Issue In Doubt

CHAPTER Twelve

Mini Mouse, LZ 1



“First fire team, get to that Kestrel!” Sergeant Martin shouted. “Second and third, lay down fire on those vehicles!”

The downed Kestrel was a hundred meters away to the northeast. To the north-northeast, two vehicles of an alien design were bouncing toward them at a high rate of speed from less than two kilometers away.

“First fire team, let’s go!” Corporal Adriance shouted, and began the shuffling low-gravity walk men had used since Neil Armstrong first stepped on Earth’s moon centuries earlier.

Three crewmen from the Pegasus were already on their way, driving a motorized litter to carry the pilot back.

Second and third fire teams began firing on the approaching vehicles. The Marines’ rifles were loaded with alternating armor piercing and explosive rounds. The armor piercing bullets bounced off the armored fronts of the vehicles, the explosive ones barely pitted the surface. The enemy didn’t give immediate return fire; maybe they didn’t have a mechanism that would compensate for the bouncing.

First fire team reached the Kestrel just as the rescue men were loading the unmoving pilot onto the litter; the Marines couldn’t tell if he was conscious or not, or even if he was still alive.

Adriance saw how ineffective the fire from the rest of the squad was, and knew that adding fire from four more rifles on their fronts wouldn’t do anything to stop the alien vehicles. He decided to do something else.

“First fire team, try to ricochet your rounds to the undercarriage of the one on the left,” he ordered, and began firing into the regolith in front of the vehicle, sending fragments of stone bouncing into its lower front and underneath it. In an instant, the other three Marines began firing the same.

“Our armored vehicles have their strongest armor on their fronts,” Adriance explained absently as he maintained steady fire, “and the weakest on the bottom. If these bad guys build theirs the same way, we might be able to break through.”

Maybe, maybe not, but it was worth a try—and it was. Something broke in the vehicle. Gases began venting from its bottom. It slewed to a stop, turning its side to the Marines. The vehicle on the right had to swerve violently to its left to avoid running into its damaged mate, throwing up a curtain of dust and gravel before pointing back toward the humans.

Sergeant Martin saw what first fire team did. “Second and third fire teams,” he shouted, “did you see what they did? Do the same thing—bounce your rounds underneath the one that’s still coming at us.”

By then, the occupants of the first vehicle, a dozen of them, had scrambled out of it and were charging in high, jinking bounds at the Marines by the Kestrel. The shape of their vacuum suits would have stunned the Marines had they not already seen the vids and stills brought back by Force Recon, and sent during the original alien attack on Troy. The legs were long, and bent the wrong way; the arms were too short; forward-jutting heads stuck out on very long necks. A large bulge on the rear of the suits counter-balanced the heads. They ran bent at the hips almost parallel to the ground.

The charging aliens were firing rifles, but their shots were wild and none seemed to come near the Marines. They were closing fast, their run was much faster than the Marines’ shuffle, but they didn’t seem to be as well trained at low gravity movement. Or maybe their jinking wasn’t suitable for rapid movement in low gravity. They kept stumbling and tripping.

The Marines of first fire team took advantage of the stumbles and trips to take aim during the brief seconds their targets were relatively motionless. The armor piercing bullets mostly glanced off the aliens’ armor, but some of the explosive bullets punctured them, venting air.

“First fire team, get back here,” Martin ordered when the litter was halfway back to the Pegasus.

“Let’s go!” Adriance repeated the order to his men. He looked to see that they were obeying. “That includes you, Zion.”

But Zion didn’t move; he was half sitting, folded over his rifle.

Adriance swore. “Mackie, check Zion!”

Mackie had already began the shuffle-run back to the Pegasus and had to turn back. Adriance didn’t wait for him, he was already kneeling over Zion when Mackie reached him.

Adriance’s face was barely visible through his faceplate when he looked at Mackie, but his expression was grim. Not all of the aliens’ shots had gone wild.

“Marines don’t leave their dead,” the fire team leader said, thick-voiced. “Give me a hand.”

When the two of them raised Zion, Mackie saw where a hole had been punched through the neck of the other’s armor where it was jointed to his chest plate. Air had vented explosively, blowing the hole much larger. Blood had vented as well from a wound in Zion’s throat, staining the edges of the hole red. They draped his arms over their shoulders and ran, with Adriance carrying Zion’s rifle.

By then, fire from the rest of the squad had crippled the second vehicle, and the Marines were firing at the bounding, jinking, stumbling aliens. Only a dozen were still making the mad charge. But not all of the dozen who were down had been hit; at least four of them had gone prone to give aimed return fire.

“Let’s move it, first fire team!” Martin shouted. “This bird is almost ready to fly away. The squids’ll leave you if you aren’t here when they’re ready to go!” He looked at the prone aliens giving return fire, and ordered, “Second fire team, take him out.” He fired a shot himself at one of the shooters to show who he meant. In seconds, four more bullets struck that one, and he stopped shooting.

“Now get the other shooters!”

The lead running aliens reached the Pegasus at the same time as Adriance and Mackie, and one of them barreled into the two of them and their burden, knocking them down.

Mackie kicked out as he fell, smashing an armored foot into the alien’s backward-bending knee, felling him. The Marine jumped up and stomped on the alien’s helmet, then grasped his rifle with one hand behind the receiver and the other in the middle of the forestock. He saw another alien rushing at him with his weapon pointed like a spear. Mackie pirouetted out of the way of the lunge, and slammed the butt of his rifle at his assailant’s head. But the momentum of his spin carried him around and off balance, so his blow barely staggered the alien. But that slight stagger was enough to allow Adriance to swing his rifle around in a wicked blow that shattered the alien’s facemask.

With two down at their feet, Mackie and Adriance had a few seconds to take in the entire fight. It was one-on-one, man-to-man close combat—man to alien; they had to be aliens, there was no way a human being could jam into one of their vacuum suits without breaking bones and disjointing limbs.

No one was shooting in the melee; the combatants faced too much danger of hitting their own if they did. They were all using their weapons as clubs, quarterstaffs, or thrusting spears.

Just a couple of meters away, Orndoff was being forced backward by an alien jabbing and thrusting at him. Mackie and Adriance both stepped toward the two. Adriance swung the butt of his rifle in a golf club stroke at the alien’s low-slung head while Mackie reversed his weapon and slammed its butt into the alien’s side. Orndoff’s attacker fell away in an uncontrolled tumble, and came to rest twisted in ways that couldn’t be natural for its kind.

Corporal Button, the third fire team leader, went down clutching his abdomen. The alien who had knocked him down jumped on his helmet, but in the low gravity lacked the force necessary to break anything. Button rolled away but wasn’t able to regain his feet as the alien pursued him with repeated, rapid kicks. Adriance leaped in Button’s direction to help him.

Mackie shuffled to the aid of second fire team’s PFC Harry Harvey, who was closer and parrying off rapid blows from another alien.

Orndoff screamed a war cry, heard only by the Marines through their helmet comms. He leaped at the back of one of two aliens attacking Lance Corporal Fernando L. Garcia. He misjudged in the low gravity and sailed over the alien, but managed to slam his rifle’s butt downward onto the alien’s neck, jarring him. The alien whipped his head around to see what had hit him and saw Orndoff, off balance from hitting him, thud onto the regolith and tumble. The alien leaped at the Marine, freeing Garcia to concentrate on his other attacker.

Orndoff twisted to turn his tumble into a controlled roll, so he was facing up when the alien pounced at him. The alien’s jump was better than Orndoff’s had been, but he still flew high and came down slowly in the low gravity. The Marine had time to twist his body to the side to miss the worst of the alien’s jump, and brace himself to lunge upward with his rifle. The alien already realized that swinging his rifle club-like would throw him off balance; he came down with his rifle pointed straight down, to spear his opponent. He missed Orndoff’s twisting body, but the Marine connected with his target when he lunged up and plunged the muzzle of his rifle into the joint where the elongated helmet met the top plate of the neck armor. The alien’s limbs shot out away from its body, then it jerked its hands to its throat and clutched at Orndoff’s rifle barrel. He crashed onto his side, yanking the rifle out of the Marine’s grip. Orndoff jumped to his feet and tried to retrieve his rifle, but it was jammed too tightly into the alien’s armor.

Orndoff spun around in a hands-extended crouch, ready to grab or parry any weapon coming at him. The closest alien he saw was the second one attacking Garcia. Garcia had that alien down and was slamming the butt of his rifle repeatedly into his helmet.

A few meters beyond, Mackie had also lost his rifle. He ducked past a thrust from an alien and grabbed his neck just behind his head. Bracing himself, Mackie twisted, spinning around and flinging the alien’s body off the ground like a whip. Halfway through a twirl, he fell backward, but didn’t release the alien’s neck. The alien thudded to the ground and sprawled limply. Mackie hopped upward and kicked the alien’s head. It flopped at the end of its long neck. He looked around and saw Adriance down with an alien grabbing at his facemask, looking like it was prying it open. Mackie dove at the alien, hitting him full force on his side. The alien bounced along the ground almost like a flat rock skipping across a pond. Mackie raced after it to grab its neck before it could recover, and fling it the same way he’d killed the other one.

This alien was faster, and was on his feet facing Mackie before the Marine reached him. The two, both without rifles, crashed together. The human was heavier than the alien, and drove him back. The alien flipped, so his head was toward Mackie’s feet. Unable to grab the alien’s neck the way he had the other one, Mackie wrapped his arms around his torso and stood erect, squeezing as tightly as his augmented arm strength could. It wasn’t enough to crush the armor, or even dent it.

The alien struggled, but his arms were too short to wrap around Mackie’s legs to pull him off his feet. His legs, though, were big and powerful. He kicked them wildly, and threw Mackie off balance. They crashed on their sides to the regolith. The alien slammed his head against Mackie’s legs, and Mackie kicked back at his neck and the underside of his head before letting go and rolling away and bounding up into a crouch.

The alien was already up and leaping at the Marine. Mackie threw himself backward and thrust out with his feet, catching the alien on the upper part of his chest. The alien’s momentum rolled Mackie into a reverse somersault, and the Marine’s legs were a lever that threw the alien over him and away.

This time Mackie was on his feet first, and reached the alien in time to grab its upper neck. He jerked upward, lifting the alien off the ground, and slammed him onto the regolith hard enough to make him bounce. He grabbed the alien’s neck with his hands almost half a meter apart, and brought it down sharply across his knee. He thought he felt something break inside the armor. The alien went into uncontrollable spasms. Mackie gave its head an extra kick, and looked around for another alien.

The fight was ending. Eight Marines and no aliens were standing.

“Fire team leaders, report!” Sergeant Martin’s voice was hoarse over the comm.

“I’m here,” Mackie reported. “Adriance?” he asked when his fire team leader didn’t reply. Instantly, he took over. “Orndoff, are you all right?”

“I’m five by,” Orndoff answered, breathing heavily. “Where’s Adriance?”

The fire team leaders’ reports took longer than they should have because both Corporals Adriance and Button were down. So was third fire team’s PFC Hermann Kuchneister. PFCs Zion and David Porter were both dead.

Corpsmen from the Pegasus were checking the wounded before the fire team leaders’ report was finished.

“All right, Marines, get everybody loaded,” a voice—the pilot? the SAR commander?—ordered. “Leave the aliens, we don’t have room to take any of them. Maybe we can come back later to deal with them.”

Two minutes later, the Pegasus took off with a short rolling start. The two dead were propped in corners, the wounded laid out on the deck between the benches.



The Aftermath of the Mini Mouse Missions



In retrospect, it was a good thing that the squads assigned to security duty for the Pegasuses on the Search and Rescue missions were from different regiments. Three of the four squads had contact on the ground, and all three of those suffered casualties. India Company’s squad hadn’t suffered the most, nor had it suffered the least. Among them, the four squads lost a total of five Marines, with ten more wounded. Most of the latter were expected to recover and return to duty. That would have been very heavy losses for one platoon; forty percent of its strength.

All of the aliens who fought the Marines were killed.

This was the first combat experience for most of the Marines involved, the first time they’d had to kill in order to live, the first time they’d had to deal with buddies getting wounded or killed.

And they still didn’t have a clue who these aliens were who they’d had to kill, or why those aliens attacked had Troy and the fleet.