David Sherman & Dan Cragg - Starfist 02 - School of Fire

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School of Fire

Starfist Book 2

by David Sherman & Dan Cragg

For

Our Mutual Friend, J. B. Post

If it wasn't for him,

these books would never have been written

PROLOGUE

The approaching sounds of snapping twigs and wet fronds squelching under rushing feet came to

Commander Hing's ears. He didn't turn to look toward their source. If it was some fool of a Feldpolizei

trooper coming through the forest, the man wouldn't live long enough to reach his position, except as a

prisoner—his fighters would see to that. Most likely, Hing thought, it was one of his guerrilla band's

scouts returning with the hoped-for report of a small Feldpolizei patrol approaching the ambush site.

Hing kept his eyes idly roaming the road that cut between the shallow-sided hill his position was on

and the equally low hill that rose from the road's other side, while his mind ran through all the possibilities.

A commander who considered all the things that might go wrong could devise plans to turn each possible

wrongness to his advantage.

The sounds came closer and closer and finally stopped, punctuated by the thump of a knee hitting the

ground a meter from where Hing lay concealed in a clump of grospalms.

"Commander, it must be true what we have heard, the Feldpolizei has a new commissioner," a gasping

voice said.

At last Hing turned his attention from the road and looked at the speaker. Fighter Quetlal, the scout

whose hasty approach had snapped so many twigs, squelched so many fronds. The commander raised

an eyebrow questioningly.

Quetlal was grinning broadly. The heaving of his chest quickly subsided; the members of the guerrilla

band were well-accustomed to physical exertion in this heat and humidity. He made his report.

"They are not wearing camouflage. Commander. They are not even wearing plain green or tan to help

them hide among the tees." His grin broadened and his eyes glittered. "There are a hundred of them. And

they are all wearing orange tunics and sky-blue pantaloons. You can tell the officers by the plumes on

their helmets!"

A hundred, normally too many for his company—but in that formation they might be easy to defeat.

Commander Hing instantly thought of something that might be wrong, even with a new Feldpolizei

commissioner as foolish as this one was said to be. "How do you know the ones you saw are not a

diversion?"

Fighter Quetlal grinned more widely than seemed possible and bobbed his head in a quick nod. "I

thought of that myself, Commander. As soon as I saw them I thought they must be a diversion. But

search as I might, I could find no one. Nor could the other scouts with me."

Hing slowly shook his head one time. The oligarchs were getting more and more foolish in their

conduct of this war. Where had they gotten the idea that sharp looking parade ground troops made the

best fighters? Did they really think fancy uniforms would frighten fighting men?

"How long?"

"They are marching briskly in a column. Commander. Much faster than we would move through the

forest. If I had seen us where I saw them, I would say at least a half an hour. As they are marching down

the middle of the road, I must say bare minutes."

"How watchful are they?"

"Their eyes are straight ahead, as though they are passing in review. They are even carrying their

blasters at right shoulder arms."

"Scouts? Flankers?"

Fighter Quetlal shook his head. "They have two point men twenty meters ahead of the column; that is

all of their security." He barked a short laugh. "The point men must think they are ready, though they

march straight ahead—they carry their blasters at port arms."

"Have you passed an alert?"

"As I came along our line. Commander. I told everybody."

"Then continue along our line and tell the rest of the company." Hing turned back to the road; Quetlal

was dismissed. The scout hastened to do his commander's bidding.

Commander Hing's fingers absently caressed the stock of his blaster, fondled its firing lever. His was

one of the few modern weapons possessed by the grandiosely named Che Loi Brigade of the Peoples

Liberation Army, and the only one in this ambush. The rest of the sixty brigade members with him were

armed with obsolete projectile rifles, which was a major reason for this ambush—to take modern

weapons from the corpses of the oligarchy's Feldpolizei. Normally, with only sixty men he would let a

hundred Feldpolizei pass unmolested. But with them marching in formation as they were, they were far

too tempting a target to let go. Soon, in bare minutes, Hing's fighters would strike a mighty blow, and

strike further fear into the hearts of the oligarchy—and become better armed.

"That imbecile sends us to our death," Patrolman Perez muttered to the man at his side.

"Only if they lie in ambush," Patrolman Troung replied equally quietly, "and are not frightened off by

our blasters." He wanted to spit, but Captain Rickdorf's discipline was too severe for him to take the

chance. He rolled his shoulders slightly to ease the way his burden weighed on them. "I'm more

concerned with how my armor makes me sweat."

"Quiet in the ranks," Shift Sergeant Ruiz called out softly from his position marching alongside the

column of twos. Instead of a blaster on his shoulder, he carried a sergeant's saber at trail in his hand. "We

don't want any bandits in the area to hear us and run away before we can catch them."

Captain Rickdorf, marching erect at the head of the column, gave no sign that he'd heard the

patrolmen talking. But he had heard, and he would remember. He promised himself that Perez and

Troung—he knew their voices—would be disciplined for talking out of turn, as an example to the others,

when they returned to the headquarters of the 407th GSB—Grafshaftsbezirk—precinct. Then he put

aside thoughts of troopers so undisciplined that they talked in the ranks, and thought of the absolute

surprise that would overcome the bandits when they finally saw his magnificent company, and the panic

that would grip them when his men's blasters rained fire and destruction on them. He knew in his heart

that Commissioner Schickeldorf was absolutely right: a well-drilled, well-armed, splendidly uniformed

force will always strike fear into the hearts of an undisciplined bandit rabble—the very sight of such a

force could spur the bandit rabble into flight. Even if the bandits attempted to fight, their projectile

weapons would be useless against the body armor his men wore under their tunics. He nodded inwardly,

confident that this brief expedition would rid the Bavaran Hills Province of its bandit problem forever.

Captain Rickdorf saw that the road ahead cut between two steep-sided, thickly wooded hills. Just the

kind of place where he knew the bandits liked to set their ambushes. He smiled inwardly as he thought of

the shock the sight of his troops would induce in the bandits if they were indeed in ambush there. He

hoped they were. This expedition could well earn him a decoration directly from the hand of

Commissioner Schickeldorf—and a much-desired promotion and transfer out of this forsaken hills

province.

Fighter Quetlal had barely left Commander Hing's position when the brigade leader heard the slightly

ragged tramp-tramp-tramp of marching feet coming along the road below. He listened for a voice, but

heard no one counting cadence. So they know how to march, he thought. We shall see soon how well

they know how to die. His men knew how to lie in ambush, invisible from the road—none would fire his

weapon until Hing blew his whistle.

Two troopers, as splendidly popinjayed as Fighter Quetlal had promised, strutted into sight. Sunlight

filtering through the tops of the towering hochbaum trees that grew between the clumps of grospalms

dappled their tunics to the flowing color of old gold. Their marching legs swish-swishing along made their

sky-blue trousers ripple like fast-flowing water in a clear, shallow stream. Hing shook his head; they were

indeed marching erect, eyes straight ahead, blasters at right-shoulder. "Fools," he muttered, dismissing

them, but his eyes lingered hungrily on their weapons. Soon the fighters of his brigade would put those

modern weapons to far better use than these comic-opera Feldpolizei ever could.

Twenty meters behind the point men, the rest of the column snaked along the road, marching two men

abreast. This was so foolish; Hing suspected their commander would have had them marching three or

four abreast had the road been wide enough.

Their commander, oh yes. He was the most glorious popinjay of them all. His tunic was piped with

gold cord, gold epaulettes jounced on his shoulders, and a fourragere—a braided gold cord—swirled

around and dangled from his shoulder. A veritable kaleidoscope of medals adorned his left breast. Broad

bands of silver ran down his trouser legs. It hardly seemed possible, but the saber scabbard that hung

from his tasseled belt looked to be of precious metal as well. The saber he carried point up against his

shoulder looked like a purely ceremonial blade, not a fighting blade at all—as though a sword was a

weapon to use against blasters or even projectile weapons.

As the officer passed below Hing's position, the guerrilla commander turned his attention to the column

proper. Had he known that Captain Rickdorf thought his guerrillas would be surprised, he would have

agreed with him. He was very surprised by the sight of this marching column of the Wanderjahrian

Feldpolizei. They marched as if on a parade ground, their blasters for the moment uselessly propped on

their right shoulders. When he blew his whistle, Hing thought, half would be dead before any of them

could move their weapons into firing position.

Hing counted the ranks of Feldpolizei as they marched past him. When his count reached twenty-two,

he put his whistle to his lips. At twenty-three he sucked his chest full of air. At twenty-four, near the

center of the double line of Feldpolizei, when all were well within the killing zone of the ambush, he blew.

Thunder rippled all along the hillside as the fighters of the Che Loi Brigade opened fire at the marching

column. Here an orange-tunicked man thudded screaming to the ground, clutching his thigh where arterial

blood pulsed brightly from a bullet hole. There another spun about, his shattered arm spraying red. A

brilliant rosette of bone and brain and blood blossomed on the forehead of a third man before he

collapsed. Others staggered from the bullets that thudded into their bodies, but kept their feet as their

body armor spread and absorbed the kinetic energy of the blows.

"Troop! Face to the right!" Captain Rickdorf and his platoon officers shouted above the din of gunfire.

"Front rank, kneel!" Rickdorf calmly snapped his order. The lieutenants echoed the command as they

briskly assumed their positions at one end of their platoons. The shift sergeants stood their places with

their men, ready to relay commands and keep the men in good order.

"Lay your fire in a swath!" Rickdorf commanded, and the junior officers echoed him.

"By ranks. Front rank, fire! Rear rank, fire!" Crackling plasma flashed from the nozzles of the front

ranks' blasters and struck the hillside in a random pattern, followed quickly by an equally random pattern

from the blasters of the rear rank. There were one or two screams from guerrillas charred by bolts, but

the screams were quickly cut off by death or shock. A thin mist instantly spread raggedly on the hillside

as the fire of the plasma bolts vaporized the moisture in the wet leaves and damp earth. Flames briefly

shot up here and there, but quickly went out, as the recent rains had made the forest too wet to burn.

"Line your fire," Rickdorf commanded. Neither he nor his men could see their attackers; they had to

fire together to make sure they covered the hillside. "Front rank, ten meters up the hillside, fire!" The front

rank fired again. This time its bolts struck in an irregular line along the hillside, some in the clumps of

grospalms where the guerrillas hid, others uselessly in the lightly carpeted ground between them.

"Rear rank, leapfrog five meters, fire!" The rear rank fired its volley, and its bolts spattered in a

lightning-bolt jagged line along the hillside five meters above the first line.

Here and there along the two lines of Feldpolizei, men staggered or bent as bullets spent their energy

against their armor, a few screamed in agony from the pain of bullets that tore into arms or legs. Their

screams were not matched from the hillside. Only a few troopers fell from chance hits in their heads.

"Front rank, leapfrog, fire!"

"Steady, lads," Ruiz said, loud but calm, as he marched casually behind the rear rank. "They are only

an ill-armed rabble. We will easily beat them. Steady. Keep up your disciplined fire." Other shift

sergeants said much the same to their men.

Commander Hing saw how the troopers reacted to the body blows of his men's bullets, and

understood almost immediately why they remained standing and continued to fire. Maybe he should have

let them pass. But maybe he and his guerrillas could still win the fight. "They're wearing body armor," he

shouted. "Aim for heads, arms, legs."

Elsewhere along the ambush line he heard others cry out the same order, some so quickly he knew he

wasn't the only one to see and know. The guerrillas shifted their aim from the center of their targets to the

extremities, and troopers started falling.

The Feldpolizei stood or knelt in patient ranks for the space of one more volley before individuals

among them began to notice above the crackles of blasters and bangs of rifles screaming from within their

own ranks and a lessening of their plasma cracks.

"I told you!" Perez shrilled at Troung.

"Keep firing," Troung shouted back.

Terror rapidly mounted in his heart, and Perez glanced to the side—if anyone broke ranks, he would

run with them. He looked just in time to see Shift Sergeant Ruiz's face erupt and splatter blood and brain

from two bullet hits. Perez shrieked in horror and panic at the sight. He dropped his blaster and ran. By

some miracle, he reached the shelter of the trees alive.

Captain Rickdorf, head held high, swept his gaze across the hillside. The bandits must be higher on the

hillside than he guessed; their fire wasn't slackening. "Rear rank, leapfrog ten—" He never finished the

command. Simultaneously, one bullet tore through his throat, a second shattered his right temple, and a

third shot between his open lips and ripped out the joint that held his skull to his neck bones.

The bullet that hit Rickdorf in the throat continued its deadly flight unimpeded and spent itself in the

shoulder of the trooper standing next to him. That man staggered and fell to his knees. The force of the

blow knocked his blaster out of his hands and turned him half about, where he saw the captain's lifeless

body bounce as it hit the road's surface. He screamed, more in shock at seeing his commander down

than because of pain. Struggling to his feet, he tried to run away, but felt the mounting pain of his wound

and was too unsteady for flight. He blundered into the men next to him.

From the hillside, the guerrillas saw the troopers falling now and cheered. On the road, more and more

of the troopers heard and saw the men to their sides no longer firing, either down or breaking ranks.

Abruptly, with their captain dead, the surviving Feldpolizei who were able, ran.

"Get them!" Commander Hing screamed. "Kill them before they get away."

The guerrillas rained fire at the fleeing Feldpolizei, most of whom had thrown away their weapons to

speed their flight. Many of them fell, dead from head shots or crippled with shattered legs. Some

dropped to their knees and faced the hillside with their arms upraised in surrender.

"Cease fire, cease fire!" Hing shouted as the few who managed to dodge his fighters' bullets

disappeared into the trees on the opposite hillside or around a bend in the road. He stood and bounded

down the hill. On all sides his fighters came with him.

Commander Hing looked up and down along the road, between the clumps of grospalms and the

scattering of spikers on the opposite hill. There were more than seventy, maybe more than eighty,

troopers down—dead, wounded, or surrendered. And there were more than ninety blasters scattered

about. It was a most gratifying sight.

"Lieutenant Pincote," he said as his second in command approached. "How many casualties?"

Lieutenant Sokum Pincote showed teeth filed to points when she smiled at him. "Only six,

Commander."

"Six fighters dead is nothing to smile about. Lieutenant," he snapped at her. "I don't care how many

Feldpolizei we kill, the life of one fighter is of greater value."

Pincote's lips snapped shut. "Yes, Commander. I know that. I was merely expressing pleasure at our

victory. We can now properly arm nearly half of the brigade."

Hing looked back at the corpses and casualties uttering the road and nodded.

Hing didn't bother to even shake his head. "We are not murderers. Leave them. We don't dare stay

here long enough to tend them. The unwounded survivors can bandage them."

Ten minutes later the fifty-four members of the Che Loi Brigade who survived the fight were carrying

their burden of ninety-three blasters and the charred corpses of their six dead comrades under the trees,

heading for a narrow, steep sided valley that was hidden from the current orbits of the planetary

government's surveillance satellites. Soon they would join the other 240 members of the Che Loi Brigade

back at their base camp, where the satellites could never see them, no matter what their orbits.

CHAPTER ONE

Thorsfinni's World is a water world studded with islands small and large. High in its northern

hemisphere floats Niflheim, an island approximately the size and shape of the Scandinavian peninsula on

Old Earth. Niflheim is the center of Thorsfinni's World's Viking-based civilization and home to better than

three quarters of its population. In northern Niflheim the summer temperature rarely broaches 25 degrees

on the Celsius scale, its winter temperatures often reaching that degree on the minus side of the scale.

Niflheim is a wet place, rainy when the temperature is warm enough for liquid precipitation, snowy the

rest of the year. And all of Thorsfinni's World smells of fish.

Niflheim. Outpost of Human Space. Home of the 34th Fleet Initial Strike Team, Confederation Marine

Corps. When the Marines of 34th FIST weren't off on a campaign on some other world, they spent most

of their time in the field, either on Niflheim or one of the other islands, training for operations they might

not ever be called upon to execute. Even if they trained for something they would never have to do, their

commanders felt the most important thing was that they trained.

"So that's what we're going to be doing for the next two or three days," Ensign vanden Hoyt said at the

conclusion of his briefing to the men of the third platoon. Company L, 34th FIST. A wry smile crossed

his lips and he added, "Or what you'll be doing, I should say. Any questions? Problems?" He peered

carefully through the steady rain in the direction of the men—his men, his first command. All he could

make out were their indistinct faces through what looked like undulating sheets of water. Their heads

seemed to hover in the air. Ten years in the Corps and he was still sometimes startled by the illusions

created by chameleon field uniforms.

There were no questions and only one problem, but it wasn't voiced. Lance Corporal "Hammer"

Schultz caught the eye of the platoon sergeant, Charlie Bass, and shook his head slightly. Bass replied

with an almost imperceptible head bob. The problem was dealt with.

"All right, then," vanden Hoyt said when nobody spoke up, "Staff Sergeant Bass will make the

assignments. Then you can get back under shelter until it's time for you to go back into the rain." He

stepped aside to let Bass take front and center.

"First squad," Bass said without preamble, wanting to get out of the rain as badly as anyone else in the

platoon, maybe more so. Twenty-odd years as a Marine had taught him when being uncomfortable was

good, and when it wasn't. "Chan, I'm sticking you with MacIlargie and Godenov, so you also get Schultz.

Go someplace and dry off," he said, glancing at the low, dark sky, which showed no sign of breaking,

and shook his head. "Or at least get out from underwater until you get your assignment. Van Impe, you

have Lonsdorf. You also get Neru and Clarke from guns..."

Chan and his three men didn't hear the rest of the assignments. As soon as their names were called,

Chan gathered his men and they slogged through churning mud for shelter.

"You should be in charge here," Chan said to Lance Corporal Schultz. "You're senior to me, and

you've got a lot more experience."

Schultz grunted. He didn't want to be in charge. He was exactly what he wanted to be, a lance

corporal, a man not in command in any way. His function in life, as he saw it, was to be a fighter, not a

leader. The Confederation Marine Corps was filled with men well-qualified to be officers and

noncommissioned officers, more than there were slots to fill. Schultz was an excellent fighter; so far as the

Corps was concerned, he could remain a lance corporal until he retired, if that's what he wanted.

Shelter was a low tent made from three polymer sheets stretched over a framework of strong synthetic

rods. The four Marines had to crouch to get inside, and almost had to huddle together for all of them to

fit. Chan turned on the radiant heating unit that sat in the center of the tent while Schultz secured the

entrance. Wind buffeted the tent and the rain drummed on it, making conversation difficult—but at least

they had a chance to dry out. The four sat cross-legged around the heater and in minutes their fronts

were dried. Then they turned around. Their backs weren't quite dry when the flap opened and Charlie

Bass crowded in, extending his open arms toward the heater as he moaned with pleasure.

"There used to be a disease called rheumatoid arthritis," he said. "Cold and wet made your joints swell

up and hurt. If bio-engineering hadn't eradicated it, I'd probably have it and be aching in every joint in my

body," he twisted his back to ease rain- and wind-stiffened muscles, "instead of just feeling like I've been

turned into a piece of soggy wood." The others chuckled at his joke.

"All right," Bass said, abruptly all business. "Mike Company's making a sweep. Third platoon's going

to stop them. Here's your part of it..."

This phase of the two-week exercise was a three-way force-on-force for the three companies of the

FIST's infantry battalion, with the other units of the FIST in support of all three companies. Kilo and

Mike Companies were acting as complete units in opposition to each other. Company L was playing an

irregular force, broken down into four-man teams that would act in opposition to Kilo and Mike.

Commander Van Winkle, the battalion's commanding officer, wanted to test the junior men, so the

officers and NCOs of Company L were acting as umpires, and each four-man team was headed by a

lance corporal.

A Dragon, the Marines' ubiquitous amphibious armored vehicle, dropped off Chan and his team

twenty-five kilometers northeast of the company's bivouac area. In addition to their weapons and

simulators, they carried light packs with little more than two days of rations. Due to vagaries of local

weather conditions, the sun was shining brightly where the Dragon dropped them off and the rocky

ground underfoot was dry; it hadn't even rained overnight there. The team was in a clearing in the midst

of sparse vegetation that grew to twice the height of a man. The main plants in the area resembled Earth

scrub-pine trees.

Chan checked the time. "We don't know how long it'll be before somebody gets here," he said, "or if

it's going to be a platoon or a whole company or anything else. We need to find a position where we can

watch all approaches from under cover." He scanned the area as he spoke, orienting himself, looking for

recognizable landmarks, building a mental map of the unfamiliar scene.

Nothing that resembled grass grew on the rocks under the pine tree look-alikes, just a spotty coating

of pale green, lichen-like stuff. Spindly plants whose stems didn't look strong enough to hold themselves

upright grew from cracks in the forest floor. Flitterers that could have been butterflylike birds, or birdlike

butterflies, flew from tree to tree. Smaller buzzers that could easily have been mistaken for Earth insects

by anyone but an entomologist zigged and zagged their way among the lower flora of the forest, stopping

here and there to absorb whatever passed for nectar on Thorsfinni's World.

Chan looked to Schultz for help.

Schultz merely shrugged and said, "You're in charge," which was no help at all.

This wasn't realistic, Chan thought. Irregulars should know the area they were in, and he'd never been

there before. Maps didn't tell you what was really there. After a moment, he said, "That tor over there,"

pointing toward a low hill barely visible through the trees to the northwest. "That seems to be the highest

ground around. That's probably our best starting place. If nothing else, we can take a look around from

there." He looked at his men as he talked. Schultz was walking slowly—almost invisibly—about,

examining the terrain with the eye of an experienced infantryman. Godenov was listening intently.

MacIlargie had a quizzical expression on his face and didn't seem to be paying any attention. He had the

kind of face that should have been framed by long, tangled hair, and a mustache with ends that drooped

to below his chin wouldn't have seemed out of place—but Marine regulations required short hair and

forbade mustaches that long.

"Are you listening to me, MacIlargie?" Chan snapped.

"What's that smell?" MacIlargie asked.

Taken aback by the unexpected question, Chan sniffed. He hadn't noticed any aroma that might

indicate danger. "What smell?" he asked. "I don't smell anything."

Godenov, a big young man, deceptively soft-looking, took a deep breath. He didn't smell anything

either.

Schultz seemed to pay no attention to the exchange—he knew what MacIlargie noticed and that it was

irrelevant.

"That's what I mean," MacIlargie said. "Something's missing." His face lit up with a broad smile as he

realized what it was. "Okay, now we see how sharp you are. What's missing? If you can't tell that, you're

not going to be very good on patrols when we go on operations for real." He grinned at the others.

Godenov got it first. "The air doesn't smell like fish!"

"Izzy, if I was in charge, I'd make you my second in command," MacIlargie exclaimed. "You get out

here in the toolies, you gotta be sharp, and you're the only one who figured that out."

Chan simply looked at MacIlargie's grinning face, hovering in the middle of the clearing like the last

glimpse of a Cheshire cat. MacIlargie, like Godenov, was on his first assignment after Boot Camp. Both

had recently joined the platoon as replacements for men lost on the FIST's last operation, peacekeeping

on Elneal. Chan himself had been on four combat operations, including one with the 34th FIST. Schultz

was more experienced than he was.

MacIlargie staggered, then almost fell, and yelped. Schultz, in his deceptively casual, almost invisible

way, had come near and hit him with an elbow—hard. Schultz's disembodied voice mumbled something

that might have been an apology but probably wasn't.

MacIlargie recovered his balance and spun toward where he thought Schultz was. For a second it

seemed he'd attack Schultz if he could find him. But only for a second. He remembered what Schultz

looked like when he was visible—Schultz moved languidly and seldom had much to say, but he exuded a

dangerous self-confidence that gave strong men pause.

Chan spoke up: "We're going to that hill. MacIlargie, take point. Godenov, bring up the rear. Now.

Move it out."

Schultz gave Chan a look that said, I should have the point. Chan said again, "MacIlargie, move out."

Then he added to Schultz, "This is training. He needs the experience."

Schultz nodded, satisfied that Chan understood that if it had been a real operation, he was the one

who would take the most dangerous and important spot in the patrol column.

The tor was closer than it had looked. It was a broad, low platform of limestone, forced upward in

terraces by an up-welling of magma deep below the surface. Scree dotted the ground at the foot of the

tor's steep side.

MacIlargie stopped at the foot of the hill and looked back at Chan, uncertain what to do next.

Schultz brushed past both of them and started climbing the eight-meter cliff to the first terrace.

Chan looked back and saw Godenov's face hovering as he stood watching.

"Watch our rear, Godenov," Chan said. "That's the rear point's job: watch the rear."

Godenov started. "Oh." He turned around and dropped to one knee to peer into the thin trees behind

them.

Even though he could barely make out where Godenov was, Chan saw that he wasn't in position to

effectively watch the rear. He shook his head and wondered what they were teaching recruits in Boot

Camp these days. Surely he'd been better than that at field craft when he went on his first assignment. He

briefly considered taking the time to show the young man how to pick a better position, but instead said

to MacIlargie, "Follow the man."

Schultz's climbing noises indicated he was already over the top of the first terrace. Chan flipped down

his infras so he could watch his men. When MacIlargie was halfway up the first terrace, Chan sent

Godenov after him. He then gave the trees near the base of the hill a quick once-over. When his infras

didn't show anything man-size in them, he followed.

The higher terraces and slopes were older than those below. As the Marines climbed, it became easier

because the increased erosion made the slopes gentler. Here and there crevasses and cave mouths

dimpled the tor.

Once, when they were close to each other, Schultz said to Chan, "I know this place. If we have to, we

can hide."

It didn't take long to approach the top. "Off the horizon, people," Chan said when he saw two

man-size pillars of rock above. He was crouched below the top, as he knew Schultz was.

One of the rock pillars rippled, and MacIlargie's face appeared above it. "What do you mean?" he

asked. "We're wearing chameleons, nobody can see us."

"Chameleons pick up the nearest colors," Chan said, "not what's behind you. You look like a

man-made pile of stone up there."

Rocks seemed to shift as MacIlargie shrugged. "A man-size pile of rock doesn't have to be a man, it's

just a pile of rocks."

Chan flipped down his infras. "These tell me you're a man, not a pile of rock," he said. "Off the top of

the hill."

MacIlargie snorted. "You've got to be less than a kilometer away for infras to show enough detail."

"Hoppers have infras that can pick out a man as far as the horizon. Get down." Godenov had already

dropped down to the military crest of the hill.

MacIlargie's face disappeared and his rock pile rippled as he turned in a circle. "I don't see any

hoppers out there," he said as his face reappeared.

"You don't know anything about evasive flying, do you?"

MacIlargie yelped and his face dropped through the space that no longer looked like a man-size pile

of rocks. Then his shocked, frightened face skittered down from the top of the hill and came to rest next

to Chan.

Schultz's voice came from MacIlargie's other side. "That's how you get someone too dumb to live to

do what you tell him to. Either that or blast him." He had slithered unseen to the top and knocked

MacIlargie's feet from underneath him, then dragged him down.

"Hey, don't do that!" MacIlargie shouted, and swung a fist at Schultz, but the other man had already

moved away.

"Calm down, MacIlargie," Chan said, putting a restraining hand on the new man. "When Marines don't

follow orders, somebody can get hurt. On a real operation, not following orders can get Marines killed."

"No need to knock me down like that," MacIlargie muttered. "You want me to do something, all you

got to do is say so."

"What do you think I was doing?" he snapped. Chan shook his head, then switched his attention back

to the mission. "Everybody, four corners. Use your infras, use your magnifiers, use your bare eyes. And

listen. Mike Company, or part of Mike Company, is out there somewhere. We damn well better spot

them before they spot us. Schultz, far side. MacIlargie, right, Godenov, left side. Do it now." Through his

infras he watched his men moving away. He'd give them a minute or two to get into position, then go

around and check them. Especially the new men, to make sure they were behind rocks that would

reduce their heat signatures.

Everyone was well-positioned when Chan made his rounds—even MacIlargie, who didn't seem to

understand how vulnerable even a man in chameleons and a blaster shield could be. On his way back to

his own position, Chan scouted routes between positions to see how they could move about while

exposing themselves as little as possible. Then he settled down to watch, listen, and wait.

Once the Marines settled down, tiny things, gnatlike flitterers, gathered around their still bodies.

Landed on them, got inside their clothing, crawled about, itched and annoyed them, made them focus

inward, close at hand. As the waiting, watching, and listening time lengthened, the Marines found their

attention diverted from the horizon and surrounding landscape to their very near airspace and skin. The

new men were the first to begin waving their hands to dispel the flitterers, to pluck them off their skin, pull

them out of their clothing, to crush them between fingernails when all else failed. After more than an hour

of watching nothing happen out there, even Chan began paying attention to the bugs. Eventually, Schultz

too was delousing himself. It took a lot to get Schultz to shift his attention from the mission to tiny

bloodsuckers; to him they were simply part of being in the field. And a lot less dangerous than people.

After half a day of boredom and delousing, Chan noticed aircraft humming somewhere in the distance.

The humming quickly grew louder. He looked around but didn't see anything from his position.

"Heads up," he murmured into his helmet comm unit, "aircraft coming. Who sees them?"

A couple of seconds passed before someone whistled over the team's comm net, then MacIlargie's

voice said, "I see ten hoppers. They're coming straight at us."

"Nobody move," Chan ordered. Keeping under cover as much as possible, he rushed to MacIlargie's

position. As the new man had said, ten hoppers were coming at them. They were flying just over treetop

level, less than two kilometers away and closing fast. He shivered.

"Hold your positions," Chan said into his comm unit. "Maybe they'll pass over us and keep going." If

that happened, he knew he and his men would have a long walk trying to follow them. But if that many

hoppers landed anywhere nearby, the reinforced company they must be carrying would be far too many

for his four men to deal with.

The formation began orbiting a small clearing two hundred meters away, and the hoppers touched

down two at a time to disgorge passengers.

MacIlargie said, "We need to even the odds a bit." He checked the simulator on his blaster, raised it to

his shoulder, took aim at the nearest hopper, and fired at it before Chan could stop him.

"Oh, no," Chan groaned. "You just got us killed."

The laser beam the simulator transmitted hit the hopper, and sensors on the aircraft signaled the crew

that their bird was hit, where, and how badly. The pilot radioed his squadron commander that he'd been

hit and the direction the fire had come from, then made a quick landing to off-load the squad and half of

the infantrymen his hopper carried. He immediately lifted off again to treetop level and headed back

toward base at half speed, which was as fast as the simulated damage the hopper sustained allowed it to

go.

Another hopper, carrying extra weaponry instead of passengers, broke from the formation and spun

toward the tor. It opened fire with its simulators, peppering the side of the tor with random fire until its

infras could pick out and zero in on the "enemy."

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SchoolofFireStarfistBook2byDavidSherman&DanCragg ForOurMutualFriend,J.B.PostIf it wasn't for him,thesebookswouldneverhavebeenwritten PROLOGUETheapproachingsoundsofsnappingtwigsandwetfrondssquelchingunderrushingfeetcametoCommanderHing'sears.Hedidn'tturntolooktowardtheirsource.IfitwassomefoolofaFe...

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David Sherman & Dan Cragg - Starfist 02 - School of Fire

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