Starfist: Wings of Hell by David Sherman; Dan Cragg

Author:David Sherman; Dan Cragg
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: High Tech, Space Opera, Fiction, Science Fiction, Adventure, Life on other planets, Military, Marines, General
ISBN: 9780345512680
Publisher: Random House, Inc.
Published: 2008-09-15T10:34:01.814000+00:00

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Newly promoted Lieutenant Charlie Bass, Staff Sergeant Hyakowa, and third platoon’s squad leaders joined Captain Conorado at Company L’s command post when Commander Usner, Thirty-fourth FIST’s F3 operations officer, came to brief them on their raid into the back door of the Skink base. Conorado sat on the ground next to Usner. Three sappers stood behind them. The five Marines from third platoon formed a semicircle in front of them. The Marines all had their helmets and gloves off and their sleeves rolled up so they could see one another in the visible.

“You need to know up front,” Usner said, looking each of third platoon’s leaders in the eye, “that Brigadier Sturgeon selected Lima Three for this mission. You have the most experience of anybody fighting Skinks and taking them down in their own caves. He absolutely did not choose you because you are in the least bit expendable. Got that?” He held each one’s eye until he got a nod.

“Good. Now, the defile seems to be clear at this time. At any rate, the string-of-pearls doesn’t show anybody in it.” He showed them the live infrared satellite feed on his UPUD’s display, a clear view of a cut in the mountainside where recon had discovered a back door to the underground complex. “Unless the Skinks have done more tunneling, we know their layout. This is the section we want to go into.” He projected a hologram map onto the ground in the middle of their ellipse and oriented it so that the entrance faced Bass. “Captain Conorado already has a copy of this and he’ll give it to you at the end of this briefing,” he told them.

“This area is beans and bandages,” he said, using a pointer to indicate a large cavern with an entrance two hundred meters inside the cave, beyond a dogleg turn. The cavern was perpendicular to the tunnel and ran deep under the mountain. The map didn’t show any other entrances to it.

“We’re more interested in this one.” He pointed out a cavern on the other side of the tunnel. Its entrance was a hundred meters beyond the first. “It’s filled with canister-on-packboard arrangements that we believe are compressed air and acid for the Skink small arms. We want a sample, and we want the weapons in the chamber destroyed—that’s why these sappers are going with you. On the way out, if you have time, we also want the sappers to do some serious damage in the beans-and-bandages cavern.

“You’ve got your chameleons, so there shouldn’t be any danger of you getting spotted—the back door was unguarded on both occasions recon was there, and the tunnel in that area seems to be lightly traveled except for a few Skinks occasionally taking an outside break. And if anybody does come along, the tunnels have crates along the walls; you can duck behind them. Given what’s going on right now, the Skinks all seem to be staying in.”

Usner noticed the quizzical looks he got, and explained what he meant.

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