The Black Ships (30 page)

What they found wasn’t good for morale.

The aircraft had been carrying marines and
Simpson had identified them as belonging to his old company. Twenty-eight men
lay in a line beside the wreckage. Merkel was there organizing the removal of
his own dead men. Five men from the ten-man squad had been hit by the opening
volley and two of them hadn’t been able to use their pressure dressings in time
to stay alive. The thin Martian atmosphere, only one percent of what Earth
possessed, allowed all the air in a suit to vent very quickly when it was
punctured.

In the few minutes it had taken to clear
the enemy threat, the two men had died a horrible death in the nearly
non-existent atmosphere. The downed marines had suffered similar, though more
malevolent, fates.

“Little bastards cut their suits.” Merkel
nodded over to the line of dead men by the Osprey. “Lined them up and slit
their neck seals, one at a time.”

 Simpson and his Marines had gathered
around their fallen comrades. If they were talking, they must have been using
their own net because Märti didn’t hear a single word from them. Finally, one
of them came over to where the prisoners were standing in a row. He poked the
first prisoner in the chest with his weapon. “This one has the most markings on
his suit,” he mused, sounding like he was picking a melon at the grocery store.
His casual, almost lyrical drawl seemed to have a slight French flavor. “He
must be the leader of these murdering little bastards.”

Märti felt a cold certainty that the
killing was not over.

Simpson, hearing the man, turned in
surprise but he was too late.

The man stepped to the right and kicked the
second alien in the chest, knocking him to the ground. He placed a boot on its
chest and fired a short burst into the creature’s torso before stepping back to
look at the enemy officer. “That’s on your head, big man,” he called as Simpson
dragged him back and took his rifle. “We all are nothin’ but dead men,” the
soldier declared. “Just a question of timing is all…”

And so it grows.
Märti watched the alien officer, trying to read the expression on
his face.
Insults and atrocities by both sides will escalate until we commit
to total war. When the public on Earth hear of incidents like this, they’ll
demand that we build another fleet. One that can reach the enemy’s home world
and damn the impact on our economy. This will end with one civilization
crushing the other.
Even if they managed to defeat this invasion force, he
had his doubts about fighting the enemy on their own soil.

He looked down at his screen. The command
post was being loaded. He reset his laser sight menu and painted the ground at
his feet. He checked his display; the CP would now drop in this little valley.
His medics would be able to work on the wounded men without having to drag them
back over the last two ridges.

He turned the battalion net on. “CP will
drop on this location. All units consolidate your defenses. We'll do a tank
charge and hot meals before pushing on.” He saw Leuzinger standing next to him
and switched to proximity mode.  “Leuzinger,” he said quietly. “Get those
bodies covered, do it respectfully.” He headed towards Simpson.
We should
arrange to send the dead and wounded back on the same bird that brings the CP.

4 Kilometers from Olympus Mons
Objective

March 12
^th
, 2028

“C
ontact, thirty plus enemy in sand bag revetments,” Captain Ramser’s
voice crackled in Märti’s ear, low and urgent. “I lost five men when they
opened up.”

 Märti understood the deeper meaning
of Ramser’s statement; one that he couldn’t say out loud with the men
listening. The enemy was at platoon strength, dug in and waiting for the Swiss
and yet they had opened fire on the first men to come into sight. Experienced
troops would have let them come closer, drawing more men into the trap before
revealing their presence.

The major checked his wrist, the fleet had
some Vulcans available and he had no desire to send his men against an enemy
position in the dark. “Paint it, Captain.” He activated a fire mission request
and, when Ramser’s target came up on his display, linked the mission to the new
coordinates. Within seconds, the link went green and a timer started to
countdown.

So much had changed in the months leading
up to the launch. A year ago, a fire mission would have been organized in the
usual way. An eight-figure grid reference would be determined, a compass
reading would have been useless on this planet and so the fire mission would
have been communicated by radio to the fleet, giving the particulars.

Now, with the new data integration system,
units in contact with the enemy could use their weapon-mounted lasers to
‘paint’ targets. The reflection bounced off the enemy position to be picked up
by the sensor array on the flagship. Data encoded in the laser carried whatever
information the sender entered on a small rugged touch pad that was strapped
between the wrist and elbow. An intelligence operator would integrate the
information and release it for general use.

All Märti needed to do in order to initiate
a fire mission was to select the new node when it appeared on his map and drag
a line from it to the appropriate line on the artillery menu. He had a choice
of 105mm or 30 mm. He chose the 30 mm Vulcans for their higher muzzle velocity.
At 3,450 feet per second, the Vulcan rounds left the barrel at more than twice
the speed of the larger 105mm rounds. That cut their wait time to a respectable
four and a half minutes and each Vulcan fired six hundred times more rounds per
minute than their larger cousins. For enemy troops behind sandbags, the Vulcan
would do nicely.

“We’re working our way through the lateral
canyon on our right flank with two platoons,” Ramser informed his major. “Once
the bombardment lets up, we’ll roll through them and clear the site.” The
canyon would keep them out of sight of any night-vision devices that the enemy
might have. Ramser would hit them when they were still reeling from the orbital
bombardment.

The rounds came as a shock to Märti. The
night sky was suddenly filled with sound as though a thousand giant linen
sheets were being torn slowly in half. The sheer volume of noise was causing
the tissues of his body to vibrate. Brilliant streaks of fire lanced down to
pulverize the enemy position in short bursts. Almost a quarter of the Vulcans
in the fleet were taking it in turns to fire on the target for a few seconds at
a time. The bombardment had its own rumbling pulse, like a living thing, and
Märti could only imagine the effects on Ramser’s men as they waited, just a few
dozen meters outside of the kill zone.

He looked down at his screen. “Last
outgoing rounds are on their way,” he advised. Abruptly, the sound and fury
ceased and Märti could hear Ramser shouting for his men to move. Amazingly,
some of the enemy had survived and a brief firefight ensued. Märti poked his
head out from behind the peak of a small rocky hill and engaged his thermal
vision. The enemy position was a horror of warm body parts but there were still
at least five or six still alive and trying to fight. They appeared to have
difficulty staying on their feet.
If they don’t have inner ear damage after
that bombardment, I’d be amazed,
thought Märti.
 

Ramser’s men were firing on them from cover
until one of them got a grenade into the enemy position. As soon as the flash
went off, several of the attacking units on the right flank pressed forward,
their comrades cutting their fire as the leading troops reached what was left
of the sandbags. They moved quickly, one man advancing while his partner remained
stationary to provide cover fire. They leapfrogged their way through the enemy
strongpoint, firing on the occasional enemy, and set up a semicircular defense
beyond the site.

It was quick and professional; leaving four
more of Ramser’s men dead. Even with the best of training and good equipment,
Märti knew he would lose men but it didn’t make it any easier when Ramser
called him on the battalion command circuit. “Four more men bought it,” he said
without emotion. “And Wager caught one in the leg. He’s patched up and can hold
out here until the next cas-evac. ” If it was tough for Märti, it was worse for
Ramser and even more so for the leaders under him. but they had to keep the men
moving.

Märti was just forming the orders to get
the lead companies moving when the air was torn apart one more time. This time
the sound was deeper and the single line of fire streaked more slowly towards
the ground but it was still deceptively fast. Before anyone could react, a
105mm high explosive round punched into the captured enemy position, detonating
several feet under the ground. Some errant bit of code must have been lurking
in the fire control systems up in orbit, waiting for its moment to surface and
tag a random round of ammunition onto an existing fire mission.

Wager, laying on his back, survived the
initial blast with concussion and a missing toe. The two medics kneeling by his
side had been nearly obliterated and so he died without regaining
consciousness; his tissues boiling in the thin atmosphere until his brain shut
down from lack of oxygen. Captain Ramser, kneeling over the body of his dead
soldiers had been killed by one tiny fragment of tungsten that had hit him in
the side of the head.  

Märti stabbed at the fire mission on his
screen’s fire support menu and opened a channel. “Cease fire,
you sohn
vonere huere
,” he shouted. “I have men on that target.” Switching back to
Battalion he ordered the men of Alpha company to move forward a hundred meters
just in case any more surprises were currently falling through the atmosphere
towards them. That was when he learned of Ramser’s death.

“The Captain’s dead, sir,” Lieutenant
Tritten replied when Märti began issuing orders directly to Ramser. “Hit by
shrapnel.”

The major was stunned by the news but it
was the kind of scenario he knew he might have to face.
Stager is the most
senior and he’s a good platoon leader.
He thought.
That leaves Sgt.
Dreher in charge of his old platoon.
He shook his head.
Hating the enemy
doesn’t disqualify a man for leadership, as long as he keeps his emotions in
check and concentrates on the job.
 “Stager, take over Alpha Company.
Dreher, you’ll lead the platoon.”

“Warning, Golf Tango Two Five!” an
automated voice blared in Märti’s helmet. “Forward element is danger close!”
Märti ordered Stager to move his men further out but no further rounds fell. He
suddenly understood and he glared up at the night sky in impotent rage. The
warning had come four minutes after the impact, delayed by yet another errant
bit of code in the system that had probably calculated the transit time of the
extra round.

Why did screw-ups have such a consistent
tendency to multiply themselves?  

Tharsis Region, Mars

March 12
^th
, 2028

G
us lay in the dark. He was on his stomach to one side of the tunnel
floor, fifteen feet from the entrance. The shelter was another twenty feet
behind him. He held his 9mm automatic out, aiming at the right side of the
tunnel mouth where he expected their visitors to appear. He had been changing
the battery on his camera when he’d heard the whine of an aircraft passing
overhead. He backed into the opening with the camera and tripod, dumping them
near the shelter door before picking a spot for his last stand.

Now he could hear the engines coming closer
and a red light shone on the tunnel opening, the angle leveling with the ground
as the vehicle landed. Shadows rippled through the light as troops approached
the entrance. Gus aimed along the sights of his pistol, forcing himself to stay
calm. If this was a rescue, he didn’t want to spoil it by shooting at friendly
troops. Despite his resolve, he nearly fired as the first form flitted past the
tunnel entrance to take cover on the far side. His finger, already attached to
a nervous man, was hovering over an unguarded trigger.

It was only as his mind replayed the scene
that he realized how big the shadowed form had been. He realized, with a
thrill, that the man had been carrying what appeared to be a C7 assault rifle.
He lowered the hammer on his pistol and put the safety on before holstering it
and raising to his knees and placing his hands behind his head.

He didn’t want to run the risk of getting
shot by the soldiers who had come to take them home.

The soldiers, wearing thermal optics, spotted
Gus easily and they moved into the tunnel. One of them took his pistol and they
moved to the shelter airlock. In less than a minute, they had equalized the
pressure and Gus stepped into the main room flanked by two men, one of them
carrying a large duffel bag. The colonists had come into the room and, seeing
their rescuers, pressed forward, some cheering, some crying but all happy at
the promise that the two men represented.

They removed their helmets. “All right
everyone?” the man with
Kennedy
on his chest said with a wide grin.
“Your ride is here, so let’s get sorted. We still have some nasties bouncing
around out there so we need to kit up and get moving.”

He had been searching the back of the small
crowd as he spoke. He found what he had been looking for and his eyes lit up.
He stepped through the crowd, crossing the room where he knelt. “What’s your
name, little one?”

The little girl, not quite two years old,
turned her head and hid her face against her mother’s leg. “Her name’s Carol
Grayson.”  The woman wiped tears from her eyes. “I’m sorry, it’s just hard
to believe that you’re here, that she’s going to have a normal life.” She knelt
and comforted the little girl who was frightened by the first strangers she had
ever seen.

“Carol, Sergeant Rai has something for you;
would you like to see?” Kennedy spoke in a gentle voice and the little girl
looked out from her mother’s arms with big brown solemn eyes. After a moment,
she nodded and Kennedy waved Rai over.

Little Carol looked up as the sergeant came
over and couldn’t help but return the smile. Rai carried a wicked looking
curved knife in a scabbard at his waist and he looked like a man who had made
regular use of it, but he possessed a natural confidence with children that
Carol responded to immediately.  She was starting to think that visitors
were a wonderful thing.

“What do we have here?” he asked in a
playful voice as he rummaged through the bag. “A new suit, made just for you!”
he declared theatrically, pulling out a tiny EVA suit, complete with the name
Grayson
and a little camouflaged American flag on the shoulder.

The little girl squealed with delight. “Go
outside!” she shouted, jumping up and down on her tiny little legs.