Starfist: Kingdom's Swords Read online

  The Skink flared into vapor. More blasters crack-sizzled in the night. His light shield briefly blacked as it was overwhelmed by the flashes of several hit Skinks flaring up.

  “Both sides!” Bladon shouted, though he knew his squad was already shooting in all directions. He couldn’t see any more Skinks even when he added his magnifier shield to the mix, though he clearly heard their jabbering. He glanced toward Schultz. The big Marine wasn’t firing. He slapped his shoulder and the two rose to run to the rest of the squad.

  “Coming in!” he shouted. “Kerr, Doyle, it’s us!” Then they were with the squad.

  “Report!”

  Linsman reported that Lance Corporal Rodamour had been splashed by a stream from a Skink weapon, but it was minor and he’d already dug out the acid that was eating into his side. Miraculously, nobody else was injured. The Marines kept up their fire while the reports came in. Their fire was met by more flares from hit Skinks.

  One voice rose above the general jabbering that encircled second squad and a whistle sounded. The jabbering cut off, and the only sounds were those of fleeing bodies crashing through brush.

  “Where the hell did they come from?”

  “Damned if I know,” Linsman replied. “We didn’t even know they were there until you yelled.” He sounded shaken.

  Bladon called in his report.

  “How many did you get?” Humphrey asked after Bladon told him of his one minor casualty.

  “I’m not sure. I saw at least eight or ten flashes.”

  “Any point in looking for bodies?”

  Bladon barked a laugh. Lieutenant Humphrey hadn’t been on Waygone, he’d only heard about how even a glancing hit from a plasma bolt made a Skink flash into vapor. Bladon had seen that happen himself.

  “None,” he replied.

  “Right,” Humphrey said, almost chagrined that he’d asked such a dumb question. “Return right now.”

  “Assigned route?”

  Humphrey considered the question for a second. “Assigned route,” he confirmed. The artillery battery had fires plotted along that route. If second squad needed help on the way back, they could get it.

  Probing attacks began around the battalion perimeter while second squad was returning. They were only a hundred meters away when Schultz yelled “SKINKS!” as he dove into the mud and rolled to the side.

  A stream of greenish fluid shot through the air where he’d been and just missed Doyle, who toppled to his side as the acid shot past. Kerr leaped forward and landed between Schultz and Doyle in time to see Schultz flare the Skink who’d shot at him.

  Kerr saw a faint smear of red in his infra and snapped a bolt at it. A Skink vaporized. More faint smears of red showed up. “Right front!” he said on the squad circuit, and flashed another Skink. On his right he sensed Schultz methodically firing. “Doyle, take them out!” he ordered.

  “Where are they? I can’t see anything.”

  “Use your infra. If you don’t see a target, fire randomly!”

  Doyle began firing randomly to his right front as he slid his infra into place. A bright flash greeted one of his shots and he stopped shooting. “I got one!”

  “Keep shooting, there’s more where that one came from.”

  “Oh.” Doyle resumed shooting.

  Harsh barking sounded to their right front, like a commander issuing orders, organizing his men. Plasma bolts from the Marines in the company perimeter sizzled low overhead.

  “Second squad, pull back,” Bladon ordered. The bolts from the perimeter were too close and they were in danger of being shot by their own people. “There’s a hollow about twenty meters back—head for it.”

  Still prone, still firing, the ten Marines began crawling backward. Bladon turned around and headed straight for the dip so he could guide his men. It wasn’t much shelter, just deep enough to get their torsos below the level of the surrounding mud. It was bottomed with a few inches of water. He used all three shields to see his men and tell them in what direction to crawl. He grabbed the men when they got close and pulled them in.

  Corporal Chan was the last one in. He dragged Watson with him. Lance Corporal Watson was dead, hit squarely by two streams of acid.

  “Anyone else hit?” Bladon wanted to know.

  Again, almost miraculously, nobody else was wounded.

  “We must have come up behind them,” Bladon said, “and caught them by surprise.”

  Kerr wondered about that. The Skink that first shot at Schultz was, what, fifteen meters away before it fired? Maybe whatever told the Skinks where the Marines were wasn’t as sensitive as he’d thought. Did it have severe distance limitations? The range of the sense had to be more than fifteen meters. On Waygone the Skinks had shot at them at night from thirty or forty meters and come close enough to cause casualties. No human could shoot at a chameleoned Marine at night and consistently hit that close unless he was using an infra. Maybe the Skink had to hold off until it had a sight line?

  Kerr stopped thinking about it long enough to snap off a round at a smear of red that showed in his infra. Instantly, the nine Marines in the hollow opened fire. Three flashes brightened the night as three Skinks vaporized.

  The roughly circular hollow was only ten meters or so in diameter, the Marines dangerously bunched along its lip. One good spray from the flank would hit most of them.

  “Third fire team, move to the right flank,” Bladon ordered. “First fire team, left flank, put someone on our rear. Second team, spread out!”

  The Marines crab-crawled, firing as they scuttled. They were still too close together, but one lucky spray wouldn’t hit as many of them, and the flanks and rear were covered. Fire continued from the company perimeter. The bolts that made it as far as the hollow were high enough that second squad wasn’t in immediate danger from them. Harsh voices shouted above the crack-sizzle of the blaster fire and the jabbering of the Skinks. It sounded like they were getting organized for an assault on the hollow. Bladon looked at the UPUD. It showed large numbers of bodies moving around the hollow. He called in a situation report.

  Lieutenant Humphrey signed off after getting Sergeant Bladon’s report and called out on the company command circuit.

  “Bladon thinks they’re organizing to overrun his squad,” Humphrey told his platoon commanders and platoon sergeants. They could all hear firing and the Skink voices. Heavy fire sounded from the positions of the other two companies, but the only shooting Company L was doing was in the direction of third platoon’s second squad. The Skink voices were all in that direction, and sounded closer to the isolated squad than to the perimeter. “We have to send someone out there to help them.”

  “Those are my people, Skipper,” Gunnery Sergeant Bass said immediately. “I have to go.”

  “Charlie, you only have one blaster squad and your gun squad. That’s not enough, we don’t know how many of them are between us and your squad.”

  “It’s enough if we hit them fast and hard. They probably won’t expect us. We can break through and bring my people back before they can organize to do anything about us.”

  “Skipper,” interjected Lieutenant Rokmonov, the assault platoon commander, “I’ve got a very pissed-off section leader breathing down my neck. He wants to take a squad outside the perimeter and raise some hell.”

  “That would give me a lot more fire power than a full-strength blaster platoon,” Bass added before Humphrey could nix the idea.

  There wasn’t time for further discussion, and Humphrey was reluctant to pull a platoon from a different part of the perimeter.

  “Do it,” he ordered. “Rokmonov, place a section to cover third platoon’s sector.”

  It only took two minutes for third platoon to get ready for its rush and for Staff Sergeant daCruz to arrive with a squad from his section. Fire and voices rose toward a crescendo at second squad’s position.

  Bass made sure the assault squad with its heavy gun was on the platoon circuit, then gave the order. “Nothing fancy,
people, this is a roundhouse blow. We go out at the double and don’t stop for anything. Hold your fire for my command unless you see a target. Kill anyone and anything that isn’t a Marine. Ready?” He didn’t ask for questions. “Let’s go!”

  Twenty-four Marines ran on line toward second squad’s position. The rate of fire and the alien shouts there were furious. As he ran, Bass radioed to Bladon that they were on their way. He no sooner said that than a swarm of dim red smears showed on his infra.

  “THIRD PLATOON, FIRE!” he shouted loud enough that he didn’t need his helmet comm. “Second squad, get down!” He opened fire.

  The assault squad set up its gun and fired into the midst of the Skinks massed before second squad’s hollow. The night lit up with the flashes of so many dying Skinks, the Marines had to raise their light gatherers. The crack-sizzle of blasters combined with the whine of the assault gun to drown out all other noises.

  “Second squad, on me!” Bass shouted as he flared three charging Skinks before they could get off shots of their own.

  “Squad leaders, make sure you’ve got everybody, then withdraw,” Bass ordered as soon as second squad joined him. He didn’t comment on the body his infra showed one Marine carrying, or the irregular gaits of several of the others.

  “On the double, people; Mama doesn’t want us staying out all night.”

  They ran.

  “Oh, man, did you see that?” Lance Corporal Claypoole said excitedly. “It was like a fireworks show out there! Our weapons were the Roman candles and their flashes were the bursting stars!” His adrenaline was still pumping.

  Lance Corporal Dean just stared at him. It had been horrendous. There were so many Skinks out there that if third platoon hadn’t caught them by such complete surprise, the slaughter would have gone the other way. His adrenaline had stopped pumping and he was feeling the letdown.

  “You’re lucky you’re not in my fire team,” Corporal Pasquin snarled.

  “What do you mean?” Claypoole asked, grinning.

  “You’re so damn dumb that if you were in my fire team I’d just have to smack you upside the head. You’re not, so I can’t. That’s Corporal Dornhofer’s job.” Pasquin reached out and thumped the back of Dean’s helmet.

  “Ow! Wha’d you hit me for?” Dean yelped.

  “Because you’re listening to that dumb turd. Besides, you’re mine and I’m allowed to.”

  “Good thing you didn’t hit my favorite turd, Pasquin,” Dornhofer snarled as he rapped his knuckles against Claypoole’s helmet. “I’d have to hurt you bad if you did.”

  Pasquin laughed. “Yeah? You and what army?”

  Dornhofer leaned close, jutting his jaw. “Ain’t nothing no damn army can do a Marine corporal worth his salt can’t do better by his lonesome.”

  “Now now, children,” said Sergeant Ratliff, first squad leader, “play nice or you don’t get any cookies with your bedtime milk.”

  The two corporals looked at him indignantly, then leaned in close together.

  “One of these days we have to do something about him,” Dornhofer whispered.

  “Yeah,” Pasquin whispered back. “Sergeants. Promote a corporal to sergeant and he looses all humanity. They need to be taught some humility once in a while.”

  PFC Godenov, the third man in Pasquin’s fire team, laughed to himself through the entire exchange. PFC Hayes, Dornhofer’s third man, on only his second deployment and in his first real combat, looked on wide-eyed.

  The mood in second squad wasn’t so high. Watson was dead, and Linsman, Rodamour, and Kerr had wounds. Longfellow needed to be evacuated. The corpsmen wanted to evacuate Schultz, but the big man leveled his blaster at them and told them it was his arm, not a leg, he could walk, so patch him up well enough to stay with the squad. The corpsmen complied. They knew Schultz would respond to the battalion surgeon the same way, so there wasn’t any point in sending him to the battalion aid station.

  Fighting continued around the perimeters of the other two companies, but Company L’s area was quiet.

  “I think your second squad broke up an assault on us,” Top Myer said. He sipped the steaming caf he was sharing with the third platoon commander in the company command post. Bass had already debriefed on second squad’s patrol and his own rescue mission.

  Gunny Bass listened to the fighting around the other two companies. “I think you’re right,” he agreed. “That’s one reason we send patrols out when we’re in night positions.” He blew on his caf and wished again that Myer hadn’t served so much time on ship’s complement—he’d gotten used to navy coffee and brewed his own the same way. As near as Bass was able to figure out, the navy made coffee from the sludge that remained behind after they scrubbed old paint from their ships.

  “Gutsy thing you did then, charging out there with an understrength platoon.”

  “They’re my people, Top. No way I could abandon them.”

  Myer nodded. That was a big part of what made Charlie Bass such a good commander—he took care of his people. The Corps needed more officers like that. Now if only he could convince him to accept a commission.

  “Just because they aren’t hitting us now doesn’t mean they’re not going to later,” Myer said.

  “Got that right. I’ll make sure my people are ready.” Bass poured out the dregs of his caf and left the company command post.

  Myer stared at the space Bass had just occupied and sipped at his caf. Yes indeed, that Charlie Bass would make a fine FIST commander someday. If only he’d let the Corps turn him into an officer.

  CHAPTER

  * * *

  SIXTEEN

  Lew Conorado considered the five men who boarded the Cambria at Siluria a bit odd but not so out of the ordinary that he had reason to think them suspicious. They just did not act like miners. It was his experience that men who made their living in danger’s way were garrulous and lived hard when off duty. Such men were loud, raw, and earthy, like Marines. These men were not like that. They spoke politely when spoken to but never initiated a conversation and kept largely to themselves.

  That the miners were religious men was evident at the first meal served in the common dining area. They sat together in a far corner of the galley and before they ate their simple meal, held hands as they said grace over their food. The antique ritual caused some brief comment among the other diners at first, but by the second day the other passengers had taken to ignoring the five strangers, which seemed to suit the five just fine.

  It took several days to load the Cambria’s holds. Conorado spent much of the time on the bridge, observing the operations. Hundreds of lighters soared up from the planet’s surface to unload cargo into the ship’s yawning bays. The passengers were allowed to visit Siluria’s surface if they wanted to, but Conorado was content to stay on board. Besides, the crew, especially its young systems engineer, Jennifer Lenfen, were required to remain at their stations until the loading was completed, and Conorado felt a need to be near her.

  Their chance meeting on the bridge that night before the ship reached Siluria had developed into a sort of friendship. They had even taken to eating their meals together when Jennifer was off duty. The more time he spent with the young technician, the more he liked her. Besides, when he was with her, his own problems, marital and official, receded a bit and he was actually able to relax and enjoy himself.

  “I wanted to join the navy after college,” she told him at lunch the second day after making the jump into hyperspace from Siluria, “but my family is not very well off. This job pays more, and between contracts I have plenty of time to spend with my folks and sisters and brothers.”

  “How many in your family?” Conorado asked.

  “Nine of us. I’m number seven.” Conorado raised an eyebrow and said something about how he’d have liked to have had a family that size.

  “Well,” she responded, “old traditions die slowly. The Chinese have always favored large families, especially if the kids are boys. But I haven’t do
ne badly for a girl.”

  “Where do you come from?”

  “My ancestors were among the original settlers on T’ai Chung at the end of the last century, but I got my engineering and computer science degrees at M’Jumba University on Carhart’s World.”

  Conorado smiled. “I don’t know T’ai Chung, probably because you don’t have any need for a Marine expeditionary force there, which is just as well. M’Jumba’s a good school, I’ve heard. A professor of history there helped us out once with some badly needed advice. It was on the Diamundian Incursion. Do you know about that operation?”

  “I remember reading about it. Who was the professor?”

  “Jere . . . Jere . . .”

  “Benjamin! Yes, I had him for an elective course!” She sat up and snapped her fingers. “Old Jere Benjamin! Golly, he was a character! But could he teach! We all loved the old bird. What’s he doing now?”

  Conorado hesitated a moment. “He passed away, Jenny,” he answered softly. At the look of real sorrow that crossed the young technician’s face, Conorado wished he’d lied and said he didn’t know what had happened to the professor. “Well, there was heavy fighting on Diamunde, and unfortunately Professor Benjamin was killed. It was quick and he really was a brave man, Jenny, as brave as any of my Marines.” He was not about to tell her that Professor Benjamin had been tortured to death by Marston St. Cyr. “I’m really sorry, Jenny, I wish—”

  “Oh,” she sighed, “that’s okay, Lew. It was just unexpected news, that’s all. Besides, who’d ever have thought the two of us would meet like this and that we’d have these common points of interest?” She was quiet for a moment and then brightened again. “Say, Lew! Have you gone on a tour of the ship yet? I’m scheduled to take some of the diplomatic personnel out tomorrow. Would you like to come along?”

  “Not only yes, but hell, yes! as we say in the Corps! You just tell me when and where and what the uniform is and I’ll be there!”

  Jennifer laid a hand softly on Conorado’s forearm, “Lew, I want you to come along, and thanks for taking the time to sit with me and talk like this.” She wanted to rush on and say something awkward like, “I’ve never met a man like you before!” but she was not that stupid. “We’re assembling on the bridge at four hours tomorrow.”