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Plasma rounds cracked over Command Sergeant Zack Decker’s head in a steady stream. Pinned down by the enemy behind a jumble of granite rocks, he still waited for Captain Sarratt to do something that might relieve the pressure, such as calling back the assault shuttles to provide air support.
Little remained of Decker’s patience, a virtue in short supply at the best of times. None of his Marines had become casualties so far, but the operation was turning into the expected clusterfuck.
Decker’s first public argument with the captain occurred in the middle of the mission briefing aboard ship, and things had gone downhill from that point. Sarratt wasn’t the 902nd Pathfinder Squadron’s regular commanding officer, and his inexperience was all too clear in the way he planned the mission.
There was nothing easy about taking a marauder group’s hideout, and Sarratt’s plan made it even more complicated than it had to be. If it hadn’t been for their orders to collect intelligence, they could just as well have destroyed the outlaws from orbit with a kinetic strike. There weren’t any civilians around who could become collateral damage. The closest town on this shithole planet was a few thousand kilometers away.
The squadron’s executive officer tried to dissuade Sarratt from carrying out his plan, suggesting a workable, if less spectacular alternative, but to no avail.
They should have jumped in guns blazing, covered by the Gatlings and rockets of their assault shuttles. Instead, their acting CO wanted to sneak up on the enemy, gain the element of surprise, and then run through them like plasma through plastic. Decker would have gone straight to the last part and replaced surprise by massive firepower.
After one look at his designated drop zone on the scans taken by the frigate from high orbit, Decker had decided to disobey his orders. Of all the possible DZs around the hideout, this one was not only the closest but also the most obvious. The marauders were neither blind nor stupid. They’d have figured out it was a great place to drop Marines hunting for them.
Sarratt’s complicated plan hinged on having Zack’s troop land there before advancing on the target. His troop’s job was to pin them down, while the captain brought the rest of the squadron around for the killing blow. He had resisted all attempts to change Third Troop’s DZ.
Instead, Zack had a quiet chat with the assault shuttle pilot and landed his Marines in a less visible but far safer spot a few kilometers away. By the time Sarratt found out, Decker was already halfway to the original DZ, but on foot.
The captain had threatened Decker with disciplinary measures for his disobedience, but he had ignored him. Provided their communications were over a private channel, no one else would be privy to the exchange and Sarratt would calm down once they concluded the operation with success.
Zack had wanted to send a small patrol to scout the marauder base from the ground and warn of any ambush along the way. Sarratt would hear nothing of it, ordering him to press along at speed, to make up for the time wasted by landing further away.
The original DZ had turned out to be a well-prepared ambush site. If Decker and his troopers had landed there, the enemy would have wiped them out almost at once.
*
“Three this is Niner,” the radio crackled to life. “Why the hell aren’t you moving?”
“Because we’re fucking pinned down,” Decker replied, furious. “How fucking often must I repeat myself? We’re not moving until someone can take the pressure off one of my flanks. They have us covered from all sides.”
“Three, this is Niner,” Sarratt replied, voice trembling with rage, “mind yourself when you speak with me. As I’ve told you more than once, I can’t spare anyone to help you correct your mistakes. Thanks to you, I now to take the target with one less troop than the plan called for.”
“Niner this is Three,” Decker’s tone dripped with sarcasm, “perhaps my holding down a fair chunk of the enemy’s firepower might make it easier for you to carry through your abortion of a plan. In the meantime, we’ll try not to die. Three, out.”
Decker knew he would pay for his intemperate words later. However, risking the lives of his Marines because an idiot of a captain wanted some combat time before the next majors’ promotion board wasn’t on the menu.
A stupid training accident had sent the squadron’s real CO to the hospital, and Sarratt had used his connections to get the temporary command. Though Pathfinder qualified, he had spent most of his career in a rifle battalion. Commanding a ‘leg’ company wasn’t anywhere enough experience, and he was too arrogant to listen to his troop leaders, all of them experienced Pathfinder noncoms.
Decker cursed his regimental commander for dumping Sarratt on them, but the colonel had no reason to expect orders sending them into battle on the fringes of the Shield Cluster. No matter what favors someone owed Sarratt, people needed to be slapped upside the head for this.
A rocket-propelled grenade smashed into the ground in front of him showering the Pathfinders with shrapnel and debris. So far the enemy hadn’t brought up enough firepower to turn this into Decker’s last stand. But now that they were shooting RPGs, it could only mean they were breaking out the heavier stuff. If they had mortars, they could make it very uncomfortable for the Pathfinders.
Just as that thought crossed Decker’s mind, he heard the dull thud of a mortar round leaving its tube.
“Shit,” Decker swore, then shouted, “Incoming!”
The mortar round landed a few dozen meters to Decker’s right, throwing up a shower of earth and wood splinters. It was a small caliber shell, but a direct hit on one of his Marines would be fatal in a very messy way.
Decker debated informing Sarratt that the enemy was using artillery, but discarded the idea. If the captain wasn’t smart enough to notice the heavier ordnance, there was no point.
Without the assault boats flying cover, there was no one to relay news of progress by the main body. For all Zack knew, the enemy could have pinned them down as well. With the squadron’s executive officer aboard one of the shuttles, there was no tactical command post on the ground to coordinate the attack.
Another mortar round exploded, this one nearer.
“Niner, this is Three,” Decker gritted his teeth as he called Sarratt, this time on the squadron push. “We’re coming under effective mortar fire. If we don’t get relief soon, you’ll be able to scrape us off the ground with a shovel. Even one pass by an assault shuttle would help.”
When Sarratt replied, Decker knew things weren’t going well on his end either. He sounded out of breath, anxious and there was heavy gunfire in the background.
“I’ve called the shuttles back, Decker. Just hold on. Once they’ve made a pass at the enemy positions in front of me, I’ll have them support you.”
“Suggest you have them take down the enemy mortar team first.” He ducked as a shell came down in the center of his troop’s position, throwing a geyser of earth and stones into the air. “They have our range.”
Before Sarratt could reply, the voice of the lead shuttle pilot came on the push.
“I have eyes on the mortar position and will engage as a priority target.”
“You will engage the objectives as I laid out,” the captain shouted.
Neither the pilot nor Decker replied. Mere seconds later, he heard the sound of tearing cloth as the lead gunboat’s Gatling cut loose, followed by the next and the one after that. A larger explosion, followed by a mushroom cloud of dust, erupted from the jungle as the plasma cooked off the mortar’s ready rounds.
“Any chance you can do a pass in front of my position?” Decker asked. “If I can escape from this trap, I can relieve the pressure on the others.”
“Affirmative. Paint your perimeter and we’ll fry anything beyond it.”
Decker quickly passed the order to his troopers.
“I have you,” the lead pilot said moments later. “Hug the ground. We’re coming in.”
Ignoring Sarratt, the four assault shuttles turned the forest beyond Decker’s position into a nightmare of fire and death. This was how they should have come down on the marauders in the first place, instead of pissing about trying to surprise them.
The moment the shuttles broke away to engage the targets to Sarratt’s front, Decker stood up and motioned his squad leaders to move out towards the target. There was no point in dawdling. The only play left was to hit hard and hit fast.
They rushed through the smoking ruins of the jungle, their way cleared by the air strikes and when they neared the base, all sounds of fighting had stopped. The only noise came from the burning vegetation, and stray ammunition cooking off at random in the fires.
Urged on by Sarratt, Decker didn’t pause to figure out why the marauders had given up the fight. It was as if they had dematerialized, leaving nothing but ruins.
As the perimeter of the installation came into view, he realized that the enemy had played them for suckers. Before he could warn the others, the fake base erupted in one giant blast. Decker’s last thought before his world went dark was how he’d strangle his CO the moment they were back on the ship.
