Chapter 6

"I'm starting to rub off on you," I said.

"Bravo. Target tunnels here. This is the lay of the land. We are advancing by the numbers. Kapoor is bringing up the rear," Swanson said marking locations and showing the advance on the battle comps.

"Ready?" she asked us.

I jumped up and launched myself at an angle towards the next depression. It surprised the lizards and they did not fire at me, but were dumb enough to stick their heads up looking.

I did fire though and got plenty of attention by ventilating lizard skulls. It let Swanson then Sanchez move up as well. Swanson dropped next to me and Sanchez to my left. I was up as soon as Sanchez stopped and on my way to the next while Ruben was moving as well. After that it was a steady advance. Somebody shot an officer on the right and things got hot there for a second or two as some gators jumped up and tried to advance as well.

It exposed a weak spot and Kapoor was on it directing people through the hole. Once we got in among them it went fairly quickly. Swanson dropped a B4 down one of the tunnels set for proximity and we skipped off. Only three wounded on that advance and they were still in good fighting order.

"We're not making much progress. The command element is moving almost as fast as we are."

"Can't go much faster. Most can't without exposing themselves to fire."

Breaking through those lines caused the lizards to scramble. We were approaching their rear as they engaged the Command element. A crawler opened up and we had to react to its lobbed balls of plasma, but it wasn't very effective against a mobile force like ours.

Swanson said that Firsk had noticed the lizards dropping out in the rear breaking off pursuit of Command. He warned it looked like dragons with rattlesnakes along with snailed up gators.

At least we did not have to worry about chameleons in the rear. We reviewed the map and picked a spot to meet them. It was not much of a spot, just a small rise. It would give Bravo an advantage in taking out the rattlesnakes. We did have to hurry to get there in time though. I had my doubts they would even engage us. Swanson understood but we could not really rush them if Firsk's estimate was correct. We would be cut down by the dragons and rattlesnakes.

If they did engage us, as soon as the rattlesnakes were neutralized, we were pressing on. They would not engage us up on the rise. As long as we stayed put there they most likely would fire just enough to keep us interested. Dragons were smart.

If they didn't engage, then it was on to plan B, charge.

We watched and waited. When they were overdue I spotted a lone gator.

"Lone gator. Scout," I said highlighting it on the battle comp.

"Fuck," Swanson swore.

"Yup," I agreed.

"Think it will miss us?"

"Doesn't matter. It will stop, I'm sure, and wait."

As if it heard me it did. Finding a spot to hide, it did so.

"Things aren't going well in orbit. We can't wait things out," Swanson said.

"Nope."

"I'm not sure I like your one word answers," she said a little stressed.

"Sit tight. I'll be right back," I said.

If she was in the other group or on ship I wouldn't be doing what I was going to do. Earning medals is stupid. If I weren't a lifer, I was sure as shit a private. Stupid private thing to do.

I shifted back and over. Down the rise I started to run.

Swanson saw my movements on her battle comp.

"If you die I'll never forgive you," she said.

I did not answer. I would have said something best left unsaid.

As I rounded the rise I was moving at about 350 klicks. It may sound trivial, but running in Armor is about the hardest thing you can do. One has a tendency to leap and fly though the air.

The gator was not prepared for me and died before it knew I was there. I did not slow down and ran right ahead. As soon as the battle comp picked them up I relayed the grids to Swanson and she ordered Bravo to unload. I changed direction slowly, it was impossible to do much more than that at the speed I was moving without tumbling ass over teakettle through the air. Instead of running right for them I was heading towards them at a tangent which would bring me close.

As soon as my coilgun was in the extreme range I fired slowly. I could fire midstride. I actually hit a few at that distance and was fairly effective as I flew by them closer. The darts and plasma rifles the lizards used were not accurate enough to hit me at speed I was moving. Class V Assault Armor is not very big.

As I got closer I upped the rate of fire. When I passed within fifty meters of the flank I was killing quite a few lizards. They were firing recklessly trying to be the one that hit me. Past them I was looking for someplace to slow down.

That was the trick. Stopping. Going at a break neck sprint un-augmented on foot required some concentration to slow down. Augmented and in Armor it was downright dangerous. A nice lake would have had come in quite handy.

Just putting on the brakes would send me tumbling and flying through the air unless I slowed some. So I just ran a little slower until I could stop and stayed in open terrain.

Now I was guessing that the lizards I passed let the others know I was headed their way. That was not my plan. I was headed back, sort of.

Skipping as fast as I could, it was a whole lot less tiring than running, I headed back. I was a couple clicks off to their flank when I stopped.

Once again I ran. Ran as fast as I could. Faster than the first run. This one would be the one that would most likely get me killed.

The lizards were still in place mostly. I could see that mortars had done some real damage. They had moved away from me and forward to move out of the mortar fire which was finished.

I gave Swanson new grid numbers on the battle comp.

"Wait til my signal," I told her concentrating on breathing.

"Understood," she said.

I think the dragons were baffled by my strafing. The first one was not all that effective in reality. Killing fifty or so gators was not important to lizards. My second one though got them good and stirred up.

They did not notice me until I was practically on top of them. I ran in from the flank a little to the rear and ran behind them. The dragons were in the rear along with the rattle snakes.

My CG7HA was firing the largest slugs it could at its highest rate. I wanted to be sure I did as much damage as possible.

I unloaded 325 rounds in just under the three seconds I was able to fire upon them. There was not a lot of aiming involved. I was just shooting at the right elevation at the right time with the battle comp's help.

It recorded that I'd hit and most likely killed hundred dragons and five rattlesnakes. A slug at that speed and size tended to take limbs off if I winged a dragon. A torso shot went right through them and hit the lizard standing behind him. It would even punch holes in the rattlesnakes. That was also half my remaining slug pack.

"Fire then charge," I sent to Swanson as I fired my last shot.

"Bravo fire! Everybody advance on the double!"

I slowed down again and circled around able to get eyes on them and called in fire to remove the last rattlesnake. About when the unit made it in range I started to snipe at dragons. I was just too winded and tired to run down there and help. Bravo was launching grenades once they got in range and the lizards did what they always did. They charged.

Charging lizards we had covered. I watched for a few minutes sniping as they attacked. The dragons were deadly even in disarray. Everybody knew the threat they represented and they got concentrated fire. Swanson and Sanchez were in my sight and both damn near died even with my help. Sanchez took a dart in the thigh.

There were too many wounded to just fight through and move on. It would have been the smart strategic thing to do though. We did not have much choice really. I fired from a distance until the last lizard was dead.

We had seven critical and ten walking wounded. Some of the criticals most likely would not make it unless recall happened soon. I took one of their partial slug packs and consolidated.

Swanson was organizing getting us moving again and I watched everybody. Kilo had taken most of the casualties. I noted that Flanders was critical. The rock would probably survive though. Nobody said much to me as I took my position back on point. We did not stay there, licking our wounds, long. A couple quick field repairs to some of the walking wounded. They would be transporting the criticals like always.

Our numbers were not good. We had thirty seven walking wounded, ten criticals, and 169 able bodied Marines. Eighty five were from Whisky, sixty from Bravo, and the rest Kilo.

I ranged ahead a good distance, further than normal. We had too many down to not have ample warning. Swanson gave me an update on the Command element. They were slowly losing. They had twice the number of wounded and criticals and two hundred and seventeen able bodied Marines. Firsk reported that there weren't any more elements seen leaving the main attack force, but that he had seen movement of a swarm on its way from an aerial view from a bumblebee.

I started to steer us towards intercepting the swarm headed their way. Firsk had asked us to buy them some time. I had no intention of buying anything. I'd delay them and do my best to lead them away but I was not going to stand with under two hundred Marines against a swarm. We would gun and run. Swanson agreed with me.

If we got orbital support back it would be a different story. That was still in motion though. We could see the missiles launch and cannon fire in the distance with return fire from the fleet.

"We need to slow down a swarm heading towards the Command element. Any suggestions?" Swanson asked the NCO channel and patched me into it.

"A whole fucking swarm? We are supposed to slow them down when we are fucking outnumbered nearly twenty to one?" Kapoor said clearly pissed.

"We don't have enough rounds left to mount any serious threat to them," SSgt. Pavel said from Bravo.

"Swanson. Find out how many B4s we have," I asked her privately.

"How many B4s do we have access to?" she asked.

"Thirty two," came from Pavel.

"We set a trap," I suggested to Swanson.

"You sure?"

"It should get the least amount of us dead," I told her.

"Okay. It's a good idea," she told me.

"Okay. We are going to set a trap. Pavel, police up the B4s. Kapoor pick a fire team and send them to me."

Kapoor told me to meet Swanson. I skipped over to her pulling back. Ruben took my place.

Cpl. Reed, LCpl. Rodriguez, and LCpl. Baum were the other lucky ones. We loaded up with B4s and noticed that Swanson was loading herself as well. With the ones from Whisky we each ended up with eight.

Kapoor was to set up a series of fall back positions if we came back with pursuit. Marines got busy digging fox holes. In Armor you can dig a mighty big hole quick.

"Okay let me in on the details. I've got a good idea already but let's hear it," Swanson said.

"Simple enough. A swarm of lizards travels in their own clan units. We set up a grid of B4s and detonate them more or less at once. If they are not on the right path we lure them to the trap."

"You done this before?"

"Nope. I've played the rabbit before. Not to blow them up quite like this though."

"I don't know if that is reassuring or not."

It was a good thing Swanson was with us. We had trouble finding the swarm. Oh we would have found them eventually. It's hard to hide three thousand lizards, but time was an issue. She used one of her few remaining bumblebees to spot them.

A quick discussion took place on where to place the B4's and we were off. I got the far side being the fastest. Swanson got the closest. She was realistic. The three others from Force Recon were more skilled operators than she was. She was getting better though, but they were veterans.

Shallow holes hid the bombs. We were spread out in case we had to lure them. Watching we saw them head over towards Swanson's area.

"Fuck," Swanson said quietly.

She was nervous. I was nervous.

"Relax. Stay down and act like an OP. Not a lure," told her quietly and calmly.

"Okay," she said.

"Just wait sweetie. Wait. Wait. Okay now get up and skip off like you are a scout reporting. No shots," I said coaching her not realizing what I had called her.

She did not say a word though and did exactly as I coached. It worked perfectly. They got a little excited and shifted after a few minutes. Swanson had got the Command elements location from Firsk and we made sure to place our trap accordingly. They were not that far away, only a few klicks.

We staggered the B4s. The ones in front were first. Then the rear. Finally the center and, as they scattered, the perimeter detonated. When the dust cleared, and we could see the aftermath, there was chaos. Not all of them were dead. Enough were though, that they were looking for revenge.

The rest of our unit was alerted and ready. The lizards were headed right for me. Swanson was ahead already with the others. We worked together moving just fast enough and fighting long enough to keep them rushing for us. Some grenades dropped on delay would strike in the middle or rear of the mob that pursued.