In Every Clime and Place

by Patrick LeClerc

  We made it.

  Most of the healthy Marines around me were Weapons Platoon or engineers. Apart from my old team, Pilsudski, Gunny Taylor and one of Terry’s replacement Marines were the only ambulatory ones from Second Platoon that I recognized. I hoped some of the others were on different landers.

  I looked behind me. This was the last shuttle, so the dead were piled in it. No point giving a corpse a seat on an early flight. I recognized the bodies of Li and Khan. A corpsman bent over Kovanian, adjusting an endotracheal tube. He was alive, for now. Half the young Marine’s throat was torn away. If it weren’t for the freezing and coagulation of blood at these temperatures, he’d have died in less than a minute.

  Doc Roy set a blood canister on the IV in Wagner’s arm. She was unconscious, her eyes black and her face cut by the heavy plexi of the mask shield. Her right hand was a huge bandaged mass.

  Ski noticed my glance. “She’ll make it. Probably win the friggin’ Medal of Honor, too. She was protecting one of the heavy machine guns. Once the enemy got into grenade range she started fielding the incoming grenades like a goddamn shortstop and tossing them back while the gunner cut the fuckers down. About the fourth or fifth one her luck ran out. But she kept that machine gun in action.”

  His jaw was set in an angry scowl. He hated to see a good Marine maimed.

  “You trained your squad right,” I told him.

  As the corpsman moved away, I saw Lt Evers. He was lying on his back, staring with blind, glassy eyes at the overhead. He looked even paler than usual. Bloody smears stood out with livid contrast on the white skin.

  The best officer I had ever met, lying dead on the deck of a shuttle, a forgotten breathing tube down his throat, empty IV canisters in his arms.

  “He took over Third Platoon when their Lieutenant bought it,” Gunny Taylor explained, seeing me staring at the body. “The enemy brought up a heavy machine gun. Lt Evers led the assault on it. He and a few Marines overran it, wiped out the crew and blew the gun. Then he held the rear while his little command fell back. He took a few bad hits early but refused to be evac’d. On the way back from the gun, he took another round. One too many. Bauer made it,” he went on, sitting next to me. “Hernandez didn’t. When his squad got overrun, the Old Man scraped together every spare hand he could find and led a counterattack. Lt Mitchell was hit bad, but he’ll pull through. He was hit twice but he kept going. After the line was restored, he collapsed. Christ, I hope he’s alright.” The Gunny’s normally stoic face was lined with pain and anger. If he admired anyone in the world it was Lt Mitchell.

  I grunted. This was too much to absorb. “Good about Bauer,” I muttered. “Li would be happy to know he saved his buddy.”

  “He’d say his ancestors would be proud,” added Terry. “He was big on that.”

  “Thanks for saving my ass, by the way,” I told Terry and Angelina. “It would’ve been lonely being the only Marine on that rock.”

  “Not for long, it wouldn’t,” Johnson said. “Besides, you taught us nobody gets left behind.”

  I was proud of the kid. If I never did anything else for the Corps, I taught Johnson to be a good Marine. He’d be another Gunny Taylor.

  “I owed you one anyway for getting the bastard behind me,” Sabatini said.

  “You got one off me when I was out of ammo.”

  “I’ll take it from you at the card table.”

  “I don’t get you, Mick,” Ski said. “The Marine Corps buys you a nice shiny ACR, and you need to mix it up with steel. Again. You are one bloodthirsty bastard.”

  “I was caught up in the moment,” I retorted with ample sarcasm. “The damn rifle was empty.”

  Ski just smiled and shook his head. He was probably jealous. Headcase.

  I sat back, easing my wounded knee, and just enjoyed being alive and near my friends who were alive. I ran a hand through Sabatini’s hair.

  Then I saw it.

  Stuck in the high collar of her body armor, less than a centimeter from the soft, white, perfect skin of her neck, was a jagged chunk of shrapnel.

  I reached out and plucked the sharp-edged, flattened disk from the armor and stared.

  So close. How long since I’d kissed that very spot? I tried to feel relieved that she was safe, but the image of that ragged bit of steel ripping into her...

  She smiled her gentlest smile. A smile that promised everything I’d ever wanted.

  My hand shook as I put the piece in my pocket.

  Chapter 37

  8 JUN 2078

  ASTEROID BELT RESCUE SUBSTATION ECHO 7

  “So how did the company make out?” Jensen asked.

  “Got fuckin’ hammered,” I said. “Thirty-six Marines dead. Another hundred and fifteen wounded. That’s out of two hundred committed. Only about fifty of us walked out unhurt. But we accomplished the mission.”

  “My God,” Jensen replied, “that’s over seventy-five percent casualties. I’ve interviewed a lot of generals and they’ve always said that twenty percent casualties renders a unit inoperable.”

  I gave the newsman a twisted smile. “That’s your standard armchair warrior bullshit. Rifle companies take high casualties in combat. That’s a fact. Twenty percent of a rifle platoon is only six men. Losing six men never broke a platoon that was worth its salt. What these generals are talking about is twenty percent of a division or corps. That kind of unit includes HQ, field hospitals, truck drivers, cooks, and the guy that waters the major’s oak leaves. Since most battle casualties are in the rifle companies, twenty percent of a division is probably half its actual combat troops. Think if ten percent of your news network got fired, but they started with the reporters. Not much news would get reported after eight or nine percent went. Keep that in mind the next time you interview somebody whose uniform has more scrambled eggs than medals.”

  The reporter digested this soberly. “How about your squad? Your platoon?”

  “The three rifle platoons got hit worst. Third got butchered. First and us got hit bad. Out of our platoon, Lt Evers, Sgt Hernandez, Sgt LeBlanc, Cpl Stein in Hernandez’s squad, Li, Khan, and three other Marines got killed. Of the remaining twenty-one of us, sixteen were wounded, including me. A lot of us stayed on line and kept fighting, though. Five Second Platoon Marines walked out unhurt.”

  I took a deep breath and shook my head, remembering.

  “Recon, engineers and Weapons suffered less, but it was still bad. Captain MacGregor was wounded twice leading counterattacks to protect the shuttles, and Captain Lopez got hit making a prisoner snatch. She really wanted somebody to interrogate. She made it out, but was laid up for months.”

  I stared into my coffee mug for a while. “But we crushed ’em. Their ships were all disabled, and we got video evidence and prisoners to show the world. Stopped the threat of piracy in the damn region. Don’t know how many we killed. Don’t really know what happened to the bastards who ran it either.”

  “I may be able to help you with that,” said Jensen.

  SNN News File12, courtesy Brian Jensen

  17 Jan 2076

  Unconventional Forces Training Center, Ganymede

  Milos Radicz winced as his broken arm shifted in the sling. How many of his men were lost? Initial reports seemed to suggest that three-quarters of his eight-hundred men were casualties. In normal conditions, only about one in five men hit was killed outright. Half of all casualties would live or die depending on the care they received. Here, he feared the worst. He cursed as he thought of the soldiers lying wounded in a cold, hostile environment, unable to signal their comrades, their air supplies running down.

  Of his five APCs, four had been destroyed. All his flyers were gone. His remaining vehicle was busy ferrying the most critically hurt back to base.

  The former Colonel stalked across the crowded interior of the medical bay. How could this have happened?

  He turned his glare on Special Agent O’Hooley. “How the hell did anyone find this base without alerting your sour
ces?” he thundered. “My people are butchered. Our only way off this shithole has been destroyed. Why? By whom? What the fuck is your precious intelligence service for?”

  The CIA man shook his head. “I honestly don’t know, Colonel. It can’t have been the fleet. We have men posted there. We’d have heard something. I’d bet my life on it. These must have been renegade mercenaries. We’ll know if your men find some prisoners.”

  He paused, adjusted his reassuring look. “The company will try to contact me soon. We’ll get off this rock.”

  The door alarm sounded and two soldiers carried a wounded man into the tent. One of them halted before Radicz.

  “Sir.”

  “Sergeant.”

  “We found this.” He handed over a bloodstained magazine pouch, discarded by the enemy. Probably tossed aside by a medic treating a wounded man.

  “So, they can bleed,” Radicz replied, accepting the object. He examined it for a moment and then froze. He had seen that emblem before. An eagle, perched atop a globe, with a fouled anchor behind it. The symbol of the American Naval Infantry. He had fought these men in the streets of Srebrenica.

  He tossed the pouch to O’Hooley. “So your fleet couldn’t have made this assault?”

  The intelligence agent stared dumbly at the bloody webbing. “I don’t understand. We should have been covered. I’ll have to check on this.”

  Radicz’s expression didn’t waver. With one smooth motion of his good hand, he drew his sidearm and fired three soft-nosed slugs into O’Hooley’s belly.

  The CIA man’s eyes widened in shock before the pain set in. He crumpled to the floor of the tent, writhing and trying to speak.

  “Get that thing out of here.” The Serb indicated the dying American. “This hospital is a shrine to our fallen comrades. I won’t have his carcass disgrace it.”

  ****

  “A Navy ship picked up the survivors after a week or so. I interviewed some of them. There were around a hundred seventy or eighty left,” Jensen said.

  “Man, I guess we did fuck ’em up pretty bad. Never knew how bad, though.”

  “Most of them were interrogated and released. A lot were sent back to their home countries if they were wanted for crimes. They were the remnants of defeated armies, failed guerrilla movements and terrorist organizations. If it makes you feel better, you weren’t fighting Boy Scouts.”

  I shrugged. “They were the enemy. We kicked their asses. I have less grudge with them than the bastards who financed ’em.”

  “Really?” Jensen smiled and keyed up another story.

  SNN News File13, courtesy Brian Jensen

  22 Jan 2076

  Player’s Bar and Grill, outside Dallas, Texas

  Bart Rodman, ex-Chairman of the Board of Directors of the United Belt Mining Corporation, staggered to his shiny new Ford Sport Utility Vehicle. He had just ended a terrible day. The plan to scare off the miners had exploded. His contacts had sung like canaries. The union lawyers were tearing at the news story like hungry wolves. He was finished.

  It took several attempts to get the key into the door. He thought he’d drunk enough to settle his nerves, but apparently not. At length, he started the truck and pulled out onto the Texas highway, hoping to beat the dawn home.

  There has to be a solution, he thought frantically, there always has been before. Maybe Joe can come up with something. He cursed as he saw the blue lights in his rearview.

  Fuck. He pulled over onto the gravel and fished out his license and registration. He made sure there was a crisp new hundred folded between them. If he was lucky, the cop wouldn’t make an issue. The media would eat this up. The local papers were pretty obsequious to businessmen like himself, but the damn liberal national news would love to see him squirm. Maybe this officer had ties to the industry.

  “License and registration, sir,” said the State Trooper in a firm but politely professional tone.

  “Here you are, officer,” Rodman replied. “Didn’t realize my speed, what with the highway being so empty.”

  “Do you realize you were swerving between lanes, sir?” the Trooper persisted.

  “No, officer.” Rodman tried his tired businessman face. “It was a long day at the office. I was hoping to get some shut-eye soon.”

  As the Trooper scanned the license, Rodman noticed him start, as though he saw something interesting, then smile. Thank God, he thought.

  “Step out of the vehicle, please, Mr Rodman,” said the Trooper, his hand resting on the butt of his automatic.

  Puzzled, Rodman opened the door and climbed carefully out. What was going on? He was respectable, white and owned the car. There was no reason—

  He noticed the tattoo on the forearm of the policeman. An eagle, globe and anchor.

  “Do you have any idea what the penalty is for Driving While Intoxicated, Driving to Endanger, and Attempted Bribery of a Public Servant, Mr Rodman?” The smile on the officer’s face was as big as all Texas, but it held no sympathy.

  ****

  I laughed. “Serves the fucker right.”

  “What about your platoon? Where are they now?”

  I shrugged. “A lot of them stayed in the Corps. Lt Mitchell went through a lot of rehab and stayed in the infantry. Gunny Taylor is a First Sergeant now. Johnson and O’Rourke are both Corporals. At least, Terry still was as of last month. We’ll see how long that lasts. Wagner recovered, got a prosthetic hand and went to school on the government, which was small enough reward. McCray recovered enough to stay in as an instructor, so he has a chance to finish his twenty and get his pension. Bauer survived and left on a medical. So did Kovanian, but at least they made it back to Earth. Unlike too many good Marines. I wonder if the judge who told Khan to join the Corps even knows that it was a death sentence.”

  “What about Corporal Sabatini?” the reporter asked, smelling a story.

  A hatchway opened. I turned toward it.

  “Angelina, sweetheart, come meet Mr Jensen.”

  She sauntered into the room, nodded a greeting as she poured herself a cup of coffee, inquiring with a raised eyebrow if anyone else wanted a refill.

  I held out my mug. “If you’d be so kind.”

  Jensen began to laugh. “You’re Sabatini?” he said. “I should have guessed when you nearly busted my ass back on the news ship. I thought they called you Tini?”

  “Not to my face,” said Angelina sweetly. She poured, put the pot back in its cradle and hooked a chair with her boot, pulling it out from the table. Then she sat and took a sip. “I hope Mick isn’t boring you to death after all the trouble we took to save you. What can we do to make your stay on this little slice of heaven more comfortable?”

  “Just surviving to visit is more than enough. I’ve gotten a lot of good information on these stories. I only had access to official reports, before.”

  She smiled and raised an eyebrow. “Not telling the real outrageous lies, are you, Mick?”

  “You know me, a slave to honesty and truth.” I gave her a kiss. “Like our reporter friend here.”

  If Jensen caught the sarcasm, he didn’t rise to the bait. “Why did you leave the Marines?” he asked. “Not the wound, was it? You’re obviously fit enough to do rescue work.”

  I stretched my leg and suppressed a wince. “I could have stayed, I guess. The docs gave me a new patella, regrew tendons from tissue samples from my healthy knee and put me through six months of rehab. Still aches like hell with temperature and pressure changes. Don’t print that, or the damn Rescue company will re-evaluate my status and I’ll get stuck behind a desk,” I added. “Anyhow, the Corps bumped me to Sergeant and I finished my tour as an Infantry Tactics Instructor at Lejeune. I liked teaching the new Marines, but I hated garrison life. Too damn much spit and polish. I was a Fleet Marine. Out where it matters, we didn’t have surprise gear inspections, parades and all that chickenshit. I got spoiled being out in an Expeditionary Unit.”

  Angelina tousled my hair. “You wouldn’t have held
Sergeant for a year in a Stateside command. Not with bad influences like O’Rourke around.”

  “Don’t short yourself as an influence, my love.”

  She assumed a saintly expression. “I was only speaking of evil influences.”

  “Plus, it really bothered me when I found out the pirates were financed and supported with American money,” I continued. “Taxpayer money bought the bullets that both sides fired in that battle. The ones that killed Chan, Li, LeBlanc, Khan, Evers. And the one that shattered my fuckin’ knee. I didn’t mind fighting for my country. I just don’t like the idea of my government, or factions in the government, trying to use me as a pawn. After Ganymede, I didn’t trust anybody on the US payroll outside the platoon.”

  Angelina shook her head. “I saw too many friends die that day. I’m not ready for another day like that. I knew it was time to move on.”

  “So why’d you pick this?”

  “Well, I sure as hell didn’t want a real job,” I laughed. “I need to work where I can drive fast and break shit. Where we can stay out from under the boss’ eye and slack off until we get a crisis, then kick ass. I remembered the Rescue guys we had a beer with back on Mars. Looked ’em up and talked about the field. Seemed like the ticket.”

  “Some people are just flawed individuals,” added Angelina. “People like Mick just can’t fit into normal society. Normal society needs a few, though.”

  “Leaving yourself out of the equation?” I asked.

  “I need to stick around to keep you out of trouble. You’re like a stray kitten.” She smiled wickedly. “Just cute enough to keep, and almost more trouble than you’re worth.”

  I didn’t say anything, just slid an arm around her waist.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Thanks to Steve for manning the helm and keeping us on course, the Firedance team for helping me turn a good tale into a professional book, and my lovely wife for her patience, support and courage in the face of technology.