Starfist: Wings of Hell (25 page)

“Wild Bill,” Conorado ordered to his UAV team leader, “get your birds in the air. I want to know if anybody else is coming at us, and then let me know what the rest of the company is facing. Particularly third platoon on the right flank.”

“Aye aye, Skipper,” Sergeant Flett replied. He got up from his fighting position and ran to the UAV control module. Corporal MacLeash was right behind him. They quickly got their drones into the air and headed into the woods to the north. They knew that, aside from needing to know if they had to prepare for another attack, Conorado had to know if he could release Lieutenant Bass and his five men to return to third platoon—and how badly they were needed.

It only took a few minutes for the two UAVs, disguised as something that vaguely resembled an archaeopteryx, to discover a hundred or so Skinks north of them and heading south, almost straight at the company CP. And that company of Skinks had at least one rail gun. Flett reported the discovery to Conorado, who told him to leave MacLeash watching over the approaching Skinks, and go himself to check on third platoon.

Conorado set about making better preparations for fighting off the second wave of Skinks.

Two or three or five Skinks lit up with every volley the shrunken third platoon fired. More Skinks turned to vapor with every traverse of the guns. It appeared that none of the crawling Skinks would survive long enough to use their acid guns.

PFC Ymenez’s fire was more ragged than Schultz’s—or anybody else’s in the platoon. He hadn’t had as much practice at volley fire. But he was close with every shot, and some of his bolts flared Skinks. Enough that he felt queasy: His only other combat experience was against the Coalition forces on Ravenette. And there he’d shot at men who were shooting back. But this, this was like shooting unarmed people, and that simply felt wrong. Sure, he’d heard about the Skinks; how they always fought to the death without any of them ever giving up, that they never took prisoners—except that they captured Lieutenant Bass and turned him into a mindless slave. And he’d heard about their weapons: the horrifying acid guns that ate people whole and turned them to mush, their rail guns that shot out pellets at 0.2c and utterly destroyed everything they hit.

But he hadn’t seen the Skinks in action, hadn’t faced their weapons. Except for the brief action in the tunnel, in which he hadn’t done any shooting or even seen the Skinks for himself, this was his first combat against them. And they weren’t shooting back, they were simply flashing into vapor every time they got hit. Still, even though it felt somehow
wrong,
he kept shooting and killing Skinks.

Most of the other Marines in the rump platoon
had
faced Skinks before and had no compunction about shooting them before they could shoot back.

“The skipper wants the range and azimuth on that rail gun,” Corporal Escarpo said to Corporal MacLeash. “And he wants the azimuth from the Dragon.”

MacLeash whistled. “I’ll see what I can do,” he said.

“Yeah, the skipper said you might say that. He said to just do it.”

“Just do it. Right.” MacLeash was maneuvering his false gliding animal over the Skinks in the trees, trying to locate the position of the rail gun Sergeant Flett had seen when the UAVs first went into the forest and found the approaching Skinks. He found it quickly enough and marked it on his monitor, then worked an azimuth and the range from the Dragon to the rail gun, and gave the numbers to Escarpo, who radioed them to Captain Conorado.

“Have him spot for the Dragon,” Conorado said. He gave the azimuth and range to the Dragon commander and told him to use traversing and searching fire on the target—the Skinks weren’t yet visible from the Marine CP. “Birdie Two will adjust,” he finished.

“Aye aye,” the Dragon commander replied. “Comm with Birdie Two already established.”

Conorado signed off and went to the UAV control center to observe.

The Dragon opened fire. It may have been lightly armed for a Dragon, but its gun was more powerful than any of the personal weapons in the command post. The stream of plasma bolts burned their way through the foliage, seared off twigs and small branches, set fire to a few trees—and finally bored a hole through to where the Skinks carrying the rail gun were.

But the Skinks were advancing steadily and had already moved on from the Dragon’s initial aiming point. MacLeash watched the Skinks moving and called corrections to the Dragon. Again, by the time the Dragon adjusted its fire and burned a hole through the forest, the Skink rail gun was no longer where the Dragon was shooting, but the bolts hit closer—and random bolts flared some Skinks. Once more, and yet again, MacLeash corrected the Dragon’s fire, and still the Dragon missed.

But then the Skinks got almost in sight of the CP and the rail gun crew stopped to set up their weapon. MacLeash gave the Dragon the new numbers and its gun’s next burst was on target, flaring the Skink crewmen just as they were opening fire.

“Hit it again,” Conorado ordered. “Destroy that gun.”

It took three long bursts but the rail gun was permanently silenced, along with a dozen Skinks.

Then a second rail gun, which hadn’t been spotted by the UAVs, opened fire on the command post.

Some of the Skinks attacking third platoon finally worked their way close enough to use their acid guns and began spraying at the thin line of Marines. But the Marines shifted their positions after every shot so none of the greenish fluid struck close enough to hit. Every time a Skink shot he exposed his position and most were quickly flared before they could advance or fire again. Staff Sergeant Hyakowa canceled the volley fire and allowed the Marines to select targets and fire when ready.

Lance Corporal Schultz’s fire was methodical, and he never missed. Now that the Skinks were shooting back, Ymenez stopped worrying that something was wrong about shooting at them and set to with a vengeance, readily killing every one he could. After all, a live, shooting Skink threatened the lives of him and his fellow Marines.

The firefight didn’t last long after the few surviving Skinks had closed enough to return fire. And then there weren’t
any
surviving Skinks facing third platoon.

When Thirty-fourth FIST had reached its location, the Marines expected to move out again on short order. They had dug no fighting holes, built no berms. All they had for defensive works was tree trunks and ripples in the ground. The Skink rail gun opened fire with a long burst at the command Dragon that had killed the other rail gun, pulverizing it and turning its crew into a rapidly dispersing cloud of red blood, flesh, and bone. Then it set to traversing fire, grazing fire that was low enough to kill any Marine not prone in a ripple in the ground and that moved side to side fast enough to keep any of them from rising up and taking more than one hastily aimed shot at the Skinks. Blood sprayed on its first traverse. The Marines in the Company L command post were fully pinned down, held in place until the Skinks with the acid guns could get within range of their weapons.

Sergeant Kerr, near the left flank of the thin defensive line, hugged the ground. Trembles shook his body and palsied his hands. His mind worked so rapidly that his thoughts became jumbled, almost chaotic. But his thoughts were of how to kill that rail gun before it killed Marines.

He lay with the right side of his helmet on the ground and examined the lay of the land to his left. It was almost flat, but almost isn’t completely. Years of experience had taught him how to find low places and he saw a path that would take him beyond the rail gun’s traverse. Keeping his helmet in contact with the ground he turned his head and looked to his right. He saw Corporal Claypoole, his helmet screens up, a few meters away.

“Rock, with me!” Kerr ordered. He began slithering to his left. He didn’t look back; he knew that Claypoole would follow exactly in his path.

It took uncomfortably long for Kerr and Claypoole to low-crawl forty meters, long enough for the Skink infantry to get close enough to use their acid guns, but the two Marines were finally outside the area along which the Skink rail gun was firing. They raised their heads just enough to allow them to look into the woods from inches above the ground.

“This way,” Kerr said, and he began crawling again. To their right the two Marines heard the flashing of Skinks and an occasional scream as a Marine was hit by streamers of acid.

Then the ground dropped and they were able to rise to hands and knees and make better time. When they finally stopped and looked over the edge of the shallow defile, they saw the Skink rail gun barely more than fifty meters away. It was tripod-mounted and had a crew of four: a gunner, a loader, a Skink who acted like a sergeant, and another whose job was probably ammunition carrier, but who now knelt ready with an acid gun in his hands.

Kerr touched helmets with Claypoole. “You get the gunner first, and I’ll take out the sergeant. Then you disable the gun while I get the rest of the crew. Got it?” Claypoole said he did. “On three. One, two, three!”

Both Marines fired on the command, and the two Skinks they shot at flared up in all-consuming flame. Claypoole switched his aim to the gun and fired rapid bolts into it, concentrating on what he thought was the receiver, where pellets were taken from the ammunition drum into the weapon to be flung into the barrel and accelerated to 20 percent of the speed of light. Kerr flashed the other two crew members, then began looking beyond the gun for more Skinks—he needed to get them before any could begin spraying acid at Claypoole.

Bolt after bolt from Claypoole’s blaster slammed into the rail gun, heating it to red, and then white, until the metal finally softened and began to sag. Claypoole kept firing at it until a gob of molten metal dropped off the gun.

“Got it,” he said.

“Let’s roll up their flank,” Kerr said.

“Right. Sure thing. Are you fucking crazy?”

But Kerr was already on his feet, moving forward. Claypoole had little choice but to get up and advance with Kerr, to look for targets while hoping he took all of them before they could zero in on him.

Kerr’s helmet comm couldn’t transmit on the company command circuit but it could on the platoon circuit, so he switched to it and said, “Lima Three, the rail gun is dead. Friendlies are crossing your front. Make sure you don’t shoot us!”