by J. N. Chaney
A young man, maybe in his early twenties and armed with a Foryce K-60 assault rifle still slung on his back, hesitated, and Rev could see the gears turning as he took in the four Raiders.
“Don’t even think it, son,” Rev said.
Doc Paul was more direct. “Drop that thing, or you’re a dead man!” he screamed.
The man took an involuntary step back, staring at Doc, then he said, “OK, OK, don’t shoot!”
“Let the weapon fall . . . slowly,” Rev said as Tomiko moved to his side, the barrel of her M-49 rock-steady.
“Do it, Raul,” one of the women—their target, Rev recognized—said.
The man hooked one thumb under the sling at the shoulder, then cautiously lowered it, ignoring Tomiko but with his eyes locked on Doc.
When it hit the floor, Tomiko said, “Now, get on your face.”
As soon as he was down, she kicked the K-60 away.
“We’ve got the package and three more,” Rev passed on the team net.
“Roger that. Nix is clearing the two in the basement. As soon as he’s finished, I’m coming up. Secure each of them, then clear the rest of the floor.”
“Yazzie, take the door,” Rev said.
She nodded and stepped out, covering the hallway leading to the two bedrooms. Rev handed his M-49 to Doc, then took out the zips from his cargo pocket. He felt naked, but one of the SOPs was that anyone securing a POW would not have a weapon that could be taken. Rev sincerely doubted that any of this crew would take his rifle, but procedures were procedures.
He secured the young man first, telling him to place his hands behind his back before slapping the zips on. The ends folded around the man’s wrists automatically and sealed themselves. Then it was the other man and woman before he stepped up to the package.
She didn’t look like a Children of Angels VIP. Soft, almost matronly, she could easily be a primary school teacher.
“Your bodyguard didn’t do such a good job, ma’am,” he said, hooking her arms and lifting her to her feet. “You might want to find a little better caliber next time around. If there ever is one.”
She smiled and said, “When the nebula gets here, you’ll see. There will be a next time. Not for you, though.”
Her eyes flicked for the briefest moment to the back of the room where a door led into a bathroom, according to the blueprints.
“Crap! There were five up here,” he said, turning around just as the door burst open.
A large man with a very large handgun jumped out, putting Rev between himself and Doc. For a split second, he considered pulling the package between them as a shield, but with a shove, he knocked her down out of the way. He bunched his legs to jump at the man, but despite his improved fast-twitch muscles, he knew he’d be too late. The way the man held himself as he brought up the weapon told Rev that this man was a killer, not one to jerk a shot off to the side in his excitement.
Leave enough so they can bring me back.
But the shot never got off. A small mist of blood spurted from the left side of his head a second before Rev reached him. He caught the body, and it slumped, the handgun clattering to the floor.
Tomiko stepped closer from where she’d been by the window and looked up at the lolling head flopping over Rev’s arm. “I hate it when people ignore me,” she told the dead man.
“Holy shit, Miko!” You zeroed the bastard,” Doc said, rushing forward. “I didn’t have a shot.”
Because I screwed up.
Yazzie stuck her head back in the room. “What happened.”
“Missed this bastard,” Doc said. “But Miko nailed him.”
Rev’s heart was beating a mile-a-minute, and he knew Punch would start ordering his nanos to start filling him with suppressants if he didn’t calm down.
He lay the body down and looked at the package, whose face was now twisted in rage.
“You’ll pay for that, sinner!”
“You should have paid for better bodyguards.”
He had to take charge again. “Miko, watch the prisoners. Doc, Yazzie, we’re clearing the rest of the floor before the staff sergeant comes up.”
Tomiko acted like she was going to say something, but she bit her lip and nodded.
“What are you going to do with us?” the package asked.
“Whatever the hell we want,” Rev snapped. He shouldn’t have, but he wasn’t feeling particularly charitable.
The main room took up most of the top floor, so clearing the two bedrooms took the three Raiders just a couple of minutes. Rev made sure they checked each closet. The Navy said there were five people on the floor, but he wasn’t going to take any chances.
They were returning just as the staff sergeant and Hussein came up. Delacrie took in the dead man but didn’t ask what happened. It would all come out in the debrief.
“Romeo-Victor-Four, this is Echo-Delta-Golf-Three. We’ve got the package plus five. I repeat, package plus five. What do you want us to do with them?” the staff sergeant passed back to the CP over the team net.
It took a moment, then a voice came back. “Bring all six pax for pickup.”
“Roger, out.”
The staff sergeant looked around for a moment and then said, “You heard the man. Let’s get rid of them.”
The four Children of Angels hadn’t heard the comms, of course. All they heard was what the staff sergeant said. The second woman, who Rev had barely given a glance, started sobbing.
“You can’t do anything to us. You have no right!” the package screamed in righteous fury. “We answer to the angels, and not to man!”
“Well, you don’t have to answer. You either walk, or we’ll drag you,” Delacrie said before motioning to the others.
Rev, Doc, Tomiko, and Hussein each grabbed a prisoner under the armpits and pulled them up to their feet. Tomiko had the woman, who could barely stand. After trying to walk a few steps, Tomiko gave up and slung the woman over her shoulders.
“What?” she asked to Rev’s look. “She won’t walk.”
Rev had the other bodyguard, the one who’d decided that discretion was the better part of valor. His face was pale, and he was trembling, but the man walked even if it looked like he was heading to the gallows. That puzzled Rev for a moment until he remembered what the staff sergeant had said. “Get rid of them” wasn’t the most diplomatic way he could have put it.
He was tempted to just let the man suffer, but he leaned close and whispered, “Calm down. You’re just getting transported to interrogation.”
The man looked at him with wary, if hopeful, eyes. But he seemed a tiny bit surer of himself.
They reached the ground floor where Bedam and Nix had two more prisoners. “OK, let’s take them out.”
The package gasped, and the woman on Tomiko’s shoulder started wailing. Rev’s prisoner turned to look at him accusingly.
Staff Sergeant, you really need to watch your wording.
They dragged the prisoners out onto Grant street just as the same Buzzard appeared, tilted its fans, and slowly descended, sending up dirt, leaves, and trash into the air. The sand pelted the bare heads and arms of the prisoners, but Rev kept a firm grip on his.
“That’s it. They’re ready,” the Staff Sergeant yelled over the noise. “Get ’em on!”
The crew chief stepped off the back ramp and motioned urgently for them to approach. Rev didn’t blame him. A Buzzard was not made for streets, and it was vulnerable to anyone with a basic anti-armor missile on the roof of the surrounding buildings. Heck, it could be vulnerable to a large cerrocrete block thrown off a nearby roof.
It took only a few moments to load the prisoners, and the second Nix got his prisoner on the ramp, the Buzzard was already lifting, the fans whining as they pushed air.
And then it was gone.
“Good job, Marines,” the staff sergeant passed.
“And sailor,” Doc added.
“Yeah, and sailor,” he said.
The team leader looked around, th
en said, “Time to get back. I’ve gotten chow approved before the debrief.”
There was a chorus of cheers.
“But the mission isn’t over until we’re back. This is still a patrol, so don’t take your foot off the gas. Second, you lead.”
The team fell into the patrol formation and started back.
Rev had a lot to think about. He’d survived single combat with a Centaur, but he’d almost gotten taken down by a human.
Combat is combat, Reverent. Remember that!
17
“Miko, you OK?” Rev asked as they left their debrief.
“Looking forward to catching a bit of shut-eye, but yeah.”
“No, I mean . . .”
“What, Rev? Spit it out.”
He looked around at the rest of the team to see if anyone was listening, then lowered his voice to barely above a whisper. “That Angel shit you zeroed.”
“Saved your ass, right? Bam! Right in the side of the head,” she crowed.
“Yeah, you did. But, you know, are you OK with that?”
“OK with saving you? I don’t know. Ask me in a year, and I’ll tell you,” she said, punching him in the upper arm. “Or is this one of those things you see in the holovids, you know, where if you save someone and you have to take care of them forever. If it is, I ain’t playing that game. I’ve seen how much you eat.”
She isn’t getting it. That, or she’s purposely avoiding the question.
He still thought about the kapo he’d shot. The kapos that had been killed when he took out the mini-centaur had been collateral damage, but the one coming out of the factory had been a direct kill. And now, Tomiko had purposely killed another human being, too.
“It’s OK if you want to talk about it. I’m here whenever you need me.”
Tomiko stopped dead, grabbing his arm and swinging him around to face her.
“Wait a minute. You, who’ve killed one tin-ass and sent another into the river, the hard-ass Marine, are asking me if I’m OK because I wasted a mother-fucking traitor to humankind?” Her eyes flashed with anger. “What, because little ol’ Miko doesn’t have the fucking balls to do her job?”
“No. I didn’t mean it like that,” Rev protested.
“Then what the hell did you mean?”
Rev stood there, towering over his friend, his mouth gaping, but no words were coming out.
“Yeah, I thought so. Listen, Rev, I love you like my brother, but you don’t have a clue as to who I am.” She spun away and hurried after the rest of the team.
“What the hell did I do wrong?”
He hadn’t been asking Punch, but he subvocalized, “I did not. I was just concerned that she would be upset.”
“I . . . I think so. I mean, maybe.”
“I am.”
“That’s not fair. I do accept her.”
“I was senior to her. I had to make decisions.”
Rev watched Tomiko catch up to Hussein and start walking beside him. She said something to him that made him laugh.
Crap. Punch’s right. How can a hunk of crystal understand human emotions better than I can?
All the more evidence that his battle buddy was more than just a tool to use in battle.
Rev jogged after the team, catching up as they hit the tarmac and turned left to where a team of Ninety-nines had erected about forty bivouacs so far. Each bivouac was shipped on a small pallet. When the activator was hooked to the nipple, the foam expanded into pre-programmed shapes. From activation to finish, one building took about three minutes before the Ninety-nines could start attaching the climate control systems and bringing in furniture or whatever.
That could have been me, he thought with a shudder. If I hadn’t convinced that doc . . .
A thirty-year commitment, with a casualty rate that was the same as everyone else’s . . . no, being a Ninety-nine was not the way to go. Far better to take your chances early in Direct Combat, and if you go down, you go down fighting.
Staff Sergeant Delacrie led them to the right row and to their assigned bivouac. Rev was just glad that theirs was already up. Tomiko wasn’t the only one who could use some sleep.
They trooped through the hatch.
“Look who’s here,” Ting-a-ling said. “Welcome to our humble abode.”
The Frisian flight must have just beaten them there. They were opening their racks along the front of the bivouac, taking the right-hand side. More racks were against the bulkhead, ready for use, and the climate control system blew cool air through three vents.
“This isn’t too shabby,” Rev said, looking around the Quonset-shaped building. “Hard to believe we’re in combat.”
“Stippy-do Marines,” Ting-a-ling said to the laughs of the other Frisians.
“Eat me, crayon. But you can sleep outside if you want,” Tomiko said, still sounding a little angry.
Rev grimaced. Crayon was their new nickname for the color-coordinated Frisians, but with the tone in which she said the word, it could be taken as intended to be an insult instead of normal trash talk.
“Oh, I don’t want to embarrass our hosts. Our tan-master said we needed to blend in with you jarheads and not show you up. And, as you can see, we’ve already claimed this little piece of heaven as our area. You snooze, you lose.” Which was a rule no matter in which military you served.
“Grab the opposite side,” Sergeant Nix said, “before the other teams stake their claim.”
Rev would just as soon have the back so people weren’t stumbling past in the dark on their way to the head. Evidently, close to the door had some kind of premium.
Despite that First, Second, and Fifth Teams were still out on their snatches and wouldn’t be able to contest any claim, there was a quick rush as Marines and commandos grabbed their racks, dropped their gear, and got situated.
Rev shook open his rack and eyed it dubiously. It didn’t look too sturdy, and as an augmented Marine, he had more than the usual bulk. He sat on the edge. It creaked but held. Tentatively, he lay down.
“Damn! This is a pretty good piece of gear,” he said, surprised at how comfortable it was.
“You Union folks can do something right, at least,” Ting-a-ling said from his back.
“But we won’t tell your tan-master if you decide to rough it,” Tomiko said as she tried hers out.
“What’s the equivalent of a tan-master?”
It was just idle curiosity. Rev had seen the green-master, the highest Frisian attached to the regiment, but he’d never seen anyone else. With sixty or so of the commandos still attached as part of the pan-humanity cooperation mandate, it made sense that there would be someone higher. Not that the Frisians had ranks. At least according to them.
“So, Ting-a-ling, a tan-master is the highest rank here with us?” Rev asked.
“We don’t have ranks in the Host,” BooBoo, one of the other commandos, said, something Rev expected. They were touchy on the subject.
“Sure, you don’t,” Tomiko said. “You keep telling yourself that.”
“We don’t. We have our occupational slots, that’s all.”
“Yeah. Ranks, just like us. You just use a crayon box to identify them.”
“Butkyluvytch, you know ou
r buddies in the Imperial Jarhead Corps need their ranks so they know what to do,” Ting-a-ling told Booboo.
The Frisians looked like Union citizens, they had no discernible accent, and these commandos shared the Marines’ warrior ethos, but every time Rev heard one of their impossible-to-pronounce names, he was reminded that they came from a different nation—that, and the fact that they kept insisting that the Host did not have ranks. It wouldn’t be that big of a thing except for the fact that they lorded it over the Marines as if it were a good thing.
This was a long-standing issue, one Rev normally ignored, but he decided to get into it this time.
“So, Ting-a-ling, you’re a blue-master, right?”
“I always said you were a smart guy for a jarhead, Rev. You could pick that right up,” he said, pointing to the blue collar tab on his uniform top.
“So, if a yellow-tab walks in here and tells you to, I don’t know . . . clean the heads, what will you do?”
“Clean them, of course.”
“Because he told you so.”
“Yeah.”
“So, he can give you orders.”
“Yeah. And your point is?”
“My point is that he can give you orders because a yellow-tab is a higher rank than a blue-tab.”
“Au contraire, good Corporal. He can give me orders because, as a yellow-master, he’s in the slot to give me orders. It’s got nothing to do with military rank. I could be a yellow-master tomorrow and be giving him orders.”
Tomiko rolled onto her back, pulled the small Marine-issue pillow over her face, and screamed into it.”
“Give it up, Rev,” Nix said. “They’re never going to admit it.”
Ting-a-ling gave a self-satisfied smile as he kicked off his boots and lay back.
“Because we’re right,” Huska said, one of only two commandos whose name anyone could pronounce.
Rev rolled his eyes and lay back on his rack. The Frisian commandos were good guys and good fighters, and he rather liked them. But this one issue was frustrating. Rank was rank, and it didn’t matter if it was a color or the same traditional ranks most Marine Corps had used for a thousand years.