Commander Sandler looked round the group crowded in the briefing room. “I want the leader alive, gentlemen. No one takes President Channing’s daughter hostage with impunity. We need a very public trial to show these rebel colonists who’s in charge.”
“You heard the man,” said the lieutenant. “Move out!”
“Looks like you’re not wanted, Slade,” sneered Harris, standing in front of her as she got up. “He said ‘gentlemen’; nothing about the likes of you!”
“Rules you out, then,” said Jones, pushing him aside. “No one could mistake you for a gentleman!”
“Yeah? At least I got what it takes to be a specialist, Jonesy.”
“What’s that, then, Harris?” asked Tyler jovially. He sniffed audibly and pulled a face. “B.O.? Man, don’t you ever shower?”
“Stow it, all of you.” She gestured to her men to follow. “We’ve got a job to do.”
“Aye, Captain,” said Jones and Tyler crisply, falling in behind her. Catching sight of the latter’s parting gesture to Harris, she chose to ignore it.
When they were in the corridor leading to the ready room, she slowed, letting the other three members of her team pass them.
“You encourage men like Harris by trying to protect me from them. Ignore him. I do.”
“We look out for our own, ma’am, and you’re one of us,” said Jones.
She brushed short auburn curls out of her eyes impatiently. “I can look after myself. I earned my rank; I didn’t screw a four-star general to get it like the rumors say!”
“I stopped those rumors,” muttered Tyler, his gray eyes hooded. “No one repeats them now.”
“I know.” Her voice softened as she touched his shoulder. “And I’m grateful, but I have to fight my own battles.”
“We’re a team, Captain. Just because we’re the only one with a woman leader doesn’t mean the others can keep taking the ...”
“Stow it, Jones,” interrupted Tyler. “Captain knows the score. Get down to the ready room.”
A tiny cold knot formed in her stomach as Jones left them at a trot.
“So it’s not just me you’re having to defend. I had no idea ...”
Tyler glanced around then grasped her arm, propelling her down the corridor in Jones’ wake.
“Jonesy is speaking crap, Captain,” he said, keeping his voice low. “We’re all proud to have you as our team leader. We’ve fought alongside you; you’ve nothing to prove to any of us.” He released her, letting her own momentum carry her onward beside him.
“It’s only assholes like Harris who don’t know your worth. You do your job, Captain, leave the rest to us. It’s our problem, not yours.”
The intensity in his eyes right now was too much for her and she had to break eye contact. She couldn’t give in to the attraction she felt between them—not here, not now—not ever. The lives of all her team depended on them forming bonds of a very different nature.
“Touch me again like that, mister, and you’ll be ...” she began angrily.
“Yes, ma’am,” he interrupted. “Sorry for interfering. Won’t happen again, ma’am.”
His tone was stiff, angry—and hurt. Dammit! Alienating the few men on her side wasn’t what she wanted to do.
“I appreciate the sentiment, sergeant,” she began awkwardly, catching sight of Harris and the rest of Green Team closing on them.
“I understand, ma’am. Permission to go ahead and get tooled up?”
“Granted,” she snarled as Kirby came level with her.
“Problem, Slade?”
“Nothing I can’t handle,” she said, striding after Tyler.
Columbia City Museum
She blinked, realizing she was no longer on the Real Opportunity , but in the exhibition hall, in the holograph version of the ship, standing in front of her combat armor locker. Jones was finishing his introductory spiel to the group of forty children on the other side of the tinted glass screen. Like that day a lifetime ago, he’d be the one to help her into her suit, not Tyler.
Hope City Hall
The tension was palpable as she strode past Tyler’s locker to her own.
“Shall I help you suit up, ma’am?” Jones, already armored apart from his helmet, asked hesitantly.
No one got armored up on their own, and it was accepted specialist practice that the team sergeant always helped the captain—except for today.
“Please,” she said, trying to dispel her own anger and hurt. Damn Tyler! Why’d he have to get so protective today of all days? Angrily she opened her locker doors.
Turning round, she backed into the small space, wriggling until she felt her armor snug against her shoulders, round her waist, and between her legs.
Jones bent down. “Your legs, Captain. You need to back in more.”
Columbia City Museum
“Captain, your legs,” repeated Jones, touching her right knee.
With a start, she looked down, suddenly aware once more of the museum narrator droning on about the battle armor used by Special Forces in the Mars Rebellion.
“You’ve not backed up enough, Captain.”
She shuffled her legs back until they fetched up against the armor.
Quickly and efficiently Jones swung the hinged front pieces over her calves and thighs and latched them into place over the heavy boots, then stood.
She pushed her hands into the gloves, then shrugged her shoulders and rotated her head until she felt the back of the collar clasp her neck, and her shoulders site themselves into the appropriate joints.
Again, Jones pulled the limb pieces into place, fixing them there, then reached up for the torso section. Eyes level with hers, he glanced quizzically at her.
“Ready,” she confirmed, trying to dispel the sense of déjà vu as she tucked her chin against her chest.
Hinged at the shoulders, the torso section came down, just missing her head, until Jones clicked it shut at her groin.
“Comfortable?”
“I’m fine,” she replied shortly, lifting her head as he snapped the fastenings closed. She waited impatiently for him to finish. She hated this point, that in-between stage before she hooked into the suit where she always felt like she was being entombed, mummified, inside its bulk.
“Good job they don’t have to wear this stuff anymore, eh, Captain?” Jones murmured with the ghost of a smile as he reached behind her neck for the suit’s umbilical. “Still, the kids get a kick out of seeing us putting the armor on.”
“Yeah,” she said, tilting her head to the side to allow him to reach the implant socket just behind her ear. So many changes in so short a time ... changes that their mission had been responsible for.
Hope City Hall
A slight push, then the jack was home and Jones latched the throat piece.
“Commencing power-up,” she said, pulling her suited arms free of their bays.
The armor weighed some fifty pounds even for a suit tailored to her slight frame, and it took much of her natural strength to prevent her arms falling to her sides. She reached her right arm across to her left forearm, flicked back the protective cover, and pressed the power toggle.
Instantly the suit contracted around her body, cushioning against her form-fitting coveralls. A slight tingle behind her ear and a hiss of hydraulics as it hermetically sealed itself round her neck, and suddenly the battle armor weighed as little as she did. On the small forearm view screen, figures began to scroll slowly, giving her readouts on suit pressure, external gravity, and internal temperature as well as her vital signs.
“All in the green,” she said, stepping away from her locker.
As she reached for the helmet nestling in the locker door, a pair of armor clad arms snaked past her, snagging it up.
“I’ve got it,” said Tyler over his shoulder to Jones, passing it to her as she whirled to face him. “I’ll help the captain check on the others.”
“Aye, Sergeant,” said Jones.
She felt the mood
of her team lighten as conversations broke out—the usual light pre-mission banter that had been missing.
“Sorry, Captain. I was out of line,” Tyler said as he handed her the helmet.
“So was I,” she murmured, accepting it. “I hadn’t realized ...”
“Forget it.” An embarrassed half grin lit his face. “Each to their own. You look after us, we cover your back, ma’ am.”
As she lifted the helmet, she studied his face, then hastily lowered it over her head as she saw his eyes darken with an emotion neither of them should feel. Momentarily cut off from him and the rest of the ship behind the tinted visor, she took her time locking it in place, delaying the moment of activating the comm system.
The suit commenced the last of its power-up routine. To her left, on the inside of her visor, she could see the same diagnostic list, still all in green, recognizing that the gravity and air around her was standard Earth normal and there was no need for the gravity compensators or her personal air supply to be triggered. Instead, external vents opened and filters began to automatically scrub the air.
She lightened her visor, seeing Tyler fitting on his own helmet. Hologram tell-tales lit up on her right, giving her the exact position of the five members of her team, and showing a locator for the other team captains. In her left ear, the constant feed from their handler, Raines, had already begun.
“Blue One checking in,” she said.
“Acknowledged, Blue One,” said Raines.
“Blue Two checking in,” said Tyler.
“Acknowledged,” she said crisply, reaching into her locker door for her pulse rifle and pistol. A movement of her chin to the left and she was checking her suit’s level of stored ammo: full. She thumbed open the holster panel in her left forearm and stowed the pistol.
“Blue Three checking in,” said Lydecker.
“Blue Four.” That was Hutton, their medic.
The rest signed in in quick succession.
“Move out,” she ordered in response to Raines’ order over the command battle channel.
Columbia City Museum
“Blue Two checking in,” the voice in her helmet repeated loudly.
Jones, not Tyler.
“Acknowledged.” She left the visor opaqued for now. She didn’t want Jones knowing just how sharp the memories were today.
“Blue Three signing in,” said the voice of one of the student reenactors the museum employed to bulk out the display.
“Once more for posterity, eh, Captain?” Jones’ voice on their private comm link was full of forced cheeriness.
“Posterity be damned,” she snapped. They all thought she’d gotten off light because of the publicity the whole shambles had attracted, but she hadn’t. Every day she was forced to reenact the Relief of Hope Colony, the authorized version of course, at this damned military museum. Sandler and his cronies at the Oval Residence had suppressed the truth, called it her errors of judgment, made sure only their version had been released publicly.
“Starting battle simulation on my mark in three, two, one. Mark.” The voice of the museum tech came over their battle channel loud and clear, sounding as remote as Raines’ always had.
Abruptly the setting around them changed, morphing into the streets surrounding Hope City Hall.
Hope City Hall
“Blue One to Base. City Hall perimeter reached,” she said from her position crouched behind a low wall surrounding a deserted street café. From behind she could hear bursts of sporadic gunfire. “Holding position.”
“Acknowledged, Blue One. Green Team will rendezvous with you in three minutes.”
“Incoming, one o’clock high!” yelled Lydecker.
Jumping up, she dove over the wall, rolling and coming up in a crouch, rifle trained on the tall building opposite. The sidewalk exploded as a burst of energy hit it. Globs of molten pavement flew into the air, filling the dense smoke with sparks of fire. A low thrumming told her the suit’s air filters were working overtime.
“Where is he?” she demanded. “Dammit, Raines, Beta Unit declared this area cleared!”
“I can’t see through the smoke, Captain,” said Raines.
Another explosion, closer this time, taking out part of the wall just ahead of them.
“Brolin, find him! We’re sitting ducks! Rest, back up ten feet,” she ordered. Brolin’s low cursing about handlers safe on ships sounded through their private comm channel, making her smile. He was the best gunner around, she could ignore his odd lapse of discipline. Angling her head inside the helmet, she hit the targeting grid control with her chin.
A flash of light caught her eye. Instantly she gave it her full attention, blinking twice rapidly to trigger her auto-tracker.
“Got him! Grid ref ...”
“On it,” Brolin sang out as he launched his missile.
Instinct made her duck as it roared over her head. She tracked it, catching sight of another flash from the distant window with peripheral vision.
“Incoming!” Tyler’s hand closed on her arm, jerking her to her feet and hauling her backward.
The blast lifted them off their feet, sending them flying through the air to land in a nearby flowerbed in a tangle of armored limbs.
Her first thoughts for her team, she checked the telltales—all present and green, no one hurt. A rapid tattoo of cooling stone fragments rained down on her suit. Movement beneath her drew her attention and she focused on the view outside her helmet.
Tyler grinned up at her. “Gonna have to stop meetin’ like this, Cap’n. People gonna start talkin’.”
A loud explosion from behind and above boomed out, counterpointed by Brolin’s understated, “He’s gone now.”
“Thanks,” she muttered to Tyler, pushing herself off him and getting to her feet. She reached a hand down to help him up as he flicked small chunks of rubble off his suit with his gloved hand. “That was too close.”
“It was,” he agreed, accepting her help.
“Blue Two, I have a red light on your suit integrity,” said Raines. “Please initiate internal diagnostics and external visual scans immediately.”
“Acknowledged, Base,” Tyler responded, flipping open his forearm control panel. He scanned it, then pressed a couple of keypads. “Suit’s fine, false warning. No need to evac me.”
“Let me check,” she demanded.
“It’s fine, Captain. Raines, you copy? All is green.”
“Copy, Blue Two. Warning light extinguished.”
“Tyler, tell me you haven’t overridden the security checks,” she said, switching off the battle channel.
“Green Team approaching on our Six, Captain,” interrupted Lydecker.
“Acknowledged,” she responded as Tyler raised his eyebrows at her.
“It was a malfunction, Captain. No time for a visual check. There’s a hostage waiting for us.”
“It better be! I’ve never lost a man, and I don’t intend to start now!”
“Green Team,” he said succinctly.
Annoyed, she turned the battle channel back on.
“Nice shooting, Brolin,” said Kirby, as he strode over. “Slade, I’m taking over. Fall in behind my men. Now the sniper’s been dealt with, we’re moving into the building.”
“Aye, Captain,” she gestured the rest of Blue Team to follow.
“Don’t remember anyone putting him in charge,” muttered Brolin on their private channel.
“Old man’s a glory hound,” said Lydecker. “This being a high-profile mission, it’s to be expected.”
Still concerned over Tyler’s suit, she’d ignored their comments.
Columbia City Museum
She blinked the tears back. Why had she taken his word about his suit integrity? She should have insisted on checking it over, found the fractured air line ... Had she done so, she could have ...
“Done nothing, Captain.”
Jones’ voice cut through her reflections. Like Tyler, Jones had an uncanny knack of following her th
oughts.
“It wasn’t just one incident, Captain, it was the accumulation of several.”
“I wish I believed that,” she whispered, hand tightening on her rifle as they moved through the garden simulation of Hope City Hall.
Hope City Hall
“Heat signs in two locations,” said Raines. “Four people breaking off. Possibly heading toward the level four elevator.”
“Possibly, Raines?” snapped Kirby, halting both teams behind a waist-high ornamental wall. “I need accurate information!”
There was a short silence. “Green Team, head for the east side entrance. Take up defensive positions in the underground parking lot. Prevent them from leaving.”
“Acknowledged, Base,” Kirby replied.
The whole area was too quiet, she thought, following Green Team through the eastern lobby.
“Don’t like this, Captain,” muttered Lydecker, rifle raised as he checked the ceiling high above them for niches or balconies. There was one, straight ahead above the staircase. “Too many chances for an ambush.”
“Stow it, mister,” snapped Kirby. “Opportunity’s got the place under constant surveillance. Our handlers know exactly where the rebels and hostage are.”
A snigger of laughter, then, “You got us leadin’ now, Lydecker. No need to worry. None of those dirt farmers can hide from our scanners!”
She triggered their private channel. “Ignore him, guys. Ship scans aren’t foolproof. Stay alert and check everything.”
A low chorus of acknowledgments sounded. All went quiet as they split forces, each team heading in opposite directions around the curve of the lobby toward the short staircase at the rear.
Her glance flicked up to the small balcony ahead as they hugged close to the wall. Something just didn’t feel right. It was too easy. Not even their heavy boots made a sound on the marble floor, as if every sound was swallowed ...
She stopped, raising her arm to signal her team.
Women of War Page 26
