Esther's Story: Recon Marine (The United Federation Marine Corps' Lysander Twins Book 2)

by Jonathan Brazee

  “Chris, that MRL, it’s got a remote firing capability?”

  “Yes, I’ve already programmed it to our AIs.”

  He did? I didn’t notice, but good initiative.

  “Three salvos, right?”

  “All at once or three?”

  She pulled up the overlay, selected three spots, and pushed them to him.

  “Target these three?”

  He paused a second as he checked her orders, then asked, “The third one?”

  “Just do it. And make it look abandoned.”

  “Roger that,” Chris said before rushing off.

  Esther knelt and wiped a clear spot in the dirt before making a quick sketch of Mount Zeus. It wasn’t great, but without displays for everyone, it was the best she could do.

  Mount Zeus was the major geographic feature of the Naxos, rising from the western half of the island. The north and east sides rose precipitously, while the south had a more gradual slope that ended on the southern shoreline. To the west, part of the face had fallen years ago, leaving a 180-meter cliff. The summit consisted of a relatively flat crown, a single small jut achieving the 814-meter elevation. There was a trail leading up to the summit, starting at the southeast, meandering back and forth, the last loop running from near the end of a gorge cut into the north face and running around the mountain’s shoulder back to the southwest side where it bent around and onto the crown. Esther couldn’t get all of those details into her dirt-scrapings, but they’d all run up the trail six times now, and they’d just been training on the eastern face, so this wasn’t covering new ground.

  There was an explosion in the distance, and Esther looked up. Out in the water, a small fire was burning. She pulled up the overhead feed and sent it back 30 seconds. On the display, the go-fast was escaping, its wake an arrow pointing to its position. There was a flash from one of the RHG boats, then several pops of light making their way to the go-fast. The speedboat was quick, but not as quick as a missile. It hit the boat and exploded, sending pieces of go-fast flying in all directions.

  “Well, they have missiles,” she said. “One less now, though.”

  RHG forces tended to be lightly armed, so if they had missiles, that was not good news. It didn’t change her overall plan, though. With a larger island, more cover, and a better-trained force, she’d probably try and play hide-n-seek with the RHG, hoping to either wear them down or last long enough for major reinforcements. With the resources at hand, however, she felt that a strong defense, making the best use of the terrain, offered her the best chance to make it out of this alive. The situation still looked very bleak, but it was what it was, and it was up to her to give the best shot they had to survive the coming hours.

  “OK, get close to where you can see. This is what we’re going to do . . .”

  Chapter 35

  The HMG’s were singing their duet, the call of the first answered by the response of the second, together becoming more than the sums of their parts. The unbroken stream of fire tore into the Hands as they emerged from the coastal scrub, dropping a handful while the rest scrambled for cover. Slowly but surely, the HMGs were herding them to the north, all the while winnowing their numbers. Esther thought at least 20 of them had been killed or wounded, which was an impressive number for what she thought was about half of the two guns’ 5,000 rounds.

  Hands on the south side of their line crowded those to the north as they tried to get out of the line of fire. Esther wished she had some mortars to drop on their heads as they bunched up.

  Might as well wish for a battery of 155’s or a flight of Wasps, she thought.

  Bob had probably picked off another 10 or 15 with his Windmoeller. The sniper rifle had a max effective range of 2800 meters, and the Hands on the south side of their line were only 800 to 900 meters away, so it was a turkey shoot for him. If someone started to move to the south to get out of the HMGs’ line of fire, Bob dropped him with the .308, 172-grain, tef-sleeved round before others followed in herd mentality.

  “It’s working,” she told Constantine who could see her Dragonfly feed. “They’re shifting left. Your gunners are pretty good.”

  Due to the paucity of ammo, Esther hadn’t seen the gun teams operate, but she had to give them props. Their fire discipline and targeting was excellent.

  “They don’t call us the Hellenic Weekend Gun Club for nothing,” the captain said. “We do like to shoot, especially the HMGs.”

  “Merl, what’s your status?” she passed, turning her attention away from Constantine.

  “It’s rough in here, Ess. We got four surprises emplaced, but it’s tough going.”

  “I’d say you’ve got 30 minutes max. Whatever you have by then will have to do. Don’t get yourself trapped there.”

  “Roger that.”

  Esther focused back on her display a moment before the Dragonfly feed cut out.

  “Crap! That’s the last Dragonfly,” she said.

  One by one, the three drones had been shot down, which meant that there were at least some energy weapons among the Hands—and not only that, but a way for the enemy to spot the drones. As far as she knew, this was an increase of capability never before seen from them.

  “Switching to the Gnats,” she passed on the team net as she flicked through the nine remaining working feeds. The Gnats were much harder to spot, but they were even more vulnerable to energy weapons, even from side lobes, and the resolution of their feeds was not as good as their larger cousins’. One of the Gnats was hovering over the wider path into the Vomit Gorge, so she panned it forward to watch for the Hands.

  There was a break in the point/counterpoint of the HMGs, then a quickly aborted string of fire.

  “The guns are out of ammo,” Bob told her.

  “Pull the firing assemblies and retreat back to our pos,” she passed.

  She doubted that the RHG soldiers had the HMGs’ 12.4 ammunition, but better safe than sorry. Without the assemblies, the guns were useless.

  “What about me? It’s still a target-rich environment.”

  Esther hesitated a moment. Bob was a stereotypical sniper in that she knew he’d stay there if she let him, happily picking off Hands. But another five or ten kills wouldn’t swing the battle, and it would leave him exposed. He didn’t even have a spotter with him for security.

  “I’ve lost the Dragonfly feed. What does it look like they’re doing?”

  “Most are moving up the north side. I’ve got a few stragglers on the south, but not many. I wouldn’t say they’re committed to the north, though. They could shift back, at least some of them.”

  It wasn’t that imperative that all of the Hands assaulted the mountain from the north. A few coming up the gentler slope to the south wouldn’t matter much. Still, it would take some of her soldiers to deal with that. She had a feeling that even if most of the RHG fighters initially climbed the mountain at the north side, they would scoot around once the hit the trail from the east as it looped around to the south and to the summit.

  “Take out who you can and try to keep the rest pushing to the north, but you’ve got five minutes, no more. Keep the soldiers with you, and after five, I want all of you back here. We’ve got more than a few firing positions up here to keep you busy.”

  “Out of ammo on the HMGs. I’m pulling back the gun teams and the squad,” she informed Constantine.

  “How much damage did they inflict?”

  “Between them and Gray? Maybe 30 or 40.”

  “So we only have 360 left? Child’s play.”

  Esther heard the sarcasm in his voice, but if she had a platoon or two of Marines with their full combat load, while it wouldn’t be child’s play, she’d be cautiously optimistic about success. The RHG had wiped out a Marine platoon on Saint Grigori’s Ascension, and probably with fewer fighters than what face them now, but that platoon had been trapped in an untenable position. Mount Zeus was a much better piece of terrain to defend. The west side was protected by the 180-meter sheer cliff, th
e south side was an open climb with little cover, and the north and east were steep and rough. The only quick way up the last 150 meters was using the trail. Anywhere else and the Hands would be fighting the mountain as well as the brigade.

  Esther heard the crack of Bob’s Windmoeller sniper rifle down the mountain.

  Keep smacking them down, Bob.

  If it were her firing, she’d take the Kyocera, the Marine Corps’ sniper mag-rifle, she thought as Bob fired again. The hypervelocity darts were almost silent, and up to about 2000 meters, the rifle was more accurate than its slug-throwing counterpart. There were sniper rifles from all over human space that he could have used as well. There was always the Confederation’s Pilum 42, she knew, and that was a good choice. But he liked the standard Windmoeller . . .

  Now’s not the time to debate sniper rifles, Esther! Focus.

  The problem was that at the moment, she wasn’t doing much of anything. Tim and Master Sergeant Kang were working on the choke points, Chris and Doc were supervising the construction of fighting positions, Merle and Lyle were still emplacing the booby-traps, Bob was sniping targets of opportunity, and Bug was preparing a little surprise should any Hands come up from the south. She, the team leader, was standing on the military crest with Constantine, simply observing.

  If she had supporting arms, she could be registering targets and calling for fire. If she had air, she could be directing strikes. With a Navy ship in orbit, she’d have her hands full directing fire. But she had none of that, and her nervous energy was mounting.

  She wheeled and strode to where three squads were digging in.

  “Digging in” was being generous. Chris and one of the soldiers from the hastily organized First Platoon were shirtless as the two horsed around the commercial compacter, trying to dig fighting holes. The compacter was not intended as a military piece of gear, but it had been part of the construction equipment the brigade had brought. Its main purpose was to compact the ground as a foundation for tents or shelters. The compacter worked by decreasing the molecular space of anything in its beam. By changing the focus of the beam, it could switch from simple compaction to “digging” a hole as the molecules of the dirt or rock collapsed upon themselves. Esther did a quick count. Only five holes had been dug over the last 20 minutes.

  “We need to step it up,” she said.

  “It’s the ground here. All rock,” Chris said.

  “I know, but time’s getting short. Just do the best you can.”

  A series of cracks sounded from the other side of the crest, followed by a cry of pain. Doc Buren looked up from where he was pointing out fields of fire to two of the soldiers.

  “Keep up with what you’re doing,” she told him. “Let Doctor Willis handle it.”

  Doctor Willis was Sergeant Willis, whose day job was a physician. Doc Buren rightly took pride in his medical abilities, but Willis was a full MD, so he should be able to handle the situation. Doc Buren was frankly more valuable at the moment as a warrior, not a healer.

  Another series of cracks sounded out as RHG rounds impacted on the rocks on the east side of the crest. Tim was already in motion with Master Sergeant Kang on his heels as they rushed to where panicked soldiers were trying to figure out what to do.

  “Pull back,” he shouted, grabbing one of the lieutenants by the collar and yanking him back to where he was out of the line of fire. Another one of the Second Platoon soldiers started downhill, which still kept him exposed, and Esther darted forward to grab him, spinning him around and sending him to the west side of the crest. Another scattering of rounds impacted around the summit, and one round made a nasty buzzing as it whizzed by her head.

  All 15 or so soldiers were up and running for cover. Esther waved her arm, directing them behind the protecting bulk of Zeus’ peak when one of the men dropped bonelessly to the ground. Keeping low, she rushed forward, grabbed the motionless soldier by his combat harness and started dragging him back. Within a couple of seconds, Constantine joined her, and together, they got him out of the line of fire.

  Hell!

  They’d lost their first man. Esther didn’t need Doctor Willis to pronounce him dead. The big round had hit the soldier in the back and tore out half of his chest as it exited. He could probably be resurrected, she thought, but that was dependent them being able to withstand the coming assault.

  Her anger began to bubble over as she looked at the soldier.

  “Who had lookout duty?” she shouted.

  “Soldier Tesler,” one of the men said, using the Hellenic equivalent of “private.”

  “Tesler, step up, now!”

  “That’s him,” Constantine said quietly, pointing at the dead man.

  Oh, shit. You killed yourself.

  She pushed Tesler out of her mind and focused on what had just happened. With the RFG soldiers getting closer, they couldn’t directly fire up on the crown, which comprised the bulk of her battle position. The very bulk of the mountain blocked their fire. Esther had ordered that four lookouts be set up, each with a quadrant to watch for the enemy to crest terrain features and become a direct-fire threat. But the Hands weren’t mindless automatons, simply marching forward into the face of fire. They knew about supporting fire, and they’d kept some fighters back far enough away to have an angle to take the east side of the summit under fire. Soldier Tesler was supposed to spot anyone to the east. He’d failed to spot them, and he’d paid the ultimate price for that failure.

  Luckily, whoever was in that base of fire were not skilled marksmen. If they’d had their own Bob Burnham, Esther thought she would have lost six or seven of the soldiers. The RGH had wounded one man, who seemed to be more angry than incapacitated, and killed another, but they’d also played their hand. Esther could figure out where they were. She rewound her cam, then slowed it down. Rounds ricocheted off the rocks at various angles, but she didn’t need her AI to get a back azimuth. With a quick set of orders, she sent two of the Gnats to track down the RHG positions.

  “Bob, where’re you at?”

  “On my way. I’ll be at your pos in 20.”

  “We’ve taken incoming fire. Track Gnat 4 and 9. When they’ve located the shooters, pick a spot within our perimeter where you can engage them when things get hot.”

  “Roger that.”

  Esther thought she was beginning to understand the RHG’s plan. They were fine with coming up Vomit Gorge. Once they emerged and reached the mountain’s shoulder, it would be difficult for the soldiers and Marines to engage them on the north and east sides without exposing themselves to the RHG base of fire. Climbing would be slow and difficult, and they could not bring their full strength en masse. But they wouldn’t be under the same intense fire as if they were assaulting from the south.

  Should I have canalized them to the south instead? Esther wondered, second guessing herself.

  To the south, she had clearer fields of fire, and she’d have been able to keep assaulting forces engaged, but fields of fire went both ways. Her own soldiers would be just as vulnerable to RHG weapons, and the RHG had many more fighters than she had. If she got through this, the major and the rest could pick apart her decisions to their heart’s desire. But for now, she had to play out her hand.

  Now on the west side of the summit, the soldiers who’d just run for cover were milling about, most staring at Tesler. Esther realized this was probably the first time any of them had seen one of their number killed. She needed to get them active, but she couldn’t very well send them to finish their positions.

  “Tim, we’re still going to need to cover the Second Platoon’s AO. Work with Kang to get these guys organized to move forward when we can get fire on the Hands. I want them ready to move forward once Bob’s in position and engaging.”

  It wasn’t a very detailed order, she knew, but Tim didn’t need to be micro-managed, and it was better than just to have the soldiers standing and waiting for events to reach them. Tim nodded and moved to the other side of them, away from where
Doctor Willis was fruitlessly working on Tesler’s body. The solders had to turn away and look at him as he started issuing orders.

  A muffled explosion sounded from the northeast, down the slope.

  Esther switched to Merl’s feed, but it was jerky as he ran. She got a few glimpses of Lyle running in front of him. She switched to the nearest Gnat instead. A small column of smoke and dust was rising from Vomit Gorge, and she could see movement as Hands scrambled in reaction. She panned back until she could see Merl and Lyle running up the slope to where they could catch the trail. It took her a second or two before the scene registered.

  “Merl, Lyle, stop! Do not climb higher!” Both slowed to a halt, and she continued, “We’ve got shooters somewhere along this axis.” She highlighted it and pushed it to their displays. “Stay down low where you have cover and circumnavigate the base. I don’t want you to climb until you reach here,” she said, highlighting a position that should mask them from the shooters. “I’ll send a runner to let the squad on that side know you’re coming, but remember, they don’t have telltale receivers. Make sure you let them know you’re there.”

  “Thanks for the heads up. How much time do we have?”

  She studied her map display for a moment, then said, “No more than 15 minutes. It’s more than a klick, so get moving.”

  Esther had almost let her two Marines move into a position of vulnerability. She had their avatars on her display, but she’d neglected to overlay the incoming fire from the Hands. She still didn’t exactly know where the RHG base of fire was located, but there weren’t that many options for it.

  Esther was feeling more than a bit overwhelmed. She just didn’t have the resources she needed for a defense in depth, nor did she even have the normal command and control capabilities she expected within a Marine unit. Marines might be noted for succeeding despite the odds, but most of her command were inexperienced militia, and even with Marines, sometimes, the enemy was just too numerous. If the entire RGH force rushed them at once, she really didn’t think they could hold them back. But Esther couldn’t think of anything more she could do to break up their assault into more manageable waves.