Gladiator (Women of the United Federation Marines Book 1) Read online

  “Why would I ever smell chicken shit?” Wythe asked. “What, they can’t get rid of it? And I don’t see no chickens here nowhere.”

  “They use it for fertilizer. See those plants? They’re strawberries. They use the shit as organic fertilizer.”

  “Bullshit, Korf! No one uses shit on food. It’d be unsanitary, that’s what it’d be!”

  “I’m afraid Korf’s right,” Corporal Wheng said. “That’s how they get such high prices for their produce.”

  Wythe stopped dead for a moment. “You mean, they really use shit on food?”

  “Keep it moving, Wythe. We haven’t stopped,” Sergeant Vinter interjected.

  “Fucking A,” Wythe muttered as he started up again. “Crazy fucks never heard of fabricators, I guess. I ain’t never eating no organic crap again, no fucking way!”

  Tamara had to start breathing through her open mouth, the stench was so putrid. Even then, she could imagine the little chicken shit molecules coating her throat. Orinoco had a number of the back-to-basics organic farms, and she knew that they used natural fertilizer, but she’d never been close to one of the farms before, and while Wythe was taking it too far, she could sympathize. She’d eaten organics, but only after they were placed in nice stasis packages and sold in specialty stores. After getting socked in the face with the reality on how they were grown, she wasn’t sure she’d want to try them again, either.

  And their objective, the Farmer’s Market was still two klicks ahead in Rose Garden. Tamara couldn’t help but hope that the name of the village might be reflected in its smell.

  After crossing Renter’s Creek, though, either Tamara’s nose had gotten used to the stench or they’d gotten out of the nasal kill zone. The fields of knee-high sweet corn, unlike the strawberry fields, were fairly benign. On the other side of the corn fields, Tamara knew, was the assembly area for the assault.

  This entire operation was not exactly textbook. There were embedded reporters and drones, and it seemed more like a live-fire dog-and-pony show rather than a combat operation. The assembly area not only did not have cover and concealment, but it was in full view of the Rose Garden Farmers’ Market another 600 meters away. It made for great cam shots, though, Sergeant Vinter had noted sarcastically.

  Six hundred meters was nothing. Even a half-assed marksman could shoot that far accurately. Most handheld energy weapons would ablate to ineffectiveness over that distance (especially considering the suppressor field generators being emplaced between the assembly area and the Farmers’ Market), and their bones would stop just about any projectile at that distance as well. Still, Intel could be wrong, and they could have more powerful crew-served weapons.

  The reporters, though, did not have the same protection as the Marines. Most had on helmets of some sort and various types of ballistic vests, but that still left a lot of exposed flesh just begging for the attention of a SevRev sniper. As Tamara followed her column into the assembly area, she could see more than a few reporters and cam operators wandering around, looking for Marines to interview, and entirely exposed.

  “What a circus,” Korf muttered ahead of her, something to which she wholeheartedly agreed.

  Whatever she had imagined a combat op to be, this wasn’t it. But she knew she had to focus. The SevRevs were serious enemies, not to be taken lightly. The reporters were superfluous, to be ignored. The mission was to crush the SevRevs and save as many of the hostages as possible.

  A Wasp overflew the assembly area and the market, nasty and mean. With the hostages, air couldn’t engage the SevRevs, but the psychological effect should be significant. They had to be rattled—at least, that was part of the plan.

  As the Marines moved into the assembly area, the psych warfare team was already at work.

  Speaking through a small, but incredibly powerful directional speaker, one of the Marines in the team said, “Inside the market, we are the United Federation Marines. You are trapped where you are. If you want to live, release the hostages. If you comply, you will not be harmed.

  “If you do not release the hostages and resist us, you are inviting a certain destruction. It is up to you. Surrender and live or resist and die.”

  No one expected the SevRevs to surrender. Dying was part of their creed. But the formalities had to be observed, especially with the press present. And if the psych warfare team could get a few of them to have second thoughts, to make them less committed to the path they were taking, all the better.

  “Check your curtains!” Staff Sergeant Abdálle shouted out.

  Tamara dutifully activated the curtain. What looked like fog rolled down from the rim of her helmet, coalescing around her head. Within moments, the fog cleared to invisibility, and a steady lilac light on her heads-up display indicated it was working. The fog had bothered her, but she knew it had only been visible to let each Marine know the curtain was deploying.

  On Janson, in the Confederation, the SevRevs, in their burn-the-fields strategy, had deployed a super-aggressive biological that had killed six Confed soldiers, their brains too eaten up for regen. The Marines didn’t know what to expect from the SevRevs in the market, so they had included NBC[2] capabilities in their rehearsals for the operation. Tamara shuddered at the thought of a brain-eating biological, and it was hard to believe that a little puff of fog around her head would protect her from that. Still, she was glad she had it.

  “Check out the snipers,” Korf whispered to Tamara, nodding to one of two scout sniper teams who had been moving with the company. “Uber cool.”

  The team, a tall, burly man, and a short, very pretty woman, were setting up on top of a small public restroom where the sniper, who was carrying his sniper rifle in a case, could observe the Farmer’s Market. Tamara knew their orders were to take out any SevRevs they could once hostilities initiated. If they were successful, they could save untold hostages.

  “Uber cool” was probably appropriate. Scout snipers had an air about them, and within the Marine Corps culture, they occupied the same niche as recon: the penultimate warriors. Not that Tamara had any desire to join them. She knew that as a Marine, she could be tasked with killing an enemy, but the absolute personal nature of spotting a person through the sniper scope and then reaching out and touching them, lethally, was a little too intense for her.

  To her surprise, the large Marine opened the case and handed the sniper rifle to the smaller Marine. She was the sniper, not him. Tamara ruefully acknowledged that she had stereotyped the pair. The larger man was the a-gunner, the smaller woman the actual sniper.

  “All right,” Sergeant Vinter said. “Let’s get into position. We all know our jobs, so think, Marines, think! No bonehead mistakes.”

  Golf Company was assigned the support element mission. They would provide covering fire, but not enter the market itself. Tamara understood the logic. The market was just too small for anything bigger than a company-sized unit to enter it without max chaos resulting. Still, she’d been disappointed that it wasn’t Golf as the assault element. She’d waited three years to be tested in combat, and this wasn’t going to be that test. Her enlistment would be over in another year, and 2/3 might not see combat again during that time.

  She should be relieved. There was almost no chance of her getting hurt if Golf wasn’t assaulting, and logic would hold that was a good thing. But then no one ever said Marines were married to logic.

  With no response from the SevRevs—not that any was expected—the assault element started to cross the LOD.[3] Even if Tamara couldn’t see much from her position, she felt the excitement rise within her. This was far more intense than anything she’d felt on the track field, and she thought she could get used to the adrenaline rush. She could only imagine what it would be like to be moving forward with Fox, right into the teeth of whatever the SevRevs had waiting for them.

  “I wouldn’t be doing that,” Korf said.

  Tamara looked over at him, and he pointed back to the battalion command group, some 100 meters away.
The CO was moving away from a reporter and her camcorderman, trying to ignore the two as she monitored Fox company. A big Marine was trying to pull back the reporter, but the guy was nimble, dodging the Marine and pressing the CO. Tamara tried to smother a laugh. The reporter was putting Marines in danger, but it did look funny.

  “Eyes front, you two. To your sector,” Sergeant Vinter said, venom in her voice.

  Tamara quickly looked forward, afraid to catch her squad leader’s eyes.

  “Cut the crap, Korf. Don’t get me into any trouble.”

  “You didn’t have to look,” muttered the PFC.

  With Marines to the fore, their sectors of observation were pretty much blocked. Tamara almost wished she was with Third Squad. Their sector was to the rear. Nothing was going to happen there, but at least they had a clear field of vision. In front of her, Tamara thought that the lead Marines of the assault element had to be about half-way to the market. The trail elements were only now crossing the LOD.

  A sudden snap broke through her thoughts. Sergeant Vinter’s admonition forgotten, she looked over to her right where the scout-sniper team had positioned themselves. The sniper was cycling her rifle while the assistant glassed the market. The sniper fired once more, cycled, and then stopped, still looking through her scope.

  Almost immediately, fire sounded from the market. To her front, the Marines from Fox started maneuvering in a bounding overwatch, one unit covering the other while the first moved forward, then that unit stopping and covering while the second one moved forward. Tamara thought she heard a few rounds zipping through the air past her, but she realized that could have been her imagination.

  To her right, the sniper engaged unseen targets several more times, rounds that couldn’t have been individually targeted. At least, Tamara knew she couldn’t acquire a target, aim, and fire that quickly. She guessed snipers had different training.

  Just as the lead elements were at the front of the market, the entire building exploded in a huge fireball of flames and smoke. A few moments later, the shock wave swept over them. Tamara could feel it take the air right from her lungs.

  “Holy shit!” Korf said from behind her, sitting up to get a better view.

  The column of smoke rose 100, 200, then 300 meters into the air, billowing black and angry.

  No one could have survived that, Tamara thought in wonder.

  But there were survivors.

  “We’ve got people coming out,” Sergeant Vinter shouted. “Get ready.”

  As the support element, one of Golf’s missions was to assist with the hostages. First Platoon would be the handling teams, and Tamara’s Second Platoon would provide security.

  “Remember, these are friendlies, but be on the alert,” Sergeant Vinter reminded them.

  Ahead of them, Third Platoon had moved forward into Fox Company, creating a corridor for the survivors. A few Marines entered the corridor to act as traffic cops, funneling the walking back towards the rest of the company and out of immediate danger. A few corpsmen were active for those hostages who collapsed and couldn’t move on their own. There would be more people seriously wounded inside, too wounded to move on their own, and there would be dead that might be resurrectable. Triage teams were ready to move into the ruins of what had been the market, but they couldn’t do anything until Fox cleared them. If hostages had survived the blast, then so would some SevRevs. As if on cue, firing broke out from inside the ruined building.

  The first of the survivors passed Tamara, dirty and bedraggled, but looking unhurt. After a minute or two, others stumbled past with signs of injury. Tamara knew these were the lucky ones, though. Others would have been hurt much worse or killed. The blast had been huge.

  A woman fell right in front of Tamara, and she stepped out to help the panicking woman to her feet. The sheer terror on her face hit Tamara hard, and she felt guilty for being so excited earlier. This wasn’t some console game—this was real war with real consequences. These people were scared for their lives, and it looked like many of them had not survived. Tamara pointed the way, and with a choked thanks, the woman stumbled past Tamara and towards safety.

  More people ran by, and the Marines helped funnel them towards the initial collection points where they would be searched first, then fed to the processing stations. Each survivor had to be identified and cleared, and each would be interviewed before being released. It wasn’t unheard of for hostage-takers to hide among the hostages in order to get away.

  At that thought, Tamara looked back at the smoking ruins of what had been the market, dust still rising into the air. Between that blast and Fox’s assault, which seemed to be petering out, she didn’t think any of the hostage-takers had made it out of that alive.

  Their choice, she thought to herself.

  She was pretty sure that it had been their choice, to bring down the market around themselves. There had been no plans for the Marines to blow the market, and she didn’t think the assault force was carrying anything powerful enough to simply destroy it. No, it had to be the SevRevs.

  The stream of fleeing hostages started to thin out. Tamara sobered as she did a quick mental count. There were about fifty of them who had either reached the Marines or who were on their way—fifty out of five hundred. There could be others fleeing on the far side of the market, but it looked like the SevRevs had taken out most of the hostages when they decided to end it all.

  “Please, sir, help me,” one of the hostages said as he staggered up to Wythe, holding a bloody woman around the shoulders.

  “Doc!” Wythe called out, helping the man lower the woman to the ground.

  Doc Neves hurried up to help and started her triage.

  Wythe helped the man to his feet and asked, “Are you hurt, too? Are you OK?”

  “I’ve got information, sir. I need to talk to your commander. Lives are at stake!” the man said, his voice fraught with stress.

  “Corporal Wheng!” Wythe called out. “This guy says he needs to talk to the commander.”

  The corporal was in the process of picking up a small child, assisting who had to be the child’s mother to get back to the initial collection point.

  He barely gave Wythe a glance over the crying toddler, but he said “Take him, then,” as he nodded to where the battalion commanding officer, surrounded by a Marine squad for security, was standing with some of her staff.

  Tamara thought Wythe had misunderstood their team leader because he turned to the company commander, who was standing with the first sergeant 20 meters to their right. She started to yell out to him, but something caught her attention, something that didn’t completely register with her.

  Wythe was struggling to hold up the hostage, but the man had one hand in his pocket instead of using it to lean on Wythe. It didn’t look natural. And for someone so seemingly frightened, his eyes were now laser-focused on Captain Mueller.

  Tamara broke into a run without realizing just why. With six strides to gather steam, she slammed into Wythe and the hostage, sending both to the ground just as Captain Mueller looked up to see who Wythe was bringing.

  “What the fuck?” Wythe started as Tamara lunged for the hostage’s hand, the one in the pocket.

  The man’s hand was wrapped around something, and the closed fist momentarily hung the hand up, trapping it inside. He twisted and got the hand to where he could start to pull it out when Tamara closed her own hands, both of them, around the man’s hand.

  “Veal! What the hell?” Wythe shouted, rolling away from her. “Are you bat-shit crazy?”

  Tamara ignored Wythe as the man, all pretense of fear gone, tried to jerk his arm free. And without ever seeing one before, Tamara knew what was in his hand: a dead man’s switch.

  This was a SevRev, and he wanted to blow up the captain and anyone else around. She could feel the explosive belt under the man’s jacket as he struggled to free the switch. Tamara knew that if she let go, she was a dead woman—along with Wythe, the captain, the first sergeant, and who
knew who else.

  The man was big, and he outweighed Tamara by 20 kg. He jerked his arm, shaking Tamara like a terrier on a rat, but she was not going to let go. He slammed punch after punch into the side of her head with his free hand, but she focused on clamping her hands into an immovable force.

  She was peripherally aware of shouts around her, but her life and narrowed down to the fist in her hands. If she let go, her life was over, so she simply wasn’t going to let go.

  The man jerked back as blood sprayed over her face. He immediately ceased to fight her. Wary, she held on, but the hole in the side of his head, the blood pouring out of the other side, was evidence enough that he was dead. She started to relax when an explosion by her ear deafened her.

  Am I dead? Did he explode? she wondered, dazed from the pounding and the blast. Did he have a dead man’s switch?

  “Don’t let go, Marine!” a voice called out.

  Moments later, she felt hands close around hers, gentle, but firm hands.

  “We’ve got it now,” the voice said, calm and collected. “Keep holding it, and we’ll get someone here to disarm this guy.”

  She looked up to where the first sergeant was standing over her. Sergeant Priest, the company police sergeant, was holding a massive Peidmeister, a huge, short-barreled self-defense handgun, aimed right at the dead hostage—only he wasn’t a hostage. He was, with emphasis on the “was,” a SevRev. The gaping hole of mangled hamburger that had been his neck and lower face was evidence that Priest had used her Peidmaster to make sure the man was dead. Now, Wythe and Korf were kneeling beside her, their hands around hers.

  “Hey, Korf, can you get off me,” Tamara said weakly.

  “Oh, shit, sorry,” the PFC said, moving his knee from out of her side.

  “Just don’t let go. I’m a little woozy, I think.”

  The first sergeant, with the captain and other Marines watching, bent over the three Marines and wrapped their hands together with a ziptie. They weren’t going anywhere. The three Marines, Tamara in the middle, lay together on top of the dead SevRev for over 20 minutes until an EOD team could get to them. After some initial discussion, the team leader placed anti-ballistic blankets on them, sliding the blankets between them and the dead SevRev, with only their hands sticking out. Tamara had recovered her wits, and underneath the heavy blankets with her two fellow Marines, kept imagining the explosives going off, taking their hands with it. They’d be facing long regens, but at least they’d probably survive.