The 18th Race: Book 02 - In All Directions Read online

  Gasson gave his squad leader a speculative look. “Smart. I guess that’s why you make the big bucks.”

  “You got that right. Except for the big bucks.”

  O’Connor frequently checked his GPS, and corrected Allen’s route when necessary to keep him going in a circle.

  About three kilometers around the circle

  Corporal Allen, on point, froze in place and lowered himself to one knee . He lifted his head and turned his face side to side. From behind, he looked like he was trying to locate the direction of a smell. Sergeant O’Connor padded to his side and squatted.

  “Tell me,” he said.

  “Something. Maybe ammonia. There.” He swung the muzzle of his rifle in an arc of about twenty degrees to his right front.

  “How far?”

  “Can’t tell. Faint.”

  O’Connor sniffed. He wasn’t sure, but he might have picked up a hint of ammonia in the air. “Not close,” he murmured.

  Allen shook his head, agreeing that it was not close.

  “Let’s check it out,” O’Connor said. He turned to Sergeant Gasson, who had come up to find out why they’d stopped. “Allen and I are going to check it. You take the squad.”

  “Right. Be careful.”

  “I didn’t last long enough to become a staff sergeant by being careless.” To Allen, “Let’s go.”

  The corporal led the way, stepping carefully to avoid making noise as much as possible, sniffing all they way. O’Connor watched sharply for any visible sign of Dusters.

  “Getting stronger,” Allen whispered after they’d gone a hundred meters deeper into the forest.

  O’Connor nodded, he smelled it more sharply now as well. They slowed their pace, flowing from shadow to shadow, from the cover of one tree bole to another.

  A casual cooing brought them up short.

  Allen stretched his arm back and held up a finger at O’Connor, signaling wait a minute, then lowered himself to his knees and elbows to crawl forward. He only went ten meters before stopping and going flat to the ground. Moving slowly, he shifted his rifle to his shoulder and took aim.

  Don’t shoot unless you’re spotted, O’Connor thought at Allen. Please, don’t shoot! He had no way of knowing how many Dusters were nearby, but he was sure there had to be more of them than his squad had soldiers.

  Allen watched carefully, and didn’t pull the trigger. After a couple of minutes, he started easing backward until he reached O’Connor. He didn’t speak, but signaled with a head nod for the two of them to withdraw farther. O’Connor nodded understanding and began a reverse elbows-and-knees crawl.

  When they had gone beyond the point where they’d first heard the coo, Allen stopped.

  “It’s a latrine,” he whispered with his lips near O’Connor’s ear. “A Duster was relieving itself.” He shook his head, marveling at what he’d seen. “It’s a strange arrangement. There are two sticks poking up at each end of a short trench, with two poles going from one end to the other. The Duster is perched on the poles, one foot on each. It looked like it had a cloaca, with black-streaked white shit coming out of a slit.”

  O’Connor nodded, and signaled for them to go around the latrine. They went crouched low. It wasn’t long before they saw the edge of a forest encampment. Leafy, tent-like structures were laid out in rows. Thin whisps of smoke rose from what the humans thought must be cook fires. The leafy overhead was just as thick as any other place O’Connor had seen—maybe even thicker. He wondered if the added denseness would block the infrared signals from live animals from getting out, whether the Mobile Intel platoon could spot this encampment from the air.

  Some Dusters went about in purposeful-looking marches. Others lounged near the presumed tents, doing things to their weapons and gear. Cleaning them? Probably. O’Connor took images, 2-D and vid both, of the encampment, and used his GPS to record its location.

  It wasn’t possible to get an accurate estimate of the number of Dusters in the encampment, the two weren’t at a good angle to see deep into it; the nearer tent-things obstructed their view. Still, going by the sounds of cooing, and gobbling, and the occasional caw, he estimated that there were the equivalent of a human battalion of the aliens in the camp. He thought they must feel very secure that they didn’t have security out. Or had he and Allen lucked out and simply slipped between observation posts?

  After a few minutes O’Connor decided they had gotten all the intelligence they could and were risking discovery. He signaled Allen and they withdrew. The first thing he did when they rejoined the squad was call in a report on what they’d found.

  Lieutenant Greig didn’t take time to look at the images before saying, “Continue your circuit. But be very careful. Now we know they’re nearby.”

  “You got that right,” O’Connor said, ignoring proper radio procedure.

  “Two three,” Greig said, “I’ll be in touch with any change in orders. Until then, continue your mission. Over”

  “Two Actual, two three. Roger, wilco. Over.”

  “Two Actual, out.”

  O’Connor signaled for the squad to gather close. “Keep watching outboard,” he cautioned his men when they did. “Listen up, and listen good. There’s a Duster camp less than half a klick in that direction.” He pointed. “We are going to continue on our assigned route. I don’t know if the Dusters have any patrols moving that could intercept us. When we move out, be as quiet as you can, be the most alert you’ve ever been in your life. We might have to fight our way back to the firebase.

  “Same order of march. Five meter intervals. Move out.”

  Allen didn’t hesitate. He spat to the side—away from the direction of the Duster camp—and began walking in the direction in which O’Connor pointed.

  In a minute, eleven very tense soldiers were continuing their circuit.

  Lieutenant Greig was nervous about having the squad continue on the same route knowing that the aliens were so close, but they needed the intelligence. He notified the CB boss, Lieutenant Commander Harrison, of the discovery, and sent a report to Captain Meyer, who was still high above on the elevator station.

  “Get that Mobile Intel platoon back to reinforce you,” Meyer said when he found out that the MI platoon was out on its own. “At least one other platoon from the battalion is planetside. I’ll ask to have them diverted to your location. Alpha Six Actual, out.”

  “Roger,” Greig said to himself. Another platoon. Great. Even if he got the MI platoon back and got another platoon from the battalion, they weren’t nearly enough to fight off so many Dusters. He knew from his briefings that nobody, Army or Marines, had artillery in place to support this firebase. The only fire assets that could be called on was a Marine AV 16C squadron. Maybe Meyer would ask Battalion to request that Brigade ask the Marines to sortie. The best would be for the Marines to strike the Duster camp before the aliens made a move.

  But he couldn’t ask for that in the open. Not as long as the possibility, no matter how remote, existed that the aliens could intercept and understand human transmissions. All he could do was make sure his men were ready to account well for themselves if the time came.

  Not for the first time, he wished the Army had its own fast-flyers and didn’t have to rely on the Marines and the Navy. The Army’s aircraft were transports of various kinds, and the slow moving aircraft that provided support for the ground forces.

  Allen stopped and knelt, looking at something on the ground.

  Gasson joined him. “What’cha got?”

  Allen pointed at marks that crossed their route. They resembled the tracks of a large bird, or perhaps lizard, with long claws. They were moving in a direction that would, if continued in a straight line, pass half a kilometer southwest of the firebase.

  “I’ll tell O’Connor,” Gasson said. Allen didn’t answer, just peered into the surrounding forest.

  In a moment the squad leader had joined them. “How many are there?” he asked when he saw the tracks. Allen shook his hea
d. “Could be lots hidden under the leaves.”

  “So maybe a fire team, but it could be a battalion?”

  Allen shook his head again. “Not a battalion. Maybe fire team, maybe company.” He shrugged.

  O’Connor didn’t ask any more questions, just took images and transmitted them to Greig. He listened to the lieutenant’s answer, then ordered, “Follow that track.”

  Allen spat to the side and changed direction to follow the tracks.

  Tension mounted as the men of the squad realized they were trailing an unknown number of Dusters. The tension would have been greater if they hadn’t known they were getting closer to their firebase and help.

  Chapter 11

  Broken circuit, tangental to Advance Firebase One

  “Keep it staggered,” Staff Sergeant O’Connor called to his squad. They were moving away from where he and Corporal Allen had observed the Duster camp, so he wasn’t as concerned about maintaining quiet. “Let’s not all get taken out by one burst.” Ever since the mid-nineteenth-century development of the Gatling gun, infantry officers and non-commissioned officers have been concerned about the possibility of their men being wiped out by a head-on burst of automatic fire, and constantly told them not to stand directly behind one another. That, of course, did not apply on the parade ground where officers can indulge in their fantasies of commanding troops in the tactics of the Napoleonic Wars. So O’Connor admonished his squad to keep it staggered, and not walk directly one behind the other.

  He himself wanted to be staggered more then the others to get the least obstructed view to the front. But they were still in the forest, and he couldn’t see very far ahead even if he did walk farther to the side. Better to rely on Allen to spot trouble ahead before that trouble spotted the squad. O’Connor wasn’t enough of a tracker to tell how old the tracks they were following were. They could have been less than an hour, or they could have been several hours old. But not so old that if whoever left them had set in an ambush, as they would have likely left the ambush position by now.

  O’Connor thought walking into an ambush was a greater possibility than catching up with whoever they were trailing and being spotted by their rear guard before Allen spotted them.

  He saw that the light was increasing ahead of the squad indicating that they were nearing the edge of the cleared area around the firebase when Allen stopped, lowered himself to a knee and looked back. O’Connor followed Gasson to the pointman.

  Wordlessly, Allen pointed; the tracks he’d been following split, some continued straight, some bent to the right.

  O’Connor looked in both directions but didn’t see anything to tell him what the Dusters were up to. He called Greig, requesting instructions.

  It took the better part of a minute for Greig to provide any. “Go left half a klick and then come directly in.”

  After acknowledging the new orders, O’Connor turned to Allen. “Stay far enough inside the trees to be behind someone lining up for an assault, but close enough to see into the open. When we get out, head straight for the main gate at a brisk walk. Got it?”

  Allen nodded, spat to the side, and moved out on the new route. They didn’t encounter anyone or any problems in the half-klick movement through the trees, then turned toward the firebase.

  They were in the open, still more than a hundred meters from the firebase’s wire, when shrill cries from the edge of the forest shattered the quiet of the day, and heavy fire began coming at them.

  “Run!” O’Connor shouted, and began sprinting toward the open gate. The caws and shrieks behind him rapidly grew in volume, and the bullets whizzing and zinging past them felt closer.

  “Third squad, down!” Lieutenant Greig shouted over the platoon freq.

  O’Connor repeated the order. He dove to the ground and twisted around to face the forest. He began firing at Dusters, hundreds of them who boiled out of the forest, racing, jinking and jiving in a chaotic mass, at his squad. “Everybody, fire!” he shouted. To his sides, he heard the fire team leaders turning their men to face fire on the Dusters.

  Then with a r-i-i-i-p-p! the M-69 Scatterer opened up, raining bullets over the heads of the soldiers of third squad. One of the M-5C machine guns joined the Scatterer, and the two M-40 mortars began lobbing their bombs into the mass of Dusters. The rifles of a squad added to the death flying at the Dusters. Blood spurted and geysered from hit Dusters, feathers flew, and chunks of flesh and bone were flung about.

  But there were so many of the aliens that it seemed to O’Connor that the monstrous casualties they were taking hardly seemed to dent their numbers. Already in the few seconds since O’Connor had first heard the cries of the Dusters they had halved the distance from the forest’s edge to the humans. And there seemed to be as many as there were to begin with.

  “Kill them!” O’Connor bellowed, firing as fast as he could at the charging enemy. The mass of Dusters was so dense that nearly half of his unaimed bullets found a target, and many of the hit Dusters tumbled to the ground. His men were striking almost as often as he did. He could see that the Dusters’ speed was so great that they would have caught his squad if the men had kept running instead of stopping to allow the platoon’s weapons squad to fire over them. He looked at the rapidly closing enemy and realized his only satisfaction now would be how many Dusters died with him and his men in the next few minutes.

  “What’s wrong with you?” he screamed, when he realized the mortar had stopped firing.

  Before the words were fully out of his mouth a blur flashed through his field of view. He was buffeted, almost rolled over by the shock wave that accompanied the most deafening boom he’d ever heard.

  Marine air had come!

  The first strike was by two AV 16C Kestrels, which used the shockwave from their sonic boom to break up the Duster mass and cause casualties.

  O’Connor raised his head and saw far greater disruption among the Dusters than at first. The aliens’ chaotic movement was intended to confuse their enemy; this chaos was Dusters staggering about in confusion and disorientation, and tripping over their comrades who’d been injured by the sonic concussion.

  A second pair of Kestrels swooped down at subsonic speed, firing their weapons along the long axis of the mass of Dusters. Blood, feathers, flesh, and bone fountained into the air. He realized that the aliens were no longer shooting at his men, and the rest of second platoon had stopped firing.

  “Third squad, on your feet!” he shouted. “Head for the gate.” He looked around to make sure everyone heard and was obeying his order, and saw two limping soldiers being assisted by others. Before he could make a satisfied grunt about his men taking care of each other without being told to, he noticed an unmoving lump.

  “Ah, shit.” He sprinted to the downed soldier and found PFC George Buchanan staring lifelessly in a puddle of blood; an enemy projectile had hit him where his neck and shoulder met. O’Connor suspected the shot had hit Buchanan’s heart, killing him instantly. He hoped it was instantaneous, that the soldier hadn’t suffered.

  He quickly glanced toward the Dusters. Noticeably fewer of them were milling about now, and none were charging or firing, not even at the Marine aircraft that were coming in for another strike. Those who could were staggering toward the cover of the trees. He hoisted Buchanan over his shoulders in a fireman’s carry. No help for it, he carried his own rifle in his free hand but left Buchanan’s to be retrieved later.

  Speeding toward the gate, he almost felt like cheering when he heard the Marines’ continuing fire on the Dusters.

  Aftermath

  They held a brief memorial service for PFC Buchanan, the first member of Alpha Troop to die in action.

  “Brief” was all they had time for. Brigadier General Rufus Saxon, 10th Brigade’s commander, and the battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Douglas Hapeman, flew in as soon as the battle was over to assess the situation.

  “You need to get this cleaned up, Lieutenant,” Saxon said to Greig as the three str
ode through the chewed up ground where the Marine Kestrels had slaughtered so many Dusters. “These bodies are going to start stinking something fierce in a very few hours. You don’t have any heavy equipment to dig a trench-grave, so you’re going to have to burn them. Put your boys to work gathering the bodies in one spot. I’ll get you enough fuel to bonfire them. Got it?”

  Greig had hoped Saxon would send in some engineers with equipment to dig a trench and bulldoze the corpses into it, but that wasn’t to be. “Yes, sir,” was all he could say.

  Saxon gave him a look. “I know you’d rather do it with heavy equipment. That’d be faster, certainly, but after the action you just had, and losing your first soldier, I think your boys need something other than their loss to keep their minds occupied.”

  “Yes, sir, the general is right,” Greig said. He wanted to say something very different, something that would get a mere second lieutenant in deep trouble if he said it to a brigadier general. So he simply said, “Yes, sir, the general is right.”

  Saxon gave the field of carnage a long, penetrating look. “The Marines estimate that between their air and your ground fire, we killed about a quarter of the Dusters that attacked. What’s your assessment of their casualties?”

  “Sir, a quarter sounds about right,” Greig said.

  “You must have been hit by something more than a regiment.”

  “At the time, it looked more like a divsion, sir.”

  Saxon barked a curt laugh. “And you only lost one man.” He grinned fiercely. “These beasts may have made a quick hash of the colonial guard that was here when they first attacked, but now they’re up against professionals. They don’t have a chance.”

  “Begging the general’s pardon, sir, but they pretty much wiped out a Force Recon platoon. That sounds pretty tough to me.” Greig swallowed at his own temerity; it didn’t do for a second lieutenant to gainsay a brigadier general.