Starfist FR - 03 - Recoil (37 page)

The Senior Master wished he’d thought to bring a periscope, or, failing that, that he had a mirror that he could use to look down the hallway without exposing himself. But he had neither. Not that it would necessarily matter, not if the Earthman Marines were wearing their invisibility uniforms. The Senior Master stripped off his shirt and turned to face the front of the house, to better sense the locations of the Earthmen. He signaled the Fighter to do the same. What he felt made him jump to the side and draw his projectile sidearm, then empty the weapon through the corner of the walls toward the front of the house. The electric emanations he felt along his sides didn’t change, and he nodded to himself. He hadn’t been present during the debriefing of the Leader who was the sole survivor of the previous day’s encounter with the Earthman Marines, but he’d listened to the recordings, so he knew the Earthman Marines could be much closer than their electrical emanations would indicate. That was why he was surprised and had emptied his sidearm through the wall. But since his projectiles had no discernible effect on the enemy, he deduced that there was something in the invisibility uniforms that damped the electric signals, making the Earthmen seem farther away than they actually were. He inserted another magazine into his sidearm while he analyzed anew the signals he was receiving. He didn’t know the layout of the house, or how the electric conduits snaking through it or other sources of electric signals might be masking the locations and numbers of the Marines. But he had not risen to Senior Master and would not have been in line for promotion to Over Master had he not been able to locate the electric field of a life-form in a jumble of other signals. Closer to the front of the house, inside rooms near the far end of the hallway, were three or four Earthmen; two on this side of the hall, one or two on the other. Two or three more were beyond that, to the left side, a single one and either one or two more, he couldn’t tell for sure. Of his own troops, he sensed one on the right side of the front part of the house and two on the left. With the one across the hallway, that meant he had four remaining, to face at least five and possibly seven of the enemy. Against those odds, it was likely that he and his troops would die. But they had accomplished their primary mission, and would take at least half of the Earthman Marines with them when they died. That would be a satisfactory conclusion to the mission. The Marines

Corporal Jaschke was a sound sleeper, but not so sound a sleeper that certain noises couldn’t penetrate his consciousness and bring him to instant wakefulness. High among the short list of Get-Up-Right-Now! sounds was an alarm cry from another Marine. So when Corporal Nomonon shouted, “INTRUDERS!”, Jaschke was rolling out of bed and reaching for his weapons before his eyes were even open. In that second, he had achieved enough situational awareness to recognize the thump and gasp from the other side of the room as Lance Corporal Ellis doing the same things he’d just done. Confused sounds came from other parts of the house. A hand blaster went off in the kitchen, along with the sharp crack of projectile-throwing rifles. There was the tinkling of breaking glass from the side wall of the living room. And gunfire at the end of the hallway near the back door—along with a whoosh, as though something had gone up in sudden flame. As he grabbed his helmet and pulled it on, Jaschke scrabbled to the door and eased it open. He slid his light-gatherer screen into place and eased his head into the hall at floor level, his sidearm in his hand poking in front of his face. He was in time to see a smallish man, who looked very much like the prisoner except that he was dressed and armed, step out of the room opposite the secure room. Without hesitation, Jaschke snapped a plasma bolt at the intruder. The man blazed into all-consuming flame—just like Williams

and his men had said. Thinking it wasn’t likely that the intruder was alone, Jaschke fired several more bolts down the hall, skittering them along the walls and floor, hoping bits of plasma would break off and splash into the room the intruder had come out of. He felt Ellis moving into the doorway, facing toward the front of the house.

The Skinks

On the left, two Leaders and two Fighters waited at two windows for the signal. One window led into a large open space, the other into a room that looked like sleeping quarters. When they heard the Senior Master’s whistle from behind the house, they burst through the windows, one Leader and one Fighter through each.

The Fighter who was first through the sleeping room’s window landed in a shower of glass on a sleeping body. He rolled over the bed to the floor and sprang onto the next bed, knife in hand. But the Earthman Marine he expected to land on and quickly dispatch had been jarred to instant movement by the shattering of the window glass, and was already rising—the Fighter’s knife stroke scored the Earthman’s side instead of being the death blow it should have been. Somehow, the Earthman simultaneously grabbed and twisted the Fighter, and turned his twist into a full half-circle swing, slamming the Fighter headfirst into the wall, momentarily stunning him. The Earthman Marine who had been landed on by the Fighter followed him off the bed; he wasn’t on the bed when the Leader leaned through the window and fired several shots from his projectile thrower into it—the Leader didn’t realize his target had moved. He raised his eyes to look across the dark room and saw a darker shadow that was upright and larger than the Fighter who had gone through the window. He shifted his aim to pump several projectiles into the dark shadow that had to be one of the enemy and pulled the trigger. But before the Leader could get off more than one shot, the Earthman who hadn’t been in the bed where he had fired rolled to his knees and fired a bolt of plasma into the Leader. The two Earthmen were momentarily shocked by the fire that bloomed from the Leader, and recoiled from the flames . . .

. . . just as the stunned Fighter regained awareness, and realization that his initial attack on the Earthman he was supposed to kill had failed. He located the Earthman Marine and screamed as he lunged off balance to stab him. But the lone projectile that the Leader had gotten off before he flashed into fire struck the Earthman and knocked him back, making the knife thrust miss and the Fighter tumbled to the floor. The first Earthman saw him in the brief light from the Leader’s blaze and snapped a shot at him, vaporizing him instantly. The Marines

Sounds of gunfire from multiple directions snapped Ensign Daly from his sleep. Like the other Marines, before he went to sleep he placed his weapon where his hand would automatically fall on it if he woke suddenly. He grabbed his hand blaster as he rolled out of bed and faced the door of his room. He squatted in the darkness, listening to the sounds of blasters and rifles. He heard firefights in the sergeants’ room, either the living room or the kitchen, and in the back hall. It wasn’t Marines in one place fighting off aggressors in one place; both kinds of fire sounded from all three locations. Whoever was attacking must have used multiple points of entry and engaged the Marines in every place that they were in Marine House—

except for Daly’s room, the only one that wasn’t immediately accessible through doors or windows. Daly reached for his helmet and slipped it on with the lightgatherer screen in place, then duck-walked to the door and listened for sounds in the hallway outside it. When he didn’t hear any noises right outside, he slid the door open and eased his head out. He didn’t see anyone, not even when he turned on the infra screen. The sounds of combat had stopped.

“Count off. Sitrep,” he said softly into the all-hands circuit, not knowing whether anybody else had donned their helmets yet, but suspecting they had. He was right.

“Kindy. We got two of them. Williams is down.” Sergeant Kindy sounded more shaken than Daly had ever heard him.

“Jaschke. Ellis and I are all right. We’ve got at least two bad guys pinned in the rooms near the back door. I’m afraid they got to the prisoner.”

“Belinski. Skripska and I are okay. We’re across the hall from Jaschke and Ellis, same sit.”

“Nomonon, sound off,” Daly ordered when Corporal Nomonon didn’t speak. That didn’t necessarily mean anything because the fire watch probably didn’t have his helmet with him. “Has anybody seen Nomonon?” Nobody had.

“Kindy, how bad is Williams?” Daly asked, rising to a crouch and creeping into the hallway. He checked the bathroom while listening to the situation reports.

“He’s got a puncture wound from a projectile rifle and a shallow cut on his side. Also some burns from when one of those things flashed up too close to him. I’ve got him patched up. He’s conscious.”

“All right. Kindy, I’ll let you know when I reach your room. Come out then. We’ll check the living room and kitchen. Use your infra; I’ve got my light gatherer. We’ll clear the living room. Everybody else, hold your positions. Sidearms are the preferred weapons for fighting in the house. Questions?” He didn’t expect any, and none came. “Him, stand by, I’m on my way.”

Seconds later, he signaled Kindy that he’d reached the door to the sergeants’ room. Kindy slid the door open and joined him in the hall. Using hand signals because he didn’t want his own voice or Kindy’s covering any sounds made by anybody who might be in the living room or kitchen, he told Kindy what they were going to do. Kindy gave him a thumbs-up. Daly duck-walked along the right side of the hall while Kindy crawled on elbows and knees. They stopped when they reached the end of the hall. Without sticking his head out of the hall Daly scanned the room from as far as he could see to the right all the way to the left. He didn’t see anybody through his light gatherer, but he did see the window was broken out. He switched to his infra and scanned back the other way. Again, he didn’t see anybody—which didn’t mean nobody was hiding behind furniture. Kindy, meanwhile, scanned the room left to right with his infra, and back with his light gatherer. Using hand signals, Kindy indicated that he’d spotted a glow behind a chair near the front door.

The Skinks

Neither the Leader who had come through the window into the large open space nor the Fighter with him had fired his projectile thrower—they didn’t have targets. They heard the sounds of fighting in the hallway to the rear of the building and in the sleeping room next to them. The Leader led the way to the far side of the large room, toward where he sensed one of the three soldiers who had come into the food room. There, he made contact with the Master, who was the only survivor of the trio who had entered the house from that direction. He sensed faint radiation from a body he could barely see lying in the doorway to the food room. The faintness of the emanations implied that that Earthman Marine was dying, and he rejoiced. Elsewhere in the house, he sensed two pairs of Earthmen in rooms astraddle the hallway, and three more in the direction of the sleeping room the other Leader had entered, but he couldn’t tell if they were in the sleeping room or in the hall he’d glimpsed as he went through the large room. Aside from his Fighter and the Master the two of them had joined, he only detected two of his own, at the far end of the long hallway. He awaited orders. He did not have to wait long. He and his Fighter turned and aimed their stolen Earthman projectile throwers toward the end of the hall, where the projectiles could

go through the opening of the hall and continue into the sleeping room. But before they could fire, an Earthman Marine burst from the mouth of the hall to the front wall of the room, and one of the enemies’ weapons fired, sending its ball of plasma into the Fighter, whose dying flame lit up his end of the room, exposing both himself and the Master to anyone looking in their direction. The Leader hesitated a beat, but then obeyed the Master’s orders and began firing his projectile thrower in the direction of the hall opening. His finger managed to pull on the trigger three times before a plasma bolt joined him to his ancestors. The Marines

Ensign Daly saw three rapid muzzle flashes and fired two plasma bolts their way, staggering them right and left. He would have fired more but the first bolt lit up that end of the room when the enemy blazed up.

“Kindy, report,” Daly snapped into his helmet comm.

“Shit, I’m hit,” Kindy gasped.

“How bad?” Daly didn’t like the sound of Kindy’s voice.

“In my right shoulder. Hurts like hell.”

“Can you get back to your room? Get into your chameleons?”

“I . . . I’ll try.”

That was bad; Force Recon Marines never said they’d try, they always said they’d do.

“Hang in there, I’m on my way.” Daly stood high enough to look over the furniture and used both his infra and light gatherer. He didn’t see anyone, but crossed the room to Kindy’s side as quickly as he could anyway. It was a good thing he went fast; several rapid-fire bullets sped just behind him. He dove over Kindy and hit the deck. He grabbed the squad leader and dragged him to the sergeants’ bedroom. His light gatherer showed him where a medkit was, and he quickly got bandages, a painkiller, and a pain blocker out of it and applied them. He spared Williams a glance; the other squad leader was unconscious, but his regular breathing showed no signs of distress. Daly got back on the all-hands circuit.

“Listen up. Both squad leaders are down. I’m going outside and around to the kitchen; there’s somebody in there. After I take him out, I’ll help with the bad guys you’ve got pinned in the back. Just hold them in place.

“Hang in there, people,” Daly whispered to the squad leaders. He went out the window the intruders had come in through. A moment later, he was crouched below the shattered kitchen window. He’d used his infra screen on the way around the front of Marine House, looking for sentries or reinforcements for the invaders, but didn’t see anyone, not even signs of anybody watching from nearby houses. He switched to his light gatherer and popped up to give the kitchen a quick sweep, then ducked back down. He’d seen only one person in the kitchen, kneeling behind the wall next to the door to the living room, holding a civilian handgun. He raised back up and took careful aim before firing a plasma bolt at the figure’s back. Even though he’d seen the light cast by flashing bodies twice before in the past few minutes, he blinked at the direct sight of one flaring up before him. Using both his infra and light gatherer, he scanned the kitchen again, and as much of the living room as he could see. He didn’t see anybody else. He turned his ears up and listened for sounds from within, but all he heard was the first calls of “What’s going on?” raised from nearby houses.