One Good Soldier s-3

by Travis S. Taylor

  "What the fuck?" the major said. "Jack, get your ass over here!"

  Chapter 7

  July 1, 2394 AD

  Mars Orbit, Sol System

  Friday, 10:40 AM, Earth Eastern Standard Time

  "So then Staff Sergeant Suez says to First Sergeant McCandless that he is standing on the target coordinate spot, right?" Private First Class Rondi Howser held up her hands and shrugged her shoulders at the others around her in the shower. The movement of her arms exaggerated her brilliant red, black, and blue cobra high-resolution laser-printed tattoo. It curled around her left leg three times from the knee, up between her legs from behind, across her rippled abdominal muscles, and around both breasts with its open mouth and fangs showing on the left side of her midsection. The red and blue were fluorescent and glowed brilliantly in the low lighting of the showers. "Then the first sergeant tells the colonel that we had secured the spot."

  "Yeah, we were there. We heard it, Private," Army Specialist Karla Hammermill responded, almost annoyed by the PFC's story. But the two of them had been running partners for more than a year, since they had both been deployed to the Madira, and the army specialist had gotten used to the marine's tall tales.

  "Sure, you may have heard it on the QM wireless, but you didn't see it," Corporal Sandy Cross, who was in McCandless's team, added. "I was there. Goddamned FUBAR if we ever get attacked like that in real life."

  "The next thing you know," Howser continued, "we—well, shit, we're all standing on the hill looking around at all these empty e-suits and all of a sudden just five of us plus the two sergeants were surrounded by like two hundred fucking marines from the Blair. Snap! Just like that we were outnumbered and surrounded."

  "Don't undersell it, Howser. We were waaay-the-fuck outnumbered," Cross added.

  "Right. We were waaay fucking outnumbered. There was no way in hell that we were gonna hold that hill with those kinds of odds against us barring some kinda fucking miracle."

  "So?" One of the Army pukes shrugged her shoulders at her.

  "So? Don't you see? What the staff sergeant did next is what was so brilliant. He self-destructed his suit! Now if that ain't a big fuckin' 'oorah,' I don't know what is. The simulation refs said the blast took out everything in a two hundred meter diameter." Rondi stepped away from her showerhead, and it turned itself off. The dryer blasted her for about five seconds, and then she began rummaging through her bag for her other personal hygiene sundries.

  "We thought that was an accident," Karla said in disbelief. "I was told that there was a suit malfunction caused by damage from the fight."

  "Nope, you can read the sim logs. He blew it himself." Rondi pulled her female-specific compression undergarment into place and stood tall in front of a sink and mirror as she pulled and squirmed into her Marine-issue compression short-sleeve top. "It was all Staff Sergeant Suez."

  "Goddamned crazy fucking jarheads think it was cool that their NCO sacrificed them all to take a fucking hill. Glad he ain't my NCO," another Army puke added.

  "Hey, fuck you! The sarge followed orders and took the hill," Rondi snapped back while she adjusted her top.

  "Hey, stow that shit!" another Army woman Rondi didn't know shouted from farther down the shower stalls.

  "Yes, Sarge!"

  "No shit," Karla said in a calmer tone to cool the discussion back down. She stepped through the dryer and turned to her running partner. "Don't pay them no mind. They're just mad that there was nobody left to kill after you Robots blew your top."

  "Hey, that would have been funny had it been First Sergeant McCandless that had blown her suit. Ha, ha, blown her top, get it?" Corporal Cross laughed. Nobody else thought it was funny.

  "Damn." Rondi just shook her head and ignored the corporal. "Suez's suit blowing took out all of us Robots except for Colonel Roberts. That's when he, the Warlords, and the rest of you Army pukes swarmed in and held the hill. Hell, at least we had front-row seats for it." She was a good-looking corpse, though. The fireproof fabric conformed to her Marine-hardened midsection and pushed up her breasts into a supported position. The compression shirt had been designed to fit skintight as a lightly armored fireproof paper-thin layer. And it did. The shirt not only wicked away sweat and moisture, conformed to most environment color schemes, would repel low-order shrapnel, resist fire, and compress the muscles, improving the wearer's performance, but it did it in a way that made the person wearing it look damned good. The new universal combat uniforms (UCUs) looked great on recruiting posters. Rondi smiled at herself in the mirror approvingly and tapped the membrane panel under the neckline to display bulkhead blue-gray, which was the standard uniform color for onboard a ship. She slapped the 3rd AEM Recon patch onto her left shoulder. The patch and shirt fabrics meshed together and hardened into a seamless decoration. She then slapped her name tag atop her right breast, with similar results, and then donned her digicam pants. The pants tracked the color scheme of the top and changed to the same blue-gray base colors. Marines always wore base color camo that matched their environment. The Navy always wore a darker blue camo base, and their tops were different colors, depending on their job. There was never any chance of mistaking a marine for a Navy sailor—that is, unless a marine was trying to be camouflaged as one. Rondi adjusted her short-cropped blond hair and then tucked her cover in her pocket.

  "And here I thought you poor marines had simply managed to get all yourselves killed and us 'Army pukes' had to come charging in and save your asses." Karla smiled at her friend. She adjusted her UCU for Army digicam with the standard Army green base colors. Her green base color top was just as form-fitting, protective, and flattering. "Hoowah!"

  "First Sergeant McCandless, did you give Staff Sergeant Suez the authority to self-destruct and take out my platoon of Robots?" Colonel Ramy Roberts, the commander of the 3rd Armored E-suit Marines Forward Recon Unit, looked solemnly at his longtime friend and staff noncommissioned officer (SNCO). He had fought with Tamara all the way back before the Martian Exodus. The two of them were friends and had no problem completely entrusting their lives to each other in the direst of situations. In fact, there had been any number of times when the two of them played rock-paper-scissors to see which one of them got the honor of staring the lion in the teeth first.

  "No, Colonel. I had no idea." Tamara stood at attention and stared blankly ahead. "On the staff sergeant's behalf, sir, I must say that he did take out a shitload of enemy combatants, sir."

  "Taking that into consideration, First Sergeant, is the only reason I haven't busted his balls further down. However, he did take out my entire platoon!" Colonel Roberts turned his attention from Tamara to Tommy. "Well, Staff Sergeant Suez? Just what in the flying fuck makes you think you have the authority to self-destruct not just yourself but an entire platoon of marines? I mean, there I was all by myself with nothing but a bunch of damned Army pukes to help me retake and hold our objective. Do you realize how much money Uncle Sam has invested in a platoon of AEMs? Well?"

  "Sir, I, uh, was pretty sure we were dead anyway, and our objective was to take that hill, sir," Tommy replied nervously.

  "Take it! Take it!" Roberts shouted. "Take it, hell. You took it all right! You took it and blew it to fuck and gone. Had it been the real world and not a sim, you would have blown that hill halfway to the Oort Cloud. What if there was something special about that hill that we needed? A decision like that is above your pay grade, soldier. Hell, it's above my pay grade!"

  "Had no intel on the hill, sir. Just that we were supposed to take it. So, rather than die to railgun rounds, I decided to go out taking as many of the enemy with me as I could, sir," Tommy said, still standing stiff as a board and looking forward.

  "Staff Sergeant." Colonel Roberts paused and lowered the tone in his voice. "Next time, try to come up with a less costly solution. You are dismissed. Go get some lunch and meet the dignitary if you can. From what I hear, she'll likely be hanging out with the mecha jocks. Now get. I've got to think on this
situation more. And stay out of my sight for a little while or you might find that I lose my temper again."

  "Yes, sir!" Tommy spun on his heel and marched out of Roberts's office.

  Once the younger SNCO had closed the door behind him, Ramy motioned to Tamara to have a seat. He sat down and could no longer contain himself; he burst into laughter. Tamara followed suit. They laughed for several minutes, until tears filled their eyes and their sides hurt.

  "Goddamned if that wasn't the quickest damned exercise I'd ever been in." Roberts pulled a bottle from his desk drawer along with two glasses. "I mean, hell, why not just blow everybody up each time we get in a fight? Makes it all go by rather quickly."

  "Well, sir"—Tamara nodded in acceptance of the shot of brandy—"we'd kinda start running short on Marines after judicious use of that tactic, sir."

  "Goddamned right, Tammy." He held up his glass and silently toasted with his first sergeant. "So what are we gonna do about our staff sergeant, huh? That was amazingly quick-witted. When you saw all of those damned enemy AEMs pop into reality in front of you, what did you plan to do?"

  "Mostly shit my suit, sir. Then I thought I could take one or two of them with me before I was killed. I was reaching for a grenade, but by the time I had thought of that, Tommy had killed all of us." Tamara finished the shot of brandy and sat it back down on Ramy's desk.

  "He's up for E-7. Been a while since we had a 'gunny' around the Robots—since Nicks took the job at the Island." Roberts laughed out loud. "I'd love to have seen the look on the Blair's ground boss when he had to tell Admiral Walker that she had just lost over two hundred of her marines about one second after they hit the ground. Goddamn, I'd love to've been a fly on that bulkhead."

  "Damn right. I'll keep on Suez about it. He's a damned fine marine, sir. You know that. Hell, I've thought so ever since we got him before the Battle of the Oort. I recall him sweatin' like a mother needing a chill pill more than any marine I ever saw. But Tommy wouldn't take the drugs. And then he did the damndest thing after we loaded our gear. He unwrapped a piece of Halloween candy with his e-suit gloves on. I've never seen such suit control before. And green as hell and on his first mission he managed to take out several enemy haulers with that commandeered Seppy mass driver. The kid has a gift at being an armored e-suit marine, sir."

  "Good. Let's don't razz him too much and give the poor kid a complex of some sort. And let's hope and pray that we ain't never stuck with him in a situation where we are instantly, amazingly outnumbered." Roberts swiveled his desk chair and pulled a drawer open. He pulled out a folder and handed it to her.

  "What's this, Colonel?" Tamara took the manila folder from him and opened it. It was a personnel file of new recruits. By the looks of it, the Robots were getting a few new faces. The face in the top file was of a new second lieutenant on his first tour. Tamara was certain that was just what they needed—a goddamned fresh-out green lieutenant.

  "Well, after Major Noonez retired to the Pentagon, we have finally gotten, or should I say are getting, a brand spanking new second lieutenant. We pick him up at the Oort station this afternoon. Read up on him. Otherwise, take some time for yourself.

  "I think I'm gonna have some lunch. You interested?" Ramy shoved the desk drawer to and stood up, adjusted the waistband of his blue-gray digicam pants, and tucked in the utility cover in his back pocket just in case he went outside. In space that wasn't likely, but trained habits die hard. And who knew? With the advent of these new QMT teleporters, any damned thing could happen.

  "Colonel Fink, Mr. Stavros, Ms. Moore, welcome to the flight line." The young-looking lieutenant who was assigned to them as a tour guide held out his arm as the elevator doors slid open. After a quick introduction to the bridge crew, senior staff, and the CO, RADM Jefferson, they had been handed off to a liaison officer for special dignitaries and were being toured around the ship. Dee didn't mind so much as she was getting to see the most awesome behemoth of firepower the United States military had ever managed. They had seen the bridge at the top of the tower, and the admiral had even let her sit in the captain's chair.

  Under other circumstances the three civilians wouldn't have been as much of a sore thumb sticking out amidst the crew of a U.S. Navy warship other than the fact that they were constantly shadowed by a very large, dark-skinned man wearing a black suit and Secret Service visor. Dee had gotten so used to not going anywhere without an agent following behind that she paid him no attention. But her dad had insisted that Clay Jackson, the giant former AEM turned presidential bodyguard, go along with her on this planned out-of-system trip. Clearly, Clay made Jay uncomfortable, but if Colonel Fink even noticed him, she couldn't tell.

  The hangar bay was filled with activity, as ingressing SH-102 Starhawks brought in the last cargo from Mars before the Madira would QMT to the Oort. Navy VTF-32 Ares-T class aerospace fighters filled the hangar from one end to the other, and the technicians, flight deck officers, and pilots were scurrying all about in T-shirts or coveralls of solid reds, greens, blacks, yellows, or oranges, depending on their particular jobs. Automated robot forklifts on preprogrammed routes or that were AIC-controlled were zigging and zagging in and out between vehicles and people carrying loads to and fro. The yellow and black–striped vehicles almost looked like giant mutant mechanical insect menaces from early science fiction movies. Having grown up in Mississippi, the scene most reminded Dee of a fire-ant mound that had been kicked over. She knew what happened when you pissed off a fire-ant mound, and she was curious what would happen if you pissed off this bunch of deadly fire ants.

  On the starboard side of the supercarrier's hangar bay were the Marine FM-12 strike mecha fighters. Most of them were in fighter mode and were being loaded into their appropriate hangar location. A few of them were in bot or eagle modes and were being reloaded or serviced. Standing around the mecha were two Navy officers and one marine that Dee had seen at the White House over six years ago after that nightmare at Disney World. There was another female Navy officer, two female Marine officers, an Army colonel, and a few other marines, soldiers, and sailors that she didn't know.

  "Captain Boland, Commander Fisher, nice to see you again. Major Strong." Dee nodded and shook their hands. She had seen them a few times around the Beltway the year she had turned twelve and felt some familiarity with them. She wasn't in any branch of the military yet anyway and was only a student in a private military school, so military protocols didn't exactly apply to her. Also, she was the First Daughter of the country and could bend protocols every now and then and get away with it.

  DeathRay and Fish had sat by her at her father's address to the nation just after the incident in Orlando. And the U.S. Marine FM-12 mecha jock with the long blond hair beside them was none other than Delilah "Jawbone" Strong. Jawbone had literally singlehandedly saved her and her family as they were trying to get away from wild, menacing terrorist-controlled dinosaur robots in Orlando. Dee had really liked Jawbone the few times she had met her, and looked up to the marine. In her eyes, there was only one other marine that was cooler: her dad. She did wonder what the marine was doing here since last she had known Jawbone was stationed in Florida. Dee also noted that she had been promoted to major. Her dad had seen fit to have her promoted from lieutenant to captain after the Orlando thing. Now, six years later, she was a major. Dee was proud of her. Her guess was that the hotshot mecha jock wanted to be where the action was, and everybody knew that there were only two ships in the fleet for that: the Blair and the Madira. Dee hoped one day she'd get the Madira.

  "Oh, this is my instructor Colonel Walt Fink, and my wingman at school, Jay Stavros." Dee could tell that Rat didn't like her taking the lead of the conversation, but she was the President's daughter, and if he didn't like it . . .

  "Colonel, Ms. Moore, Mr. Stavros." DeathRay stepped forward as if he were not sure if he should address the Secret Service agent or not. Dee could see that he hesitated slightly and then decided against doing so. After all, Dee and eve
rybody else noticed the big man had no change of expression on his face after Boland glanced at him. Dee had always thought Clay was hilarious ever since the first day she had met him.

  "Let me introduce a few folks to you," DeathRay continued. "This is U.S. Army Colonel Mason 'Warlord One' Warboys, leader of the Warlords M3A17-T tank mecha squad. These two here are U.S. Marine FM-12 strike mecha fighter pilots Lieutenant Colonel Caroline 'Deuce' Leeland and Major Connie 'Skinny' Munk of the mecha squadron called the Utopian Saviors. Major Strong there just joined them a few months back. And this is U.S. Navy Commander Wendy 'Poser' Hill, the commander of the VTF-32 Ares-T mecha squadron Demon Dawgs. I'm Captain Jack Boland, they call me DeathRay, and this is my wingman Commander Karen 'Fish' Fisher. We're from the navy squadron known as the Gods of War." Dee liked the way Boland spoke and stood and, well, everything about him. She could find it real easy to do more than just "like" the man. Not only was he a tried and true bona fide hero and super mecha jock, he was also easy on the eyes in an action-hero sort of way. She instinctively adjusted her long, straight black hair behind her ear the way her mother so often did.