Thankfully, though, the staff sergeant’s avatar remained the steady blue of a WIA.
“Francisco, get Mahmout back to the station. The rest of you, keep your friggin’ heads down!” she passed on the command circuit.
After a moment, the avatars started moving forward.
“Sergeant Juarez, if you could get two of your troopers to the outside door, please have them help Sergeant Rez get Staff Sergeant Brooke back inside.”
The shot alarm went off again, and Esther snapped her head back, but all the avatars were their normal bright blue. Esther’s heart had just started calming down when the shot alarm sounded once more. This time, Sergeant McConnaughy’s avatar grayed out.
“Spig’s dead!” Staff Sergeant Mubotono passed over the net. “Head shot! I don’t think he can be brought back! We’re still under cover, and there’s no way we were spotted!”
“All teams halt!” Esther ordered. “Freeze in place.”
How the hell are they being spotted?
The area in which the teams were advancing was covered by fungus. All of the Marines were among the best snipers in the Corps, and they should be able to move under the broad caps without being spotted. For a moment, she thought the enemy might have implanted their own sensors, but they needed more than that to be able to engage a target. A Marine activating a sensor would not be enough to aim in and hit him or her.
As an officer, Esther had been trained how to employ snipers, but that didn’t make her one. She simply didn’t know enough to think like a sniper and try to figure out what was happening.
Occam’s Razor, however, would seem to support that the Marines were making mistakes. It seemed improbable, but what other explanation was there?
The shot alarm sounded again, but no one was hit. She had to act. Doing nothing would get another of her Marines killed. But she simply didn’t have enough knowledge to make a good decision.
Maybe Chun or Medicine Crow will have something.
The alarm sounded once more, snapping Esther to the here and now. Sergeant De Vries’ avatar grayed out immediately.
“All teams, immediate retrograde to the station. Do not continue!” she ordered.
“Bullshit, Captain! I’m going to get that asshole,” an angry Mubotono passed.
“That’s a negative, Staff Sergeant Mubotono. You will return to the station.”
“We can’t back down!”
“That’s an order. Return to the station!” she ordered, putting more steel in her voice.
The avatars slowly started to return to the station. Five more rounds were fired, felling Staff Sergeant Kneffer and Sergeant Piccolo. Esther wanted to rush out to help, but she knew she had to stay at the console.
She called up to the Porto, requesting support, knowing the request would be turned down. She was right. The comms chief wouldn’t even patch her through to the captain.
Sergeant Rez arrived first, Spec Potter helping him bring in Staff Sergeant Brooke. Potter went back out while Brooke half-hopped to the chair where Dr. Williams started on him.
“Sorry, ma’am,” he told Esther, his face grimacing in pain. “I didn’t think he could see me.”
“Don’t worry about that,” she told him. “Let Doctor Williams work on you.
And then the rest started arriving. Within 20 minutes, everyone was inside the station. Three Marines were KIA with McConnaughy almost certainly beyond resurrection. Doctor Williams initiated stasis on each of them, and they joined the body of Corporal Espinoza. Two Marines were WIA and out of action. In less than an hour, Esther had lost more than 20% of her uniformed strength, and there was still an active enemy out there.
Esther was in slow burn mode. Something had happened, and she needed to figure out how they’d screwed up. Five Marines had been taken out, and not one had managed to get off a shot, much less spot the enemy.
“Gunny Chun, Gunny Medicine Crow, to me,” she said once the dead and wounded were tended.
“What the hell happened out there?” she asked them, her eyes blazing.
“Whoever it is, he knew where we were,” Gunny Medicine Crow said. “We were out of sight, and I just checked Dutch for a temperature gradient right before he engaged us.”
“Then how the hell could he spot you? You must have made a mistake!”
“CO2, ma’am. I think it was CO2,” Staff Sergeant Rapa said, breaking into the conversation.
“What?”
“Gunny Medicine Crow said she was on her back, but Dutch was on his stomach, so why did he get targeted and not her? I think it’s because our CO2 waste vents are here,” he said, reaching his arm around to point at the vortex valve at the small of his back. “We’re pumping out CO2 with every breath. We’re recovering some of that O2 with the splitter unit on our back, of course, but not all of it, and that excess gets vented.”
“And here on this planet, with its screwed-up atmosphere, that would stand out like a neon plume, if you have the right kind of scanner. I think he might be right, Captain,” Gunny Chun said.
Could that be true? she wondered before coming to the conclusion that it probably was.
“If that’s true, then how do we deal with it? It’s not like we can go out without our HEDs, and even if we could, we’re still breathing out CO2.”
“The IS Team’s suits don’t vent,” Gunny Chun said.
“You want to do a stalk in those?” his fellow gunny asked him.
Esther understood her point. The FCDC suits were bulky and hardly something a sniper would want while conducting a mission.
“Well, no, but what other options do we have?”
“The emergency hoods don’t vent, either, but those would be almost as bad to fight in. And they’ve got limited comms,” Esther said, more thinking out loud than anything else.
“Maybe I’ve got an answer, ma’am,” Rapa said. “But I’d need a bit of time to work it out. Can you give me 30 minutes?”
Esther looked to the two gunnies, but they said nothing, so she said, “You’ve got them.”
Rapa grabbed Staff Sergeant Cezar and went into the supply closet.
“I hope he’s got something,” Esther said.
“We could always cut and run, you know, call in the shuttle,” Gunny Chun hesitantly offered.
“Marines don’t run,” Esther said automatically before adding, “but if we can’t figure this out, we might have to consider it. I’m not going to get everyone killed for some bio-patent.”
“Cutting and running” was what she’d been trying to do as their position had become more dangerous. The civilians were currently doing nothing, and they were the reason the Marines and troopers were there. But now, five Marines and another trooper were down, and Esther didn’t have it in her to meekly accept that and withdraw. It wasn’t in her DNA.
But she couldn’t let pride rule her. If there wasn’t a way to prosecute the mission, then her pride was not worth another Marine getting needlessly killed. She had to accept that as much as she hated it, she might have to call it quits and run home with her tail between her legs.
Without really dismissing the two gunnies, Esther turned back to the wounded and dead Marines. The two wounded would make full recoveries, Dr. Williams said. She was optimistic that De Vries could be resurrected. With a shattered spine, he was facing a long regen, but he’d make it. He also thought that Sergeant Piccolo had a decent shot. He’d put Espinoza and McConnaughy in stasis, but when Esther asked about resurrection for them, he’d merely shook his head.
This was not the first time Esther had lost Marines, and if she ever managed to get another command, it might not be the last time. But it always hit her hard. On the one hand was the simple empathy a Marine had for each other and the knowledge that there were loved ones back home who would grieve. On the other hand, Esther couldn’t help but second guess herself. What could she have done differently that would have kept her Marines alive?
Esther’s father had ordered his own brother-in-law, Noah’s and
her Uncle Joshua, and three other Marines to their death. As a child, Esther had even played with the fatherless kids of Corporal Felicity, one of the other Marines who’d been killed. Somehow, her father came to terms with giving those orders. Esther hadn’t actually ordered anyone to a certain death, but still, there was always a sense of guilt that somehow, it was a flaw in her tactical planning that had resulted in avoidable deaths.
She didn’t wallow in self-doubt, however. She was confident that she was a good Marine, a good officer, and better than most. But even the best could be better, and she owed it to her Marines to be the best that she could be.
Dr. Veer walked up to her, offering a cup of coffee.
“Thanks,” she said, taking the cup.
“This is . . . I just can’t imagine what’s on your shoulders now. But I want to say we have confidence in you.”
“You do?” Esther said, a smile managing to make an appearance. She held up the cup and pointed at Tantou, who was studying the command array as if he was Sun Tzu. “Even him?”
“‘Even him’ is an idiot,” Veer said. “All of us who count have confidence in you.”
Esther was about to make some light remark when Rapa and Cezar came out of the supply closet. Esther broke out into a laugh, along with everyone else, looking at Cezar. The staff sergeant waddled, not walked, and as one of the Marines remarked, looked like he’d just taken a huge dump in his HED.
The laugh was needed, and if it sounded forced, that was to be expected.
“Staff Sergeant Rapa,” Esther said. “Just what in the hell is that?”
“Just a simple gyvering, ma’am. The problem, we think is CO2. So, I started thinking, what do we do with CO2 here in the station? We scrub it. And we’ve got plenty of scrubbers here. I just took two and hooked them into JC’s ass, then used duct tape to make sure they were secure. We’ve still got a tiny bit of leakage, but I think most of it is getting caught up in the scrubbers.”
“Will it scrub his farts?” Spec Potter shouted out to renewed laughter. “If it will, give one to Lim! His are nasty!”
Rapa smiled, but he ignored the comment said, “This is the scanner for CO and CO2. We can go outside and see if it works.”
That made sense, so Esther said, “Let’s do it.”
Along with the two gunnies, Staff Sergeant Rapa, of course, Mobutono, and Sergeant Rez, Esther went back outside. She knew they might be presenting a target with all of them, but they’d been taken under fire from the other side of the station, so she felt they were relatively safe.
Esther took the scanner, pointed it at Rapa, and keyed it. The CO2 levels jumped up, so the scanner was working, at least. She turned to Cezar, and the reading dropped to almost nothing.
“Jump up and down,” she passed to him.
He did a few jumps, then dropped to his belly and jumped back up.
“Not bad,” she said on the open circuit. A little leakage, but minimal. I think this might work. OK, everyone back inside.”
“Staff Sergeant Rapa’s contraption—”
“The fart-catcher, Skipper, that’s what we’re calling it,” Sergeant Ganesh said to more laughter.
“OK, ‘fart-catcher,’ seems to work. So, I want everyone outfitted with one, and I’m the first in line.”
She caught the two gunnies exchanging looks, so she added, “I’m going out with you.”
That resulted in some raised eyebrows.
“Look, we’re missing too many of us. I can work out ranges and environmentals. I can be a spotter.”
“So can I, Captain,” Biming Lum said. “Let me go, too. I don’t have an HED, but I don’t need one of those fart-catchers, either.”
Esther was about to say no, but if she was going out, then the same logic was there for the trooper to go out as well.
“If he’s going, so am I,” Sergeant First Class Juarez said.
“No, you’re not. I need you here in command. If anything happens to us out there, I need you to call in the shuttle and get off the planet.”
She thought Juarez was about to argue, but as soon as she said “command,” he quieted down immediately.
Rapa got to work, and with Dr. Veer assisting, the Marines had their fart-catchers installed within an hour. Esther had gotten together with the two gunnies to come up with their plan of attack, leaving the bulk of the details to them. They were the experts in this kind of thing, not her.
The plan was fairly straightforward. It relied on putting Marines into position so that skill would go against skill. Esther had heard the word “memitim” being bandied about. The Brotherhood memitim were renowned snipers in their own right, and that would explain the skill that had been revealed. But Marine snipers were supposedly the best—at least that was what they advertised. If they were right, then skill versus skill, even if that was one or more memetims out there, was a pretty good proposition.
With the five missing Marines, there had to be adjustments. She was going to take the place of De Vries and be Medicine Crow’s spotter and Tash and Francisco were teaming up. Lum was going to be Rez’ spotter, and the both of them were going to hang back and provide overwatch. Without a spotter, T-Bone would take the Barrett and stay back as well, ready to engage if he saw anything.
“Get a last drink and a bite to eat if you want,” Esther said. “Don’t forget to take a shit, too. With the duct tape on our asses, better to do it now since we don’t have any FIBs.[3]”
It took almost 45 minutes to get everyone fed, through the station’s two heads, and through their weapons checks, but finally, everyone was ready. Gunny Chun took a head count as everyone moved to the exit.
“Who am I missing?” he asked. “I’m down one.”
It took a moment until Sergeant Ganesh said, “It’s T-Bone.”
“Check the other rooms,” Gunny Medicine Crow said as Esther powered up her suit, bringing up her display.
And there he was. His avatar was already some 400 meters away.
“Shit!” she said. “He’s out there already.”
“Staff Sergeant Mubotono, what are you doing?” Esther passed on the command circuit.
There was no answer.
She tried again with the same results.
“You’d better answer me, Staff Sergeant,” she passed, her anger mounting.
“He’s not going to respond,” Gunny Medicine Crow told her. “He’s on a mission to prove he’s the best.”
Esther blew up when she heard that, swearing up a storm. She took some deep breaths to calm herself, then said, “He’d better hope that sniper nails him because I’ll have his ass if he survives.”
Then, on her external speakers, said, “Mubotono’s already on his way. And so are we. Mount up.”
Chapter 21
Esther was concentrating on not touching any of the toilet bowls, the name the Marines had bestowed on one of the squat types of pseudo-fungus, making them move and revealing their position, so she was not paying as much attention to the overall situation as she should have been. When the shot rang out, it took her by surprise. Immediately thinking it was the enemy sniper, she instinctively froze before realizing that the shot came from behind her, and it was the Barrett. Staff Sergeant Mobutono had fired off the big gun.
She waited, hoping for the confirmation that the staff sergeant had bagged the enemy sniper. When nothing was passed, the gunny’s leg just started to move her forward again when Mobutono fired again.
A second or two later, a single, sharp report rang out from in front of them, and Mobutono’s avatar went gray.
“Fuck!” Esther muttered just before three more shots rang out, almost in unison. She could tell that two were from the slug-throwing Windmoellers and one was from the quieter Kyocera.
“I didn’t see anything,” Esther said. “Did you?”
“That’s a negative, but somebody did.”
“Report,” she passed on the net.
“Saw the shot and took my own. Probable hit,” Staff Sergeant Fr
ancisco said.
“Not so sure I was on target,” Sergeant Tash passed. “Took a snap shot when I thought I saw something.”
“Same here. I’m sure we both spotted him, but I don’t know if I hit him,” Staff Sergeant Rapa added.
Three of you had him, and you don’t know if you killed him?
“What now?” Esther asked the gunny. “I’ve never thought about what you guys do if you can’t confirm the kill.”
“Depends, ma’am. Usually, we don’t do anything unless we’re ordered to do the BDA.”
“We’ve got one dragonfly still operable. I’m going to get the coordinates from Staff Sergeant Francisco and have it fly in for a look-see.”
She made the connection to Dragonfly One and gave the AI the coordinates. A moment later, the little drone changed course, heading for the spot. She hoped that the Dragonfly would spot a dead sniper.
A minute later, a shot rang out, and the Dragonfly feed blacked out.
He hit the freaking drone? Holy shit!
“I guess I missed,” Francisco passed, stating the obvious.
“Did anyone pick up anything?” Gunny Medicine Crow asked.
The net remained quiet.
Esther pulled in the Eagle Eye data stream, then asked the AI for a trace, hoping there was something for her.
It immediately popped up, and she passed, “The Eagle Eye trace shows one-seven-five degrees.”
One thing was clear. The trace went nowhere near the spot Staff Sergeant Francisco had identified. Either the staff sergeant had been completely fooled, the sniper had been able to quickly move, or there was more than one sniper out there.
Esther's Story: Special Duty (The United Federation Marine Corps' Lysander Twins Book 4) Page 11