“Roger that, sir,” the two Marines said in unison.
“Jasper?” Mountie asked.
Jasper turned back towards Camberet. His wife and grandkids might be down there, waiting to make their way across. He wanted nothing more than to make his way down to the small village and see for himself. But he was under no impression that he could just merrily make his way across. If the women were trying to cross the river, he could best assist them by staying out of the way and crossing on his own.
Or with two Marines and a pilot.
“Roger, that, Mountie. I’m with you.”
Chapter 15
Mountie
“This is the best we’ve seen,” Sergeant Go said as the four stood on the rocky banks of the river.
“Best” was relative. The river beneath their feet wasn’t bounding through rapids, but the flow was still strong and swift. Twenty-five meters of rushing water separated them from the north bank.
“Do you think it gets any better farther up?” Mountie asked Jasper.
“I don’t really know. This is wilderness. There are still some terraforming stations out there, but that’s about it until you get close to the coast.”
They’d been marching along the river bank since dawn broke, almost ten hours before. They’d climbed and dropped more than they’d covered lateral ground, and Mountie figured they’d only made a couple klicks from where they’d first come down to meet the river. Mountie had been tempted to try and cross at several points they’d come across earlier, but none of them would be particularly easy. This spot wouldn’t be easy, either, but it was better than anywhere else he’d considered so far.
“We’ve no guarantee we’ll find an easier crossing, so this is it. Sergeant Go, you said you have crossing gear?”
“Yes, sir. Portillo, give me your hook.”
The lance corporal dropped his pack and rooted around inside. He still looked like a bum with his haphazard armor, but it hadn’t seemed to slow him down. He pulled out a dull metallic rectangle, about 20 centimeters long. Holding it out straight, he thumbed some sort of release Mountie couldn’t see, and three backwards-facing prongs shot out from the tip.
Sergeant Go released some line from one of the pouches on his harness. The pouch wasn’t very large, but the sergeant hand-over-handed out meter after meter of line. Mountie was surprised the pouch could hold that much.
He reached out and touched the grey cord. It had a much smaller diameter than he’d expected.
That’s going to be tough to hold. It’ll probably cut our hands.
For a river crossing, something with a larger diameter would be more appropriate, but Mountie could understand carrying a lighter line so more could be carried.
Both Marines had to be humping 50 kg while Mountie just had his SERE kit, the last of his rations, the dead merc’s Gescard, and his Prokov. He’d offered to carry more, but both Marines had refused.
With a couple of sure twists of his hand, Sergeant Go attached the end of the line to the grappling hook.
“Now what?” Mountie asked.
“Now we throw it.”
“You don’t have something to shoot it across?” Mountie asked, surprised.
“Not with us, sir. If we had a tube of some sort, we could make a field expedient gun, I guess. But it’s only 20 meters across, so we should be able to grunt it over.”
Twenty-five meters, maybe, but OK.
Sergeant Go jumped onto a rock that extended into the current and looped the line several times around his hand, the bottoms of the loops touching the rock’s surface. He let the hook drop a meter and started twirling the hook around and around, making a vertical loop. On the fifth rotation, he let go of the running end of the line just as the hook was swinging up, sending it arching over the river—only to be jerked short as the line reached full extension. It splashed into the water as Sergeant Go furiously pulled it in.
Go had a look that could kill, so Mountie made sure he didn’t catch his eyes. The sergeant gave himself another four or five loops, and Mountie figured he now had enough slack to make it across the river to the far side. He started swinging the hook again, gaining a little more speed with each rotation. Just as the hook reached the bottom of the loop and was coming back up, Sergeant Go released.
Too high! You need to release sooner.
Mountie was right. The grappling hook shot across, but at a high angle, climbing at least 15 meters before it arched back down, falling into the water barely half-way across the river. Sergeant Go reeled the hook back in, his body tense with frustration. Slowly and deliberately, he looped the line again, making sure it hung free from his left hand, then starting twirling. Six, seven, eight rotations—Mountie wanted to yell out just to do it.
“You’ve got it, Sergeant!” JJ shouted out in encouragement just as Go released the hook, a split second earlier in the loop than on his previous throw.
It made a pretty arc as it flew across the water, and Mountie thought the throw was good—until it seemed to lose momentum and fall weakly into the river a good five meters from the far bank. Mountie could see that Sergeant Go was getting upset with himself.
“Mother-virgin-fuck!” the sergeant shouted as the hook hung up on something in the bottom.
He pulled up hard, as if a fisherman trying to set the hook, but the grappling hook was stuck fast. He yanked several more times.
“Wait a second, Sergeant. Don’t pull!” Jasper said, hopping up on the rock. “Here, give it to me.”
Sergeant Go glowered at the smaller man but handed over the line without a word. Jasper took it and hopped downstream on top of the rocks on the bank, keeping a steady pressure on the line. Once he made it a dozen or so meters past where the hook seemed stuck, it suddenly came free. Jasper quickly reeled it in, looping the line around his hand and elbow.
He started back, slipping once with a foot going into the water up to his left knee, but he maintained his footing with his right leg. A few moments later, he reached the sergeant and handed over the line and hook.
“You give it a try,” Sergeant Go said, handing them over to Lance Corporal Portillo.
The junior Marine stood for a moment on the rock, staring at the other side before he lifted his right arm, and lasso-style, started twirling the hook and line in a horizontal circle. After six rotations, he let the hook fly. If anything, his throw was short of the sergeant’s. He tried twice more, neither time getting close.
“Let me see that,” Mountie said as Sergeant Go rolled his eyes.
“I think I can get it,” Lance Corporal Portillo said, handing it over. “Just need to get a little more height on it.”
Mountie took the loops of line in his left hand and hefted the hook in his right. It was surprisingly light. He gave it an experimental twirl with less than a meter of line. The sergeant had twirled it clockwise, with the downstroke behind him and releasing on the upstroke. Mountie wondered if going counterclockwise would make a difference.
He started twirling, downstroke in front of him and upstroke behind. He built up a little speed, which was difficult with the light hook, then released it at the apex of the loop. The arch was beautiful, and his breath caught, but it was as if the weight of the line itself was holding the hook back. It fell into the water still five meters short of the far shore.
Come on; this is ridiculous!
“JJ, can you give me a couple of zipties?” he heard Jasper ask behind him while he reeled in the hook.
Trying a different tack, he coiled the line on top of itself, placing the coil on the front of the rock at his feet, thinking that it might run freer.
He stood back, ready to try again when Jasper said, “Mountie, can I see the hook for a moment?”
Mountie turned to see Jasper standing behind him, his knife in hand. He shrugged, then handed the militiaman the hook. Jasper took it, hefted it once or twice and nodded before placing his beat-up work-knife alongside the main stem of the hook. With economical movements, he attached th
e knife with two of the zipties, pulling tight to make sure it was secure. He handed the hook back to Mountie.
“Here, try it now.”
Mountie took the hook and jiggled it up and down at the end of the line. It felt much heavier.
Shit, it might work! Why the hell didn’t I think of this?
He twirled the hook a few times, then stopped and checked it. Jasper’s knife was still solidly attached.
“OK, let’s give this bad boy a shot,” he said.
He started twirling the hook in earnest, only realizing after five loops that he was going clockwise, the same as Sergeant Go had done. Deciding it didn’t make much difference, he didn’t stop. He put his arm and shoulder into it, building up the speed. As he released it and the hook arched up into the air, he immediately knew it was going to make across. The hook came back down and bounced on the far shore, a good three meters past the edge of the water.
“Ooh-rah, Lieutenant!” Portillo said.
Mountie started pulling it back, trying to catch on one of the rocks.
“Steady, sir!” Sergeant Go said. “Don’t pull too hard!”
Only he did, and with a hop over the rock he was trying to snag, the hook landed in the water. He gave it a couple of small tugs, trying to catch something close to the edge, but to no avail.
Sergeant Go grabbed the line in front of Mountie and with huge, quick pulls, retrieved it. He checked the knife as soon as he pulled the hook from the water, but it was still firmly attached.
“Can I try, sir?” he asked.
Mountie wanted to try again himself, but it really didn’t matter who got it across, and he could tell that the sergeant was anxious to override his earlier failure. He ceded the line to the sergeant and stepped back off the rock.
Sergeant Go quickly prepared the line, then started his throw, releasing the hook after only three loops. It didn’t make a difference. The hook easily cleared the river. Getting it to snag on the other side was another issue—it wasn’t until after the third subsequent throw that the hook caught between two boulders.
“Finally,” the sergeant said. “OK, Portillo, get ready. I’m going to tie this end off now,” the sergeant said as he hopped off of the rock and took the line to the nearest tree.
Lance Corporal Portillo sat down to take off his boots when Mountie said, “I’m going to be the swimmer.”
“Sir?” the sergeant asked.
“The swimmer. That’s going to be me.”
“Uh, with all due respect, sir, Portillo, he’s a strong swimmer, and he’s pretty fit.”
“Was he a CAA[7] swimmer?” Mountie asked as he pulled off his flight boots.
“CAA? No, he never went to no university,” the sergeant said as Portillo laughed.
“Well, I did. Second place at the University Games in the 200 free. First in the 800 medley relay.”
Mountie knew that the two Marines, while giving deference to his rank, still thought him less than their equal regarding fieldcraft, and that frankly grated at him. He was a Navy pilot, and how many people ever achieved that? It was probably elitist, but there were a hell of a lot more Marines than pilots in the service.
But while Sergeant Go knew more about grunt-type work, Mountie knew there was no way any of them were stronger swimmers than him, and this was his chance to step up. It was not only ego speaking, but he really was the best choice. The river might not be roiling rapids in this stretch, but she was still a powerful bitch who’d take any of them into her embrace if she could.
“No shit? I mean, sir? That’s pretty freaking gorbo,” Portillo said.
Mountie didn’t know what “gorbo” meant, but the tone was clear. He’d impressed the young Marine.
He disconnected the front release of his flight suit, almost recoiling as the stench escaped.
Whoa! I really need the water, he thought. Three days without a shower.
Every Navy pilot flew with a skinsuit underneath whatever tactical flight or deep-space suit was needed for his particular aircraft. The skin suit had the connections to the various sensors as well as provided G-force protection. Mountie debated getting out of it as well and swimming naked, but it was a real pain in the ass to get it on and off. It shouldn’t hamper him, so he kept it on. He disconnected the three line hubs and dropped the flight suit on top of his Gescard.
“You taking that?” Sergeant Go asked, pointing at the merc rifle.
“No, I don’t think so. Too bulky.”
“Then maybe you should take your Prokov, sir. We don’t know if anyone is over there.”
Good point, he acknowledged.
But his calf holster, which held both his Prokov and his Hwa Win combat knife, was made to attach to the slots on his flight suit, not his skin suit. He unhooked the holster from the empty flight suit and stood looking at it, wondering how to attach the thing.
Sergeant Go held out a hand for the holster, so Mountie gave it to him. The sergeant pulled two small straps from his engineer kit, slipped them through slots in the holster that Mountie had never even noticed, then handed it back.
It didn’t take a bubblespace scientist to figure the thing out, and Mountie slipped it around his calf and tightened up the straps.
Next, he circled his waist with the pull line. He had to drag that across the river with him so he could help pull the others over one-by-one.
“Give me another piece of line, about a meter-and-a-half,” he told the sergeant.
With that small piece in hand, he stepped into the water, going in to his waist—and almost recoiled in shock. It was cold! Suddenly, he was glad he wasn’t in his starkers. The skinsuit had thermo-barriers, so it was giving him at least some protection.
Even this close to the shore, the river grabbed at him and tried to drag him downstream. He had to turn sideways to keep his feet.
He took the line the sergeant had given him and made a loop around both himself and the line crossing the river, keeping it loose. He didn’t want to be constrained, and he needed freedom of motion.
“I want everyone to have one of these before he crosses. I’ll have you on the pull line, but the safety loop is there in case there’s a problem.
“Now, for my crossing, I’m going to keep one hand on the line, then do a modified side-stroke to get across. Once I’m on the other side, give me some more slack so I can secure that end over there. Then attach the pull line so I can get it over. Do we have enough line for all of this?”
“Roger that, sir. We’ll use Portillo’s line for that.”
“I’ll give you the OK, and whoever’s next gets attached to the pull line, and in he goes. I want you to keep the pull-line taut, but not so tight that I can’t haul it over.”
Jasper listened closely to him, but the two Marines seemed to be barely paying attention. They’d probably done this many times before, but Mountie didn’t see any harm in going over it as many times as he deemed necessary.
“Well, that’s about it. I’m off.”
He turned around and faced the river. The line dipped into the river at the middle of the span, bouncing up and down as it was caught and released by the flow. He took a breath, then half-leaned, half dove into the water on the upstream side of the safety line—and was immediately swung under it to the downstream side. He’d intended to swim with his right hand and hold on with his left hand, but this wasn’t a pool. The current whipped him around to the downstream side of the rope, and he had to hold on with his right and swim with his left. Using the side-stroke, though, most of the power came from his legs, and with a few scissors kicks, he was on his way.
Five meters from the near bank, the current felt like it doubled in power, yanking him downstream as it tried to break him free of the safety line. Swimming became almost impossible as he had to grip the safety line too tightly to let his hand slide along it. Within a few moments, he gave up and brought up his right hand to grip the line as well. Then with a modified frog kick, he kicked and moved hand over hand out into the river.
“You’ve got it, Lieutenant!” Portillo yelled out.
As the rope dipped lower, the river was getting more powerful. Mountie’s face kept going under at the bottom of each bounce, and he swallowed more of the water than he would have liked. He was getting pounded, but he kept at it, kicking for all he was worth and pulling on the rope. It was so thin, though, that it was cutting into his hands. He could see small blooms of red on them that disappeared each time his hands went under.
Somehow, he managed to make it past the middle of the river. He craned his neck to see ahead.
Less than ten meters!
And suddenly, the pounding and bouncing stopped.
Am I across? he wondered for a split second before he realized what had happened.
The far side hook had come free, and he was stuck in the flow of the river. Immediately, he grabbed the line with one hand and started breast-stroking to the far side. He had only seconds. Once any slack behind him was taken up, he would be swung back out into the current, and he’d slide down the end of the rope, either catching on the hook at the end, if it was still connected, or to slip right past the running end and be swept downstream.
He felt the rope behind him going taut, and he started to be pulled back, so he let go, and with both arms, started pounding the water, striving to reach the other side before he was caught in the middle. He was barely aware of the line zipping past him—until the grappling hook hit him hard in the side, a lancing pain flashing through him. He wanted to double up, but the image of the rapids just 300 meters downstream kept flashing through his mind as he doubled his effort, concentrating on getting the most out of each stroke, each kick.
A boil in the water almost flipped him, but he powered through, straining with each kick. His fingers hit a rock, and he panicked, sure he’d already hit the rapids, but after another stroke, the pounding ceased. He had reached an eddy downstream of a boulder half in and half out of the water. His knees hit the river bed, and he managed to stand up, only to double back over to one knee, hand clutching his side. He risked a peek; his side was bleeding, his skinsuit torn.
Behind Enemy Lines: A United Federation Marine Corps Novel Page 10