Tombstone by Jay Allan

2252 AD
Kelven Ridge
Delta Trianguli I
     
    We were pinned down, bracketed by fire from two directions. 
Somebody screwed up; somebody really screwed the hell up.  Now we had to clean
up the mess.  Now we had to get out of here alive.
    I had no idea how we were going to manage that, though.  I
was crouched behind a slight ridge, and I'd swear I could feel the
hyper-velocity rounds streaming by a centimeter over my back.  That's nonsense,
of course.  My armor was sealed tight, and I couldn't feel anything but the
cool metal on my slick, sweat-soaked skin.  The first thing I felt from outside
would tell me my suit was breached, and that would mean I had a few seconds
left to live.
    Tombstone was one of the most miserable hells where men have
ever tried to live, and you could pass the time trying to count all the ways
the planet could kill you.  Heat, radiation, poisonous atmosphere – take your
pick.  Tombstone wasn't its real name, of course, but that's what the locals
have been calling it since 85% of the first colonization party died in less
than a month.  The place was a nightmare, but the elements in the planet's
crust were worth a king's ransom, so men were here to exploit that wealth.  And
we were here to defend it.
    I'd drawn a hell of a mission for my first battle.  We came
in as reinforcements for depleted units that had already been fighting here. 
Neither side really controlled the space around the planet, so we'd come in hot
in two fast assault ships and made a quick landing.  The ride down had been a
rough one; I was grateful the only thing I’d eaten for 36 hours had come
intravenously…an empty stomach was a big plus.  The planet had frequent,
unpredictable storms, especially in the upper atmosphere.  Not storms like on
Earth, but intense, violent, magnetic vortices, with 1,000 kph winds and
radioactive metallic hale.  Our landing AIs did their best to avoid the worst
spots, but the disturbances were unpredictable, and some of our ships dropped
right through one of the smaller storms, taking 15% losses before we even hit
ground.
    This wasn’t a normal battle or a smash and grab raid; the
situation on Tombstone was unique.  We’d had troops fighting here for ten
years, almost since the initial colonization.  In a few years the Third
Frontier War would begin, and before it was over I would fight in massive
battles I couldn’t have imagined, on worlds all across occupied space.  But the
engagement on Tombstone was one of those small, unofficial battles the
Superpowers so often fought between declared wars. 
    The planet had been explored by multiple colonization groups
more or less simultaneously.  Both the Caliphate settlers and ours claimed they
were first, and each regarded the other as an invader.  The governments, greedy
for the planet’s rare and valuable resources, backed their colonists’ claims,
and so soldiers ended up here, fighting a seemingly endless struggle on one of
the deadliest battlefields where men have ever tried to kill each other.
    The diplomats and government types would say that the
“situation” on Tombstone was not officially a war, but that was a bureaucrat’s
distinction, meaningless to those sent here to fight.  I doubt a bleeding
Marine gasping a dying breath of toxic air drew any comfort from the limited
status of the engagement.  It did, however, starve us of the strength and
supplies we needed to win.  Neither the Alliance nor the Caliphate were quite
ready for full-scale war, so both governments sent enough troops to keep the
fight going, but too few to risk serious escalation.  It made perfect sense to
the politicians, if not to those sent here to fight and die to maintain a
perverse status quo.
    To a sane mind there were two choices:  Fight to win,
whatever the consequences, or negotiate and take the best deal you can make. 
But to those in government there was a third option - maintain a bloody
stalemate, sending in just enough force to