Kris didn't need to tell him he would not be using sleepy darts. The force it took to punch through armor made even a sleepy dart deadly.
''Roger, ma'am. Starting one—''
Kris punched back to Jack. ''Prepare to fire on Gunny's shot.''
Then Kris turned to Penny. ''Tell everyone in this hill not to fire.''
''Don't fire.'' And she was off.
The word passed from gallery to gallery. Kris doubted it would get to everyone, but it should keep the fire down a notch. Maybe she'd have some surprises left for the next assault.
A single shot rang out.
And the valley before Kris erupted with fire.
The small viewing port deflected the full shock and blast from Kris, but its impact was immediately visible.
Men dropped.
The platoon moving forward had their guns at the ready. At the first sound of shooting, they let go on full automatic.
Kris didn't see any targets, but they sprayed the area before them liberally. The complaining farm animals took most of the brunt of their fire. But only for a moment.
Under the hammering of fully automatic fire, Kris could just make out the pop, pop, pop of M-6s firing single shots, low powered for sleepy darts. Men went down in ragged rows. Some twitched. A few managed to get an arm under their heads like they probably did at bedtime. However they did it, they went down.
Out on the rice-paddy dikes, others were going down, too.
Some were hit and going down. A couple looked like they were just dropping. Maybe Jack's Marines weren't getting all of them, but it was hard to tell who was hit and down and who was faking. Maybe the fakers would play it smart and just stay down.
Yeah, right.
The platoon on overwatch was giving as good as it could but couldn't find anything to aim at. Their rapid-fire volleys To Whom It May Concern didn't hit anywhere Kris had stationed gunners. Still, the leaves were flying from the tree and bushes in front of Kris's position, and a noisy round shot into her command post to bury itself in the ceiling.
''Fire enough, and you're bound to hit something,'' Kris mused to the senior clan members sharing the command center with her, then hardened her voice for Red. ''Put the gun down. Don't even think of firing from here. I don't want this hill firing this attack, and I sure don't want us showing where we are.''
Gamma Polska put out a hand, rested it on Red's rifle. The barrel sank to the floor. ''Seems like a chicken way to fight a war,'' he growled.
''Colonel Cortez is just feeling for us,'' Kris said. ''I doubt he expected to lose everything he sent in this time, but this is not his main attack.''
The rapid fire from the white-shirted troopers quieted as they went to sleep, or, in the case of those hit by the farmers, screamed for help. Now Kris could make out the shriek of M-6s on full power. The shots were carefully spaced, and though Kris could not risk a run to one of the gun ports that opened on the other side of her hill, she was willing to bet money that Gunny's team was taking down each of the heavy infantry in that gully. Probably one shot, one target.
''Comm, raise Gunny,'' Kris said.
''I'm flashing him, but he's not answering'' told Kris that Gunny was indeed busy. On Kris's front matters got active.
One of the white-clad soldiers who'd fallen off the dike had been faking it. Down, he spotted a firing port.
Yanking a grenade from his belt, he pulled the pin, leapt up, and tossed it at the opening in the dike. Then he dashed over the dike to escape his own grenade's blowback.
Five rapid pops stopped him. Even before his grenade exploded, he was falling, headfirst, onto the other side of the dike wall. From what Kris could see, legs up, body down, the grenadier was very likely head down in muddy water.
Sleepy darts weren't intended to be lethal. However, if you went to sleep facedown in two feet of water, the darts did nothing to help you breathe.
This was battle. People died.
Through the phone, Gunny's voice came. ''The heavy infantry on your and my hills are down,'' was all he said.
The guy drowning in front of Kris wasn't the only fellow whose name would be on the butcher's bill for today.
No, maybe not.
Across the paddies from Kris, one of the white coats came to his feet. He had no gun, and his hands were held out in the universal sign for surrender. He climbed up onto the dike and hastily made his way to where his comrade lay, feet down.
Kris held her breath as the man pulled his buddy from the water, arranged him so that his mouth drained water, then gave him one or two breaths of artificial respiration. When the half-drowned man began to cough up water, the rescuer smiled.
A single pop, and the man looked down. Someone had put a sleepy dart right in the middle of the guy's chest.
And the guy lay down and went to sleep.
''Ha,'' Kris said into the phone, but for all to hear. ''Let's see how Colonel Cortez takes to our way of fighting.''
36
Cortez scowled. He'd watched that loving tableau of battlefield mercy through his binoculars. A moment earlier he'd watched as half a Guard platoon had been wiped out by hidden fire. Thus ended Cortez's planned envelopment of what he'd mistaken as a limited position.
''This is not a small force,'' Cortez muttered to himself.
''It must be at least battalion size,'' Major Zhukov said. ''Maybe bigger.''
''But how many of them are those damn Marines?'' Cortez asked, chewing his lower lip.
''If we can trust this scandal mag,'' Captain Sawyer said, unfolding the cheap newspaper he'd confiscated from a trooper, ''all the Longknife girl has is what's left of an embassy Marine company that she didn't get killed in her last escapade.''
''She's had time to return to Wardhaven, to be reinforced,'' Zhukov pointed out.
''Enough!'' Cortez snapped. ''We're here to boot her out. Quit talking and start booting. She's spread shooters wide to cover this whole front. She can't be strong everywhere. And if most of her firepower is these damn farmers, I'll bet you my eagles she can't get them to move an Earth inch under fire.''
Cortez gauged the reaction of his subordinates. Sawyer's face was a wolf's grin. And a hungry one at that. Zhukov's eyes had narrowed. He was holding his judgment. A good XO.
''Sawyer, your company is nearly full strength. Take it wide around the swamp side. Stay low on the far side of the farthest-out dike. Zhukov, send along a squad of the Guard.''
''It will be done, sir,'' Zhukov said, sprouting a tiger grin.
''You there,'' Cortez said, signaling to the youngest captain from the psalm singers. ''Take what's left of your company and climb those hills on our right. I want you to set up fire lanes down both valleys, the one where our Guard squads got hit and the next one over. Don't let them come around our flank. Don't let her move troops from one hill to the other without knocking some daylight into them. You understand?''
''Yes, Colonel.''
''And don't just sit on your hands. Probe those two hills. I don't want you launching a full-fledged assault, but don't let them ignore you, either. Probe for firing positions. Are they isolated spider holes or connected by tunnels? If they are connected, send me a runner and carefully, boy, carefully work at getting some of your shooters into their tunnels. I wouldn't mind at all if you broke them. Not at all.''
''Yes, Colonel.'' The kid looked scared and excited. Cortez would keep an eye on his left flank. He didn't intend for him to do much more than hold Longknife's troops there in place, but the kid might surprise him.
Good surprise or bad surprise?