Narakan Rifles, About Face! Page 3

a skidding halt almost directly in front of theschoolhouse but his men kept on going, their faces set and determined.O'Shaughnessy came to attention and snapped a salute.

  "Yes, sir, Mr. Lieutenant."

  "Halt! Damn it, HALT!" Terrence yelled at the column of greenbacks.Their formation crumbled as they ran into each other, stepped on eachother's feet and pushed and shoved. But they halted.

  "O'Shaughnessy! Break ranks ... take cover ... line of skirmishers!"Terrence shouted and hit the dirt behind a sandbox in the schoolyardas the Rumi resumed firing. There was a mad scramble among theNarakans as they scattered behind walls and into buildings, movingwith an incredibly rapid jumping motion which they used when in ahurry.

  Terrence was so glad to see only one sprawled figure in the dust ofthe street that he just lay there for a few seconds spitting dustbefore he realized that he had forgotten to close the face visor ofhis radiation clothing.

  * * * * *

  There was a slight clucking sound from beside him and when he turnedhe found O'Shaughnessy lying almost beside him, squinting along hiscarbine. The Narakan's face split into two replicas of the map ofIreland and he saluted flat handed, his webbed fingers at just theproper angle.

  "O'Shaughnessy, you don't have to salute when you're lying down!"O'Mara tried to keep his voice as calm as possible.

  "Yes, sir, Mr. Lieutenant. Pretty quick we fight now?"

  His lieutenant ignored him and searched for signs of life in thehouses across the square. There wasn't a Rumi in sight except for oneon the roof of a shed next to the burning warehouse. He tried a coupleof shots with his automatic and missed. He grabbed O'Shaughnessy'scarbine and dropped the creature as it tried to scramble off the shed.

  "Pretty soon we fight with bayonet?" O'Shaughnessy asked as Terrencehanded back the carbine.

  "O'Shaughnessy, why do you do things like this to me, me who took youout of your damn mud hole and made a soldier out of you?"

  O'Shaughnessy's mouth formed a huge round moon, "Not understand,Lieutenant...." he began but he was ignored again as Terrence staredacross the street in pained disbelief to where the heavy weapons squadof the Narakan Rifles was gathered in a huddled group behind a nativehouse, struggling to set up their Banning Automatic Blaster and twomachine guns. One of the men was down on his hands and knees balancingthe heavy barrel of the blaster on his back while two others wereattempting to push the ponderous breech onto it by main strength. Thetwo machine guns were half on and half off their tripods. The leg ofone of them had been bent in the wrong direction and the other was socovered with grease that the parts wouldn't fit together.

  "Oh, Lord!" moaned Terrence and was bracing himself for a dash acrossthe street when a figure in Terran battle armor came around thebuilding on the run, dodging and crawling as spring bolts raised thedust in front of him. It was the short, stout Gunnery Sergeant,Polasky. Terrence breathed a sigh of relief.

  He turned to O'Shaughnessy, "Now, Sergeant, this is our problem. Thosebuildings over there are filled with Rumi. They have automatic weapons ...spring guns ... firing a clip of twenty plastic bolts. They're deadly atclose to medium range. They can penetrate our battle armor." He looked atthe thick, knobby skin of the Narakan, "Yours too. Now, they are probablyjust a patrol about the size of one of our companies. They don't seem tohave any heavy weapons and ours will be in action in a few minutes. Then,O'Shaughnessy...." The Narakan was squinting along the barrel of hisrifle.

  "Are you paying attention, Sergeant?"

  "Yes, sir! Attention, yes, sir." O'Shaughnessy started to lift hisbulky three hundred pounds up off the ground. Terrence heaved with allhis might against those thick khaki clad legs to knock him down again.

  "Man, what are you doing?" he yelled.

  "Attention, sir. Sir said...."

  "No, no, O'Shaughnessy. I meant, listen to me. O'Shaughnessy, howcould you? Haven't I been like a brother to you? Didn't I share mywhiskey and candy ration with you?"

  "Yes, sir. That's why...."

  "Then for the sake of your two headed frog-faced gods, shut up andlisten to me."

  "Yes, sir."

  "Look. In a minute our Banning will be in action," his voice wasdrowned out by the scream of tortured air as the Banning cut loose."Now there is a sweet sound. What do we do next, O'Shaughnessy?"

  One of the row of buildings across the square glowed red briefly asthe beam from the Blaster caught it; glowed red and then burst into aball of fire. O'Shaughnessy's mouth was open wide, his chinless faceresting on the edge of the sandbox and his little black bead eyes wereas large as they could get.

  "What do we do now, O'Shaughnessy ... come on...."

  The Narakan made a thrusting gesture with his carbine, "Bayonet ... wego in with bayonet now," he said.

  O'Mara slapped him on the seat of his khaki pants. "No, no. You got toget this stuff straight."

  The whine of the Banning interrupted him again and it was joined bythe chatter of machine guns and rifle fire and answered by the rapidclacking of spring guns. Bolts dug into the wall of the schoolhouseand showered them with plaster. Others shattered the front window.Terrence wiped plaster off his visor and tried again. "You've got toget this straight, O'Shaughnessy, because ... well, because you may begetting an independent command pretty soon and there won't be anyonearound to tell you what to do."

  The Narakan was listening to him but wide-mouthed and uncomprehending."We're going to burn them out of those huts; burn them out or burn thehouses down over their heads. About the time Polasky gets to the thirdone, those guys are going to break and then they'll either rush usor...."

  Norton was yelling something from the Residency. There was a noise ofclanking armor behind him and he could hear Fielding's voice crackingout orders as he came up with twenty hastily armed and armored clerks,cooks and radiomen from the HQ unit.

  "O'Mara! O'Mara, they're breaking! They're running! Let's go!" Nortonwas on the porch of the Residency pouring Tommy gun slugs at the rearof the burning row of houses.

  "Okay, let's go," Terrence said, lurching to his feet. The Narakansergeant blew his whistle and the riflemen swarmed out from theirshelters and started at a run across the square with Norton, Terrenceand O'Shaughnessy at their head. The rest of the Terrans in fullbattle armor lumbered along after them.

  One or two bolts whistled overhead and Corporal O'Brien dropped hisrifle and fell forward clutching his leg. The smoke from the burningbuildings obscured their vision but Terrence had a momentary sight ofRumi radiation clothing and emptied his clip at it.

  Someone from behind threw a grenade which fell short of its target androlled in front of them. Norton took two quick strides and kicked itinto one of the flaming buildings.

  III

  There were about twenty Rumi, less than they had thought, fleeingacross the open fields behind the burning huts. They were firing asthey ran and giving out those queer yelping cries of theirs. Three orfour of them fell and then Norton was shouting, calling back his mento organize fire fighting parties.

  "Captain! Captain, let's go after those guys. We can cut them offbefore they get to the grasslands," Terrence yelled.

  "Get your men after these fires, O'Mara. We can't let them spread."

  There was nothing to do but obey but he delayed long enough to emptyhis automatic in the general direction of the fleeing Rumi. Then heturned and yelled, "Harrigan! Sergeant Harrigan! Where in the devil isthat...." There was a crashing sound behind him and Harrigan stumbledthrough the smoke and came down on his foot, all three hundred poundsof him.

  Later, as the last smoking embers of the fire were being smothered byindustrious squads of Narakans with buckets and shovels, Terrencelimped back across the square with Bill Fielding.

  "We should have gone after those lousy scum," Bill said, "They may cutback around the town again and give the battalion some trouble on theriver road."

  "Don't you think I know it! As fast as the Greenbacks can move whenthey want to, we could have caught the lo
t of them before they gotinto the grasslands. But Norton was worried about the fires! Ofcourse, we're going to burn all these buildings tomorrow or the nextday but Norton was afraid the Residency would catch fire."

  "Probably didn't want his sweetie's fancy clothes to burn."

  "They got Wilson, you know."

  "Good Lord! Dead?"

  "Right between the eyes. They almost got all four of us."

  Fielding took his heavy battle helmet off and pushed back the glassvisor of his radiation helmet to wipe the perspiration and dirt offhis face. "Well, maybe