Issue In Doubt (11 page)

“You’re cleaning that up, Marine!” First Sergeant Robinson barked. He let everyone react to the vids of the Force Recon Marines losing their fights for a moment or two longer, than ordered, “Seats! And shut up! Pay attention so you can learn what we’re going up against.”

Less quickly than they had quieted when Kates had ordered them to when they learned that there hadn’t been any other reports from the people on Troy, the Marines settled back onto their benches and resumed intently watching the scenes unfolding in front of them.

The intelligence NCO let the vids run their course, from all eight of the squads, ending with the capture of the alien. When Kates resumed his position on the stage and looked at them, he saw something different from what he had before. This time some were angry, others stunned. Then he hit them with what he knew would be a real shocker.

“Eight Force Recon squads landed on Troy. Only one made it offworld with only one dead. Two didn’t make it off at all, because all five Marines in each of those squads were killed.” That drew gasps; Force Recon hardly ever lost anyone, they were too good at snooping and pooping.

“Now you have a good idea of what we’re up against, so I’ll give you back to your officers and senior NCOs. Captain Sitter?”

“Thank you, Master Sergeant,” the company commander said as he marched to the front of the classroom and mounted the stage.

“Thank
you
, sir,” Kates said, and left the classroom. He had to give the same presentation to another company.

“Now you know everything that I know about the aliens.” Sitter looked over his company. “Make no mistake, we’re likely going to be in the toughest fight any of us has ever seen, maybe the toughest since the world wars of the twentieth century.”

Alpha Troop Barracks, 1st of the 7th Mounted Infantry, Fort Bragg, North Carolina, NAU

Second Lieutenant Theodore W. Greig carefully watched his men from his position at the side of the classroom while they watched the vids of the attack on Troy. He and the other officers of Alpha Troop had already seen them at an officers’ call at Tenth Brigade’s headquarters. He didn’t know whether the troops would also be shown the vids from the Marine Force Recon mission. He hoped that collection of vids wouldn’t be shown until the troops were aboard the Navy transports and on their way to Troy. Not that he thought any of the soldiers would desert if they saw those vids, but he thought it was better if they saw them on the way, psych them up for the coming mission when there’s no possibility of finding a way to get out of it.

The vids of the attack stopped and Captain Henry C. Meyer, Alpha Troop’s commanding officer, took the stage.

“Men,” he said, “as you just saw, we are going up against a manic alien enemy. Nobody knows who they are, where they came from, or why they attacked without warning.” He didn’t know how many times that sentence had been said by officers and noncoms throughout VII Corps, and wouldn’t have cared if he did—it bore repetition, and he was certain he’d say it many times more.

“It doesn’t matter how manic these aliens are. The Marines are going in first to secure a planethead for us. Let me guarantee you, after those aliens chew up the Marines and spit out their bones, they’re going to find out what a
real
fighting force is like. We will make them regret they ever attacked Troy.

There were hoots and catcalls at mention of the Marines. “Hey diddle-diddle, straight up the middle!” one soldier called out. “Show offs!” another shouted. “Marines!” someone cried, and gave a Bronx cheer. “Better them than us,” a more thoughtful soldier said quietly.

Captain Meyer let them go for a moment, barely repressing a smile. “All right, all right,” he said at last, “quiet down and listen up. Now, all intelligence services, both military and civilian, are working hard and fast to learn everything they can about this enemy. As we learn more, you will be told everything you need to know to help us defeat them. When you are dismissed, you will return to your quarters and prepare to move out. We will be heading into space via the elevators in Kenya.”

He looked over his men, seeming to look each of the one hundred and twenty-five of them in the eye, and stepped off the stage.

“Troop, a-ten-
shun
!” troop First Sergeant Powhatan Beaty shouted as Meyer marched out of the classroom, followed by the other officers. When the captain was gone, he said, “Platoon sergeants, when I dismiss you take your men to their quarters and take care of last minute preparations. There will be an inspection in two hours. We will board transportation for the first leg of our trip to Kenya in the morning. Dismissed!”

Barracks, India/3/1, MCB Camp Pendleton, California, NAU

“First squad, on me,” Sergeant Martin called when third platoon reached its squadbay. The Marines who had already entered their rooms came back out to the corridor and gathered with the others in front of their squad leaders. Elsewhere along the corridor, third platoon’s other squad leader were gathering their men as well.

“Listen up, and listen carefully,” Martin said seriously. “You saw the Force Recon vids. An important question that wasn’t answered was, how did the aliens spot those Marines? The camouflage of our utilities makes us damn hard to see in the field. You’ve seen Force Recon in action. Their utes are even harder to spot. Maybe the aliens see in a different part of the spectrum, or maybe they have some other sense that makes them less reliant on their eyes. I hope we find some way of knowing before we make planetfall, because right now we can’t rely on our cammies to be invisible to the aliens. Keep that in mind when you’re going for cover and concealment—they might still be able to see you.

“Now get into your rooms and finish getting your shit together. I’m going to inspect in half an hour, and I want everything ready to go the minute we get the word to move out. Go.”

Back in their room, first squad’s first fire team didn’t start getting ready for the inspection. Instead, Corporal Adriance and Lance Corporal Mackie dropped into the chairs at their tiny desks and stared wide-eyed at each other. PFCs Orndoff and Zion collapsed on their racks and turned their faces to the wall.

“This is real,” Mackie whispered, half to himself.

“No shit, Sherlock,” Adriance whispered back. When he noticed that Mackie was trembling, he realized that he was trembling himself, and that the trembling was in danger of overwhelming him. He straightened up and took a deep breath. He looked at his dress blues tunic and saw the Combat Action Ribbon on its right breast, and the two campaign medals and Marine Expeditionary Medal that followed the Good Conduct Medal on the left breast. He didn’t have to look at the tunics of his men to know that none of them had the CAR or any campaign medals. He’d been there before, they hadn’t. It was up to him to set the example, to keep his men from falling apart before they’d even heard a shot fired in anger.

“Listen up,” he snapped. “We’re Marines, this is what we signed up for. When you walked into that recruiting office and signed up, you knew that some day you might have to fight a war, might have to kill—or even be wounded or killed yourself.

“Well, we’re Marines. We have a long history behind us, Marine ancestors who were always the toughest, most winning warriors of their times. And we’re the toughest, most winning warriors of our time. We aren’t going out there to get wounded or killed. We’re going out there to put a serious hurting on whoever or whatever it was that slaughtered the people on Troy.” He carefully didn’t mention what happened to the Force Recon Marines.

“We’re Marines. We fight. And when we fight, we win. So stop pissing and moaning about what’s coming up, and start thinking about how we’re going to kick some alien ass!”

“What about what happened to Force Recon?” Zion asked.

“What about it?” Adriance asked back. “Force Recon went in expecting to snoop and poop and gather intelligence. They weren’t prepared to fight. We’ll go in expecting to kick ass. Now we’ve got an inspection to prepare for. Get busy!”

Not only did the squad pass Martin’s inspection, the whole platoon passed Second Lieutenant Commiskey’s inspection which followed minutes later, and Captain Sitter’s inspection. Everything they weren’t taking, which included their dress blues and most of their personal belongings, went into the company supply room for storage during their absence. Then it was time to fall in behind the barracks and head for the dining facility for evening chow.

The next morning the First Marine Regiment boarded C215 transport aircraft from VMGR 352, Marine Air Group 11, and flew to the space elevator base near Quito, Ecuador, Pacific America.

Transit to Semi-Autonomous World Troy

Even with four elevators operating round the clock, it took time to ferry the twenty-two and a half thousand Marines of the 1st Marine Division the nearly 36,000 kilometers to the geosync station where they boarded Navy shipping. It was a full week before the entire division was boarded and the Amphibious Ready Group in formation to head for the wormhole that would take the Marines to Troy. As soon as the ARG moved off, the 2nd Marine Air Wing, with its aircraft, munitions, fuel supplies, parts, and the rest of its impedimenta began rotating onto the elevators to mate with their waiting flotilla.

From orbit, it took three days at flank speed to reach the wormhole through which they would travel the sixty-two light years to their destination. The sixty-two light years was the quickest part of the journey.

The gator task force was preceded into the wormhole by Task Force 8, built around the carrier NAUS
Rear Admiral Norman Scott
. The five destroyers went in first, followed closely by two cruisers, the battleship that was the flagship, and the fast attack carrier. The TF’s three frigates tailgated the
Scott.
Both carriers launched their spacecraft squadrons as soon as they exited the wormhole in Troy’s space. The twelve warships
pinged
Troy-space, searching for other spacecraft, but found nothing other than planets, moons, asteroids, and miscellaneous space junk, certainly nothing that remotely resembled spacecraft. Rear Admiral Avery ordered a drone dispatched to the ARG, which then flowed through the wormhole.

ARG17, fifteen gator ships—”gator,” an archaic term from when humanity was only on one world, and Marines were landed from water seas to land—centered around Landing Platform Shuttle-1 NAUS
Iwo Jima
. LPS-1 was the fifth ship to carry that name. The 1st Marine Regiment was embarked on her. Traveling at three-quarter speed, it took five days for the ARG to take station off Troy and prepare to land the landing force. While the gator ships were moving into position, the warships of TF-8 took defensive positions around the planet, covering all approaches, and guarding against ground-based attacks.

Chapter Eight

Land the Landing Force, Semi-Autonomous World Troy

“All right, Marines, line it up!” Staff Sergeant Guillen roared.

“Get out there and get in line!” the squad leaders shouted.

“Move, move,
move!
” the fire team leaders cried.

There was a pounding of boots on the deck and a clatter of loose gear jerking about. Here an “Oof.” There a grunt. Elsewhere a curse as the Marines of third platoon scrambled out of the squad compartments in which they’d billeted for the trip. They scrambled into a double line in the passageway, one line on each side, jostling one another in their haste, and trying not to bump into their squad leaders or the platoon sergeant.

“Squad leaders, report!” Guillen ordered as the thirty-nine Marines settled into position.

“Fire team leaders, report!” the squad leaders echoed.

“First fire team, all present and accounted for!”

“Second fire team, all present and accounted for!”

“Third fire team, all present and accounted for!” came the replies, one of each for each of the three squads.

“First squad, all present and accounted for!” And the same for second and third squads.

Guillen clasped his hands behind his back and strode the length of the platoon, looking at each Marine as he passed, his experienced eye looking to make certain every man had everything he needed to carry for the landing. None failed his inspection—all possible failures had already been dealt with by the squad leaders inside the compartments before they fell out.

“You know the drill,” Guillen said when he reached the far end of the platoon. “As many times as we’ve done this, you damn well
better
know it.” He looked past the platoon to where Second Lieutenant Commiskey stood just beyond the end of the formation.

“Sir, third platoon is all present and accounted for, and ready to move out.”

“Thank you, Staff Sergeant,” the platoon commander replied. “You may take the platoon to its boarding point.”

“Aye aye, sir. Third platoon, face aft!”

The Marines pivoted, those on one side of the passageway facing to their right, those on the other to their left.

“Third platoon, route step, march!”

They moved out, not marching in step, turning this way and that as they wended their way through the passageways, up ladders and down, until they linked up with the rest of India Company at a closed hatch outside the hanger deck. Elsewhere on the
Iwo Jima
other platoons and companies were assembling at equally closed hatches leading to the hanger deck until all of 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines was ready. First and second battalions followed in trace.

A clanging from the other side of the hatches announced bosons mates undogging them. In a moment the hatches were flung open, and the Marines surged through, urged on by the “Move move
move!”
of platoon sergeants and squad leaders.

“Follow the yellow lines!” the bosons mates shouted at the Marines racing past them. As if the Marines needed the reminder—they’d rehearsed going through the hanger deck to their assigned shuttles so many times during the past five days they could have found their way in their sleep. Or so many of them claimed. Nonetheless, “Follow the yellow lines!” the bosons mates shouted again and again. They
had
to keep shouting the instruction—sailors think Marines are dumb. Hey, you aren’t going to catch squid-boy landing on a hostile planet where he can get his sweet ass shot off. Nossiree!