She gave a non-committal sniff and took another sip of her Grackle. Unless the legionnaire was playing a very long game, whatever he said or did wouldn’t have much effect one way or the other. Esther was still a second lieutenant, low man on the officer totem pole. Nothing she could do would have much of an impact on the Federation or even Nouvelle Bretagne. Major Postern had brought her as a not-so-subtle dig at the Legion, not because she really mattered to the bigger picture.
“Not much in the way of Landing Day celebrations,” the legionnaire said, turning to scan the crowd.
She knew what he meant. Almost all planets celebrated either Landing Day, the anniversary of mankind’s first landing on a planet, or Founder’s Day, when a planet that was terraformed was declared habitable. Nouvelle Bretagne didn’t need terraforming (other than the ongoing slow process of lengthening the planet’s rotation until it matched that of Earth’s), so it was Landing Day here. But there were no parades, no fireworks, no displays of military might. That last made her chuckle. There were two militaries here, so she guessed there was a display of military might. Neither was there in celebration, though.
“Could be because of the unrest you’ve created.”
“Oh, please, mon Lieutenant,” Donald said, “I’m surprised at you. Whatever unrest, as you say, that exists here was already brewing. Neither you Marines nor we in the Legion have anything to do with that. We’re just marketing tools to help swing the vote.”
“Or to fight each other.”
“Or to fight, if necessary. It’s all part of the entertainment. It’s all part of the branding.”
I’m not an entertainer, she thought. I’m here to defend Federation citizens.
“Once the vote is in, and Jordy Enclave stays with the Federation and rest of the planet splits to join Greater France, you and I will leave for new adventures. A year from now, we could be fighting a mutual enemy.”
“We already are. The Klethos.”
“Touché, Lieutenant. Yes, we are, but I was thinking more in terms of normal combat.”
Esther hesitated a moment, then asked, “Do you think that is how the election will come out? With a split like that?”
“I would hazard a guess to say that’s likely. But we’ll see.”
The Marines, at least at her level and below, had been given only the vaguest of briefs on the political situation. She hadn’t given the election much thought other than it would be a yes or no to leave or stay. What he said made sense, though.
“Your Captain Quince seems to be enjoying himself,” he said, raising his glass and lifting a forefinger off of it to point.
Esther rolled her eyes. If she had to say something, she would, but she hoped one of the others would intervene first. Even if she was right, it wasn’t a good thing for a junior to correct a senior. Other officers agreeing with her actions would probably still label her as arrogant and as someone who felt privileged.
Then it struck her that he knew the captain’s name as well.
“Do you keep track of all of us?”
A broad smile broke across his face, and he shrugged. “Only those on the guest list. Would you like to meet our representatives? That’s Commandant Chelli over there, talking with Mr. Mulliare.”
Trying to convince him to change his views, Esther thought.
“No, I’m fine without. Uh . . . it’s been a pleasure, Sous-lieutenant . . .”
A “pleasure?” Has it really? Geez, Esther. Get real.
It might not have been a pleasure, but social niceties had a way of forcing themselves out, and she continued, “. . . but I’m afraid I need to see to our captain.”
“Yes, it has been a pleasure, Lieutenant Lysander. I hope we meet again, perhaps when we’re not on opposing sides.”
For a horrifying moment, Esther thought he was going to take her hand and kiss it like some 18th Century court noble, but he merely gave a short nod and left.
That was one of the strangest conversations in her life. If they met tomorrow in a battle, she would have no hesitation to kill the man. But he’d been pleasant, and under other circumstances, she might have enjoyed speaking to him.
She looked up at Captain Quince again, who was now leaning way too close to a young woman who was giving every sign that she wanted to bolt. The captain was gesturing with his hands, Grackle sloshing out of the glass he held, as he was making a point that he probably thought was profound.
The easiest thing to do would be to ignore the captain. Eventually, one of the others would lasso him and get him out of there. She wouldn’t be involved, and nothing would reflect onto her.
But she was an officer in the Marines, and she had a duty to the Federation. Maybe more importantly, she had a duty to the captain as well. Marines had each other’s backs. That was the way it was.
She put her glass down on a side table, tugged at the bottom edge of her Alpha’s jacket, then started marching across the ballroom floor to him. It was the right thing to do, but she hoped it wouldn’t blow up in her face.
Chapter 10
“How’s he doing?” Ter asked as the two Marines looked out over the receiving station.
Esther didn’t need her to elaborate. “He” could only be one person.
“I thought he’d pulled out of it at the municipal building, but he’s back to where he was. He barely says a word, and he doesn’t take any action on his own.”
“Maybe it’s when the shit hits the fan that he starts performing. Back at camp, he’s got his thoughts to contend with.”
“His demons, you mean. Maybe you’re right, though. He was fine for that mission. When that idiot charged us, he was cool and professional. Uh, what did the first sergeant say? You never told me.”
Esther had only confided with Ter so far on her concerns about Staff Sergeant Fortuna. Between the two of them, they wanted the company’s senior enlisted Marine’s input, but if Esther approached the first sergeant, it would be an “official” action. She was his commander, and technically, her concerns needed to go into the record. Ter was the XO, however, not in Fortuna’s chain of command. She could do things without the formality that handcuffed Esther.
Ter pursed her lips and took a deep breath through her nose before answering.
“He thinks it’s temporary. He’s also worried about Fortuna’s career. So his suggestion is just to stand by until the mission’s over. The elections are in two days, and we’re probably going to be terminated shortly after that. Fortuna’s got another eight months until he’s due orders, but the first sergeant is going to talk to the sergeant major after we get back, and between the two of them, they’ll try to get him earlier orders to Tarawa or someplace where he can get therapy.”
“He’s getting therapy on Reissler Quay.”
“Aye-yah, I know. But Tarawa’s got the Naval Hospital, and he thinks that will make a difference. Bottom line is that he doesn’t want you to initiate any action that’ll screw up Fortuna’s career. He wants the SNCO mafia to take care of it.”
“He said that? ‘SNCO mafia?’”
The term was quite common, especially among the officer ranks, but Esther didn’t think SNCOs would use it, too.
“Yeah, he did. Why not? That’s what they are.”
Unlike Esther, Ter had been a staff sergeant when she was selected for a commission, and she wore the SNCO badge proudly. Esther hadn’t meant anything derogatory—she just didn’t know, and not knowing anything grated on her.
OK, file that one away.
“No reason. Just curious.
“I don’t want to wreck his career,” she added, changing back to the main subject. “He’s served the Federation with distinction, and he deserves our support.”
“Aye-yah, he does,” she said with a note of finality. A moment later, she asked, “And what about Das Salaam and Eire? They doing OK?”
“Fine,” she said of her two WIA who were now back with the platoon. “No problems at all.”
“Well, I’ve got to get t
o Nok. She’s got a bunch of protestors out in front of her,” the XO said. “Gotta support the sisters, you know.”
Esther dutifully gave her a fist bump. Female officers were still somewhat rare. Only 20%, or thereabouts, of the Corps were women. The officer corps was 7% female, although that was expected to rise as more women entered the enlisted pool from which officers were selected. There were only four female officers in the entire battalion, and three were in Golf. A cynic might believe that was gender segregation. Someone else might think it was just the luck of the draw. The three Golf lieutenants chose to declare they were assigned together to use “sister power” to make Golf the tip of the battalion spear. Patel never played along, but Steel jokingly declared himself an “honorary sister.”
“Not going to see Steel?”
“The skipper’s there with him. So that leaves me with you two.”
As the elections got closer, Intel had picked up chatter from both sides of the political fence. As a result, all six of the task force’s line platoons were out at perceived hotspots. Steel’s Second Platoon was in town at the municipal building, which was the center of protests in Jordy Enclave. But where Esther’s first platoon had faced only Federation-supporting protestors, both sides were there now. If Esther were a betting woman, she’d say that it would be either there or with Echo’s First Platoon in Hummerstadt that any violence would break out. Captain Jonas evidently agreed with that assessment, and that’s where he was as well.
“Well, tell Nok to keep her head down,” Esther said as the XO motioned for her driver-slash-security.
Things could be too degraded if Ter and one lance corporal could travel around as they willed.
“Aye-yah, I will. You keep your head down, too.”
“I don’t think we’ve got much to worry about. No matter who wins, they need power,” Esther replied.
“Complacency, my dear butter bar, complacency. You’ve got warm bodies out there to bring home when all this is over.”
Ter was her friend, but she was also the company XO, and Esther bristled at the implied criticism. She was very aware of the people out there. She knew the platoon was under observation. But she agreed with Intel’s assessment that they were there to watch over an even protect the receiving station as well. Like she said, however, the elections turned out, Nouvelle Bretagne needed power, and the receiving station supplied it for this entire region of Jordy Enclave as well as to more than 20,000 households in Green River, a Francophile-leaning county across the provincial border. But believing that the station would not be a target did not mean that Esther was complacent in her mission.
She knew Ter didn’t mean any real criticism, but she frowned as her friend got in their candy-blue rental hover (yes, on a live mission, she was out in a rental as if on vacation somewhere). Still, the reminder made her double-check her positioning.
The receiving station, which accepted the transmission of energy from the orbital solar station and then distributed it out to the grid, was too large at six hectares for the platoon to set up around the perimeter. So Esther had broken up the three squads and placed them at three separate strong points within the station, creating a perimeter defense. Each squad could support the other two with fire, and each had scrounged enough material within the station to have fairly decent protection from small arms. They could function as interlocking pillboxes. With Esther, Doc, and Lance Corporal Mykystra at in the station control house—which she shared with four civilian employees of SDS Power—she could watch over each position.
Six dragonflies, guided by AI chaos programming to avoid patterns, covered the area surrounding them out to over a klick.
Nothing in warfare was a “for certain,” but Esther was pretty confident that her platoon was in a good position. She didn’t see anything that needed to change.
Her AI pulled some of the company data stream, deemed it important, and displayed it for her. The protests around the municipal building were getting more heated, but so far, nothing was directed at the Marines or the building itself. For a moment, Esther wished that it was her platoon that was there. But she knew Captain Hoffman had made the right assignment. First was still shorthanded, and that could make a difference should things get bad there. And as Steel has said to her after the mission brief, it was about time his Marines had their turn in the potential breach. It took combat to hone the steel of a platoon, after all.
Esther couldn’t direct her feeds to any specific person in Second Platoon, but from the feed that was open to the rest of the company, she could see some scuffling between the protestors going on. A wedge of local police moved forward and professionally split the two groups without obvious injury to any of them. She had to give both the police and their FCDC trainers credit. That had been very well done. Proactive and aggressive action could be the key to keeping serious violence from breaking out.
She looked past her display to where her police were standing, chatting with the SDS jimmylegs at the station’s main gate. She’d been surprised that the company had not beefed up their four-man security team, the same number they’d had every day since the facility first came online years ago. She was equally as surprised that the police had only sent three men. She agreed with the assessment that it would be self-defeating for anyone to attack the station, but it still was a strategic asset, and its loss could be devastating.
“Sergeant Hammerschott, you doing OK?” she asked, turning her mind from the local lack of concern to her own Marines.
“Yes, ma’am. We’re ready for anything.”
With her concerns over Staff Sergeant Fortuna, she’d given Hammerschott less attention that she needed to. In garrison, there wasn’t another NCO as gung-ho and eager. In actual action, he was the polar opposite, hesitant and even frightened. That was not a good combination for any Marines, much less a squad leader. She had his bios miniaturized and running on the bottom of her display. With a simple blink, she could enlarge them. The bios wouldn’t be an indication of anything specific. A rapid heartbeat could mean excitement to close in with the enemy just as much as it could mean fear, but she still wanted to monitor him.
She checked with Daniel-Graves, then Ngcobo. She had no concerns over Sergeant Ngcobo. She had come to trust the strange-looking—and sometimes strange-acting—Marine.
Satisfied, she pulled up the staff sergeant on her display. She’d placed him with Hammerschott’s squad. Before using the P2P, she pulled up his bios. His pulse was a low 38 beats per minute. Esther frowned. It was all well and good to be calm, but they were in a potential combat situation, and she wanted her Marines to be on the alert, not drifting to the comatose.
She was just about to speak over the P2P when the raucous incoming alarm sounded over the platoon net. Her own heartbeat jumped as she switched her display to an aerial aspect, taking in the entire area. Three missiles of some kind were heading towards them from three different directions, each with impact in less than five seconds.
There was nothing Esther could do in that amount of time. It was up to her Marines and their training. Immediately, fire reached up from all three squads. Second and Third aimed at one of the incoming, which looked to be splitting their positions. That left First with two of them.
One of First Squads two Porcupines erupted in its angry chatter. The M-554 “Porcupine” was a small, man-packed projectile mine. It could throw up 50 small minelets out to 750 meters, each minelet capable of taking out smaller rockets, missiles, and possibly even mortar shells. The minelets were dumb munitions, unable to change their trajectory, but each had a proximity fuze that detonated the payload if something came near enough. And in this case, something did. Two of the minelets detonated close to one missile, close enough to send it crashing into the grassy field.
Something hit and knocked down the missile that was splitting Second and Third. It exploded in a five-meter ball of flame. The remaining missile kept coming, and for an instant, she thought First Squad was its target. But it passed right over t
he Marines to slam into one of the transmission tower pylons, sending flames and smoke into the air. Pieces of shrapnel and pylon peppered the area, hitting First’s position, but their fighting position preparation kept anyone from being hit. The transmission tower lurched, and for a moment, Esther thought it was going to fall, but while knocked offline, it stayed upright, if canted.
Fire reached out from the surrounding area to hit inside the station, and her AI tracked mortar shells reaching up into the sky. On her display, the scattered figures that had been out there were coalescing into groups.
Beside her, Mykystra was reporting to the task force CP[6] back at camp. They would be following on the feeds, and she expected the captain or the major to demand her attention at any moment, but for now, she appreciated being able to focus on what was happening.
Her AI was having difficulty identifying the incoming. Neither the missiles nor the mortar fire matched Legion specs, so unless there was more subterfuge going on here than she thought, she was facing locals, not legionnaires. That was all well and good, but she knew the legionnaires and could guess what to expect from them.
She certainly didn’t expect the technicals, at least not this kind of technical. From one of SDS’ own construction sites 800 meters away, two heavy-duty dozers turned towards them, blades high, while a stream of heavy 13mm rounds poured from one of them.
“Banshees, Staff Sergeant!” Esther shouted into her mic, then to Mykystra, “Get us air.”
“Esther, what’s happening?” Ter asked over the P2P.
“Not now, Ter, we’re under attack. You can work on our air request.”
Once again, First Platoon was out of arty range. They didn’t even have a section of mortars. Their mission had been considered low risk, so the heavier weapons had gone elsewhere.
There was a whoosh as a Banshee took off from Second Squad’s position. Esther watched the missile zip downrange, impacting on the right dozer’s blade in a bright flash of flame. The smoke obscured the dozer for a moment, but the blade pushed through the smoke as the dozer emerged. There was a gouge in the blade, surrounded by shiny, clean metal, but the machine hadn’t slowed down—and it kept on firing. A series of sparks jumped off another tower’s pylons as 13mm rounds struck it, but without effect.
Esther's Story: Recon Marine (The United Federation Marine Corps' Lysander Twins Book 2) Page 9