Every Last Mother's Child

by William J. Carty, Jr

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  Everything was in place. Hozenbur’s assassins were all in place. They had scrapped their original plan for favor of just snatching and grabbing the halfwit and getting off world. She had thought of just killing the clone and getting out of dodge. But the more she thought of it, the more she knew she had to keep the clone alive as long as possible. Everything she had found out about the relationship between Marshal Wilson and the clone lead her to believe a live Lisa was better for her own safety than a dead one. Also after a quiet series of conversations with the Republic, it made more sense to tie up the evacuation command in knots as they try to deal with the clone’s rescue. She had no doubt that eventually they would find her, and then try to rescue the clone. She had no misconceptions about the chances of her staying alive. She knew this would be her last hurrah. She would not survive this operation. But neither would the clone. She was looking forward to the murders she was about to commit. She was particularly looking forward to forcing the clone to give birth and then breaking the developmentals necks right before their mother’s eyes shortly before she killed the clone. As she watched the landing craft carrying the clone land, she smiled at the thought of the pain she was about to cause.

  There is always one place where any protective detail is vulnerable. The one place that the detail lets their guard down a bit. It is usually a place where they have been to countless times. A place where crack pots don’t seem to linger, a place they feel safe. It was a place that the protective unit believes to be invulnerable to snipers or other assassins. It was usually the secluded estate of the principle, or an apartment that is isolated from the world. A place like a military base where the base personnel have suffered through so many checks that would be trouble makers had been eliminated years before. Sometimes it can be a place that is frequented quite often. Such was the Evacuation Hospital that Lady Wilson went to for her prenatal visits.

  The protective detail was at home at the Interstellar Rescue Service Evacuation Hospital. It was a combination of things. There was always an Imperial Marine Corps Black Guard Ready Team based at the hospital. Plus there was a Marine Corps MP unit stationed at the hospital. In addition, the Mounties rotated a squad car in frequently, as did the Thonian’s. There was a security check point not more than a mile from the hospital in both directions on the road. There was also a check point on the turn out to the hospital from the main road. There was usually a Militia or Imperial Navy, Space Air Superiority fighter flying race tracks over the hospital. The security unit felt that the hospital was almost as safe as the palace or the Mountain, the militia headquarters. They were about to find out that they were wrong.

  When the landing craft carrying Lady Wilson landed, Hozenbur’s group was scattered throughout the hospital. But not all of them, two of her people had spent the last two nights getting into position. It had taken that long to infiltrate to their positions. They were not certain the guard was patrolling around the hospital. It was rumored that the guard used telepaths as part of their teams. Thankfully the guard wasn’t patrolling around the base. Once in position they went to ground. They stayed under cover until the abduction began. Their task; if possible was to take out Black Guard team assigned to the hospital. They knew that the Black Guard had only one team at the hospital instead of squad. So instead of facing a twenty man squad they were facing one, five man team. This would make the job easier, but not that much. They would have to wait until they showed themselves before the snipers could go to work.

  With Lady Wilson arriving, the team would take up positions to cover the landing pad. Some of the team would be cloaked others not. The snipers’ had already identified three of guardsmen their black battle dress uniforms made them quit visible. But that only made them visible, they also wore their combat vests, helmets, chaffs, most of it impervious to small arms fire. With their visors down a face or eye shot was impossible. Thankfully the snipers were not using standard small arms ammunition. The marine’s armor would not be able to stop their specially made ammunition. Stolen from an Imperial Marine Corps armory years before, Hozenbur’s team had brought the weapons in with them. The weapons were call Guard Killers for their ability to defeat black guard armor. Their wait was almost over. The show was about to begin.

  The Courier landed. As the small executive air space mission landing craft settle on its landing gear and opened its ramp, Hozenbur’s team began their assault. Hozenbur was parked just off the hospital’s main entrance just beyond the check point. Two of Hozenbur's assassins had infiltrated the hospital grounds. One of the closers was near the Red Cross field kitchen where she was sharing a cup of coffee with a Trena Mounted Patrolman. When the ramp opened she heard “go” over her implant. That was the signal. She pulled her weapon shot the police officer. As everyone was looking at her she took a stun grenade and tossed it into the field kitchen. The snipers had heard the go signal; but only one took action. He lined up on one of the Black Guardsmen and sent him to his gods.

  Between the assault at the field kitchen and the marine falling down, the hospital was in turmoil. People began running towards the field kitchen as they did Hozenbur’s team member began shooting the marines and police officers. One of the Black Guardsmen took her out. As the cops and marines began dealing with the field hospital Hozenbur told the car to turn on its flashing light that made it appear to be an unmarked police vehicle as she roared through the check point onto the hospital grounds. She watched as another marine suddenly collapsed to the ground. Seconds later she swarmed out of the car with two of her team with her running to the landing craft.

  Lady Wilson’s party had just started down the ramp when Hozenbur’s started their assault. The protective unit froze where they were when they heard the first explosion. As they tried to assess the situation; two things happened at once. One of the Black Guardsmen went down, and then a black car pulled to a stop before the landing craft. Georgia Lancaster, Lady Wilson’s principle protective agent, recognized Hozenbur immediately.

  “Get Healer out of here!” She had keyed her implant as she yelled, “Healer’s detail is under attack. Evacuate!” She sighted on Hozenbur and was about to fire when a blinding white flash went off accompanied by a solid wall sound. It took her down in a heartbeat. A shot rang out but Georgia was down and out of it. Another Black Guardsmen had been eliminated.

  Joyce Wilson saw the car roar up in front of the landing craft. As she saw people get out of the car she recognized Hozenbur. The woman was running towards them. She heard Georgia’s yell and was suddenly being man handled back into the landing craft. One of the marine medics who was standing behind the admiral reacted instantly when he heard the agent yell. He bodily pulled the retired admiral out of the way as he pinned her to wall covering her with his body. The stun grenade went off and the marine slumped to the floor. As she tossed off the effects she pulled her late husband’s antique pistol from her waist band and dropped down beside the fallen medic. As she used his body as cover she began to assess the situation, she heard and saw others going down. She took a bead on the notorious closer and started to fire when she saw one of the people running to the landing craft had a gun out. She changed her aim and took out the hostile out then she went back to Hozenbur; but once again another target got her attention. There was a man standing beside the car holding some sort of assault rifle! She took him down as she heard another explosion. Suddenly she felt pain in her right arm. She looked down and saw that her arm had been shot.

  “God fucking damn it! They got the same fucking arm!” The retired rear admiral cursed as she passed out from the pain.

  As the admiral passed out from the pain one of the surviving black guardsmen had engaged the first sniper. The other one was still under cover. The black guardsmen had found the range but not the sniper. The sniper had found him. The sniper took the second guardsman out a few seconds later. By this time one of the cloaked guardsmen had the sniper in her sights. She dispatched the sniper shortly after
her team mate’s chest exploded. She turned to the landing craft to deal with the assault on the landing craft. Thinking she had gotten the sniper that was the last thing she ever thought as the other sniper killed her. That left two black guardsmen. One still cloaked, the other seeing the admiral go down looked for her assailant and found him crouched behind a jeep. He took him out as the second sniper found him.

  The last cloaked guardsman started to hunt for the second sniper. The guardsman knew that he and his mates were the primary targets of the snipers. He scanned the slight rise where the first sniper had hidden himself. But the second sniper was nearly half a mile away on a second small rise. He had gotten the Black Guard team leader and now was hunting the last member of the team. He couldn’t find him. Another stun grenade went off getting the guardsman’s full attention. It had been thrown into the landing craft. As he was trying to trying to find the person who threw it, he saw that two people picking up Lady Wilson off of the ramp of the landing craft. They were carrying her to the car. He aimed at the older woman had Lady Wilson’s feet but couldn’t take the shot as Lady Wilson was in the line of fire. He changed his aim to the man holding Lady Wilson’s torso he still couldn’t get a good line of fire without harming Lady Wilson. He changed his aim to the car thinking he could take out the wheels; but it was a hover car and his weapon a slug thrower would not harm the skirts on the car. Besides, it appeared to be similar to an unmarked police car. It would be armored just like a cop car. It would be nearly impervious to most weapons including his riffle and side arm. Frustrated that he could only watch and not stop the abduction or even slow it down, he started run towards the car thinking he could cause some commotion that might slow them down. He took a flash bang off his belt and threw it in front of the car. It was not designed to be a stun grenade, it was used to distract the opposition from their real target. It worked both kidnappers almost dropped the noble woman. They loaded her into the back seat of the car, as the man tried to get into car Hozenbur shot him and ran around to the driver’s door. The Guardsmen took aim on the older woman just as his camo cloak failed exposing him to the last sniper. Before he could fire he felt a tremendous pain in his back right dropping him to the ground. A thonian MP saw where the shot came from and returned fire. It was almost a mile away. The first shot missed; but the second didn’t. The sniper jumped as the laser shot barely missed him. This allowed the MP to make his second shot count.

  Hozenbur with Lady Wilson safely secured in the back seat of the car knew it was time for her to beat feet out of the hospital. As she roared down the access road, leaving the hospital, a Life Savior armored ambulance which had been parked when they saw the explosions had started to respond to the incident, when they saw the car roar out of the hospital. On instinct the driver of the APC started follow the car accelerating to nearly 100 miles an hour. As it started to close the distance the mines that the closer team had planted on the road went off. They were smart mines designed to work singly or as a team depending on the threat it had to deal with. Detecting the APC they went off together destroying the APC.