Starship Troopers Part 17

1. Locate the platoon leader who had been holding my area. Locate the platoon leader who had been holding my area.

2. Establish corners and identify them to section and squad leaders. Establish corners and identify them to section and squad leaders.

3. Make contact liaison with eight platoon leaders on my sides and corners, five of whom should already be in position (those from Fifth and First Regiments) and three (Khoroshen of the Blackguards and Bayonne and Sukarno of the Wolverines) who were now moving into position. Make contact liaison with eight platoon leaders on my sides and corners, five of whom should already be in position (those from Fifth and First Regiments) and three (Khoroshen of the Blackguards and Bayonne and Sukarno of the Wolverines) who were now moving into position.

4. Get my own boys spread out to their initial points as fast as possible by shortest routes. Get my own boys spread out to their initial points as fast as possible by shortest routes.

The last had to be set up first, as the open column in which we disembarked would not do it. Brumby's last squad needed to deploy to the left flank; Cunha's leading squad needed to spread from dead ahead to left oblique; the other four squads must fan out in between.

This is a standard square deployment and we had simulated how to reach it quickly in the drop room; I called out: "Cunha! Brumby! Time to spread 'em out," using the non-com circuit.

"Roger sec one!" - "Roger sec two!"

"Section leaders take charge . . . and caution each recruit. You'll be pa.s.sing a lot of Cherubs. I don't want 'em shot at by mistake!" I bit down for my private circuit and said, "Sarge, you got contact on the left?"

"Yes, sir. They see me, they see you."

"Good. I don't see a beacon on our anchor corner - "

"Missing."

" - so you coach Cunha by D. R. Same for the lead scout - that's Hughes - and have Hughes set a new beacon." I wondered why the Third or Fifth hadn't replaced that anchor beacon - my forward left corner where three regiments came together.

No use talking. I went on: "D. R. check. You bear two seven five, miles twelve."

"Sir, reverse is nine six, miles twelve scant."

"Close enough. I haven't found my opposite number yet, so I'm cutting out forward at max. Mind the shop."

"Got 'em, Mr. Rico."

I advanced at max speed while clicking over to officers' circuit: "Square Black One, answer. Black One, Chang's Cherubs - do you read me? Answer." I wanted to talk with the leader of the platoon we were relieving - and not for any perfunctory I-relieve-you-sir: I wanted the ungarnished word.

I didn't like what I had seen.

Either the top bra.s.s had been optimistic in believing that we had mounted overwhelming force against a small, not fully developed Bug base - or the Blackguards had been awarded the spot where the roof fell in. In the few moments I had been out of the boat I had spotted half a dozen armored suits on the ground - empty I hoped, dead men possibly, but 'way too many any way you looked at it.

Besides that, my tactical radar display showed a full platoon (my own) moving into position but only a scattering moving back toward retrieval or still on station. Nor could I see any system to their movements.

I was responsible for 680 square miles of hostile terrain and I wanted very badly to find out all I could before my own squads were deep into it. Battle Plan had ordered a new tactical doctrine which I found dismaying: Do not close the Bugs tunnels. Blackie had explained this as if it had been his own happy thought, but I doubt if he liked it.

The strategy was simple, and, I guess, logical . . . if we could afford the losses. Let the Bugs come up. Meet them and kill them on the surface. Let them keep on coming up. Don't bomb their holes, don't gas their holes - let them out. After a while - a day, two days, a week if we really did have overwhelming force, they would stop coming up. Planning Staff estimated (don't ask me how!) that the Bugs would expend 70 per cent to 90 per cent of their warriors before they stopped trying to drive us off the surface.

Then we would start the unpeeling, killing surviving warriors as we went down and trying to capture "royalty" alive. We knew what the brain caste looked like; we had seen them dead (in photographs) and we knew they could not run - barely functional legs, bloated bodies that were mostly nervous system. Queens no human had ever seen, but Bio War Corps had prepared sketches of what they should look like - obscene monsters larger than a horse and utterly immobile.

Besides brains and queens there might be other "royalty" castes. As might be - encourage their warriors to come out and die, then capture alive anything but warriors and workers.

A necessary plan and very pretty, on paper. What it meant to me was that I had an area 17 x 40 miles which might be riddled with unstopped Bug holes. I wanted co-ordinates on each one.

If there were too many . . . well, I might accidentally plug a few and let my boys concentrate on watching the rest. A private in a marauder suit can cover a lot of terrain, but he can look at only one thing at a time; he is not superhuman.

I bounced several miles ahead of the first squad, still calling the Cherub platoon leader, varying it by calling any Cherub officer and describing the pattern of my transponder beacon (dah-di-dah-dah).

No answer - At last I got a reply from my boss: "Johnnie! Knock off the noise. Answer me on conference circuit."

So I did, and Blackie told me crisply to quit trying to find the Cherub leader for Square Black One; there wasn't one. Oh, there might be a non-com alive somewhere but the chain of command had broken.

By the book, somebody always moves up. But it does happen if too many links are knocked out. As Colonel Nielssen had once warned me, in the dim past . . . almost a month ago.

Captain Chang had gone into action with three officers besides himself; there was one left now (my cla.s.smate, Abe Moise) and Blackie was trying to find out from him the situation. Abe wasn't much help. When I joined the conference and identified myself, Abe thought I was his battalion commander and made a report almost heartbreakingly precise, especially as it made no sense at all.

Blackie interrupted and told me to carry on. "Forget about a relief briefing. The situation is whatever you see that it is - so stir around and see."

"Right, Boss!" I slashed across my own area toward the far corner, the anchor corner, as fast as I could move, switching circuits on my first bounce. "Sarge! How about that beacon?"

"No place on that corner to put it, sir. A fresh crater there, about scale six."

I whistled to myself. You could drop the Tours Tours into a size six crater. One of the dodges the Bugs used on us when we were sparring, ourselves on the surface, Bugs underground, was land mines. (They never seemed to use missiles, except from s.h.i.+ps in s.p.a.ce.) If you were near the spot, the ground shock got you; if you were in the air when one went off, the concussion wave could tumble your gyros and throw your suit out of control. into a size six crater. One of the dodges the Bugs used on us when we were sparring, ourselves on the surface, Bugs underground, was land mines. (They never seemed to use missiles, except from s.h.i.+ps in s.p.a.ce.) If you were near the spot, the ground shock got you; if you were in the air when one went off, the concussion wave could tumble your gyros and throw your suit out of control.

I had never seen larger than a scale-four crater. The theory was that they didn't dare use too big an explosion because of damage to their troglodyte habitats, even if they cofferdammed around it.

"Place an offset beacon," I told him. "Tell section and squad leaders."

"I have, sir. Angle one one oh, miles one point three. Da-di-dit. You should be able to read it, bearing about three threefive from where you are." He sounded as calm as a sergeant-instructor at drill and I wondered if I were letting my voice get shrill.

I found it in my display, above my left eyebrow - long and two shorts. "Okay. I see Cunha's first squad is nearly in position. Break off that squad, have it patrol the crater. Equalize the areas - Brumby will have to take four more miles of depth." I thought with annoyance that each man already had to patrol fourteen square miles; spreading the b.u.t.ter so thin meant seventeen square miles per man - and a Bug can come out of a hole less that five feet wide.

I added, "How 'hot' is that crater?"

"Amber-red at the edge. I haven't been in it, sir."

"Stay out of it. I'll check it later." Amber-red would kill an unprotected human but a trooper in armor can take it for quite a time. If there was that much radiation at the edge, the bottom would no doubt fry your eyeb.a.l.l.s. "Tell Naidi to pull Malan and Bjork back to amber zone, and have them set up ground listeners." Two of my five recruits were in that first squad - and recruits are like puppies; they stick their noses into things.

"Tell Naidi that I am interested in two things: movement inside the crater . . . and noises in the ground around it." We wouldn't send troopers out through a hole so radioactive that mere exit would kill them. But Bugs would, if they could reach us that way. "Have Naidi report to me. To you and me. I mean."

"Yes, sir." My platoon sergeant added, "May I make a suggestion?"

"Of course. And don't stop to ask permission next time."

"Navarre can handle the rest of the first section. Sergeant Cunha could take the squad at the crater and leave Naidi free to supervise the ground-listening watch."

I know what he was thinking. Naidi, so newly a corporal that he had never before had a squad on the ground, was hardly the man to cover what looked like the worst danger point in Square Black One; he wanted to pull Naidi back for the same reasons I had pulled the recruits back.

I wonder if he knew what I was thinking? That "nut-cracker" - he was using the suit he had worn as Blackie's battalion staffer, he had one more circuit than I had, a private one to Captain Blackstone.

Blackie was probably patched in and listening via that extra circuit. Obviously my platoon sergeant did not agree with my disposition of the platoon. If I didn't take his advice, the next thing I heard might be Blackie's voice cutting in: "Sergeant, take charge. Mr. Rico, you're relieved."

But - Confound it, a corporal who wasn't allowed to boss his squad wasn't a corporal . . . and a platoon leader who was just a ventriloquist's dummy for his platoon sergeant was an empty suit!

I didn't mull this. It flashed through my head and I answered at once. "I can't spare a corporal to baby-sit with two recruits. Nor a sergeant to boss four privates and a lance."

"But - "

"Hold it. I want the crater watch relieved every hour. I want our first patrol sweep made rapidly. Squad leaders will check any hole reported and get beacon bearings so that section leaders, platoon sergeant and platoon leader can check them as they reach them. If there aren't too many, we'll put a watch on each - I'll decide later."

"Yes, sir."

"Second time around, I want a slow patrol, as tight as possible, to catch holes we miss on the first sweep. a.s.sistant squad leaders will use snoopers on that pa.s.s. Squad leaders will get bearings on any troopers - or suits - on the ground; the Cherubs may have left some live wounded. But no one is to stop even to check physicals until I order it. We've got to know the Bug situation first."

"Yes, sir."

"Suggestions?"

"Just one," he answered. "I think the squad chasers should use their snoopers on that first fast pa.s.s."

"Very well, do it that way." His suggestion made sense as the surface air temperature was much lower than the Bugs use in their tunnels; a camouflaged vent hole should show a plume like a geyser by infrared vision. I glanced at my display. "Cunha's boys are almost at limit. Start your parade.'

"Very well, sir!"

"Off." I clicked over to the wide circuit and continued to make tracks for the crater while I listened to everybody at once as my platoon sergeant revised the pre-plan - cutting out one squad, heading it for the crater, starting the rest of the first section in a two-squad countermarch while keeping the second section in a rotational sweep as pre-planned but with four miles increased depth; got the sections moving, dropped them and caught the first squad as it converged on the anchor corner crater, gave it its instructions; cut back to the section leaders in plenty of time to give them new beacon bearings at which to make their turns.

He did it with the smart precision of a drum major on parade and he did it faster and in fewer words than I could have done it. Extended-order powered-suit drill, with a platoon spread over many miles of countryside, is much more difficult than the strutting precision of parade - but it has to be exact, or you'll blow the head off your mate in action . . . or, as in this case, you sweep part of the terrain twice and miss another part.

But the drillmaster has only a radar display of his formation; he can see with his eyes only those near him. While I listened, I watched it in my own display - glowworms crawling past my face in precise lines, "crawling" because even forty miles an hour is a slow crawl when you compress a formation twenty miles across into a display a man can see.

I listened to everybody at once because I wanted to hear the chatter inside the squads.

There wasn't any. Cunha and Brumby gave their secondary commands - and shut up. The corporals sang out only as squad changes were necessary; section and squad chasers called out occasional corrections of interval or alignment - and privates said nothing at all.

I heard the breathing of fifty men like muted sibilance of surf, broken only by necessary orders in the fewest possible words. Blackie had been right; the platoon had been handed over to me "tuned like a violin."

They didn't need me! me! I could go home and my platoon would get along just as well. Maybe better - I could go home and my platoon would get along just as well. Maybe better - I wasn't sure I had been right in refusing to cut Cunha out to guard the crater; if trouble broke there and those boys couldn't be reached in time, the excuse that I had done it "by the book" was worthless. If you get killed, or let somebody else get killed, "by the book" it's just as permanent as any other way.

I wondered if the Roughnecks had a spot open for a buck sergeant.

Most of Square Black One was as flat as the prairie around Camp Currie and much more barren. For this I was thankful; it gave us our only chance of spotting a Bug coming up from below and getting him first. We were spread so widely that four-mile intervals between men and about six minutes between waves of a fast sweep was as tight a patrol as we could manage. This isn't tight enough; any one spot would remain free of observation for at least three or four minutes between patrol waves - and a lot of Bugs can come out of a very small hole in three to four minutes.

Radar can see farther than eye, of course, but it cannot see as accurately.

In addition we did not dare use anything but short-range selective weapons - our own mates were spread around us in all directions. If a Bug popped up and you let fly with something lethal, it was certain that not too far beyond that Bug was a cap trooper; this sharply limits the range and force of the frightfulness you dare use. On this operation only officers and platoon sergeants were armed with rockets and, even so, we did not expect to use them. If a rocket fails to find its target, it has a nasty habit of continuing to search until it finds one . . . and it cannot tell friend from foe; a brain that can be stuffed into a small rocket is fairly stupid.

I would happily have swapped that area patrol, with thousands of M. I. around us, for a simple one-platoon strike in which you know where your own people are and anything else is an enemy target.

I didn't waste time moaning; I never stopped bouncing toward that anchor-corner crater while watching the ground and trying to watch the radar picture as well. I didn't find any Bug holes but I did jump over a dry wash, almost a canyon, which could conceal quite a few. I didn't stop to see; I simply gave its co ordinates to my platoon sergeant and told him to have somebody check it.

That crater was even bigger than I had visualized; the Tours Tours would have been lost in it. I s.h.i.+fted my radiation counter to directional cascade, took readings on floor and sides - red to multiple red right off the scale, very unhealthy for long exposure even to a man in armor; I estimated its width and depth by helmet range finder, then prowled around and tried to spot openings leading underground. would have been lost in it. I s.h.i.+fted my radiation counter to directional cascade, took readings on floor and sides - red to multiple red right off the scale, very unhealthy for long exposure even to a man in armor; I estimated its width and depth by helmet range finder, then prowled around and tried to spot openings leading underground.

I did not find any but I did run into crater watches set out by adjacent platoons of the Fifth and First Regiments, so I arranged to split up the watch by sectors such that the combined watch could yell for help from all three platoons, the patch-in to do this being made through First Lieutenant Do Campo of the "Head Hunters" on our left. Then I pulled out Naidi's lance and half his squad (including the recruits) and sent them back to platoon, reporting all this to my boss, and to my platoon sergeant.

"Captain," I told Blackie, "we aren't getting any ground vibrations I'm going down inside and check for holes. The readings show that I won't get too much dosage if I - "

"Youngster, stay out of that crater."

"But Captain, I just meant to - "

"Shut up. You can't learn anything useful. Stay out."

"Yes, sir."

The next nine hours were tedious. We had been preconditioned for forty hours of duty (two revolutions of Planet P) through forced sleep, elevated blood sugar count, and hypno indoctrination, and of course the suits are self-contained for personal needs. The suits can't last that long, but each man was carrying extra power units and super H. P. air cartridges for recharging. But a patrol with no action is dull, it is easy to goof off.

I did what I could think of, having Cunha and Brumby take turns as drill sergeant (thus leaving platoon sergeant and leader free to rove around): I gave orders that no sweeps were to repeat in pattern so that each man would always check terrain that was new to him. There are endless patterns to cover a given area, by combining the combinations. Besides that, I consulted my platoon sergeant and announced bonus points toward honor squad for first verified hole, first Bug destroyed, etc. - boot camp tricks, but staying alert means staying alive, so anything to avoid boredom.

Finally we had a visit from a special unit, three combat engineers in a utility air car, escorting a talent - a spatial senser. Blackie warned me to expect them. "Protect them and give them what they want."

"Yes, sir. What will they need?"

"How should I know? If Major Landry wants you to take off your skin and dance in your bones, do it!"

"Yes, sir. Major Landry."

I relayed the word and set up a bodyguard by sub-areas. Then I met them as they arrived because I was curious; I had never seen a special talent at work. They landed inside my right flank rear and got out. Major Landry and two officers were wearing armor and hand flamers but the talent had no armor and no weapons - just an oxygen mask. He was dressed in a fatigue uniform without insignia and he seemed terribly bored by everything. I was not introduced to him. He looked like a sixteen-year old boy . . . until I got close and saw a network of wrinkles around his weary eyes.

As he got out he took off his breathing mask. I was horrified, so I spoke to Major Landry, helmet to helmet without radio. "Major - the air around here is 'hot.' Besides that, we've been warned that - "

"Pipe down," said the Major. "He knows it."

I shut up. The talent strolled a short distance, turned and pulled his lower lip. His eyes were closed and he seemed lost in thought.

He opened them and said fretfully, "How can one be expected to work with all those silly people jumping around?"

Major Landry said crisply, "Ground your platoon."

I gulped and started to argue - then cut in the all-hands circuit: "First Platoon Blackguards - ground and freeze!" ground and freeze!"

It speaks well for Lieutenant Silva that all I heard was a double echo of my order, as it was repeated down to squad. I said, "Major, can I let them move around on the ground?"

"No. And shut up."