Jump Pay (4 page)

"Carefully," Joe replied. "You have any jump casualties?"

There was only a short pause before Ezra said, "Nothing that'll slow anybody down. We've all got bruises, though."

"I've got one man with a badly twisted ankle," Sergeant Low Gerrent of second squad reported. "Medic's patching him now."

"Third squad's okay," Sauv Degtree said.

"So's fourth," Frank Symes added. "Nothing serious, anyway."

"Pull the men in around me," Joe said. "Try to find an efficient way to move over this moss." Then he switched channels.

"Second platoon's mostly okay," he reported to the first sergeant.

"Mostly?" Izzy Walker asked.

"One twisted ankle, being attended to. Other than that, nothing but minor stuff from slipping on this carpet. Didn't anybody know about that?"

"Guess not," Walker said. "I'm hearing about it now, though, from all over."

"What next?" Joe asked.

"Just get your men together until we sort things out. Nobody's shooting at us yet. I'll be back to you in a couple of minutes."

Joe pulled out his belt knife then and started scraping at the moss. It was no more than a centimeter thick, with bare rock beneath it. Before First Sergeant Walker called back, Joe had cleared enough moss to get to the top of the depression so that he could look out toward the enemy buildings to the east. He didn't see any signs of Heggies coming out.

"Still following the plan," Walker said. "We're to move east and establish a perimeter, hold until the rest of the force lands. Take your platoon due east about a kilometer and take up positions. First platoon to your right, third to the left."

"Where are they bringing in the heavy stuff?" Joe asked.

"Farther west."

"I hope they've got something besides this moss to set down on."

Walker didn't bother to reply.

Joe relayed the orders to squad leaders and deployed the platoon. The footing remained treacherous. The slick moss seemed to cover every square centimeter of the rocks.

It'll make everyone keep their heads down anyway,
Joe thought. The troopers scuttled along on hands and knees. Where there was any significant slope, they had to move on bellies, scraping away moss to get at the rock below in the worst places. It didn't take long for men to discover that the rock below the moss was extremely hot to the touch, almost scorching, even so soon after dawn. The moss itself did not feel particularly hot. Somehow, it absorbed sunlight and passed the heat on to the rock layer without holding much of it.

Joe stayed close to first squad, the squad he had led before he got the entire platoon. Even after more than a year as platoon sergeant, Joe still thought of first squad as "his." He knew the men in the other three squads better now, but that had not yet completely broken old habits. The men of first squad viewed it as a mixed blessing.

All eight infantry companies were on the ground now, spread over the western section of the rocky area and beyond. Shuttles were beginning to bring in the Havocs and support vans for the 13th's Wasps and Havocs. Other shuttles were bringing in the engineers and their equipment. The 8th SAT and one of the light infantry regiments were landing at separate locations to assist in taking Site Alpha.

Everybody rides but us,
Joe thought.

The men of Echo Company had no chance to set up a defensive perimeter once they had covered the first kilometer of rock. New orders came through. They were to move another four kilometers east, closer to the enemy.

Crossing five kilometers of the slippery rocks was painfully slow. Long before Joe had covered the first kilometer, his knees were scraped raw beneath his battle fatigues. His elbows and hands were also cut and scraped. Every muscle in his body ached. The forty kilos of gear he carried felt like a ton.

Echo was too far from the Schlinal depot to be in range of most small arms fire. Wire couldn't begin to reach. But there were clearly a few snipers with rifles that could strike at more than five kilometers.

"Keep down," Joe warned. "Those aren't mosquitoes whizzing around."

Second platoon suffered no casualties from the light sniper fire, but one man in third platoon was hit below his visor. The neck wound ripped the man's carotid artery. Before a medic could get to him, the man was dead.

After consulting with the first sergeant, Joe called a break for his men. Then he just flopped, cheek against the moss, while he dragged in several deep breaths.

Can't get enough air,
he thought, uncertain whether the slight difference between Tamkailo's atmosphere and those he was familiar with could be that noticeable.
All in my head maybe,
he acknowledged.

After a moment, he rolled onto his side, almost on his back (his pack prevented him from getting fully supine). He lifted his helmet visor just long enough to wipe sweat from his face. The perspiration had been pouring into his eyes almost from the start of this crawl, stinging, burning.

Off in the distance, he could see aircraft fighting, more than a dozen planes.
I hope our guys keep 'em busy,
he thought.
We'd be easy pickings here.
The rocks might give decent cover against enemy rifle fire, but a strafing airplane would mow through them.

"Let's get moving again," he said over his link to the platoon's squad leaders. "We're too exposed here."

—|—

Zel sent three of his men to get fresh batteries and munitions as soon as he received word that their support vans were on the ground. He didn't want to take a chance that the entire flight would have to land at once. For ten or fifteen minutes, they would be shorthanded, but they would never have to concede the air to the enemy. The dogfight had been going on for twenty minutes—an eternity. Zel knew that Blue Flight had been lucky to have lost only one plane so far, though even one loss hurt. Finally, he had received a call from Frank Verannen. He was alive but had broken both legs. The bottom of the escape pod had been crushed by the explosion that destroyed his Wasp. Frank was still in the pod, on the ground, unable to move. At least no Heggies had come hunting for him yet.

In order to conserve ammunition, Zel had adopted a new tactic. He would approach a Boem as close as possible, then flip his Wasp end for end in order to use his rear-mounted cannons. Those were loaded strictly with armor-piercing rounds, meant solely for air-to-air use. They were intended as a deterrent, something to protect the previously vulnerable tail of the Wasp, but Zel's maneuver turned the cannons into an offensive weapon. The other pilots of Blue Flight quickly copied the tactic. The Hegemony's Boems had no rear guns.

Blue Flight was still outnumbered, more than ever once Zel sent planes in for servicing, but the Schlinal pilots never exploited their advantage. Most kept breaking away from the dogfight, apparently obeying orders to try to contest the infantry landings. Blue Flight didn't bother chasing them. There were other Wasp flights waiting, and after the first few minutes there would be mudders with shoulder-operated rockets waiting for Boems to appear. Not one of the Schlinal pilots managed to strike against the landings.

Twenty-seven minutes after launching his first pair of rockets, Zel scored his ninth kill of the battle with his last missile. With no more than ten seconds of 25mm ammunition left, he started looking for the three Wasps he had sent in for servicing. The rookies left with him had to be even closer to empty than he was. It took a pilot time—combat time—to learn how to stretch his ammunition. Zel finally used the radio, and heard that the three were on their way back, throttles to the stops.

Zel didn't wait. He ordered the flyers still with him to break contact and head in for servicing.

—|—

The 13th's four batteries of Havoc 205mm self-propelled artillery had as many new men as the air wing. Afghan Battery had lost five of its six guns in its last campaign, and the other three had all suffered at least 50 percent casualties. Afghan, Basset, Corgi, and Dingo: the dog names for the batteries were a play on words deriving from a line penned by William Shakespeare thousands of years before, "Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war."

The crew of Basset two had remained the same for more than two years. They had had one Havoc destroyed under them without any of them suffering a serious injury. The commander was Gunnery Sergeant Eustace Ponks. The other three men—driver Simon Kilgore, gunner Karl Mennem, and loader Jimmy Ysinde—were all privates. They considered themselves to be the best gun crew in the 13th—and the 13th's artillery unit the best in the ADF. After all of the time they had worked together, their claim was not totally without merit.

Contrary to standing orders, they had landed on Tamkailo with their first round loaded, and Karl had the engines running before the shuttle pilot announced that they were on the ground and opened the cargo hatch.

Although the slick moss that covered the rocky area where most of the 13th's infantry had landed would not have bothered tracked artillery pieces and support vans, that area was too rough for other vehicles to operate. Landing just to the west, the artillery had more level ground. The nearer half of the Schlinal depot and camp was just within the range of the Havocs' guns, and there were avenues to the north and south that would permit them to get close enough to bring the entire enemy base under fire.

"Get us out and bear off to the left," Eustace ordered as soon as the cargo ramp was down. "Let's not waste any time."

Under the best of circumstances, a Havoc did not accelerate with any great dispatch, but Karl gave the twin engines as much throttle as the treads could handle. If the deck of the cargo shuttle suffered minor damage from the speed of the departing howitzer, it wouldn't be the first time.

"Basset two ready for action," Eustace reported to the battery commander as soon as he saw that Basset one was also out of its shuttle.

"Ponks, I've got a personal message for you from the colonel," Captain Ritchey said.

"Sir?" Ponks asked.

"He wants me to thank you and your crew for volunteering to stay behind if we come up short one shuttle because some careless crew damaged it on landing."

"I don't know what you're talking about, sir," Ponks managed. "We're strictly by the manual here."

Ritchey sighed over the radio. "I ought to at least make you take the round out of the can you stuck in there while we were still in the air."

"We would never violate SOP like
that
, sir," Ponks said, beginning to wonder if the Havocs had been modified to allow the battery commander to snoop.

"Never mind, Ponks." Ritchey paused for no more than two seconds before he said, "We're still following the original plan. We go north, then east. And we wait for all of the dogs to get out before we start firing. Unless we come under hostile fire first."

"Yes, sir." After closing his link to Ritchey, Ponks switched to the crew channel and whispered, "I think he's got us bugged."

"You're gonna have to quit calling the old man names, I guess," Simon said with a short laugh. "You'll never get that extra rocker for your stripes."

"Who wants another rocker?" Ponks said, as if he didn't. "The headaches ain't worth another twenty Corders a month."

CHAPTER THREE

Rank offered no protection against the slippery moss of the drop zone. Like virtually every man who jumped with him, Colonel Van Stossen fell as soon as his feet touched the ground. Both feet went out from under him and he landed on his butt, hard. For more than a minute, he could do nothing but sit there, glassy-eyed, scarcely registering his surroundings.

"You all right, sir?" the sergeant who commanded the headquarters security detachment asked. Vince Cumminhow scrambled toward the colonel on all fours. He also had fallen, but had managed to break his fall. He had jammed his left thumb in the process, but that was too minor an injury to worry about.

Stossen nodded slowly. "I'm okay, Vin. Just had the air knocked out of me." He would never admit to the rather considerable ache in his seat or the headache that accompanied it. He blinked several times, trying to eliminate the sudden double vision. "What is this stuff?" He dragged his fingertips over the rust-colored growth.

"Some kind of moss, I think, sir," Cumminhow said. "A little slimy."

Stossen took time to look all of the way around a circle. His headquarters staff had, as always, landed in two separate groups several hundred meters apart, to make certain that no single enemy action or accident could completely cut off the 13th's leadership. Dezo Parks and the rest would join the colonel as quickly as they could now that everyone was on the ground.

"This stuff's going to play hell with the schedule," Stossen muttered as he tried to get to his feet. After several false starts, he gave up for the time being. "Let's see if that red stuff over there offers better footing." The colonel and his companions had landed—after jumping on belts—within fifty meters of the western border of the rocks.

"Has to be better than whatever
this
is," Cumminhow said.

Stossen gave no further thought to dignity. He scampered along on hands and knees just as the others were. He needed ten minutes to get clear of the moss. The hard red clay was hot, but at least it offered purchase for feet.

"Such an inviting-looking drop zone," Stossen muttered. He looked back over the extensive field of moss-covered rocks. "No wonder the Heggies didn't bother to defend it. They must know that no one can stand on that junk."

"I just wish
we
had known about it," Major Bal Kenneck, Stossen's intelligence officer, said as he walked up to the colonel.

"Couldn't tell without putting people down," Stossen said. He shook his head and turned to Kenneck. "You have anything for me yet?"

"Not much, sir. The only enemy activity has been pretty much limited to a few Boems. We're bringing in our heavy stuff already. But the Heggies are going to have plenty of time to get set to meet our mudders. Slow as that moss makes everything, it'll take a couple of hours to get our lines close enough to engage."