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

  The Dusters had closed to less than a hundred meters when the artillery barrage began. The concussions had broken some of their bodies, and shrapnel had scythed through many others. But there were so many to begin with that there were still more of them than there were Marines inside the perimeter. And the closest were almost to the wire.

  “Get up!” Mackie shouted, and kicked Horton in the ribs, not sure the new man had yet recovered enough that he could hear. He fired a burst at a Duster that was leaping at the wire.

  Horton stirred and looked up vaguely.

  “Get up!” Another kick. Another burst hit a leaping Duster.

  Horton rolled onto his hands and knees and slowly pushed himself up.

  “Your weapon, numbnuts! Where’s your rifle?” He knocked a Duster down, but it landed on the wire.

  Horton looked dumbly down and spotted his rifle. He bent to pick it up, then moved to his firing position and started putting out unaimed bursts.

  The lumination flares that had preceded the barrage were dropping close to the ground and burning out. Another round of flares burst overhead. The fresh light showed Dusters throwing themselves onto the wire, pinioning themselves to it, turning their bodies into bridges for other Dusters to scamper across. As Mackie’s hearing began to return he heard the fierce, manic cawing of the Dusters. He added his voice to all those crying out, “They’re inside the wire!”

  A Duster raced to the bunker and flattened itself next to the side of the aperture. It shoved the muzzle of its rifle through the opening and began jerking the trigger. Mackie let go of his rifle with one hand and grabbed the barrel of the Duster’s with his other hand. He yanked hard and pulled the alien soldier to the front. Cafferata shot it, and his burst threw the thing away.

  More Dusters crossed the wire and closed on the fronts of the bunkers. Most of those Dusters were killed quickly, although they managed to wound or kill some Marines. Worse trouble was caused by Dusters that raced around to the rear of the bunkers, where the entrances were.

  “Hector, cover the door,” Mackie snapped when he saw Dusters racing too far to the side to be coming at the front; he thought they must be going between the bunkers.

  Cafferata turned just in time to hear a scrabbling at the bunker’s entrance. He didn’t wait, but started shooting at the entrance, trying to angle his shots to ricochet around the first corner. He was rewarded by a warbling caw followed by a thump. He sped to the entrance and poked the muzzle of his rifle into it and fired another burst. An anguished caw answered.

  In front, Mackie saw bodies piling up in front of the bunker, and fewer Dusters coming at him.

  A change in the tempo and echoes of firing in the firebase gave testimony to many Dusters attempting to enter the bunkers from their rears. The caws and skrees of Dusters rang throughout, as did the cries and shouts of many Marines. An occasional shriek told of human casualties.

  Mackie was turning to see if Cafferata needed help at the entrance when a yelp next to him spun him back. Orndoff was falling back with a blade of some sort protruding from his chest. Mackie looked past him just in time to see Horton put a burst into the face of the Duster whose bayonet stabbed Orndoff.

  “Are you okay, Hector?” he shouted.

  “I’m good, honcho,” Cafferata shouted back.

  Mackie knelt at Orndoff’s side. Orndoff was struggling to breathe with the weight of the weapon pressing on his chest. “Take it easy, Marine,” Mackie said. “I’ve cut myself worse than that shaving.”

  He grasped the Duster rifle to keep it from flopping over and tearing up the Marine’s chest. Orndoff gasped in pain from the movement. A quick look showed Mackie how to detach the bayonet. He disengaged it, and tossed the alien rifle away. Orndoff wasn’t wearing his gear belt; none of them were. Mackie scrabbled for one and pulled the field dressing out of it. He packed it around the bayonet where it penetrated Orndoff’s chest, pressing down onto the wound, sopping up the blood. He grabbed another dressing and added it, doubling the thickness to stop the bleeding. He tied the bandages off with a third dressing.

  “Stay there and don’t move,” Mackie ordered. “Doc’ll be here be here most ricky-tick to take care of you.”

  Orndoff looked at him wide-eyed, and gave a shallow nod.

  “Now I gotta get back to work.” Mackie gave Orndoff’s shoulder a squeeze, and stood to resume fighting.

  “How’s it look?” he asked Horton. He could see for himself that almost all of the Dusters in sight to the front of the bunkers were down—which was good, as Horton just shrugged in reply. Many of the Dusters lay twisted in ways that couldn’t be comfortable, much less natural. Only a few were moving, and none of them seemed to pose a threat. Not even the still-live Dusters who had given themselves up to be bridges over the wire.

  “Kill anyone that looks like a threat, and let me know if they mount another charge,” Mackie said, clapping Horton on the back. He turned toward the entrance. “How’s it going, Hector?”

  “It’s quiet for now. At least they don’t seem to be trying to come in anymore.”

  Mackie listened for sounds of battle outside his fire team’s bunker. He could hear sporadic gunfire and some shouts from human lungs. There weren’t many of the caws and shrieks of the Dusters. He toggled on his helmet comm and called Sergeant Martin.

  “What’s going on out there?” he asked when he got his squad leader. “It’s quiet here now, but Orndoff has a chest wound and needs the doc.”

  “The reports are that most of the Dusters are down,” Martin replied. “Hang tight until a corpsman can get to you. Do you have Orndoff stabilized?”

  Mackie looked at his wounded man. Even though he was still grimacing, he seemed to be breathing more easily, and hardly any blood was flowing from around the edges of the field dressings. “I think so. He doesn’t look like he’s going into shock.”

  “Good. Keep him that way. Look sharp, the Dusters might decide to hit us with another surprise. Martin out.”

  “Keep me posted,” Mackie said, but he knew Martin was no longer listening.

  He joined Cafferata at the entrance and listened to the sporadic sounds of fighting elsewhere in the compound, but none close to their bunker. “Keep alert,” he said, then went to the front to look out with Horton.

  Mackie studied the bodies littering the ground, some broken and dead, others injured. “Any of them moving toward us?” he asked.

  “Maybe. Could be. I don’t know.”

  “You better know. If one of them has an explosive and gets close enough to chuck it in, we’re screwed. Got it?”

  “Y-Yes, Corporal.”

  “It’s Mackie. Just Mackie out here.”

  “Right. Sorry about that.”

  “Don’t be sorry, just do it.” Mackie thought of something. “Keep watching.” He scuttled to the section of flooring where his gear was and rooted through it. In a moment he was back with his shaving mirror. Holding it at an angle, he stuck it through the aperture and looked to see if it showed any Dusters laying against the bunker’s wall where they couldn’t be seen. There weren’t any either under the aperture or at the sides of the front.

  He realized he hadn’t heard any shooting or caws since he’d left Cafferata’s side. “Either of you hear anything out there?” he asked.

  “I’ve got nothing,” Cafferata answered.

  “I don’t hear anything,” Horton said.

  Lieutenant Commiskey came up on the platoon all-hands freq. “It seems the excitement is over. Each squad, put a fire team out to make a sweep through the platoon’s area to make sure we don’t have anybody faking it.”

  While Martin was assigning first fire team to join in the sweep, a welcome voice spoke up outside the bunker’s entrance. “It’s Doc Hayden. I hear you’ve got a patient for me.”

  Chapter 2

  Camp Zion, Aftermath of the battle

  Thanks to sharp-eyed watchers, motion detectors, the timely use of illumination, and close in artillery, Indi
a Company suffered a scant ten casualties, two of them killed, during the night attack. PFC Orndoff was the only injury in third platoon’s first squad.

  The Dusters were nearly all killed or wounded. The wounded ones had already been gathered into a makeshift open-air dispensary where the company’s corpsmen were tending their wounds. Not that they could do much for them other than bandage bleeding wounds and splint broken limbs. They couldn’t use any medications to reduce pain or fend off infection, because they had no idea of how the aliens’ systems would react to human medicine. Some of the Dusters didn’t get any more than the most rudimentary wound coverings—the Corpsmen thought their injuries were so severe they had no chance of surviving more than a few hours without treatment by their own medical personnel, who would know better how to deal with their wounds.

  “They aren’t very good fighters, are they?” PFC Horton said in the cold light of dawn, looking at the bodies laying on the ground around and between the bunkers, bodies the Marines were gathering into stacks like cordwood. They were like nothing he had ever seen in life. They were man-sized, bent at the hip almost parallel to the ground, balanced on powerful-looking thighs over spindly lower legs that ended in wickedly taloned feet. Their arms looked to be half the length of their legs, and held rifle-like weapons in long-fingered hands. Feathery crests rose above their heads, and ran down the length of their spines to a fan of feathers at the ends of their tails. Their heads jutted forward on the long necks he’d seen whipping side to side during the attack. They had long jaws, filled with rows of sharp, conical teeth. They were naked other than for leathery straps bearing pouches.

  Corporal Mackie shook his head. “Don’t fool yourself. They got slowed down by the wire, and the concussion of the artillery barrage must have disoriented them. Besides, they had a damn hard time trying to get to us in our bunkers. They’re much better fighters than you think.” He looked into someplace only he saw. “We’re lucky they only killed two Marines this time. They’ve killed a lot more before.” His head shot at Horton. “Who the hell do you think this firebase is named after? A Marine who was in this fire team and got killed by a Duster, that’s who. So don’t you say they aren’t good fighters. You’re dead fucking wrong. They can kill you just as dead as I can!”

  Horton abruptly took a step back, shocked by the fury in Mackie’s voice and eyes. “I—I’m sorry, C-Corporal M-Mackie. I—I didn’t mean anything.”

  Mackie grunted and turned away. He didn’t correct Horton on calling him by his rank instead of by just his name.

  “Knock off the grab-assing, people!” Staff Sergeant Ambrosio Guillen, the platoon sergeant, bellowed. He and Second Lieutenant Commiskey were returning from a debriefing at the company headquarters. “Let’s get this area policed up. We have a ton of bodies to bury.”

  Mackie cast a glare at Guillen, he wasn’t grab-assing. He snapped at Horton, “This one,” and picked up the taloned feet of a nearby Duster. He squeezed the ankles and twisted them hard enough to grind the bones together; if the alien was faking it would react to the painIt didn’t react.

  Horton picked the alien up by its shoulders. Ever since he and his fire team leader had first picked up a Duster, he’d been surprised at how light they were compared to a human. “Hollow bones,” Mackie had explained. “We think they’re some kind of bird analogue.”

  They were fifteen meters from the nearest collection point. This alien joined the twelve that were already there, stacked two high.

  Sergeant Martin came by and counted the baker’s dozen. “Start a new stack with that one. The Skipper wants them stacked by the dozen, to make it easier to tally them.” He looked around at the few bodies still on the blood-stained ground behind the bunkers. “Go forward and start a new stack with those bodies. I’ll have Vittori’s fire team finish up here.”

  “Right, honcho,” Mackie said. He jerked his head at Horton and headed to the area between the bunkers and the wire perimeter. “Watch close, Hector,” he said to Lance Corporal Cafferata as he passed their bunker. Cafferata sat on top of the bunker keeping watch over the land beyond. “You’re just lucky Orndoff is out of it. If we were full strength, you’d be out here stacking Dusters along with me.”

  “Hey, sentry’s dirty duty, buthey, somebody’s got to do it.”

  “Keep that up, and I’ll have you spell me and Horton all by your lonesome.”

  “Sure thing. Hey, any word yet on how Orndoff’s doing?”

  Mackie shook his head. “I haven’t had a chance to check on him. I don’t think Sergeant Martin has either. If Lieutenant Commiskey knows, he’s not sharing.”

  Cafferata grimaced. Not being told how a wounded man was doing generally wasn’t good news.

  There were more bodies between the bunkers and the wire than there had been behind the bunkers—it had been a Duster slaughterhouse.

  “Let’s get started,” Mackie told Horton. “We’ll start with those three,” he said, pointing at a trio of corpses that were already almost lined up.

  Horton grabbed the shoulders of the nearest one and lifted. Then he looked to see why Mackie wasn’t lifting the legs.

  Mackie was standing immobile, looking beyond the wire. “We aren’t going to be stacking those,” he said softly.

  Horton blanched when he looked to see what Mackie meant. There were bodies beyond the wire, bent and cast aside the same as the bodies inside it, and hung up on it. There were also bits and pieces of bodies, remnants of bodies that had been blown apart by the artillery barrage; they wouldn’t stack.

  Cafferata saw what Mackie was looking at. “We’re going to need buckets to clean that up,” he called.

  “Buckets, yeah,” Mackie said numbly. He bent to help Horton with the whole bodies inside the wire.

  When the stacking of Duster dead was done, including the wounded who had been put aside in the makeshift dispensary and died of their wounds, there were more than three hundred of them. An additional fifty-eight were still alive and receiving rudimentary medical care. The bits and pieces of the Dusters blown apart by the artillery might have amounted to another fifty, or even more.

  For centuries, the rule of thumb had been, attackers need to outnumber defenders by a margin of three to one in order to take a fortified position.

  The Dusters had outnumbered the Marines at Camp Zion by nearly four to one.

  “Damn,” Mackie whispered when he heard the enemy count.

  Heavy equipment came in while the bodies and body parts were being collected. They dug trenches to bury the Dusters, and filled them in once the bodies and parts were deposited. The regimental chaplain said a few words over the grave site, in an attempt to invoke whatever god or gods the Dusters might or might not believe in.

  Sick bay, Camp Zion

  “Why did you leave the bayonet in him, Corporal?” asked Lieutenant Middleton Elliot, the battalion surgeon.

  “Sir,” Mackie answered, trying to keep “That’s a dumb question” out of his voice and expression, “I didn’t know what kind of damage had been done inside him. It’s possible that the bayonet was keeping him from serious hemorrhage.”

  “I see they’re making Marine junior NCOs smarter these days,” the doctor said, nodding. “That was the right thing to do, even if it wasn’t necessary. The bayonet jammed in PFC Orndoff’s ribs, all that was cut was surface muscle. No internal organs, no important blood vessels. But if it had gone in two more inches, he could have been in serious trouble and you leaving the bayonet in might have been the only thing that kept him alive.

  “Good job, Marine. Now get him out of my sick bay, I need the bed.”

  “Thank you, sir, I need him. You can have the bed.” You and that cute nurse I noticed looking at you when I came in, he thought. To Orndoff, he said, “Come on, Harry. Let’s get out of here.”

  “And just when I was getting comfortable.”

  First squad, third platoon’s area

  Neither of the killed Marines were from third platoon; they were re
lieved that the platoon had only suffered three wounded, and that all were quickly returned to duty. In addition to Orndoff, second squad’s Lance Corporal James Burns and third squad’s Corporal Thomas Prendergast were wounded. Prendergast’s wound was the worst of the three, his left humerus was broken—fortunately, it was a clean fracture. But he’d be on light duty for three or four weeks. He couldn’t patrol, but he could stand sentry duty. Which was fine with the members of his fire team, because that meant they didn’t have to patrol as often as they would have had his injury healed more quickly.

  Prendergast notwithstanding, the rest of the Marines in the platoon had to go on patrols.

  Seven kilometers southwest of Camp Zion

  “What do you have, Mackie?” Sergeant Martin asked. He headed for his point fire team, which had stopped advancing.

  “You tell me, Sergeant,” Corporal Mackie answered. “It looks like a hell of a lot of Dusters were here recently.”

  Martin joined Mackie at the edge of an area cleared of underbrush, the first such they’d seen in the thin forest the squad had been patrolling through. Before examining the ground, he glanced about to see where Mackie’s Marines were; they were set out in defensive positions, providing security.

  “Vittori, take your fire team fifty meters up and set in,” Martin ordered. “Button, watch our rear.” He watched while the two fire teams moved into position. Satisfied that security was in place, he told Mackie, “Bring your men. Let’s take a closer look.” He made sure his helmet cam was running.

  “Third fire team, up,” Mackie called. “Go twenty or thirty meters in from us and look sharp,” he said when they joined him and Martin. “We don’t know if any Dusters are still in this area, or if they’ll return.” He looked at the squad leader.

  “This looks like it might be a bivouac area,” Martin said. “We’re going in. Keep ahead of us. Twenty meter intervals.”