A broken alliance, p.3
A Broken Alliance, page 3
part #5 of Sentenced to War Series
They crossed two danger areas: a large open field covered with a vine that looked like large ice plants and a large creek. Those slowed them down, but they maintained a good pace. Second Platoon and two YINK-36 rotofans were waiting on call to come pick them up as soon as they reached the LZ.
The platoon moved steadily in the forest, making good time. In another half an hour, maybe a little longer, the lead elements, Mother be willing, would reach the LZ. Ten minutes after that, the YINKs should arrive. Forty, forty-five minutes, and they’d be gone, and they could start figuring out who the hell shot them down and what they were going to do about it.
Rev didn’t know Chief Wimox, but the pilot had died getting the platoon on the ground in one piece. Rev intended to make someone pay for killing the man.
“We’ve got drones!” SFC Moba, the Third Squad leader passed on the net a moment before all hell broke loose.
Two explosions sounded, then the sound of intensive firing reverberated from ahead of them. But the heavy, water-laden vegetation was wreaking havoc with his ability to zero in on direction. He turned to look back at his squad leader for instructions.
“We’ve got twenty to thirty enemy to our one o’clock,” Bundy passed. “They’ve got the position on us. First Squad, I need to relieve the pressure.”
Before SFC Gamay could respond, Master Sergeant Barber shouted “On me.” She took off at a dead run, angling to the right as she pushed through the brush.
“You heard her,” SFC Gamay said. “Squad wedge, now. Pelletier, take point and get ahead of the platoon sergeant.”
Rev was already moving. The wedge gave good firepower to the front and flanks, and with him at the point of the wedge, he had the largest fields of fire. If he could get the squad in front of the master sergeant, that is. Barber was at a full run as she tried to flank the attackers.
The amount of fire ahead intensified, the steady whump-whump-whump of a crew-served weapon underlying everything else. The platoon lost their Madigril, so that was an enemy weapon, and from the sounds of it, it could penetrate any of their combat suits.
They had to silence it.
Barber knew that, too, but what was she going to do all on her own?
“Top, slow down,” Rev passed on the P2P as he lost sight of the platoon sergeant.
“Can’t. You get your asses up here. We’ve got to break the ambush.”
Don’t be a friggin’ hero, Top.
He picked up his pace, hoping to chase Barber down, but the platoon sergeant was quick. She was AIW, and most of the planets in that alliance augmented military personnel, so her speed probably wasn’t natural.
But neither was his.
He caught sight of Master Sergeant Barber again as she charged up a tiny trail just as the plants to the side erupted in a gout of flame. The platoon sergeant was flung to the ground.
Shit! Of course, they know our SOP, and they’d cover their flank.
“Top’s down. Booby trap. What do you want me to do?” he asked Gamay.
The squad leader barely hesitated. “Proceed, but all sensors forward.”
Rev kept going, watching for any signs. Given that no one knew for sure beforehand where they would have gone down, this wasn’t a set ambush. It had to be a hasty one, so that could very well be the only booby trap.
He spared the Master Sergeant a glance as he rushed past. Her combat suit had split open down the side. Blood and entrails were splattered across the ground. Her helmet looked like it might be in one piece, so she might be able to be resurrected, but only if they could get out of this mess. Rev ignored the body and pushed forward.
His warning system alarm went off a split second before the missile shot out of nowhere. His reflexes reacted quicker than his mind could, dropping him to the ground. He had a brief look as the missile arched down to follow him, then hit him in the back and glanced off.
Who the hell?
He’d been looking right at the spot when the missile had appeared as if out of thin air. From his belly, he could see the small mass of blue vegetation. And then, it was as if the plants themselves shifted a few centimeters.
Fractals!
“Switch to D-band. Give me an outline on any fractal discontinuity.”
Immediately, his sensor overlay shifted, and he lost much of the colors in the visible spectrum. But what he did see, with Punch’s help, was an outline of a soldier slowly bringing up something. Chances were that it was another missile.
“Nope. I don’t think so, buddy.”
He brought up Pashu. At the last moment, however, he switched weapons. Fractal suits were not rare. They did a good job at concealing the wearer from the visible spectrum, and in some cases, the mirrors were somewhat effective defending against energy weapons. Rev was pretty sure his braided cannon could defeat it, but why try it? He had something guaranteed more effective.
He fired two rounds of his 20mm cannon, which was overkill. It only took one. The fractal suit exploded in a burst of broken mirrors, revealing the crumpled body, or what was left of it, on the ground.
“They’re wearing fractals. Just notched a kill. I think I’m in their ambush.”
“D-bands, everyone. And move on line, guide on Pelletier. Let’s break this thing,” Gamay passed on the squad net, then on the platoon net, “Commencing assault from the south now. Don’t light us up.”
Rev stood and started forward with Punch monitoring his visuals. He wasn’t fond of the D-band, but it should highlight anyone using a fractal suit.
He’d gone maybe five meters when Punch outlined another soldier. One more two-round burst, and that soldier suffered the same fate as their buddy.
Rounds reached out to him, two pinging off his combat suit. He wondered why anyone would give up their position with a weapon that wasn’t effective against him. It was like attacking a Centaur Paladin with an M-49.
A moment later, something exploded against the thick bole of a tree, just meters in front of him.
Because they’ve got more missiles, Rev answered his own question as he broke into a charge.
The forest was dense, and while the ambushers assuredly had clear fields of fire into the kill zone, they didn’t have it to their flanks. And one single mine wasn’t enough to give them flank security.
“Give me targets,” Rev told Punch as he sprayed the area ahead with the 20 mm. The heavy rounds weren’t bothered in the slightest by most of the vegetation and only somewhat by the tree trunks. Chunks of blue filled the air as he swept the line. His Friend or Foe stopped him twice from firing too far to his left, but he was tearing up the place.
“Tjivyrtzlin, Lines, shift right. Don’t let the bastards retreat,” SFC Gamay said.
Rev passed two bodies. One looked like he’d met up with Pashu, but the other was more or less whole.
Less, he noted as he saw the other side of the body with half of its chest gone.
He caught motion in his peripheral vision just as Punch highlighted two bodies. Rev swung to engage, just managing to stop himself. Two soldiers were quietly sitting, their hands held high over their heads. The younger one, probably in his early twenties, looked passive, as if he didn’t care one way or the other if he lived or died. Not so much the florid-faced older gent. His mouth was open, and he breathed hard. His crotch was dark with wetness.
“We surrender,” the older man shouted, his voice rising to a screech. “You can’t kill us.”
The firing had died down around them. Rev didn’t know if the ambush had been broken.
“Get on your faces, now!” Rev said.
The older man flopped down hard, his head bent up and his eyes now locked on Pashu. The younger one took his time.
“Gingham, you got zipties?”
“Sure do,” the PFC said, moving closer.
“Secure them.”
Corporal Acevedo came on line on Rev’s right.
“Cover Gingham. I’m going to see who else might be around.”
The firing had stopped, but that didn’t mean someone had taken to ground, ready to pop out again. But the fight was over. Rev and the rest of the squad searched the area. Except for the dead, the two prisoners were all that was left of what turned out to be one of the least effective ambushes Rev could have imagined.
“Gather up evidence. DNA, too,” Bundy ordered. “Two minutes, then we’re moving out. First, take Master Sergeant Barber, and you’ve got the lead. Third, take the prisoners. You’re next. Second, you’ve got Sergeant Wein, and you’re bringing up the rear.”
With the prisoners, Rev didn’t know why they needed the DNA of the dead. Maybe it was just typical Bundy thoroughness.
He pulled out his collection kit, then stopped for a moment. These were the same kits they’d all carried during the war to collect anything they could from the Centaurs. It seemed obscene that he had to use the kit on fellow humans, that they had fallen that far.
“Yeah, this sure is a real peacetime,” he muttered.
But he swabbed the nearest body, capped the swab, and sealed it. His own DNA was registered to the swab, so it would be eliminated from the analysis. Anything that showed up belonged to the dead soldier at his feet.
He picked up the soldier’s sidearm and slipped it into his thigh holster. Janus TRs were ubiquitous throughout human space, but they should be able to trace this one from the serial number.
He walked over to Master Sergeant Barber’s body, and prepared to pick her up.
For once, I wish Kvat or another Pit Bull was here. Could use their strength for something useful.
Barber had been a big woman, and now with the flaccidity of death, she wouldn’t be easy to carry.
“Pelletier, I want you on point,” Gamay said. She took a moment to look around. “La’ei, you’ve got the top.”
Rev had been prepared to carry the master sergeant. By the luck of the draw, there were only four in the squad who’d undergone significant augments, and only Rev had his strength augmented. But if someone else was to carry the body, then La’ei was the choice. He was unnaturally strong, much more powerful than an un-augmented Rev was.
Rev sometimes wondered if the fitafitas really hadn’t been augmented. It wouldn’t be the first time that people had lied about that.
“We should make the fucking prisoners lead the way. Let them hit any booby traps,” Corporal Acevedo said as she helped La’ei hoist Top Barber’s body to his shoulders.
“Can’t. Torinth Accords,” SFC Gamay said.
“What? So, Staff Sergeant Pelletier there has to be the one to set one off while we protect those assholes?”
“Pretty much, so. Yeah.”
Rev already knew that, but Acevedo’s suggestion did have more than a little allure.
“Actually, the Home Guard never signed the accords. Nor did Congress,” Bob said.
Rev turned to look at the Frisian. That can’t be right.
“Bullshit,” Sergeant Lines said.
“No, really. Look it up. Torinth was signed before the Congress was formed.”
“But lots of nations were formed after Torinth, and they signed,” Rev said. “Take Barclay.”
“Nations. The Congress of Humanity isn’t technically a nation. They drafted a Notice of Concurrence, that the Congress of Humanity agrees with the provisions of Torinth, but they can’t legally sign them.”
“Is that true?” Rev asked Punch.
Acevedo turned to the squad leader and said, “So, if we didn’t sign that thing . . . ?”
“Forget it. Pelletier has point. You follow. End of discussion.”
Before Acevedo could respond, Bundy came over the platoon net. “First Squad. Move out.”
“You heard him. Pelletier, go,” Gamay said.
“I tried,” Acevedo passed on the P2P as Rev stepped off.
They didn’t encounter anyone else as they marched, and Second Platoon met them a klick short of the LZ. SFC Khan, the platoon medic, quickly checked out Wein. Time wasn’t such a burning issue that they had to try and bring in a bird to lift the two out through the canopy.
Wein was one of his troopers, so it was Bundy’s call.
“We’re moving forward to the LZ,” he said.
A rotofan hovering above the trees was a big, vulnerable target, and the enemy had proven anti-air capabilities. Getting them out that way wouldn’t even save that much time. Better to extract at the LZ.
First Platoon moved into a double column, and Second took up the flanks on either side. They moved quickly through the trees.
“You OK?” Tomiko asked over the P2P as they pushed forward.
Rev had debated trying to contact her, but she took that out of his hands. He knew she would be there, but he didn’t know exactly where. And he had no access to the Second Platoon data.
“Still in one piece. Took a missile of some kind off my back. Surprised the hell out of me. The gunner was wearing fractals.”
“You get ’im?”
“Two 20mms. Yeah, I got him.”
“Good to hear it. See you back in camp.”
Even not knowing exactly where she was, it felt good to know she was there somewhere. No matter what, Rev knew that Tomiko had his back.
2
“Wein has a good shot at resurrection. He’s on his way up to the Red Dragon to be prepped and put into cold sleep for the trip back to the closest Class A facility. Top Barber is still a possibility, too,” SFC Gamay told the gathered platoon.
Rev furrowed his brow at the news. Being popsicled—put into cold sleep—was hardly a sure thing. It slowed down the degradation of the body, but it wasn’t the ever-elusive stasis that science kept chasing. All it did was extend the time in which someone could be brought back. That extension wasn’t infinite, however. There was still a point where dead was dead.
Which also raised the question of why there wasn’t a Class A facility on the planet, and when on a mission to a planet like this, the Home Guard hadn’t made better arrangements. Resurrection was iffy enough under perfect conditions, but it was the hope of it that kept morale up under trying conditions.
It didn’t surprise him that the Red Dragon’s sickbay could only put people into cold sleep, but that really made him appreciate the Dixmude and the Takagahara with their top-notch facilities.
“A team from the Red Dragon has recovered Chief Wimox, for all of you who’d been asking. They also conducted a forensic examination of the shuttle.”
“So, if they looked at the shuttle, do we know who shot us down yet? And were they the same as who we fought?” Staff Sergeant Rice Unifora, Rev’s friend from Second Squad, asked.
“Not yet. Or at least not that anyone’s informed us. The POWs aren’t talking.”
Well, make them talk. No insignia? That’s against the Torinth Accords.
Judging from the expressions of those around him, he wasn’t the only person thinking along those lines.
“But indications are that they might be Gossarians. They left some evidence, but not only that. Right, Pinkerton?”
All eyes swiveled to the sergeant from Third Squad. She shrugged and said, “That’s what my rider said. Picked up a few phrases in usage by Gossarians.”
Rev grunted. Sergeant Pinkerton was from Nowhere, and they referred to their version of a battle buddy as a “rider.”
“Could you have determined that?”
“Why didn’t you tell me that?”
This has got to stop.
Ever since the Bluebonnet Meadows, Punch hadn’t been Punch. Now, Rev knew why, and he appreciated that Punch had a moment of self-awareness that was undoubtedly nothing his programmers had envisioned—and now he claimed that he was wholly on Rev’s “side.” But they really needed a way to communicate that was free from prying eyes. They needed to get back to being the team they once were. There were three parts to that team: Rev, Punch, and Pashu. Limiting any of the three was a sure recipe for disaster.
Rev carefully chose his words. “We need to be able to communicate better—you to me and me to you.”
He hoped Punch understood him well enough to know what he meant. He had to be able to securely talk to his battle buddy without anyone listening in.
Rev tried to formulate a safe response when Gamay’s words registered. “ . . . I’ll be taking her place as platoon sergeant.”
That caught his attention. With Gamay moving up, that left an opening at squad leader. Even as junior as he was, he was the senior staff sergeant in the squad. From the other two squads, Rice and Toshi were both senior to him. San Martin probably was, too. Any of the three could be brought over to lead the squad.
“So, that leaves First Squad open.”
Rev held his breath. He’d briefly led a fire team as a sergeant, but that was it. His unique situation made him more valuable as a trigger puller than a leader, and that grated on him. He wanted to lead Marines or, in this case, troopers. He didn’t want to remain an over-ranked PFC.
I’m in the squad. Don’t bring in someone from Second or Third Squads.
She didn’t.
“So, Staff Sergeant Tjivyrtzlin will be taking over the squad.”
That took Rev by surprise. He was senior to the Frisian. Sure, Bob had been a tan-master, the rough equivalent to a gunnery sergeant, but he’d been brought back to a yellow-master after Rev had been promoted. Besides, Frisian ranks were fluid at best. They weren’t even ranks, according to them.
It was a gutshot, but he managed to plaster a smile onto his face, turn, and slap the Frisian on the back. “Wow. Congrats, my friend. You’re going to be great.”
