Starship Troopers

Briefing was read to every trooper and he heard it again in his sleep during hypno preparation. So, while we all knew that Operation Royalty was laying the groundwork toward eventual rescue of our mates, we also knew that Planet P held no human prisoners—it had never been raided. So there was no reason to buck for medals in a wild hope of being personally in on a rescue; it was just another Bug hunt, but conducted with massive force and new techniques. We were going to peel that planet like an onion, until we knew that every Bug had been dug out.

The Navy had plastered the islands and that unoccupied part of the continent until they were radioactive glaze; we could tackle Bugs with no worries about our rear. The Navy also maintained a ball-of-yarn patrol in tight orbits around the planet, guarding us, escorting transports, keeping a spy watch on the surface to make sure that Bugs did not break out behind us despite that plastering.

Under the Battle Plan, the orders for Blackie's Blackguards charged us with supporting the prime Mission when ordered or as opportunity presented, relieving another company in a captured area, protecting units of other corps in that area, maintaining contact with M. I. units around us -- and smacking down any Bugs that showed their ugly heads.

So we rode down in comfort to an unopposed landing. I took my platoon out at a powered-armor trot. Blackie went ahead to meet the company commander he was relieving, get the situation and size up the terrain. He headed for the horizon like a scared jack rabbit.

I had Cunha send his first section's scouts out to locate the forward corners of my patrol area and I sent my platoon sergeant off to my left to make contact with a patrol from the Fifth Regiment. We, the Third Regiment, had a grid three hundred miles wide and eighty miles deep to hold; my piece was a rectangle forty miles deep and seventeen wide in the extreme left flank forward corner. The Wolverines were behind us, Lieutenant Khoroshen's platoon on the right and Rusty beyond him.

Our First Regiment had already relieved a Vth Div. regiment ahead of us, with a "brick wall" overlap which placed them on my corner as well as ahead. "Ahead" and "rear," "right flank" and "left," referred to orientation set up in deadreckoning tracers in each command suit to match the grid of the Battle Plan. We had no true front, simply an area, and the only fighting at the moment was going on several hundred miles away, to our arbitrary right and rear.

Somewhere off that way, probably two hundred miles, should be 2nd platoon, G Co, 2nd Batt, 3rd Reg—commonly known as "The Roughnecks."

Or the Roughnecks might be forty light-years away. Tactical organization never matches the Table of Organization; all I knew from Plan was that something called the "2nd Batt" was on our right flank beyond the boys from the Normandy Beach. But that battalion could have been borrowed from another division. The Sky Marshal plays his chess without consulting the pieces.

Anyhow, I should not be thinking about the Roughnecks; I had all I could do as a Blackguard. My platoon was okay for the moment—safe as you can be on a hostile planet—but I had plenty to do before Cunha's first squad reached the far corner. I needed to:

1. Locate the platoon leader who had been holding my area.

2. Establish corners and identify them to section and squad leaders.

3. Make contact liaison with eight platoon leaders on my sides and corners, five of whom should already be in position (those from Fifth and First Regiments) and three (Khoroshen of the Blackguards and Bayonne and Sukarno of the Wolverines) who were now moving into position.

4. Get my own boys spread out to their initial points as fast as possible by shortest routes.

The last had to be set up first, as the open column in which we disembarked would not do it. Brumby's last squad needed to deploy to the left flank; Cunha's leading squad needed to spread from dead ahead to left oblique; the other four squads must fan out in between.

This is a standard square deployment and we had simulated how to reach it quickly in the drop room; I called out: "Cunha! Brumby! Time to spread ‘em out," using the non-com circuit.

"Roger sec one!"—"Roger sec two!"

"Section leaders take charge... and caution each recruit. You'll be passing a lot of Cherubs. I don't want ‘em shot at by mistake!" I bit down for my private circuit and said, "Sarge, you got contact on the left?"

"Yes, sir. They see me, they see you."

"Good. I don't see a beacon on our anchor corner—"

"Missing."

" -- so you coach Cunha by D. R. Same for the lead scout—that's Hughes -- and have Hughes set a new beacon." I wondered why the Third or Fifth hadn't replaced that anchor beacon—my forward left corner where three regiments came together.

No use talking. I went on: "D. R. check. You bear two seven five, miles twelve."

"Sir, reverse is nine six, miles twelve scant."