Sniper (Women of the United Federation Marines Book 2)

by Jonathan P. Brazee

  A little late for the party, Gracie thought.

  The display also showed movement from the homes around the Hatbox. The civilians did not cooperate with transponders, so the numbers were far from accurate, but the movement was there.

  “We’ve got jericks gathering. Probably coming to see the show, but still, keep alert,” she said, putting her helmet back on the floor.

  A line company Marine would probably get his ass kicked for taking off his helmet, but scout-snipers had a thing against them. Their excuse was that they couldn’t wear them and be as accurate with their shots, and while there was a kernel of truth to that, Gracie knew that the helmets were uncomfortable, and no one wanted to wear them if they had an option.

  Gracie glassed the Hatbox again as the Marines reached half-way to it. There was no movement in any of the windows on her side of the building. She wasn’t sure how many people had died inside 2003, but that had to have broken their will. She didn’t think they’d put up any resistance.

  The sudden firing that broke out was proof that even if Gracie was a kick-ass sniper, she was no expert on enemy psychology.

  The Marines from First Platoon hit the deck, scrambling for any semblance of cover they could find. Gracie leaned out the window, but the firing was too close to her and masked by the home next door. The boom of Riopel’s Barrett from over 900 meters away was evidence that even if she couldn’t see anyone, he could.

  The net was alive with chatter. Firing was breaking out all along the near side of the town. Gracie threw back on her helmet and spotted from where the Josh detected incoming fire on the platoon. She immediately realized that she could reach any gunmen who were right under Staff Sergeant Riopel’s nose.

  She leaned out the window, elbows on the sill, and tried to spot a target. A long burst from an automatic weapon caught her attention, but she couldn’t see the gunman. She dropped her Windmoeller and picked the Barrett back up. She ranged the window and accepted the atmospherics from the Josh—she didn’t have time to do her own, and less than five seconds later, fired one of her last two M33’s. With the air pressure and high humidity, she could actually see the vapor-trace of the round as it flew downrange until just before it disappeared into the window opening. She hadn’t changed the settings on detonation, trusting the Miller’s AI, but as soon as the round exploded inside, the firing stopped.

  “We’ve got jericks coming out at the Hatbox,” Kierk said as he fired off a shot.

  Gracie swung back to the building to see a dozen men coming around the corner to take the Marines under fire. First Platoon had started to assault back into the oncoming fire, and these men were coming at them from behind. One fell, probably from one of the Team Swordfish snipers, but then the gunmen made it around the corner and were now masked by the building to Swordfish.

  Gracie dropped the Barrett and picked up the Windmoeller again. Some snipers had problems making a quick mental transition between such disparate weapons, but once again, Gracie gave a small prayer of thanks to the many hours she’d spent on the range firing one weapon after the other. As before, she was lucky that the range was not particularly that far, but still, the transition could be rough.

  Within moments, she was squeezing the trigger at a man hugging the wall. Since he was in front of the wall, it really couldn’t give him much protection, and Gracie’s shot took him in the middle of his chest. He slid down, leaving a broad brushstroke of blood behind him as Gracie shifted to the man at his feet, who was in the prone position and firing on First Platoon. Her round impacted his left shoulder, probably tearing through the chest cavity and either into the heart or destroying his lungs. From the way he simply stopped moving, Gracie would have bet it was the heart—if she’d had time to think about it.

  Beside her at the next window, Kierk was putting out a steady staccato of firing, each round leaving the muzzle as well over the speed of sound, a mini-sonic boom announcing each shot. Gracie acquired another target, a middle-aged man in a bright blue shirt who was running low in the manner of a trained soldier, but he fell to someone, probably Kierk, before she could fire.

  Downstairs, she could hear the burp of M99s, and she knew the Hotel fire team was engaging.

  She spotted a fat guy who’d gotten up and was charging the Marines, an energy gun ionizing the air. At that range, he could simply sweep the weapon to target them. He was moving quickly for his bulk, but not quick enough as a single round hit him a little behind where Gracie had intended, but the shot probably severed his spinal cord.

  “Gittens, Oesper, see what you can do to support the fire team,” she shouted as she acquired another target. She fired just as he dropped to his belly, her round missing high.

  “Shit!” she let out before adjusting her aim and rectifying her mistake.

  And then there were no more. What had been a dozen gunmen was now simple a dozen pieces of meat. One was trying to crawl back, his legs useless, but the rest looked dead.

  The Marines hadn’t fared as bad, but that was only relative. Four or five Marines were motionless with two being dragged forward by their buddies. They’d reached a slight depression on the ground, part of the property’s drainage system, but they were still under fire. It wouldn’t be long until the jericks got some indirect fire weapons to plop on top of them. At about 100 meters out, they were too far for hand-thrown grenades, but they were also too far to simply run for the cover the buildings provided.

  A bright flare of light erupted from about 15 meters short of the Marines, Gracie’s Miller struggling to darken the screen. It was either a toad or the local equivalent, the super-intense incendiary grenades that could burn through anything. Someone had chucked the thing almost 85 meters, which was almost unbelievable. As it sputtered and burned, Gracie had to suppress a shudder as she imagined such a painful way to go.

  The firing downstairs intensified, but Gracie had to put that out of her mind. If someone could throw a toad that far, they might be able to throw one all the way into the Marines. She leaned out again, with her Windmoeller almost up against the outside wall of the building. She knew she was exposed, but there was no help for that.

  A jerick on an adjacent roof popped up to spot the Marines, then disappeared from sight. If he were an experienced soldier, he’d pop up again from a different spot. He wasn’t. The turkey-peeker came back right at the same spot, swinging around an energy weapon for a shot. Gracie nailed him in the head, taking most of it off as he fell out of sight.

  There was a grunt from behind her, and the sound of a body falling. She couldn’t waste time looking back to see who it was. Firing was intensifying around the 15 or so surviving Marines huddled in the depression. They knew they had to get out of the kill zone, but dirt was flying as rounds impacted the edge of the depression, showering them with small clods. One Marine slapped his leg, then rolled back over and scooted farther into the depression, weapon at the ready, his uniform’s bones hardening to stop the round. Still, it must have hurt like hell.

  A round impacted on the side of the building, about two meters behind her, but she doubted that it was aimed at her. She started sweeping her scope, trying to pick up another target. As she swept, a momentary flash of movement caught her eye, and she immediately backtracked to see a wiry young man, more of a kid, standing on another roof, holding something small. He was on the near side of some sort of large cooling unit, so no one on Riopel’s team could have seen him. He took a deep breath, and with his right arm low, he started running forward like a cricket bowler. Gracie immediately realized he was the one who’d thrown the incendiary before. She didn’t have the range, but she guessed about 230 and squeezed off a shot.

  She was a little off, and instead of hitting him center mass, she hit his upper arm. He spun to the ground, the “Forestall Basketball” printed on his shirt clearly visible as he fell from sight. Almost immediately, he stood up again briefly appearing in Gracie’s sights before he bent over as if to pick something up. The mini-sun that burst into l
ife at his feet was proof that Gracie was correct. He jerked back, his arm a flaming torch, before falling backward and out of sight.

  Her tiny earbud AI filtered in what it thought was a relevant message.

  “Two KIA, request backup now!” the team leader from downstairs was shouting into his mic. “I’ve got a dozen jericks trying to come in.”

  “Hold on,” another voice responded with what she thought was the Golf Company signal. “We’re five mikes out.”

  She could throw on her helmet and make sure, but it really didn’t matter one way or the other, and she couldn’t afford the time.

  “Eli,” she said, not turning around. “Keep what you’re doing, but watch the door. They’re about to get overrun downstairs.”

  “Got you,” he said, as a wave of relief swept over her.

  She’d known one of them had been hit, but it wasn’t Eli.

  She continued to scan through the Miller, looking for more customers. She knew she was focusing too close. Riopel’s team had better eyes on whoever was there. She shifted to where she had a better field of view, starting from about 600 meters to her left and perpendicular out 1500 meters to the edge of the opposite side of the Hatbox. She saw five gunmen swarm over a low retaining wall on the roof next to Shark’s position.

  She started to enter in some quick data when a round hit the wall right by her head. She ducked back, then Riopel’s voice came over the P2P.

  “Sorry about that, Crow. I didn’t see him until too late. He’s zeroed now, though.”

  “You’ve got five coming at your direct three o’clock now, on the next building. Don’t know if they want you or First Platoon,” she replied. “Oh, yeah, and thanks.”

  One of the men made a quick peek around the edge of the roof and down towards the middle of the building. They were after Riopel’s team. With Gracie spotting him, he might as well have put out flashing N-LEDs in the shape of an arrow pointing the way to him, but untrained fighters rarely considered what was out of their own sight.

  The building ranged at 1,345 meters. This was getting to real sniper range, farther than grunts with M99’s could successfully engage. The Josh’s data was still streaming in, and with the active range-finder, she thought she had a lock. She squeezed the trigger, and a second-and-a-half later, she was relieved to see the gut shot that knocked the man down. She would have already been firing again, but without Eli spotting, she’d needed to see where she’d hit in order to make corrections. She’d been dead on laterally, but a little low.

  Two of the others wheeled to see what had happened to their buddy, and two quick shots dropped them before the last two ducked down below the edge of the low wall.

  They’d be in shock for a moment, trying to decide what to do. It wouldn’t take them long to decide to get out of there, but Gracie had five, maybe ten seconds before that. She pulled back inside the window, threw down her Windmoeller, and snatched up the Barrett.

  Eli was standing by the door, M99 at the ready.

  “Keep them off me!” she shouted, barely noticing the Kierk was on the floor, motionless.

  She leaned back out, holding the big Barrett without support. She ranged the low wall, programmed the remaining round to detonate one meter past it, and fired. She saw the round explode a meter-and-a-half high. Whether it got the two or not, she couldn’t see.

  “Three of five down, maybe the other two as well,” she passed to Riopel.

  “Thanks, Crow. Keep your head down.”

  In the room behind her, she heard the buzz of Eli’s M99. The Barrett was too bulky to bring in quickly, she was out-of-balance leaning out so far, and her arms were already trembling. So she simply let go of the big gun. She hated to do it, and she hoped they could recover it, but with only her team encoded to let it fire, it wasn’t as if anyone could pick it up and use it to fire on them.

  Gracie had hooked one foot around the footboard of the bed, and she used that to pull herself back. Eli was firing on full auto, sending a deadly hail of darts out the door. He stumbled as something hit him, but didn’t stop firing. Gracie tried to reach her Windmoeller, which she’d knocked to the floor in her haste to get the Barrett when Eli went down, his face a bloody mess. A grey-haired man, moving with assuredness, stepped into view, an M99 in his hands, which he used to poke Eli in the chest. The man had a military air about him, but he made a cardinal mistake of not clearing the room before looking at his trophy. Gracie pulled the Ruger from her thigh holster when he realized his mistake. His eyes got huge as he started to swing up his M99, a string of darts reaching out to her when her double tap hit him in the throat and jaw. As he dropped, Gracie charged, Ruger stretched out before her. She stepped on the gurgling man’s chest, almost stumbling, as she bolted out the door, screaming at the top of her lungs.

  The young kid on the other side looked up in horror as she burst out into the hall. He dropped his UKI and started to turn and run when Gracie fired another double tap into his back. He fell face first, bouncing a couple of times before sliding to a stop. He pulled in three gulping gasps of air before falling silent.

  Gracie ran to the stairwell and looked down, listening for movement. She heard none. She turned back, stepping over the young kid and two more jericks that Eli had dropped. One was down hard, but still alive. Gracie ignored him and went back into the room. All three of her teammates were down. She checked the pulses of Eli and Gittens, and both were gone, but within the realm of resurrection. She didn’t bother with Oesper. The top of his head was mush. There wasn’t a chance of him getting zombie.

  Her emotions threatened to take over, and she had to fight to keep them at bay. Tears started to form, but she brushed them away and picked up her Windmoeller. There were Marines still in trouble out there, and she had to give them support.

  She picked her Windmoeller off the floor, and wiping her eyes, settled back into shooter-mode. There was furtive movement back along Team Shark’s side. Gracie snapped off a quick shot, but her target was gone before her round impacted. She winged another man, taking him out of action. One evidently thought he or she was unobserved due to the camo hood over his or her face. Gracie couldn’t see much around the face, and couldn’t even tell if the person was male or female, but the hat on top of the hood pretty much framed where the face had to be. Gracie took her time to carefully aim the shot. The round took the person in the forehead, blowing off the hood. Despite that, the hamburger that was left of the person’s head still didn’t allow Gracie to tell much about him or her, either sex, age, or anything else for that matter.

  Below her, the remnants of First Platoon were gathering themselves, and the call came out for all Marines who could support them to be ready to give them cover. Gracie still had time to register two more kills when the Marines in the platoon stood up as one, and weapons blazing, charged forward. The air crackled with ionization as the Josh hit the nearest section of homes, clearing the way for them. Several jericks popped up at the sight only to be knocked back down, three by Gracie, more by other Marines.

  Over the next five minutes, Gracie was on mindless automatic, a killing machine. She acquired, fired, and acquired again. She lost track of how many jericks she dropped. A rocket of some sort hit the home, taking a good chunk of the corner with it. Somehow, Gracie wasn’t touched, and a large section of the wall gone, she just had better fields of fire. She went prone on the floor right at the corner, targeting whomever she could spot.

  She was still firing when Golf Company reached the battle, followed quickly by India. The immense firepower of two rifle companies, each with a PICS platoon, quickly broke the back of the assault.

  She heard Marines enter the home, she heard them clearing each room, she heard one of them say, “That’s enough, Marine. The area’s secure.” But it wasn’t until one of them put a hand on her back that she lowered her weapon.

  “Is there anyone else in here?” the sergeant asked when she finally turned to look at him.

  “Four downstairs,” sh
e said, “and my three brothers here.”

  She looked over at Eli, still on his back just a couple of meters away, and the damn was broken. The ever-emotionless Corporal Gracie Medicine Crow broke down and cried.

  FS JOSHUA HOPE OF LIFE

  Chapter 27

  37

  “OK, you’re up,” Zach said as he came out of the lieutenant’s wardroom.

  He put a hand on her shoulder for a moment before heading down the passage back out of officer’s country.

  Gracie knocked on the edge of the hatch and leaned her head in. Lieutenant Wadden was sitting at a small fold-down desk between the two sets of bunks. He might have been Gracie’s commander, but on a Navy ship-of-the-line, he was pretty small potatoes, and he shared the stateroom with three other lieutenants. He’d probably asked his bunkmates to give him time for his after-action debrief—it would be a little awkward to do that with someone snoring half-a-meter from them.

  “Sit down, Corporal,” he said, pointing at the small stool in front of his desk.

  She took the seat, so low to the ground that even her knees were up high. Sergeant Glastonary, all 2.4 meters of him, must have his knees higher than his head. For a moment, the image made her smile.

  “First of all, let me say that I know you’re happy about Lance Corporal Gittens and Corporal Kierkagaard.”

  “Yes, sir, very much so.”

  As soon as she returned to the camp, she’d rushed to the battalion aid station, and she’d been told that both Marines had been put in stasis and were being transported to the Naval Medical Hospital on Tarawa. She’d been on pins and needles until she’d gotten back aboard the Josh where she’d pestered the senior chief in sickbay to the point that he’d requested his daily status update seven hours earlier than normal. To Gracie’s relief, both Eli and Kierk had been evaluated and resurrected. Both were in regen, and while Eli was sure to have a lengthy rehab, he should be back to 100%. Kierk had suffered significant brain damage, right on the edge of being able to recover or not, but the doctors gave him a 65% chance of a full recovery.