With full comms, Gracie didn’t think she was taking an unreasonable risk, whereas if she’d remained inside, there was a pretty good probability that she was going to go bat-shit on someone. Taking the lesser threat to the integrity of the mission, she’d opted to go outside, ostensibly to check on the sensors in the fissure. Besides, Bomba was pretty good company. Gracie had always respected the Marine’s professional accomplishments, but now that she’d worked with him, she plain out liked him as a person. Her last close male friend, one who’d moved past her inner guard, had been Zach, who was the complete opposite of her. Bomba, who was much more similar to her, was quickly becoming more than a mere teammate. How far that might go, Gracie didn’t know, but for the moment, she enjoyed his company.
“You’d think they could all agree on something, at least. I mean, this is pure science, right? It either is or it isn’t,” Gracie passed on the P2P as she skirted a slimy-looking mauve fan. “This thing here is either a sick-looking attempt at a plant, or it’s got something in its cells that can help humans. Yes or no.”
“They certainly don’t think so,” Bomba said. “The Three Amigos seem to think their esteemed leader’s got his head so far up his ass that he can’t recognize what the data indicates.”
“Fuck them and fuck this planet,” Gracie said, more to herself than to Bomba.
“Why Gunny! I’ve never heard you resort to such language,” Bomba said with a laugh.
“Well, fuck you, too!” she said, her mood brightening.
Bomba’s good spirits had a way of rubbing off on her.
They reached the fissure and started moving up it, mindlessly wanding each sensor to make sure it was functioning. They were almost on autopilot as they chatted. Bomba had recently become interested in Gracie’s life as a member of the Crow nation. First Peoples, except for Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders, had not emigrated off-planet in huge numbers. To Gracie’s knowledge, there were no planets, other than the Hipao Confederation worlds, where First Peoples made up a majority. From the Arctic Ocean to Tierra de Fuego, most First Peoples had remained on earth, close to their ancestral lands. For the Apsaalooké, that meant Montana in the USA. Gracie knew her nation’s history, how they’d originally developed into a separate people in Ohio before being pushed first to Manitoba and finally to Montana. Hundreds of years had created strong roots, and Ohio and Manitoba were merely academic footnotes in history. Gracie’s roots were in the plains of Montana, on the banks of the Greasy Grass.
Because too few First Peoples had emigrated, much of what others knew, or thought they knew, came from Hollybolly flicks. Much of it fell into the category of the Noble Savage, which was rather far from the truth. Gracie had to convince Bomba that they were just like anyone else, with good and bad, with noble and cretin. She wasn’t sure he quite accepted that. Whenever he could, he got her to start telling him about life as a Crow, and when she did, there was just the slightest bit of awe reflecting from his eyes.
Still, he was an easy ear, and she didn’t mind it. If she elevated her people a bit, glossing over some of the low points, she didn’t think he’d complain.
“Have you two centered yourselves?” the captain passed on the P2P.
Their checking the sensors had been an obvious ruse, but still, Gracie felt a twinge of guilt.
“Yes, ma’am. We’re fine.”
“Good to hear. But as long as you’re out there—and the only ones out there, I might add--I want you to check something out for me. The Porto picked up an anomaly at 28987-68822. Take a look, and keep your feeds live. I’m getting the rest of Port ready as the QRF, but I’m not sending them out unless needed.”
“Roger that!” Gracie passed, suddenly feeling excited as she entered the position on her display.
The tribal historian Gracie disappeared in a flash as the scout-sniper Gracie snapped into place
The Porto was a long, long ways out in the system, and at such distances, her scanners and sensors were not as effective as had she been in orbit. They’d picked up an anomaly, as the captain had said, about 1200 clicks to their right. What an anomaly was, Gracie couldn’t guess. The ship’s crew didn’t know, which is why it was an anomaly, after all. It could be something significant, or it could be something completely natural and benign.
The captain obviously wasn’t too alarmed, or she wouldn’t have sent the two of them for a look-see, but being Marines, they had to assume the worst. They were in full tactical mode as they clambered out of the fissure and started on a course to the position. Bomba had the point, but with only two of them, Gracie was two paces to his left and two behind. She had her M99 at the ready, and her Kyocera was slung over her back.
This wasn’t a low-crawl stalk, but still, they moved cautiously and methodically, taking a solid 40 minutes to cover the 1200 meters. Along the way, they spotted nothing out of the ordinary, but the wind from the night-side was brisk, and the vegetation was in constant movement. Someone could have been lying in wait just off their approach and easily remained unseen.
They were less than ten meters from the position before Bomba pointed. It took a bit of mental gymnastics before her brain could register what she was seeing, but once it clicked into place, she knew that something, about two meters long, was covered with a camo-sheet. The sheet was doing an excellent job of mimicking the background, but she could pick up the outline.
The two Marines walked to about a meter away and looked up and down its length, making sure that the feedback to the station picked up everything.
“Can you tell what it is?” the captain asked.
“No, only that it doesn’t belong here. It’s manmade; that’s for sure.”
“Can you see any security?” she asked.
Gracie had been thinking the same thing, wondering if whatever it was had been boobytrapped to discourage anyone messing with it. She wished she had a better scanner than the standard HED 2 system.
“No, nothing. Can the Porto sense anything?”
“That’s a negative. They don’t. . .wait one; they’re sending something now,” the captain said before starting again a moment later, “With the feed, they think there might be a power source under the camo, but no combustibles.”
“They think? Just great,” she said, making sure to toggle that so only Bomba could hear her.
“Stand back,” she told Bomba again, this time with the captain on the circuit as well.
She took four steps back, looking for a rock. She didn’t want to dig around under the vegetation, but luckily, she found a two-kg one where she could easily pick it up. She hefted it a couple of time, then let it fly. It struck the object with a solid thunk before bouncing away.
Nothing blew up, so Gracie took that as a win.
“Nice tech, Gunny,” the captain said. “But I’m afraid we want a little more effective data.”
Gracie looked at Bomba and rolled her eyes.
What now? she wondered.
Then a glimmer of an idea hit her. She stepped up to the object again, motioning Bomba to stay back. Each HED 2 had numerous tie-down straps that connected to bands around various sections of the wearer’s body. Gracie pulled out the right hip strap, extended it to its full two meters. She carefully attached the end clamp on the corner of the camo-sheet, then crept back until the strap was almost taut. She lay down, and before she could give herself a real reason not to take such a stupid risk, she gave into her curiosity and pulled the strap. The camo-sheet fell off, revealing. . .
“It’s a friggin Palomino!” Gracie shouted, jumping to her feet.
As a kid back at home, Gracie had roamed the prairies for miles on her Bombardier Calgary-3. It had been a sturdy workhorse, and she’d loved the freedom it gave her. The hoverbike could get her into and out of trouble as she willed.
The WCD Palomino that stood proudly before her was more than a few rungs up the ladder than her poor Calgary-3. The Palomino was a rich boy’s toy, but not a slouch when considering performance. It was sle
ek, fast, could go over almost any terrain, and very, very sexy.
This one almost looked right off the shelf. Some Palominos were the standard tan and gold, but others had the camo-pattern that supposedly mean the owners actually took them into rough country and not just down to the local BestMart. They were made in the Alliance of Free States, and with the tariff, they were even more of a status symbol on Earth and, she assumed, the rest of the Federation.
There was a small box attached to the handlebars, which the captain was now telling her the Porto identified it as a standard, if illegal in most of human space, masking system.
“Pretty machine,” Bomba said as they stood looking at it.
“That’s about a year’s worth of a staff sergeant’s pay,” Gracie told him.
“Well, someone left it here, someone who’s out there right now,” he said, looking around.
Which was, of course, correct. Someone had driven it there for a purpose, and the only purpose that could be was to put eyes on the station at the least. And Gracie and Bomba had not been stealthy in reaching the bike, so. . .
Gracie felt an immediate itch between her shoulder blades. She instantly knew that someone had eyes on them. She could feel the crosshairs centered on her chest.
She lunged for the bike, jumping on the seat.
“Get on,” she shouted.
She hit the starter, which not surprisingly, failed to work. But even if Gracie had only seen a Palomino once before, she knew about them, and like all hoverbikes, they had a law enforcement override. Marines didn’t have those overrides, but FCDC troopers did, and Gracie just happened to have one.
She grabbed the multitool Juarez and given her from her belt, whipped out the override, and hit the start once more. Expecting to feel a round explode into her at any instant, she gave a sigh of relief as the motor purred to life.
“Hold on,” she shouted over her shoulder as she gunned the bike.
As the bike leaped forward, Bomba almost fell off, and he clutched at Gracie to keep on. One hand went around her waist; the other grabbed her left breast—which through the HED 2 hardly constituted copping a feel, but it was immediately released and his hand lowered to her belly.
Gracie grinned, but she wasn’t sure if that was because she knew despite the urgency of the situation, nice-guy Bomba had been embarrassed, and she’d give him some serious grief later, or simply because the Palomino was such a fine machine. Probably a bit of both.
They shot forward, the bike reading the ground, making the ride as smooth as if on a highway. Gracie swerved a hard right, telling herself she was throwing off anyone trying to acquire them as a target, but reveling in the bike’s pure power and responsiveness. She swerved back to the left as Bombay squeezed her tight.
They were only about 1500 meters from the station, and the Palomino took less than a minute to make the trip. Over rough ground, that was pretty amazing, all the more so that Gracie wasn’t even used to the feel of the bike. Gracie wasn’t done yet—she didn’t want to be done.
“We’re coming in hot!” she passed on the open circuit to let the IS team and the two snipers on duty know they were inbound.
She roared around the station, leaning hard to make the turn as fast and as tight as she could. Bomba finally lost his grip and tumbled off the back. Without his weight, the bike surged forward, and Gracie almost lost it. Regretfully, she brought the bike to a halt, and with a pat on the fuel cell tank, swung her legs off it.
Bomba limped up, rubbing his ass and with a rueful smile on his face.
“Someone’s going to have a long walk back,” he said. “Now I’m sort of wishing it had been me doing the walking.”
“Oh, you loved it, Staff Sergeant. You know that,” she said.
“Yeah, I guess I did. Take away that gracious fall back there, and that was a pretty hellacious ride. Do you think we were being targeted?”
“If this was my ride, I’d target anyone trying to steal it, so yeah, I think we could have been.”
“Uh, Gunnery Sergeant Medicine Crow, if you’d like to leave your toy and come on inside, we need to have a few words,” Captain Lysander passed on the net.
“Wow. Sucks to be you, Gunny,” Bomba said.
“Comes with the territory,” she responded. “How about you push this baby up to the security post while I go attend to the captain. Tell them to shoot anyone who tries to come and take it.”
Gracie’s heart was racing, and she felt on top of the world. She had a royal ass-chewing coming, but it had been worth it.
What was the captain going to do? Shave her head and send her to some poisonous ribbon world?
Chapter 44
66
It took two days, but the captain finally relented. Since no one came a’knocking at the station’s front hatch claiming ownership, the Palomino was reported as “abandoned property under Federation jurisdiction.” She instituted some pretty stringent guidelines: two riders at all times, and never exceeding 1,000 meters from the station, which put a pretty big crimp in the monster bike’s capabilities, but it was better than nothing. Within another day, everyone in the station, Marine, FCDC, and geek alike, had taken a test ride. Captain Lysander had at first demurred, but even she couldn’t resist, and when she and Gracie came back from their ride, her face had been flushed with excitement.
With the tension inside the station and the lack of action outside of it, the Palomino had been a nice morale-boosting break, something that lasted all of five days when they received a mission order. Any action was better than no action, but this was not the type of mission that excited anyone.
They had known from shortly after landing on the planet that there was another installation of some sort 2,000 klicks to their planetary north. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that was probably a clandestine research station, probably corporate, but possibly from a foreign government. The Marines’ mission was to protect the Federation station, however, not to arrest any interlopers—at least that was what their mission had been. Mission creep had reared its ugly head, and they were now supposed to shut down that other installation and arrest whoever was there.
Technically, the Marines could not arrest anyone. The restrictions concerning posse comitatus and the military were a long accepted and vital component to the conduct of the Navy and Marines. But the FCDC was not military despite being organized and run like an army, and it had the power of arrest and detainment. So for this mission, a five-man IS team would be the focus of the mission with the Marines providing security in case those being arrested took offense to that. Sergeant First Class Juarez was about beside himself with excitement, giving Captain Lysander what could be construed as orders, orders she studiously ignored. The troopers were there to make the actual arrests, but she was not going to give up any authority to a fuckdick sergeant first class.
The Porto had come back into a far planet orbit to launch one of her two shuttles. Two thousand klicks were just too far to travel overland, even had they ground vehicles. As they waited for the shuttle to land, Gracie conducted a final inspection of her Marines. All of the scout-snipers were hard-charging, highly motivated and accomplished devil dogs, but as with many elite units, they tended to slack off a bit when tasked with straight-leg infantry missions. At least, that was what Gracie experienced in her career. Every one of them was an infantry Marine and had served as such, but even for Tennerife, who had been a sniper for the least amount of time, it had been four years since she’d served as a regular grunt.
“You know this is because of AB,” Saanvi Veer said, sipping her tea as she watched Gracie inspect Bomba.
Gracie looked up at the scientist, wondering what she meant.
Dr. Veer must have recognized the questioning look, so she added, “Whoever is out there must be reaching a breakthrough, so the AB board wants them stopped. We’re at loggerheads here, and they can’t allow someone else to push ahead of us.”
Gracie wrinkled her eyebrows and looked back at Bomba,
who merely shrugged. Allied Biologicals had pull, to be sure. The mere fact that the Marines were supporting the science mission was proof of that. But Gracie had assumed that “AB,” as the geeks referred to their employer, was merely a tool being used by the Federation. She never considered that the tool might be wielding the power. She had to admit, though, that what the good doctor was saying made sense.
Corporate power within the Federation structure had diminished following the Evolution, but Gracie wasn’t naïve enough to believe it had been curtailed. Money talks, as the saying went, a truism that had affected governments going back to Mesopotamia.
“Don’t let yourself become lackeys,” Saanvi said before turning and heading back to the lab.
Gracie frowned as she completed her inspection. She didn’t think they were lackies. They were United Federation Marines, after all. But if this mission was merely to squash competition, did Veer have a point? Were they really just corporate jimmylegs in Federation uniforms?
She didn’t like that train of thought and was grateful when the shuttle landed a few minutes later. She focused on the mission itself, not on the reasoning behind it.
The mission itself was anti-climatic. There was no resistance at from the Jindal-Fergusson crew, who readily admitted working for the giant conglomerate. The 15 lab rats were all Confederation citizens, but Jindal-Fergusson was a galaxy-wide company, with offices and assets within the Federation. If—when—they were found guilty of trespassing, corporate espionage, and whatever else the Justice Department threw at them, the Federation would be able easily to take action against them.
Dr. Tantou and his sidekick Dr. Polonov had accompanied the mission as well, and while SFC Juarez and his team processed the prisoners, they two geeks went through the J-F lab, confiscating data discs, papers, equipment, and more than a few samples.
Sniper (Women of the United Federation Marines Book 2) Page 23
