More and more eruptions flashed and strobed along the ridge as heavy lasers pulsed from the Chinese camp, spraying them with ice. The Marines returned fire, sending missile after missile into the base, setting off dozens of explosions. Whitehead and Jellowski, from First Platoon, kept launching missiles after Wojak and Amberly both ran out of reloads. Then Klingensmith and Brighton were hit by laser fire from the enemy landers.
“Carver! Anderson!” Jeff called, radioing the SEAL pilots of the two subs. “Things are getting hot here. How’re preparations for embarkation going?”
“Almost done, Major,” Carver replied.
“Same here,” Gunners’ Mate First Class Leslie Anderson added. “We’ll be ready to blow this place in ten minutes.”
“Okay. We’re going to start pulling back now. Get things ready to pop as quick as possible.”
He began giving new orders, directing the Marines to start falling back in twos. Second Platoon had been on the line longer, so they withdrew first, leaving only BJ and Nodell to keep their SLAWs working, hammering away at enemy tanks, troops, and buildings.
Another Descending Thunder was coming down. Chesty, tracking the craft on radar, alerted Jeff through the comm net. It appeared to be shifting its landing coordinates to bring it down very close to the crater. Possibly it intended to pass low enough overhead to try to fry the Marine raiders with its plasma torch.
Jeff directed Jellowski and Whitehead to begin putting missiles in the sky in an attempt to drive the lander clear, then told First Platoon to start falling back.
The survivors, he saw, were dragging along the bodies of the Marines who’d been killed, as well as their discarded weapons. A Marine was never left behind by his buddies, no matter what.
TWENTY-THREE
27 OCTOBER 2067
Squad Bay, E-DARES Facility
Ice Station Zebra, Europa
0758 hours Zulu
Two of the Chinese assault troops were down, fist-sized holes burned into their armor. The remaining two unhooked their safety lines and crawled into the Squad Bay, spraying the redoubt with gunfire. Lieutenant Graham’s helmeted head snapped back, a bright white star centered by a small round hole slashed across his visor.
More Chinese troops were crowding through the open airlock now. The hatch leading to the E-DARES’s lower levels was dogged and sealed, so the air in the Squad Bay was rapidly thinning, the roar of its exit dwindling into a thin flutter of escaping atmosphere. Another PRC soldier collapsed, sprawled across the combing of the lock hatch. The man behind him stretched his arm back, then snapped it forward, throwing something.
A small, green metal sphere bounced wildly along the deck.
“Grenade!” Lucky shouted.
The explosion, almost silent except for a thin, high pop, didn’t carry as much of a concussive punch as Lucky had expected; the air was so thin it couldn’t carry the shock wave. But shrapnel sleeted across the barricade and punctured the metal back of an upended locker. Jagged metal sliced across Christie Dade’s shoulder, ripping the outer SC fabric and scarring the ceramic surface of her armor underneath. “I’m okay!” she shouted, continuing to fire.
Two more grenades exploded, one of them behind the barricade. Lucky felt something bang off his PLSS, and prayed that his life-support system was still intact. No red lights on his HUD yet.
Two more PRC troopers crumpled, blocking the open lock hatch. “Fall back!” Pope shouted. “Fall back to the core tube hatch! I’ll cover you!”
Asterias Linea, Europa
0803 hours Zulu
They kept falling back to the Mantas, moving from position to position, providing overwatch support with textbook precision. Finally, only the four SLAW gunners were left on the crater rim, and Jeff told them to start leapfrogging back to the subs. There was no sign of pursuit; it would take the enemy at least an hour to cross that five-kilometer gap to the crater.
The descending lander would be in position to inflict some serious damage on them much quicker, and that had become their main worry now. At an altitude of 3,000 meters, it began strafing the crater floor with its point defense lasers. They were small, only about five megajoules, but one bolt caught Garcia on the top of his helmet, splitting it open in a splattering burst of melted plastic and red mist. Jeff picked him up under one arm and kept moving, dragging him back toward the subs.
Finally, however, the lander’s pilot seemed to decide that the better part of valor was to touch down safely somewhere with its load of reinforcements, not exchange laser fire with Marines until some critical system was hit and he was knocked out of the sky. With the SLAW gunners and SAM launchers still pouring fire into it, it nosed over and began descending toward the Chinese base. With a magnified image, Jeff thought he could see vapor spilling from the craft’s side—a possible hit on an expellant tank.