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.
“Ess, we’ve got the shooters’ position,” Bob said.
She quickly pulled up Gnat 4’s feed. The RHG’s base of fire consisted of about a platoon-sized unit on a finger some 1300 meters away. The soldiers were prone on the low grass. She had a sudden urge to creep back up and try to eyeball them, but that was a stupid risk. She could see them fine on the feed without exposing herself.
Thirteen-hundred meters was no easy shot for the average riflemen, and it was out of range of their ten grenade launchers. Bob had assured her that some of the brigade soldiers were pretty accurate out to 1500 or 1600 meters with their hunting rifles, but for most of the brigade, it would be more of a spraying the area and hoping to get lucky at that range. That was probably true for the RHG fighters as well. She was pretty sure that all they’d done was aim at the crest and fire, which meant they had to be lucky to get a hit. Or the brigade soldiers had to be unlucky, and unlucky was just as deadly as falling victim to skill, as Tesler had found out.
Thirteen hundred meters was well within Bob’s range, however.
“Do you have a firing position?” she asked him.
“I’ve got two that I think will do. Give me five mikes and I’ll confirm it.”
“Roger, that, but I want you to pull three of the better brigade shooters. They may not be HOGs,[22] but if they can help.”
“I’ve already got three in mind.”
There was a distant thunk, and Esther wheeled around before the sound registered, shouting “Incoming! Thirty seconds!”
She swore under her breath and hit the deck behind a boulder. The RHG had never used mortars before, to the best of her knowledge. One of her base assumptions had just been shredded, and that could have deadly consequences.
Soldiers were diving to the deck, or in the case of one lance corporal, running across half of the battle position before sprawling to the ground as if the extra distance he covered would give him a better chance.
Doctor Willis, who’d been kneeling next to Tesler’s body, stood up, looking confused.
“Get down!” Esther said.
“What?”
Esther jumped up, grabbed the sergeant by his uniform blouse, dragged him down, and then laid on top of the man. Her bones should be enough protection to withstand most mortars, but the doctor didn’t have armor. She could feel Willis squirming under her as if he was trying to shrink himself.
Esther watched her display timer as it ticked down ever-so-slowly. The Gnats hadn’t picked the round up, which wasn’t surprising. They just didn’t have the same capabilities as a Dragonfly.
At 40 seconds, Esther wondered if she’d made a mistake. It was possible that the “thunk” had not been made by an outgoing mortar.
It was almost a relief when an explosion sounded down the mountainside, at least 250 meters away. Her AI quickly analyzed the sound, but she was pretty sure she knew what it was.
“Did you get a Gentry 40mm?” she asked Tim after she read the display, who was down about five meters from her position.
“Sure did. Damned pea-shooter.”
A 40mm mortar was not a “pea-shooter,” but it wasn’t much of a threat to Marines in bones. It could easily kill any of the un-armored soldiers with a close enough shot, however. On the positive side, if it was the Gentry “Knee-capper,” it was just a basic tube and round with limited sighting abilities. It was super-cheap and very durable, but it took a lot of skill to use accurately—and it didn’t look like the RHG mortarmen knew what they were doing.
On flat ground, the round might have missed them by 60-70 meters, which in and of itself was pretty poor shooting. But up on a steep slope, any lateral miss was compounded by the vertical drop. The round probably landed closer to the Hands coming up the slope than to them at the summit.
Esther rolled off Willis. She had been listening, but she hadn’t heard another round go off.
“Think they’re ranging us?” Constantine asked as he stood up.
“That, or they’re limited in rounds.”
A single rifle shot rang out from behind Esther, catching her undivided attention.
“I saw them!” The lookout towards the south, in Third Platoon’s AO, shouted, his voice pitched high. “I shot at them.”
Esther was beside him in a few strides.
“Where were they?” she asked.
“Right over there, by the tassle grass,” he said, pointing.
“Right over there” covered a huge section of slope. She didn’t know what “tassle grass” was, but she saw a line of what looked like three-meter tall sugar cane. She zoomed in, and s
ure enough, there were five bodies now prone at the edge of the grass. Another Hand was kneeling, glassing the mountain. Esther could almost feel the Hand’s eyes on her.
She ranged the fighter. He was almost 1500 meters away.
“What’s your name?” she asked the soldier.
“Pusser, ma’am. Erik Pusser.”
“Well, that, Erik, is what a lookout is supposed to do,” she said loudly for the others to hear. “Damned good eyesight.”
“Did I get them?”
The Hands she’d seen didn’t look overly concerned, so they might not have even known they’d been targeted, but she said, “If you didn’t, you sure got their heads down,” and clapped him on the shoulder.
The small RHG team was probably out too far to be much of a threat, but she knew that wasn’t their job. They were there to have eyes on the mountain. And Esther wasn’t about to let them have that. She glanced down at her M114. A bullpup configured rifle had a normal-sized barrel. The action was located behind the trigger, so the overall length of the weapon was shorter, which made it more maneuverable and a better self-defense weapon, but theoretically, it was just as accurate over long distances. Still the M114 was not designed as a sniper rifle, and its max effective range was only 750 meters.
“Doc!” she shouted, watching the watcher.
She put a big pink avatar on the kneeling man and pushed it to the corpsman.
“Can you take him out?” she asked.
Doc Buren was an excellent marksman and the team’s alternate sniper. The Brotherhood SA-12-A2 he lugged around on his back had the range and accuracy to take out the Hand.
“I’ll give it a shot,” he said, chuckling at his own choice of words.
He put down his Grayson, brought his SA-12, and sank into an easy sitting position. He initiated his scope’s interrogator to get the data he needed for the shot. Normally, a sniper would have an a-gunner who would run the environmentals and then spot the round, but Doc was the A-gunner, at least for Bob. Esther would try to spot the round for him, but the SA-12 was a hypervelocity mag rifle. She didn’t think she’d be able to see the trace of the dart.
His thumb hovered over the selector. Esther knew he was trying to decide whether this would be a single shot or three-round burst. With a chemically-fired round, the recoil would throw off a second round, so snipers always fired single shots, re-acquiring the target before firing again. Mag rifles had negligible recoil, and the darts left the barrel so quickly that three rounds could be fired with a very tight pattern, even at 1500 meters. He pushed the selector down for three rounds.
Incoming fire hit the rock face on the east side of the peak. The base of fire was at it again, wasting more rounds. Esther ignored them, watching the Hand watch her. He had to see Doc getting ready for the shot, but he didn’t seem fazed. Esther really had to wonder about their training. They’d shown a remarkable lack of understanding basic military tactics, and the fighter didn’t seem to think he was in any danger.
Doc took a deep breath, let half of it out, and squeezed the trigger. There was quick, quiet buzz, and less than a second later, the Hand spun and fell back.
“Hit,” Esther said.
A moment later, the man lurched up and almost dove for cover, his left arm dangling loose.
“Fuck. Shoulder or arm shot,” Doc said.
“You sure got his attention, though” Esther said as bodies scurried back. “And his friends’, too.”
Another explosion reverberated through the air, this one sounding much nearer. More Hands had probably just been killed by whatever Merl and Lyle had left them, but they were getting closer. The battle was soon to be joined.
“Principles up!” she yelled.
Constantine and Doc were already standing beside her, but Tim, Master Sergeant Kang, Lieutenant Spiros, Captain Athanasciou , Bug, and Chris came jogging up. Each of the four platoons had a Hellenic officer commanding, but for Esther, the “principles” for the platoons were her team members. She had comms with them, not with the brigade soldiers.
Not having comms with everyone was a major headache—that, along with the shortage of ammo, was one of Esther’s main concerns. She couldn’t monitor each soldier, and she couldn’t give orders other than by shouting them out. She didn’t know how commanders of old fought battles without direct comms. She’d placed her team around the entire military crest to act as relays, but she was worried about the soldiers. They weren’t a cohesive unit yet, and they hadn’t been bloodied in combat. If they felt out of the loop, if they felt left alone to fend for themselves, they’d bolt, she was sure. She had to make sure they held together.
“We don’t have much time, so I want to make sure we’re on the same page. First, Lieutenant Spiros, get your best marksman left. I want him to plant his butt—”
“Her butt.”
“What?”
“Her butt. Staff Sergeant Gray took the best three. That means Lachelle is the next best. Right Walt?” he asked Master Sergeant Kang who nodded his agreement.
“OK, have her sit her butt right here. Her job is to keep prying eyes back. Doc, make sure she knows where the targets are.
“Red, are you about done with the west wall? I’m pretty sure they’re not going to ignore that.”
“We’re ready.”
The sound of more firing reached them, but Esther couldn’t see who was being targeted.
“I’m sorry we don’t have comms. But we’re not spread out that far, so listen up for orders. Don’t get wrapped up in the fight yourself.
“We all know what we have to do. If we all do our part, if we support each other, we have a chance. If we don’t, we’ll lose, plain and simple.
“And our best chance is to break the assault. If they quit, we’ve won, our mission accomplished.”
“And the boats?” Constantine asked.
“That’s our back-up plan, as I’ve said. If it comes to that, the senior surviving Marine or soldier makes the call.”
Constantine had become enamored with Esther’s transition to retrograde. If it became apparent that they were going to get overrun, the surviving Marines and soldiers were going to try and punch through the assaulting fighters, focusing their strength at the weakest point in the assault. Once through, they were to conduct a fast retrograde to where the RHG flotilla was anchored, take over enough boats to carry everyone, and run. Esther knew that plan was more Hollybolly than real life, but she wanted the option if everything went completely to shit. That really was a last-ditch measure, though.
She checked Gnat 6’s feed, from where it was hovering 400 meters above her head. A couple hundred Hands were visible as they converged on their position. Within ten, maybe 15 minutes, if they kept coming at the same pace, the first of them would be in sight—and in the line of fire.
“OK, it’s almost time.”
“Do you think we’re going to win?” Lieutenant Spiros asked.
“No. I’d put our chances at 25% at best.”
He pulled back in shock. Esther knew he’d wanted a “yes,” but she wasn’t going to blow fairy dust up his butt. This was the situation, and all 88 of them had to pull out all the stops.
“Captain Blue, no matter what happens, it’s been an honor,” Constantine said, his hand out.
Esther took it the hand and said, “Likewise. You’ve got a good crew.” She only hesitated a moment before adding, “Captain Esther Lysander.”
“Thank you,” he said, nodding in a half-bow. He stopped, looked up, and asked, “Lysander? As in—”
“Yes, General Lysander was my father.”
“I . . . I’m surprised. I’d heard that you and your brother had enlisted some years ago, but I didn’t know you were still in, and I certainly didn’t know you’d be here as the OIC of your contact team.”
“Gunnery Sergeant Tim Zeiger,” Tim said, holding his hand out.
Master Sergeant Kang simply smiled beside him. Esther was pretty sure Tim had already given Kang his real name.
>
“Sergeant Konor Suek, sir, but everyone calls me ‘Bug.’”
“Pleased to meet you, Bug.”
“I’m HM2 Buren Glover,” Doc added. “Just Doc’s fine.”
“And I’m Staff Sergeant Chris de Brittain.”
“‘Pink’ is Staff Sergeant Merl Miller, ‘Green’ is Sergeant Lyle Jones, and ‘Gray’ is Staff Sergeant Bob Burnham,” Esther told the captain.
“I’m honored again, but why tell us, now?”
“Why not? Code names are a silly practice, anyway. And it just seems right. We’re brothers-in-arms, and like I told the lieutenant here, we probably aren’t going to make it through the next hour. If we’re going to Valhalla, I think it’d be nice to go as comrades.”
“Sir . . .” Master Sergeant Kang prompted the captain.
“Ah, well, yes. As long as we’re in the sharing mood, my full name is Lochagos Constantine Stavropoulis Makos, at your service.”
“‘Makos,’ as in the speaker prime?” Esther asked.
“My father.”
“And now I’m surprised. I wouldn’t have expected to see the speaker prime’s son out with the soldiers.”
“And the ex-chairman of the Federation’s daughter is any different?”
“Chairman for three weeks, and he was a career Marine. But, uh, it’s not common—”
“. . . that out in the fringe worlds any of the elite serve in the military or constabulary.”
Esther had been trying to think of a polite way to put it, but yes. In the newer worlds, the powerful didn’t usually serve. Their interests tended to be a bit more self-serving, from what she’d gathered.
“My father is different. My sister and I were raised to serve, and we don’t use our patronymic when fulfilling that duty. I’m a public works engineer when I’m not in uniform.”
“Your father sounds like an interesting man,” Esther said. “I’d like to know more about him.”
The United Federation Marine Corps' Lysander Twins: The Complete Series: Books 1-5 Page 46