Sniper (Women of the United Federation Marines Book 2)

by Jonathan P. Brazee

  Gracie felt that she was born to be a Marine. The life suited her, especially the life as a scout-sniper. But she was still a tribal girl, and home was home. When she retired, she knew to where she was headed.

  Retire?

  And it struck her. That was the first time she’d ever assumed that she would retire as a Marine, that she’d make it a career. A smile came over her as that realization sunk in.

  Me, a career Marine!

  That thought also got her mind off home and back to the job at hand. She’d been glassing up and down Gazelle, watching the comings and goings of the citizens. It had been a quiet day so far. They’d heard firing early in the morning off to the north, but no Marines had been involved, and they hadn’t heard what that was. People had to live, and with a beautiful sunny day, without any strife, it looked like most of the people who hadn’t fled the city were out shopping and running errands. It looked peaceful, and if a person could discount the ruined and damaged buildings, the scene could be anywhere in human space.

  She watched a portly man with a teal scarf standing in front of a heavily damaged storefront, guessing he was the owner and wanting to see what he’d have to do to repair it. With the Marines in town, normal commerce could get back on track.

  On the west side of Gazelle, about 450 meters to the north of Gracie’s position, someone had cleared out part of the rubble from a destroyed building. A dozen or so kids were playing football in the cleared area. Gracie watched as an errant kick sent the ball out into Gazelle and down the road, two kids in hot pursuit. An older woman stopped the ball with her foot, then kicked it back onto the pitch with a high, arching trajectory.

  Yes, life was emerging from the war.

  A young man approached the man with the teal scarf, said something, and both turned to enter the ruined shop.

  Probably the contractor.

  Eli was enjoying his break, lying on his back, now nattering on about some sort of bread—and of course, the best bread in the galaxy—that his mother made. Gracie shook her head, but with a smile on her face. She’d turn the glasses over to him in another 15 minutes, but for now, let him natter.

  The teal scarf guy reappeared in front of his store, simply standing and watching the crowd. Gracie thought it must be hard to see your livelihood destroyed and have to start from scratch.

  Gracie was scanning further up the road when a man caught her attention. He looked like anyone else, but there was an air about him, not nervousness, but something else upon which she couldn’t put her finger. He suddenly seemed to spot something and started crossing the street. Gracie zoomed in on him, following him as the man pushed past other pedestrians. To her surprise, he walked up to teal scarf. Zoomed in as she was, she saw the man make a strange motion with one hand. Teal scarf lifted a finger, then tilted his head towards the door of the shop.

  What the. . .?

  Without having been zoomed in, she would have probably missed the hand signal, which she was sure it had been. But why?

  “Gittens,” she said over her shoulder.

  “What? Am I up already?”

  “No. But call the CP,” she said as she range-shot the building with her binos. “I want a scan of 447638-slash-797801.”

  She continued to watch, and another man came forward. He made the same weird flick of the wrist, fingers apart that the previous man had made. He went inside, and after a slow scan of the area, teal scarf turned and entered as well.

  About three minutes later, Eli said, “The Josh says there are seven adults in the building, clustered together. Battalion wants to know who you think they are.”

  During the current state of martial law, gatherings of more than four people were prohibited. That was hard to control in reality. More people than that went to a market or were in a family. It was more of a tool for law enforcement when needed.

  Gracie keyed her comms. “Coyote-Three, this is Hornet-Four. Get me the whiskey-oscar, over.”

  A moment later, Captain Giardino, the S3-A, came on the hook. “Hornet-Four, what do you have there?”

  “We’ve got seven inside a destroyed building at coordinates—”

  “We’ve got a feed on the building now. What did you see inside?”

  “We do not have eyes inside. We did see the last four. They exchanged what looked like hand signals for recognition. I think the ones joining were looking for someone with a teal scarf, which is what the man at the building was wearing, over.”

  “Do they look Svealander or Argentine?” the watch officer asked.

  There wasn’t a clear-cut difference in how the two groups looked. Sveas might tend more to the old Nordic genotype, and the Tinos could tend a little darker, but that could hardly be assumed from one or a few individuals.

  “The building is in the Svea side of Route Gazelle, but I can’t say more.”

  “Wait one. I’m going to bring it up with the six.”[22]

  Less than a minute later, the captain was back on the hook with, “Hornet-Four, keep your eyes on the building. Do not, I say again, do not engage. You are not cleared hot unless to protect lives. We are sending a patrol to the location.”

  “Roger, over.”

  It took almost 20 minutes, which was far too long, as far as Gracie was concerned. She first noticed people looking down one of the side streets, then scattering. Teal scarf made a quick appearance, looked down Gazelle, then disappeared back inside. A moment later, the first Marines appeared. It looked like an entire platoon started back along Gazelle, appearing as if they were on a routine patrol.

  Gracie reached down for her helmet and slipped it on. She powered up the display on the face shield, and as the avatars appeared, she realized why the delay. A squad of Marines had snuck in behind the building, there to scoop up anyone who might want to flee. Gracie hadn’t seen them as buildings had blocked her vision.

  The street below, which had been bustling with people only a few minutes before, was now mostly deserted. Only a few people were still in view, scurrying to get off the road.

  The first couple of fire teams in the platoon went past the building as if it were of no interest to them. By the time the third fire team walked abreast, it all changed. With a well-concerted swoop, the first squad turned and disappeared inside. Gracie had her Windmoeller ready for action, but there was no sign of fighting. The second squad followed the first one side, leaving a fire team on Gazelle for security.

  “Who do you think they are?” Eli asked.

  “Haven’t a clue.”

  “Then why did you call in battalion?”

  Gracie started to snap at Eli, but when she turned to address him, the look on his face was curiosity with a hint of confusion, not derision.

  “There was something about them that struck a chord, and not a good one. Then there were the hand signals. They were amateurish, but that really has no relevance. It was just how they were projecting themselves, I’d say.”

  “But what if they’re innocent? I mean of doing anything wrong?”

  “They’re breaking the rules by having seven of them meeting at once. If that’s all they’re doing wrong, then they’ll get their wrists slapped. No harm done.”

  “I guess so. I just, well, I don’t know. It doesn’t seem as if that’s our job, you know, being the police in case someone is breaking the temporary rules of this place.”

  “Gittens, what’is the name of our platoon?”

  “We’re 2/3’s Scout-Sniper Platoon.”

  “And what’s the first word in that, Scout, right?”

  “Well, yeah. I know that. We’re supposed to go out and find the enemy and take them out.”

  How the hell haven’t I realized until now that he doesn’t have a clue? she wondered. And what are they teaching at the division school?

  “Look, you and I are going to have a talk about this later. But we aren’t just snipers. We’re the eyes and ears of the battalion. Why do you think we did those bridge and route recons back Camp Anderson?”

&n
bsp; “I thought that was cross-training with recon.”

  “We are the battalion’s in-house recon, Gittens. Don’t forget that. And that’s just as important a mission as shooting the enemy.”

  “Yeah, of course, I know that. Sorry. I just, well, I don’t think I would have noticed anything about those guys down there.”

  “Look,” Gracie said, interrupting him. “They’re coming out.”

  Both Marines watched as one-by-one, each civilian was led out, blindfolded and hands zip-tied behind them. A 7-ton drove up, and the men were bodily lifted into the cargo bed and driven off. The platoon formed up and started to move back to wherever they’d been before.

  “I guess they really were bad guys,” Eli said.

  “You’re up,” Gracie told him, handing him the binos. “Remember, though, you’re not just looking for the obvious threat. Anything out of place, you tell me, and we’ll let battalion decide what to do about it.”

  “Aye-aye, Corporal,” Eli said, accepting the binos.

  Gracie watched him settle in, elbows on the edge of the retaining wall as he started glassing the area. She realized she’d been at fault. She’d been so intent on making Eli a better technical sniper that she’d forgotten to stress the other side of the mission.

  Gracie only had one subordinate. If she were in a rifle company, she’d have three other Marines under her. If she wanted a career as a Marine, she’d have more junior Marines under her, and if she wanted that opportunity, she knew she’d better figure out how to lead.

  Chapter 19

  7

  Over the next three weeks, the city was getting hotter. Clashes between the Svea and the Tinos were becoming more common, and the Marines had been targeted as well. Incoming mortars were a daily occurrence. The Josh immediately destroyed the firing sites, but the mortars were all remotely operated. As both sides had the same weapons, the CDAs, the Combat Data Analysts, couldn’t determine which side emplaced and fired the mortars.

  IEDs had become a problem, both to the local populace and the Marines. Four Marines had been WIA when their hover hit one, and even a PICs had been damaged when the Marine had stepped on a mine. No one had been killed yet, but a feeling of apprehension had settled over the battalion that it was only a matter of time.

  Staff Sergeant Riopel thought the morale problem was not so much that some of them would be killed but that the Marines were out of their element. Marines closed with and destroyed the enemy. That was embedded in their DNA. The same Marines who would charge 100 Klethos armed with just a combat knife sunk into a sulk on Jericho.

  The officers and SNCOs were not blind to this, and they were doing their best to counter it with increased access to calls home and keeping the Marines busy, but it was hard just to sit and wait for incoming. Gracie found that on her down days, she joined the others off duty in the make-shift gym or binge watched the latest and greatest holo series. She began to detest those days. At least when she was out in the ville, she had to keep alert, and that occupied her thoughts.

  Today was better for her. She and Eli had the northern checkpoint angel mission. To try and stop the flow of weapons into the city, the Marines, augmented by the local police, had set up a roadblock along Route Wildebeest, the main—and only—highway into the city from the north. Just two days prior, Falino Getty, one of the snipers in Bravo Section, had taken out a gunman who had strafed the checkpoint with an energy weapon. The area around the checkpoint had been cleared past 200 meters, and the idiot had lost his nerve, firing as soon as he emerged from the bushes alongside the drainage canal. Two police and one Marine received the tingles, but not strong enough to hospitalize any of them. Falino, who was in on the roof of the Jasper Motor Inn 400 meters behind the checkpoint, had nailed the man with the Barrett as he turned to run. A 665-grain round, traveling at over 850 meters-per-second, packed a big punch, and it had almost torn the man in two.

  Fal was actually Staff Sergeant Kwami’s spotter, but he’d been on the Barrett when the guy came out firing, and he’d taken the shot. This had been Fal’s first kill. The fighter had been using a UKI Series B beam projector and therefore hadn’t had a round for Fal to take, so Staff Sergeant Kwami scrounged up one of the cop’s .357 rounds as his HOG’s tooth.

  Like every Marine, Gracie loved the Barrett. The rifle had been around in various permutations for hundreds of years. This one was a fantastic piece of gear, but it wasn’t that much different in concept from the first Barretts introduced back in the 20th Century, Old Reckoning. A sniper from back then, plucked from his world and plopped into the modern Marine Corps, wouldn’t have a problem figuring out the M6B4 Barrett, and within an hour, be reasonably proficient with it.

  While Fal made his kill with the Barrett, it was generally not the weapon of choice against personnel unless at extreme (1,800 and longer) ranges or when firing the CDR, the Counter Defilade Round. It could stop most civilian hovers or ground cars with one shot, however, so with the checkpoint angel mission, it was the right weapon.

  “Look at those cops,” Gracie remarked to Eli as she surveyed the manned checkpoint.

  Four Marines and twelve cops, six from each side of the conflict, were at the primary point. A hundred meters in front, a lone civilian tech in a blast-booth monitored the vehicle detection system (which used X-rays, Gamma Rays, and a magnetic scan to check on commercial cargo), and various sensors stretched out another 300 meters past him.

  “They’re not too happy to be together, are they?” Eli noted. “Like as not, as soon as they’re off-duty, half of them are going to be carrying on their little spat.”

  Six of the cops were on one side of the road, the other six on the opposite side, with the four Marines in the middle. Gracie couldn’t tell which six were Tinos and which six were Svea. They had on the same uniforms even if they were on opposite sides of the conflict.

  “Could very well be. Someone’s doing the killings, and these guys have the weapons.”

  “Seems sort of stupid. I mean, us here, trying to keep them apart. They have to play nice like this, but as soon as we leave, they’re going to try and kill each other. I don’t like this.”

  “You’re preaching to the choir, Gittens, preaching to the choir.”

  The traffic was light, and during the first hour, only one truck and a handful of hovers passed through the checkpoint. Four more Marines relieved the first section. The local sun beat down on the two Marines on the hotel roof. The day dragged on.

  Gracie sucked on her camelback, then made a face. The heat exchanger wasn’t working well, and the water was warm.

  “I saw Sergeant Winston brought a field chiller. Why don’t you head below and see if you can get her to give up a couple of cold ones.”

  “Really? She’s got a chiller? Sure, I’d kill for something cold. I swear my camelback’s heating my water. What do you want? And you like it at a 17, right?”

  “Anything she’s got. And if that little portable unit can hit a 17, great. If not, anything colder than a 10’s OK.”

  The older camelbacks, the ones made by GE, had pretty good temperature capability, able to heat or chill water within seconds. The new contracted camelbacks, fulfilled by Hargrove Industries, were supposed to be lighter and more convenient, but the chillers were crap.

  Gracie didn’t watch Eli go down the roof access but focused on the area in front of the checkpoint. Two sets of eyes reduced the stress, but that wasn’t always possible. From sleep requirements to simply taking a dump, much of the time only one of them was observing at any given moment.

  Of course, the gods of perversity decreed that two minutes after Eli left, a late model hover slowed to a stop 600 meters in front of the roadblock. Add the 400 meters from Gracie to the roadblock, and it was 1,000 meters from her. Just shy of 1,027, to be more specific. Gracie had previously ranged a more than a dozen landmarks, and the hover was a few meters closer than the half-buried tire at the side of the road that she’d ranged at 1,027. The landmarks were for quick r
eaction; through her scope, Gracie could see that he was merely staring ahead. She hit the targeting laser, and the range immediately came back as 1,024 meters. An easy shot with the Barrett.

  What are you doing, buddy?

  “Hornet-Four, do you have a visual on our friend?” one of the Marines at the checkpoint asked.

  “Roger that. He’s just sitting there looking. I think he’s deciding if he wants to come and play with you.”

  Gracie lightly stroked her trigger. She knew she had the firing solution nailed. Just a gentle pull and their friend out there would be dead.

  She was almost disappointed when he rotated and took off back north on Wildebeest.

  “Checkpoint 2, the Papa-Oscar-India is retreating,” she passed.

  Gracie thought that “Papa-Oscar-India,” or “Person of Interest,” was an awkward phrase to use when referring to a potential threat, but ever wary of the PC crowd, the battalion had been ordered to avoid terms or derogatory slang that could be construed as taking sides.

  “What do we got?” Eli asked, bursting out of the roof access.

  He rushed across the roof to where they had set up.

  “Just some asswipe coming down the pike, then deciding he didn’t want to come and say hello.”

  She wasn’t on the net, so she thought “asswipe” was OK to use.

  “So what now? If he’s running, he’s got to have something to hide, right?”

  “I’d guess so. But it’s out of our hands. I’m sure we’ve got drones on him now, tracking him back to wherever. And the Josh will be backtracking his route here. I don’t think I’d want to be in his shoes right now.