First to Fight Read Free Page B

added.
    “We’re Marines. That counts for a lot too.”
    Bass grunted. On the side of his right thigh, he patted the pocket where he kept a four-hundred-year-old Marine K-Bar as a talisman. The ancient knife couldn’t help now, but it somehow reassured him.
    Six of the Marines in the open had made it back into the trees by the time Bass and LeFarge rejoined the unit. Two more had died trying. One of the six brought the gun with him and added its fire to that being put out by the others. But the Marines’ fire was no heavier than it had been—five of the Marines in the trees were down, and one of the assault weapons was being fired by someone who wasn’t very familiar with it. The last three crawled back into the trees while Bass and Procescu discussed the bandits’ next move. Procescu sent one of them to each flanking position and kept the third in the middle.
    Procescu looked at his handgun, shrugged. “I think we should all have blasters,” he murmured.
    Bass looked around. Up on the left flank three Marines had been killed. Their weapons looked usable. “Be right back,” he said, and scrambled away. He was back in a moment and handed weapons to Procescu and LeFarge. Quickly, he checked his own. Out in the open he saw a swath of flesh color over a barely seen flicker and aimed at a spot just below it. He squeezed the trigger. The swath of flesh dropped out of sight. One less bandit to worry about.
    Whistles shrilled suddenly through the cacophony of battle. A barely visible ripple of movement crept across the gorge. The assault began. In the middle and on the left flank the bandits had closed to little more than fifty meters before rising up to run at the trees. On the right flank the continued slagging of the rock face kept the bandits over a hundred meters away. However far they had to go, they screamed and fired as they charged.
    Along their pitifully thin line, Marine officers and NCOs calmly ordered their men to pick their targets carefully, look for flesh and weapons, make every shot count, to kill, and kill, and kill before the bandits could reach them. But there were too many targets, and the Marines couldn’t see all of them.
    “Lieutenant! I’ve got Air,” LeFarge shouted as he put down his weapon and spoke into the UPUD. “Call sign Flamer.” He handed the unit to Procescu.
    “Flamer, this is Purple Rover Bravo Actual,” Procescu said into the UPUD. “What kept you?”
    “Wrong address, Purple Rover,” said the pilot of the lead A5G Raptor circling high above. “Looks like there’s a lot of you down there. Who am I supposed to incinerate?”
    “Do you see the open area, Flamer?”
    “Affirmative.”
    “That’s where Pancho is. Do him before he mingles with my positions in the trees.”
    “Too late for that, Purple Rover. Either you’ve got him so badly outnumbered you don’t need us, or he’s already in your position.”
    The bandits were indeed among them. The thud of a running foot hit the ground near where Bass lay. He looked up into a wild-eyed face above an out-of-focus area of green and brown. A blaster in the unclear area was pointing at him. He rolled toward the bandit as the heat of a plasma bolt passed over him. He rolled into the bandit’s legs, knocking him over, then groped with one hand for the enemy soldier while his other reached for his combat knife. The two struggled briefly—the bandit tried to bring his weapon to bear, but Bass’s knife proved to be better for infighting, and red spread freely over the bandit’s chameleons. Bass rolled away to retrieve his blaster as the dead man’s entire uniform turned red, as it mimicked the color of his blood.
    “How close to the trees can you flame without scorching us?” Procescu said into the UPUD. Bass realized the lieutenant hadn’t been aware of the hand-to-hand fight he’d just concluded only a few meters away. “That’s too far away to do any good,” Procescu said after a pause. “Bring it in closer.”