THE marines waited bowed under their loads, stacked in the slanted passageway. The night illuminations glowed like radioactive rubies. Engines bellowed down the ramp from the flight deck, funneled by slanted steel until their reverberation obliterated thought.
Hector Ramos pressed the switch on his intrasquad radio with his tongue. “Take a knee,” he told his people.
Second Battalion, Third Marines, the same unit he’d landed on Itbayat with. But the only ones left from those days were a couple of lifers in the head shed.
And of course Hector. He walked the squad, looking into each man’s or woman’s face. Then went back to the head of the line and took a knee, fingering, in a pocket, the rosary Mirielle had once given him.
He hadn’t lasted at Pendleton. The second time he’d slapped a recruit after coming back from leave, they’d shipped him back to his battalion. Not putting it in his record, since he wore the Heart and the Pacific Ribbon, but the Top had said he wasn’t cut out to be an instructor. The good thing was, he’d gotten to go through predeployment with the platoon.
Now he was a squad leader, and for this operation, a heliteam leader as well. Tactical dispositions had been reorganized. New equipment and weapons had come through. A Marine rifle squad still had eighteen men and women, organized into three fire teams of six, and each team was still led by a corporal or lance corporal. But the teams were built around an M240B now instead of a light machine gun, increasing both firepower and basic load. All their weapons had suppressors. Their comms and logistics were secure against intrusion. Their jelly armor was tougher and lighter than steel. Their new goggles incorporated both night vision and BattleGlass data, and opaqued instantly when brushed by a laser. Their helmets protected them from explosive shock as well as projectile impact.
The platoon also had new members. The Chads were lined up on the other side of the ramp. These were different from the ones he’d trained with at Pendleton. The smaller-headed, thick-bodied C models stood motionless, shifting their “feet” only a bit as the ship rolled, multilensed oculars glinting in the red light.
Hector wondered why they always stood together. Wouldn’t it make more sense to stand with the rest of the team? But whenever there were two or more, they clustered. Not under fire—they spaced out to combat distance then, like the human troops—but they seemed to prefer one another’s company to that of flesh and blood.
Lieutenant Ffoulk jogged up the ramp as if surfacing through a deep crimson sea. Staff Sergeant Clay strode behind her. Ffoulk, radio call “Rampart,” was short and African-American. Clay was white and six five. They stopped to talk to Glasscock, in Third Squad, then moved up to Hector. “Just so you’re clear,” the platoon commander shouted over the engines, her voice slightly too high. Hector glanced past her to Clay. “The platoon will land as second wave. Assault, seize, and defend the LZ. Link up to left and right, then push toward the terminal. That’s your first objective. Try to limit damage in the terminal, especially to antennas and control equipment. Clay here will set up a CP, direct the tactical interaction between your squads, and coordinate with the other platoons. I’ll be right behind you.”
“Yeah, we pretty much got all that, ma’am,” Hector told her. “Just like we drilled at Pohakuloa.” He wondered if he should add And don’t feel like you got to be a hero, ’cause I sure don’t, but finally didn’t.
“All right then.” Ffoulk patted Hector’s arm, punched his gut through the jelly armor, and marched on up the ramp.
Clay hung back. “Just keep talkin’ to me,” he asided, flicking Hector’s mike so it popped in his ears. “Long as we got comms, rounds, and water, all gonna be okay. We been here before, Ramos. Claro?”
“Yeah, I got it.” Hector looked after the officer. “Just don’t let Lieutenant Fuck ffoulk us.”
“Ha. I won’t.” Clay squinted the nearest troop up and down. He about-faced and stared at the Chads. Then wheeled again and hiked away, marching up the ramp after the lieutenant.
The illumination deepened to violet and began pulsing. Hector waited until the platoon ahead cleared, then extended an arm aft and swung it forward, palm down. The marines struggled to their feet and followed him.
Up, up, into the open night. A dark wind staggered them as they labored forward under assault packs, weapons and ammo, chow and water. The night flickered with invisible light, bellowing with the heavy SHUMP SHUMP SHUMP of huge rotors powering around. Navy flight deck crew in colored vests pointed light wands, shepherding them to the pickup point and warning them to stand clear of turbine danger areas.
Hector slapped the manifest into the loading assistant’s palm, gripping it tight against the propwash, then pivoted to face the rear ramp of the MV-22. He bent to each man or woman as he or she boarded, rifle in hand, reminding each, “Strap in and signal when ready.” The Chads came next, after the marines, but he didn’t say anything to them.
When he had everyone accounted for, he gave the assistant the windup signal, and boarded.
* * *
THE sickeningly fast vertical takeoff squeezed his skull down into his shoulders. Vertigo reeled the narrow night-filled tube around him. The marines were lap-belted into fold-down canvas seats facing one another. The Chads sat on the deck, spaced out fore and aft. They’d bunched together during the rehearsal and nearly crashed the aircraft, making it tail-heavy. The interior bulkheads and overhead were lined with pipes and cables laced tight with white zip ties. Except for the bulkhead behind the pilots, which was one big switch panel, like the light console for a rock concert. Oxygen bottles and fire extinguishers vibrated above the seats. The whole fuselage shook. Everything rattled, boomed, or whined. No windows, but even after the rear ramp came up the back was still open. Though all there was to see was darkness.
Hector didn’t want to look out anyway. He hunched, rifle clamped between his knees, trying to forget the last time he’d done this. In an amtrac, with his battle buddy Troy Whipkey, just before they’d been hit and most of the troops in the ’track had been killed.
This time it was the big one. The big island. Taking on the People’s Liberation Army itself.
Taiwan.
A heavy impact from beneath the fuselage quivered the seats. But the crew chief, back by the ramp, didn’t react. Hector couldn’t see his face for the goggles and helmet, but apparently the bump and noise were normal. He hoped.
The briefers had said Guam was out of action, which complicated things, but there was a major airfield on Itbayat now, with heavy missile batteries, and the Philippines were letting supplies through even though they told the Chinese they weren’t. Recon marines and SEALs had filtered over in small detachments to seize three small islands just off the coast. Enemy reinforcements were being cut off by U.S. and Japanese drones and submarines.
Operation Causeway would begin with the seizure of an airhead. The concept of operations, as briefed to the troops, had the first waves seizing an airfield and one of the few ports on the east coast, at Taitung. Once a perimeter was secure, air defense was in place, armor was landed, and logistics was coming in, they’d drive inland to link up with the local resistance on their right and the Army forces, landing at the southern tip of the island, to their left. It would be a hard slog through bad terrain, but when they broke out into the western plains, the armor could maneuver to pin down, surround, and destroy whatever was left of the occupation forces.
Hector hoped they could do it. The Marines had fought Chinese in the mountains before, at Chosin Reservoir, and barely managed to get out more or less intact. Every single briefer had warned it would be rough.
But that was O-level stuff. He just needed to get his guys through today. He pushed it out of his mind as the aircraft pitched and rattled like an old pickup on a rough road.
A pickup. A rough road. The old veteran with the burned face … It don’t never go away, my man. It don’t never.
If this thing crashed, they’d all burn too.
He was checking the seating of his magazine when the dulcet-voiced tactical AI cooed in his earbuds, “Rampart 1-2, Iron Dream, Five mikes.” He click-hissed to roger, tongued the button, and transmitted the heads-up to his squad.
He smacked a dry mouth, sucked a sip out of his CamelBak, and said a Hail Mary, squeezing his eyes shut. Afraid to the deepest pit of his gut. Not that he’d die, because he didn’t actually give a shit anymore, but that he’d fuck up and get his people killed.
When he opened his eyes one of the Chads was watching him, tiny head cocked, its buglike, multilensed oculars glittering in the gloom as if lit from within. Its identifier, stenciled on its chest, read 323. They stared at each other for several seconds, both in silence, machine and man.
Something detonated outside, or maybe it was just flares being deployed. The airframe jolted, then rolled so far he grabbed for the seat frame. “One mike,” said Iron Dream in his earbuds. Then another voice, male. “Heliteam leader, crew chief. You’ll exit the aircraft facing south. The terminal will be to your right front. The fighter revetments, behind you. The ferry harbor will be on your left.”
“This is Rampart 1-2, roger. Thanks for the lift.”
“Give ’em hell, Rampart.”
They’d practiced fast roping during the rehearsal, but Higher had changed their minds about that when one of the Chads broke the rope. Seconds later the airframe jolted, hard, and Dream added, “On deck.”
“This is crew chief: On deck, dropping ramp.”
Hector popped his lap belt and hoisted to his feet. “Rampart 1-2, load and lock. Deplane, deplane!” he yelled.
* * *
THE first thing he saw as he jogged heavily down the rear ramp, burdened but jacked to the max, was the fires. They spread up the hillsides like lava eruptions. Bombs or heavy shells were going off to the west, so close together it was a long unending rumble, BRUMPBRUMPBRUMP. Bomb-lightning flickered above hills that poked up like black turrets to the north. He risked a quick glance back toward the harbor. Only a narrow strip of beach was sloped enough for the air-cushioned landing craft that would follow the Ospreys in and disgorge tanks, artillery, antiair. In his night vision hot green points circled above it. He hoped they were friendly.… Facing front … Fires glared along the runway, too. Tracers drifted up from around it, the red Chinese tracers crossing the green Allied ones in a dreamlike slow interleaving that was strangely beautiful. Weirdly entrancing … before they zipped earthward, abruptly gathering speed toward him. A circling aircraft darted down a solid-looking beam of white fire, searching out the emplacements. Wherever it touched, explosions flickered, erupting in artistic displays of fireworks.
He tore his attention back to the squad. They’d drilled LZ Bandit with three landing sites. The first wave had set up an initial perimeter on Orange Site, where he’d just landed. “On me,” he transmitted, and followed it with a hand signal.
The Brooklyn-accented voice of Dolan, the First Squad leader: “1-2, this is Rampart 1-1. See me? Over here. Guide on my right.” Bent low as bullets whacked down into the tarmac, Hector double-timed toward him. He passed Clay and the lieutenant, both down on a knee, speaking into their mikes. When he caught up, he angled to the right and set his men out in a defensive position.
But they couldn’t stay here. They had to get off the runway. Several bodies from the first wave sprawled scattered around the strip already, though they’d only been on the ground a few seconds. A corpsman knelt beside one. He stood and a Chad stenciled with the Red Cross eased down to a squat. It lifted the body in its arms, rose smoothly, and walked after the medic with that queer gliding step.
Hector spoke rapidly on the net. Getting his fire teams out, lagging them by about twenty yards, so he could coordinate if they hit opposition. He linked up with the rest of the platoon, leapfrogging the teams forward so they could cover the point.
Another burst of fire came down on them from the side of the runway. A heavy machine gun. A helicopter roared low overhead and took it out with rockets. Fiery white disks cartwheeled into the air, shedding crackling scarlet sparks before crashing back to earth.
A tremendous noise came behind them, so loud it was almost solid. He twisted his head. An Osprey was falling from the sky, slowly, spinning as it fell. Figures scattered from beneath it. But not all could clear the impact area before they were wiped out by a massive orange blossom of flame. A dense cloud of smoke swept down on the platoon, layering them with choking oblivion and the stink of explosive and burned fuel. A crackle of rifle fire beyond it from the harbor meant those units were hitting resistance too. The bomb-flickers in the hills built, intensifying, until it seemed the earth itself must be coming apart out there, shivering loose and roaring down into the abyss between worlds.
A row of concrete barriers barred their way, before an open patch of grass. Beyond it stood the terminal, hangar buildings, the round white sphere of a radar dome. Hector radioed, “Hold up at the barriers. Chads: Advance in direction two-two-zero. Sweep for mines. Open fire on the building ahead.” The mechanical forms separated from the humans, who took a knee to rest while the robots plodded ahead, zigzagging heavily across the open field like aging linemen. They lifted rifles and aimed, firing as they advanced.
The smoke thinned. When the skirmish line was halfway to the terminal, a three-story white concrete structure, fire lanced out at the advancing figures. Two blew apart in massive detonations as their power supplies triggered. The booms rolled across the open strip. The marines opened up at the gunflashes. The laser-ranged rounds lashed out, arching over the advancing robots, blowing out the second-floor windows as they detonated inside.
“Contact right, seven o’clock.” Hector wheeled, snap firing as his IR sight picked up blurry warm shapes in front of a hangar opening. The flash of automatic weapons. Then a distinctive crack: the high-velocity Chinese DB 95 round going past.
A 64-grain bullet with a muzzle velocity of three thousand feet per second …
Taking him back to boot camp, the Hat leaning into his face …
“When fired from what?”
“Sir! When fired from a Type 95 rifle with a rate of 650 rounds per minute in full automatic fire. Sir!”
“What is the cost of the standard Chinese rifle round?”
A hoarse, tired bark. “Sir! Uh … This … recruit … does not know the cost of the Chinese, uh, whatever you said. Sir.”
“You dumbass bullet stopper … The Chinese rifle round costs a yuan and a half. A yuan is worth ten cents. It costs the Marine Corps a million dollars to train each of you meatheads. It costs the People’s Liberation Army fifteen cents to kill you. How in the name of Christ are we going to win this fucking war? Ramos, tell me the answer.”
“Sir, this recruit is going to have to kill a shitload of Chinese, sir!”
He ran dry, swapped magazines, and tongued the mike. “Rampart 1, 1-2. Taking fire from right flank. Danger close. Two hundred meters. Request support.”
Clay’s voice, deliberate, reassuring. “On it, 1-2. Continue toward terminal. Assault through objective and clear the building. Stand clear of the hangar area.”
A motion at the edge of his vision, and something exploded directly above his right-flank fire team. Figures reeled and collapsed. Another MG opened up, bullets sizzling past. A new explosion overhead sent fragments whickering down, boiling chips and spitting powder off the tops of the concrete barrier. The chips stung his face below the goggles. They were taking too much fire. Nobody was hitting the emplacements on his flank. What was Clay doing? Where was the lieutenant? They couldn’t stay here.
He tongued the mike. “1-1, 1-3, this is 1-2. Cover us, we’re going in.”
Along the barrier, muzzles spat flame in a continuous stream. Hector vaulted the concrete, hoping the Chads hadn’t missed any mines, and pounded awkwardly across the slick yielding grass toward the terminal. His lead fire team followed, with his other two echeloned out covering the flanks, the right-hand team firing steadily at the flashes from the MG position.
They were halfway across when a stream of blazing fire fell from the heavens and precessed along their flank two hundred meters out. The flashes blanked his goggles. The noise, like a million grinder wheels cutting steel, deafened him. He tripped and rolled as hostile fire ripped up the ground around him. A perfectly aimed burst, but to his surprise he didn’t seem to be hit. He lurched the last few yards to the terminal and heaved a grenade through a shattered window.
Oculars glittered on the other side of the entrance. “Chad, clear the room!” he shouted. The robot nodded. It stepped forward, squared on the door, and took five long strides, gathering speed.
It hit the door like a battering ram, head tucked, shoulder down. The door folded and the robot rolled in like a wrecking ball. Hector pitched a second grenade after it. His assistant squad leader followed it with another.
When they exploded he stepped inside, crouched against the possibility of a bullet, and swept the room with his sights. A wide dark interior. Shining-slanted metal. Green carts set haphazard. Overhead signs in three languages. Oh yeah. The baggage area.
Gunflashes flickered from behind one of the carousels. Hector lasered and fired. The shell burst above the carousel, too high to do any good.
Another burst, from farther away. At least two shooters, covering each other as they fell back. Bullets caromed off the deck and ripped through the stacked carts. The lead Chad, the one that had jacked the door, hydraulic’d down to a bent-knee crouch. It looked painful, but it seemed to be a stable position for them. It fired three rounds. The lead fire team was putting out lead too, covering flanking moves by the others.
“Clear,” the starboard team leader shouted over the net. “Two Charlies down. Weapons clear. Moving on. Over.”
Pushing on, boots echoing in the empty concourse, they passed signs for restrooms and an abandoned serving cart to reach a wide flight of escalators. The power was off, so they weren’t running. The level above was brighter. The waiting area.
Hector took out a foot-long tube, unsafed it, pointed it toward the steps, and squeezed the activator. The spring-loaded little drone popped out, unfurled its wings with a snap, and tumbled to the concrete, where it buzzed and spun like a dying cicada. “Fuck,” Hector muttered, and stamped on it with a boot heel until the buzzing faded and it stopped twitching.
“Want mine?” said the assistant squad leader, Corporal Karamete. She held out another tube.
“No. I’m gonna send the Chads up. Stack your guys, get ready to follow.” He backed into a corner by the baggage cart line, to avoid being surprised, and switched the lead robot to teleoperate.
With his goggles on remote, he was looking through its “eyes,” listening through its “ears.” The head position was locked to sensors on his exoskeleton, so when he turned his own head, the Chad’s moved in sync. When he raised an arm, the robot raised one too. Hector hadn’t done this often, and it felt disorienting, but he was surprised at how quickly he could merge his own reactions with what he was controlling. Like being in two bodies at once.
Hector/the Chad raised his rifle and swept the open, dark space. Above him the great panoramic windows were shattered, glassless, blind. Through them the explosions in the mountains flickered dimly and fitfully, with deep throbs of wavering sound he recognized as thermobarics. Somebody was bombing the shit out of whoever was out there.
The thing came out of the dark at him fast and quiet, its steps cushioned by soft footgear. He got the rifle half up before it had him … swaddled. He couldn’t see exactly how, but when he went to lift the weapon the rest of the way, he couldn’t move. A heavy web or net dragged at his arms. A dreamlike sensation, this silent, twilit struggle.
Then another motion drew his attention down, to where a metal disk was clinging to his breast armor.
The goggles seared, then died to black. Simultaneously a heavy detonation echoed down the stairwell. Hector crouched. So this was death.…
No. Not his. His puppet’s, his other self’s.
But what had attacked it? He tongued the intrasquad, then changed his mind. “Rampart, Rampart 2. Over.”
“Rampart Actual, over. Where are you, 2?”
“Terminal. Foot of the stairs to the second deck.”
“We’re at the far end. Uh, the north end. Assault up the steps. We’ll be on your right. Tell your guys. Ensure no blue on blue. Over.”
Hector clicked his goggles back to IR mode and hand-signaled his teams toward the stairs. But he didn’t give the go-ahead yet. “Rampart Actual, this is Rampart 2. One of our Chads got taken out by something weird. It ran up, immobilized him somehow, and stuck a shaped charge on his chest. He’s DIA.”
DIA was disabled in action, what they used for the Chads instead of KIA. The lieutenant wanted to know where the assailant was now. Hector said he didn’t know.
Ffoulk sounded uncertain, but told them to push on up the steps while Glasscock’s squad assaulted from the north end and Dolan’s continued on up and took the second-floor balcony. “Let’s sew this up. I want this place secure by plus five.”
Hector rogered, but with a bad feeling. He took the lead on the right side of the escalators and went up totally slow. One foot in front of the other, sliding up a step, waiting, then another. On the far side, Karamete mimicked him. At the top Hector straightened, peering over the sights, searching the dark for motion. But even the enhanced goggles gave back nothing. He took a step and stumbled over a body. Not the Chad. A Chinese, a civilian, it looked like. But where was the disabled robot? What the fuck was a civvie doing here? Oh yeah. It was a civilian terminal, or had been before the mainlanders landed.
“Clear,” his fire teams reported. “Clear at this end.” “Clear on the balcony.” He relayed that to Ffoulk, but got Clay instead. The platoon sergeant wanted casualty and ammo reports. The 81 mortar platoon, the antiarmor platoon, and a heavy MG platoon were moving in behind them. When they showed, he was to orient them and cover them as they set up for defense, then push out OPs in the fields beyond.
They seemed to have a breathing space. Hector sagged into a plastic chair facing the smashed-out window, happy that no one, except that single unlucky robot, had been lost. One guy had a twisted knee, there were a few fragment wounds and armor hits, but considering the storm of fire they’d had to sprint through, they’d been lucky.
Flashlights and voices. A uniformed team came striding up, pistols drawn, carrying drab green cases. “Sergeant? We need to get to the roof,” their leader shouted. “Air Force combat controllers. Can you give us force protection?”
Hector checked with Clay, and detached Niegowski’s team to escort them up to the roof. When they were gone he stretched out across the seats, propping his head on an armrest. The flutter-beat of helicopters pulsed though the windows. The follow-on waves. Once they had artillery, he’d feel a lot safer.
He couldn’t believe they’d gotten off this easy. Maybe the slants were weaker than everybody thought? More likely they were being sucked in. Set up for a counterattack. Allowed to put a foot on the ground, so tanks could chop it off.
Shanghai Sue had threatened the Marines by name. Said they’d be wiped out. How were the Army landings going, down south? Maybe that was where all the enemy tanks had gone. Leaving the Marines in the Hanging Room, to be taken care of once the Chinese chewed up the Army.
Way above his pay grade. He pushed up the goggles and massaged his face. Until his earbuds crackled, “Rampart, this is Actual. NCOs to me. By the coffee bar.”
Ffoulk, Clay, and a lance corporal with an antidrone rifle were accompanied by a figure that Hector recognized after a moment as the company commander. The captain beckoned him in. He and Glasscock and Dolan took a knee with him. Clay and Ffoulk were there too. “Anybody see an Air Force spotter team?” were the captain’s first words.
Hector told him they were on the roof, with one of his fire teams. The company commander nodded. “Good. The 155s and Hawks are coming in. Resistance is light. We surprised them. Plus, we got Shucheng’s people to carry out attacks up north, to draw their mobile forces.”
Glasscock coughed into a fist. “Who’s that, sir?”
The captain said, “Good question, Sergeant. General Luong Shucheng is the senior Taiwanese general still at large. Not all Chinese are going to be hostile, so don’t assume that. The Taiwanese have sustained an insurgency in the mountains. They’ll be our guides, our translators, and deal with the civil population for us.
“Our next objective will be the road north. Simultaneously, the rest of the force will secure our rear.” He sketched on his pad, sending the map to their Glasses. The main road paralleled the beach a couple of miles in. “Depending on how the Army does, we can either push south to link up, or head north. If we’re directed north, we’ll probably hook west here—at Chishang—and punch inland along this canyon road. Which way we turn depends on how the southern landing goes. That’s the main push, from the Army. We’re out here on their flank more or less as a diversion.”
The commander grinned. “At least, that’s what they think. But Division suspects we can punch through those valleys and come out farther west. Maybe even get behind the enemy. Cut them off, plaster them with air, the Army pushes from the south, and we secure the whole island by D plus ten or so.
“That’s it so far. Set up your perimeter where I’m indicating.” A red line ignited in Hector’s Glasses. “Implant sensors half a mile out and confirm they work. Then get some shuteye. Two on, two off. We’ll shoot a resupply up on carts. Expect a movement order by dawn. Oorah?”
“Oorah,” the squad leaders echoed. The echoes died away in the empty terminal, and over them rolled again the sodden endless surf-rumble of distant bombing.
As they broke Hector fumbled out the tube to his CamelBak. Suddenly, now that it was over, his hands shook. His mouth was parched. He gulped water, and followed it with a pill.
It was a plan. Yeah. The generals probably thought they were pretty fucking smart. Had it all figured out.
But he’d learned one thing, at least, from being in combat.
Nothing ever went like it was supposed to, once you met the enemy.