Free Starfist: Firestorm by David Sherman & Dan Cragg

out the three Marines of his third fire team—they weren’t in the gun’s line of fire, and if they didn’t drift to their right, wouldn’t be in it until the squad was fifty meters from the bunker.
    “Keep tight with the rest of the squad, Doyle,” he ordered.
    “Y-Yes, Sergeant Kerr.” Doyle was definitely panting, but Kerr now thought his shortness of breath might have been hyperventilation due to fear, rather than from running.
    Corporal Kindrachuk’s voice came over the radio. “Gun one, changing barrels.”
    “Second squad, hit the deck!” Kerr ordered. “Hit that bunker!”
    Plasma bolts from the blasters of the ten Marines of second squad began hitting the bunker just as the bursts from the gun team stopped washing it. Most of the bolts hit in or near the bunker’s firing aperture.
    Before the Marines could get into a rhythm, Kindrachuk’s voice came back: “Gun one resuming,” and the gun again bathed the bunker with bursts of plasma bolts.
    “Second squad, up and at ’em!” Kerr lurched to his feet and looked left and right through his infra to make sure his men were back on their feet and trotting forward. Assured that they were, he faced front again and maintained pace with them. They’d cut the distance to the bunker in half. With less than a hundred meters to go, Kerr ordered, “Second squad, halt in place and go to your knee.” The squad stopped and each man raised his blaster to his shoulder from a kneeling position. “Wait for my command, then open fire,” Kerr told his men. Then, “Gun one, cease fire!” As soon as the gun stopped shooting, he ordered, “Second squad, fire! Stand, advance firing!” The ten Marines rose as one and moved forward at a brisk walk, firing their blasters at the bunker. Their fire wasn’t as accurate as it had been when they stopped to let gun one change its barrel, but it was accurate enough that it would have been suicide for anyone still alive in the bunker to approach the aperture to fire out of it.
    But there was nobody alive in the bunker when they reached it.
    “Whooh! Crispy critters!” Lance Corporal MacIlargie exclaimed when he reached the bunker and looked inside.
    Crispy critters, indeed. Four charred husks were all that remained of the Coalition soldiers who’d been on duty in the watch post bunker. They were unidentifiable to the naked eye beyond “probably human.”
    “Never mind that,” Kerr snapped. “Let’s get some security here while the rest of the platoon comes up.”
    “You heard the man,” Corporal Claypoole said. “We’ve got the middle. Second fire team, with me.” He slipped off a glove to show MacIlargie and Lance Corporal Schultz where he was, and began walking away from the bunker, toward Gilbert’s Corners. A hundred meters away he stopped, and the three Marines took positions watching the approach from the village.
    “That’s weird,” MacIlargie murmured into the fire team circuit.
    “What’s weird?” Claypoole asked.
    “Nobody’s there.”
    That was true. Not only were no soldiers rushing toward the recent sounds of battle, no people of any sort were visible in the village.
    “Hiding,” Schultz rumbled.
    “Makes sense to me,” Claypoole agreed. The civilians heard firing close to their north, and now sounds of a raging firefight to their southeast. Anybody who didn’t absolutely have to be out would be in hiding, to avoid getting accidentally shot. He continued to watch. The wait wasn’t long.
    “Second squad, on your feet!” Ensign Bass barked when first and gun squads reached the bunker a couple of minutes after second squad declared it secure. “On line. Gun two with first squad, gun one with second. Check your dress, keep it staggered.”
    “Stand up!” Claypoole ordered as he rose to his feet. He looked through his infra to see the rest of the squad angling toward his position, then looked to see where the rest of the platoon was. There, to his left when facing the village. He swore