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  I adapted well and really excelled at training. I’d never felt a part of anything meaningful, and when I had the opportunity to join a team that truly worked together, I jumped at it. Some of the others in my trainee class took longer. Many of them had even worse backgrounds, and they’d sunk deeper into depravity than I had. Bitterness and hatred hadn’t entirely consumed me as it had with some of them. I was an outlaw, yes, but never a bloodthirsty one. I stole to survive, and later to live comfortably, but my crew didn’t murder the people we robbed. I'd killed the supervisor, but he had abused me for some time, and I was sure he had been responsible for my father's death. Some of the others in my class at Camp Puller were real hardcases, broken people who had been driven to do some truly horrible things to survive and to lash back at the world. It took time to repair that kind of psychic damage, and that’s part of the reason Marine training is six years.

  Now I'd made my first drop, and I'd fought my first action. I'd fought several, in fact - I was a full-fledged Marine. My crimes were gone, pardoned away in exchange for my service. I could go back to Earth when I mustered out if I wanted to, and I would be free from any consequences of my past. But even then, Earth was already starting to seem like something far away and long ago. I didn't realize it at the time, but the concept of home was changing for me.

  We'd been on one mission that particularly made an impression on me. Three of our troopers were out on patrol, and they ended up cut off by superior enemy forces. The lieutenant didn't hesitate - he mustered the whole platoon and we scrambled out to try to link up and get them back home. The Captain was in on it too, sending a group of snipers and a heavy weapons team from base Delta-3 to assist us. We fought for four hours, the lieutenant pushing us relentlessly the entire time. In the end we broke through, but too late to save them. They were all lost.

  The mood was somber when we got back to base. We were in a profession where people got killed - there was no way around that. Yet we mourned every one of them, and every trooper in the platoon wondered how he'd failed, what he could have done differently. I felt the loss too, and the futility of our fruitless, costly fight to save them. But then I realized it wasn't fruitless. Mathematically it was, of course. Had we abandoned them we would have had three casualties instead of the eight we ended up with. But combat isn't decided solely by numbers or equations; it is a test of morale, of the willingness of men and women to fight, sometimes under impossible conditions. Those three Marines died on that plateau, but they were never abandoned by their comrades. They knew to the last that their brothers and sisters were fighting to reach them...and the troops struggling to break through saw how the Corps treats its own. If it was them next time, trapped and cut off, they knew at least that they would not be cut loose, that no officer was going to make a cold blooded decision that they were expendable. The Corps stood by its own...wherever, whenever, whatever the cost.

  I'd been on-planet for five months, and I wasn't one of the new guys anymore. Combat on Tombstone wasn't cheap, and we'd lost eighteen of our fifty since we'd landed. Half of them were wounded, all thanks to the armor's impressive repair and trauma control mechanisms. Our suits were a hell of a lot better than the Caliphate's in that regard – their nanotech was way behind ours. In a place like this, a wound was pretty much a death sentence for one of them.

  We evac'd the wounded on the transport that brought us replacements. We had eighteen fresh new faces wandering around the base, and I was in the unfamiliar territory of mentoring the new people. Somewhere in five months of serving in hell I'd become not quite a veteran, but at least seasoned. I knew my way around this miserable planet and how to survive its many hazards, and I was determined that none of these 18 newbs would go out and get themselves killed doing something stupid. Others had done that for me, and some of those people were now dead or shipping out to the hospital on Armstrong. It was my turn, my debt to start repaying.

  We'd just celebrated the new year...the new Earth year, of course. A year on Tombstone was only 61 Terran days, and just over 20 of the 73 hour local days. I'd never celebrated the new year before I'd become a Marine, but we had a nice little party in base Delta-4 and welcomed the new additions to the platoon. Six of them were experienced and were transferring from other units or the hospital. The rest were fresh from Camp Puller, the class that was half a year behind mine.

  There was a lull in the action as the new Earth year began. Both sides were building up and replacing losses, and while we did frequent patrols there was little action. There was one interesting thing, though. We managed to intercept and decode a Caliphate message that gave the exact arrival date of their next convoy. I'd been with the patrol that caught the transmission, and we were pretty excited for a while. Taking out a couple hundred of their troops while they were still in the launch bays would save us a lot of trouble down here. But in the end nothing came of it. Alliance Gov considered engaging enemy forces in space to be an unacceptable escalation. Neither side had attacked the other's naval forces, and they weren't looking to start now. Everyone knew that full-scale war was coming, but nobody was ready for it yet. It was frustrating fighting a war that you weren’t allowed to win, but there was nothing we could do about that.

  I ended up going out on patrols with most of the new people. The lieutenant was insistent that the fresh arrivals pair up with a more senior private any time they went outside. It was something that stuck with me years later when I was in command of various units. You want to keep your new people under the command of the most experienced non-coms available, of course. But it really helps to have them paired off with an experienced private, regardless of how good a team or squad leader they have. Human psychology is complex thing, and there are considerable differences in how a person interacts with a command figure and how they function with a peer at their own level.

  Chapter 6

  2252 AD

  McCraw’s Ridge

  Day One

  Delta Trianguli I

  This was shaping up to be a significant battle. It started small, just two patrols running into each other. They exchanged some fire, and that would have been the end of it, but neither side backed down. The Caliphate sent in reinforcements and pushed back our forces, taking the main ridge.

  It looked like worthless ground to us, but the captain wasn’t going to give it up without a fight, and we got the orders to suit up. We were the farthest away, and when we got there the entire company was formed up, covering a front stretching over five kilometers. They had already counter-attacked and retaken the ridge when we arrived, and we fed into the line, allowing the units that had taken losses to condense their frontages.

  The ridge was named after the megacorp that claimed the mining rights in the area. McCraw Resources was a huge mining concern that had a number of places named after it, including an entire planet on the Rim. It was one of several Alliance companies mining on Tombstone, though the only difference between them was which Corporate Magnate managers got the richest. A McCraw may have started the company centuries ago, but now it was basically owned by the government, just like all the megacorps. The Magnates who ran it stole what they could, but in the end they answered to Alliance Gov.

  We dug into our new positions, and the lieutenant directed the placement of our SAWs and SHWs. He was very careful about arranging them to maximize their fields of fire and also to provide mutual support. Any enemy attack against one of our heavy weapons would come under fire from at least two others. It made an impression on me how he obsessed over the placements himself rather than just ordering the teams to deploy. That stuck with me years later when I was in his position. I’ve always believed that low-level heavy weapons are a huge key to victory, and that belief started that day.

  The enemy had fallen back but not withdrawn entirely. They’d fortified another ridge about five klicks north, and it didn’t look like they were planning to leave. Their position didn’t look quite as good as ours, but it was strong enough to discourage an attac
k, at least until we were heavily reinforced. We exchanged sporadic long-ranged fire, but it was mostly quiet for about six hours, with occasional excitement when someone got careless and was picked off by long-ranged fire.

  It’s hard to stay alert for hour after hour, especially when nothing much is happening. The suit can keep you pumped up on stimulants, but you have to be careful and save that for when you really need it. Otherwise you end up strung out, and you lose as much effectiveness as you gain. But you still have to stay sharp. Snipers can pick off a target at five klicks, no problem, and we’d lost two people already because they let their guard down. Newbs were particularly vulnerable, but I’ve seen veterans lose their focus for a few seconds too, and that’s long enough to get scragged.

  Finally, we got intermittent scanning reports on approaching enemy forces. Normally, we’d have a complete breakdown of anything so close, but on Tombstone you generally had less information than you wanted, and even that was unreliable.

  Fresh troops meant they were planning another attack, and the lieutenant made his way all along the line, checking and adjusting our positions. Physical proximity really wasn’t necessary for communication, but still, it was a morale boost to have him crouching next to you while he spoke.

  “How’s everything, Jax?” He put his hand on my back, a seemingly pointless gesture among armored troops, but one that was nevertheless somehow reassuring.

  “I’m good, sir.” I turned to face him, another bit of instinctive body language that had dubious utility when suited up. In non-combat situations I would have saluted him, but the Corps dispensed with the clunky salutes among armored troops in battle. You could barely manage it in a fighting suit in normal conditions. No one wanted a casualty because a Marine was struggling to salute in armor and got his head blown off. And there was no point in advertising where the officers were.

  “You’ve come along well, Darius.” His voice was gentle, sincere. “You were nervous as a cat when you first got here, but you are calm and cool now. You’ve been great with the new guys, too. You’re a valued member of this platoon. And you ended up with quite a first assignment. My first was a cakewalk, a quick raid that was over in six hours.” He paused for a second. “You’ve taken all Tombstone could throw at you. I’m proud of you.”

  I got a little choked up. This was the first time anyone had really told me I was worth anything. Except my father, of course, but that doesn’t count. I already felt at home in the platoon, but this sealed it. “Thank you, sir.” I hesitated, trying, not terribly successfully, not to show too much emotion in my voice. “That means a lot.” I’d have followed that man anywhere. I’d drawn the short straw getting posted to Tombstone, but I swear there wasn’t a better commanding officer in the Corps than the one I got.

  “Carry on.” He crouched down and started over toward Private Samms, about 100 meters to my right. He stopped for a second and turned back toward me. “And stay low.” His head snapped back forward and he was on his way. I had a minute or two to think about what he had said and then all hell broke loose.

  My AI warned me about three seconds before the first explosions…grenade and mortar fire. I instinctively crouched lower just before I was pelted with dirt and shattered chunks of rock. The grenades weren’t too bad; we had good cover, and they had to drop one right next to you to cause serious damage. The mortars were another matter. The rounds coming in were heavier than the usual ones; if one of them hit within twenty meters, you’d better have good cover between you and it.

  Fortunately for me, they were concentrating the mortar fire to my right, and the worst thing I had to deal with was a grenade landing behind me. It covered me with debris and caused some minor damage to my external sensors, but all things considered, I got off light.

  We returned fire with grenades, but ours were no more effective than theirs against troops in heavy cover. They had the exclusive on heavier ordnance right now, and it occurred to me that mortars that big were usually battalion level assets. The Caliphate called their battalions tac-forces, and they were about 35% larger than ours.

  “Ok, platoon…” The lieutenant’s voice, calm but urgent. “…we’re looking at a major attack incoming at any time. I just spoke with the colonel…” Holy fuck, I thought…the colonel! He was the planetary theater commander…the top dog. Something big must be brewing. “…and we’ve got support inbound. But we might have to hold out for a while against tough odds.” He paused. “I told him he could count on us. Now you’re not going to make a liar out of me, are you Second Platoon?”

  A chorus of “no, sirs” flooded the com, and mine was as loud as anybody’s. We were ready, though I figured if the colonel was getting involved, we were likely in for a rough ride. I was right.

  Tactically, the ridge was of limited value, not worth a major fight to hold. We could have pulled back and actually enhanced our longer term positions. We held most of the surrounding hills, and any enemy penetration here would quickly become an exposed salient. But what we didn’t know…what we didn’t need to know…was under the ridge ran a rich vein of trans-urianic element…not the fleeting scraps manufactured in labs that decayed in nano-seconds, but naturally-occurring stable isotopes that were non-existent on Earth and still not fully explained by physicists. These strange substances had been found on a small handful of worlds and, vital for high-yield spaceship drives, they were priceless. The deposits under the ridge were worth more than all of our lives - at least to Alliance Gov - and while the Corps had a different set of priorities, it followed orders. Where we were told to fight, we fought. And right now that was on McCraw’s Ridge. I was positioned almost dead-center, along a spiny Y-shaped rock outcropping…a spot that would later be known as the Cauldron.

  Chapter 7

  2252 AD

  McCraw’s Ridge

  Central Sector – “The Cauldron”

  Day Two – Morning

  Delta Trianguli

  They’d hit us five times the day before. Of course, the days were our own construct, existing largely on our suits’ chronometers. Tombstone took over sixty Earth hours to complete its rotation, and it was never really dark, not even at night, thanks to the electrical activity and chemical reactions in the upper atmosphere. The eerie glowing clouds didn’t give off the light the sun did, but it was enough to see by, especially with your visor set to mag 2 or 3.

  Now we were on day two of the battle, though we’d fought more or less continuously, and the second day notation had more importance for record-keeping than any real tactical significance. You’d want it to be correctly noted what day of the battle you were killed on, after all.

  I was only a private, barely a rung above the lowly position of “new guy,” so keeping track of planetwide resources wasn’t something I spent much time on. But to my knowledge, our total strength on Tombstone was approximately three battalions. The enemy had more, but only marginally so – about two and a half of their tac-forces – the rough equivalent of four battalions. Now they’d deployed what appeared to be an entire tac-force against us, which was an unprecedented troop concentration on Tombstone. A ten-year struggle between widely-dispersed patrols and platoons was seeing its first pitched battle.

  We’d been taken by surprise by the enemy build-up, but the colonel responded quickly, shifting forces from all over to reinforce our position. It’s amazing how minutes can drag into eternity when you’re outnumbered 5-1 and waiting for reserves that are “almost there.”

  I hadn’t moved more than 50 meters in the last 24 hours. I was behind the rocky crest of the ridge when the attacks started, with a good field of fire on the broad plain in front of us. Just to my right there was a spur of the outcropping that ran perpendicular out from our location. Any attack on our position forced the enemy to either split his forces or concentrate on one side or the other.

  The first attack came right at me, with all the strength to the left of the rocky spine. We hit them hard with fire on the way in, but there were a lot
of them, and it looked like they might overrun us. But they’d made a mistake in ignoring the other side of the rock spine. The lieutenant swung around with one of our squads, firing at the enemy flank from the cover of the line of rock. Faced with heavy fire from two directions they withdrew with heavy casualties.

  The lieutenant pulled back the advanced squad before they were exposed to the resumption of enemy long-ranged fire. The Caliphate forces had suffered at least 40 casualties; we’d lost 3, and two of those were wounded. We got them both patched up and stabilized before Tombstone finished them off. The enemy casualties were mostly KIA, either from the initial hit or the consequences of their suits being breached.

  The second time they didn’t make the same mistake; they split their forces evenly on the two sides of the spur, but the lack of force concentration did them in. The two groups, unable to support each other, were both beaten back, again with heavy losses.

  There was a brief lull, probably while they brought a fresh unit up to attack. When they had reinforced they charged us again, and the last two assaults came close to taking our position. The enemy commander sent a small group against the left side of the spur, just enough to demonstrate and prevent a repetition of the lieutenant’s flanking maneuver while the main force concentrated against the right. They came at us twice that way, but our lines barely held, reinforced at the last minute by arriving reserves fed in squad by squad.

  Things quieted down for a few hours, giving us the “night” respite between our Earth days. We had more troops arriving all the time, and we finally got the orders to pull back. The entire company was being rotated to the reserve to rest, replaced by a fresh unit that had just marched up.