Esther's Story: Special Duty (The United Federation Marine Corps' Lysander Twins Book 4)

by Jonathan Brazee

“He’s lucky,” Esther said, more to herself than to the gunny, who was standing beside her.

  “No luck to it, Skipper,” the gunny said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “That was a controlled shot. The sniper wanted to take out the knee. It was a message to us, and that trooper was the messenger.”

  Esther didn’t have a clue as to how the gunny could say that with such conviction, but she didn’t question her. The gunny was one of the best snipers in the Corps, if not in humanity. If she said Alfayed’s knee was the intended target, Esther would have to accept that.

  And then that left the message, which was pretty clear. Someone wanted them off the planet.

  Chapter 15

  “So what do we do, Captain?” Gunny Chun asked.

  Esther ran through her options. She knew what she should do, but she had to consider all of the ramifications first. She wished the dragonflies were sending back clear intel, but even without that extra source of data, there was really only one course of action.

  “I’m taking this as a potential threat to the station’s safety. As such, it’s my call, and my call is that we’re going to get visuals on them, and if I still deem them a threat, we’re going to take them out.”

  There was a chorus of “ooh-rahs” from the rest as the Marines expressed their joy at finally being able to do something.

  “Specialist Khan, please get Sergeant First Class Juarez,” Esther told the trooper on watch.

  “And since Calcutta was in the port section’s AO, Gunny Medicine Crow, your team’s got it. Sorry about that, Gunny Chun.”

  She could see the gunny’s face fall, while Staff Sergeant Rapa punched Gunny Medicine Crow’s arm in excitement.

  “But I’m going with you, Gunny,” she told Medicine Crow. “To give weapons free in case our comms are being jammed.”

  That was reasonable, Esther knew, but she couldn’t help but feel excited to be getting out of the station. She’d already gone out with both sections on patrols, but since Alfayed had been shot, there was an added degree of intensity.

  The Porto had been able to run a trace on the round that had destroyed Alfayed’s knee. It had been fired from 1,616 meters out. The bullet fragments the Porto’s surgeon had extracted from the trooper’s knee had yet to be analyzed, but they looked to be from a .3005—which was the caliber of the round typically used by Brotherhood snipers. It was bad enough that Intel was sure there was a Brotherhood ship-of-the-line in the system, but if they had put combat troops on the ground, the stakes had been considerably raised.

  And now the seisos they’d put out had registered a hit at Calcutta, a ridge and one of the many registration points surrounding the station. At 4,600 meters, Calcutta was almost out of sniper range, but there were crew served weapons, such as a simple mortar, which could easily reach that far. And even if whoever out there simply wanted to observe them, Esther was not OK with that. She wanted to find out who was out there and to disrupt whatever they were trying to do.

  Juarez cycled through the lock and reported to Esther. The sergeant first class had been somewhat of a pain in her ass. He seemed to walk around with a permanent chip on his shoulder, and after Alfayed had been shot, he’d bordered on insubordination while demanding that action be taken. Esther understood his protective posture of his troopers. It was commonly known that Installation Security was at the bottom of the FCDC hierarchy, and that could explain the way he seemed to be looking for something at which he could take offense.

  Esther, though, wasn’t going to take any shit from him. Taking the colonel’s instructions, however, not to push the command issue, she was trying not to get too much into his hair and not to give him any orders that would go against their SOP.

  “We’ve got contact, probably three people, on Calcutta,” she started, seeing the immediate surge of interest cross his face. “Gunnery Sergeant Medicine Crow is going to investigate, and I’m going with her. As soon as we leave the station, make sure you’ve got our telltales registering on your displays. I want you to continue your security sweeps as normal and in full view of the ridge, but if anything goes down, take cover on the west side of the station. Do not engage unless ordered to. Understand?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I’ve got it,” he said, and Esther could almost detect something different in his voice.

  A wistfulness?

  Then it hit her. The guy was jealous. He wanted to go out and engage. That kind of attitude could be good or bad. He wasn’t going to shirk his duties, but would he go overboard somehow, anxious to prove himself? She filed that away in her brain housing group for contemplation later.

  Eight minutes later, the patrol was cycling through the auxiliary lock on the west side of the station. That kept them out of sight of anyone watching from Calcutta. The gunny had selected somewhat of a round-about route around the station and off at an oblique through a shallow depression that gave them concealment. The depression angled away to the south, but after 150 meters, it was bisected by a fissure, one that petered out just a few hundred meters from Calcutta. Not that they would approach that closely. All they needed to do was get eyes on the target to see what was there. A wrinkle above the fissure should give them that ability.

  The patrol moved quickly up the depression, then turning into the fissure, had to slow down due to the uneven ground. Still, it was only 21 minutes after leaving the station that they reached the wrinkle. That was an amazing accomplishment, one that filled Esther with pride. But it was still more than enough time for the tactical situation to change, and Esther kept expecting the sound of an assault on the station.

  The gunny nodded at Esther, then with Staff Sergeants Rapa and Mubotono, crept up and out of the fissure to take Calcutta under observation.

  Esther chafed at remaining behind. She wanted to see the ridge herself. But she knew that the more Marines that could see the ridge, the more targets whoever was on the ridge would have a chance to spot.

  The fewer the better, her tactical mind said.

  Screw that, her emotional mind added in counterpoint.

  Above her, the flat plates of the fungus (Esther knew they were not fungus, but it was easier to think of them as such) the Marines called the “shingles” reached over the edge of the fissure, like beach umbrellas giving shade. Nasty ugly beach umbrellas, umbrellas that made her shudder, perhaps, but that is how they struck her. Their redeeming feature was that they should give the gunny and the two others good concealment.

  Ten minutes later, Staff Sergeant Rapa slithered over the side and back into the fissure.

  “We’ve got an energy weapon of some sort and three pax,” he told her.

  “What kind of energy weapon?” she asked. “That’s a long shot for beamers.”

  In space, plasma and meson guns had almost unlimited range, but on a planet with an atmosphere—and Kepler 9813-B’s atmosphere was thicker than Earth-normal, even if it was poisonous to humans—the beams rapidly ablated.

  “Can’t tell. They’ve got some sort of shielding going on, kinda like a tarnkappe. But it’s a big one. Crew-served. Aimed right at the station, too. Gunny thinks we need to engage it and wants your go-ahead.”

  Esther didn’t hesitate. She’d pretty much decided already what she would do if there was someone there that posed a threat, and the gunny’s assessment merely solidified her decision.

  “Take it out. Take them out.”

  The staff sergeant nodded, then asked for Sergeant De Vries. His full surname was De Vries-De Jun, but despite Esther’s predilection for by-the-book, she cut his name to De Vries (everyone else simply called him “Dutch.”)

  Esther felt a tiny pang of jealousy as the sergeant disappeared with the staff sergeant up and over the fissure.

  I know what you feel like now, Juarez, she told herself, the Marine in her wanting to be at the forefront of any action.

  Esther was tempted to try and tie into the gunny’s display. But even if their comms were not being blocked, they were on co
mplete emission-silence, so she had to wait blind. This was the gunny’s show, and she had to trust her.

  Trusting her subordinates had been one of the most difficult things for Esther to do once she got commissioned. It was still a struggle, even when serving with the cream of the crop.

  The five Marines still in the fissure waited—and waited. Esther kept checking the time as five minutes, then ten passed.

  What the hell’s taking them so long?

  And then a fusillade of shots rang out. Esther immediately climbed the wall of the fissure and started pushing her way through the fungus, oblivious to the white fungus-milk that oozed out and coated her HED as she crushed their lobes.

  The four Marines had finished firing by the time she threw herself down beside the gunny and raised her binos.

  “Three dead and the weapon probably put out of action. No sign of anyone else,” Gunny told her.

  Esther could see two bodies and what was probably a large crew-served weapon covered by a cloak of some kind. There was no sign of any movement.

  She brought down the glasses and said, “Good job, Gunny. I’m sending Delay back now.”

  The Hollybolly war flicks never showed it, but in the modern battlefield, the use of messengers was not that rare of an occurrence. With all the interference blocking comms, Sergeant Delay had been designated as the runner to tell Gunny Chun to clear Calcutta.

  Esther kept glassing, and 13 minutes later, Gunny Chun’s Starboard Section was heading out in a tactical formation. Her plan had been to stay with the Port Section, but she changed her mind as the Starboard Section advanced. She got up and jogged almost 700 meters, joining up with Gunny Chun. She needed to get personal and up close with Calcutta to assess the threat.

  Almost 25 minutes later, they reached Calcutta. Two bodies were on one side of the crew-served, one on the other. Esther knew immediately that they were dead, but as per SOP, Sergeant Piccolo checked them while the rest covered him. Esther’s eyes kept straying to the crew-served.

  As soon as the ridge was secure, Staff Sergeant Kneffer walked up to the crew-served and pulled off the cloak. She didn’t recognize the make or model of the cannon, but it was a pretty impressive piece. The display had been hit and destroyed, so she couldn’t read the power parameters, but there was no doubt in her mind that it would range the station with significant effect.

  It was also too big to bring back to the station.

  “Slag it,” she told the gunny.

  He pulled out a toad, activated it, and set it on top of the casing. Five seconds later, it erupted in a glare so bright that they all had to turn away, the HED’s face shields unable to compensate. After another 20 seconds, half of the cannon was slag.

  “I guess that’s it, Gunny. Let’s head on back,” Esther said.

  Esther had been confident as to the righteousness of her decision to fire. Nothing changed after seeing the cannon.

  You come to play with us, you pay the price, she told the three dead men as she turned to walk away.

  Chapter 16

  Esther took another bite of her lunch, something generously labeled “Caspian Pilaf.” She’d never heard of the dish before but had decided to give it a shot as one of the limited menu options on their field fabricator. She shouldn’t have. The Mac and Cheese was a known quantity, and the fabricator could handle that. Still, it was calories, and that was what she needed.

  Dr. Tantou was at the fabricator, along with Dr. Verone, arguing over something like children, and Esther tried to tune them out. The station was too small and too crowded, and Esther was surprised that nothing had boiled over yet.

  The Marines and the IS troopers got along well. Even some of the civilians, like Dr. Williams, could be pleasant and personable. Within the civilians, however, tension was rising. Esther didn’t know the details as most of the arguments took place in the lab, but it seemed as if many of the researchers were taking issue with Tantou’s leadership and the direction of what they were doing.

  None of that was in Esther’s area of responsibility, but the constant bickering added to the stress levels of the pressure cooker that the station had become. She just wished they could act like adults and control themselves.

  She’d reported the tension, but she didn’t expect anything to be done. She only felt a tiny bit of guilt for covering her ass with the report. If the researchers escalated their little conflicts to where it affected the mission, Esther wanted it to be known that this had nothing to do with the uniformed members of the mission.

  Not that the Marines and troopers were super-gung ho at the moment. After the takedown on Calcutta five days ago, things had gone quiet. Even the jamming had largely ceased, and comms were working again. The general consensus was that whoever had been trying to interfere with the station had taken their licks and withdrawn. Esther didn’t buy into that—she couldn’t afford to. But with Tantou continually pushing her to initiate offensive action against the known pockets of people, she was falling back on the “things are quiet” argument to keep him at bay. He might be the mission commander, but she had the final say on security matters. Whatever pockets of personnel were out there, they were not attacking. Esther didn’t like leaving any potential adversaries out and about, but she was not there to conquer an enemy.

  “And I tell you again,” Verone was saying, her voice strident, “the data just doesn’t support that. There was no reaction, and without that . . .” she said, trailing off as if that won the argument.

  Esther didn’t know enough to form an opinion. But the “Three Amigos,” which the Marines and troopers were referring to Verone, Williams, and Mueng, seemed to think that there wasn’t anything on the planet that would benefit mankind.

  Esther rather liked the three, but the Federation and Allied Biologicals were going to a lot of effort for something that had no value. She was not an expert, but if she were a wagering woman, she’d be putting money on Tantou.

  “This isn’t difficult science, Dr. Verone,” Tantou said, putting enough scorn into her name to use it as a pejorative. “If you simply had the ability to comprehend what’s there, you’d realize that.”

  “The ability, Dr. Tantou? I’m not the one with a mail order Ph.D. I earned my doctorates the hard way, not by sucking some piss-crap dean’s cock.”

  Esther almost laughed but studiously avoided turning to watch. There was a sound of flesh hitting flesh, which got her attention, and she turned just as Verone slammed into her, bouncing off and hitting the small table. Tantou stood over the woman, hands still extended from shoving her, his face a bright red.

  Esther lost it. She jumped up, grabbed Tantou by the front of his shirt, and bulldozed him up against the bulkhead.

  “You will never, I repeat never, put your hands on anyone in this station again,” she said, her voice deadly serious.

  “But . . . but . . .”

  “No freaking buts. If you touch anyone else, I will personally beat the living shit out of you before pressing charges.”

  She could tell he was about ready to crap his pants, the fear was so palpable on his face. She was going to add something else, but she’d made her point. She let go of his shirt, then turned back to Verone.

  “You OK?”

  “Uh . . . yes. Thank you. Yes.”

  Half of her Caspian Pilaf was spread out across the deck where it had been knocked off the table. She shrugged, then knelt and started shoveling it back on her tray with her bare hands. She felt more than heard Tantou skirt around her to go back into the lab, giving her plenty of space.

  Slowly but surely, the Port Section, who were in the station, turned away from the scene, resuming whatever they’d been doing before. Esther ignored them. She’d lost it, but she wasn’t going to apologize or make excuses.

  She dumped the tray in the trash, then took a long look at the hatch leading into the lab. Tantou had been thoroughly cowed, but he wasn’t the type of man who would meekly accept what had happened. He was still COM, and he coul
d make life miserable for her.

  Fuck him, she thought as she walked over to the comms station to report what she’d done.

  Chapter 17

  It didn’t take long for Tantou to reassert himself as the COM. Shortly after Esther had gone off on him, one of the dragonflies picked up something hidden about two klicks from the station. Gunny Medicine Crow and Staff Sergeant Rapa had been out on a patrol—on which Esther had sent them just to get them out of the pressure cooker that the station had become—so Esther had diverted them to check it out. To Esther’s surprise, the two of them had returned riding a WCD Palomino, of all things. Esther had chewed out the gunny something fierce. Marines did not loot, period. But between the time the gunny had returned and when Esther was done with her, the Marines were already taking turns trying out the exquisite bike.

  Esther knew that she should secure the bike, but the Marines, troopers, and even Dr. Williams were so excited, so pumped, that she relented, declaring it “abandoned property under Federation jurisdiction” with the warning that if anyone came to claim it, it would be returned.

  This was contrary to every regulation she knew, but she put the morale boost higher on her priorities than following some convention signed by politicians who’d never marched to the sound of guns.

  She laid down some serous restrictions as to its use. Break those, and the bike was going to be put up in storage.

  And the temptation had proven to be too much for her as well. On the second day, after gunny offered, she’d relented and taken the bike for a short ride. It had been a blast, and she could see the allure. WCD made one sweet machine.

  But it had given Tantou the ammunition he needed. If someone had used the cross-country bike to get into a position to spy on them, then there was still a threat. For him, that meant the known installation 2000 klicks away, and by going up his own chain, got a mission approved to take over that station. Esther had tried to object, but she’d been told to comply. Tantou’s contacts evidently outranked hers.