This was our most important sighting so far, and I wouldn’t have been surprised if the sergeant had told Will to check it out. But that’s not the way the Corps works. I may be the new guy, and this may be my first assault mission, but I was a marine and I was expected to be able to perform as one. As far as my field commander was concerned I wouldn’t have been assigned to an assault unit unless my instructors, combat veterans all, considered me ready.
“Squad, halt. Cain, move forward and reconnoiter the area. Thompson, move in and provide cover.”
I started forward slowly, checking my display for any signs of artificial energy output that could indicate a hidden enemy. Negative. No power output. I glanced over and could see Will moving in on my right. He maintained a distance of about 40 meters, to the right of and slightly behind my position.
Temperature readings were all normal as I approached the bodies. Whatever had happened here, it had been at least a day ago. The area had clearly been subjected to some type of incendiary or high explosive fire – the grass was completely burnt and a small stand of trees nearby had been blown into matchsticks. I reported as I advanced, doing my best to sound calm despite the fact that I was so nervous I could hardly take a breath.
The bodies were clustered on a small rise. There were seven of them in total, three wearing the uniform of the planetary militia, the others in civilian miner’s dress. All of them were clad in heavy protective vests and metal helmets. Their faces wore horrid expressions, their features twisted in agonizing contortions. Their mouths and nostrils were caked with dried blood.
As my mind reached its conclusion, a warning light on my tactical display confirmed my deduction. Gas. “Cain reporting…seven bodies total. They appear to be victims of a gas attack. My sensors confirm the presence of….” I looked up at the tactical display for the answer. "...trace quantities of Kirax-3 nerve gas. Current concentration .032 parts per million…within the danger zone but below immediately lethal levels.”
So they were using gas to hunt down the locals. The militia’s little guerilla war must have been doing some pretty serious damage for the CAC forces to resort to these tactics. Nerve gas is a nasty weapon, usually used against second line troops lacking effective counter-measures, and then in only the most desperate situations. By custom, those who employ gas can expect no quarter if the battle turns against them. Why would they take such steps in a fight over a relatively unimportant hunk of ground like Carson’s World? I would get an answer to that question, but not until years later.
There were several moments of silence – the squad leader conferring with higher authority, no doubt – then the comlink crackled. “Alright second squad, continue advance. Full chemical warfare procedures in effect.”
That last command didn’t really change anything. We still had our suits fully sealed, although the atmosphere of Carson’s World was well within the acceptable range. Normal operating procedures would have called for us to switch to filtered external air after twelve hours, leaving a full day of atmospheric capacity in reserve. Standard chemical warfare procedures dictated that we would remain on our internal air supply/regeneration capacity until we were down to a four hour reserve. As with many of our procedures, there was a certain element of overkill. The atmospheric purification systems in our suits were perfectly capable of filtering out most known bacteriological and chemical agents, including Kirax-3 nerve gas. Still, better to be overly cautious than to see a whole company wiped out by some new or unexpected weapon.
It took us ninety minutes to cover the next two klicks. There were still no enemy contacts, but further up the line they found two more groups of bodies. The first was had four corpses, definitely gas victims.
The second group consisted of eleven bodies, but these were spread out over a much wider area. They were all wearing protective breathing gear and had been killed by rifle and grenade fire. Though we found no enemy bodies in the area, there were enough bits and pieces of CAC armor lying around for us to conclude that the enemy had in fact suffered casualties in this firefight.
A full analysis indicated that this action had occurred within the past eighteen hours. From the look of the tracks leaving the location, the enemy had withdrawn back toward the settled area. Whether they had been repulsed or had simply completed their mission and retired was unclear.
We continued our advance, but about fifteen minutes after leaving the site of the last skirmish, we were ordered to halt. The first squad had made contact with the locals.
The militia had been advised of the basic tactical plan through scrambled pulse communications from Fleet, but they were not provided with specific schedules or locations for fear that the enemy would intercept the transmission. Their instructions were to be ready for action on short notice, and apparently they had listened.
We held our position for almost an hour, and if there is one thing I learned quickly in the corps, nothing makes a sergeant crazier than watching his men relax with nothing to do. Fortunately, Sergeant Harris managed to come up with lots of ways for us to use the down time. We checked and re-checked our weapons, ran a system diagnostic on our armor and did a full analysis of the surrounding area – atmosphere, energy readings, chemical residue.
Finally the orders came. Our squad was to advance due east toward the settlement of Warrenville and take the position. Our attack would be supported by one fire team of the third squad. Warrenville was the smallest of the dozen or so towns that made up the entirety of the inhabited area of Carson’s World.
According to the locals, the town was lightly garrisoned and we could expect minimal resistance. Most of the guerilla activity had been to the north and the enemy had deployed its strongest forces to that sector.
Our attack was essentially a diversion. We were to go in first, take the objective, and hold it against any counterattack (It was the “any” part that worried me the most). After the enemy had moved troops south to deal with us, the rest of our platoon would link up with the first platoon and a large group of militia for the main attack against the northern defenses. The third platoon was to cover the eastern and southern perimeter to intercept the enemy retreat.
We covered the first eight klicks in about two hours. The sergeant halted us just short of a small rise and sent Wilson, the platoon's scout, to report on visibility from the top of the rise. I watched him scramble up the gentle slope and crouch down just below the crest. His recon armor had a different look to it...sleeker, lighter.
“Wilson reporting. Good visibility to target, estimate distance to nearest structure 1,800 meters. Twenty to twenty-five buildings, look like modular plasti-steel structures. The terrain’s completely open between here and the town, no cover at all. Looks like there’s some kind of trench dug along the perimeter. No enemy sightings.”
No cover. Shit. That meant we’d be advancing almost two kilometers over open ground, probably under enemy fire.
“Alright marines, form up at 30 meter intervals behind the crest. We’re gonna advance leapfrog fashion – first even numbers, then odd. Fifty meter intervals, grab some dirt between moves. Stationary troops, I want heavy covering fire. Assault to commence in 90 seconds.”
We were really going in. I’d been nervous about this for weeks and flat out scared to death since we stepped into the landing bay, but for some reason knowing we were heading into battle right now actually calmed me down. Maybe it was the training or some kind of silent resignation to my fate. Or the massive dose of adrenaline surging through my veins (some natural, some courtesy of the performance drugs my armor was pumping into me). Whatever it was, I suddenly had a clarity of thought I hadn’t felt in weeks now. I had been trained for this, and I was ready.
I was the ninth one in line so I was supposed to provide covering fire while the evens went forward. I was pressed against the ground behind the hill - my head was maybe half a meter below the crest.
“Covering fire, now!”
I threw my arms up over the crest and rested my auto rifle on the ground in front of me. I had it set for burst fire and when I pulled the trigger it began to spit out 12 rounds a second in micro-bursts of four. The fire left a faintly glowing trail of plasma as the hyper-sonic bullets ionized the air.
The M-36 auto-rifle is a state of the art projectile-firing weapon. Specially designed for use with powered armor, the gun uses electromagnetic force to propel the projectiles at tremendous velocities. Without the need to carry their own propellant, the bullets are extremely small, and a single magazine holds 500 rounds. Despite their tiny size, the hardness and speed of the osmium/iridium darts makes them extremely effective, even against armored enemies.
Two klicks was well within the range of our rifles and the entire western edge of the town was raked by our fire. I still couldn’t see any enemy soldiers through the dust and shattered rocks we were kicking up, but the main purpose of our fire was to keep their heads down. Any hits at this point would be just dumb luck.
“Alright evens, move it out! Odds, continue covering fire.”
Half of the squad leapt over the crest and ran forward. I kept up my fire, stopping only to grab another clip off my waist and reload. The guys who were advancing came under immediate fire from the trench, but our covering fire was definitely hampering the enemy response. Their shooting was sporadic and poorly aimed.
“Evens, stop and hit the ground! Covering fire!”
The advancing troops dove forward onto the ground and began spraying the enemy positions with fire.
“Odds, move out! Seventy-five meters.”
I stopped firing and climbed up over the hill. Although we were to advance in 50 meter intervals, our first move was an extra 25 meters so that our positions would be staggered with that of the evens. It took less than 20 seconds to cover the distance, but it seemed like we’d been running for an hour when the comlink crackled again. When I flopped down on the ground I let out a deep breath. I couldn't believe I wasn't hit.
“Odds, down and fire! Evens, forward 50 meters!”
We continued in this fashion until we had covered almost half the distance to the trench. We still had no one down.
The evens had just hit the ground, and the order came for us to advance. I scrambled up and headed forward. Before I had covered 10 meters, something else opened fire from the enemy trench. The volume of fire increased dramatically and I saw two of our guys go down within seconds of each other.
“Odds, hit the dirt! Cease all movement! All units fire!”
I dove to the ground, bringing my rifle up to bear as I went down. Damn! They had a heavy weapon in there. I remembered something from my ordnance training – the Shadeng-7 heavy auto gun, primary infantry support weapon of the CAC assault forces. I couldn’t recall all the details, but I was pretty sure the thing had a rate of fire of better than 3,000 rounds per minute.
The sergeant spoke again. “Ferguson, report your condition.” He didn’t ask about anyone else, though I was sure that I’d seen two casualties. I found out later that the other was Jenkins, and the sergeant’s monitors had already confirmed he was dead.
The reply was quick but a little shaky, “Took one in the leg, Sarge. I’ll be OK. Don’t think I can walk, though.”
The armor was designed to minimize the effects of a wound – the longer a wounded marine can survive, the greater the chance he will be recovered and given real medical treatment. The injury control mechanism automatically injects drugs to treat shock, minimize pain, and slow the metabolism to reduce blood loss. Additionally, there is a kit attached to the exterior of the armor containing bandages and other items that the marine himself can use if he is able, though there isn’t much you can do when suited up.
“Stay put, Ferguson, keep your head down. We’ll be back for you.”
In a larger operation we'd probably have an imbedded medic with us. But with a single company spread over 100 square kilometers there was no workable way to provide supporting services. The wounded would just have to depend upon their suits’ trauma control and hope that we go on to win the battle.
“Second squad, maintain positions." The lieutenant's voice. "Evens, continue fire. Odds, grenade attack. Target the section of trench in front of those storage tanks, three rounds each. Reserve team, I want you to flank that heavy weapon – advance 500 meters to the right of the second squad.”
My rangefinder confirmed my estimate that I was about 1100 meters from the target area. I clicked the small button under my left thumb to lock the range into the firing system and, pointing my arm in the direction of the target, loosed three grenades in rapid succession.
A few seconds later the ground all along the target area erupted as nine 100 milliton high explosive grenades exploded within a 5 second period.
The automatic fire from the trench stopped, at least momentarily. We had no way of knowing if the gun had been hit or if the crew had merely been stunned or knocked to the ground.
“Odds, covering rifle fire. Evens advance 50 meters.”
We had leapfrogged another 200 meters with only sporadic enemy fire when we got our answer, as the big gun opened up again, pinning us down about 800 meters short of the trench. This time we weren't surprised, and no one was hit as far as I could tell.
By this time the flanking force was in position on a small hill to the right and opened up on the trench. If there had been a few more enemy troops, they could have engaged the flanking force and held the entire position firmly. As it was, however, the flank force was only challenged by a single enemy trooper firing from behind one of the small buildings on the edge of the settlement. About thirty seconds after he opened fire a lucky shot landed a frag grenade about a meter behind him. Five or six pieces of osmium-iridium shrapnel slammed into him, one tearing his head clean off his body, eliminating the only effective opposition to the flank attack.