Starfist: Firestorm (5 page)

“They should have put Cazombi in charge of this mess,” Sturgeon muttered. “The way General Billie hides out down here, there’s no chance the enemy will oblige us with a change of commanders.”

“I’m beginning to get the picture,” Godalgonz replied. The morale had to be extremely low, he realized, if a man like Ted Sturgeon was giving in to talk like that. “Buck up, Ted! Now that I’m here, we’re going to kick some ass. I’ll handle this Billie guy, you bet!”

“Balca”—Billie leaned back comfortably—“I’m gonna rid myself of these damned Marines.”

“Sir, that might be easier said than done,” Major General Sorca replied.

“Mebbe not. Look.” Billie called up a 1:100,000 vidmap of the battle theater. “See here, Lyons’s got a full division here, at Phelps, and another one here, at this little town just outside Gilbert’s Corners. Those troops are locked and loaded; Lyons’s reserve as well as the protective screen for the Coalition’s government. I’m gonna take this hard-charging three-star and the 17th, 29th, and 34th FISTs and send them on a raid against Gilbert’s. They’ll be outgunned and outnumbered. Keep them busy out there saving their asses from annihilation and out of our hair while we prepare the main thrust. What do you think?”

Major General Balca Sorca hesitated before he replied. “Well, um, sir, that would mean we’d have to sacrifice some of our own men, just to get them out of the way?” That was as close as Sorca would ever come to questioning an order from his mentor, but privately he was beginning to wonder if he’d hitched himself to the right set of stars in this army.

“It’ll also pin down those reserves and disrupt the Coalition government. Come on, Balca! You play chess. You know that to win you have to sacrifice pieces, even some valuable ones!” Billie regarded his chief of staff through a cloud of cigar smoke. Was Balca losing his nerve? Was
every
officer in this hole except Jason Billie himself unable to see the Big Picture? “You chop wood, Balca, you get chips. Issue the order.”

CHAPTER FIVE

At a hundred-plus kilos and standing only about 180 centimeters, Major General Golda Clipper was almost as broad as he was tall. But once given a mission, he pursued it like a boulder rolling down a mountainside.

“Mr. President”—General Clipper ran a hamlike palm over his closely cropped head as he spoke; it came away wet with perspiration mixed with the dust of the road he had taken to get to Gilbert’s Corners—“I believe an attack is imminent and I suggest you communicate this intelligence to your gov’mint ’n’ evacuate to a safer location.”

Preston Summers, President of the Coalition of Independent Worlds, gazed silently at the rotund figure. Slowly he removed the cigar from the side of his mouth, fished out tobacco shreds with a finger, and said, “Gawdam cheap seegars, fall apart on ya before they’s even halfway smoked.” He wiped his finger on his trousers. “So ya think this place is gonna turn into a battlefield, Gen’ral?”

“I know it is, sir.”

“Then we’re fucked, aren’t we?” Summers squinted through the cigar smoke.

“Wouldn’t put it quite that way, sir.”

“Don’t shit me, Gen’ral. They’ve awreddy attacked us here once, ’n’ they’s plannin’ on doin’ it agin, ain’t they? Only this time they’re comin’ with a force big enough to hold this place. Well, we survived that first attack so what makes you think we won’t weather this one you think is comin’ now?”

“That was just a probe, Mr. President, to prove they could attack you at will; to scare you to keep you off balance—”

“Sure scared the stuffings outta me!”

“They even kidnapped some of your officials that time, didn’t they?”

Summers laughed. “Hauled ol’ Heb Cawman off like a sack o’ sticks, they did! I wonder what he’s tole ’em by now? Y’know, we did talk about evacuatin’ Gilbert’s Corners some time ago, Cawman, some others ’n’ me. He was against it at the time, as I recall. Best thing ever happened to this war for us was them capturin’ that ol’ galoot.”

“General Lyons also arrested some of the other members of that Committee on the Conduct of the War, didn’t he?”

“Sartinly did, sartinly did, ’n’ he had reason to do it too. After this war is over you’ll know why, Gen’ral Clipper. Now answer me this: They’s gonna land on the coast ’n’ take Phelps too, ain’t they?”

“They already have. A coast-watcher spotted them and notified General Lyons. He believes they’re headed straight here and my job is to stop them. I can’t protect you folks and do that at the same time.”

Summers’s heart skipped a beat at that news but he only nodded. “What’s the size of the force they landed?”

“Big enough to do the job, Mr. President.”

Summers was silent briefly, thinking,
Why the fuck didn’t Lyons beef up the coastal defenses instead of putting that goddamned useless MP battalion out there?
But when he spoke, he said, “Well, I ain’t no strategist but seems to me Phelps is our back door.” He sighed. “Have a seegar, Gen’ral? ’Scuse me for not offerin’ you one sooner. They’s not top-quality smokes but they’s all I got right now. Gawdam blockade’s cut off my supply of the really good stuff. Now bourbon, different matter.” He produced a bottle and two glasses. “Join me.”

“We don’t have much time, sir,” Clipper responded, lighting his cigar and accepting a glass of whiskey from Summers. In his hands the glass looked like a thimble. He toasted the president. “Damned good stuff, sir!”

“It oughta be. Comes out of my own distillery. So why they comin’ here ’steada straight up the road to Ashburtonville?”

Clipper shrugged. “This here is the head of the beast ’n’ they is gonna try to cut it off.”

Summers guffawed loudly. “Gen’ral, lemme tell you a couple things. First off, this ain’t the head of nothing, it’s the ass end! Gen’ral Lyons is this war—he’s what’s holding it all together. All we do back here at Gilbert’s Corners is palaver, drink whiskey, ’n’ act big all day long. Why, the Confederation’d be crazy to attack this place ’n’ end all the confusion! And second, if they really is comin’ down here to attack this place, we have lost this war.”

General Clipper finished his whiskey and stood up. “Mr. President, my orders, and they come directly from Gen’ral Lyons, are to reinforce the garrison here and prepare for a major assault on this place. I am informing you now that I am removing you and your government to a safer location where you may continue carrying on the Coalition’s business.”

“Okay! Okay!” Summers stood and held out both hands in a placating gesture. “I’m not the enemy here, Gen’ral Clipper!”

“I am going to carry out my orders, sir. Most expeditiously. I request you inform your government immediately—”

“Gawdam, Gen’ral, you military guys don’t have no sense of humor, do you?” Summers shook his head. “I’ll make the announcement but I want you there with me when I do.”

“Very good, sir.”

“Now, how much time do we have?”

“None, sir. We have to move right now.”

“Damn! Well, where are you gonna move us to, then?”

“To some caves in the Cumber Mountains. I have aircraft and surface transportation standing by. I’ll send the most important people and their staffs first, then get the rest in subsequent transports until you’re all there. Then I’m turning this place into a fortress. I think I can screen your movements from the enemy. They still don’t have their satellite observation platforms fully up and running.”

Summers swore volubly, then said, “Y’know, that’s just what we discussed some time ago. It was left up in the air as a possibility because so many of the Coalition’s representatives didn’t like the idea of living in caves. Like we’re too civilized for that.” He snorted, “So we’re gonna wind up this war a bunch of troglodytes…” He shook his head.

“A bunch of what, sir?”

“Never mind, Gen’ral. Come on, let’s git the boys together.”

It took some time but eventually the delegates and their key staff personnel sat in chairs around the walls in the old tavern where General Lyons had last faced the Committee on the Conduct of the War. The congress hall that had been erected to accommodate full meetings of the Coalition government had burned during the Marines’ recent raid. But the tavern was “homey” and still smelled of stale beer.

“Folks,” Summers began, “we are under the threat of an imminent, large-scale attack”—several of the assembled delegates gasped in surprise and horror but Summers hurried on—“Return to your offices at once, gather up ten of your most important people, whatever equipment you’ll need to do business, and assemble on Main Street. General Clipper’s troops will evacuate you to our new seat of government in the caverns located in the Cumber Mountains—”

“Aaaahhhhh!” Bela Raipur Gwalior, a delegate from Chilianwala screeched. “It is all over! We are dead! All is lost! Aaaaahhhhh!”

Summers grimaced, “Damn it, Bela, pipe down! It ain’t over till I says it’s over.” He turned to General Clipper and muttered, sotto voce, “Damn woman was all for this war till it turned sour.” He turned back to the delegates who were in a state of agitation. “Now y’all get back to yer offices ’n’ gather up yer rods ’n’ staffs and git yer damned asses out into the street—”

“See here, Preston!” Zozor Yella, the delegate from Kambula shouted, stepping forward, “what gives you the authority to address us in such a disrespectful and very ungentlemanly—”

“Awwriiight!”
General Clipper’s voice echoed off the timbers as he rolled forward. “You heard the man! Git yer behinds and yer shit into the goddamned company street and do it right goddamned now or I will have my men drag your asses out there ’n’ load you up. Move! Move! Move!”

Miraculously, nobody was hurt in the rush for the door. After silence had settled over the old tavern, Summers wiped his forehead theatrically, turned to Clipper and laughed. “Geez, Gen’ral, you sure do have a way with politicians!”

“Well,” he explained, “I used to be a company first sergeant.”

CHAPTER SIX

The next time word of what they were going to do came down, the Marines of third platoon knew it was the straight scoop because Captain Conorado assembled the company in the open area behind the coral ridge their bunkers were in, and gave them the word himself. If the open area looked like a battleground, well, it had recently been one. Coalition forces, during their ill-fated amphibious assault on the Marine section of the Bataan defenses, had airlifted troops and equipment on the reverse side of the ridge; the ground was littered with the shattered remains of Coalition vehicles and artillery pieces. When Conorado told his Marines to gather close, many of them found perches on Coalition equipment.

“I know that you’ve all heard the scuttlebutt that a Marine lieutenant general has come to Ravenette,” Conorado said when his Marines were settled in front of him. He himself sat high on the side of a self-propelled artillery piece. The company’s officers and most of the senior NCOs had arrayed themselves around his back and sides. “It’s true. Lieutenant General Kyr Godalgonz has come from HQMC. He traveled as Acting CG, 10th Provisional Corps. Two of the elements of 10th Corps were 17th and 29th FISTs. There were also two army divisions.” If it sounded to a non-Marine observer that Conorado casually dismissed the two army divisions as less important than the two FISTs, well, Conorado was a Marine, and Marines are
always
dismissive of army units. Many of the Marines Conorado addressed, on the other hand, were just this side of thinking he spoke too well of the two army divisions.

“There’s been scuttlebutt,” Conorado continued, “that Lieutenant General Godalgonz was taking over combat operations for ConForRav.” Military-speak for Confederation Forces, Ravenette. “That hasn’t happened. At this moment, the lieutenant general is ComMarForRav.” Commander, Marine Forces, Ravenette. “MarForRav is about to conduct its first multi-FIST operation, with Lieutenant General Godalgonz in command.

“Force Recon discovered that the Coalition government has established itself in a farming village 150 kilometers southwest of Fort Seymour. The village, a place by the name of Gilbert’s Corners, is defended by as much as a reinforced regiment. In addition to the government’s own defenses, the Coalition’s 9th Division is close enough to give assistance in event of an attack on Gilbert’s Corners.” Conorado paused to emphasize what he was about to say. “Thirty-fourth and Seventeenth FISTs are going to give the 9th Division an excuse to react to Gilbert’s Corners.

“That got your attention, didn’t it?

“The operation will be a raid in force, and will utilize all the Dragons and hoppers of the three FISTs. We will board Dragons, go out beyond the horizon, and swing around to make a landing southeast of Gilbert’s Corners. There we will be met by hoppers for the final leg of our movement-to-objective. We will strike fast and hard, and do everything we can to disrupt the Coalition government’s operations, up to and including destroying the government.

“Twenty-ninth FIST, if you’re interested, will be picked up by the hoppers as soon as they drop us at Gilbert’s Corners and they will transit it to the landing beach, where it will be on standby in the event that it is needed.

“Lieutenant General Godalgonz and the staffs of all three FISTs are finished with the basic plan for this operation, and are now working on contingency plans. I haven’t seen all of the primary plan, but I can tell you that it calls for us to get out of Gilbert’s Corners before the 9th Division can get there.

“When you are dismissed, head back to your assigned areas and get ready to mount out. You will be briefed in more detail as I have the details to give you. In the meanwhile, get your weapons and gear in order, and get some sleep. There will be a chow call at zero-dark-thirty. We can expect to move out before dawn.”

Conorado suddenly stood erect, and platoon sergeants and squad leaders called their men to attention.

“Platoon sergeants, dismiss your men!” Followed by the other officers, Conorado turned and headed into the ridge, back to his command post. As soon as he was out of sight, the platoon sergeants sent their men back to their areas.

The “chow call at zero-dark-thirty” was a hot meal delivered to the bunkers by the enlisted personnel of the mess sections of both the FIST and the battalion. The promised briefing didn’t come until the Marines had boarded the Dragons and were headed out to sea under the cover of darkness. The briefing was fragmentary; each platoon in the company was given only the plans for its own part of the operation. Given the time constraints, Captain Conorado had only briefed the platoon commanders and platoon sergeants, and most of the briefing was the transmission to their comps of each platoon’s portion. It was then up to the platoon commanders and platoon sergeants to brief their Marines.

This wasn’t a fully effective method of briefing the troops. Even though each platoon commander and platoon sergeant was top man in a Dragon with half of his platoon, each of the Dragons also had a few extra Marines from either the FIST or battalion companies. Which meant
those
Marines didn’t necessarily get a briefing germane to their parts of the operation. It wasn’t to be helped, though. Between General Billie’s desire to get the Marines out of his way immediately, and Lieutenant General Godalgonz’s desire to show Billie that he was an effective combat commander, the raid in force had to go
now
, with no time for thorough briefings or rehearsal.

Staff Sergeant Hyakowa made sure the Marines in his Dragon were hooked into his Bravo unit circuit, then briefed them on what they’d be doing when they reached the beach, and then on their part of the upcoming raid. He added what little he knew about the rest of the raid, and finished up by uploading the necessary map overlays to Sergeant Kerr and the team leaders. All he could tell the two squads from the company’s assault platoon was, “Keep close to me until you get further orders.” Hyakowa’s unhappiness with the situation didn’t show in his voice.

Once the briefing was over, Kerr told his men to study the plan, then try to get some sleep. It didn’t take him long to absorb the small amount of briefing material, then he closed his eyes and tried to follow his own advice. But unwelcome thoughts of casualties kept him awake during the long ride to the landing beach.

Private Lem Bob Stanley was bored. Out of his skull. Like with an auger. Yep, that was it. Bored like someone took an auger and bored a hole right through his skull. That’s how Lem Bob Stanley told himself his head felt. It
hurt
. Dangnabbit. Aside from not having nothing to do besides watch that there beach, Lem Bob couldn’t do anything else, either. Couldn’t even go over to the creek and do some fishing. Not even sit here and catch some sleep, because Private Stanley had to pick up that radio there and call in to report “…ain’t got nothin’ to report…” every half hour. No sir! Colonel Sedge Mossby’d been right definite about doing nothing but sit in the shade of this here tree looked something like a cottonwood and watch the beach. Hell, nothing to see on the goddamn beach. It’d be right interesting to watch the beach if there were some naked womenfolk splashing in the water down there. Of course, Lem Bob knew if there were some naked womenfolk splashing in the water, he’d be a-hauling his ass down there to do some splashing with them. Huh-huh, and more than just splashing, you can bet. But damn Colonel Mossby’d get a wild hair up his ass about that too. Dang him! Lem Bob didn’t know why Colonel Mossby thought this bit of beach was worth watching, weren’t nothing around here to make the Confederation military to come this way.

Private Lem Bob Stanley’s unit was the Mylex Militia, not the regular army. Lem Bob thought the militia should go back to the
old
way and elect its officers. They’d elect that Colonel Sedge Mossby right back down to private! Put someone else in as colonel, someone who’d have enough sense to give men duties what didn’t bore them out of their skulls. There wasn’t no
dang
thing to look at on that beach, nothing to keep a man’s mind occupied except for that…

What
was
suddenly riling up the water like that? The waves hitting the beach about half a klick off were acting plumb loco, throwing spray like there was monster trucks running through them, but there wasn’t anything there to rile them. And now on the beach, there was sand flyin’ everywhere! And what’s that thrumming in the sky now?

Lem Bob looked and had to use his hand to push his jaw back up before it fell off. There were many strange-looking aircraft heading straight toward the beach from over the ocean—Lem Bob didn’t know it, but they were three squadrons of Marine hoppers. The hoppers landed just inland from the beach and opened their hatches. The Marines, already racing off their chameleon-painted Dragons, sped into the hoppers, which took off again, headed northwest. The things he couldn’t quite see quit spraying sand and headed back over the water.

It wasn’t time for Lem Bob’s half-hourly report, but he surely had something to report. Lem Bob was so excited about finally having something to report—and something he couldn’t explain—that the Mylex Militia’s radiowatch noncom couldn’t understand what he was trying to report. When the radiowatch noncom told him to try again when he sobered up, and that he was on report for drinking on duty, Lem Bob blew up and demanded to speak directly to Colonel Mossby. Lem Bob was shouting loudly enough that the duty officer, on the far side of the headquarters tent, heard his demand. The duty officer quickstepped to the radio station and demanded the noncom tell him what was going on. When the answer was, “Damn ’f I know, he’s drunk an’ I cain’t figgur out what he’s sayin’,” the duty officer—who knew that whatever Private Lem Bob Stanleys other shortcomings were, drinking on duty wasn’t one of them—took the microphone from the noncom and began talking.

That calmed Lem Bob down enough for him to give a garbled but intelligible account of what he’d just witnessed. The duty officer thanked him, told him to maintain position and immediately report anything else unusual, and then raised Colonel Mossby, to pass the report to him.

Unlike many members of the Mylex Militia, Colonel Mossby knew about the Marine chameleons and their vehicles. He wasted no time contacting General Lyons and reporting to him that it appeared the Confederation forces were launching an attack in the direction of Gilbert’s Corners.

General Lyons immediately contacted Major General Verkas Nonbrite, commander of the 9th Cabala Division, at Grenoble’s Shop, a mere twelve kilometers southeast of Gilbert’s Corners, and ordered him to move his division to intercept an airborne assault on the government center there or, failing that, to launch a counterattack. Lyons ordered a dozen of his remaining satellite killers into action to blow a hole in the Confederation’s string-of-pearls, to disable the satellite surveillance system enough to allow the 9th Division’s movement to go undetected until its elements were in position to counter the Marine assault that he was certain was about to hit Gilbert’s Corners.

Major General Nonbrite was ahead of the curve; following the Force Recon raid on Gilbert’s Corners, a raid in which Chairman of the Committee on the Conduct of the War Heb Cawman was captured, he had initiated a program of rotating his regiments to reinforce the garrison at Gilbert’s Corners. Currently, the 819th Regiment was situated two kilometers northeast of the government center, and the 259th Regiment was ready to mount out to replace the 819th. The 589th Regiment was midway through its refitting rotation and could move out with twenty-four hours’ notice. His artillery was zeroed in on all approaches to Gilbert’s Corners. And the 125th Brigade was on standby at the base camp, ready to move wherever it was needed on less than thirty minutes’ notice.

Twenty-four hours wasn’t enough time for the regiments at Grenoble’s Shop to prepare in detail, but the 9th Division didn’t have to move; two of its three regiments were directly in the path of any attacker coming from the southeast.

General Nonbrite alerted Task Force Osper, the reinforced security battalion at Gilbert’s Corners, of a possible Confederation assault.

The Marines knew the 9th Division was on the direct route from their landing beach to Gilbert’s Corners, so the hoppers swung farther south to avoid overflying the division before they cut inland. The hoppers flew low, following roads, not quite as far above the ground as the tallest treetops to reduce the chance of being spotted. Three kilometers from Gilbert’s Corners, they rose thirty meters above the trees and moved line abreast for the final approach. At the same time, the eighteen Raptors of the three FISTs’ squadrons, orbiting at forty thousand feet above Gilbert’s Corners, heeled over to plunge toward the surface. At ten thousand feet, two of the squadrons began firing plasma cannons at predesignated targets in the Coalition defenses, while the third squadron sought targets of opportunity along the roads on the route from the 9th Division’s base at Grenoble’s Shop to Gilbert’s Corners. None of the squadrons looked to the northeast, so they didn’t see the 819th Regiment begin its move to intercept.