“Fire team A-move out!” The twelve of us advanced in a ragged line toward the simulated bunker. It was about a kilometer away, across a carefully prepared obstacle course. We could move pretty fast, since all of the ice had been cleared from the field, but even with ten days’ experience we weren’t ready to do more than an easy jog.
I carried a grenade launcher loaded with tenth-microton practice grenades. Everybody had their laser-fingers set at a point oh eight dee one, not much more than a flashlight. This was a simulated attack-the bunker and its robot defender cost too much to use once and be thrown away.
“Team B, follow. Team leaders, take over.”
We approached a clump of boulders at about the halfway mark, and Potter, my team leader, said, “Stop and cover.” We clustered behind the rocks and waited for Team B.
Barely visible in their blackened suits, the dozen men and women whispered by us. As soon as they were clear, they jogged left, out of our line of sight.
“Fire!” Red circles of light danced a half-klick downrange, where the bunker was just visible. Five hundred meters was the limit for these practice grenades; but I might luck out, so I lined the launcher up on the image of the bunker, held it at a forty-five degree angle and popped off a salvo of three.
Return fire from the bunker started before my grenades even landed. Its automatic lasers were no more powerful than the ones we were using, but a direct hit would deactivate your image converter, leaving you blind. It was setting down a random field of fire, not even coming close to the boulders we were hiding behind.
Three magnesium-bright flashes blinked simultaneously about thirty meters short of the bunker. “Mandella! I thought you were supposed to he good with that thing.”
“Damn it, Potter-it only throws half a klick. Once we get closer, I’ll lay ’em right on top, every time.”
“Sure you will.” I didn’t say anything. She wouldn’t be team leader forever. Besides, she hadn’t been such a bad girl before the power went to her head.
Since the grenadier is the assistant team leader, I was slaved into Potter’s radio and could hear B team talk to her.
“Potter, this is Freeman. Losses?”
“Potter here-no, looks like they were concentrating on you.”
“Yeah, we lost three. Right now we’re in a depression about eighty, a hundred meters down from you. We can give cover whenever you’re ready.”
“Okay, start.” Soft click: “A team, follow me.” She slid out from behind the rock and turned on the faint pink beacon beneath her powerpack. I turned on mine and moved out to run alongside of her, and the rest of the team fanned out in a trailing wedge. Nobody fired while A team laid down a cover for us.
All I could hear was Potter’s breathing and the soft crunch-crunch of my boots. Couldn’t see much of anything, so I tongued the image converter up to a log two intensification. That made the image kind of blurry but adequately bright. Looked like the bunker had B team pretty well pinned down; they were getting quite a roasting. All of their return fire was laser. They must have lost their grenadier.
“Potter, this is Mandella. Shouldn’t we take some of the heat off B team?”
“Soon as I can find us good enough cover. Is that all right with you? Private?” She’d been promoted to corporal for the duration of the exercise.
We angled to the right and lay down behind a slab of rock. Most of the others found cover nearby, but a few had to hug the ground.
“Freeman, this is Potter.”
“Potter, this is Smithy. Freeman’s out; Samuels is out. We only have five men left. Give us some cover so we can get-”
“Roger, Smithy.” Click. “Open up, A team. The B’s are really hurtin’.”
I peeked out over the edge of the rock. My rangefinder said that the bunker was about three hundred fifty meters away, still pretty far. I aimed a smidgeon high and popped three, then down a couple of degrees, three more. The first ones overshot by about twenty meters; then the second salvo flared up directly in front of the bunker. I tried to hold on that angle and popped fifteen, the rest of the magazine, in the same direction.