Starfist: A World of Hurt (23 page)

"Almost exactly," Dr. Kum answered. "The only differences are consistent with the length of time between death and recovery."

The Marines didn't look at each other, but they were thinking the same thing. When they went in, they'd have to be on the alert to hostile plants as well as Skinks--or other enemies. It wasn't a prospect either welcomed.

"What about the places?" van Winkle asked. "Do we need to go to your office, Director?"

Bilisi shook his head and withdrew a crystal from his shirt pocket. "I have everything here,"

he told them, then turned to Dr. Kum. "If I may, Kara."

"Yes, do," she said, moving from behind her desk.

Bilisi took her place and popped the crystal into a slot on the side of the console. He briefed them on its contents while he tapped the commands to bring up displays on a 2-D

screen. "This crystal has maps of the areas where the bodies were found. Topological, geographic, microclimate, what we know of flora and fauna, geothermic. It's got vids and trids of the flora found near the remains in each of those areas, and the fauna found outside them."

"Outside?" van Winkle asked. "What about the fauna
inside
them?"

Bilisi shrugged. "We never saw any. They must have fled when we were on our way in."

He shook his head. "The odd thing was, we didn't see any tracks either." He looked at the Marines as if he was asking them to explain why there didn't seem to be any animals in the interdicted areas where the bodies had been found.

The Marines studied the topomaps with great interest for several minutes before asking for the geological maps. All three areas, ovals more than ten kilometers along the long axis, formed steep-sided, irregular bowls with walls of uneven height resembling huge volcanic calderas.

"What causes that topography?" van Winkle finally asked. It vaguely resembled the basin-and-plain formation found in the southwestern quadrant of North America on Earth, except for the bowl-like valleys contained within them.

"Nobody knows."

Van Winkle looked at him.

"There's never been a full geologic study."

"Why not?" Van Winkle looked briefly at Dr. Kum. "I know why BEHIND never made much of a survey of Maugham's Station, but you don't seem to have done one either. That doesn't leave you well prepared for surprises." He left unsaid,
Surprises like what happened to
those people,
but the question hung between them anyway.

"We are developing our world methodically, Commander," Bilisi said coldly. "If those people had stayed out of the interdicted areas like they were supposed to, nothing would have happened to them." Clearly he wanted to cut off that line of discussion by shifting blame for whatever happened to the people who had died so horribly.

Van Winkle reminded himself that it was their world, to do with as they wished so long as they weren't in violation of Confederation laws. Not exploring wasn't a violation, so if they didn't want to...

They resumed studying the maps and images. The only questions the Marines asked now had to do with details of what they were looking at. Neither commented on it, but both were surprised at how little the planetary Deputy Director of Public Safety knew about his world outside the borders of Ammon.

Van Winkle's comm signaled about the time they ran out of questions to ask. It was Lieutenant Quaticatl, Brigadier Sturgeon's aide. The reception was over, and the brigadier requested the pleasure of their company at their earliest convenience--which was the military way of politely saying "right now."

When he told his hosts they had to leave, van Winkle added, "May we have a copy of that crystal?" He didn't care about the maps--the
Grandar Bay's
string-of-pearls could provide better maps--but the images of the ground and flora inside the "interdicted" areas could be valuable.

"You can have this one, it's a copy," Bilisi said as he popped the crystal from the console and handed it over.

The Marines thanked Bilisi and Kum for their assistance and took their leave.

Commanders van Winkle and Daana found Staff Sergeants Wu and Cunningham, the FIST's recon and UAV squad leaders, with Brigadier Sturgeon, Commander Wolfe, and Captain West in the office suite President Menno offered to FIST to use as its operations center.

"What did you find out?" Sturgeon asked as soon as the door closed behind them.

While van Winkle began briefing their commander, Daana popped the data crystal into a console so the recon and UAV squad leaders could study the maps and life data during the briefing, then joined in with the infantry commander. It took them a lot less time to bring Sturgeon up to date than the two civilians had taken to impart the information.

"Three areas," Brigadier Sturgeon mused when the briefing was completed, "three recon teams, three UAV teams." He looked at Daana and the two squad leaders. "Can you do it?"

His eyes flicked at van Winkle; the infantry battalion also had a scout/sniper squad and UAV

teams that had experience working with the FIST intelligence gatherers.

"I've been thinking about exactly that, sir," Daana said. "Those areas are large. It will take days for one recon team and one UAV team to thoroughly investigate them. But if Skinks are present in any numbers, it won't take long to find them. And if they are there in numbers, the less intrusive we are, the better chance we have of finding them without being discovered ourselves."

"I concur, sir," van Winkle said.

"Good enough. Commander Daana, I want to see your plans inside two hours.

Commander van Winkle, I want you to observe the development of the FIST intelligence plan and prepare a plan of your own based on it. Your immediate objectives will be to coordinate additional intelligence assets with FIST intelligence, prepare a ready force to rescue any recon team that gets into trouble, and prepare a ready force to strike at any target of opportunity disclosed by F2.

"Commander Wolfe, your aircraft are grounded except in emergency situations. When they do fly, they are to remain below the altitude of the valley crests. I want your Raptors armed and prepared to launch Jerichos if needed.

"Questions?"

"Nossir!" the three said.

As soon as Sturgeon and the others were gone, Daana grinned at Wu and Cunningham.

They grinned back. Van Winkle and Wolfe recognized the feral expressions of men about to embark on a dangerous mission, men who intended it to be far more dangerous to those they were going up against. If the officers had looked into a mirror, they would have been surprised to see their faces bore the same grin.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The corner of Brigadier Sturgeon's mouth twitched as he read over Commander Daana's operation plan, but as FIST commander, it was inappropriate for him to wear a feral grin.

Later, when he ordered his FIST into combat, he would look like an alpha wolf about to assert his dominance. He liked the plan and approved it with no changes. Shortly afterward, Commander van Winkle presented his trio of proposals. Sturgeon approved them as well, and released the infantry commander to prepare Company L for the initial stages of the operation.

From its beginnings in hot-air balloons in the mid-nineteenth century, military commanders have found aerial observation and intelligence gathering a valuable pursuit. But aerial observation has always been vulnerable to defeat. As soon as an observer is spotted by the object of its search, steps can be taken to hide or put out decoys. Even orbital satellites can be deceived by such measures. And aerial observation platforms, weather balloons, manned aircraft, and unmanned aerial vehicles have always been vulnerable to fire directed at them from the ground. Even orbital satellites were vulnerable to jamming or destruction by ground, air, or orbital-based weapon systems. And an enemy's intelligent use of camouflage just added to the problem. Those are simple facts that commanders who use aerial observation have always had to live with.

The Confederation Marine Corps, on the other hand, being Marines, didn't believe they had to accept limitations just because everybody else did. And, as Marines, they believed firmly in taking care of their own. They wanted the use of UAVs for battlefield intelligence gathering, and didn't want the craft to be fooled or lost just because they could be seen by an enemy on the ground. So they came up with their own form of UAV, one that could be disguised as any manner of native flier that approximated its size.
Sizes,
actually; the Marines used two different UAVs that could variously look like bird, mammal, or large insect analogs--whatever flying creature was appropriate for where they were deployed.

Not only could the Marine UAVs mimic the look of local flying fauna, they could mimic their actions. Some birds or their analogs constantly flap their wings in flight, while others use their wings sparingly and glide mostly on thermals. The same was true of flying mammals and their analogs. The bodies of flying insectoids commonly bop up and down between their wings, and jitter from side to side in flight.

So could the Marines' UAVs, which could even adjust their thermal output to mimic the infrared signals of real fliers.

As soon as the Confederation Marines adopted their new UAVs, their UAV combat losses dropped dramatically.

The Confederation Army, which was still using UAVs that looked and acted like UAVs, continued to suffer heavy UAV combat losses and became intensely jealous. The Marines, being Marines, smiled smugly and basked in the army's jealousy. After a few campaigns and wars in which the Confederation Army lost a goodly number of UAVs, the army's then-chief of staff broke down and said "pretty please," and the Marines graciously allowed the army to license their UAV design.

Confederation Army UAV losses dropped dramatically.

That didn't mean the army stopped swearing about "those damn Marines." After all, didn't the army have an ancient tradition of bestowing its castoffs and obsolete equipment on the Marines? One should expect
some
gratitude, they thought. But no, not from "those damn Marines"; they were too arrogant by more than half.

For initial operations on Maugham's Station, the Marines disguised their larger UAVs as the Joseph's coated papukaija, a largish, nut-eating bird with riotously colored plumage; and the smaller ones as varpuna thrushmockers, a midsize, drab-plumage, insectoid eater that flitted swiftly from tree to tree.

Three UAV teams, three areas to observe--fortuitous symmetry.

The FIST-level UAVs were much more sophisticated machines than those used by the infantry companies. The company-level UAVs needed to be constantly controlled and observed, so if both of a blaster company's UAVs were flying simultaneously, both members of the UAV team had to focus on them, one Marine flying each. FIST-level UAVs, on the other hand, had low-level AIs capable of enough independence that an experienced operator could easily control two simultaneously. FIST UAVs were even smart enough to recognize not only the patterns they were programmed to look for, but patterns that didn't match anything they'd already observed on their missions, and to draw their operator's attention to them.

Staff Sergeant Geiger monitored his displays with only a part of his attention during the flights of his two varpuna thrushmockers to the strange, calderalike valley north of Ammon.

He paid far more attention to the instruction he was giving Lance Corporal Hawker, the most junior and least experienced man in the FIST UAV squad. It was only Hawker's second live operation. Admittedly, the previous operation--against the Skinks on Kingdom--had been quite a baptism of fire.

"We have to do this a lot differently," Geiger explained. "On Kingdom, we had to search an entire planet, with lots of open landscapes and swamps. Here, we're going to be looking in small areas with very definite boundaries and dense forest--and we don't even have any clear definition yet of what ground level is, or how the ground lays."

That was why Geiger operated the thrushmockers while Hawker handled the two mock Joseph's coated papukaijas. Usually, the senior team member had the larger UAVs. Here, Geiger expected most of the intelligence they gathered to come from deep within the tree cover where the larger UAVs would have more trouble maneuvering, and he wanted personal control of the vehicles that could go deep.

"I want you to stay high," Geiger said, "one in the treetops and the other above them--"

"You already told me that several times, Staff Sergeant," Hawker interrupted.

"And I'm going to keep telling you until you can repeat it in your sleep." Geiger wasn't annoyed by the interruption, he expected it; Hawker wasn't the first Marine he'd broken in as a UAV operator, and they'd all reached a point where they got so sick of having their instructions repeated to them that they objected. He'd done the same thing when he was a lance corporal just starting out as a UAV driver. Just wait until this youngster had to start repeating his instructions after only hearing them one time--and keep repeating them until the mission was over.

"As I was saying, you stay high, I go low. You look for clearings, even breaks in the canopy that are just large enough for a hopper to drop a man-line through, anyplace that gives access between the top of the canopy and the ground below the trees. And pay attention to your infra views. Close attention. You've seen the records of the Skink infra signatures. They don't show much in infra, but they
do
show--you have to look sharp to spot and recognize them."

Geiger grinned behind the expressionless mask of his face at the way Hawker grimaced when he mentioned the Skinks. During their major assault on Haven, before 34th FIST was reinforced by 26th FIST on Kingdom, one Skink squad had made it all the way to FIST

headquarters, and most of the UAV squad--including Hawker--had to take up blasters and fight them off.

"Remember to keep track of where my birds are so we can coordinate when one of us spots something that needs investigation."

Hawker tuned Geiger's voice out and watched his displays. Especially the visual. He hadn't been on many planets, so every new world was still a marvel to him. He'd originally applied for UAV school because he thought flying the observation birds would give him lots of opportunity to see new worlds in ways the infantry or squadron ground crews never could.