Because of Edie Breastworks's sterling credentials as a graduate of the Fleet's combat tactics school, she was given command of a platoon of Marines on the Westchester, which itself had been ordered to investigate the occurrence of sub-space energy emissions coming from inside the “DMZ” - the Demilitarized Zone between the Alliance and the hostile and aggressive Tofagers.
The Tofagers were humanoid, warm-blooded bipeds with two arms, binocular vision and a cruel, cunning intelligence. They were descended from ancient carnivores and had the fangs and aggressive pack instinct one might expect. Generally, they despised humans.
Edie was now qualified on a plethora of weapons, plus hand-to-hand combat, plus she now had a semblance of mastery over an impressive array of combat infantry tactics. She was starting to get the big picture while not losing sight of the small stuff.
On an icy planet orbiting a “red-giant” star, they discovered the source of the emissions. There was a mining operation on the planet, being conducted by the Tofagers, which amounted to a clear violation of a long-standing treaty. The Alliance wasn't about to stand idly by while a neighboring enemy made itself rich and virtually spit in the face of Earth’s government.
Captain Eric-the-Red ordered a platoon of marines - “ship's security” - on three landing craft, down to what appeared to be a camp near the mines.
“The Tofagers' usual M.O. is to attack like banshees", said Eric-the-Red. "And then if things don't go their way, bug out in a hurry. It’s the usual hit and run tactics we always see from them. I don’t expect anything different this time around. Let’s have a backup platoon ready to go as well. Third platoon is Lieutenant Breastworks, right? Let’s have her platoon standing by. Have the Command Sergeant-Major remain behind with Breastworks. If we do need to mount a rescue, she'll be better off with an experienced hand.”
“Aye, sir,” Buddha said. He relayed the order to Edie to stand by ready to descend to the planet’s surface at a moment’s notice. The lieutenant was now commanding that unit in addition to her regular duties in Tactical.
Security Platoon One, commanded by Lieutenant-Commander Hitchens landed on the tundra-like plain, just southwest of the mines. They quickly formed a defensive perimeter and the landers zoomed off, back to the Westchester. They scanned the area, quickly and intently looking for any hidden Tofagers. The Platoon Sergeant got Hitchens’ attention and pointed to the low hills that were about half a kilometer ahead.
“Sir, the mines are up ahead, in that cliff.”
The mines were in the base of a cliff that overlooked the broad plain extending from the hills to the northwest. A small stream trickled out of steep, narrow canyon to the northeast, and spread out onto the plain. Just beyond the canyon were more low hills, like the first, covered with small, scrubby trees and bushes, dense waist-high grass, with small patches of snow in the shaded areas. More hills were just south of the mines, with the stream running between them and the mine entrances.
“Very good, Sergeant. Order your men to follow me. Let's keep those scanners active. I don't like the looks of this.”
“Yessir.”
The Platoon deployed in a “V”-shaped assault formation, wide end of the “V” in the direction that they were moving. The men looked alertly around them as they waded through the waist-high grass and scrubby bushes in the semi-twilight cast by the huge, dull-red sun overhead. Several of the men swept the area around them with hand-held scanners, searching for, and finding, Tofager life-signs, ahead of them near the cliffs.
They crossed the trickle of a stream about 100 meters from the mines. The water was about 3 or 4 meters wide but only a few centimeters deep. Then they walked up the gentle incline to the mines, working their way around piles of debris and pieces of mining equipment, most of it old and rusting, but some of it was surprisingly brand-new and shiny. Hitchens had a soldier scan one of the newer-looking machines.
“It's Tofager, Sir.”
Hitchens nodded and activated his communicator. “Hitchens to Westchester...” All that could be heard was the low hiss of static. “Something's interfering with it. Let's try moving away from the mines.”
As they turned back toward the stream, one of the soldiers on the perimeter called out, “Sir! I've got Tofager life-signs, moving! Lots of them, sir!”
Suddenly, a hailstorm of directed-energy weapons-fire -- plasma beams-- erupted from the surrounding hillsides and the entrances to the mines. Over one hundred heavily armed Tofagers executed a classic "pincers" maneuver against First Platoon, half of them charging in from the right flank, the other half from the left, unleashing a hailstorm of small arms fire.
On board the Westchester, the bridge officers were presented with a new crisis.
“Captain,” the communications officer, Lieutenant Unhurried said, “I've just lost contact with Platoon One!”
“They’re being attacked!” Edie blurted the words out before she realized it.
Eric-the-Red motioned her to be silent.
Commander Webitched confirmed through his scanner: “There's a large number of life-forms closing rapidly on the Westchester's Security Team... Both sides are firing energy weapons... The Security Team is deploying in a defensive formation... Captain, the attacking force out-numbers the Westchester's team by more than three to one!”
“So why can't we contact them?”
“I think I know why,” Buddha said. “It's right here.” He jabbed a finger at the screen. “There's a subspace anomaly hovering just at the horizon. It has to be a cloaked ship. They're ionizing the planet's upper atmosphere! It's blocking our transmissions.”
“Sir, I can take my Security Platoon in three landing-craft.” Edie said. “We can engage the Tofagers on the surface and rescue Hitchens’ team. The Tofagers' ship won't fire on us for the same reason we won't fire on them. Neither of us wants to start an all-out war.”
“Stand by Lieutenant.” Eric-the-Red looked at Webitched. “What other options do we have? Can you take us in closer to fire on the Tofagers on the surface?”
“It's possible Captain. We can muscle Westchester around with the fusion-drive, but it's not going to be pretty. And, Captain, those Tofagers are within a few dozen meters of Platoon One. In my opinion, we can't risk firing ship's weapons into such a restricted battle-area, no matter what the range. There’s just too much risk of friendly casualties.”
The Westchester - at over three hundred meters long - and ships like her, were never designed to land on a planet or to maneuver in an atmosphere.
“I wasn't about to suggest that we try to transit the planet's atmosphere, but we have to try something.”
Eric-the-Red thought for a moment, then turned in his chair toward Edie. “Alright Lieutenant, you've got the ball. You'll still be out-numbered nearly two to one – maybe more if the Tofagers use their dimensional gate. We won't be able to rescue you.”
Edie was confident. We won't need “rescuing”, she thought. But as the saying goes, “discretion is the better part of valor.” She quickly formulated a more politically correct response: “The Tofagers won't be able to use their dimensional gate without deionizing the atmosphere by shutting off their scattering field. De-cloaking their ship will make it immediately obvious to our scans. And if we get close enough we'll have visual confirmation too. A weapons-lock will be easy. I don’t think they’re going to want to do that. But, we've practiced this type of rescue many times. We'll be in and out in a flash. We're not going to get pinned down. We'll be back before you know it!” She finished that little soliloquy, sounding a bit more nervous than she might have hoped.
Eric-the-Red didn’t seem to notice.“Alright then. Do it!”
Edie stepped to the “One MC”, the ship-wide communications system: “Security Platoon Three, meet Lieutenant Breastworks in the landing-craft bay – in full battle-rattle - immediately! This is NOT a drill!”
She took the conveyor-tube down through the maze of decks and sprinted through the corridors toward the armory. She was already wearing the ablative/reflective armor that would not only mitigate the effect of directed-energy weapons, but would also provide some protection against projectiles as well. Since one does not ordinarily stroll about an Alliance StarsShip armed, she needed to pick up a particle-beam rifle, along with some extra power packs, in case she needed to reload, and some grenades, fragmentation type, very deadly at short range.
One of the three squads in Security Platoon Three would be bringing a mortar. The light, short-range “artillery” for infantry could go a long way toward neutralizing a numerically superior force of the Tofagers. She grabbed her gear and headed for the shuttle-bay at a dead run. Fifteen heavily armed and highly trained marines, plus battle-gear were packed like sardines into each of the three landing craft. She squeezed her way in. There was just enough room. And they made ready to depart from the Westchester.
After launching from Westchester, they remained briefly in orbit - doing a last-minute check to be sure their three tiny ships were ready for the punishing trip through the planet's atmosphere - before they began the descent to the surface. Edie made sure to go over – once again - the landing coordinates and deployment procedures with the three pilots.
“Edie to Westchester. The package is ready to insert. We will be starting our descent in three... two... one...”
And they were heading into the atmosphere at the steepest possible angle. As predicted, the Tofagers’ ship, if it saw them at all, simply ignored them. Obviously, its Captain didn't regard three small landing craft as being tactically significant to the battle.
“That must mean they have an awful lot of boots on the ground!” thought Edie.
They would find out soon enough. Aboard the lead landing craft, Edie breathed a small sigh of relief at not being fired upon, but she knew that their job had yet to really begin. After transiting through the atmosphere from orbit, they slowed to barely subsonic speed, right around 1000kph, and headed for the battle-site, “in the grass”, at tree-top level, pulling up sharply to clear the numerous low hills, then swooping back down into the valleys. It was a rough ride. They had come down about 100 kilometers from the Tofagers camp in order to avoid being fired upon by ground forces and were approaching in the landing craft as quickly as possible.
Edie went over the battle-plan one more time with Command Sergeant-Major Tolstoy Frankenberry, a man of some 20 years experience in combat-infantry units.
Even in the age of warp-drive and mammoth StarShips, the military still needed someone to stand on a piece of ground and say, “This ground is mine.” That's infantry. Or, as Frankenberry had once told her, “StarShips don't mean squat if you can't hold onto real estate.”
Edie had done numerous simulations on this very scenario, but she was smart enough to get a final okay from someone who had, “been there, done that.”
“Looks good, Lieutenant,” Frankenberry rumbled with a gentleness that was surprising in a giant of a man who had killed other sentients, including the notoriously tough Tofagers, with his bare hands.
Frankenberry passed the word along to the squad on board their ship, and then on a coded, secure and tightly beamed channel to the squads on the other two landing craft.
Edie noticed, in his lap, one of several deadly-looking weapons Frankenberry was carrying. It had a sling that allowed it to hang ready, at waist-level while in combat.
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“'M-4 carbine,' Lieutenant,” he rumbled with a warm smile. “It's an ancient Earth weapon. Twentieth century, ma'am.”
“Why are you carrying an antique weapon like that into battle, Sarge?” she was frankly curious.
“Oh, it's real effective, ma'am. See, it shoots lead pellets out of here...” He rumbled enthusiastically, pointing to the end of the barrel.
“I know how it works.” Edie said. She had studied such weapons at the Academy.
“Twelve rounds a second, ma'am. On a mission like this, where we just need to kill a lot of 'threat'...” he shrugged. “Mutilates the corpses pretty bad too, ma'am. And with the noise and muzzle-blast and stuff...” He shrugged again. “Makes a good psychological weapon too. You'll see when we get out there, ma'am. Scares the hell outa the enemy.” He smiled his big, warm smile again.
“Glad you're on our side, Sergeant Major.” Edie smiled back.
“Me too, ma'am,” he said. But he looked sort of puzzled, as though it had never occurred to him that he could be on any other side. “Me too.”
The Tofagers ship had obviously seen them leave, but alerting their counterparts on the ground, if they had even done so, wouldn't do much good, as all of their attention being, presumably, absorbed by Hitchens’ inventive defense.
On the bridge of the Westchester, Captain Eric-the-Red turned to his second-in-command. “Any contact with the rescue team?”
“No, Captain. Nothing yet. Judging from the pattern of energy discharges on the surface, the Team has engaged some remote elements of the Tofagers force. The main body of Tofagers continues to assault Platoon One.”
“Commander Webitched, The Alliance needs to maintain the 'high ground' in this engagement. If you detect any enemy vessel trying to take off from or land on the planet I want it destroyed,” Eric-the-Red said.
“Understood, Sir.”
At least they could try to guarantee “air superiority”.
“And if they turn off their scattering field, Captain?”
“We'll have to force them to keep their shields up.”
“Are we going to fire on them?”
“We'll arm weapons. We'll try to bluff them first.”
“What if they call our bluff?”
“Then we just might have to fire, Webitched.”
With a heavy “whoosh”, the landing-craft approached one of the mountaintops near the closed end of the valley that was the scene of battle near the entrances to the mines. The pilots' eyes were peeled and the landing craft’s sensor-ops scanned intently, wary of ground-fire. The soldiers, most of them still teenagers, stared at each other wide-eyed, trying to look a lot less scared than they felt. Despite their extensive training, few of them, except Frankenberry, had ever been in “real” combat before. They were all nervously anticipating the impact of weapons-fire on the hulls of the landing craft. But there was none.
Once the Tofagers team had been alerted to the presence of the Westchester by their compatriots in the orbiting battle-cruiser, they had hidden in the hills and in the mines until Platoon One approached. Then they ambushed, using primarily small-arms fire, with a few grenades thrown here and there. The initial assault had wiped out a third of the team. The thirty-some survivors, Lieutenant Commander Hitchens among them, took cover in the rubble and among the various pieces of machinery scattered about the area. They fired their weapons at the mine entrances, caving them in and burying several Tofagers.
Hitchens was a surprisingly adept tactician and quickly deployed his men to create a defensive stronghold, each of them covering the other. But the Tofagers were slowly wearing them down by sheer force of numbers, and by the time Edie and his team landed on one of the hills overlooking the battle, the defenders numbered just over twenty. They had accounted for themselves well, however, as the bodies of over 35 Tofagers littered the battlefield.
Hitchens tried his communicator for the third time: "Hitchens to Westchester. Hitchens... to... Westchester.”
Still nothing but static. “The Tofagers must be jamming it!” he said to the platoon sergeant. They both ducked as small-arms fire shattered the rocks near their heads.
“We gotta move, sir!” the sergeant said.
“How about over there, Sarge?” Hitchens pointed to some nearby boulders. He signaled some of the men for covering fire as he and the sergeant sprinted and dove for the rocks.
The landing craft touched down on the ridge top and the marines hustled out of them and spread out to form a perimeter. Not a moment too soon. A rocket arced in from the valley below and detonated with a splintering boom that destroyed one of the landers. Miraculously, no one was killed, but the crew was critically injured and several of his men had minor fragment-wounds from the blast. They ignored their wounds as they came immediately under fire from virtually every direction as the other two landers dumped their troops, grabbed the injured flight crew from the destroyed lander, and zoomed away at top speed. This “rescue” seemed about to turn into a disaster. They assaulted the nearest group while still taking fire from the rear. They were taking fire from the other nearby mountain peaks as well.
Hitchens was elated when he heard the heavy rounds exploding on the hilltops, not realizing it was the Westchester’s marines being hit by enemy rounds: “Here comes the cavalry, if we can just stay alive long enough...” He checked his weapon - it was almost drained. The cavalry had better hurry.
Edie’s team had one human-portable mortar unit with twenty or so extra rounds. Ammunition was heavy and bulky and so limited amounts could be carried by a light infantry unit. They had divided the mortar rounds between four men so that the platoon as a whole could carry more. They also had a 30 kilowatt, tripod-mounted Directed Energy Weapon. With that came a human-portable power supply that could be hooked up to deliver over 2000 pulsed shots. The weapon’s internal storage gave it about another 300 shots. That was a lot of ammo.
The only vehicles they had available had just zoomed off into the sky – two of them anyway. The third one lay burning in the center of their redoubt – and they were now carrying everything by hand while traveling on foot.
Their armor’s built in sensors automatically adjusted the color and pattern of their armor “on the fly” to best blend with their surroundings.
Using the mortars and the 30kW-DEW they quickly eliminated those who were firing on them from close in. They were now the sole occupiers of their mountaintop, as far as they could tell. The DEW had an effective range of several thousand meters, so with that and the mortar, they attacked the next closest mountain top and began neutralizing any hostiles in that area. Then, working carefully from behind whatever cover they could find, one by one they progressed to firing upon the next most dangerous mountaintop and so on until all threats were eliminated except the one in the valley. So far, things were going pretty well. They’d lost only a few wounded and fewer still killed. Edie was wisely leaving the point to point maneuvers and tactics to the vastly more experienced Frankenberry and the other sergeants. She was, of course, in charge of the over-all operation and responsible for the outcome. But clearly the best way to ensure success was to leave the actual maneuvering to Frankenberry. The old sergeant worked patiently and calmly as though he were directing a giant chess match, occasionally pouring in fire with his deafening firearm. Edie filled in as needed with his own particle-beam rifle and stuck close to Frankenberry as they fought to eliminate enemy soldiers and work their way down to HItchens' position in the valley.
During the entire engagement, the hair on the back of her neck was standing up. She couldn’t remember ever being this frightened before. This was the first time in her life that other sentient beings were actively engaged in actually trying to kill her. But her training was standing up well to the circumstances and she was functioning, as far as anyone could see, professionally and efficiently.
The mission was going well and they were progressing toward rescuing the Captain, until the Beast ship turned off its scattering field and abruptly transported more soldiers to the mountaintop, using its dimensional gate.
On the bridge of the Westchester: “Captain, they’ve stopped their scattering field and activated their dimensional gate.”
“Fire on them. Don’t let them use that fucking gate! Helm, take us out of orbit.” Eric-the-Red was impassive as usual, but you could kind of tell that underneath the calm shell he was livid. “Weps, we need to kill that ship now! Keep firing until ordered to stop.”
The Tofager ship broke orbit as well and the two cruisers engaged in a non-stop running battle, heading out of the solar-system.
But Eric-the-Red had at least partially done what he needed to do. After that first batch, the Tofagers weren’t able to use their dimensional gate to move any more troops onto the planet. At least not while they were being chased by the Westchester.
Meanwhile, Edie and soldiers were once again taking fire from all sides. They quickly regrouped in a rough circle among the rocks, setting up the DEW for close in fire support. Fortunately, using the mortar, they had managed to eliminate most of the fire from the nearby mountaintops. But they had exhausted their ammo for that weapon.
Following Frankenberry’s orders, the men began again working their way sideways relative to the enemy, covering each other while trying the flank the closest enemy group. The DEW laid down covering fire as well. The maneuver worked and soon they were pouring fire from two angles into a large group of pinned-down Tofagers. It was a slaughter.
The other Tofagers had broken off the attack on Platoon One, for the moment, and had sent a large contingent climbing up the steep slopes of the mountain, trying to come to the aid of their comrades at the top. Edie watched as Frankenberry, with the careful, precise mind gained from decades of combat experience, repositioned the DEW once again and its crew began picking off the climbing Tofagers, one by one.
Hitchens, for his part was able to glean at least some of what was going on and launched a counter-attack against the beasts that remained in the valley. The attack was unsuccessful in that they failed to break out of the ring of surrounding Tofager troops. But they did divert troops and attention away from Edie’s men for the moment, as a large number of their climbing troops turned around, starting back down the mountain to help contain the breakout. That may have turned the tide of battle, although Hitchens didn’t know it at the time.
The Tofagers' ship turned sharply in an excruciating high G turn and headed abruptly back toward the frigid planet where their troops were now clearly losing the battle and calling for reinforcements.
“Cut ‘em off!” Eric-the-Red grunted through the crushing G force of the turn. All of the crew were strapped in to their chairs which were specially designed to help mitigate the effect of high-G maneuvers. Inertial compensators can only do so much, and chairs designed to support fragile protoplasm - positioned at every battle station - made possible violent maneuvers designed to be effective in evading the enemy and positioning for a strike.
“Can’t, Sir!” the helmsman grunted back. “They’ve beaten us to the ‘corner’.” The larger, heavier Westchester swung out wider in the turn, losing kinetic energy in the process and falling further behind. The Tofagers' ship raced for the planet and swung into a looping, wild, high, partial orbit, scooping up their troops with the gate, and boomed into Q-space, leaving the system far behind.
“Good riddance!” Eric-the-Red muttered. “Helm, put us in orbit. Let’s pick up the two platoons and get the hell out of here!”
Edie was trembling with the left over adrenalin from the battle. She hadn’t shit herself. She’d heard soldiers sometimes did that in combat. Thankfully, it didn’t happen this time. The strangling fear, plus that humiliation might have been too much to bear. She walked quickly off into the trees, leaned over and barfed, wiped her mouth with her sleeve and strode back as casually as possible to help with the load-out. Right now they needed to gather their wounded and dead, and get everyone back to the Westchester.
The survivors of Hitchens’ platoon finished scrambling up the steep slope to the ridge top.
“Well done, Lieutenant!” Hitchens said, puffing mightily from exertion.
“Thank you, Commander.” She couldn't help grinning at the sheer elation of being alive. She was grateful to still be among those still standing and actually somewhat surprised.
Hitchens was still winded from the run, the exhilaration of the battle with the Tofagers and his brush with death. The Marines were, once again, establishing a perimeter on the off chance that the Tofagers might return. Hitchens turned abruptly and shouted over the tops of the soldiers, “Sergeant Frankenberry!”
“Here, Sir!” Frankenberry shouted back, and jogged over like a two-legged bear to see what was needed.
“Sergeant, let’s get the Landers down here before the Tofagers change their minds and decide to come back. Gather up all of our gear and the dead. Make sure the wounded are being attended to. Do a head count, make sure everyone's present and accounted for and let's get the hell out of here!”
“Aye, Sir.”