“I believe you might know my sister. Ariel Donald?”
If she hadn’t expected a legionnaire to introduce himself, she really, really hadn’t expected to have a mutual acquaintance with one of them. Her mind raced as she tried to figure out who he meant before it hit her.
“From McGill? On the etherball team?”
“None other.”
“And you just happened to know that we played in ’13?”
“Oh, not really,” he said with a laugh. “I looked you up, and when I saw you were at UM and on the team, I checked to see if you ever played each other.”
“And why were you looking me up?” she asked, taking half a step back and narrowing her eyes.
“If you know the enemy and you know yourself, you need not fear the results of a hundred battles.”
That was vaguely familiar to her, but she couldn’t place it.
He must have seen the question in her eyes, because he said, “Sun Tzu,” but without condescension in his tone.
“So, am I your enemy?”
“For now, possibly. Tomorrow, possibly not. The Federation and Greater France have been allies more often than opponents. And we are not at war now, true?”
“And what was Watson’s Farm, then?”
“Yes, the Swamp. Grigori made a pretty big error, hiding too deep from the battle. It cost him.”
I knew it! I knew someone had blown it.
“Now I have his platoon, so in a way, I owe my command to you.”
“So, are you thanking me?” Esther asked with the slightest curl of her upper lip.
She was extremely uncomfortable with the way the conversation was developing, so she was retreating back to the snide, aggressive persona she’d sometimes used back at UM when she was the subject of unwanted attention.
“No, I’m not thanking you. I merely have my command sooner than later. Rather I should thank Grigori for his lesson on what not to do.”
“I’m sure he’s pleased to have given you that lesson.”
“I doubt it. Grigori didn’t make it. There wasn’t much of him left to mash back together,” he said.
Esther stared into his eyes, trying to read into his mind. He stood there, drink in hand, and nonchalantly spoke of a fellow legionnaire, a fellow lieutenant, who’d been killed in battle as if it was just a passing event of no importance. And it was Esther who’d killed him. She didn’t pull the trigger, and if this Grigori had been in the swamp, not to mention that his body had been too mangled for resurrection, then it had probably been one of the Aardvark crews that had killed the man. But Esther had been in command of the operation, and she’d been giving the orders.
“But enough of that. This is a celebration, and we should put our differences aside for the evening. Don’t you agree?”
What is your game? What are you trying to do?
Esther was fairly lineal in her thinking. You went from point A to point B. Things tended to the black and white. She didn’t enjoy, nor did she understand game playing, but she did recognize it when she saw it. Mark Donald, Legion sous-lieutenant, was playing a game. She just didn’t know what game.
Noah, on the other hand, for all his “nice guy” attributes, could dance the dance of politics. He understood it. He probably wasn’t cutthroat enough to succeed at it himself, but he could recognize and navigate past the traps and pitfalls. For a moment, Esther felt a longing for her twin. If he was there, he’d be a good sounding board to figure out what was happening.
She gave a non-committal sniff and took another sip of her Grackle. Unless the legionnaire was playing a very long game, whatever he said or did wouldn’t have much effect one way or the other. Esther was still a second lieutenant, low man on the officer totem pole. Nothing she could do would have much of an impact on the Federation or even Nouvelle Bretagne. Major Postern had brought her as a not-so-subtle dig at the Legion, not because she really mattered to the bigger picture.
“Not much in the way of Landing Day celebrations,” the legionnaire said, turning to scan the crowd.
She knew what he meant. Almost all planets celebrated either Landing Day, the anniversary of mankind’s first landing on a planet, or Founder’s Day, when a planet that was terraformed was declared habitable. Nouvelle Bretagne didn’t need terraforming (other than the ongoing slow process of lengthening the planet’s rotation until it matched that of Earth’s), so it was Landing Day here. But there were no parades, no fireworks, no displays of military might. That last made her chuckle. There were two militaries here, so she guessed there was a display of military might. Neither was there in celebration, though.
“Could be because of the unrest you’ve created.”
“Oh, please, mon Lieutenant,” Donald said, “I’m surprised at you. Whatever unrest, as you say, that exists here was already brewing. Neither you Marines nor we in the Legion have anything to do with that. We’re just marketing tools to help swing the vote.”
“Or to fight each other.”
“Or to fight, if necessary. It’s all part of the entertainment. It’s all part of the branding.”
I’m not an entertainer, she thought. I’m here to defend Federation citizens.
“Once the vote is in, and Jordy Enclave stays with the Federation and rest of the planet splits to join Greater France, you and I will leave for new adventures. A year from now, we could be fighting a mutual enemy.”
“We already are. The Klethos.”
“Touché, Lieutenant. Yes, we are, but I was thinking more in terms of normal combat.”
Esther hesitated a moment, then asked, “Do you think that is how the election will come out? With a split like that?”
“I would hazard a guess to say that’s likely. But we’ll see.”
The Marines, at least at her level and below, had been given only the vaguest of briefs on the political situation. She hadn’t given the election much thought other than it would be a yes or no to leave or stay. What he said made sense, though.
“Your Captain Quince seems to be enjoying himself,” he said, raising his glass and lifting a forefinger off of it to point.
Esther rolled her eyes. If she had to say something, she would, but she hoped one of the others would intervene first. Even if she was right, it wasn’t a good thing for a junior to correct a senior. Other officers agreeing with her actions would probably still label her as arrogant and as someone who felt privileged.
Then it struck her that he knew the captain’s name as well.
“Do you keep track of all of us?”
A broad smile broke across his face, and he shrugged. “Only those on the guest list. Would you like to meet our representatives? That’s Commandant Chelli over there, talking with Mr. Mulliare.”
Trying to convince him to change his views, Esther thought.
“No, I’m fine without. Uh . . . it’s been a pleasure, Sous-lieutenant . . .”
A “pleasure?” Has it really? Geez, Esther. Get real.
It might not have been a pleasure, but social niceties had a way of forcing themselves out, and she continued, “. . . but I’m afraid I need to see to our captain.”
“Yes, it has been a pleasure, Lieutenant Lysander. I hope we meet again, perhaps when we’re not on opposing sides.”
For a horrifying moment, Esther thought he was going to take her hand and kiss it like some 18th Century court noble, but he merely gave a short nod and left.
That was one of the strangest conversations in her life. If they met tomorrow in a battle, she would have no hesitation to kill the man. But he’d been pleasant, and under other circumstances, she might have enjoyed speaking to him.
She looked up at Captain Quince again, who was now leaning way too close to a young woman who was giving every sign that she wanted to bolt. The captain was gesturing with his hands, Grackle sloshing out of the glass he held, as he was making a point that he probably thought was profound.
The easiest thing to do would be to ignore the captain. Eventually, one of th
e others would lasso him and get him out of there. She wouldn’t be involved, and nothing would reflect onto her.
But she was an officer in the Marines, and she had a duty to the Federation. Maybe more importantly, she had a duty to the captain as well. Marines had each other’s backs. That was the way it was.
She put her glass down on a side table, tugged at the bottom edge of her Alpha’s jacket, then started marching across the ballroom floor to him. It was the right thing to do, but she hoped it wouldn’t blow up in her face.
Chapter 10
“How’s he doing?” Ter asked as the two Marines looked out over the receiving station.
Esther didn’t need her to elaborate. “He” could only be one person.
“I thought he’d pulled out of it at the municipal building, but he’s back to where he was. He barely says a word, and he doesn’t take any action on his own.”
“Maybe it’s when the shit hits the fan that he starts performing. Back at camp, he’s got his thoughts to contend with.”
“His demons, you mean. Maybe you’re right, though. He was fine for that mission. When that idiot charged us, he was cool and professional. Uh, what did the first sergeant say? You never told me.”
Esther had only confided with Ter so far on her concerns about Staff Sergeant Fortuna. Between the two of them, they wanted the company’s senior enlisted Marine’s input, but if Esther approached the first sergeant, it would be an “official” action. She was his commander, and technically, her concerns needed to go into the record. Ter was the XO, however, not in Fortuna’s chain of command. She could do things without the formality that handcuffed Esther.
Ter pursed her lips and took a deep breath through her nose before answering.
“He thinks it’s temporary. He’s also worried about Fortuna’s career. So his suggestion is just to stand by until the mission’s over. The elections are in two days, and we’re probably going to be terminated shortly after that. Fortuna’s got another eight months until he’s due orders, but the first sergeant is going to talk to the sergeant major after we get back, and between the two of them, they’ll try to get him earlier orders to Tarawa or someplace where he can get therapy.”
“He’s getting therapy on Reissler Quay.”
“Aye-yah, I know. But Tarawa’s got the Naval Hospital, and he thinks that will make a difference. Bottom line is that he doesn’t want you to initiate any action that’ll screw up Fortuna’s career. He wants the SNCO mafia to take care of it.”
“He said that? ‘SNCO mafia?’”
The term was quite common, especially among the officer ranks, but Esther didn’t think SNCOs would use it, too.
“Yeah, he did. Why not? That’s what they are.”
Unlike Esther, Ter had been a staff sergeant when she was selected for a commission, and she wore the SNCO badge proudly. Esther hadn’t meant anything derogatory—she just didn’t know, and not knowing anything grated on her.
OK, file that one away.
“No reason. Just curious.
“I don’t want to wreck his career,” she added, changing back to the main subject. “He’s served the Federation with distinction, and he deserves our support.”
“Aye-yah, he does,” she said with a note of finality. A moment later, she asked, “And what about Das Salaam and Eire? They doing OK?”
“Fine,” she said of her two WIA who were now back with the platoon. “No problems at all.”
“Well, I’ve got to get to Nok. She’s got a bunch of protestors out in front of her,” the XO said. “Gotta support the sisters, you know.”
Esther dutifully gave her a fist bump. Female officers were still somewhat rare. Only 20%, or thereabouts, of the Corps were women. The officer corps was 7% female, although that was expected to rise as more women entered the enlisted pool from which officers were selected. There were only four female officers in the entire battalion, and three were in Golf. A cynic might believe that was gender segregation. Someone else might think it was just the luck of the draw. The three Golf lieutenants chose to declare they were assigned together to use “sister power” to make Golf the tip of the battalion spear. Patel never played along, but Steel jokingly declared himself an “honorary sister.”
“Not going to see Steel?”
“The skipper’s there with him. So, that leaves me with you two.”
As the elections got closer, Intel had picked up chatter from both sides of the political fence. As a result, all six of the task force’s line platoons were out at perceived hotspots. Steel’s Second Platoon was in town at the municipal building, which was the center of protests in Jordy Enclave. But where Esther’s first platoon had faced only Federation-supporting protestors, both sides were there now. If Esther were a betting woman, she’d say that it would be either there or with Echo’s First Platoon in Hummerstadt that any violence would break out. Captain Jonas evidently agreed with that assessment, and that’s where he was as well.
“Well, tell Nok to keep her head down,” Esther said as the XO motioned for her driver-slash-security.
Things couldn’t be too degraded if Ter and one lance corporal could travel around as they willed.
“Aye-yah, I will. You keep your head down, too.”
“I don’t think we’ve got much to worry about. No matter who wins, they need power,” Esther replied.
“Complacency, my dear butter bar, complacency. You’ve got warm bodies out there to bring home when all this is over.”
Ter was her friend, but she was also the company XO, and Esther bristled at the implied criticism. She was very aware of the people out there. She knew the platoon was under observation. But she agreed with Intel’s assessment that they were there to watch over an even protect the receiving station as well. Like she said, however, the elections turned out, Nouvelle Bretagne needed power, and the receiving station supplied it for this entire region of Jordy Enclave as well as to more than 20,000 households in Green River, a Francophile-leaning county across the provincial border. But believing that the station would not be a target did not mean that Esther was complacent in her mission.
She knew Ter didn’t mean any real criticism, but she frowned as her friend got in their candy-blue rental hover (yes, on a live mission, she was out in a rental as if on vacation somewhere). Still, the reminder made her double-check her positioning.
The receiving station, which accepted the transmission of energy from the orbital solar station and then distributed it out to the grid, was too large at six hectares for the platoon to set up around the perimeter. So Esther had broken up the three squads and placed them at three separate strong points within the station, creating a perimeter defense. Each squad could support the other two with fire, and each had scrounged enough material within the station to have fairly decent protection from small arms. They could function as interlocking pillboxes. With Esther, Doc, and Lance Corporal Mykystra at in the station control house—which she shared with four civilian employees of SDS Power—she could watch over each position.
Six dragonflies, guided by AI chaos programming to avoid patterns, covered the area surrounding them out to over a klick.
Nothing in warfare was a “for certain,” but Esther was pretty confident that her platoon was in a good position. She didn’t see anything that needed to change.
Her AI pulled some of the company data stream, deemed it important, and displayed it for her. The protests around the municipal building were getting more heated, but so far, nothing was directed at the Marines or the building itself. For a moment, Esther wished that it was her platoon that was there. But she knew Captain Hoffman had made the right assignment. First was still shorthanded, and that could make a difference should things get bad there. And as Steel has said to her after the mission brief, it was about time his Marines had their turn in the potential breach. It took combat to hone the steel of a platoon, after all.
Esther couldn’t direct her feeds to any specific person in Second Platoon, but from the fee
d that was open to the rest of the company, she could see some scuffling between the protestors going on. A wedge of local police moved forward and professionally split the two groups without obvious injury to any of them. She had to give both the police and their FCDC trainers credit. That had been very well done. Proactive and aggressive action could be the key to keeping serious violence from breaking out.
She looked past her display to where her police were standing, chatting with the SDS jimmylegs at the station’s main gate. She’d been surprised that the company had not beefed up their four-man security team, the same number they’d had every day since the facility first came online years ago. She was equally as surprised that the police had only sent three men. She agreed with the assessment that it would be self-defeating for anyone to attack the station, but it still was a strategic asset, and its loss could be devastating.
“Sergeant Hammerschott, you doing OK?” she asked, turning her mind from the local lack of concern to her own Marines.
“Yes, ma’am. We’re ready for anything.”
With her concerns over Staff Sergeant Fortuna, she’d given Hammerschott less attention that she needed to. In garrison, there wasn’t another NCO as gung-ho and eager. In actual action, he was the polar opposite, hesitant and even frightened. That was not a good combination for any Marines, much less a squad leader. She had his bios miniaturized and running on the bottom of her display. With a simple blink, she could enlarge them. The bios wouldn’t be an indication of anything specific. A rapid heartbeat could mean excitement to close in with the enemy just as much as it could mean fear, but she still wanted to monitor him.
She checked with Daniel-Graves, then Ngcobo. She had no concerns over Sergeant Ngcobo. She had come to trust the strange-looking—and sometimes strange-acting—Marine.
Satisfied, she pulled up the staff sergeant on her display. She’d placed him with Hammerschott’s squad. Before using the P2P, she pulled up his bios. His pulse was a low 38 beats per minute. Esther frowned. It was all well and good to be calm, but they were in a potential combat situation, and she wanted her Marines to be on the alert, not drifting to the comatose.
The United Federation Marine Corps' Lysander Twins: The Complete Series: Books 1-5 Page 32
