Starfist: Kingdom's Fury Read online

  Skink Fighters wearing full body armor with interlocking helmets had been infiltrating all day, crawling under the trees slowly and quietly enough that neither the motion nor the audio detectors picked them up. Sappers had already noted the positions of the visual detectors, and the Skink infiltration routes avoided them. Also, the creatures showed poorly on infra. Now, with most of the detectors dead, the Over Master in command of this phase of Operation Rippling Lava gave the command, and ten thousand Fighters rose to their feet and trotted in orderly lines to the foot of the ridge and the hill that were under attack. There, they awaited the order to begin mounting the heights.

  The Over Master gave another order, and his guns raised their aim from the slopes of hill and ridge to impact with devastating effect on the slopes of the bunker faces.

  “I want artillery on those guns, and I want it now,” Commander Van Winkle ordered.

  “But Archbishop General, those guns are not firing at our defenses,” Archdeacon General Crucifix, commander of the 104th Division, objected. “We must preserve our artillery fire to defend our own defense sector!”

  “Go to your quarters and stay there!” Van Winkle said coldly. He was not going to waste any time arguing with the man whose position he was filling. The Haven defenses were under heavy attack, and the attack had to be repulsed now.

  Ignoring Crucifix, who stood sputtering, he turned to the Marine artillery observer. “Sergeant, send that fire order to FIST artillery. Tell them they’ll have proper authorization by the time the guns are ready to fire.”

  “Aye aye, sir.” The artillery observer was smiling as he began to speak into his hardwired comm unit.

  “Get him out of my sight before I have him clapped in irons,” Van Winkle ordered.

  “Certainly, sir,” replied Gunnery Sergeant Hu, the battalion’s assistant personnel officer. He turned to Crucifix and gestured toward the command room door. “After you, sir.”

  “Bu-Bu-But . . .” Crucifix sputtered.

  “Sir, I do believe he means it.”

  Crucifix looked around the command center. His own soldiers outnumbered the Marines, but none of them were armed. All of the Marines were—and they looked ready to use their weapons. Gathering as much dignity as he could, he turned and marched out.

  Gunnery Sergeant Hu followed closely, to make sure Crucifix went to his quarters as ordered. As he walked he spoke into his personnel comm unit and gave orders for a supplyman to meet him with tools and a padlock. Hu had been around long enough to know that a lot of generals thought orders didn’t apply to them; he was going to make sure Crucifix stayed in his quarters as ordered.

  Van Winkle didn’t see Hu escort the Kingdomite division commander out of the command center. He was too busy ordering the Kingdomite artillery liaison officer to relay the fire order to his regiment, and contacting Brigadier Sturgeon to get authorization for the artillery fire mission he’d just ordered.

  Within the bunkers no one could tell what was happening outside. The crashing and battering impact on the bunker faces reverberated inside with a din so loud it allowed for awareness of nothing beyond itself. The sonic overload beat men down, opened their mouths in silent howls, bled them from their ears. On the entire twelve-thousand man front, only the 350 Marines whose helmets were able to muffle the noise were capable of fighting—if they could see through the thickening clouds of pulverized ferrocrete dust.

  The Over Master spoke a command, and his ten thousand armored Fighters, urged on by Masters and Leaders, began their climb.

  Brigadier Sturgeon didn’t hesitate to issue authorization for the fire mission Van Winkle had ordered. It arrived at 34th FIST’s artillery battery seconds before the guns were ready to fire. The six guns of the battery finished locking their guidance systems into the string-of-pearls and fired. The string-of-pearls, which had so much difficulty picking up infrared signals from the Skinks, had no problem seeing their horrid weapons. Seconds after the guns of 34th FIST’s battery fired, six canisters of scatter munitions burst open above six Skink buzz-saw weapons. The hundreds of submunitions the canisters expelled spread over a wide area and exploded before they reached the ground. Shrapnel tore the crews of the weapons to shreds. The crews of six other weapons had died moments earlier, when the guns of 26th FIST’s battery fired. Both batteries fired again, and twelve more weapons fell silent.

  The twelve dozen guns of the two Kingdomite divisions also fired. But they couldn’t tie into the string-of-pearls guidance system, and their fire wasn’t as accurate. They didn’t have scatter munitions either, so rounds that hit more than a hundred meters from Skink positions had no effect on the devastating fire, and most of the Kingdomite rounds landed more than a hundred meters away. The Skinks had two thousand weapons firing at the defensive line. They held more buzz saws in reserve.

  “Each of you, get two Raptors in the air,” Brigadier Sturgeon ordered Brigadier Sparen and Colonel Ramadan. “I want Jerichos on those weapons.”

  “Aye aye,” the FIST commanders replied. They contacted their squadrons, gave orders. Ramadan told his air people to instruct 26th FIST’s air wing on the tactics they’d developed to use against the Skinks.

  In moments two Raptors from 34th FIST’s squadron lifted off and headed for Heaven’s Heights Ridge, staying well below the ridge top. They hovered a kilometer behind Heaven’s Heights and locked their Jerichos onto the string-of-pearls guidance system. One at a time, four Jerichos belched out from under the wings of each Raptor, swooped up over the ridge, and hit their targets. Each Jericho wrought the destruction of a tactical nuke, leveling an area half a kilometer in diameter. Their areas of destruction overlapped. A three-kilometer-long swath of forest and wetlands was cleared of the monstrous Skink weapons.

  The pilots from 26th FIST’s squadron had to wait a few minutes before taking off because they needed extra briefing in the tactics. They headed for their firing position behind Hymnal Hill and locked in. One of them wasn’t tucked behind the hill well enough. His Raptor had just fired its second Jericho when the threat warning shrilled in the pilot’s ears, just before his Raptor disintegrated. The other Raptor got off all four of its Jerichos, then dropped altitude and sped back to base less than fifty meters above the ground. The Skinks knocked three of those six Jerichos out of the air before they reached their targets.

  The Over Master issued two prearranged commands. One command halted the fire against the bunkers, began the withdrawal of those weapons, and led the ten thousand Fighters who were just short of the heights—still undetected by the dazed and blinded defenders—to close the final gap and begin their killing. The second order sent sappers along the line of killed weapons, to set fire to the corpses and fragments and to retrieve the weapons.

  Silent until now, the Skink Fighters shrieked and barked as they charged the final twenty-five meters. They jammed the nozzles of their acid guns into the apertures of the shattered and cracked bunkers and let them spray.

  The stunning, ear-ringing quiet that fell when the Skinks stopped battering the bunkers lasted only seconds. It was replaced by the screams of Kingdomite soldiers whose flesh was being eaten by the acid.

  All along the line, Marines began firing back. The flashes of dying Skinks lighted the bright afternoon even more brilliantly. Enough of the Marines had the presence of mind to radio reports to their command elements that they were being overrun, so Brigadier Sturgeon and his staff recognized the severity of their situation. In moments new fire orders were issued, and all the artillery began firing on the defensive line. The Marine cluster munitions mowed Skinks down by scores, but more of them survived because of their body armor and helmets. The Kingdomite artillery, by dint of numbers, killed just as many. But shells from those guns also hit bunkers already weakened by the Skink fire and collapsed them, wounding or killing the defenders inside.

  “Regimental artillery, cease fire!” Sturgeon barked as soon as he realized the Kingdomite fire was killing Marines. The rumble of the Kingdomite g
uns slowed and stopped. There weren’t enough Marine guns to do the job on the ridge and the hill, and he didn’t dare send any Raptors up. What could he do to stop the Skinks from taking Heaven’s Heights and Hymnal Hill?

  “Cooks and bakers?” he asked Sparen.

  “I can have them on the move in five minutes,” Sparen replied.

  “Ram, can you get anybody there sooner?”

  “Van Winkle’s been rotating his line companies off the line,” Colonel Ramadan replied.

  “Have whoever’s available hit Hymnal Hill.”

  “Aye aye.” Ramadan picked up the comm to his infantry commander.

  “Who else is available to move?” Sturgeon wanted to know. “We need to get more Marines up there.”

  Meanwhile, the Marine artillery kept pouring its scatter munitions on the high ground.

  CHAPTER

  FOUR

  “THIRD HERD, SADDLE UP!” Staff Sergeant Hyakowa bellowed as he raced into the park where the Marines of the platoon waited tensely, watching the fight on the heights above the city.

  “Fall in,” Hyakowa shouted as he skidded to a halt.

  In seconds the Marines were in formation, all with their weapons and gear, though the new men were still shifting everything into place.

  “Squad leaders, report!”

  Sergeant Ratliff looked to his side. “First squad, all present!”

  Sergeant Linsman didn’t pause; he’d taken stock as he ran into formation. “Second squad, all present!”

  “Guns, locked and loaded,” Sergeant Kelly sounded off.

  Hyakowa pointed at the nearest height, Hymnal Hill. “We’re going up there,” he said, “as soon as some Dragons get here.”

  A muffled roaring came from behind a nearby building.

  “That’s probably them now.” Hyakowa looked toward the sound in time to see two of the armored, air-cushioned, amphibious beasts slip around the corner of the building.

  The drivers reined in their mounts and reared about so the ramps faced the Marines when they dropped.

  Lieutenant Rokmonov poked his head out the rear of one of the Dragons and called out, “Mount up!”

  “Ah, shit,” Ratliff muttered, and glanced toward the hill. He remembered too well the Dragons that had been killed in the Swamp of Perdition, and the Marines whose lives were lost when they erupted. Hymnal Hill was close enough so they could reach it in ten minutes or less if they ran. But orders were orders.

  “First squad, move out!” he shouted, and led the way onto the Dragon Hyakowa pointed him at.

  Less than a minute after they stopped in front of third platoon, the Dragons were loaded and headed for the rendezvous point to meet the Dragons carrying the rest of the company.

  There was no time for planning. A squad and a half of Marines were on top of Hymnal Hill fighting for their lives against hundreds of Skinks. Commander Van Winkle relayed the order from Colonel Ramadan as soon as he got it, immediately ordering six Dragons to pick up Company L. Captain Conorado linked into the string-of-pearls and began studying the situation even as he pulled on his sidearm and gear.

  “All hands, listen up,” Conorado said on his all-hands circuit. He could tell by changes in pitch in the faint rumbling that came through the Dragon’s armor that the six vehicles were on line, speeding toward the reverse slope of Hymnal Hill. He transmitted the sitmap to his platoon commanders and platoon sergeants.

  “Some Marines are going to die up there if we don’t get to them right now,” he said. “The little bad bastards that are overrunning them outnumber us by at least ten to one. “We’ll off-load just below the topological crest and go over it on line. Volley fire downslope as soon as we reach the top crest. Everybody, chameleon shields in place, shirt necks closed, sleeves down and cuffs tight, gloves on. No exposed skin. I don’t want any casualties because someone let that acid get inside his uniform.” He hoped the new uniforms really were impervious to the Skinks’ acid sprays. “And plasma shields up. We’re going to have a lot of fire up there, let’s not have any Marines killed by Marines! Make sure your Marines understand. Do it!” He plugged into the vehicle’s comm to give orders to the Dragons.

  In the Dragons, the platoon commanders and sergeants transmitted the sitmap to the squad leaders, who in turn projected them for their men to study. They relayed Conorado’s orders while the Marines examined the projected maps. But they listened more than they looked; the maps only showed the slope of the hill and the line of bunkers thirty meters down the hill’s opposite slope. Adrenaline coursed through every Marine in the Dragons and sweat bathed them. Most of them had fought the Skinks more than once, and most of them had lost friends to the Skinks’ ghastly weapons. Some had suffered wounds at the hands of the Skinks. They were going up against better than ten to one odds! Were even Marines that tough? Those who held belief in a deity prayed to whatever god they believed in.

  For a moment before the Dragons reached the infantry jump-off line, the Marine artillery concentrated its fire on Hymnal Hill’s defensive line. Then the Dragons stuttered to a stop and their rear ramps dropped. The Marines bolted off, and even before they were all on line, Conorado gave the order to advance, and they ran uphill. The Dragons rumbled behind them. Taller than the running Marines, the Dragons would be seen by the Skinks first if they were with the line, and Conorado wanted his entire force to make contact simultaneously. He didn’t want the Skinks warned by the Dragons that his infantrymen were coming. He radioed for the artillery to cease fire, and the artillery shifted its fire to Heaven’s Heights.

  Half a minute after the Dragons dropped their ramps, the Marines surged over the hilltop, and their momentum sent them crashing into Skinks, bowling the nearest ones over.

  “Volley fire, point-blank!” Conorado screamed.

  The Marines of Company L were lucky that the Skinks had not begun to organize a defense against a counterattack. They were stunned and totally disorganized. The pummeling they’d taken from the artillery was devastating, even though body armor had kept most of them alive. As many as had been slaughtered by the Marine scatter munitions and Kingdomite artillery, there were still far too many of them to take cover in the bunkers.

  The Marines who could opened fire into the thick mass of enemy. Others were in physical contact and used their blasters like quarter staffs, battering the Skinks, breaking their bones, smashing their flesh into bloody pulp. The nearest Skinks shrilled and tried to back off far enough to bring their acid guns to bear on the Marines. Some a little farther back saw the counterattack and sprayed acid in the direction, but little of the fluid reached the Marines. Most of it spattered against their mates and tumbled them to the ground, screaming their death agonies.

  A clear lane suddenly opened before the Marines, and they opened fire with their blasters. Along their front, Skinks flashed brightly into vapor—the body armor gave no defense against the plasma bolts. The Skinks were so tightly packed that each bolt flashed at least three of them. Hundreds flared in the first few seconds, but there were still many left. The brilliance of the flashes blinded the Marines and the heat of the flares stopped the Marine advance. A Skink barked a command, and hundreds of Skinks charged.

  “Back off!” Conorado shouted. “Get down. Fire prone!”

  The Marines withdrew a few meters and fell into prone positions. Their fire resumed, even heavier than before. Plasma bolts slashed into the Skinks.

  Now, with the infantrymen out of their line of fire, the Dragons opened up with their guns, gouting huge streams of fire. The six guns of the blaster platoons and the heavier guns of the assault platoon were set up, and their fire, added to that of the Dragons, put up a plasma wall that vaporized most of the attackers. The blastermen picked their targets and fired. The flashes from the dying Skinks were dazzling, even to them.

  The Skink charge staggered against the wall of fire and broke. Those nearest the fighting turned and ran panic-stricken at the Skinks behind them, trying to force their way through them to fle
e to safety. Marine fire—Dragons, guns, and blasters—pursued them. In seconds the mass of Skinks on the hilltop realized they were about to be wiped out, and nearly all of them ran. Masters and Leaders ran about, shrilling and barking orders for the Fighters to turn around and fight, but the Fighters were too shocked by the carnage they’d suffered to obey.

  “To the bunkers,” Conorado commanded as soon as he could see again. The Marines leaped up and sprinted, expecting the Skink buzz saws to open up on them before they could get under cover in the bunkers. They didn’t know the Skinks had already withdrawn the buzz saws.

  Conorado saw the Skinks in flight across the flats below Hymnal Hill and called in an artillery fire mission on them. The 82nd Division’s artillery regiment responded faster than it had to its previous fire missions. Hundreds of Skinks died before they reached the safety of the wetlands and waterways.

  A couple of the Marines of second platoon, Charlie Company, 26th FIST, had been killed when plasma bolts they’d fired at Skinks crowding in with them ricocheted off the walls and hit them. A couple more had been overwhelmed and killed by the sheer number of Skinks who crammed inside their bunkers. But most of them, though injured, were still alive.

  Company L had no time to rest after beating off the attack on Hymnal Hill—Heaven’s Heights was in imminent danger of being overrun, and they were the closest Marine infantry to the ridge. After checking for casualties, they scrambled back into their Dragons and roared off, relieved that their worst injury was a broken arm suffered by one of the new men in the mad melee when they first crashed into the Skinks.

  Conorado got good news en route to Heaven’s Heights.

  “Twenty-sixth’s cooks and bakers will meet you,” Brigadier Sturgeon told him. “They’re under the command of the security section commander. You have operational command.”