Better yet, this was a live fire exercise. They would be using live rounds. It wouldn’t totally be the same as an actual op, though. Each of them would be wearing no shoot me’s, the small electronic beacons that would shut down any scope trained on them. Gracie thought that was stupid. It might be OK for regular infantry who might have to react quickly, but snipers identified each target before engaging. But the safety-conscious Corps didn’t make exceptions to range rules.
Gracie was surprisingly a little jealous. They hadn’t had any live-fire exercises in the almost three weeks since they’d been back from Wyxy, and now that the S3 had scored one of the best ranges in the camp complex for them, it was the spotters who were getting the slots.
As the Marines started getting up, Eli stood and looked at her expectantly. Gracie made an effort to say nothing.
“Uh, should we start our route recon?” Eli asked.
“Up to you, Scout-Sniper Gittens. I’m your spotter, not your leader.”
“Oh, yeah, right. OK then. Yeah, let’s go do our route recon then.”
Gracie stood, and the two of them started to leave the briefing room when Gunny Buttle called out, “Corporal Crow, I need to see you for a moment.”
“Go pull the app and start your recon,” Gracie said, taking charge by force of habit. “I’ll be there in a sec.”
“Yes, Gunny. What’s up?”
“I’ve got some gouge for you, Crow. The CG’s[14] approved your BC3.[15] You’ll be getting it at the next battalion formation.”
“What?” she asked stupidly.
She’d heard the words, but they took her by surprise.
“Your BC3. It’s been approved.”
“I didn’t know anything about that. What for?”
“What for? Come-on, Crow. You’ve been in combat with us exactly once, and you tallied six kills. What do you think it’s for?”
“But no one said anything about that.”
“The lieutenant didn’t want anyone to know he’d put you up for it, you know, in case it got downgraded. The CO could have approved a Navy Achievement, but the CG has to approve the BC’s. Anyway, congrats. It’s well deserved.”
Gracie was rather stunned. She’d always considered herself beyond ribbons and commendations. But hearing she was getting a BC3 filled her with pride. It wasn’t a particularly high award, but she didn’t care at the moment.
“Well, you’d better get going. The lift will be here at 0400, and you and Gittens, Well, Gittens and you, have a lot of planning to finish.”
“Thanks, Gunny. And tell the lieutenant thanks, too, if you see him before I do.”
Just as Gracie turned to leave, the gunny said, “No, wait a moment.”
She turned back, and the gunny looked at her as if marshaling his thoughts.
“Uh, look. You’re turning into a first-rate sniper. And you’re riding Gittens hard, teaching him. That’s a good thing, as far as the craft. But remember, you’re also his NCO, and there’s more to a Marine than pulling a trigger. Gittens is a good kid, and I can see he looks up to you, so remember that. A slight word of encouragement every now and then might do him a world of good.”
The euphoria Gracie had been feeling vanished like a Montana prairie dog down his hole.
“Do you think I’ve been too tough on him? Am I screwing up?”
“No. Well, maybe. Not the screwing up part. If you were, I’d officially step in. And I think the technical skills you’re teaching him are worthwhile. But, and this is off the record, as someone whose been in the uniform for 19 years now, being a leader does not always mean developing warfighting skills. You’re doing great at that. But Gittens is a person, too. Did you know his brother died last month?”
That floored her. His brother?
“No Gunny, I. . .he never told me.”
“I thought not. I didn’t know either until the chaplain told the lieutenant yesterday.”
“He never asked for leave.”
“No, he didn’t. But of all the Marines in the Federation, don’t you think you should have been the one to know first? You’re his NCO, and it’s your job to know everything about your men.”
Gracie thought back for a moment. About two weeks before Wyxy, Eli had been acting rather distant. He kept having stupid brain-farts, and finally Gracie had exploded on him. Maybe she should have realized that something was wrong and dug to find out what it was.
“You’re a kick-ass sniper, Corporal. But you need to grow into those stripes. OK?”
“OK, Gunny. I understand.”
“You’d better go get your sniper now and get on your planning. And while you’re up all night, I’ll be home and up all night with my grandkid, so I need to get going, too.”
“Grandkid, Gunny? You’ve got a grandkid?”
“Don’t sound so surprised, there, Corporal. Toby Junior’s a new papa, and he and his soon-to-be wife don’t have two sticks to rub together, so they’re all camping out with us for now.”
As the gunny left the briefing room, Gracie realized she knew virtually nothing about any of her platoon-mates. That was something she needed to rectify.
Chapter 11
6
Gracie lay prone in the grass, her Zeis Commandos trained on the target 1,225 meters away. This was a live fire exercise, so she couldn’t have lugged around a truthteller. But the Zeis binos were pretty high-speed, low drag.
She’d have moved up another 200 meters or so—there was a relatively easy stalk route they could have used where they could make time closing the distance without being within view. But this was Eli’s call, and so she’d kept her mouth shut and played the good spotter.
The simulacrum was only a level 3, so it didn’t do much more than walk back and forth along a programmed path. The range operators had dressed it in fluid camo, which threw a slight wrinkle in things, but it was not a game-changer. Fluid camo was used by small corporate security teams and militias where funds were tight. It consisted of small capsules that were embedded in cloth that collected light and refracted the waves back out. It could be fairly effective, but there had to be full coverage. The uniform the range operators had used had more of a haphazard coverage, and there was none on the head at all. It might make holding the crosshairs on the target a little more annoying, but any sniper should be able to do it.
Gracie ached to ask Eli his firing solution, and she nearly had to bite her tongue to keep quiet. She heard him take in a deep breath, then let half of it out. A long moment later—too long—the crack of Eli’s Windmoeller went off beside her. Another long moment later, and a ripple in the leaves just beyond the simulacrum’s head gave her the point of impact.
“Miss. High 20 centimeters, right four centimeters,” she said.
“Shit,” Eli whispered beside her as he cycled in another round.
Gracie tried to keep quiet, to let him figure out what he’d done wrong, but she just didn’t have it in her.
“Try and fire sooner. Don’t hold your breath so long,” she said, trying to keep any criticism out of her tone.
Eli didn’t say anything but settled back into his position. He took two quick breaths, then a deeper one. He let it half out again, and this time, within three seconds, he fired.
Please hit, she prayed and was rewarded when the simulacrum went down.
“Hit!” she said, louder than she’d intended.
“I’m sorry, Corporal, about that first one. I don’t know—”
“Nice shot,” she interrupted him. “Give me five.”
Snipers don’t give each other high fives in enemy territory, and Gracie had never instigated anything so familiar with him before. That caught him off-guard, she knew, and he instinctively reached over to return it.
“You nailed the sucker,” she added. “So what now?”
“Well, I guess we need to exfiltrate, right?”
“Roger that.”
Gracie didn’t know if she’d ever felt as awkward in her entire time as a Marine as
she’d just felt over the last 30 seconds. But she’d taken the gunny’s lecture to heart, and she was trying.
She knew she’d never be the life of the party, but like anything else worth doing, practice made a person better at it. And being a Marine noncommissioned officer was definitely something worth doing.
Chapter 12
6
Gracie handed her M99 to the H&S Company armorer. She’d never fired it during the exercise, so it had been a quick clean. As expected, the armorer looked it over, then keyed the turn-in into her PA.
She returned to the cleaning tables where Eli had his Windmoeller apart. He’d fired it, and it was his weapon, so he had to clean it. But Gracie could at least hang around awhile. Most of the other spotters were hanging around as well. Both Staff Sergeant Riopel and Sergeant Glastonary were arguing about whose spotter had made the toughest shot during the exercise.
Gracie stole a glance at her watch. The chow hall would be closing in 45 minutes, and after three days of field rats, she was ready for some real food. Looking at Eli’s weapon in pieces, she wasn’t sure he’d get done in time. With a sigh, she picked up one of his handguard halves and started cleaning. Eli looked up, then went back to his trigger housing.
“Hey, did you guys hear?” Sergeant Dillimouse, the S2 clerk, said as he came into the armory.
“Hear what, Mouse?” Staff Sergeant Riopel said. “We’ve been in the field for three days, something rather foreign to you.
Dillimouse and the platoon were all part of the S2 shop, and the eager sergeant liked to think he was a sniper, too, but Riopel and some of the others usually just gave him a ration of shit.
The sergeant brushed off the insult and excitedly said, “One of us is going to be a gladiator.”
“No shit?” Riopel said as every one of them stopped what they were doing to hear more.
“Yeah, no shit. Lance Corporal Veal, the one who stopped that suicide bomber, she’s got orders to Malibu. I saw them myself!”
Gracie put down Eli’s handguard as that hit her.
A gladiator?
Before enlisting, when the shift was made from male to female gladiators, Gracie had thought she wanted to become a gladiator. The Crow prided themselves on their warrior heritage, and what better way to prove the bloodlines than by becoming the ultimate warrior. However, that was before she found out she was too small and more importantly, not that great of an athlete.
Then, her cousin, Falcon Coups became a gladiator. Gracie had initially felt a surge of jealousy. She’d felt it was her idea. She’d not been close to Falcon, who’d lived over 70 klicks away from her, and she’d illogically felt that Falcon had somehow taken her spot.
She knew that was foolish, and she’d let the jealousy burn out. If she wasn’t qualified, then at least the Apsaalooké, as small as they were, had a gladiator. Falcon had finished her genetic modification a few months ago and had come back to Montana where she been named an honorary War Chief by the tribe and a Montana Governor of the Day. Even the US vice-president had made the trip to see her.
There were billions and billions of humans in the galaxy, but there were only something like 400 or so gladiators. And beating the odds, Gracie knew two of them. One was her cousin, and she’d probably saved the life of the other.
Gracie was proud of being a sniper, and she knew she was serving the Federation. But maybe, just maybe, she’d served all of humanity when she’d nailed that SevRev in the head.
Chapter 13
6
“How’re you getting on, Corporal Medicine Crow?” Staff Sergeant Megan Holleran asked, coming to the back of the armory. “I’ve got Hotel out there waiting to get their embark done.”
The staff sergeant, beside one of the few people who used Gracie’s full last name, was the battalion armory chief. With the sudden orders to Jericho, the battalion was in surge mode rushing to make the embark.
“Almost, Staff Sergeant. But you can send them in. There’s room here.”
“You’ve obviously never done a mount-out before. No, I don’t need yours and Hotel’s mount-out boxes getting mixed up. You finish, and then I’ll let Hotel in.”
No, I’ve never done a mount-out before, Gracie thought. I’m a grunt, not a pogue.[16]
All Marines were riflemen, as the saying went, but the converse of that was that all riflemen were also a jack-of-all-trades. The Marines relied heavily on the Navy and civilians for their support functions, and there just weren’t that many warm bodies around to get things done. The gunny has assigned to her Eli, Dave Oesper, and Lance Corporal Demetrious “Suggs” Rustan to get the platoon’s weapons crated and ready for embark. Over the last six months, she’s been assigned more than a few of these “special tasks,” all in a supervisory mode. She knew this was his way to develop her as an NCO, and while she understood his reasons, it was beginning to become a royal pain in the ass. Right now, when the rest of the platoon was taking care of personal business, she was stuck in the armory. They were embarking the day after tomorrow, and there was still lots to be done before she was ready.
A Marine battalion was technically able to embark on a mission within 24 hours, but that was more theory than fact. Sure, they could get aboard ships with their weapons and enough supplies to fight for ten days of sustained ops, but this deployment to Jericho would be at least six months, and that took more planning and preparation.
“Come on, you heard the staff sergeant. Let’s get this done,” she told her working party.
Twenty minutes later, she scanned the last weapon, checked the scan against her master list, and called over one of the armorers to bulk scan the last box, seal it, and slap on the shipping chip. Hopefully, the platoon’s weapons would arrive safe and sound when and where they were needed.
“It’s too late for the chow hall,” she said, checking her PA. “Just go back to the barracks. Formation’s at 0630, so do what you have to do before then. We’ve got just one more night here after that.”
Eli hung back a moment as the other two left. Nervously, he approached her.
What now? she wondered.
Instead of saying anything, he slipped her an envelope, then turned and hurried out. Curious, she took opened it and took out the plastisheet inside.
Corporal Medicine Crow,
Pleese meet me at Chicos Noodle House at 2130 tonite. Its vary important. Dont tell anyone. Pleese. Thank you.
Oh, shit! was her first thought
Following the gunny’s advice, she’d tried to get to know Eli better, asking him about his home, his family, and his background. He’d certainly opened up, and he seemed to be getting closer to her—and that concerned her. She’d hoped he wasn’t getting the idea that she was interested in him on a personal level, but only as one Marine to another, as an NCO to one of her subordinates. As he’d gotten more, well, friendly, she’d pulled back, erecting her protective wall once again.
And now she was sure he was about to express his undying love or some sort of romantic bull-crap. She took some guff from the others in the platoon about having a love-struck puppy dog mooning after her, but she’d thought it was just the usual razzing that went on, even if she half-suspected it might be true. And now she feared that was the case.
Gracie wondered if she should tell the gunny and ask his opinion. She wavered for a moment, looking over to the PIG Shack. He’d probably still be there, knee-deep in paperwork. But she knew he’d expect her to deal with the problem. She took a deep breath and calmed herself before continuing on the barracks.
Gracie had her own room, one of the advantages of being the only female in the platoon. It would have been nice to have a roommate for once, though, to get her advice. Actually, she knew what she had to do, but it would have been comforting to have someone else confirm that. She had to tell Eli that there was no room for romance, and then she had to get him assigned to another sniper. Gracie had spent a lot of energy training him up, and he’d been progressing. He knew what she expected. Now, right
before a deployment, she’d have someone new, which was not desirable. But keeping him would be even less desirable.
For a moment, Gracie considered not showing up. She was sure he’d get the message then. But she knew that was taking the coward’s way out. She had to confront the situation and take care of it.
She took a quick shower and then grabbed some clothes. She started to put on the new turquoise Benny Blouse she’d bought at the PX,[17] then shook her head and put it back. She didn’t want to look cute or anything else for this. She rummaged around, and from her dirty clothes hamper, pulled out an old, shapeless black T-shirt. She gave it the sniff test. It failed, so she that was the one she wanted, and she put it on.
Gracie opened her hatch just a crack and looked out. The platoon occupied one-half of the passage, all the way to the center ladderwell. With the upcoming embark, she didn’t want anyone to see her sneaking out in civvies and have to explain why.
The coast was clear, so she slipped out and hurried to the ladderwell, then taking two steps at a time, down to the first deck and out the entrance. Gracie didn’t have a hover; she relied on an old second-hand Patterson MX-90 road bike. It was about two klicks to the main gate, then another three or four to the small, out-of-the-way restaurant Eli had chosen. It was a small, somewhat dingy place, which Eli probably thought was romantic given the low lighting inside. It would probably be empty, though, at least of 2/3 Marines, so there was that.
Five or six klicks wasn’t much, but she’d work up a little sweat, she knew. All the better, she thought. She’d be even riper by the time she arrived. She unlocked her bike and pedaled out of the battalion area.
Gracie realized she could have waited. She’d get there before 2130. She slowed down and even stopped for a passionfruit smoothie, one of her weaknesses, but she still arrived at 211o and decided just to go on in and wait for him.
But Eli was already there. He was in the first booth, facing the door. As soon as he saw her, he jumped up and waited until she slipped into her seat before he sat down again.
Sniper (Women of the United Federation Marines Book 2) Page 6
