, chased away from the massed enemy by two ships from
their
air support.
According to Torin’s scanner, these particular soldiers fighting for coalition the Confederation referred to as the Others were mammals; two, maybe three, species of them given the variant body temperatures. It was entirely possible she had more in common physically with the enemy than she did with at least half of the people she was expected to protect—the Rakva were avian, the Niln reptilian, and both were disproportionately represented amongst the civilian population of Simunthitir.
The odds were even better that she’d have an easier time making conversation with any one of the approaching enemy than she would with any civilian, regardless of species. Find her a senior non-com, and she’d guarantee it. Soldiering was a fairly simple profession after all. Achieve the objective. Get your people out alive.