Starfist: FlashFire by David Sherman & Dan Cragg

the hours of darkness every man on the perimeter was to keep his eyes glued to his night-vision optics, despite the fact that anti-intrusion devices had been scattered everywhere within a kilometer of Fort Seymour’s main gate. But staring through the optics all night long was just impossible to do. Risking possible company punishment, Solden lifted the plate and immediately the dim outlines of the street in front of the gate disappeared, replaced by the dense, white fog. But the air smelled good and fresh and reminded him briefly of the open fields of home on Carhart’s World.
    “Solden! Stay alert and stop messing with your gear,” his squad leader’s voice crackled in his ear.
    How the hell does Sergeant Carman know I’ve got this goddamned plate raised? Solden wondered, lowering it into place immediately. Good NCOs had an uncanny ability to know what was going on and Carman was a good squad leader. And he wouldn’t report the infraction to the lieutenant, not so close to the end of the company’s tour on the perimeter. “This fog ain’t natural, Herbie,” Solden whispered in reply.
    “I can’t see shit through these optics,” PFC Mort Stuman, complained, wiping the moisture off the M72 Straight Arrow antiarmor rocket the pair had been issued.
    “Cut the chatter, you’ll wake the other guys up,” Sergeant Herb Carman chuckled. Like the other seven men in his squad, he was thinking now of getting back to Bravo Company’s bivouac and breakfast. “Another hour to first light and we can get off the line,” he reminded his squad. No one needed reminding since everyone was concentrating on his watch now.
    “Not that anyone would know when it’s first light in this crap,” someone muttered over the tactical net.
    “Next guy who opens his mouth goes on shit detail when we get off the line, and I mean it,” Carman announced. The net went silent.
    “All right,” Stuman whispered to Solden, “so when the tanks come rolling over us we sit here and don’t say nothing and after we’re all prisoners they’ll ask why we didn’t warn anybody and we’ll tell them, ‘Well, Sergeant Carman told us to shut up or we’d go on shit detail . . .’ ” “Shhhhhhh!” Solden hissed. “Do you hear something, Mort? I heard something!” He lowered and adjusted his night-vision optics. Carefully, Stuman switched his Straight Arrow to firing mode.

“You sure? I don’t hear or see anything!”
    “I don’t know,” Solden confessed, feeling a bit silly, but his pulse was racing and now he was fully alert. “I thought I heard something like a rumble . . .” Cautiously he eased the safety off his rifle.
    For two weeks Bravo Company had been pulling night guard along that section of Fort Seymour’s perimeter. The engineers had constructed reinforced firing points and bunkers that were manned around the clock, but for two weeks nothing had happened. They had been warned by G2 that the Coalition forces were massing armor to use against them. To improve their fields of fire, and to the great consternation of the citizens of Ravenette, the engineers had evacuated the nearby buildings and demolished some of them, leaving only one approach route: the main road that led to the gate, called “The Strip” by Fort Seymour’s garrison. The entire company was equipped with the Straight Arrow. It would be suicide for armor to approach them down that road. At least, that’s what they hoped.
    “I wish they’d try it, I truly wish they would,” Stuman was muttering half to himself, “I wanna get some so bad I can taste it.” Most of the men of the 3rd Provisional Infantry Division, which had been formed on Arsenault, the Confederation’s training world, had never seen combat, but they all believed they were ready for it. They also believed, with the certainty of young, unblooded soldiers, that the Coalition rebel forces were not capable of taking them on.
    The early morning, fog-shrouded silence enveloped the men of