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The lieutenant pulled back the advanced squad before they were exposed to the resumption of enemy long-ranged fire. The Caliphate forces had suffered at least 40 casualties; we’d lost 3, and two of those were wounded. We got them both patched up and stabilized before Tombstone finished them off. The enemy casualties were mostly KIA, either from the initial hit or the consequences of their suits being breached.

The second time they didn’t make the same mistake; they split their forces evenly on the two sides of the spur, but the lack of force concentration did them in. The two groups, unable to support each other, were both beaten back, again with heavy losses.

There was a brief lull, probably while they brought a fresh unit up to attack. When they had reinforced they charged us again, and the last two assaults came close to taking our position. The enemy commander sent a small group against the left side of the spur, just enough to demonstrate and prevent a repetition of the lieutenant’s flanking maneuver while the main force concentrated against the right. They came at us twice that way, but our lines barely held, reinforced at the last minute by arriving reserves fed in squad by squad.

Things quieted down for a few hours, giving us the “night” respite between our Earth days. We had more troops arriving all the time, and we finally got the orders to pull back. The entire company was being rotated to the reserve to rest, replaced by a fresh unit that had just marched up.

I was positioned between Corporal Vincennes, my team leader, and Harden and Quincy with the SAW. Harden had been the team’s lead SAW operator since before I got to Tombstone, and he’d been through four partners since then. It was considered something of a jinx posting, but I escaped because of my marksmanship ratings in training. I hadn’t gone through sniper school, but the lieutenant wanted me as an informal sharpshooter rather than managing Harden’s ammo feed. So I stayed in the line on a standing order to try and target enemy officers and non-coms if I could identify them.

“Hey, Sam, how’s it going over there?” Harden and I had become pretty good friends. Most commanders probably would have forbidden this type of chatting over the com, but the lieutenant believed the unit was a living organism. As long as it didn’t interfere with vital communications, he encouraged limited banter.”

“Not too bad. I’d say we held pretty damned well.” He paused, and I could hear him taking a deep breath. Not a bad use of a couple million rounds of ammo.” Harden was a little bloodthirsty; he’d lost a brother in the service and I don’t even know how many partners. I didn’t know it then, mostly because I’d had no one close to me since my dad died, but you get that way if you lose enough people. We’re professionals, but that only goes so far…enough pain will make any of us into vengeful sadists howling for blood.

“Yeah, we did ok.” I was a little more circumspect. I wasn’t all that comfortable with the killing yet, and I found it hard to rejoice as he did in the enemy dead. After all, most of them were just conscripts with no choice in the matter. The Caliphate was pretty rough with its recruiting; it was a theocracy and a dictatorship that made the Alliance look like a big happy family. Its recruiters could pressgang just about anyone except the clergy and the nobility.

“Just ok? It was a shooting gallery, baby!” Harden was overstating things. We did give the enemy a bloody nose, but it was hardly a walkover. We were pulling back with 31 troops; we’d gotten here at full strength with 50. I couldn’t get over the losses, even if we did inflict almost ten times that on the enemy.

“We lost a lot of friends today, Sam.” My voice was soft; I was trying hard not to sound like I was scolding him.

“Yes, we did.” His spoke more slowly, his tone darker. I think he got the point. “But it could have been a lot worse…a lot worse. If we’d been overrun, the whole unit could have been wiped.” He paused, and sighed. “But we did pay the price.”

“Yes, we paid the price.” The last of our wounded had been evac’d, but we were leaving seven dead on the field. I thought quietly to myself for a few seconds then I shifted my mind to more relevant things, with the soldier’s knack for mourning the dead one minute and focusing on duty the next. “You need help packing up that thing?”

“Nah, let the newb handle it.” The light auto-cannon really wasn’t all that large, just a bit unwieldy. Still, I had a twinge of sympathy for Quincy. It wasn’t that long ago I was the newb.

I climbed down carefully from the perch I’d occupied for the last twenty hours. Keep your head down, I thought. Although the fighting was in a lull, the sporadic sniper fire had never stopped. What a stupid way to get killed, losing focus on your way to the rear to rest. I took one last look out over the field, thinking the worst of it was over. I was wrong.

Chapter 8

2252 AD McCraw’s Ridge Central Sector – “The Cauldron” Day Two – Afternoon Delta Trianguli I

We pulled back about five klicks, just behind the next ridge. We were well within range of enemy mortars and other ordnance, and we wanted some cover. On a more hospitable world we might have popped our helmets and actually eaten some solid food, but that wasn’t an option on a planet like Tombstone. So I enjoyed the epicurean delight of another shot of high-energy intravenous nutritional formula, kindly served by my suit’s AI. It wasn’t exactly a stick-to-your-ribs meal, but you could definitely feel the increased energy level.

Sleep was another issue. We’d been going for about 40 hours, the last 24 under combat conditions. I was tired. You could go for several days on stims injected through the armor’s medical maintenance system, but there was no substitute for actual rest…plus, the less you relied on the stims, the longer you could go on them before getting really strung out. The armor is more comfortable than anyone who hasn’t worn it would think, but it wasn’t built for taking a nap. The most comfortable position was sitting on the ground leaning against something. I staked out a fairly choice spot against a good-sized rock outcropping and closed my eyes. I fell asleep in a few minutes.

When I’d first gotten to Tombstone, a well-trained but completely untried Marine, I found it very difficult to relax at all. Even in base when we sat around, waiting days, even weeks before getting the orders to suit up, I was nervous as a cat, expecting the alarm to sound any minute and scared to death about going outside, going into battle. There are certain clichés about soldiers, and I have found that many of them are true. One of these is the fact that we can sleep anywhere, and it wasn’t long before I’d joined that club. I was still scared to death whenever we fought; I still am to this day, though I have since learned to more or less ignore it. But even back then, if the shooting stopped for a few minutes, I could take a nap.

We’re good scroungers too, another military stereotype that turns out to be true. Despite living in the most hostile environment imaginable, cut off from virtually everything except official supply routes, there was actually a fairly active black market in the firebase. I never understood how the most active participants got some of the items that did. Later I came to realize that the officer didn’t just look the other way – they actually helped things along a little behind the scenes. All of our officers start as privates, and they knew very well that a posting on a place like Tombstone was a cheerless enough existence. As long as nothing degraded combat readiness, it was helpful to boost morale any way possible.

I’d gotten maybe 45 minutes’ sleep when I woke up to a jarring on my leg. My visor automatically went transparent and I could see Harden standing above me, kicking my leg. It was a gesture best performed by veterans; a little too much power behind the kick and the force amplification system in his suit could have damaged my armor. It was best done to a seasoned Marine too…startle a sleeping newb and you may end up getting shot to pieces or sliced in half with a molecular blade.