Sniper (Women of the United Federation Marines Book 2)

by Jonathan P. Brazee

  Today, Gracie and Eli were on their Kyoceras. The slug-throwing Windmoellers were the weapon of choice for most missions, but the inducted-coilgun had its place in their arsenal. While the Windmoeller was not too terribly different from a conceptional standpoint from the early British Enfields and American Springfields of the 19th Century, the Kyoceras were a far cry from 21st Century Gaus guns. Using finely tuned arrayed coils, nitrogen cooling, and rotational power feeds, the Kyoceras could impart spin on the round as well as control the muzzle velocity. Dial down the power and the round would be sub-sonic, exiting the muzzle with barely a whisper. Dial it up and the round became super-sonic, up to 800 meters per second. While more maintenance-hungry than the Windmoeller, not as reliable, and much more of a complicated system, it never-the-less offered some distinctive advantages in the right situation.

  “Uh, I think I have it,” Eli said at last.

  “OK, engage your target.”

  Eli settled into his firing position. Gracie looked at him with a critical eye and thought his feet were not spread far enough apart, but she let it slide. She turned her eye to the truthteller. The tripod mounted ME2003 Ballistic Tracker, Small Arms, would analyze and display the trajectory of the round from the moment it exited the muzzle to the moment of impact.

  Eli took in a deep breath, let out half, then squeezed the trigger. The 162-grain round exited the barrel with a crack as it broke the sound barrier, and an instant later, impacted the dirt well short and to the right of the target.

  “Hell, Gittens, what were you aiming at?” Gracie said as she looked at the truthteller. “You’re 20 centimeters to the right and 32 low.”

  “I thought I had it right,” Eli protested.

  “I thought I had it right.” Gracie mimicked in a child’s voice.

  “Nice shooting,” Staff Sergeant Riopel called over to them. “I’m sure you scared him to death.”

  “Give me your numbers,” Gracie said, ignoring her section leader.

  “What’s this? Twenty KPH of crosswind? Where did you get that?”

  “From the range flag. Look at it. It’s at about a 45-degree angle.”

  “And where is that, Gittens? That flag’s 20 meters in the air. Look down on the deck. Does it look like the wind is that fast down there?”

  Eli looked back downrange and seemed to consider that for a moment before admitting, “Well, maybe not. But I can’t tell how strong it is with just my eyes.”

  He glanced at the Miller Scope that had been detached and was sitting back on the shooter’s bench.

  Gracie caught that and said, “And so if your scope is dead-lined, you can’t perform your mission? Why don’t you just join the Navy? You can sit there in your comfy seat and let the ship’s AI calculate the firing solution, so all you have to do is push the button.”

  “Ooh, man that’s cold,” Staff Sergeant Riopel said while Possum laughed.

  Another figured scribbled on the piece of plastisheet caught her attention. She looked back at the truthteller to see the actual velocity of the round.

  “What was your N-setting?” she asked, already knowing the answer.

  “Uh, five-point-three.”

  “Check your weapon.”

  “It’s five-point-three, I told you. See. . .uh, wait a minute. I know I set it. But now it’s—”

  “It’s four-point-five. I can see the muzzle velocity from the truthteller, and that means you had a four-point-five. Are you that much of an idiot, Gittens? You can’t even set the power on your weapon?

  “Get up,” she told him.

  He sheepishly stood until he was towering over his shorter team leader.

  “Give me your weapon,” she demanded.

  “What? Why?” he said as he pulled back his rifle and twisted so it was farther away from her.

  She understood his reluctance. Every weapon was customized for each sniper to take into account body size and structure and everything from cheek-welds to trigger-pull preferences. Marine scout-snipers became extremely possessive of their weapons, and many resorted to naming each one.

  “I said give it to me.”

  Both Marines were the same rank, but Gracie was the scout-sniper and team leader, so after a moment, he hesitantly handed her his Kyocera.

  She didn’t even glance at the control panel but flopped down to the prone position instead. Without changing the settings, she sighted at Eli’s target 874 meters downrange.

  Crack, crack, crack; she whipped off three shots in less than two seconds. The Kyocera, unlike the Windmoeller, was semi-automatic, so there was no need to feed in each individual round to fire again. She also didn’t need the soft chimes from the truthteller behind her to confirm the hits.

  She shifted her target, and immediately engaged the “Head Shot” target, a small, round target 14 centimeters in diameter at 1,240 meters downrange. Three more shots, three more hits.

  Without hesitation, she shifted her target to the “Old Man,” the silhouette at 2200 meters. She almost fired, then slowed down for an instant as she noted the far range flag was hanging limp. She adjusted her hold about half a meter to the left, and with a quick mental calculation of the drop at an N of four-point-five, raised the hold almost two meters. She squeezed off two quick rounds, emptying the magazine.

  She thought she was on target, but she held her breath for the moment it took the round to reach the old man and for the truthteller to confirm two hits. After the two welcomed chimes, she lay there for a moment, breathing a sigh of relief. That had been pretty stupid. Knowing what Eli had on his weapon and seeing his failed shot, she’d been sure she’d be able to hit his target. The Head Shot had been a little riskier, but using pure Kentucky windage for the Old Man had been taking a huge leap of faith. She’d let her arrogance get the better of her, something she couldn’t afford. She’d pulled it off, thank goodness. But if she’d missed even one shot, it could have backfired on her. Even so, she realized that her overreaction to Eli would be noted, and her “bitch” reputation would only be strengthened. At least, by making the shots, hopefully her competence would counterbalance anything else.

  She stood up, dropped the Kyocera’s magazine, and showed the empty chamber to Eli before wordlessly handing him his weapon. He accepted it, his mouth hanging open in surprise (Shock? Embarrassment?)

  “The capy,” she said, indicating the small, roundish target at 575 meters. “Start working on it.”

  “Damn!” she heard from Staff Sergeant Riopel.

  Whether that was because of her shooting or her treatment of Eli, she didn’t know.

  Chapter 5

  “Gittens, let me out,” Gracie told Eli. “I need to use the head.

  She waited for him to scoot out of the booth, then followed him out. He almost jumped back into the booth in his eagerness to catch the rest of Zach’s, or now she should say Corporal Pure Presence’s story of one of his high school exploits. Zach’s adventures, which he was always eager to share, usually disgusted her. He was a Torritite, and she’d always thought they were a conservative sect, but he’d led a pretty wild life before enlisting—even if only half of what he said could be believed. Gracie’s school life paled in comparison. Granted, St. Labre was a conservative Roman Catholic school, and the tribal elders frowned upon alcohol use, but even considering her somewhat limited experience of party life, she thought Zach’s self-professed exploits pushed any reasonable envelope.

  The party was for Zach’s promotion to corporal, however, so it was his stage. The entire platoon had shown up to help him celebrate the promotion. Even the lieutenant had made an appearance in the E-Club before he and Gunny Buttle left the rest to enjoy the party without adult supervision. Gracie wondered when it would be OK for her to leave. Not yet, she knew—which was why she made her excuse to use the head when Zach was reaching the climax of his adventure with an evidently morally-handicapped young lady named Ruth.

  Gracie made her way through the crowded E-Club. Most of the Marines would start to
filter out to the clubs out in town, but the E-Club was significantly cheaper than those bars. Credit-pinching junior Marines tried to get their Friday night drinking started at the E-Club, saving their cha-ching for later on in the evening.

  She slipped inside the head. She didn’t need to use it, but it had been an excuse. She walked up to the sink and ran some water over her hands, then splashed it on her face. That done, she looked at her reflection in the mirror-screen above the sink. She put both hands on the sink and leaned in closer, taking in her aquiline nose and deep, almost green eyes. Most of her tribe had brown eyes; the dark green was a rarity. The Crow prided themselves as being one of the last “pure” First Peoples, but retro-DNA mapping showed that a few Europeans, probably of Irish or Scottish descent, had managed to contribute their genes to the tribe. Her eyes were probably a vestige of one of those deeply hidden recessive genes.

  She leaned back and turned her head slightly to the left. Gracie knew she was beautiful from the perspective of most others. Intellectually, that was evident from how people, mostly men, treated her ever since she was 12 or 13. It was attention Gracie did not seek nor appreciate. Emotionally, though, she really couldn’t see it. She was just herself, Gracie Medicine Crow of the Apsaalooké, Children of the Beaked Bird.

  She knew she should get back out there. Gracie did not enjoy socializing. Everything felt awkward to her, and she frankly distrusted the motives of those who were overtly friendly to her. She wondered if Zach had finished his story yet and it was safe to come back out.

  Am I really that much of a prude? she wondered, looking straight into the mirror-screen again.

  She didn’t think so, but she was smart enough to realize she could be simply fooling herself. She thought about men; she thought about sex, but more as general concepts. Within the Crow, families were matriarchal, and husbands came to live with their wives’ families. The Crow were a warrior people, from back in the time of their wars against the Sioux, Cheyenne, Kiowa, Shoshone, and other plains peoples, to their service with the US Army—Gracie’s namesake, the War Chief Joseph Medicine Crow, was a decorated Army veteran—and on into the Federation Marines or the FCDC.[10] Her family approved of her service, but they expected her to come back after her enlistment and bring a man into the family. Gracie was not against this, but she was happy to put that off onto the distant future.

  She sighed, turned off the water, and left the head. If anything, more Marines had crowded inside the club, and her way to her table was blocked. She had to make a detour, coming around to it from behind.

  “. . . let the Ice Bitch crush your balls, man,” Zach was saying.

  She stopped dead and took a step back behind the half-wall between her and her table. She’d known some people referred to her as the “Ice Princess.” Was she the “Ice Bitch” too, or was that someone else?

  When she heard Eli say, “Nah, it ain’t like that,” her heart fell. It was her.

  “Bullshit. She rides you like a witch on a broom. Only she’s cut your dick off to keep you in line.”

  “But what does she do with it?” someone, maybe Possum, said while the table erupted into laughter.

  Mortified, Gracie started to step back so she could leave unnoticed, but Eli’s comment stopped her. “Eat me, all of you. Yeah, she’s hard, and yeah, she can be a bit of a bitch, but she knows her shit. I’d rather be her spotter than any of you roos, ’cause she can make me a better sniper.”

  “Holy shit, he’s in love!” Staff Sergeant Riopel said to the enjoyment of the rest of table.

  “With all due respect, Staff Sergeant, you can eat me, too. I don’t think that woman knows the meaning of love, but she’s a hell of a Marine, and even as a PIG, she’s a better sniper than any of you HOGs.”

  Gracie edged back again, and the protests about who was a better sniper became too muddled for her to make out. She turned and almost ran out of the E-Club and into the welcoming embrace of the night.

  WYXY

  Chapter 6

  Corporal Gracie Medicine Crow sat in her seat, head back and eyes closed, as the Stork juked and jived to the LZ.[11] She looked every bit the calm and collected Marine, but inside, she was about ready to burst with excitement.

  This is it—first combat as a sniper!

  The Stork flared into the stadium that was serving as the LZ and settled down with barely a bump. Gracie felt her excitement level rise a notch.

  Exiting the Stork was somewhat of a madhouse with Marines running helter-skelter while getting organized. The battalion was employing the asinine MEEP, or Minimal Electronics Emissions Protocol, where the new upgraded PCS, the latest and greatest version of the Personal Combat System, was turned off, and Marines were back to simple hand-and-arm signals. Pretty much everyone hated MEEP, but orders were orders, and the battalion was thrown back into the Dark Ages. Guides were being employed to get the Stork sticks out of transport mode and into combat mode, but still, it was pretty much a clusterfuck. Gracie and Eli were directed to their left after getting off the Stork’s ramp, but that got them into the middle of Fox Company.

  They were supposed to move with Golf, and finally, an exasperated sergeant ignored the hand-and-arm to tell them, “Golf’s over there, under the press box.”

  The two Marines cut across the playing field, ducking around another Stork coming in for a landing and ignoring two LST[12] Marines trying to wave them around. They married up with Golf, and much to Gracie’s surprise, the company was moving out.

  Wyxy was a friendly planet, and their landing had been unopposed. This was a rescue mission, not an assault on enemy territory. The SevRevs, the Seventh Revelationists, had invaded the small city of Serenity, executed hundreds of citizens, and were now holding 500 hostages in a farmer’s market in a neighboring village. The SevRevs were just the latest in a string of apocalyptic groups, but instead of merely waiting for the End of Days, they thought it their holy duty to bring the End of Days about. They’d done some pretty horrific things in the past, all recorded and broadcast to the rest of humanity, and the Federation was bound and determined that they didn’t succeed in promulgating their perverse message as they had on several other worlds.

  This operation might be relatively small scale, but it was being taken very seriously. It was a righteous mission, and everyone wanted it to succeed, but from a professional standpoint, the mission could turn to shit quickly. The fifty or so SevRevs could not hope to stand up to a Marine battalion, but the fanatics welcomed their death, and they had the ability to take the hostages and possibly more than a few Marines with them.

  Golf Company started snaking its way out of the stadium in a modified arrow with one platoon in a wedge and the remaining Marines in two columns in trace. Gracie and Eli, along with one other team, were moving with Golf, but they were not attached to the company. They were in general support of the battalion, and as such, were still under the lieutenant’s command and not Golf’s Captain Mueller’s. Two teams were with each of the line companies. Fox Company, which was the assault element, was moving in trace of Golf, and Echo and Hotel were on the other side of the farmers’ market to provide both support and to keep any SevRevs from escaping.

  As the sergeant major briefed them aboard the FS Klipspringer before debarking, this was a kill mission. The goal was to rescue as many hostages as possible, but each and every SevRev was to be eliminated. The message had to be sent that if you join the SevRevs, you will die without advancing your cause. The End of Days would be no nearer.

  The Scout-Sniper Platoon’s mission was vital to the overall mission. The SevRevs welcomed death, and the snipers were to assist them in reaching that goal. Once the PyschOps team issued their ultimatum, it was weapons free. Any SevRev was a target of opportunity. If the past SevRev operations were any indication, these terrorists probably had something planned, something spectacular. Taking out any one of them might delay that surprise until Fox Company could defuse it. Gracie was pretty sure that a year after becoming a PIG, she wa
s finally going to fire a shot in anger this afternoon.

  She should feel something more about that, she thought. She could be killing a human being in an hour, a person with parents who loved and raised him, a person who might have a wife and kids. But she felt no remorse. She only felt excited.

  There was a quote from a 21st Century US Marine general named “Mad Dog” Mattis that she had saved on her PA:

  The first time you blow someone away is not an insignificant event. That said, there are some assholes in the world that just need to be shot.

  That pretty much summed up her viewpoint. These terrorists might be someone’s sons, but they had long ago ceded their rights to be considered part of humanity. Gracie was determined to remove as many of them from the gene pool as she could.

  Wyxy was not known to be a hotbed of Federation loyalty, but the 30,000 or so citizens of Serenity had been traumatized. Several hundred in the city had been killed and an even greater number taken hostage. They turned out in numbers to watch the Marines move through the city. Many watched in shocked silence, but some cheered. A father and daughter leaned out a window over a Federation flag they’d hung, calling out encouragement to the Marines below.

  The stadium was located near the edge of the city, and after a klick-and-a-half, the column was moving into agricultural fields. Even before leaving the city proper, a few soft breezes had hinted at what was ahead. Once into the fields, the stench became overwhelming.

  One of the Golf Marines in front of Gracie asked, “What the hell is that smell?”