March or Die by Andrew Keith

Author:Andrew Keith [Jr., Andrew Keith and William H. Keith,]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science fiction, alien, revolt, rebellion, Foreign Legion, survival
Publisher: WordFire Press
Published: 2016-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

What are you complaining about? I’m creating glory for you.

—Colonel Pierre Jeanpierre,

French Foreign Legion, March 1958

“A glorious tactic, Lieutenant Fraser! Glorious!”

Fraser tried to conceal his unease as he regarded the Ubrenfar sergeant. The saurian’s scaled, heavily-muscled body was marked by dozens of gashes, cuts and patches of missing scales but Ghirghik had spurned any offer of first aid. When Fraser’s men had finally cut their way through to the survivors from Charlie Company, the big alien had been standing in the center of a ring of hannie dead, FEK dry of grenades and needle rounds alike, wielding a blade like an oversized kukri and singing a discordant Ubrenfar battle song.

Ghirghik had seemed disappointed that he hadn’t died gloriously at the height of the battle, but his praise for Fraser’s attack on the hannie rear had been unstinting.

Not that everyone agreed with the sergeant. Not even Fraser.

The hannies were gone, dispersed by the sudden onslaught of the legionnaires. But the butcher’s bill at Shelton’s Head made the triumph seem hollow. Seventy legionnaires had withdrawn to the plantation after the initial hannie attacks. Of the forty-six still alive when Fraser’s men reached Ghirghik, over half were wounded—ten of them seriously. Subalterns Jacquinot and Lawton had died, and the two vehicles the legionnaires had brought out were both useless hulks now. Fraser’s force had lost five dead and three wounded as well.

It didn’t sound that bad … except that every casualty suffered in these remote jungles was irreplaceable. And when primitive hannie soldiers could kill so many high-tech Commonwealth troops, even at the cost of hundreds of their own kind, the Terran victory was a Pyrrhic one at best.

“Goddamn it, Lieutenant, why didn’t you let us know?” That was Sergeant Baker. He’d lost his helmet, and a hannie rifle butt had cut a deep gash across his forehead in hand-to-hand fighting around the plantation buildings. The heavy bandage over it gave the man a distinctly piratical appearance. “We could have held out long enough if we’d known you were coming! Instead of charging the monkeys.…”

The Ubrenfar snorted derisively. “It was brilliant,” he said. The afternoon sun lancing through the windows glinted off his scales as his tail twitched. “Using us to focus their attention, then hitting them from behind before they could react…!”

Fraser looked away. He had used Charlie Company, used them as a diversion for his attack. At the time it had seemed clever.

Now, though, he was ashamed. The Ubrenfar’s praise was salt in the wound. Everyone knew their callous disregard for life, their ruthlessness in battle.

So much for clever tactics, he told himself bitterly. More lives wasted. Another mistake.…

Watanabe cleared his throat. “Lieutenant, last report from Garcia says we’ve got bad guys gathering down the road. Shouldn’t I be getting the men ready to saddle up?”

Fraser nodded slowly. “Do it, Sub. Wounded get first call on the APCs.”

The subaltern saluted. “Yes, sir. I’ll have Legionnaire Russo take over Tran’s C3 duties, if that’s all right with you.”

“Yeah. Fine.” Tran’s death was still fresh in his mind.

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