Starfist: FlashFire (35 page)

Brigadier Sturgeon briefed his primary staff and major unit commanders on the important items in Lieutenant General Billie’s meeting: when reinforcements would begin arriving; and the Supreme Commander’s total disregard for the Force Recon reports. So, he said, 34th FIST had to come up with its own plans to defend against an assault by overwhelming forces.

Commander Daana, the FIST F2, intelligence officer, accented the need for defensive plans when he summarized the latest reports from the FIST’s own reconnaissance squad—“someone” had been clearing lanes through the passive defenses along the waterline; disarming mines and prepping underwater obstacles for demolition.

While the others got to work setting their defenses, Sturgeon took Captain Shadeh, the FIST F1, personnel officer, aside to put him to work reassigning Marines from Whiskey Company to the infantry battalion. Sturgeon then notified Commander van Winkle to expect the new Marines and to have his S1 ready to distribute them to the companies.

It was a solemn third platoon that gathered for a platoon meeting following the memorial ceremony. The platoon hadn’t lost any men killed or too badly wounded to return to duty since early on the Kingdom campaign, before the Marines learned how to defend against Skink rail guns. That was also the last time they had lost a squad or fire team leader. Sergeant Bladon, who was then the second squad leader, had lost an arm then, and enough time had passed between the injury and when he began undergoing the regeneration process that his arm might not grow back. Even if it did, he would have to go through extensive rehabilitative therapy before he could be returned to duty. Either way, he wasn’t there to resume leadership of second squad. First squad’s Corporal Goudanis had also been too severely wounded to return to duty, and might never be well enough.

On that occasion, then-Corporal Linsman and then-Lance Corporals Claypoole and Dean were promoted to fill Bladon and Goudanis’s positions and the vacancy created by Linsman’s promotion. Now Sergeant Linsman was dead, and so was the gun squad’s Corporal Barber.

Ensign Charlie Bass didn’t look at the three new men who stood together at the rear of the platoon, the only Marines present who were fully visible—the rest of them were in chameleons, with only their heads and hands visible. Staff Sergeant Hyakowa kept close but unobtrusive watch on the new men— he wanted to see how they reacted to the platoon’s response to the loss of men and promotions from within.

“No Marine is expendable,” Bass told his platoon, “we all know that. But it’s also true that no Marine is irreplaceable. Today we have to replace two good Marines. I’m not going to go into how good Sergeant Linsman and Corporal Barber were, I already said that at the memorial service.” His voice broke and he had to pause for a moment; both of them had been with him as long as he’d been with the platoon. They were the twelfth and thirteenth Marines who had been with third platoon when he joined it as platoon sergeant who had died or been wounded too badly to return.

He found his voice again and continued. “I’ve discussed matters with the Skipper, the Top, the Gunny, and Staff Sergeant Hyakowa, as well as Sergeants Ratliff and Kelly. First, we’re all in agreement that it’s past time that Corporal Kerr became squad leader and got a promotion to Sergeant. Congratulations, Tim.”

He paused for a moment to give the members of second squad a chance to add their congratulations, then said, “As you were, people! And remember, nobody who isn’t already a sergeant gets to pin the new stripes on Kerr, and then not until
after
he is formally promoted.” He paused again as a wave of good-natured laughter ran through the platoon. The laughter raised his spirits; the platoon’s morale was already rising.

“Lance Corporal Kindrachuk has been known to get particularly rowdy and barbaric on liberty, but he’s a solid gunner who knows his business. He’s taking over first gun team.” Again, there was a round of congratulations, before Bass quieted the platoon.

“Now we’ve got a fire team leader slot to fill,” he said, and looked innocently at all the expectant lance corporals in the platoon. “This personnel change shouldn’t come as a surprise to anybody. Corporal Doyle is taking over as fire team leader.”

The announcement was met with dead silence, except for a strangled gasp from Corporal Doyle. The three replacements exchanged nervous glances; they didn’t know what the problem was, but they all realized
something
was wrong.

“Come on, people,” Bass snapped. “What’s your problem? Doyle’s already
got
the rank. He’s proven himself more willing than most to speak his mind when he knows he’s right.” That drew loud laughter. “And he’s demonstrated that he knows enough, even teaching men junior to him things they need to know. Corporal Doyle has a lot of fear when we go into action, fear that would paralyze anyone not a Marine—and would paralyze a lot of Marines. But he’s able to overcome it and function through his fear. And he’s got leadership experience from when he was the company chief clerk.

“Maybe
you
haven’t been paying attention, but I’ve been watching Doyle ever since he was on that patrol with me on Elneal. I’ve seen him grow since then, and even more since he joined the platoon. Everybody involved in making the decision to move him into that slot agrees that Corporal Doyle deserves to be a fire team leader.”

Well, not
everybody
. First Sergeant Myer had roared with outrage when Bass nominated Doyle for the slot and Hyakowa seconded the nomination. The Top still wanted Doyle court-martialed for insubordination for forcing his hand during the Avionia deployment. It didn’t matter to Myer that the operation wouldn’t have succeeded in its final, successful, step had Doyle not gotten his way; he’d been insubordinate!

When Top Myer wouldn’t calm down, Captain Conorado had ordered everybody out of the company command bunker and closed the blastdoor behind them. The company clerks went with the others. Closed blastdoor or not, the Marines waiting outside the bunker could hear the fireworks that went on for some time between the company commander and his top dog.

Then there was a couple minutes of silence, during which the Marines waiting outside fought cases of the fidgets, and began wondering how much blood they’d see spattered on the bunker walls when the blastdoor finally reopened.

None, as it turned out. Top Myer sat at his field desk, not quite glaring, not quite expressionless. Captain Conorado sat serene with a hip perched on a corner of his field desk.

“Palmer,” Myer growled at the company’s chief clerk when Conorado looked at him, “adjust the company roster to show Kerr, Kindrachuk, and Doyle in their new positions.” He turned to Staff Sergeant Hyakowa and growled, “Let me know where you plug the new men in, and any other changes you make in the platoon roster.” He turned to his console and made busy.

Bass and Hyakowa left the company office bunker and returned to the platoon for the memorial service.

“So,” Bass said, looking at the new men for the first time, “I’m Ensign Charlie Bass, and this is my

platoon. Who the hell are you?” The three were PFCs John Three McGinty, Emilio Delagarza, and Lary Smedley. Thirty-fourth FIST was the first assignment for each of them, and third platoon was their first operational unit. Delagarza had gun training and became the assistant gunner in second gun team.

“I don’t know about you other two, though,” Bass said. “We really only have one open slot. PFC Quick has a shattered arm, but we expect him to come back shortly, which means one of you will be an extra man when he does.

“Corporal Doyle!” Doyle jerked and jumped to his feet. “Y-yessir!” “You’re good with new men. Which one do you want?” “S-sir?” Doyle squeaked. “You heard me, Doyle. Which of these new men do you want in your fire team? Speak up quickly,

now. Don’t make me think I was wrong about you.”

“Ah, yessir. I-I’ll take—” he looked at the new men and couldn’t see any difference between them on which to base a choice. He flipped a mental coin. “—I-I’ll take Smedley, sir.” “Good choice, Doyle. If he’s half the Marine another Smedley was, he’ll make you a better fire team

leader.” “Sir,” Smedley blurted, “Smedley was General Butler’s first name, sir. Smedley’s my
last
name.” Bass turned his gaze on Smedley and said slowly, “I’m fully aware of that, PFC. But it’s a famous

name, and you had best get used to it.”

Smedley gulped and tried to turn invisible, which was tough to do in garrison utilities. “Aye aye, sir,” he said. Bass studied him for a brief moment, nodded curtly, and said, “That means Corporal Dean gets

McGinty. Be gentle on him, Dean, he’s just a loaner.” Everybody laughed except Dean, who scowled, and McGinty, who wasn’t sure it was a joke.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

General Jason Billie sat comfortably in a private room just off his command bunker entertaining his chief of staff, Major General Sorca. “I want to have a little private talk with you, Balca, before we meet with the rest of the staff and the commanders to hash out our battle plan.”

Brigadier General Balca Sorca nodded. “I saw some of them already out there in the operations center when I came in here. Cazombi and Sturgeon are there, gabbing in a corner like a couple of old women. They should be ready in a few minutes.”

Billie snorted derisively. “Let them wait, Balca. They serve at my pleasure now. I’ll go out and call the council to order when I’m damned good and ready.” His face reddened as he remembered the run-in he’d had with Brigadier Sturgeon. Marines attack, they don’t defend—what bullshit! That damned infantry jock was incapable of seeing the Big Picture! He reached into a drawer and withdrew a cigar humidor. “These Clintons are excellent smokes and, if you’ll join me, let’s light up.” Billie offered Sorca his travel humidor. Nodding his appreciation, Sorca took one of the cigars, clipped the end, and licked it lovingly. Billie offered him a light and then lit his own cigar. They sucked in the acrid smoke and exhaled.

“De-lightful!” Sorca sighed. “Haven’t had a good smoke since, um, before all this mess got started.” Immediately the smoke from the two cigars began to fill the small room. That deep inside the complex the ventilation was very poor and, of course, nobody in his right mind would dare expose himself to chance a smoke in the open. From far above them came a series of heavy thumps as if to accentuate the danger of exposure topside.

“Incoming,” Balca muttered. Billie had not been there long enough to tell the difference between enemy artillery and their own. Truth be told, he had never been under enemy artillery fire before.

“These are forty-five-minute cigars, Balca. But let’s go slow on them,” Billie suggested, “keep the smoke down, keep the others waiting, show them their place in this army. Besides, we have a lot to discuss.” He reached back into the drawer and took out a brown bottle. “Old Widow bourbon,” he smiled, holding the bottle out to Sorca, who raised his eyebrows in admiration. “I brought a lot of stuff with me from orbit, Balca. No reason why the commanding general—and his chief of staff!—should live like the troops, is there?” They both laughed as Billie poured two healthy shots into clean glasses. “Here’s sham rocks to my real friends and real rocks to my sham friends,” Billie toasted. “You’re looking a trifle thin, Balca,” Billie observed over the rim of his glass.

“We’ve been on reduced rations for a while, Jason.” The two had been on a first-name basis for years, in private, that is.

“No more! You eat at my table from now on. I brought enough class-A rations in with me to operate my own mess down here and by God, I will
not
dine like a sodden infantryman! R-H-I-P is my motto and ‘privileges’ is the operative word, Balca. Don’t forget that in your rise to the stars, which I am going to see is rapid. This campaign is the making of both of us.”

The two smoked and sipped in silence. “As my chief of staff, Balca, you will oversee the day-to-day running of this entire army and that means the Marine contingent. Cazombi as my deputy commander will not interfere. I’ll keep him off your back. My plans for him are to store him away so he will no longer be in the way.”

“And if anything were to happen to you, Jason?”

Billie laughed. “Nothing’s going to happen to me! I’m the commanding general! Generals don’t lead troops anymore, despite what that idiot Cazombi and that madman Sturgeon think! Generals stay safe and run the army and that’s what we’ll do, you and me.”

“Cazombi’s responsible for this mess,” Sorca said. “If he hadn’t bled off my engineers and his own troops to prepare this complex, I could’ve stopped the rebels cold and held on to Fort Seymour indefinitely! I should have stuck him in a back room as soon as I got here, but no, military protocol dictated that I take the damned fool seriously and show him deference as the ranking officer here, although I had the authority to override him. That was my big mistake, Jason! Now we’re stuck in this sewer.”

“Balca, as soon as the situation stabilizes, as soon as we break out and get the enemy on the run, Cazombi’s out of here. My recommendation for your promotion to Lieutenant General has already been forwarded to the Combined Chiefs and I expect the President and the Congress to approve it without debate. But Cazombi doesn’t worry me, Balca, it’s that Marine, Sturgeon. We are going to have to keep them on a short rein, Balca. That fiasco with Hill 140 the other day could have spelled disaster for the entire command.” His face reddened again as he remembered the way Sturgeon had treated him in his command post that day. “Marines have their own chain of command and their own voice in the Commandant and I happen to know that the President likes General Aguinaldo. She likes Marines.”

“So does Cazombi,” Sorca muttered. Billie threw him a questioning glance. “Yes, it’s true. He oversaw a mission that a company from 34th FIST conducted on a restricted world. The officer commanding that company was court-martialed as the result of a complaint filed by a scientist conducting surveillance on that world. Cazombi appeared as a witness for the defense. And you know about his run-in with the chairman over the quarantine policy we’ve had in effect on the Marines of 34th FIST. I don’t know all the reasons why the quarantine was imposed, highly classified stuff, but the word is out that Cazombi’s kissin’ cousins with the Marines, and him an army man at that.”

They sipped the bourbon and puffed on their cigars for a long while. “All these Marines are ‘warriors,’ ” Billie mused at last. “You know the difference between ‘warrior’ and ‘soldier,’ don’t you, Balca?”

“Yes, a ‘warrior’ is a guy who likes to fight, raises his sword, and off he goes at the enemy, but a ‘soldier’ uses discipline and brains to win fights.”

“Well, that’s Cazombi and Sturgeon, Balca, ‘warriors.’ Now, we’re soldiers, you and me. We got where we are because we used our heads. We are too precious to our armies to get ourselves killed. So we’re going to use these ‘warriors’ to our advantage. These fools will be our battering rams and if they’re used up in the process, all the better.”

Sorca grinned and toasted Billie. “How are we going to do that, Jason?”

Billie smiled cryptically. “In time, Balca, in time. All will turn our way in time.”

Suddenly someone was knocking on the door. “Are you all right, sir?” It was Billie’s aide, Captain Woo. “Are you all right, sir?” he asked again, his voice tinged with anxiety, “There’s dirty smoke coming out from under the door!”

Lieutenant General Alistair Cazombi and Brigadier Theodosius Sturgeon sat in a corner of the busy command post sipping gingerly at cups of ersatz coffee. “I apologize for not bringing some of the real stuff in with me,” Sturgeon was saying, “but we came combat loaded, ready to fight.”

“That is only what we expected, Ted,” Cazombi replied. “Tonight, get hold of Captain Conorado and bring him to my quarters, would you? We’ll sit around and lie about old times.”

“Yessir.” Sturgeon sipped his kafe silently for a moment. “You worked a miracle, holding out this long,” he said at last, looking around at the gaunt figures in the CP going about their business.

“Not me, not me. These men and women,” he gestured at the staff officers around them, “they’ve taken a beating and are still full of fight. We really had our asses kicked at Fort Seymour, Ted. If we hadn’t had this redoubt to fall back on we’d have been overrun the first day.”

“I hear that was your doing, sir. And because you held out so long you denied the enemy a bunch of prisoners to use as negotiating chips.”

“Well—” Cazombi shrugged, “he’s holding out for more ‘chips.’ But you’re probably right. If they’d captured the entire garrison at the beginning, the Confederation probably would’ve already granted them their demands. But now you’re here and there are more coming.” He brightened. “But I’ve gotta admit something else, Ted. That enemy over there, he’s smart. He’s flexible in his tactics and he won’t be easy to beat. We’ve always considered these people rubes but by damn, they’re fighters and they’re well led. Since he failed to get us all, now he wants us reinforced so he can win a stunning victory by wiping us all out or bagging our entire force. That is probably the main reason we’re still here; we’re the magnet he wants to draw more troops into the trap.”