Doveshire
Chapter 03
Doveshire
McAuliffe VI
Sullivan watched flashes of light in the distance as the battle for control of Doveshire ran on through the night. The heaviest fighting was no more than a kilometer away. Flashes and fires from the battle lit up the night, washing away the strange formations of stars in the sky. After a lifetime around Earth, Sullivan was accustomed to the constellations. He knew they changed the further from Sol one jumped, and that they would be all but unrecognizable in the Vega Sector. He still misses the familiar clusters he could spot from Earth Station while Earth eclipsed the sun.
Most of the company was trying their hardest to get some shut eye in the warehouse basement of a Ruyter’s. Everything about Mac Six was alien to him, from the stars to the stores. McCoy, on early watch along side him, took it all in stride. He sat on an overturned crate, cradling his plasma rifle and keeping an eye on the night. “One good thing about the fires,” McCoy told him. “Makes it a lot easier to see anyone approach.” The funeral pyre of the city backlit the surroundings. If even so much as a mouse– or the local equivalent– moved, they would notice.
“Can’t see the stars though,” Sullivan pointed out. Unlike the vet, Sullivan kept the butt of his rifle tucked into his shoulder, and surveyed the surrounding neighborhood down the barrel of a rifle. Not much to see in this commercial district of the city. Even less to see while sitting in the shattered entrance to a department store.
McCoy hissed. “Sully, you’re not suppose be watching the stars. Didn’t you get enough of them on the way in?” Though McCoy tried his hardest to never be serious– a mental defense the doctors said– he did not like the thought of his comrade daydreaming in the middle of the night. Especially in a night full of large, predatory cats. Might not be the leopards of distant ancestral memories, but just as lethal. Or rather more so. The cats of East Africa lacked the ability to raze whole continents when angered.
“You think my mind can wander in all of this?” he asked, waving his rifle at the scene before them. The parking lot was surprisingly clean when they arrived. The Cats must have had all the derelict vehicles from when they invaded melted down and recycled into something useful. Those, and the lamp posts that should have lit it. Now, the only vehicles parked on the pavement were a few armored personnel carriers, two of them mounted with surface-to-air missile launchers. The rest had laser turrets, much more useful in shooting down incoming artillery rounds than the missiles.
“Don’t worry, McCoy, my mind can’t go anywhere here– well, nowhere I’d enjoy.” The scene of the human mine replayed in his head too often for him to want to think. What was going through that civie’s mind? Was anything going through it? The docs say that the Cats are real good at implanting suggestions, commands, and even explosives into you. Did the Cats put a bomb in that man? A bomb on the outside would explain the coat, but the inside– perhaps he knew something was amiss and acted strange as a warning.
He was assured that could not be the case. Kilrathi brainwashing went deep, down to the subconscious. Suicide bombers no more aware of what they were doing than locked missiles. The suggestions were planted not only deep, but to last. All that was required to activate them was a simple phrase, a flash of lights, even an image. Another disturbing thought entered his head. If they could be dormant for so long, then how many of the recruits from liberated worlds were bombs just waiting to go off. It would be bad enough for the Marines, or even the Army, but worse for the Navy. A bomb up there could kill a lot more than a couple dozen non-combatants.
“I know what you mean. Didn’t see much of this on my previous campaign. A whole lot of wilderness and starbase and not much in the way of population.” McCoy stopped briefly for consideration. “Not much chance to add another girlfriend to my list.”
Sullivan snapped his gaze over at the Vet. “Another what?”
McCoy gave a grin like a lower-case cat who ate a canary or two. “You didn’t know? I thought everybody in the squad knew. I have myself a woman in almost every port. Three at Sol alone; Mars, Luna and Mercury.”
Sullivan gave him a skeptical look. Sometimes McCoy could seem wise an insightful, other times he just like to spew such utter rubbish. “What, don’t have one on Earth?”
McCoy shook his head. “Never did like that place much. Too heavy there.”
Sullivan was starting to think this was another one of his rubbish sessions. “It’s not that much heavier than here.” Being born on Earth Station, which rotated for something less than 9.797 meters-per-second-squared, he could understand how Earth could make you feel heavy.
McCoy waved the thought away with a brisk swing of his hand. “That’s for walking, marching and killing. Comfort’s not an issue there. For love making, I prefer a more civilized gravity.”
“Come on, McCoy, everybody knows Martians can’t get it up under normal gravity,” called out PFC Bastion, a member of the next squad over. To this, other insomniacs chuckled at McCoys’s expense.
“Hey, Bastion,” McCoy replied, shortly before giving him an appropriate one-finger salute and then spewing out a string of obscenities that would have made Sullivan’s DI weep with pride. It did not have the same effect on Bastion, who just laughed at McCoy, along with his comrades. “Bloody peanut gallery,” McCoy muttered after he was finished. He turned back to Sullivan, scowling. “And wipe that stupid smirk off your face, Sully.”
Sullivan choked back a laugh of his own. “Yes sir, your lordship.”
McCoy grumbled further. “Bad enough getting flak from those jokers, now I have to sit here and get it from my own squad mates.”
“That’s all you’ll be getting on this planet,” Bastion took one more snipe before trying to catch up on his shut eye.
McCoy picked up the nearest fist-sized object and tossed it at the other Marine. Sullivan watched as it dropped harmlessly out of range. “I hope you aim with grenades is better.”
McCoy shrugged. “Not really. Throwing has never been a strength.” Again, a product of his birth. That was why there were so few professional athletes from Mars.
Sullivan briefly watched the Marines inside the warehouse before turning back to the outside world. “How do they do it?”
“What? Annoy me?” McCoy asked. He had no solid answer, nor even an explanation why everybody simply did not love him.
“No. How do they sleep.” Sullivan was hesitant to sleep, not after the things he has seen on Mac Six.
“It’s easy when you’re dead tired,” McCoy told him. He then explained that Marines should never pass up chances for sleep, chow and latrines. It’s a rule older than the Corps.
Sullivan knew he would not get a second’s worth of sleep tonight. After his turn on watch was complete, he would lay there, tossing and turning. He was too keyed up to sleep, too much on edge. Every shadow outside held a Cat within it. Every movement was the enemy sneaking up upon him. They would come in the night. That was what cats of all sizes did after all. He might not even catch as much as a wink as long as he was on this planet.
Sullivan started awake at the sudden shaking around him. When did he fall asleep? Sullivan did not remember sleep overtaking him, nor was it interrupted by a single dream. He just laid down after watch, and next thing he knew, the world was rattling. Earthquake was his first thought, though there was no such thing inside Earth Station. All he knew about quakes was academic, that they shook everything and were loud.
He was not the only Marines confused. He did notice that only a few of the Vets were confused. The rest were on their feet, rifles in hand. Sullivan readied his own weapon, trying is best to imitated his elders. In function he managed, but in staying calm– that was a failure. Whatever was causing the shaking was growing louder. As a Spacer, he was not accustomed to the sounds all these flat-footed Marines took for granted. His mental library of annoying sounds was low, but this almost sounded like construction equipment.
“Clear the walls!” Fuchian barked, along with every other NCO and Officer in the subterranean warehouse.
With a sudden boom, a distant wall cracked and collapsed, pinning several Marines. A large, durasteel cone breached the wall, crushing some, ripping others to pieces. The monster drill kept right on charging, clearing the rubble completely. Recognition was swift once the noise sat in the middle of the room. A Kilrathi drill-tank, the Cats’ way of breaching fortified locations. Sullivan readied himself for what had to be right behind the drill-tank.
Several lion-shaped shadows emerged from the breach, claws extended. These Cats left their rifles slung over their backs. Marines closest to the breach that were not killed by it were pounced by the Kilrathi, who slashed and mauled them to death. More distant Marines had a few seconds on their sides, where they either brought up their rifles, or wielded decidedly medieval looking weapons. Melee weapons might be history in wars among humans, but when a man faces something more than twice his size, and has five out of six ends pointed, a short sword was mighty useful. More than one Cat lost a paw to the Marines.
Sullivan managed to shake off the shock of the attack, and began to unload upon the Kilrathi. He was not the only Marines. Enough plasma rifles barked that the warehouse heated to an uncomfortable level. The Cats noticed the same thing. Behind their blood-lusted vanguard, a more organized Kilrathi assault emerged. All these Cats wore combat E-suits, and a few giant tanks on their back. Genius was not required to figure out what they were.
“Go for the flamers,” somebody called out. Was it Fuchian? Sullivan could not tell. Above the roar of rifles and now flamethrowers, voices were hard to differentiate.
Next to Sullivan, McCoy threw down his plasma rifle, and pulled out something a little more archaic. With each pump of his new weapon, a loud boom joined the cacophony of sounds drowning his ears. McCoy’s shotgun was not for bird hunting. He fired rounds of phosphorus flechette, guaranteed to set anything on fire. As the air grew unbreathable, Sullivan slapped on his breather. It would do little against the heat, but at least he would not choke to death.
One of the Kilrathi flamers discovered just what flechette could do. The Cat exploded into a walking inferno, flames so intense they cooked him alive inside his E-suit. Marines began to back away from the heat, towards the exits. Marines were as tough as humans came, but all the will in the world could not stop heated air from burning up lungs. The only plus he could notice through the smoke and flames was that the drill-tank was too large to bring its lasers into the battle. That sort of heat would end it in a hurry.
The order to retreat was sounded, though Sullivan was not sure by who. “Come on, Sully,” McCoy said. “Now’s not the time to start disobeying orders.”
Sullivan did not like the idea of running. He did not fly across so many systems just to have the Cats push them back. Still, he was not about to argue. Though his gear was now fuel for the flames. One of the suited Cats lunged from the fire straight at him. Sullivan brought up his rifle and blasted away with plasma. If the shots did any harm, the Cat obviously did not care. Sullivan nearly tripped over himself leaping back from a swiping paw.
In the place of claws, the Cat wielded something that looked like a cross between a gauntlet and garden rake. Sullivan could see the frenzy in the Cat’s eyes, his lips curled back in a vicious snarl. A second later, he could see what lay behind the face as a shot from McCoy’s shotgun blew out the face plate of the Cat’s E-suit. Sullivan began to shake and curse at the same time. Not all his curses were aimed at the mad Kilrathi. He cursed his own body. Now was not the time to shake. He told his body to wait until after they escaped.
His body did relax once upon the surface, and in the cooler air of a Mac Six morning. Far fewer Marines escaped than he expected. The Cats must have breached near the entrance, trapping a great many of the company beneath the ground. Overhead, his battered ears managed to pick out the sound of incoming fire. Artillery rounds began to slam into the Ruyter’s building. Where the Cats bringing down the building on their own... Cats?
No, he realized the rounds were coming in from Terran positions. “What are they doing? Marines are still in there.” Sullivan wanted to rush back into the fire and drag them out.
He wanted to, but firm hands held him. “They’re wasted, private,” it was Fuchian, with a mask both grim and furious behind his breather. “An unprotected body can’t survive that inferno. Battalion HQ is going to make sure protected ones won’t survive either. Had to be a whole company of Cats down there.”
“We can’t just leave them–“ Sullivan insisted. After all, Marines did not leave their own behind.
Fuchian growled. “I know, but we are. I don’t like any more than you do. Less, in fact. I’ve known some of those men since Hubble’s Star. Probably a whole platoon’s worth of Marines killed, and it’s not even breakfast.”
A few more rounds brought the department store down upon itself. The boom of the collapsing building kicked up a storm of dust and debris. Most of it probably toxic. A few explosions were muffled by the collapsed structure; flamer tanks exploding. Three more rounds slammed into the rubble pile, one detonating with enough force to knock Sullivan and Fuchian off their feet.
With a thump and a rush of air, Fuchian hissed in satisfaction. “That double-damned drill-tank won’t be bothering anyone again. We’re lucky it didn’t come in under the stairs– probably their intent.”
Luck. Had they managed, the whole company would have been trapped, and Sullivan would now be one of the dead. It was not skill or merit that saved his life, but the dumb luck of sleeping near the exit. Was that how war was suppose to play out? Better men died because of dumb luck?
“Get up, you lugs,” Fuchian barked as he climbed to his feet. “The day’s still young and we still have plenty of ways to get killed. Let’s not make Death’s job any easier for him.”
Chapter 03
Doveshire
McAuliffe VI
Sullivan watched flashes of light in the distance as the battle for control of Doveshire ran on through the night. The heaviest fighting was no more than a kilometer away. Flashes and fires from the battle lit up the night, washing away the strange formations of stars in the sky. After a lifetime around Earth, Sullivan was accustomed to the constellations. He knew they changed the further from Sol one jumped, and that they would be all but unrecognizable in the Vega Sector. He still misses the familiar clusters he could spot from Earth Station while Earth eclipsed the sun.
Most of the company was trying their hardest to get some shut eye in the warehouse basement of a Ruyter’s. Everything about Mac Six was alien to him, from the stars to the stores. McCoy, on early watch along side him, took it all in stride. He sat on an overturned crate, cradling his plasma rifle and keeping an eye on the night. “One good thing about the fires,” McCoy told him. “Makes it a lot easier to see anyone approach.” The funeral pyre of the city backlit the surroundings. If even so much as a mouse– or the local equivalent– moved, they would notice.
“Can’t see the stars though,” Sullivan pointed out. Unlike the vet, Sullivan kept the butt of his rifle tucked into his shoulder, and surveyed the surrounding neighborhood down the barrel of a rifle. Not much to see in this commercial district of the city. Even less to see while sitting in the shattered entrance to a department store.
McCoy hissed. “Sully, you’re not suppose be watching the stars. Didn’t you get enough of them on the way in?” Though McCoy tried his hardest to never be serious– a mental defense the doctors said– he did not like the thought of his comrade daydreaming in the middle of the night. Especially in a night full of large, predatory cats. Might not be the leopards of distant ancestral memories, but just as lethal. Or rather more so. The cats of East Africa lacked the ability to raze whole continents when angered.
“You think my mind can wander in all of this?” he asked, waving his rifle at the scene before them. The parking lot was surprisingly clean when they arrived. The Cats must have had all the derelict vehicles from when they invaded melted down and recycled into something useful. Those, and the lamp posts that should have lit it. Now, the only vehicles parked on the pavement were a few armored personnel carriers, two of them mounted with surface-to-air missile launchers. The rest had laser turrets, much more useful in shooting down incoming artillery rounds than the missiles.
“Don’t worry, McCoy, my mind can’t go anywhere here– well, nowhere I’d enjoy.” The scene of the human mine replayed in his head too often for him to want to think. What was going through that civie’s mind? Was anything going through it? The docs say that the Cats are real good at implanting suggestions, commands, and even explosives into you. Did the Cats put a bomb in that man? A bomb on the outside would explain the coat, but the inside– perhaps he knew something was amiss and acted strange as a warning.
He was assured that could not be the case. Kilrathi brainwashing went deep, down to the subconscious. Suicide bombers no more aware of what they were doing than locked missiles. The suggestions were planted not only deep, but to last. All that was required to activate them was a simple phrase, a flash of lights, even an image. Another disturbing thought entered his head. If they could be dormant for so long, then how many of the recruits from liberated worlds were bombs just waiting to go off. It would be bad enough for the Marines, or even the Army, but worse for the Navy. A bomb up there could kill a lot more than a couple dozen non-combatants.
“I know what you mean. Didn’t see much of this on my previous campaign. A whole lot of wilderness and starbase and not much in the way of population.” McCoy stopped briefly for consideration. “Not much chance to add another girlfriend to my list.”
Sullivan snapped his gaze over at the Vet. “Another what?”
McCoy gave a grin like a lower-case cat who ate a canary or two. “You didn’t know? I thought everybody in the squad knew. I have myself a woman in almost every port. Three at Sol alone; Mars, Luna and Mercury.”
Sullivan gave him a skeptical look. Sometimes McCoy could seem wise an insightful, other times he just like to spew such utter rubbish. “What, don’t have one on Earth?”
McCoy shook his head. “Never did like that place much. Too heavy there.”
Sullivan was starting to think this was another one of his rubbish sessions. “It’s not that much heavier than here.” Being born on Earth Station, which rotated for something less than 9.797 meters-per-second-squared, he could understand how Earth could make you feel heavy.
McCoy waved the thought away with a brisk swing of his hand. “That’s for walking, marching and killing. Comfort’s not an issue there. For love making, I prefer a more civilized gravity.”
“Come on, McCoy, everybody knows Martians can’t get it up under normal gravity,” called out PFC Bastion, a member of the next squad over. To this, other insomniacs chuckled at McCoys’s expense.
“Hey, Bastion,” McCoy replied, shortly before giving him an appropriate one-finger salute and then spewing out a string of obscenities that would have made Sullivan’s DI weep with pride. It did not have the same effect on Bastion, who just laughed at McCoy, along with his comrades. “Bloody peanut gallery,” McCoy muttered after he was finished. He turned back to Sullivan, scowling. “And wipe that stupid smirk off your face, Sully.”
Sullivan choked back a laugh of his own. “Yes sir, your lordship.”
McCoy grumbled further. “Bad enough getting flak from those jokers, now I have to sit here and get it from my own squad mates.”
“That’s all you’ll be getting on this planet,” Bastion took one more snipe before trying to catch up on his shut eye.
McCoy picked up the nearest fist-sized object and tossed it at the other Marine. Sullivan watched as it dropped harmlessly out of range. “I hope you aim with grenades is better.”
McCoy shrugged. “Not really. Throwing has never been a strength.” Again, a product of his birth. That was why there were so few professional athletes from Mars.
Sullivan briefly watched the Marines inside the warehouse before turning back to the outside world. “How do they do it?”
“What? Annoy me?” McCoy asked. He had no solid answer, nor even an explanation why everybody simply did not love him.
“No. How do they sleep.” Sullivan was hesitant to sleep, not after the things he has seen on Mac Six.
“It’s easy when you’re dead tired,” McCoy told him. He then explained that Marines should never pass up chances for sleep, chow and latrines. It’s a rule older than the Corps.
Sullivan knew he would not get a second’s worth of sleep tonight. After his turn on watch was complete, he would lay there, tossing and turning. He was too keyed up to sleep, too much on edge. Every shadow outside held a Cat within it. Every movement was the enemy sneaking up upon him. They would come in the night. That was what cats of all sizes did after all. He might not even catch as much as a wink as long as he was on this planet.
Sullivan started awake at the sudden shaking around him. When did he fall asleep? Sullivan did not remember sleep overtaking him, nor was it interrupted by a single dream. He just laid down after watch, and next thing he knew, the world was rattling. Earthquake was his first thought, though there was no such thing inside Earth Station. All he knew about quakes was academic, that they shook everything and were loud.
He was not the only Marines confused. He did notice that only a few of the Vets were confused. The rest were on their feet, rifles in hand. Sullivan readied his own weapon, trying is best to imitated his elders. In function he managed, but in staying calm– that was a failure. Whatever was causing the shaking was growing louder. As a Spacer, he was not accustomed to the sounds all these flat-footed Marines took for granted. His mental library of annoying sounds was low, but this almost sounded like construction equipment.
“Clear the walls!” Fuchian barked, along with every other NCO and Officer in the subterranean warehouse.
With a sudden boom, a distant wall cracked and collapsed, pinning several Marines. A large, durasteel cone breached the wall, crushing some, ripping others to pieces. The monster drill kept right on charging, clearing the rubble completely. Recognition was swift once the noise sat in the middle of the room. A Kilrathi drill-tank, the Cats’ way of breaching fortified locations. Sullivan readied himself for what had to be right behind the drill-tank.
Several lion-shaped shadows emerged from the breach, claws extended. These Cats left their rifles slung over their backs. Marines closest to the breach that were not killed by it were pounced by the Kilrathi, who slashed and mauled them to death. More distant Marines had a few seconds on their sides, where they either brought up their rifles, or wielded decidedly medieval looking weapons. Melee weapons might be history in wars among humans, but when a man faces something more than twice his size, and has five out of six ends pointed, a short sword was mighty useful. More than one Cat lost a paw to the Marines.
Sullivan managed to shake off the shock of the attack, and began to unload upon the Kilrathi. He was not the only Marines. Enough plasma rifles barked that the warehouse heated to an uncomfortable level. The Cats noticed the same thing. Behind their blood-lusted vanguard, a more organized Kilrathi assault emerged. All these Cats wore combat E-suits, and a few giant tanks on their back. Genius was not required to figure out what they were.
“Go for the flamers,” somebody called out. Was it Fuchian? Sullivan could not tell. Above the roar of rifles and now flamethrowers, voices were hard to differentiate.
Next to Sullivan, McCoy threw down his plasma rifle, and pulled out something a little more archaic. With each pump of his new weapon, a loud boom joined the cacophony of sounds drowning his ears. McCoy’s shotgun was not for bird hunting. He fired rounds of phosphorus flechette, guaranteed to set anything on fire. As the air grew unbreathable, Sullivan slapped on his breather. It would do little against the heat, but at least he would not choke to death.
One of the Kilrathi flamers discovered just what flechette could do. The Cat exploded into a walking inferno, flames so intense they cooked him alive inside his E-suit. Marines began to back away from the heat, towards the exits. Marines were as tough as humans came, but all the will in the world could not stop heated air from burning up lungs. The only plus he could notice through the smoke and flames was that the drill-tank was too large to bring its lasers into the battle. That sort of heat would end it in a hurry.
The order to retreat was sounded, though Sullivan was not sure by who. “Come on, Sully,” McCoy said. “Now’s not the time to start disobeying orders.”
Sullivan did not like the idea of running. He did not fly across so many systems just to have the Cats push them back. Still, he was not about to argue. Though his gear was now fuel for the flames. One of the suited Cats lunged from the fire straight at him. Sullivan brought up his rifle and blasted away with plasma. If the shots did any harm, the Cat obviously did not care. Sullivan nearly tripped over himself leaping back from a swiping paw.
In the place of claws, the Cat wielded something that looked like a cross between a gauntlet and garden rake. Sullivan could see the frenzy in the Cat’s eyes, his lips curled back in a vicious snarl. A second later, he could see what lay behind the face as a shot from McCoy’s shotgun blew out the face plate of the Cat’s E-suit. Sullivan began to shake and curse at the same time. Not all his curses were aimed at the mad Kilrathi. He cursed his own body. Now was not the time to shake. He told his body to wait until after they escaped.
His body did relax once upon the surface, and in the cooler air of a Mac Six morning. Far fewer Marines escaped than he expected. The Cats must have breached near the entrance, trapping a great many of the company beneath the ground. Overhead, his battered ears managed to pick out the sound of incoming fire. Artillery rounds began to slam into the Ruyter’s building. Where the Cats bringing down the building on their own... Cats?
No, he realized the rounds were coming in from Terran positions. “What are they doing? Marines are still in there.” Sullivan wanted to rush back into the fire and drag them out.
He wanted to, but firm hands held him. “They’re wasted, private,” it was Fuchian, with a mask both grim and furious behind his breather. “An unprotected body can’t survive that inferno. Battalion HQ is going to make sure protected ones won’t survive either. Had to be a whole company of Cats down there.”
“We can’t just leave them–“ Sullivan insisted. After all, Marines did not leave their own behind.
Fuchian growled. “I know, but we are. I don’t like any more than you do. Less, in fact. I’ve known some of those men since Hubble’s Star. Probably a whole platoon’s worth of Marines killed, and it’s not even breakfast.”
A few more rounds brought the department store down upon itself. The boom of the collapsing building kicked up a storm of dust and debris. Most of it probably toxic. A few explosions were muffled by the collapsed structure; flamer tanks exploding. Three more rounds slammed into the rubble pile, one detonating with enough force to knock Sullivan and Fuchian off their feet.
With a thump and a rush of air, Fuchian hissed in satisfaction. “That double-damned drill-tank won’t be bothering anyone again. We’re lucky it didn’t come in under the stairs– probably their intent.”
Luck. Had they managed, the whole company would have been trapped, and Sullivan would now be one of the dead. It was not skill or merit that saved his life, but the dumb luck of sleeping near the exit. Was that how war was suppose to play out? Better men died because of dumb luck?
“Get up, you lugs,” Fuchian barked as he climbed to his feet. “The day’s still young and we still have plenty of ways to get killed. Let’s not make Death’s job any easier for him.”