by M. D. Cooper
Chris nodded slowly. “OK, good point. Good thing there’s enough Niets to shoot at for a lifetime.”
Leslie agreed in principle, but she also knew that the Niets ran a conscription military. They’d be shooting at a lot of people who didn’t want to be there in the first place.
Still, it was ‘us or them’. Same as it had always been; same as it always would be.
“Looking good, Lieutenant,” a voice said from behind them, and Leslie turned and nodded to Lieutenant Scarcliff, the company’s XO.
The FR-2 swept his ever-present scowl across the drop bay as he stood beside Chris. “Wish I was going down with you, but Captain Rika wants me up here to make sure things go smoothly in her absence.”
“You’ve got your work cut out for you, Scarcliff,” Leslie replied.
She had an uneasy relationship with the company XO.
Both had been promoted directly from the ranks to First Lieutenant at the same time, and it irked Leslie a bit not to have the XO’s job, since she had five years of service on him. Just like she knew it annoyed Scarcliff that she had Rika’s ear as much as she did.
Rika had taken the time to explain to them that she felt either could do the other’s job well, and their placement was for the good of the company.
“What we’re doing here with M Company isn’t about anyone’s career advancement,” Rika had told them.
“It’s about giving these people a new start with a new outfit that really values them. To that end, we have to make things feel right for our troops. Building a cohesive unit is my goal. Everyone is going to have to make sacrifices to do that, but I won’t forget them.”
At times like that, it was almost impossible to reconcile the Rika who was now the company captain with that scared and angry young woman Leslie had pulled out of the cryopod less than a year before in that warehouse on Pyra.
Rika claimed that it was Silva’s leadership back in the war that had taught her what she needed to know. Silva had claimed it was years of keeping young waitresses in line that taught her how to run a unit.
Leslie wasn’t sure if that was all that lay behind Rika’s natural command abilities. Though she had kept any concerns to herself at the time, Leslie had worried about the Old Man’s promotion of Rika to company commander. Running a team like Basilisk bore almost no similarities to running something like M Company.
But now that they were four months in, she doubted that anyone could do a better job than Rika. Give the girl fertile soil, and she had blossomed like nothing Leslie had ever seen.
She hadn’t replied to Scarcliff’s statement, and he cast her a curious look. “Cat got your tongue, Leslie?”
Chris barked a laugh, then managed to choke it back before slapping Leslie’s tail and walking out into the bay, yelling at the platoon’s K1R—a massive T-model affectionately called ‘The Van’—to watch where he was going.
Leslie shook her head, and gave Scarcliff a cold look. His eyes widened for a moment, and then she reached up and gave him a light cuff in the back of the head. “Very punny, Scarcliff. Seriously, though, what do you think of Rika’s plan?”
“By plan, you mean the thing where you take First Platoon down and act like bait?” Scarcliff asked.
“Dangling bait is a perfectly viable plan.” Leslie cocked an eyebrow at Scarcliff. “So long as our backup is ready.”
“It’ll be ready. Whoever is raising shit down there will rue the day they messed with Rika’s Marauders.”
“We’re really going with that?”
“Damn skippy.”
“You don’t think that it will cause division between our company and the rest of the regiment?”
“I’ve been in the Marauders as long as you, Leslie. Every unit has to form their own internal bonds. Most of them have their own little names, like Terry’s Terrors and Sarah’s Scarfaces. Smalls and I put a lot of thought into including ‘Marauders’ in ours. I think it will be better in the long run.”
Leslie hadn’t known that Scarcliff and Heather had orchestrated the company name so deliberately, but she had to admit it made sense. She’d be sure to share that logic with the ship’s crew, if it came up.
“Well said. I certainly like being in Rika’s Marauders more than Ayer’s Assholes.”
Scarcliff barked a laugh. “I may have been behind coining that one too.”
“Keep dreaming,” Leslie said over her shoulder as she walked away. “We all know it was Captain Ayer herself that came up with it.”
* * * * *
Leslie settled into the copilot’s seat in the pinnace. She’d considered not taking the toon’s assault pinnace down in the drop. If there were going to be SAMs chasing them again, the ship she was in would be the first target the enemy selected.
However, it was also the ship best able to defend against incoming surface to air fire.
She glanced at Chief Warrant Officer Charles as he shifted in the pilot’s seat. His helmet had a snarling dog painted on it and the words “Mad Dog” written over it. The artwork was impressive; Charles had done it himself.
He’d already painted almost every pilot’s helmet in the company, and was pressing Rika to let him paint all the mechs’ as well.
“You ready to roll, Chief?” she asked.
“I’m ready with a side of fuck-yeah, Ellll-Tee!” Charles drew out the two letters and gave her a lopsided grin.
“Easy now, Chief.” Leslie chuckled at the pilot’s enthusiasm before reaching out to Heather.
A siren sounded in the drop bay, and the deck opened up in front of the dropships. The cradles tilted, and in preprogrammed sequence, the ships were accelerated down the ladders and out into space.
“Yeeehaw!” Charles cried out as the well-lit drop bay was replaced by the black expanse of space.
Leslie couldn’t suppress the smile that forced its way onto her lips. She’d dropped with Charles on other missions, and his enthusiasm was infectious. It was one of the reasons she’d wrangled him into her ‘toon when she heard he was assigned to Rika’s company.
Like all the dropship pilots, Charles was not a mech. The cockpits on most ships could barely fit a human, let alone a mech—barring SMI-2s.
Even so, he was heavily modded for piloting a ship, and did it with a grace and skill that few possessed. He had his own customized control suite, a three-dimensional interface that only he could see. He waved his hands through it, turned invisible knobs, and adjusted other controls with gestures that made no sense to Leslie.
Not that she needed to know how he flew the ship, just that he had a damn good record and flew the smoothest drops Leslie had ever been on.
She brought up the pinnace’s scan data on the holo in front of her and watched as the dropships spread out into a wide pattern, each covered by four fighters. Every vessel was over a kilometer from each other, their jinking patterns loaded and synchronized.
“You think we’re going to see action?” Charles asked.
Leslie shrugged. “I hope not. If someone on Iapetus can attack this many ships with impunity, what’s to stop them from hitting the ‘Lark or the ‘Dream? We’d be better off finding a new location for our training facility.”
Charles laughed as he executed a burn to slot the pinnace into its descent vector. “What better way to train us all than a hostile environment?”
“I can think of a lot of better ways.”
“I guess, maybe,” Charles said absently as he reviewed the ship’s trajectory. “Hey, LT, since this is going to be by the numbers, think you can sing a song for me while we come down? I hear you’ve got an amazing set of pipes.”
<
br /> Leslie resisted the urge to reach out and hit Charles in the back of the head. “I’ll show you pipes. Just fly the damn ship.”
* * * * *
Charles kept the pinnace in a holding pattern over the training compound while the dropships settled onto the facility’s southern edge, disgorging their troops by the numbers, mechs fanning out, covering corners before moving out to sweep the surrounding buildings.
The structures had once been hangars and repair facilities at a small airport used by light and sport aircraft. On the far side of the buildings were three landing strips for aerodynamic descent.
People got up to strange things in their free time.
For some reason, the airport had fallen out of use, and Barne had been able to secure it for a surprisingly low price.
As Leslie surveyed the facility, she could make out a construction crew on the northern side of the airstrip erecting a simple fence that denoted the edge of Marauder territory, separating it from the half-abandoned commercial district surrounding the compound.
It wasn’t a very defensible location, but Leslie approved of Rika’s plan. If they were to get to the bottom of what was afoot on Iapetus, they wanted to be attacked.
Once the squad leaders declared their assigned quadrants clear, Leslie directed squad two to secure the landing field for the cargo carriers on the northern side of the barracks.
After the compound was deemed secure, and the fighter escort had boosted away, Leslie directed Charles to lower the pinnace from its overwatch position to settle in front of the command building.
She lowered the ramp and stepped out onto the hard surface the moment the ship settled down. Ahead, Rika walked out of the command building, a wide smile on her face as she surveyed the deployment.
“Lieutenant Leslie, congratulations on the drop. A hell of a lot better than mine.”
Leslie met Rika’s smile with one of her own. “It’s easier when no one’s shooting at you.”
They shook hands, and turned to watch as Staff Sergeant Chris and the squad sergeants oversaw the unloading of the equipment from the dropships—likely receiving direction and chastisement from Barne, who was still back in the command building’s CIC.
“The loading go smoothly?” Rika asked as they watched the activity before them. Leslie initialized a HUD overlay showing the scan data from the surrounding terrain and skies above. She was certain Rika was doing likewise. Just because the drop hadn’t been hit didn’t mean they couldn’t be attacked now.
“Without a hitch,” Leslie replied.
“Major Tim was surprisingly accommodating,” Rika said, and gestured to the contrails the fighters had left in the sky from their thrusters.
Leslie chuckled. “I bet that before we left, the Old Man took the major aside and told him that if anything happened to you, there’d be hell to pay.”
Rika looked at Leslie with surprise. “Think so?”
“Well, I didn’t see it happen, but I’d be shocked if it didn’t. Seriously, Rika. You went from hardware purchased at auction to company commander in under a year. How is it that you don’t see how much the Old Man is in your corner?”
Leslie watched as Rika’s brow lowered and her lips twisted in thought. “I guess it is a bit of a meteoric rise.”
“That’s an oxymoronic figure of speech.”
“I didn’t invent it.” Rika shrugged.
“If you’re not a part of the solution, you’re a part of the problem.”
Rika laughed. “Only a day away, and already I’d started to miss you. By-the-by, did you bring those additional items I asked for?”
“What do I look like? Of course I brought them.”
“Brought what?” Chase asked from behind the pair.
“Shit!” Leslie exclaimed. “Since when did you become a ninja? That’s my gig.”
“Learned from the best,” Chase said.
Leslie saw Rika reach her hand back and clasp Chase’s. “Leslie and I are going on an excursion into the city tonight.”
Chase glanced at Leslie and back to Rika. “Girls’ night out, I take it?”
Leslie considered their options. There were only five SMI-2 mechs in First Platoon.
Leslie waved her hand dismissively.
Rika said.
Rika got a distant look in her eyes and Leslie patted her on the shoulder.
Rika replied.
Rika smiled.
RECONNECTING
STELLAR DATE: 04.23.8949 (Adjusted Gregorian)
LOCATION: Marauder Training Compound
REGION: Iapetus, Hercules System, Septhian Alliance
Rika lay back on her side of the bed and breathed a long sigh of contentment. “Having a real bed sure is nice. Starships are just not made for couples to get up to shenanigans.”
Chase rolled over to face her and trailed a finger through her hair. “We’re lucky that the Old Man has a lax attitude when it comes to this stuff. No sane command would let me work under you.”
Rika turned her head and smirked at Chase. “Thought it was me that was working under you just now.”
“Yeah, well, let’s keep that arrangement to our quarters. I like having to salute you.”
“Ha!” Rika shook her head. “Nice double entendre there.”
“I try. It’s hard working for you.”
“OK, easy now. You’ve proven you can be punny, Chase.”
He rose to his knees and swung a leg over Rika, straddling her. A part of her was impressed by how he could maneuver around her body without scratching himself; either that, or he didn’t care.
“It always amazes me,” he commented absently as he traced a finger down her chest.
“What does?” Rika asked absently, staring up into Chase’s dark brown eyes.
“How warm you are.”
“I’m cooler than you are. Twenty-eight degrees at rest.”
Chase reached down and picked up her hand, placing his palm against what passed for hers. “Yeah, but your hands are warm too. Why is that?”
“Part of our chameleon abilities. We can warm our entire bodies to uniform temperatures. Also tied into our heat dispersal. I could make it warmer.” Rika warmed her hand to thirty-four degrees. “There, it matches your hand now.”
&nbs
p; “Heh, that’s hot,” Chase said as he reached out and touched the socket on the end of her right arm. Though Rika liked having her GNR attached, she didn’t sleep with it. Not after that time when the barrel had whacked Chase during a bad dream.
And Rika often had bad dreams.
“Why don’t you keep it this warm all the time?” Chase asked.
“Uses extra energy. Twenty-eight is my average dispersal temperature, when I’m not exerting myself. You’re lucky I’m not an FR model; they have these cooling strips on their arms that can get pretty damn toasty. I’d probably burn you during our escapades.”
Chase pushed her arm back above her head and leaned in to kiss her.
Rika drew in a deep breath as their lips touched feeling his naked body press up against her carbon-poly skin, his firm pecks pressing into the stiff mounds on her chest.
She had long ago forgotten what real tactile contact across her body would feel like—but given the difference between her face and the rest of her ‘skin’, she wondered if she would be able to handle the sensations.
“You smell like candy,” Chase whispered as he kissed her. “Cotton candy. You secreting some around here somewhere?”
“It’s a new facial cleanser Leslie gave me,” Rika said with a laugh. “But if I want to hide candy, that’s my business.”
“So you do have candy!” Chase proclaimed and nibbled at her ear.
Ear nibbles always made her giggle, and sometimes ruined her mood, but Rika didn’t care. Being near Chase was what mattered. Being grounded and feeling human was always welcome.
“Do you think the other mechs take lovers?” she asked suddenly, turning her head to look into Chase’s eyes.
He shrugged. “Some do, some can’t.”
“Well, we technically can’t make love, either,” Rika reminded him—as if she needed to.
Chase leaned down to kiss her. “Rika, I don’t need to push inside you to ‘make love’ to you. Being here with you now, living my life with you, fighting on the battlefield with you—that is making love to you. Making love is everything we do.”