Starship Troopers

"Rejoin your squad, Hughes." I clicked over. "Captain, several thousand Bugs have exited near here from an unestimated number of holes. I have not been attacked. Repeat, I have not been attacked at all. If there are any warriors among them, they must be holding their fire and using workers as camouflage."

He did not answer.

There was an extremely brilliant flash far off to my left, followed at once by one just like it but farther away to my right front; automatically I noted time and bearings. "Captain Blackstone answer!" At the top of my jump I tried to pick out his beacon, but that horizon was cluttered by low hills in Square Black Two.

I clicked over and called out, "Sarge! Can you relay to the Captain for me?"

At that very instant my platoon sergeant's beacon blinked out.

I headed on that bearing as fast as I could push my suit. I had not been watching my display closely; my platoon sergeant had the platoon and I had been busy, first with ground-listening and, most lately, with a few hundred Bugs. I had suppressed all but the non-com's beacons to allow me to see better.

I studied the skeleton display, picked out Brumby and Cunha, their squad leaders and section chasers. "Cunha! Where's the platoon sergeant?"

"He's reconnoitering a hole, sir."

"Tell him I'm on my way, rejoining." I shifted circuits without waiting. "First platoon Blackguards to second platoon—answer!"

"What do you want?" Lieutenant Khoroshen growled.

"I can't raise the Captain."

"You won't, he's out."

"Dead?"

"No. But he's lost power—so he's out."

"Oh. Then you're company commander?"

"All right, all right, so what? Do you want help?"

"Uh... no. No, sir."

"Then shut up," Khoroshen told me, "until you do need help. We've got more than we can handle here."

"Okay." I suddenly found that I had more than I could handle. While reporting to Khoroshen, I shifted to full display and short range, as I was almost closed with my platoon—and now I saw my first section disappear one by one, Brumby's beacon disappearing first.

"Cunha! What's happening to the first section?"

His voice sounded strained. "They are following the platoon sergeant down."

If there's anything in the book that covers this, I don't know what it is. Had Brumby acted without orders? Or had he been given orders I hadn't heard? Look, the man was already down a Bug hole, out of sight and hearing -- is this a time to go legal? We would sort such things out tomorrow. If any of us had a tomorrow—

"Very well," I said. "I'm back now. Report." My last jump brought me among them; I saw a Bug off to my right and I got him before I hit. No worker, this—it had been firing as it moved.

"I've lost three men," Cunha answered, gasping. "I don't know what Brumby lost. They broke out three places at once—that's when we took the casualties. But we're mopping them—"

A tremendous shock wave slammed me just as I bounced again, slapped me sideways. Three minutes thirty-seven seconds -- call it thirty miles. Was that our sappers "putting down their corks"? "First section! Brace yourselves for another shock wave!" I landed sloppily, almost on top of a group of three or four Bugs. They weren't dead but they weren't fighting; they just twitched. I donated them a grenade and bounced again. "Hit ‘em now!" I called out. "They're groggy. And mind that next—"

The second blast hit as I was saying it. It wasn't as violent. "Cunha! Call off your section. And everybody stay on the bounce and mop up."

The call-off was ragged and slow—too many missing files as I could see from my physicals display. But the mop-up was precise and fast. I ranged around the edge and got half a dozen Bugs myself—the last of them suddenly became active just before I flamed it. Why did concussion daze them more than it did us? Because they were unarmored? Or was it their brain Bug, somewhere down below, that was dazed?

The call-off showed nineteen effectives, plus two dead, two hurt, and three out of action through suit failure—and two of these latter Navarre was repairing by vandalizing power units from suits of dead and wounded. The third suit failure was in radio & radar and could not be repaired, so Navarre assigned the man to guard the wounded, the nearest thing to pickup we could manage until we were relieved.

In the meantime I was inspecting, with Sergeant Cunha, the three places where the Bugs had broken through from their nest below. Comparison with the sub map showed, as one could have guessed, that they had cut exits at the places where their tunnels were closest to the surface.

One hole had closed; it was a heap of loose rock. The second one did not show Bug activity; I told Cunha to post a lance and a private there with orders to kill single Bugs, close the hole with a bomb if they started to pour out it's all very well for the Sky Marshal to sit up there and decide that holes must not be closed, but I had a situation, not a theory.

Then I looked at the third hole, the one that had swallowed up my platoon sergeant and half my platoon.