Swapship Troopers

by Walker Long

  Quantrill saw they were going to be cut off. Bugs were running out at an angle ahead of them. Quantrill and Hardaway were running all out, but the Bugs would reach the foot of the hill first. They fired at the nearest Bugs – Quantrill to the right and Hardaway to the left. She was never going to set records for marksmanship while trying to aim her rifle and run over rocky terrain at the same time, but Quantrill managed to bring down the nearest Formid. The dead Bug sprawled to the ground and tripped two others, who tumbled with legs flying in all directions. The rest were delayed a few precious seconds by going around the pile-up.

  Quantrill and Hardaway slipped through the gap with a few dozen centimeters to spare. They were out in front of the attackers – that was good – but the Bugs were practically breathing down their necks – that was bad. Very bad. Formids can easily outrun humans on flat ground and the rocky terrain was more of a problem for those with two legs than those with eight.

  “We have to get to the top of that rock!” Hardaway yelled. He pointed to a tall, stone formation up ahead with a flat top and steep sides. Quantrill didn’t know how they would ever make it. If Formids have the advantage at running, they have double the advantage at climbing. A Bug could climb straight up a sheer cliff without breaking a sweat. She didn’t know about Lieutenant Hardaway, but Quantrill knew for sure she couldn’t compete with that. Even so, it was not the time to start questioning orders.

  “Yes, sir!” she yelled. Just because she didn’t know Lieutenant Hardaway’s plan, didn’t mean he didn’t have one. She ran up the incline at full speed, leaping from one jagged, pointy rock to another. Quantrill knew she could possibly trip and fall running that fast over such unpredictable terrain, but if she went any slower she would definitely be overtaken by the Bugs. It was an all or nothing situation.

  She barely made it as it was. As she scrambled up the last three meters – an almost vertical wall of rock – a huge bug charged her from the left side. She was hanging onto the rock by her fingertips. She would have to let go to unsling her rifle. That would have meant falling – and probably tumbling down the steep sides of the rock and into the mass of attacking Formids.

  Instead, just as the Bug stepped toward her, a snarling blast from Hardaway’s SAW blew its abdomen to pieces. The Bug dropped and Quantrill pulled herself up onto the top of the rock. Her old upper-body strength would have been really handy right then. She didn’t have time to worry about that, however, because the Bugs were still coming.

  She shouldered her rifle and leapt to her feet. From her point on the high ground, she could fire down onto the Formids trying to climb up the cliff and send them reeling. Hardaway had picked an excellent spot to put up a strong defense. But where was he?

  She whirled around and saw the Lieutenant still at the foot of the rock formation. Bugs were coming at him from all directions, but he fended them off with ferocious salvos from the machine gun. When a Bug would break away and climb the rock face toward Quantrill, Hardaway would turn away from his own attackers to blast the Bug off the cliff.

  “Run for it!” Hardway yelled, but made no move to run himself.

  He was protecting her, Quantrill realized. He was sacrificing himself to save her. “The fuck you are,” she growled in her sweet, little voice.

  Quantrill ran to the edge of the rocky outcropping. It was possible to bring down a Bug with one 5-round burst, but you had to be exactly on target. It was the kind of shot Quantrill could make about one time out of four. To save Hardaway she would have to make that shot every time, without fail. It was a long shot, but it was the only way. She slammed a fresh magazine into her AR316 and fired into the crowd of Bugs between her and Lieutenant Hardaway.

  She didn’t wait to see if her shots connected – she barely even took time to aim. She just fired burst after burst into the heads of the attackers as fast as she could pull the trigger. They were trying to destroy the thing she loved most in the world, and they had to die.

  She emptied the entire clip and grabbed another. When she looked down at the battle she had killed dozens of Bugs. The pathway was clear for Hardaway to make a run for the rock. “You get up here, you son of a bitch!” she screamed.

  Hardaway was stunned – but only for a moment. When he saw the dead, motionless carcasses of the Formids that had been blocking his retreat he wasted no time. The Lieutenant sprinted up the side of the cliff and vaulted onto the flat top. “That was some damn nice shooting,” he panted.

  “Nothing to it,” Quantrill said with a wink. Then she brought the barrel of her AR316 up to her mouth and blew away the thin trail of smoke rising up from the overheated rifle.

  The two Marines sprinted across the top of the tall rock formation. The top side was flat and smooth and made for easy running. They were able to outpace the Formids trying to climb up after them. Unfortunately, some Bugs ran through the valley to the side and cut them off. Quantrill and Hardaway continued forward, firing as they ran. They were able to knock many Bugs over the cliff, but more always took their place.

  “Shit!” Hardaway swore. “I’m out of ammo.”

  “I’ve got plenty,” Quantrill replied. Her AR316 ammunition wouldn’t work in the SAW, but she could give the rifle to Hardaway and he could defend them with it. She handed the weapon over to him. “Here. Take it.”

  Hardaway reached for the rifle, but then stopped and drew his hand away. “No,” he said. “You’re a better shot than I am. You keep it.”

  “Yes, sir,” she agreed. There wasn’t time for argument. She shouldered the rifle once more and blew away a Formid coming at them up the side of the cliff. She moved in a circle, firing at the Bugs coming at them from all sides. She was able to keep them away – but for how long? Her own ammo wouldn’t last forever. “We’re not going to get out of here, are we,” she said in between bursts of automatic rifle fire.

  “No,” Hardaway agreed. “It doesn’t look like it. But maybe we can take a few of these fuckers to the farm with us.” He held up a fusion grenade and spun the dial all the way to 10. Quantrill lowered her rifle and turned to the Lieutenant. She didn’t trust herself to speak, and so she only nodded.

  “It has been a privilege, Q,” Hardaway said solemnly. Then he grabbed the trigger pin of the grenade.

  “Wait!” Quantrill yelled. She had seen something in the sky. Was it? Yes! It was an aircraft! “There! It’s coming this way!”

  It wasn’t a large troop carrier, but a small civilian craft that had been refitted for military work. It was the sort of thing that was used to ferry around Generals and Admirals. The vehicle flew in low and fast over their heads and then looped around to come back. It had a wide, flat fuselage with short, stubby wings.

  “I’ll be damned,” Hardaway breathed.

  Quantrill went back to shooting at the oncoming Formids. She only had to keep them at bay for a few minutes longer. They were getting out!

  The small ship swept in over the tall rock and hovered a few meters away from Hardaway and Quantrill. The large bubble canopy slid open and a Marine in battle gear stepped out on the wing. He fired into the attacking Formids to give Hardaway and Quantrill cover to get to the ship.

  They sprinted over the rock with the Bugs close on their heels. When Quantrill got closer she saw the Marine on the wing was Sergeant Prince from her own platoon! “Sergeant!” she yelled. “It’s good to see you!”

  “Miss,” Prince said with a nod and went back to giving cover fire.

  Quantrill vaulted into the cabin of the small aircraft and climbed into the seat next to the pilot. The pilot, she was surprised to see, was in Marine battle armor also. Even more surprising, she recognized him! “Jabby?” she exclaimed. She knew Jabara had nearly graduated from pilot training, but Fleet wouldn’t turn over the keys to a combat aircraft to just anybody who knew how to fly. “What the fuck?”

  “We heard you needed a ride,” Jabara said with a wide smile. “So we borrowed a bird and came to get you.”

  “Holy shit!” Quantril
l exclaimed. “You stole this thing?”

  “Borrowed,” Jabara insisted. “Besides, General Hough wasn’t using it at the moment.”

  “We’re in!” Prince shouted. “Let’s go!”

  Jabara rammed the throttles forward and the small aircraft shot into the sky. A pair of Formids snagged each of the wings as they cleared the rock formation. “We’ve got company!” Quantrill yelled.

  “No problem,” Jabara said quietly. He rocked the wings from side to side, but the Bugs held on tight and kept coming. There was nothing between the four men and the giant killers but a clear, bubble canopy – and that wasn’t even going to slow them down.

  “No more playing around,” Jabara grumbled. He twisted the little ship violently to one side. Quantrill felt her weight shoved down into her seat and saw the landscape outside twist and spin. After no more than a few seconds of wild acrobatics, Jabara settled the aircraft into a gentle turn. The wings were free of intruders. Quantrill looked down and saw the two Bugs tumbling toward the rocky ground far, far below.

  “Wah-hoo!” Jabara yelled. “Allahu Akbar, mother fuckers!”

  Chapter 24

  Debriefing

  They were all arrested as soon as they landed. Of course, in the chaos of the retreat from Angkor there was no one available to actually arrest them. Everyone was too busy scrambling to get the fuck out of there. So they got chewed out by General Hough and were released on their own recognizance. Once they got space-side, though, they were tossed in the brig.

  There they sat for more than a week while the Fleet sorted out the aftermath of Angkor. Quantrill wouldn’t have minded, but they were put into individual cells. She couldn’t even see Lieutenant Hardaway. Finally an investigator from JAG Corps came around to take their statements. Quantrill talked to him for more than three hours. She made sure to point out at every opportunity how Hardaway, Prince, and Jabara were actually heroes who saved her life and hadn’t actually hurt anyone. She wasn’t sure how much of an impression she made, though. The JAG officer seemed to do little more than stare at her tits the whole time.

  “Get this bitch some BlueVector for Christ’s sake,” he finally grunted. “How am I supposed to take this shit seriously?”

  Quantrill was sent back to her cell and injected with BlueVector. When she woke up some time later her clothes fit again and she had a penis, but the JAG officer didn’t come to see her. Instead a young ensign came around and told her she was free to go. She caused the whole mess, but it turned out she was the only one who hadn’t done anything wrong.

  She tried to get in to see Lieutenant Hardaway but the ensign only laughed and told her she was dreaming. She couldn’t see Jabara and Sergeant Prince either. Even the asshole from JAG Corps didn’t want to see her.

  Finally she went back to her rack in the enlisted section. It was scary how deserted it was down there. Vanlanding was in sick bay. Jabara was in the brig. Jordan and Potter bought their farms down on Angkor. Quantrill was the only one left in their section. The normally rowdy, loud enlisted quarters were like a damn library.

  Some of the men talked in hushed tones about how Fleet had nuked Angkor from space. Once all the soldiers and Marines evacuated, the battleships peppered the planet with fusion warheads and turned it into a glowing ball of radioactive lava. That must have given the fucking Formids one hell of a surprise. Nuclear weapons had never been used on the Bugs before – too much property damage.

  It felt good to imagine a searing, unstoppable fire washing over the black, nightmare landscape of Angkor and wiping out everything in its path. It was satisfying, in a way. The Formids were dead – maybe not all of them, but all the ones Quantrill had ever fought. The ones that had chased her all over hell and everywhere. The ones that had killed her friends. They were all dead. And she was glad.

  She didn’t know if the Formids felt pain or not. A part of her hoped they did. Of course, now Angkor was an uninhabitable, radioactive cesspool. There would be no human colony there. No mines or factories. Quantrill wished they had just bombed the fuckers in the first place.

  She went to see Vanlanding in the sick bay. He was in good spirits, considering. The Corporal’s arm was chopped off above the elbow, but he was happy to be alive at all. That was a good attitude to have, Quantrill figured. Being pissed off wouldn’t help anyway. Juice could fix a lot but it couldn’t regrow whole limbs. There were places back in civilization where they could regenerate an arm – if you could pay. Quantrill didn’t know if Vanlanding came from that kind of money or not. Probably not, since he was pounding the dirt with the Marines, but you never knew. Lieutenant Hardaway was rolling in it, but he was a grunt once too.

  Quantrill missed Hardaway terribly. They had been through so much together – good and bad – she had never felt closer to anyone. Now he was just gone and she felt the absence like a huge, gaping hole in her life. Would he be reinstated at the command of the platoon? Probably not. Would he come back to the platoon at all? She didn’t know. They could make it work, whatever happened. Not knowing, though – that was miserable.

  Vanlanding’s positive attitude showed some cracks when they talked about the unlucky bastards who didn’t come back from Angkor. A lot of good men bought it down there. Thinking about the men from her squad – good friends – who would never see another day made her feel tremendously sad. Thinking about all the men from all the other squads in all the other platoons made her absolutely furious. It was such a colossal, miserable waste.

  When Jericho reached the shipyards at New Caledonia, Vanlanding was put on a med transport for Earth. Quantrill and the rest of the Jericho crew moved into temporary barracks on the planet while the ship was repaired – for real this time. The remnants of Lieutenant Hardaway’s old platoon were rolled into Captain Wakefield’s command. Wakefield had them marching back and forth across the parade grounds most of the day while he screamed about elbows and knees. She still hadn’t seen Hardaway or Prince or Jabara, but she was starting to envy them. After a few hours of drill a spot in the brig sounded pretty tempting.

  On the fifth day on New Caledonia, a pair of familiar faces walked into the long, narrow barracks building. It was Sergeant Prince and Jabara! The Sergeant reported to Captain Wakefield’s office at the end of the building, but Jabara wandered along the aisle. Quantrill jumped off her rack and ran to the big man.

  “Jabby!” she said with a laugh. “They finally threw you back into the war, eh?”

  “That’s right,” Jabara rumbled. He shook Quantrill’s hand and clapped the smaller Marine on the back. “I can’t win this war for you all if I’m locked up.”

  Other men greeted Jabara and soon there was a small crowd gathered. The men laughed and joked, happy to see one more familiar face still among the living. “You coming back to the platoon, Jabby?” Kowalski bellowed.

  “Nope,” Jabara said with a cocky smile. “I’m heading to OCS. The Admiral in charge of my disciplinary hearing was so impressed by my flying he insisted that Fleet enroll me in pilot training.”

  “Damn!” Quantrill exclaimed. “Congratulations! That is awesome.”

  The men talked for a while longer. A few jarheads insisted they would never salute Jabara, even if he did become an officer. Jabara chuckled and assured them that even as a spacer he would know better than to fuck with the Marines. After a few good laughs, the men went back to what they had been doing, leaving Quantrill and Jabara alone.

  “So,” Quantrill began in a quiet, forced voice, “Lieutenant Hardaway?”

  “I don’t know, man,” Jabara replied with a shake of his head. “I haven’t heard anything. The LT seriously pissed off some top brass though.”

  Quantrill nodded. She said goodbye to her friend and Jabara went off to his new assignment. The platoon wouldn’t be the same without Jabara – or without Jordan or Potter or Vanlanding. They were great guys and she would miss them all. Of course, without Lieutenant Hardaway the whole thing was FUBAR anyway. Hardaway was the heart and soul of the p
latoon. He made them what they were.

  At least Prince was back, she thought as the old Sergeant came out of Wakefield’s office. He would look out for the troops like he always had. Prince walked past Quantrill’s rack and gave her a curt nod before going to find an empty bunk for himself. Just as he passed by, Quantrill saw a slip of paper drop out of his hand and land on the coarse, gray blanket of her bunk.

  She scooted over and grabbed the paper. She was about to run it over to Prince when she noticed it had “Quantrill” written on it. She looked over at Prince who was tossing his duffle bag onto an open bunk. He looked back at her and flashed a quick wink, then went back to unpacking his gear.

  What the hell? Why all the cloak and dagger shit? She unfolded the small paper and saw a handwritten note inside. Who passed out handwritten notes anymore? The note itself wasn’t much help in answering that question. There was no signature or identification of any kind. All it said was “Coffee Shop” and then “St. Boniventure Station” and finally “11 am.”

  Quantrill had no idea what that was all about, but it looked like there was only one way to find out – Sergeant Prince’s sneaky way of delivering the note was a good indication that he wasn’t going to answer any questions. She was eligible for a day-pass off base, so the next morning she checked out and got on the local train. St. Boniventure Station was a thirty minute ride from the base.

  The coffee shop was on one corner of the busy platform. It was little more than a large box with a counter on one side and a pair of baristas inside. Quantrill slipped through the crowds of travelers to take a place in the line waiting to order. She was about twenty minutes early, but a cup of coffee sounded perfect on a chilly New Caledonia morning.

  She waited in line and then ordered the most basic thing on the menu. After answering “No, thank you” to a half dozen suggestions for upgrades Quantrill was handed a tall paper cup full of hot, brown liquid. She sat down at a bench with her back to the wall and sipped cautiously at the steaming drink.