Venusian Uprising Page 7
“What’s Plan B?” Green asked.
“Call in for starfire, and pray they deliver,” Williams replied.
“That’s going to blow the op,” Lieutenant Grenwald said. “They’ll know we’re coming.”
“If they kill us all and report back, the cat will be out of the bag anyway,” Williams grunted.
“I sent a coded burst to the old lady to let her know we’re in a bind,” Lieutenant Grenwald said. “With luck, she can bring First Platoon around the battalion out there to back us up.”
“Don’t count on it,” Williams said. “There are a thousand Diskers between us and her. That’s a lot, even for thirty Marines. We need to get this done ourselves.”
The three men crouched in the underbrush for several more minutes, waiting for the enemy to reach the half-klick mark, and for Jansen and Chang to get in position. In the west, Gertrude, the northerly of the fusion suns, had fully crested the horizon, and Williams nodded to Lieutenant Grenwald.
“As good a time as any,” the lieutenant replied.
Staff Sergeant Green flipped off his rifle’s safety and set the weapon to fire an electron beam. The Marine could shoot the spots off a frog at a thousand meters without any tech assisting his aim. A pair of iron sights and a wind reading—assisted by the augmented eyes the corps had given him—and Green would make that frog dead.
He took careful sight down the length of his rifle and squeezed the trigger. An enemy soldier fell to the ground, his head blown almost clear off, and Green once more proved his skill as a Marine Expert Marksman.
“Thought their armor might be weak along the chin,” he grunted.
Weapons fire broke out all along the hillside as the Marines took out targets of opportunity before rolling to new positions. William’s estimate put the number of enemies in the valley to be just over one hundred fifty, with at least twenty falling in the first volley. But now the enemy soldiers were taking cover, and the Marines had to work harder to make a kill.
The ka-chunk of two/two’s crew-served weapon sounded to his left, up on the hillside, and several more Disker soldiers were down before they realized light cover wouldn’t cut it.
Across the valley, the sound of Chang’s heavy weapons squad cut through the general mayhem of the fight, but Williams couldn’t see any incoming rounds from the kinetic slug-thrower. That meant two/one was engaging the enemy on the other side of the north ridge. They were flanked after all.
Williams fired a few shots from his rifle—one clipping a Disker in the shoulder, the other two hitting cover—before he rolled to a new position and fired another round. They were scoring hits, but the Marines hadn’t taken enough of the Diskers out in the initial volley. More than a hundred enemy soldiers remained in the valley, and he saw another dozen coming up over the north ridge, escaping the wrath of two/one’s weapon.
“Green! Send a burst on the combat net,” Grenwald ordered. “Get the two squads on the south ridge to fall back to Chang’s position. They’re gonna get crushed out there.”
“I’ll move up the north side,” Williams announced and took off running, crashing through the underbrush, his powered armor granting him ten-meter strides.
He was making himself a target, but a fast-moving one. With luck, it would draw some of the enemy out and give his Marines something to shoot at.
Fireteams one/two and one/three were at the head of the valley, and Williams reached their position in less than three minutes. He would have made it there faster, but he didn’t want to draw all the enemy fire right down onto them.
“Marines! We’ve gotta fall back,” he yelled over the sounds of weapons fire when he reached their position.
“Can’t, Gunny,” Corporal Taylor yelled from above him on the hill. “We’ve got Diskers on the ridge above us now.”
“And below,” Corporal Becker added while swapping his weapon’s power cell. “They’re closing up. We’ll have to go around to the north ridge and hope Chang can cover us.”
Williams pulled their feeds—no need for EM-silence anymore—and saw that forty Diskers had come over the south ridge in his wake. That route was closed off from any reasonable retreat. Becker was making the right call; the north ridge did seem to have fewer enemies…just the dozen he had spotted as they slipped past Chang’s team.
“OK, Marines, stop warming those patches of dirt, and let’s do this!” Williams growled.
Becker’s fireteam led the way across the head of the valley, and Williams prayed that no Disker reinforcements would come over from the west ridge. That would end their little action right quick.
Taylor followed in the rear, laying down suppressive fire to slow the Diskers who were spilling over the south ridge, just a hundred meters away.
“It’s getting hot out here, Gunny!” Perez yelled from beside Taylor as they fired controlled bursts at a squad of Diskers that had taken cover behind a rock outcropping. “Brush is a bit sparse ahead. These guys are gonna mow us down.”
Williams took aim at a Disker who was sticking out of cover, and hit him center mass before assessing the situation. For being a fuck-up, Perez was right. They were getting screwed fast.
Chang cut the connection. A moment later, kinetic rounds moving at over ten kilometers per second tore into the rock outcropping, and the Diskers behind it scrambled away as their cover disintegrated.
“Let’s move,” Williams directed and led the two fireteams across the head of the valley as Lieutenant Grenwald called in.
Williams paused and surveyed the battlefield. Behind his two fireteams, to the west, was an unknown. Either no one was over the ridge on the edge of the steppe, or a thousand Diskers were about to come over the rise and wipe them out. To the north, at least a full platoon was moving toward them, and another was coming up from the south.
Straight east, down through the base of the valley, lay the dead and wounded enemies from the Marines’ initial assault. At least two platoons of Diskers were still present, working their way through the foliage toward the rest of the TSF Marines a kilometer distant.
They wouldn’t expect to be attacked from the rear.
“OK, this is the plan,” Williams addressed the two fireteams. “We have three CFT shields between us. Perez, Jacobs, and Larson, you’re on the shields. Everyone else, stack up behind. We’re going to do a powered charge right through them.”
“Gunny…you nuts? We’ll get torn to shreds,” Jacobs said.
“You wanna sit here and wait for them to surround us?” Williams asked. “The LT can’t push toward us fast enough, and without Chang’s big gun, our Disker friends will be visiting real soon.”
“Think they’ll have snacks?” Perez asked. “I’m a bit hungry.”
“Stuff it, Perez. Get ready, Marines. We’re doing this. Keep it under fifty klicks an hour, everyone stack behind the shields, and take out every target you can. Focus on creating mayhem. Absolute mayhem.” Williams connected to the lieutenant.
The CFT shields were built of carbon nano tube fibers, and could take a hell of a pounding. When unfolded, they were large enough to cover the en
tire body of the Marine holding them. The Marines stacked up so that behind each were two additional Marines—except behind Perez’s, where Williams assumed the rear position.
He took a deep breath and glanced at the two fireteams. “Semper Fi, Marines.”
“Semper Fi,” they responded a moment before Perez, Jacobs, and Larson took off.
The shooters stayed as close as they could to the shield-bearers, firing at everything that looked like an enemy. Ahead, a Disker jumped out and unloaded a clip of high-velocity kinetics at Jacob’s shield, only to be thrown aside as three hundred kilograms of Marine and powered armor hit him at fifty kilometers per hour.
The soldier fell to the ground, and Taylor fired a photon beam into his torso as they passed. A single laser shot wouldn’t be fatal with the armor the Diskers wore, but it would have him tearing off that chest plate in short order.
Williams got a clear line on several other enemies as they rushed past, and he took what shots he could while leaping over brush, fallen logs, and the streambed as it crisscrossed their path. Then a thud sounded nearby, and Private Koller, who was directly in front of him, stumbled and fell.
“Leg,” Koller cried out, and Williams doubled back to help.
He signaled the other two groups to keep going while Perez stopped and held his position with Weber on his six, laying down covering fire as Williams reached Koller’s side. The Marine was right, he had been shot in the leg—the limb was gone from mid-thigh down.
“Fuck, Private, don’t you know you need your legs to run?” Williams swore.
“Sorry, Gunny,” Koller’s grimace was visible through his faceplate. “I hadn’t realized that.”
Williams threw his arm around Koller’s torso and lifted him to his feet as enemy fire tore at the trees around them.
“No good, Gunny,” Koller said when they reached Perez and Weber. “I’ll slow you down too much. You gotta leave me here.”
“You get shot in the head and I didn’t see it?” Williams asked. “Marines don’t leave a man behind, even one as dumb as you. Perez, get to the streambed. We’ll get low behind those rocks and work our way down to the rest of the platoon.”
Perez nodded and began to move, shielding Williams and Koller as best he could, while Weber fired at anything that looked remotely suspicious.
Williams pulled the feed from the combat net and saw that the Diskers were coming down the valley sides, rushing after them. A platoon’s worth of Diskers also lay between them and the rest of the TSF Marines.
They were surrounded.
OUTSIDE THE WIRE
STELLAR DATE: 3227472 / 06.02.4124 (Adjusted Gregorian)
LOCATION: Tarja Escarpment, Teka Continent
REGION: Venus, InnerSol, Sol Space Federation
Commander Lauren’s voice came over the combat net and into Williams’ mind like a soothing balm.
Bruno updated the company’s combat net with First Platoon’s positions, and Williams felt a smile pull at his lips. She was setting up her two crew-served weapons at the ridge between the valley and the steppe. Though the position wouldn’t allow them to see most of the enemies in the valley, targeting data from Fourth Platoon would give them plenty to shoot at.
Williams fed in the locations of the Diskers they had raced past, and raised an eyebrow as he saw the Company CO approve the use of proton beams.
The beams carried a stream of hydrogen protons at near luminal speeds. When they hit a target, the subatomic particles were destroyed, delivering a massive amount of kinetic energy and showering the area with radiation.
They were not normally approved for terrestrial operations, but Williams wasn’t going to question the permission once granted.
The sounds the proton beams made as they hit their marks was loud enough that the previous battle in the valley was a peaceful evening by comparison. Explosions cascaded across the valley’s slopes, and whenever there was a pause in the beamfire, the sounds of the two platoons’ heavy weapons filled the air with a steady stream of low thuds.
Fourth Platoon had half a dozen soldiers who were not combat-capable, and a dozen more who were injured but could still squeeze a trigger. However, First Platoon was fresh and spoiling for a fight. They spilled down the valley’s slopes, staying to clear lanes designated on the combat net.
“Steady now,” Williams said, knowing that any enemy fleeing from First Platoon would likely pass their position in the streambed.
“Pass me my rifle,” Koller said from where he was propped up against a rock. “Let me shoot the legs off some of these assholes.”
Williams grabbed Koller’s weapon and passed it over. “Make it count.”
Upstream, a group of Diskers broke cover—three looking behind, and two looking ahead. They fired first, and Williams didn’t feel the least bit of sorrow as his stream of protons slammed into one of the enemy’s shoulders, spinning him around to crash into one of his companions. Perez, Weber, and Koller each fired their shots a moment after Williams.
A few seconds later, the brief exchange of fire was over, and the five enemies were down.
“Uh, Gunny?” Perez said, pointing at Williams’ left side.
Williams looked down and saw one of the batteries for his armor sparking. He quickly detached it and tossed it across the stream before it began to spout fire.
“Thanks, Private,” Williams said. “Go check those guys with Weber. Put L-PACs on them if they’re alive. We don’t need them getting up and causing problems.”
“On it, Gunny,” Perez said and advanced up the streambed with Weber.
Perez kept his weapon ready, his eyes and enhanced senses scanning the area as Weber checked over the fallen soldiers. He spotted two live ones and unsealed their helmets, slapping L-PACs on their necks.
The small devices were filled with a chemical cocktail that attacked the nervous system, temporarily paralyzing a person, while combat nano locked down the wearer’s armor and mods. It worked—mostly—and was better than headshots on the wounded.
“If there’re live ones, then they know our position, Gunny,” Koller said through gritted teeth.
He wasn’t feeling any pain—his armor had already deadened his nerves and sealed up his leg-stump—but that didn’t stop the brain from thinking it was in pain.
“I know,” Williams replied. “But we’re better off here in cover than carrying your sorry ass through the woods, so here we stay. First Platoon will be down in no time. If these Diskers know what’s good for them, they’ll surrender.”
“Only if they get a good look at you, Gunny,” Perez said as he returned with Weber.
Williams cast the private a dark look that was obscured by his helmet. “Marine, get your ass a dozen meters into the woods over there.” He gestured to the north side of the stream. “Weber, same thing, south side.”
Williams then bent and lifted Koller, moving him to a better position behind a jumble of rocks to offer more support, and then took up a position across the narrow body of water, ready for the next wave of Diskers.
It wasn’t long before the enemy came crashing through the underbrush, firing wildly. There were twenty of them, mostly clustered along the streambed. Their movements were clumsy, and they were making little use of the natural cover.
That was the thing about Diskers; they weren’t used to fighting on planets, and the worlds they did have were all low-g. Plant life on those planets stretched high into the sky and were thin, reedy things. Not like these oaks and maples.
Sure, the trees wouldn’t stop a proton beam, but any cover was good cover
.
The Diskers slowed as they caught sight of their fallen comrades, and a pair bent to check on the two live ones. That was when the Marines opened fire. Five of the enemy fell in the first few seconds, and the rest threw down their weapons and surrendered. A few stragglers brought up the rear, saw their fellows standing with hands in the air, and quickly followed suit.
Williams nodded and stood from behind his cover. Best way to make the Diskers think they’ve just run into more than four Marines is to act like it. “Move away from your weapons—over there.” He gestured to a clear space north of the stream.
Each of his three Marines had clear lines of sight on that patch of dirt; it would do until First Platoon reached them. By the data on the combat net, that should be in less than two minutes.
One of the Diskers reached for a sidearm, but a shot from Perez’s weapon blew the pistol clear out of its holster.
“All your weapons on the ground. Next one of you sonsabitches who thinks you can move faster than a Marine’s trigger finger is going to lose a hand—or worse.”
Williams saw that Taylor and Becker’s groups had punched through the Diskers behind them and reunited with the rest of Fourth Platoon. The enemy between his team’s position and Fourth’s were in disarray; most were going up the north and south slopes of the valley, while another dozen appeared to be making a mad dash up the stream, right toward their location.
Williams tossed a satchel of L-PACs to one of the enemy soldiers who had already surrendered. “Put these on your buddies,” he growled.
The soldier didn’t move, and Williams shot him in the leg. It wasn’t a full power beam, so it only locked up the armor’s knee joint.
“OK, you do it,” he gestured with his rifle at another Disker. “Hop to it, or you get one under the chin. The rest of you assholes, down on the ground and helmets off now!”