Free Jump Pay by Rick Shelley

provided a few gun ports, holes in the sides of buildings. Other troops were on the roofs now, behind low parapets, many of them armed with rocket launchers to take their toll on any aircraft that returned.
    The 13th's Red Flight lost two Wasps within seconds of each other, leaving the flight with only five planes. Yellow Flight lost its third plane of the day. At the moment, Blue Flight was away from the action, heading back to land and replenish munitions and get fresh batteries. The air wing of the 8th SAT and two squadrons of the 17th Independent Air Wing were coming in as well now, attacking the northern and southern sections of the perimeter and striking at targets in the middle of the base. The 97th LIR was attacking on the ground from the south. The 8th SAT was moving against the north side of the base.
    On all three sides where they were attacking on the ground, the Accord infantry had closed to within one hundred meters of the Schlinal defenses. It was seven minutes past local noon. The first Accord soldiers had landed five hours and fifty-three minutes earlier. The invasion was already more than four hours behind schedule.
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    Up and forward, down and shoot. Concentrate. Wire rifles show no muzzle flashes to guide return fire. Spot likely shooting positions. Concentrate fire on holes in the walls and at the lips of craters on the ground. If you see movement of any kind, shoot. Anything in front of you is hostile. Maybe you won't hit anything vulnerable. Maybe you will. In either case, you'll give the enemy something to think about. You'll reduce the amount of enemy fire coming at you, and you'll make the fire that does come less accurate. The better you do your job, the harder it'll be for the enemy to do his. You know the statistics: hundreds of meters of wire expended for every casualty inflicted. Do your share. And then some.
    None of the 13th's troopers really had to think about those things. They were the basics of combat training, instilled through hard repetition and swift discipline throughout the weeks of boot camp, reinforced constantly on training maneuvers in every unit—and brought home by deadly example in actual combat. Recruits were taught to go into training exercises with the battle cry "Kill, kill, kill!" Lectures told them about the evils of the Schlinal system and the dangers to any world that fell to them. The enemy is evil. We are the force of Good in the galaxy. Men being put through long hours of very intensive physical training were especially receptive to such psychological preparation, on deep subconscious levels. Under stress, the mind held to those precepts.
    Joe Baerclau felt oddly peaceful. His earlier jitters had disappeared as soon as he was close enough to return fire with some hope of scoring telling hits on the enemy. His concentration was total, balancing the needs of his own fire and movement with the continuing need to keep an eye on what his men were doing. There was no useless radio chatter now. He gave terse instructions, and received them. He took reports and gave them. Each man in the 2nd platoon of Echo Company knew his job. And did it.
    Joe moved his aim from target to target, limiting himself to short bursts of wire. He left fire suppression to others, preferring to conserve as much ammunition as possible for times of greater need. Across a 40-degree zone in front of him, he shot at anything that looked as if it might be an enemy soldier. The 13th's forward movement was slow now. A single squad would scuttle forward two or three meters, from cover to cover, while the rest of the platoon provided covering fire. The rest of the companies in the skirmish line were moving in the same methodical fashion.
    But the cover of the rock field ended sixty meters from the Schlinal perimeter. Beyond that point, the ground had been leveled prior to the construction of the base. The ground beyond the mossy rocks was a combination of clay and stone, and there was no vegetation