“Mark, I’m passing command to you,” she said.
Whatever he had to say in response was lost as something big hit Esther in the head, knocking her to her knees. She was dazed, but still functional. Her helmet wasn’t though. It had shattered, and her display was down.
With a shrug, she pulled off the remnants and dropped them. She’d shifted the command to the XO, so she didn’t need the display. She was no longer a commander but now a Marine warrior, fighting with her brother at her side, just trying to take as many of the bastards out with her.
Esther still had her warrior on, but a sense of calm determination swept over her. As the CO, she’d been required to try and keep herself safe. It had always grated on her that she had to put her own safety above that of her Marines, but that was the way it was. Now, command had been passed, and that restriction was no longer in place. It freed her, and despite what was going to happen to her, she was happy. If she had to fall, it would be like this, fighting to the end with Noah beside her instead of huddling in a CP somewhere when an enemy round found her.
“You ready to do this, Noah?” she shouted as she backed up almost into him.
“Sure am, Ess. Let’s make dad proud of us,” he said as he dropped another fighter.
Suddenly, she had to say something, despite the gravity of the situation—or maybe because of it.
“I haven’t always treated you right, Noah, ever since boot camp. But I—”
Several rounds pinged off of her back, her bones hardening on cue as she spun around and shot one of the AA and made the other bolt out of the way.
“But I love you, little bro. Dad would be proud of you, and I’m proud of you.”
“I know that. I love you, too, and I’ve got your back,” he said, grunting as something hit him.
Esther felt him slump against her for a moment, then struggle back to his feet.
“You’ve always had my back.”
“So, let’s do this,” Noah said, in obvious pain despite the BOOST. “Together.”
And together they did, firing measured round out of measured round. Ten, twelve, maybe more AA fell to them. Esther lost count. She had only one thing to do, and that was to kill the enemy.
She was hit half a dozen times, but never with a Geko round, and she kept on her feet. Noah collapsed, however. Esther took a step to her right, and astride her prone brother, kept up a steady fire.
Other Marines were still alive, still in the fight. She caught glimpses of Corporal Ikimura, Lance Corporal Coffman, and Major Kutzman, but it was down to man-to-man by this time. AA bodies littered the shelf, but still more appeared, at least to the north. To the southeast, the flood of AA had stopped. Major Kutzman hesitated when there was nobody left to fight there before he began to sprint towards Esther and the few Marines left on the north side.
Two more AA charged her. She managed to hit one, who stumbled, and the fighter following him vaulted over his comrade, intent on closing in with Esther. She fired, but after a single dart, her magazine was empty. Her training took over, and she swung the carbine up in an attempt to break the fighter’s jaw, but he swerved to the side, taking the blow to his upper chest. The follow-through exposed Esther, and the man crashed into her. She staggered, but kept her feet, trying to push him away, but the man was like a bulldog.
And suddenly, her opponent was going over backwards. Noah had somehow gained enough consciousness to wrap his arms around the man’s feet, tripping him. Esther reversed her M90 and drove the barrel with all her strength at the base of the fighter’s neck. He started gurgling in panic as the muzzle penetrated his skin and hit the neck bones before sliding off to the side.
“Thanks, Noah,” she said as her brother slipped back into unconsciousness.
Esther got back to her feet and started to shout for the Three when figures appeared again on the southeast side. She raised Noah’s M90 to engage, but it hit her: they weren’t wearing the floppy hats of the AA.
Hell, it’s the Nayi Bharat militia, she realized with wonderment.
Within moments, the few became a flood as more and more of them crested the shoulder and rushed into the battle, sweeping the AA before them. Esther turned to join them, but the battle was over. Several AA, shocked by the sudden appearance of the militia, stood with hands raised over their heads. Others turned and bolted down the sides of the hill to the north with the militia in hot pursuit.
“Colonel, are you OK?”
Esther turned back around to see Major Frazier standing before her.
“I’ve been trying to reach you,” he said through his external speaker.
She held up her finger to her bare head, and shrugged before realizing that he could hear her even if she couldn’t hear him on any of the nets.
“Lost my helmet,” she told him.
“Do you want command back?”
“Not now. Do you have any corpsmen?” she asked as she knelt to check Noah.
“No, but we’ve got three militia medics. They know their stuff.”
“Get them up here. We’ve got a lot of Marines who need care.”
She checked Noah’s neck. He had a pulse, but it was quick and reedy. Besides his arm, he’d been hit at least three times that she could see. His bones, which were tied into his skin’s circuits, had evidently been knocked out of whack somehow. Two of the hits looked to be darts, which his bones should have stopped.
“What’s happening with Bravo and Charlie?” she asked, looking up from where she had her brother’s head in her lap.
“The surviving AA are in full retreat. I told Jean to let them go, not to engage.”
“Good call,” she said, almost absent-mindedly. “We’re here to bloody their noses, not exterminate them.”
“Well, you did that, Colonel.”
“We did that, Mark, All of us did.”
She looked around the shelf. Most of her Marines were down. Chief Higgins was down. Most of Alpha Company was lost. They may have done the AA damage, but the AA had dished it out as well.
One of the militia medics rushed up and started evaluating Noah. Esther stepped back and let him get to work.
“Don’t worry ma’am, he’s going to be OK,” the medic assured her, but his voice sounding doubtful.
She turned back to Major Frazier, but from his posture and the way his hands were moving, she knew he was intensely into conversation with someone else. Esther knew she could grab his helmet and take command again, but the fight was essentially over, and the battle-lust that had been coursing through her veins had dissipated, leaving her . . . not calm, but spent.
She took the hadron communicator out of her pocket and inputted Admiral Jallaby’s code. He answered immediately, as she’d expected. He’d been good at keeping out of her hair, but she knew he’d been monitoring everything he could.
“You wanted to bloody their noses. I think you’ve got that, Admiral. Now it’s up to the politicians to take care of this mess,” she said before she cut the circuit.
FS MOUNT FUJI
Chapter 24
Noah
Noah opened his eyes to see Esther nodding off in a chair beside him.
“Ess?” he said, or more accurately, croaked out.
She woke up with a start, jumped to her feet, and took his left hand in hers.
“How are you feeling?” she asked.
“Grubbing awful, like I’ve been run over with a tank a couple of times.”
She smiled at him and said, “It’s going to be a while. The ship’s surgeon said that taking BOOST after the anti-shock meds was dangerous, very dangerous. You’re lucky to be alive.”
“Chief Higgins said the same thing. I kind of forced him to do it, Ess. Don’t worry, I’ll heartily slap his wrist, if you want me to.”
He saw the cloud immediately come over her face, and his heart fell.
“Chief?”
“In stasis. Not a good chance for resurrection,” she said in a subdued voice.
“Um . . . what�
�s was the butcher’s bill?”
“Pretty heavy, Noah. I’ll let you know later when you’ve regained some strength.”
“Come on, Ess. Tell me.”
She looked up as if checking for medical staff before turning back to him and saying, “Ninety-six KIA, two hundred and fourteen WIA. Forty-one of the KIA have no chance at resurrection, and another twelve have little chance.”
The blow hit Noah hard, and he had trouble catching his breath. Esther looked worried and started to call for help when he reached out with his left hand and stopped her.
“I’m OK,” he said, lying through his teeth.
Three hundred and ten casualties? That hasn’t happened since the Evolution!
Where . . . I mean . . . the ship’s sick bay isn’t that big.”
“The dead are in one of the hangars. The wounded, well, only the seriously wounded got beds on the ship. The rest are back on Nayi Bharat or in their berthing spaces here.”
“So, I’m one of the seriously wounded ones?” Noah asked, more to give him time to process the information than anything else.
“Noah, I almost lost you. It was pretty close. Forget about your arm, forget about the three rounds you took, one just a millimeter from severing your spine. The BOOST could have been enough to kill you. What ever possessed you to do that?” she asked, her emotions playing out across her face.
“You needed me. I had to have your back.”
“You couldn’t take my back if you were dead!” she shouted, leaning over him.
“But I didn’t die, Ess.”
“But you could have,” she said, only slightly quieter.
“And you could have died when you chose to stay on that shelf, Ess, when the XO told you to leave,” Noah said with a little more venom than he intended.
“My place was with the Alpha Command,” she said. “I had to fight the battalion.”
“And my place was with you,” he answered.
She looked down at him for a moment, then bent over until her head was on his chest.
“I know now why father said it was a mistake for him to have Uncle Joshua in his platoon. And I know why it was a mistake to have you as my sergeant major.”
“It was always a mistake, Ess.”
She raised her head and looked at him, asking, “You’ve known that? Why did you agree, then?”
“Because you asked me too, Ess. And you’re my sister. I’ve always been there for you. You know that.”
Esther put her head back on his chest, and Noah could feel her hot tears drip onto him.
“Uh, by the way, what happened? I mean, why are we here instead of, well, dead? Or were we captured by the AA?”
“No, we weren’t captured. The cavalry arrived. Major Frazier and the militia came just in the nick of time like in the best Hollybolly flick.”
“Really? The militia? The Navi Bharat militia?”
“That’s the only militia on the planet, to the best of my knowledge, so yes, the very same.”
“I’m guessing I owe the good major a big thanks.”
“We owe him a big thanks.”
“And the war?”
“There’s still at least 7,000 Azaad Andolanalph hiding in the outback. We broke them at the Battle of the Mary Anne Valley—“
“The what? The Battle of the Mary Anne Valley?”
“That’s where the battle was fought, Noah.”
“Yeah, but that’s hardly . . . that’s hardly an awe-inspiring name.”
Esther shrugged and continued, saying, “Anyway, after the Tungiscle strike, the surviving AA simply ran. They’re calling it a tactical withdrawal, but they ran like whipped dogs,” she said, and Noah could hear the pride creeping back into her voice. “We let them go, not that I had too much choice. We were beat-up pretty bad, and it took us a day just to get everyone trucked back to Jaipur.
“But within another day, while we were embarking, the AA heads were contacting the Navy Bharat leadership to arrange for talks. Our Council thought that if we bloodied their noses—and damned if I’m not getting tired of that phrase—that would bring the AA to the negotiating table. And I guess the Council was right, at least this time.”
“So, we did what they needed us to do, and we took the punishment. Uh . . . so what’s going to happen to you?” he asked hesitantly.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, well, we lost a lot of Marines. Who’s going to take the blame?”
“No one’s taking the blame, Noah, at least not officially. We’re freaking heroes, and that’s the official stand,” she said.
Noah could hear the bitterness in her voice.
“We’re heroes? I know we fought hard, but the losses, Ess. Aren’t they going to blame us?”
“No blame. The commandant specifically told me that. No, we’re being held up as everything the Marines are supposed to be. They’ve even conveniently leaked more than a dozen recordings of the battle. Hell, I heard that Corporal Hickson has already received a couple thousand proposals of marriage.”
“Hickson? From Bravo?”
“Yeah. He and Lance Corporal Bird stood tall and kept a couple hundred AA from escaping the kill zone. Both were WIA and left back in Jaipur, and when the recording came out, the press found them. Hickson—”
“Who’s a good-lucking young man . . .” Noah said.
“Exactly. He’s gone viral, he and Bird.”
“Good for them. Good for us, Ess.”
“I know, but . . . I mean, I’m proud of the battalion. I still can’t believe that they pulled it off—”
“We pulled it off, not they. You’re the commanding officer.”
“OK, OK, ‘we’ pulled it off. But I’ve got the feeling that we’re being paraded around like dancing bears, ready to perform.”
“And you don’t like that, Ess.”
“Of course not. We have a job, and performing for the public is not in our job description.”
“But it is, Ess. We perform every time we take a mission. It just isn’t broadcast as much as you’re telling me this is.”
“Maybe. I just feel uncomfortable about it,” she said, not sounding convinced.
“And if Hickson can get some attention, all the more power to him. Better him than me, though.”
“Don’t speak so soon, brother of mine.”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“We’ve gone viral, too. You and I. On the shelf, fighting back-to-back at the end. Public Affairs is going to town with it.”
“Oh, grubbing hell!”
“Grubbing hell is right. We’ve got more than a few press junkets after we return.”
Noah needed time to take all this in. His head was pounding, and he wasn’t sure if that was from his brush with death or from the news. He just wanted a few minutes alone to digest the news.
“I’m glad to see you, Ess, but I’m a little tired, and I’m sure you need to get in your reports.”
“All done, at least the ones I could send.”
“Already? How could you do them so quickly?”
“Quickly? Noah, you’ve been out for five days. We’re only a day out from Last Stop.”
Five days?
“But the doc said you’d probably be tired, so I’ll let you be. You get some rest, and I’ll stop by.”
Five days? he asked himself again.
She stood over him for a moment, took a step as if to leave, then leaned over again to give him a hug. Noah instinctively brought his right stump around to hug her back, giving him a jolt of pain that got through the meds.
Esther jumped back, and Noah said, “It’s OK.”
He looked at the stump for a moment, the first time he’d seen it when not in shock or on BOOST.
“I was getting used to the Three Musketeers. I’m going to miss them,” he said.
“They’ll get you into regen. You need it for the nerve and cardiac damage anyway.
Cardiac damage? Maybe the BOOST wasn’t such a great idea
after all.
“Maybe. We’ll see.”
“Well, OK. I guess I’ll go,” she said. “Got to go command or something, you know.”
“Yeah, you go command, Ess.”
She nodded, then turned away to leave.
“I heard you say you love me, Ess. Back on the mountainside.”
She stopped in her tracks still facing away.
“It’s on the record now, so you can’t deny it,” he said as a smile crept over his face.
Noah had always known Esther loved him, even during the time that she wasn’t on speaking terms with him, but now he wasn’t going to let her forget it.
“Little brothers can be a pain in the ass, you know that?” she asked.
“That’s part of the job description.”
She turned around a smile on her face as well, reaching down to squeeze his foot under the blanket and saying, “I wouldn’t have it any other way, Noah. And yeah, I do love you.”
“And I love you too, Ess.”
TARAWA
Epilogue
Esther
Two Years Later . . .
Esther walked through the open double doors and into the auditorium. To her no surprise, the place was packed with officials, Marines, friends, and of course, the press. One of the handlers spotted her and came rushing up.
“Colonel Lysander, can you come with me please?” the young captain asked, her arm out pointing the way to the stage.
She started to follow, but a familiar face caught her eye, and she held up a hand to forestall the captain.
“It’s good to see you, Miriam,” Esther said as she approached the family. “Hannah and Shiloh, you, too. Where’s Chance? Is he coming?”
“He’s here. He was talking to his dad a few minutes ago.”
“Ryan, good to see you, too,” she said to Miriam’s husband.
“Thank you, Esther. And congratulations, I might add.”
“Well, thank you.”
Lieutenant Colonel Howard seemed like a good man, and he was treating the kids well, but Esther always felt a little awkward around him.
Blood United (The United Federation Marine Corps' Lysander Twins Book 5) Page 24