“OK, I want you to break contact. Spike that chat-chat first. Then get your ass back down the hill, link up with a fire team from Third, and move back to the tracs.”
The tracs were pouring huge amounts of fire into the swamp. It didn’t look like anyone could survive the devastation, but Esther knew that humans were tough sons-of-bitches. She couldn’t assume anything.
“Sergeant Daniels-Graves, start moving back. Bounding overwatch. Keep on the alert, though.”
The Marines might have the upper hand at the moment, but the Aardvarks couldn’t fire forever, and the legionnaires could still have a surprise in store. Esther’s goal now was to break contact. The farmhouse was empty, and this little plot of land was not worth any more Marines deaths.
“Staff Sergeant Fortuna, I want you to watch Hammerschott. Make sure he and First get back to the tracs.”
“Roger that.”
Her platoon sergeant had been mostly invisible since the battle started. She looked to the east and saw him stand and almost casually walk toward the sergeant’s position. She pushed him out of her mind as Second Squad started to reach her. She had to retreat with them. Except for the mortars, incoming started to diminish, but Esther kept Second in the bounding overwatch.
“Golf-One, we’re inbound in 30. Please don’t shoot us,” one of the Wasp pilots casually passed.
“We won’t, but we’d appreciate the same,” Esther passed. “Confirm.”
“Beacons on!” she ordered. “Incoming air.”
Command avatars worked by matched electrons, which theoretically could be hacked. But when dealing with air and ground fire, beacons were broadcast to limit friendly fire casualties. They could also be hacked and copied by a sophisticated enemy, and they could be used by said enemy to target the Marines themselves, so they were used only by the forward-most Marines. When air was inbound in a confused battle area, though, beacons for everyone made sense.
“Roger, I have yellow, I repeat yellow, at two-two.”
“That’s confirmed. Happy hunting.”
The platoon beacon, set by Esther, was a yellow avatar, flashing brighter twice, then a pause, then twice. This pattern would continue until the beacons were turned off.
A moment later, two evil-looking birds swooped in from the south. Wasps were dual-purpose fighter/ground attack aircraft with limited space capabilities. They were not much when compared to a Navy Experions, but they packed a pretty good punch. As they passed and climbed, the entire swamp exploded, flames and black smoke rising as if hell had escaped the underworld.
As bad as it looked, the swamp was still a lot of water, and that could protect legionnaires. Esther doubted they’d all been killed.
The Wasps hit the high ground on the next pass, and upon Esther’s request, hit the mortar position before heading back to the airfield.
Flames still crackled high in the trees, but the rest of the battlefield was oddly silent. Esther tried a scan, and to her surprise, it indicated a large number of legionnaires still alive and moving—but away from them. Whatever jamming the legionnaires had been employing had evidently been knocked out. She did a quick query—47 legionnaires were retreating. There were a few flickers from either dead or wounded legionnaires.
This could be another trap, but Esther didn’t think so. With both the Aardvarks and Wasps, the advantage was now with the Marines.
Sergeant Ngcobo had left his three prisoners on the top of the hill when he’d left, unable to handle them, but Esther sent out a quick patrol to check the ghost flickers on her scans. Four wounded legionnaires were collected, and after being treated by Doc, were loaded into the Aardvarks, along with the platoon’s five KIA and six wounded. Doc thought four of their KIAs were good candidates for resurrection. Even if he were right, that meant two of her Marines were permanently dead.
Esther had lost Marines before, on Requiem when she’d been thrust into command after Sergeant Kinder had been killed. This was the first time that she’d lost her Marines, Marines entrusted to her to keep them safe. She stood over the six Marines in their ziplocks, pulling up their personals on her display. Lance Corporal Portis, “Port-man,” Charlie Ngcobo had called him, was one of the two who Doc thought could not be resurrected. Frandell Portis, Junior. Twenty years old, from Dillon’s World. Single, as most junior Marines were. Son of Helen and Frandell Portis, Senior. Esther had never even spoken with him.
She pulled up the second. Private First Class Vykky Tantamount Lorne. Esther had spoken with her two days before on the ship when she was doing her initial interviews. She was a bigger girl, with a page-boy haircut and purple eyes. She’d seemed very excited to have Esther as her platoon commander, and she wasn’t sure whether that was because of her father or simply because of her gender. She was a Navy brat, enlisting on Station 1. When Esther had asked why she hadn’t gone Navy, Vykky had simply said she wanted to be one of the best.
Now she was a mass of mauled body parts. Most of a human body can be regenerated, but not the brain. And they managed to scrape together only half of hers. The ziplock was wasted effort, but regs were regs, and it took a medical officer to declare someone officially KIA. Doc could only ziplock them and get them back to the aid station.
Esther had already made her preliminary report back to Captain Hoffman, who’d canceled the rest of the orientation patrol. They were to return to the base on the Aardvarks.
Esther helped her Marines load the KIA, taking one of the four handles on each bag. She kept her eyes straight ahead, not looking at faces. They’d won the battle; they’d driven the legionnaires from the field. But it didn’t feel like a win. In her first day of command, real command, that is, where she was making decisions, she’d lost five of her Marines. Two more were due for long regens and had joined the KIA in ziplocks. That was 17% of her platoon, if she counted Wynn and his assistant. If that was a victory, she quailed to think of what a loss would be like.
“You all ready?” Callas Anderson, the armor commander, she’d found out, asked.
Esther gave one last look at the eight ziplocked bodies, seven of her Marines and one legionnaire, then nodded to the crew chief to close the hatch.
“Yes, we’re ready. Let’s get out of here.”
TARAWA
Chapter 1
Two months earlier . . .
Twenty-one years after she’d first entered the hallowed ground, her five-year-old hand clasped in her father’s as she peered into the gloom, lit by old-fashioned incandescent light bulbs, trying to understand what the tavern meant to the Marines, Esther Lysander returned to the Globe and Laurel. She’d been in the place several times since over the years, but this time, her nerves were fluttering, a sensation she wasn’t used to. No one ever accused Esther of lacking confidence, but now she hesitated, just inside the doorway.
Come on, Esther. Get it together!
“You going in, or are you just acting as a door-block,” a deep, gravelly voice asked from behind her.
Esther didn’t need to turn around to know who it was. Midshipman Falcon Upshick had spent almost a year in regen after having most of his throat torn out, and as was occasionally the case, his regenerated body didn’t quite match the original, giving him a distinctive voice that didn’t match his somewhat diminutive size. As a sergeant, Falcon had stood off an assault from a rioting mob on Durbin II, earning himself a Silver Star in addition to his stint in regen. As a midshipman, Falcon had been Esther’s closest competition—and one of the few classmates she considered as a friend.
“Nah, just trying to keep out the riffraff. This here’s a solemn occasion, and we don’t need Fifth Marines rejects lowering the standards, don’t you know,” she said, not turning around.
“Hah! We may be riffraff, but that’s better than you 16th Marines. At least we’re in civilization. I know which fork is the salad fork and which is for the main course.”
Esther’s thoughts flicked to her brother Noah for an instant. A dedicated foodie, Noah knew all about proper
table etiquette, a topic that never even registered in her mind. She felt a twinge of emptiness, of missing her twin, but she shoved that deep within the recesses of her consciousness as Falcon put a hand on her shoulder. She turned to look at her friend, put an arm around his shoulder, and faced the main room again.
“Well, since we’re both such hiso characters, let’s get the party going.”
Together, they crossed the main dining area, Esther’s eyes straying to the walls. Photos and holos of various Marine commanders, commandants, sergeants major, and heroes covered them, some being signed command photos, some being taken with the pub staff. Memorabilia hung everywhere, but the entire back wall and part of one side wall had the class time boxes, the boxes that once had three bottles in them. The older ones were now empty, the newer ones with one, two, or all three bottles still. Esther had looked at each and every one of them before, the last time four months ago when she’d arrived on Tarawa for Phase 3 (Marines) of NOTC.[13] Now, her eyes avoided the box on the side wall, two from the top and three from the right side. That was Class 59-2’s box, her father’s box, whose name was now engraved on a small brass plate in the middle of it, engraved when he’d been the first in his class to receive a star. The box had one bottle left, a bottle her father would never open. Esther knew if she saw the box, the tears would well up again, and she didn’t want anything to dampen the mood of her classmates.
They reached the back dining room, and Esther reached out with her free hand to the door. Mr. Geiland, the Globe and Laurel’s owner, and part of history in his own right, swung it open first, though, and emerged, holding an empty box with the words “Krug Clos d’Ambonnay” printed on the side.
“Welcome,” Mr. Geiland said, stepping to the side. “Most of you are already here, but you’re all set up. Give me a shout if you need anything.”
Esther dropped her arm from Falcon’s shoulders and pulled down on the bottom edge of her miner’s blouse as if she were in her Bravos. She was dressed in civvies, not her uniform, but habits of the last five years were already ingrained in her.
The two midshipmen entered the room together. More than half of the class was already there, and a few looked to have been tapping the kegs that Mr. Geiland had put out for them while others were munching on the small snack line. The Globe and Laurel put on this little party for each class gratis. The three bottles in subdued wooden racks on the back table were paid for by the mids themselves.
“Glad to see you two lovebirds made it,” Deri Tsu said, handing each of them a stein of beer.
Lovebirds? Is that what they think?
“You can’t start without me,” Esther said, attempting to change the subject.
The small cloud that seemed to cross over Deri’s eyes made Esther regret the words. She knew she was confident—what some people might think of as arrogant, and this wasn’t a time for that.
“It looks like we’re still missing a dozen or so, and we need everyone before we start,” she amended, trying to deflect her initial statement.
The thing was, she had meant it exactly how it sounded. Deri had read her right. Deri had been a run-of-the-mill midshipman, and Esther thought she’d be a run-of-the-mill officer. Unlike Falcon, whom Esther was sure would excel, the fact was that most of the gathered midshipmen would be decidedly average officers.
Average for Marine officers, she corrected her thoughts. Still better than any other service.
Every one of the 72 midshipman in the room had proven him or herself as enlisted Marines. Eighteen of them had even received appointments to the Naval Academy back on Earth and completed four years there before joining the rest in Phase 2 (Marines). Each and every one of them had what it took to achieve. But even when grouped with other over-achievers, the cream within the cream still rose to the top. And Esther knew without a doubt that she would rise.
Esther spent the next hour drifting about, touching base with most of the others. More than a few toasts were called, and a few of her classmates were getting a little into the cups. Esther nursed the one beer Deri had given her, taking tiny sips for each toast. This was a solemn occasion, and she wanted a clear head.
It was good to relax, though. For once, he didn’t have to worry about whether she would end up as the honor graduate or not. She didn’t have to stress about her performance. All of that was over. She could listen to sea stories, and despite a desire to tell a few of her own, she held back. She would have to work with all of them in the future. These would be her compatriots going up the ladder. Some—most—would fall off that ladder at some time or another. But in the end, it would still be these classmates who shared a bond.
And then it was time. Esther walked to the table, picked up one of the wine glasses and clinked on it with an antique round casing Mr. Geiland had left there. It only took a moment for the gathered class to stop talking and turn to face her.
Esther ignored the piece of plastisheet in her pocket, the one Brigadier General Cousin Stapleton-Hargreaves had given her. She had memorized the words already, but still, it felt comforting to know that should she falter, she could pull it out.
Her father had never said the words. He hadn’t been close to being the honor graduate. General Simone had filed that spot for her father’s class, and while he’d done well in his service, it was more and more clear that he’d never pick up his third star. Being honor graduate at NOTC was not a guarantee of ultimate success, something of which Esther kept reminding herself. She could never rest on past laurels if she was going to make it to the top.
“Gentlemen, we are gathered here for comradeship, for one last gathering before we are sent out to serve our Corps. We have been forged from the same crucible, though, so we will always share that connection. We are brothers of the blood.
“To keep this connection, we now place three bottles of elixir in this sacred case, three bottles to be taken out when the time is right.
“If you can all create the chain, we will dedicate our box.”
At that, each midshipman put his hand on the shoulder of the person next to him or her, until all were connected. Falcon, who was standing on one side of Esther and was closest to the class time box reached out to put his hand on it. Quince Smith, standing on the other side of her, reached out to touch her shoulder, keeping her in the chain.
“The port, the drink of remembrance, will be opened on the Marine Corps birthday following the first of us to fall. Any of the class present will open the bottle and toast our fallen brother.”
Esther picked up the bottle of 304 Quinta do Vesúvio and almost reverently placed it in the first cradle in the box. She could almost feel the significance of what she was doing flow from the dark port into her arms, a wave of warmth rushing through her.
“In remembrance,” the rest of the mids intoned.
“The champagne, the drink of celebration, will be opened when the first of us earns his or her brigadier’s star. All who are present for the promotion will join in the toast as the stars are a reflection of not only an individual, but our entire class.”
“In celebration,” the class intoned as Esther placed the Krug Clos d’Ambonnay in the second cradle.
“The sherry, the drink of loyalty and service, will be opened by our last two surviving classmates on the Marine Corps birthday following the passing of our third longest surviving classmate,” she said as she placed the bottle of 318 Massandra in the last cradle.
“In retrospect,” the rest of the midshipmen finished.
The ceremony was over, but they stood there, unmoving. Esther knew that after tomorrow, they would never be together like this again. Some would spend a career in the fleet, leading Marines. Some of them would die. Others would leave the Corps and make their way in the civilian world. But right then, at that moment, they were all the same. They were a band of brothers. To her surprise, Esther felt a lump forming in her throat.
They kept their hands on each other’s shoulders for longer than necessary, none of them seemingly w
anting to be the first to break the connection.
Chapter 2
The commandant’s voice boomed out over the gathered midshipmen and guests, “I, state your name . . .”
Each Marine in the class repeated after the commandant, right hand raised.
. . .do solemnly swear, to support and defend the Articles of Council of the Federation of United Nations, against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same and above all others; and that I will obey the orders of the Chairman of the Federation of the United Nations and the orders of those appointed over me, according to the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.
“Congratulations, lieutenants,” the commandant said as he lowered his right arm. “Now get out there and lead. The Federation is counting on you. With that, I know you have family here, so celebrate today, for tomorrow duty calls. You are dismissed.”
“Ooh-rah!” burst out of the throats of 72 very happy second lieutenants.
Esther smiled as she turned around, her class a mass of lieutenants milling about and hugging each other. The 18 Academy Marines among them had spent five years together—four at the Academy and one with the rest of the class—but even the direct commissioning lieutenants had been together for a year. That was more than enough time to forge life-long bonds.
A few were heading for the stands, family members rushing out to meet them. Esther watched them rush off, watched them hug each other. Bost Fraiser swept up a little girl who couldn’t have been more than four years old and seat her on his shoulder as five adults gathered around him, all beaming with pride.
No family for me, she thought, trying to keep the smile plastered on her face.
“Hey, Congrats, devil dog,” Falcon said, turning her around and pulling her into a hug. “Do you want to meet my great-granddad?”
The United Federation Marine Corps' Lysander Twins: The Complete Series: Books 1-5 Page 26
