Every Last Mother's Child

by William J. Carty, Jr

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  General Alphine had been at the ‘Town” observing a training evolution before she did her yearly qualification drop, when the alert went down. The Black Guard platoon had the duty this week. One squad was on pad alert in case anything went down. When she heard it was at the evacuation hospital she ran to the pad where the team was mounting up. She was already dressed in BDUs. She also was wearing a drop belt as she had been planning to make a practice drop. It had been over a year since she had done a drop. Although as commanding general of the Marines she was not expected to make a combat drop, she still had to qualify with drop belt, pistol and riffle. Some things never changed. “LT get me some weapons. I am going in with you.”

  “Your majesty...” one of the men on her detail started saw the glare and turned to the lieutenant, he was dressed just like his charge. “Get me some weapons please. Where the boss goes, I go!”

  “Here,” the unit’s NCO handed out weapons and camo cloaks from the weapons locker. They were air borne as the drop master, and the NCO finished their checks with the Princess and her detail. The Lieutenant watched critically as his NCO made sure his commander was ready to go. When they were ready he spoke to her, “General...”

  “LT,” Princess Carroll interrupted him, “I will be the last man in your stick. We’ll go out with the medic. You are in command! I am only here to cut through the bull shit.”

  “Aye-Aye!” he said then turned to his twenty man team, “We are making a C-drop at the hospital. It has just been involved in some sort off an attack involving Lady Wilson. There are marines and civilians down. We are to secure the hospital and the scene. When we get down anyone who is armed is considered hostile. If they don’t put their guns down; send them to their gods! Our major objective is to ascertain Lady Wilson’s status. When referring to Lady Wilson use the word ‘Healer’. Do not use Lady Wilson over the coms.”

  The cabin lights flickered twice. This was the Drop Master’s signal that the time for the drop was close. This was the lieutenant’s signal to wrap it up so they could complete their final checks, “Let’s get it done guys!”

  “Line up!” the drop master yelled, “Check!”

  The last combatant in the twenty man team squad yelled after he checked the marine in front of her, making sure his drop belt and camo cloak was secure and ready for the drop, “20 go!”

  The next one yelled, “19 go!”

  It took twenty seconds for the team to check themselves and the man ahead of them. The Drop master checked the last marine in the stick man watching the princess and her detail carefully being checked by the lieutenant and his sergeant. As he walked back to the front of the landing craft the lieutenant finished with his checks, went to his place at the head of the stick. Where by tradition, Marines, especially Black Guard officers, led their teams when deploying with their units into combat. The modified LC 4 Courier ramp began opening. Redesigned as a Special Forces deployment vehicle, it was completely stealthed. The ramp fully deployed as the Courier began to hover over the hospital, the cabin lights strobed green, the drop master now at the front of the cabin by the ramp, stood out of the way, as he yelled, “Go, go, go!”

  The team now in a tight line, belly to fanny, began to walk not run, out of the LC-4’s cabin. They wasted no time leaving to elsy, in less than twenty five seconds after the Drop Master yelled to go, the cabin was empty. As each team member stepped onto the ramp they turned their camo cloaks on and seemingly disappeared. All anyone saw from the ground if they were looking was a crystal blue sky without a single cloud in it. The team dropped from about five hundred feet. There was no reason to do a high altitude low detection jump as if they were doing a clandestine insertion. As General Alphine dropped to the ground, looking for a place to land, she saw many bodies lying on the ground. It was the most carnage she had seen in many a year. There were bodies everywhere. In a couple of places there were parts of bodies. She was also hunting for the opposition. Hunting for anyone who wasn’t a marine or cop carrying any type of weapon just like her first platoon sergeant had taught her many years ago. Mike Wilson had taught her well she had lived through some twenty or so combat insertions. She saw only medics struggling to their jobs. She chose her landing site. Seconds later she landed lightly on her feet. Now on the ground she did a 360, sweeping the area before her, ensuring that no one was ready to kill her or the team. She saw only friendlies, mostly hospital personnel wading into the carnage to sort the living from the dead. As she turned her cloak off she watched one of the hospital personnel placed a triage tag on one of the fallen after tearing all but the black portion of the tag off. As she observed the bedlam on the hospital grounds she couldn’t help but wonder how the people responding knew where to start. As she wondered about this, the Lieutenant’s voice broke into her thoughts.

  “Team One!” the Lieutenant called, “Secure the landing craft! I need to confirm Healer’s Status. Take the medic with you!”

  Five marines started to run towards the landing craft that had all the bodies around it. They gingerly avoided the injured lying on the ground, and the landing craft, feeling guilty that they didn’t stop to help the people lying on the ground. Their job was to assess the situation on the landing craft not to help the people on the ground. They saw several people down on the boarding ramp. Their implants allowed them to identify most of Lady Wilson’s protective team; the others were marines, and thonians. They saw no obvious wounds, though the marine medic knew some of the people lying heaps around the landing craft would be very sore from the way they had dropped. They identified Admiral Wilson and saw the dead marine. There was no sign of Lady Wilson. The team leader activated the all call on his implant, “LT this is 1, Healer is confirmed missing. I have one dead, and one seriously injured and four unconscious!”

  “Copy,” the lieutenant’s voice confirmed his transmission. “Team one secure the landing craft. What about the flight crew.”

  “Stand by,” the team leader said as one of his team checked the flight deck above the boarding ramp. The crew was slumped in their seats before their controls. The marine checked the flight deck and called, “Flight Crew is alive; but unconscious.”

  “Rodger,” the lieutenant replied.

  The squad medic was busily at work on Admiral Wilson. The admiral had bled quite a bit from her injury, almost bleeding to death. He was able to control the bleeding. Once the bleeding was under control he immobilized the arm. He wished that he had liter so they could get her packaged so as get her to the hospital. He made her as comfortable as possible then began to look after the others. All of them were unconscious, but had no serious injuries. Some would have bruises from where they hit the ground; but there were no broken bones and were in no one was in danger. He and the others stretched them out where they had collapsed, and brought the flight crew down out of their perch and laid them on the deck. By this time a team from the hospital had finally gotten to them. They swarmed onto the landing craft carrying an all environment liter. It could take the rigors of space and keep a patient safe. They gently picked up the retired admiral and placed her in the liter. Once in the liter one of the medics placed an oxygen mask over her face. Another of the team started an IV. Although an old, old medical treatment it was still the best way to get fluids and meds into a body. Low tech, and totally reliable it was still in use. They folded a pole up from the edge of the liter and hung the IV from it. They secured Admiral Wilson to the liter, packaging her for transport. As they did one of the medics put a triage tag around the admirals head, after tearing all the tags off below the red tag, he had his communicator down load onto the tag what they had found so far; including the information off Admiral Wilson’s identity chip which responded to the medic’s inquiry.

  The medics picked the liter up off the deck and carried it off the landing craft. Once out of the landing craft there an ensign directed them to lay the admiral by three others. As they did General Alphine came up and asked, “How is the Admiral?” />
  “Critical; but stable,” the medic responded, “Why are we staging them here?”

  “The receiving center is over whelmed,” the ensign replied. “Too many red tags. We need to get an elsy in here to get them to Valliant.”

  “Are these the only red tags we can’t get into the hospital?” the general asked.

  “Yes,” a doctor had come out to check on the red tags. “We need to get these people treated, or things are going to be worse.”

  “I think we can help here,” General Alphine remarked. She turned to the black guard squad leader, ““LT, call our bird and tell it to hover somewhere over us. Tell it we’re going to be bringing three liters up to it.”

  “How are we going to get these people up to the landing craft?” the Doctor asked. “I don’t want them tractored into the landing craft.”

  “My guy’s will do it,” the lieutenant said the walked away from the group as he called the landing craft that brought them here. A few seconds later the landing craft materialized hovering over them. The black guardsmen surrounded each of the liters.

  “Okay marines,” Princess Carroll took the head of the litter holding Admiral Wilson while five the other marines surrounded it. They had done this drill a thousand times, jumping to a hovering landing craft with an injured comrade. “This grand lady’s got a date in orbit. Shall we get it done?”

  “On your call ma’am,” one of the marines called.

  “On three,” she called, “two and three lift, lift, lift!”

  They lifted the liter waist high and then on General Alphine’s cue they jumped to the LC-4 Courier landing craft. They were followed by the other two litters. The black guard medic without saying a word reached for the IRS doctor and gripped him a bear hug jumped for the hovering landing craft. The others stepped aboard the landing craft, gently laid their burdens down and left the landing craft. As they left, the medic and his charge stepped aboard the landing craft.

  “Got to get back,” the medic said as he released the doctor, and stepped off the landing craft to be with his squad. As soon as the medic was on his way back down the ramp closed and the copilot asked, “A hospital here or a hospital ship?”

  “Get us to the duty receiving hospital ship,” the doctor replied.

  “It’s the Valiant today,” the copilot answered and turned back to his controls calling the Valiant.