Esther shook her head, her frustration mounting. “Weapons free” meant her Marines could engage as they deemed fit. Without it, they had to be fired upon first in order to return fire.
She turned to Sergeant Hilborn to ask him exactly where he thought the plane was heading, but he was glassing the area outside the gate with his rifle scope. As he should have been. He and Corporal Tendine, his spotter, had a job to do, and with Esther there, they could ignore the Spyder.
“Oh, I see it,” Fehrenkamp said.
Without any optics, the Spyder was a little hard to spot, but if the DCM could see it, time was running out. Esther zoomed out her display, and sure enough, the Spyder was visible as it split several high rises and kept coming.
Her AI kept intoning the approach, but Esther tuned it out, relying on her own eyes. It looked like the plane was lining up for another run at its previous target, and she had just started to relax when the Spyder juked to its right, putting it directly on line with Dykstra Boulevard, the street out in front of the embassy.
“Incoming!” several voiced filled the net as the Spyder release two iron bombs, clearly visible to the naked eye, before pulling up and out of its approach.
The iron bombs (and old term that merely meant non-guided) were slowed by expanding tailfins, which gave the Spyder enough time to get out of the blast zone. It also made it easy for her AI to determine the point of impact. The bombs would not hit the embassy itself, but rather the street outside—right where the crowd was gathered.
The bombs hit towards the back of the crowd, the twin concussion blasts hitting Esther one-two. Screams erupted from the crowd.
“Captain Gill, I want a CASREP,”[6] Esther ordered her Bravo Company commander as smoke billowed into the air. “Use your PICS. No straight-leg infantry.”
The crowd didn’t seem to be turning against the Marines, but panic had a way of making people act irrationally, like the drowning person dragging down the lifeguard trying to save him. She didn’t want any of her Marines dragged down that way.
She looked over the edge of the roof as two more PICS Marines joined the two at the gate, and together, the four Marines slipped out, carefully pushing their way through the crowd. Esther tied into Sergeant Pawelczak’s feed, and the carnage was shocking. Burnt bodies struggled to pull themselves out of the impact area, and more burnt lumps of what had been people only moments before littered the street. Esther could almost smell the blackened flesh through the feed.
The bastards had used incendiaries. There would be no chance of resurrection for most of the victims, and the “lucky” ones who survived faced months, if not years, of painful regen.
Esther wasn’t supposed to take sides, but this was beyond the pale. The Ministry of Commerce was bad enough, but this was a war crime, as far as she was concerned.
“There is a second craft incoming,” her AI intoned.
Esther looked up, and back towards the city center, her AI pinpointed a second Spyder, staring the same approach.
“I’m opening the gate,” she told the DCM. “We’ve got another plane making a run.”
Technically, Esther didn’t have the authority to do that. But when Fehrenkamp said nothing, she ordered Captain Gill to open the main gate. Immediately, the gate began to open, and the crowd started to surge inside.
“Keep them isolated,” she ordered her company commander, then to Major Kurtzman, “No one intermixes with our Marines or the remaining embassy staff. Get them on the ground; then I want every single one of them scanned. Biologicals, too. If they don’t cooperate, I want Marines standing them down.”
The embassy had only two scanners that could detect the new biological explosives that could be hidden on or inside a living human being. She needed each person scanned, and if it took Marines holding weapons on them to gain their compliance, so be it.
“Fifteen seconds to arrival,” her AI said, snapping Esther back.
She glanced at the gate; fifty or more people had pushed their way in, but the opening was too small for the mass of people. More were out on the street, both trying to get inside the grounds and wounded and unable to move.
“Engage the Spyder,” she ordered on the open net.
At the edge of the building, one of her two M249 crew served guns opened up. Down on the street, though, Lance Corporal Dennis Bird, with the Weapons Pack 4 on his PICS, targeted and fired his Mini-Joe, a small, but extremely powerful missile. Equally effective against armor or aircraft, the Spyder didn’t have a chance. The missile struck true, tearing off a wing and sending the aircraft spinning off to its left and into a line of houses.
Esther may or may not have just disobeyed orders. The embassy hadn’t been attacked yet, but she wasn’t going to stand by and let civilians burn. She could argue that her four PICS Marines had been in danger. They hadn’t been, of course, if the second Spyder was using incendiaries as well. A PICS was protection enough against mere flames. But she’d argue that she didn’t know with what else that Spyder was armed.
Worry about that later, Lysander!
Below her, in the embassy courtyard, Bravo Company had its hands full trying to gain control of the panicked people.
“Ralph, no DL fighter comes near the embassy building. I’m declaring an exclusion zone,” she said as she wheeled about to run to the door, then taking three stairs at a time, down to the ground floor and out into the courtyard.
“Lieutenant Phoenix, get those people down on the ground, face first,” she shouted at one of the Bravo lieutenants as she ran up to Captain Gill.
“Jean, we’ve got dead and wounded out there on the street. Use First Platoon to bring them inside the embassy for Doc Lorton to start treatment.”
First Platoon was the company’s PICS platoon, and Doc Lorton was Bravo’s senior corpsman. The wounded civilians had to be treated, but not by abandoning security.
“Colonel, can I have a word with you?” someone shouted out.
Esther turned to see the reporter, holocorder out, running up to her.
“Not now!” she shouted back.
“Let Sector Ops know what happened,” she belatedly told Major Kurtzman.
Probably not necessary, she told herself. I’m sure they already know.
At least Sector Ops wasn’t getting in her hair. She may or may not have crossed the line, but they were letting her deal with the situation for the time being. If she messed up, that would be address that later.
“We’ve got EC’s approaching,” Major Kurtzman passed to her.
Esther switched her display. Some thirty or forty red avatars appeared, all moving forward and converging on the embassy.
Now, they could be friendlies, she knew, and not “ECs,” for “enemy combatants.” But something told her the good major was right. More avatars kept popping up on her display as people they represented were acquired by her limited scanners.
“Ralph, I want this broadcasted.
“This is Lieutenant Colonel Esther Lysander, United Federation Marine Corps. To all personnel, the area around the Federation Embassy is now a no-go zone. All personnel are warned to stay at least 200 meters from the embassy. Anyone entering this exclusion zone will be subject to lethal force. I repeat, if you come into the area, you will be fired upon.”
A moment later, Esther heard her voice going out over the embassy loudspeakers.
“Again,” she ordered her Ops O.
“Can you do that?” Fehrenkamp asked as he stepped up beside her.
“Probably not. Hell, half of those homes and buildings there are within 200 meters, and I’m sure there are people inside of them. But those are DL fighters coming, and I don’t want them to get any closer.”
“We’re not at war with the DL,” the DCM reminded her.
“No, but we have a humanitarian duty to protect civilians. I’m not going to let them get slaughtered. And with most of those civilians now inside—”
She held up her hand as Major Kurtzman told her the advancing DL fig
hters were continuing forward, and the first of them were visible.
“Sergeant Pawelczak, bring your team back in,” she ordered, bypassing the company commander.
“We’ve still got wounded out here, ma’am, that gotta get inside if we’re going to save ‘em. We can handle any piss-ant fighters.”
Almost on cue, the sound of firing reached her. Instinctively, Esther drew her Ruger, spinning around to face the gate. The last of the civilians were pushing inside, trying to reach safety.
Except one.
A middle-aged woman stopped and looked back to where the firing was building. She reached for her belly, and just as Esther shouted out, disappeared in a blinding flash of light.
The blast knocked Esther on her back, and in a daze, she struggled to sit up. She put her hand on something that gave, and looking down, she saw that “something” was a human leg.
Captain Gill was rushing forward, but to the gate, not to her. A moment later, ten PICS Marines rushed forward. Esther switched to the company net where Captain Gill was forming an assault team with her PICS platoon.
With Gill having things in hand, Esther slowly stood up, checking herself. To her surprise, she wasn’t really hurt. Her bone inserts had protected her as they’d been designed to do. Several other Marines were in the process of getting up, and Esther finally had the presence of mind to check her personnel display. Every member of the battalion was represented by a steady blue avatar. Some of them might be dazed as she was, but no one was hurt bad enough to have their avatar switch to a light blue of a WIA.
The civilians were not so lucky. Those standing next to the suicide bomber had been torn apart by the blast.
“You OK, Colonel?” Major Kurtzman asked, his voice stressed.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” she responded, and she realized she really was fine. She’d been only momentarily dazed. She’d had worse back in pugil stick fights in bootcamp.
“We’re engaging,” Captain Gill passed.
“Kick some ass,” Esther replied on the P2P.
The scans didn’t show the fighters to have any heavy weapons, and small arms would be ineffective against PICS Marines.
Idiots, she thought. Don’t they know we have PICS?
Unless they do know and have a surprise up their collective sleeves, she second-guessed herself.
“All hands, engage the ECs if you have clear fields of fire,” she ordered on the open net.
If the DLs had a surprise, Esther wanted to keep them from springing it. And a concerted, aggressive assault could do just that.
“Stop, Jean,” she passed as she saw Captain Gill about to leave the embassy grounds. “Let Lieutenant Gaspar take it.”
The captain looked back to Esther, then gave a rueful grin and a half salute. The captain was not in a PICS. Lieutenant Gaspar, as the platoon commander, was. Esther understood the desire to run to the sound of guns, but the captain couldn’t needlessly risk herself.
“Get the rest of the people scanned. Just because one suicided doesn’t mean there isn’t another planted in here.”
“Aye-aye, ma’am. I’m on it.”
Outside the walls, the heavy reports of the PICS’ HGLs and lighter drone of their M114 rifles drowned out the firing of the DL soldiers. On her display, Esther could see red avatar after avatar fade out as the fighters were literally torn apart.
“Looks like they’re on the run,” she said, turning to the DCM.
Her voice caught as she saw him, one leg bloody and almost severed. Unlike Esther, he didn’t have body armor. Beyond him, the reporter lay, his torso torn in half.
“Fred, I want all your corpsmen here,” she passed to the Charlie Company commander.
She knelt beside the DCM who looked up at her and simply said, “Damn!”
“Looks like some heavy regen for you, Kirk. But you’ll be fine,” then “Doc Harris, come take a look at the Deputy Chief of Mission.
“I’ll leave you in Doc Harris’ good hands. Take care of yourself.”
Esther had a fight to command, and she couldn’t let herself be constrained by concern over individuals.
But the battle, such as it was, was over. The PICS Marines’ assault had broken the back of the DL fighters. At least 20 had been killed before the rest broke and ran.
Esther had Captain Gill order her Marines to bring in the rest of the civilian wounded from the street, then had Top McCurry take over the screening of those now inside the embassy grounds. Only after that was done did she report in to Sector Ops.
The Navy rear admiral who’d been monitoring the battle took the report, then passed it on to the Sector Commander. Three minutes later, the order came down to abandon the embassy.
It took two full lifts, not the one lift Esther had originally envisioned. All of the wounded were taken to the Mount Fuji first, where even the ship’s first-class hospital was taxed. Other nationals, both those who’d already been at the embassy as well as some from the Alliance embassy two streets away, were also given rides off-planet. But finally, with all the classified destroyed, it was time for the Marines.
“Are you coming, ma’am?” Major Kurtzman asked from the ramp of the Marine Albatross.
Esther took a last look around. She’d chastised the ambassador when the man said he wanted to be the last one to leave, but here she was, the last Federation Marine at the embassy.
“Yeah, Ralph, I am,” she said, stepping up on the ramp and letting the crew chief lead her to her seat. “Let’s get out of here.”
FS MOUNT FUJI
Chapter 11
Noah
“Do you have anything to add?” Commander Steve Anderson asked Esther.
“Just this. I want all of you to get the word back to the Marines and sailors that I’m proud of each and every one of them. NEOs can be tricky with all the rules of engagement, but despite that, we accomplished the mission. We evacuated the ambassador, the embassy staff, and 163 non-combatants, all without a single Marine casualty.”
Not quite, thought Noah. We’ve got a few burns being treated and a busted eardrum, but close enough for government work.
“All things considering, the Cutting Edge showed once more why we are the best battalion in the Corps.”
“Well, if that’s it, I guess we’ll close off for now. Division heads, I want your after action reports in by COB tomorrow,” the ship’s CO said.
“Companies and senior staff, same here. COB tomorrow,” Major Kurtzman shouted out as the commanders and senior staff got up from their seats.
“Command Master Chief, can I see you for a moment?” Noah shouted out to his Navy counterpart as she started to exit through the hatch.
“What duya got, Noah?” Sisa asked as Noah reached him.
Command Master Chief Sisa Rajput was a short, stocky sailor with as keen a mind as anyone Noah had ever met. If it had anything to do with the navy, then she was the duty expert.
“We’ve still got problems with the berthing spaces. Two-twenty-four-G, two-twenty-four L, and two-ten-two-A, don’t have air conditioning, and with all the bodies in them, it’s getting pretty hot. Pretty rank, too.”
“I know, Noah,” Sisa answered. “And we’re trying the best we can. The Fujiyama was supposed to go into the yards a year ago, but with the ops temp, well, you know how that is.”
“Yeah, I do, but we’ve got to get this fixed.”
“We’ve got a request for repairs for when we pull into Hang Sen 1.”
“That’s five weeks from now,” Noah protested.
“That’s the best we can do, Noah. The station’s got full retrofit capabilities.”
“I know that. But what are we going to do in the meantime?”
“Look, we don’t have a qualified tech onboard. And it’s not just you Marines. Five of the ship’s crew’s berthing spaces are in the same boat.”
“No air maintenance techs? How do we keep breathing?”
Maintaining breathable air on a ship was one of the main functions of the cre
w.
“We’re breathing fine. We’ve got that covered. But this is an old ship, and the cooling and circulation are outdated. We don’t have anyone who can fix that.”
“But can’t they, you know, jury rig something?”
“Not without risk of shutting down the O2 generation, Noah. Believe me, we’ve tried. And we’ll still try, but I think we’re going to have to wait for Hang Sen.”
It seemed unbelievable that with all the Navy’s reliance on engineering, they couldn’t figure out a way to shunt cool air to the affected spaces. Normally, the system was foolproof, all part of the same set-up. But even if the cooling was separate on this ship, there had to be sailors who knew how to fix it.
“Hell, I bet Coffman could fix it,” he muttered.
“Who’s Coffman?” the command master chief asked.
“Coffman. Lance Corporal Jim Coffman. He’s one of the armor mechanics, and among other things, he keeps the overpressure system on the tanks functioning.”
“Tanks? You don’t have any tanks onboard.”
“Well no, but our T/O says we have to have him, and if we fall on prepositioned equipment somewhere, we’ll wish we had him.”
Sisa had a point, though. Most of the maintenance on the Marines’ many systems was performed by civilian techs. However, the Corps tried to minimize the numbers of civilian techs for forward deployed units, so Marines were given secondary training to take over tasks normally done by the techs. Coffman was technically still a rifleman with the Headquarters security element, but he was also trained in armor maintenance. The battalion had no rolling armor, so he was helping out with PICS maintenance despite having had no training with the combat suits.
“So, you say he understands overpressure systems?” Sisa asked, her voice laden with unspoken meaning.
“Well, yeah. But a Davis overpressure system isn’t like a Navy ship of the line.”
“Air is air, Noah.”
“What, you’re suggesting that I hand Coffman over to you to try and fix the ship’s air?”
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