Starfist: Kingdom's Fury by David Sherman & Dan Cragg Page B

of the Dragons and called out, "Mount up!"
    "Ah, shit," Ratliff muttered, and glanced toward the hill. He remembered too well the Dragons that had been killed in the Swamp of Perdition, and the Marines whose lives were lost when they erupted. Hymnal Hill was close enough so they could reach it in ten minutes or less if they ran. But orders were orders.
    "First squad, move out!" he shouted, and led the way onto the Dragon Hyakowa pointed him at.
    Less than a minute after they stopped in front of third platoon, the Dragons were loaded and headed for the rendezvous point to meet the Dragons carrying the rest of the company.
    There was no time for planning. A squad and a half of Marines were on top of Hymnal Hill fighting for their lives against hundreds of Skinks. Commander Van Winkle relayed the order from Colonel Ramadan as soon as he got it, immediately ordering six Dragons to pick up Company L. Captain Conorado linked into the string-of-pearls and began studying the situation even as he pulled on his sidearm and gear.
    "All hands, listen up," Conorado said on his all-hands circuit. He could tell by changes in pitch in the faint rumbling that came through the Dragon's armor that the six vehicles were on line, speeding toward the reverse slope of Hymnal Hill. He transmitted the sitmap to his platoon commanders and platoon sergeants.
    "Some Marines are going to die up there if we don't get to them right now," he said. "The little bad bastards that are overrunning them outnumber us by at least ten to one. "We'll off-load just below the topological crest and go over it on line. Volley fire downslope as soon as we reach the top crest. Everybody, chameleon shields in place, shirt necks closed, sleeves down and cuffs tight, gloves on. No exposed skin.
    I don't want any casualties because someone let that acid get inside his uniform." He hoped the new uniforms really were impervious to the Skinks' acid sprays. "And plasma shields up. We're going to have a lot of fire up there, let's not have any Marines killed by Marines! Make sure your Marines understand. Do it!" He plugged into the vehicle's comm to give orders to the Dragons.
    In the Dragons, the platoon commanders and sergeants transmitted the sitmap to the squad leaders, who in turn projected them for their men to study. They relayed Conorado's orders while the Marines examined the projected maps. But they listened more than they looked; the maps only showed the slope of the hill and the line of bunkers thirty meters down the hill's opposite slope. Adrenaline coursed through every Marine in the Dragons and sweat bathed them. Most of them had fought the Skinks more than once, and most of them had lost friends to the Skinks' ghastly weapons. Some had suffered wounds at the hands of the Skinks. They were going up against better than ten to one odds! Were even Marines that tough? Those who held belief in a deity prayed to whatever god they believed in.
    For a moment before the Dragons reached the infantry jump-off line, the Marine artillery concentrated its fire on Hymnal Hill's defensive line. Then the Dragons stuttered to a stop and their rear ramps dropped. The Marines bolted off, and even before they were all on line, Conorado gave the order to advance, and they ran uphill. The Dragons rumbled behind them. Taller than the running Marines, the Dragons would be seen by the Skinks first if they were with the line, and Conorado wanted his entire force to make contact simultaneously. He didn't want the Skinks warned by the Dragons that his infantrymen were coming. He radioed for the artillery to cease fire, and the artillery shifted its fire to Heaven's Heights.
    Half a minute after the Dragons dropped their ramps, the Marines surged over the hilltop, and their momentum sent them crashing into Skinks, bowling the nearest ones over.
    "Volley fire, point-blank!" Conorado screamed.
    The Marines of Company L were lucky that the Skinks had not begun to organize a defense against a