Star Soldier (25 page)

The original port of entry, according to swollen-mouthed Turbo, had been Tokyo Harbor. They would now disembark on the peninsula and in the city of Miura. A seventy kilometer march would bring them near the merculite missile battery, the site of the civil war’s most vicious fighting. They feared Captain Sigmir, wondering how he would discipline them. They hoped his Tenth Company operational planning kept him from carrying-out any retribution long enough for him to die in combat.

An hour later, the four transport-hovers docked and the men jogged off in full gear. Instead of marching into the heart of Tokyo, they filed into waiting trucks—ancient, beat-up relics—and they immediately roared off toward the fires in the distance.

A corporal on loan from the 9th FEC Division, a first-wave invading unit, shouted instructions at Marten as the truck bounced along the potted road. Enemy artillery boomed in the distance. Highborn rocket launchers whistled loudly in return. Besides the outer noises, their truck rattled and quavered as its worn engine roared.

“If you see anybody who’s not wearing FEC brown, combat body armor or riding the sky on his jetpack, you shoot him!” shouted the corporal, a skinny kid who couldn’t have been any older than nineteen. “And don’t take off your armor or helmets unless you’re underground in a bunker or in the infirmary!”

“What about the Highborn?” Marten shouted back.

“What about them?”

“What do we do if we run into them?”

“Stay out of their way. But if you can’t, don’t speak unless spoken to. You already know that. Surely your captain has taught you the proper responses.”

Stick muttered something unintelligible.

“Now,” shouted the corporal. “If somebody waves to you, a civilian I mean, shoot him. If he looks sick or is crying, shoot him even faster. They’re all bastards and trying to get close enough so they can blow you and them to heaven. They’re all insane in this part of the world.”

“What about children?” shouted Turbo.

“They’re the worst.” The corporal thoughtfully studied the worried soldiers of Second Platoon. “I know it’s hard, and you’ll feel terrible afterward. But when you see your buddies shredded before your eyes and you’re the only one left after several days, it gets easier. So just gun them down and maybe you’ll be riding a truck someday telling others how to survive this hellhole.”

The men absorbed his words in silence.

“How long you been here?” asked Omi.

“From the beginning. Okay, listen close now. When they tell you it’s the big push, they mean you gotta go over the top and storm assault a strongpoint. When they say hold, it means you’re surrounded and they can’t get any more supplies through until tomorrow. So don’t fire everything away in one burst, but start sniping. And if they tell you about how your name will go down in history, well, it’s all over for you then. Your only hope at that point is that masonry covers you in an enemy blast but doesn’t kill or cripple you—and of course that our side digs you out in several days. If it’s the enemy who digs you out.” He shrugged. “Save the last bullet for yourself is my advice. Like I said, they’re all bastards here. Oh, and don’t believe anything they told you about Suspend and revival later. That’s all crap. We’re all expendable expect for the Highborn.”

“How long can this go on?” shouted Turbo.

“I’ll tell you how long: Until the Highborn decide.”

“What do you mean?” asked Marten.

The corporal shouted, “Couldn’t the Highborn take Tokyo if they really wanted? I think so. They’ve taken everything else. Why not here?”

Marten and his sergeants must have looked unimpressed.

“Hey,” said the corporal, “I saw what the power-suited giants could do the first day of the invasion. Nothing could stand against them. If someone could stand, they simply leaped to a different place and attacked from the opposite direction. None of that matters to you. At o-three hundred tonight you’re moving into your defensive position. So good luck.”

He held out his hand, Marten shook it. “You’re not going with us?”

“No, sir. I’m getting off at the next stop to instruct the next batch of fodder.”

“Fodder?” asked Turbo.

“Sorry. I wasn’t supposed to say that.” The corporal grinned, but it lacked sincerity. “Show them what Aussies are made of, mate.”

7.

Heavy shelling made the trucks shiver so badly they halted twenty kilometers short of their destination. The men dismounted and entered an inferno. Rubble and ruined, smoldering buildings towered all around them. Smoke billowed into the night sky and flames shot up high in the distance. They felt the heat of it on their faces and the acrid smell seared the inside of their nostrils. Exploding rockets shook the ground and made them duck and start walking in a bent-over crouch. In the near distance mortars crumped. Farther away artillery boomed and occasionally a hellish red laser beamed down from somewhere unseen in the sky. That sound was the worst, a high whine that grated on the nerves and always caused a gut-wrenching explosion.

Hunch-shouldered guides led them through the shattered mess of the city. As they marched, they crunched over broken glass, concrete, spent casings and shredded clothing.

For three hours, they marched, getting sweaty in their steel and ceramic helmets, armor vests and leggings. Sometimes men popped up from trenches or foxholes and gave them a thumbs-up. At other times, hollowed-eyed soldiers simply stared at them. The worst were those who refused to glance over, as if they didn’t exist.

“Look at those guys,” muttered Turbo. “That’s what we’re gonna look like soon.”

“Quiet in the ranks,” said Marten.

They marched to the front, to endless screams, whistles, bangs and thundering guns. And always that red glow showed where Tokyo burned hottest. The stench grew worse and finally they slipped in their nose filters. It was highly uncomfortable, but it made breathing possible again.

A unit of glassy-eyed troops staggered along the other side of the road, away from the front, probably for refit. Their armor-vests stank of smoke and gore, their skin was either chalky or filthy from dirt. None of them could work up a cheer for the 93rd Slumlords.

“See,” Marten shouted to Second Platoon, “if we work as a team it’s possible to survive.”

Ex-Sydney slum dwellers stared at him in disbelief. They looked more than ever like smalltime gang members, drug runners and misfits. Slapping armor onto them and giving them guns wasn’t going to turn them into soldiers, not after a mere six weeks of basic training.

Finally, the guides brought the 93rd to a set of underground bunkers. It was five in the morning and Second Platoon, given its own bunker, was exhausted physically and mentally. The men threw down their arms, slipped off their armor and sank onto cots and chairs.

A man popped into the bunker, shouting, “Lieutenant Marten!”

“What?”

“Follow me, sir. Conference, two bunkers over.”

Marten hurried after him into another bunker and to a small room filled with the combat officers of the 93rd Battalion/20th FEC Division. Captain Sigmir signaled him to sit beside huge Kang, the Lieutenant of First Platoon/Tenth Company.

Charts came out, a fast pep talk by the Highborn Colonel and some counsel on how to lead their men this first day into combat and then finally their objective. They would hold a ‘quiet sector,’ a huge hulk of a granary. It seemed the enemy had found underground entry holes into this food storage complex, so they were to watch for crafty, sneak raids. The granary was part of a slow, encircling siege-move on the merculite battery. The massive granary was made out of old-fashioned plasteel. Neither continued enemy shelling, plasma nor wave-assaults had taken it out. Since it anchored tomorrow’s planned assaults, the granary had to be held at all costs. Tenth Company would have floor and basement duty, and as it turned out Second Platoon would be the point unit down there. More was said, but after learning his brief, Marten paid the rest slight attention.

“This is it,” said the Colonel, another Lot Six Highborn, but saner than Captain Sigmir. “This is what you trained for. Now show us that you premen are worthy of retraining and rank in the New Order.”

A half-hour later Stick complained to Marten, “Why us?”

“Why do you think?” asked Omi.

Their part of the basement duty proved to be a maze of fallen rubble, blasted holes in the ceiling that rained a couple bricks every now and then, narrow corridors from one point to the next and a groaning mass above that threatened a cave-in at any moment.

As he’d been trained, Marten put his eighty men into their positions. At the very least, he always left a corporal in charge of a squad. Some of the men grabbed shut-eye—the smart ones, it turned out.

After six hours of waiting, Japanese tunnel rats boiled out of the sewers. They attacked with bellowing yells, vibroknives and shock grenades. From every direction around Second Platoon, or so it seemed, the enemy drove in. The newly trained FEC soldiers screamed in fear, their carbines chattering in the dark. Grenades roared. There was more screaming, and then vibroknives hacked and slashed. The screaming grew higher-pitched. From above, as if timed, the entire granary shook. Static cut out communications. Helmet lamps snapped on, the light washing through chalky dust that floated everywhere. Shock grenades flew at every point of light.

“Turn them off and snap on your infrareds!” Marten yelled. He stood behind a chunk of fallen ceiling. Behind him, two privates fired blindly into the dark. He used his sidearm, firing at anything that moved.

“Omi!” he shouted into his mike. Crackle filled his earphones.

“Banzai!” screamed out of the darkness.

Marten whirled around. A grenade landed at his feet. Marten lunged, scooped and hurled it back, then ducked. It flashed. The blast knocked him against his concrete slab. Three howling enemy soldiers threw themselves at him. One FEC private gurgled as a blade whipped through his throat. Marten rapid fired. Two Japanese flopped against the wall. The last one tried to skewer him in the gut. For a second Marten’s armor held as the vibroblade whined against it. He clouted the soldier with the butt end of his pistol. Then he stomped on the man’s knife-hand, who grunted in pain. Finally, Marten put the barrel against the helmeted head and pulled the trigger. Gore and blood stained his armor, but Marten was past caring. Six weeks of training and something else deep in him bubbled to the forefront.

“Come on!” he shouted. The remaining private followed him into the darkness.

Picking up men as he went, Marten rallied what was left of his command. Too many, far too many of the former slum dwellers lay sprawled in death or scattered in bloody pieces. The survivors of Second Platoon demanded blood in return. Kicking, biting, firing, stomping and smashing they drove the tunnel rats back into their holes. Then a lull hit as the remaining enemy gasped his last on the floor. Single shots rang out as untrusting FEC soldiers checked the supposed dead.

Second Platoon was learning fast that only fools took chances. Shocked, pale-faced men, their chests heaving, looked to Marten for an explanation. He stared at the darkness out of which the enemy had come. His eyes narrowed. He was a soldier, eh? Then he was gonna do things right! He motioned them to follow him as he retreated, blowing corridors as they went, working their way topside step by step. Ten minutes later a headcount showed him fifty-eight men out of eighty had survived this first encounter with the enemy.

After manning the new positions, Marten called in to report. Captain Sigmir demanded a face-to-face encounter.

“Should I join you?” Omi asked.

Marten eyed the dark stairwell leading down to the basement. He didn’t want to face the captain alone, and Omi was his toughest, steadiest man. But that meant the ex-gunman was needed here.

“No,” said Marten. “I’ll be fine.” Besides, what could Omi really do against Captain Sigmir?

“I’m coming then,” said Stick.

Marten shook his head and humped alone to Tenth Company’s HQ in what had once been the granary’s receiving office. There was hot coffee and donuts, of all things. A man typed a report on a computer. The other HQ Company staff, including the two bodyguards, watched and listened.

Captain Sigmir leaned back in his chair. He sat behind a desk. Marten stood at attention before it.

“Lieutenant,” asked Sigmir, “how many enemy dead?”

Marten shrugged.

“Lieutenant, you surprise me. You left your basement post, retreated in face of the enemy—”

“Begging your pardon, sir, we first killed them all.”

“I fail to understand then why you retreated.”

“Because I took heavy casualties, sir.”

The captain drummed his huge fingers on the desk.

“Your orders included no such provision as retreat. You must hold your post until relieved or until you’re dead.”

“That isn’t what you told us in training, sir.”

The captain raised his eyebrows.

“You said a good commander saves his men through maneuver instead of being bullheaded. I retreated so I wouldn’t be outmaneuvered again. They know that basement too well, sir.”

“Spurious reasoning, Lieutenant. A barracks lawyer is what you sound like to me.”

“I repositioned Second Platoon at the two stairwells that are left, sir. They won’t slip up here so easily.”

Captain Sigmir slapped a hand onto the polished oak desk. “What? So the enemy is free to dig through the other stairwells!”

“No, sir. I put sensors amid those pile-ups. If they’re able to dig through there… sir, we’ll know right away.”

Captain Sigmir stood. Everyone around them stopped what they were doing, glancing up in fear at the massive, Lot Six, brain-damaged Highborn.

“Lieutenant, you realize that because of this act of cowardice on your part that I could have you dragged behind the office and shot in the back of the head.” Sigmir snapped his fingers. “Then you’d be dead and Top Sergeant Omi would take your platoon into the abyss.”

Marten stiffened to absolute attention.

“Or perhaps I should march you back to your platoon and throttle you myself, as an example to the others.”