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

  “Nice work, Tamara,” Wythe whispered, his lips just centimeters from her ear. “I guess I owe you one.”

  “You mean I’m not a boot anymore?” she whispered back with a snort.

  “Quiet under there, and don’t move!” the EOD tech shouted from outside the blanket. “Unless you want me to make a mistake!”

  Tamara froze, not willing to move a muscle.

  “No, you’re not a boot,” Wythe whispered even quieter.

  Two minutes later, the blankets were whipped off of them. A happy EOD tech, his faceplate opened revealing an amazing amount of sweat pouring down his face, smiled broadly at them.

  “Done and done,” he said as he clipped the ziptie that was keeping the three and the dead SevRev connected. “And you guys are pretty damned lucky. He had enough C10 to blow a hole 30, 40 meters across.”

  Korf looked around, and Tamara could see the mental gears turning.

  “Thirty meters? But how could those blanket things protect us from that?” he asked.

  “They couldn’t,” the tech said with a laugh. “But I needed you to keep still, and who knows, maybe they could have scraped up enough bits and pieces of you to regen afterwards. Maybe enough of me, too,” he added, slapping his EOD suit.

  “And I thought you were bat-shit crazy,” Wythe said to Tamara.

  “We’re clear!” the tech shouted out as he stood up straight, waving his arms.

  It was only then that Tamara noticed that there was no one around them for at least fifty meters. No Marines, no hostages, no reporters. A small cam-drone hovered over them about 10 meters up, but that was it.

  With the all clear, though, a small tsunami of humanity started forward.

  Before they could reach them, Tamara held out her hand to the EOD tech and said, “Lance Corporal Tamara Veal, and thanks for saving our asses.”

  The Marine took her hand and said, “Staff Sergeant Polinus T’ber, and don’t mention it. That’s why I get the EOD hazard duty pay. That was pretty ballsy on your part. How did you know he was a suicide?”

  “I didn’t know. I just reacted, I think.”

  “Thank God for that,” Wythe said.

  “Those are the kind of reactions we like in EOD. If you ever want to come over to the dark side, look me up. I’m sure we can make room for you.”

  Tamara laughed and said, “I may be crazy, but I’m not that crazy! I’d kind of like to live to have kids someday, and this girl isn’t one for big risks like that.”

  “Like jumping on a suicide? Risks like that? Just keep us in mind, Lance Corporal,” he said as the wave of Marines and reporters reached them.

  TARAWA

  Chapter 2

  “Hey, it’s The Blonde Terror!” Fanny Dolsch shouted out as Tamara walked into the Down ’N Out.

  Tamara wasn’t blonde, and she had nothing in common with the Blonde Terror’s over-the-top braggadocio, but he was a one of the revolving wresting champions, so she didn’t protest. She was an MMA fan, not wrestling, but she was enjoying her new-found attention.

  If the other Marines had thought her a boot or a dilettante, all of that had vanished on Wyxy. She was part of the team now, and that was something she cherished.

  Tamara had not been ostracized at school, but neither had she been one of the Alphas. Big and athletic, other students seemed to take pride in her accomplishments representing the school, and she had friends, but not too many guys gravitated romantically to a girl who could tie them into knots should she get that into her head. With her one boyfriend, if she could call Cyrus that, they had not gotten beyond kissing—something that excited her very being, but didn’t seem to do that much for Cyrus. At least they’d stayed together until after prom, which had been better than nothing.

  Enlisting in the Marines had been partially instigated because of her size. Yes, she was driven by patriotism and a love of physical activity. Yes, she was following in both her uncle and grandfather’s footsteps, but the Marines were the biggest and baddest group of misfits in the Federation, and she thought that among them, boys—no, men—might be more attracted to her than a tiny wisp of a woman.

  Of course, as she found out, her concept of size had been pretty much mistaken. There were large Marines, small Marines, and Marines right in the middle, and size didn’t seem to have anything to do with a Marine’s status. It was the size of the fight in the dog, not the size of the dog in the fight that mattered, as the saying went. Heck, the most badass Marine in the platoon was probably the petite—and attractive—Sergeant Vinter. But not even Wythe, who had no social graces, dared to contemplate how the good sergeant might be in a social setting. A tiger was a beautiful animal, but no sane person climbed into a cage with one, after all.

  But there were some rather large Marines, Tamara noted, as she saw Lance Corporal Victor Williams, all two-point-three meters of him, already sitting in the large corner booth her friends had staked out.

  “Sit down, Veal. I’ve got a pitcher with your name on it!” Wythe shouted, waving a stein of beer.

  Wythe, Fanny, Doc Neves, and several other Marines had gotten a pretty good head start on Tamara at the Down ’N Out, one of the grubby bars located on Hill Street. The Down ’N Out might not be fancy, but the beer was cheap, and like all of the Hill Street bars, it had been pretty much abandoned by the NCOs and higher. Oh, a few corporals might hang out with friends, but not that often. SNCOs rarely made an appearance, and officers pretty much never. And that made the string of bars just about perfect from the point of view of the non-rates.

  Tamara, slid in beside Wythe, using her butt to push him aside and stake her own claim. Her fifth-grade decorum teacher, Ms. Garcia, would have been shocked by her manners, but Wythe didn’t blink an eye other than hold up the stein higher so as not to spill any of it.

  “Took you long enough,” Fanny said. “We’ve almost drunk all the beer Jessie here bought for you, and the next pitcher’s on you.”

  “That true, Wythe? You buy this?”

  “True that. I told you on the Caracas I was buying, dint I? An’ a Marine never goes back on his word, am I right?”

  Tamara took the beer from his hand and took a long swallow. It was true that Wythe had said that after embarking back on the ship, and having just gotten back to the base that afternoon, this was the first chance he’d had. Tamara just hadn’t been too sure that he was serious or that it had been the raw nerves of almost getting killed that had been speaking. Still, the beer was cold and good, and if she had the next pitcher, she was going to drink as much of this pitcher as she could.

  She made a show of smacking her lips, then said, “The skipper wanted to see me. Couldn’t get out of that.”

  There were some good-natured hoots from the others, and Wythe made a fist, put his nose in the hole made by his thumb and forefinger, and rotated it back and forth. Tamara punched Wythe in the arm, and not gently.

  I am not a brown-noser! she protested, but silently.

  It was OK to hit one of her buddies, but to protest out loud would only invite further trash talk.

  “That’s ’cause you’re a bleeding hero,” Fanny said, drawing out the “e” in hero.

  “Eat me,” Tamara said as the others laughed.

  Marines tended to rather earthy language, to put it mildly, but “eat me” was about as vulgar as Tamara could get. She knew that schools on other planets almost never formally taught decorum, but those on Orinoco did, and Ms. Garcia had made an impact on her. Swearing just didn’t come naturally to Tamara.

  “You getting an award?” Victor asked.

  All eyes turned to her, suddenly serious.

  “Eh, I don’t know. It’s no big deal,” she answered, attempting to sound nonchalant.

  But it was a big deal. Especially to Marines. The old earth general Napoleon had famously said “A soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of colored ribbon,” and Tamara was bursting with pride that Captain Mueller had told her she was being recommended for the Silver Star.<
br />
  A Silver Star! The third highest award for valor. For me!

  Of course, it had not been approved yet, and she couldn’t let the rest know that she was excited over the possibility. All Marines coveted awards. It was in their DNA, a validation of their service. But no one could seem like he or she was chasing medals, which was a good way to get not only him or her killed but his or her fellow Marines as well.

  “Eh, you’ll get one, maybe a BC1,” Victor said, reaching his stein over the table to clink with hers.

  Not a BC1. A Silver Star, she thought as she half stood and reached across Wythe to clink steins with Victor.

  “Hey, watch it. I don’t need your boobs in my face when I’m drinking!” Wythe shouted out, spilling some of his beer.

  Laughter and shouts of “Oh you love it,” and “That’s as close as you’re going to get to any,” greeted his statement.

  Tamara sat back down, and she could feel her face reddening. Sexual innuendo and jokes were part of the culture in the modern Corps, and a Marine couldn’t be too self-conscious about body parts when living in such close quarters. And while Marines did hook up together as relationships developed, sexual harassment was a rare occurrence and was grounds for an immediate General Court Martial.

  Wythe’s comment about her breasts were as innocuous as if he’d said her shoulder, even if the others chose to ride him about it. However, as an Orinoco girl, Tamara still wasn’t used to such casual reference to certain body parts.

  Tamara couldn’t help but to look down at her breasts, though. Tamara knew she wasn’t a beautiful girl by most standards. She wasn’t ugly, either, but no head-turner. But she had a deeply held pride in her breasts, which she thought were good-sized and rather well-formed. Without a doubt, she considered them her best feature, and while she didn’t flash them in public, when in civvies, she never-the-less wore blouses she thought might enhance their appearance.

  She quickly looked up at Victor, and his eyes were on them for a moment before he quickly looked away. Tamara was still embarrassed, but Victor’s attention was more than a little exciting. She thought Lance Corporal Victor Williams was one heck of a fine cut of a man, and he seemed nice enough. This wasn’t the first occasion that she had reflected that it would be interesting—which was as detailed of a term that she would allow herself—to have a romantic liaison with a nice guy who was so much larger than her. She could feel the flush on her face grow, and she wasn’t sure anymore if it was just from the embarrassment or something else.

  “This one’s on me!” she shouted, too loudly, as she stood up and grabbed the empty pitcher. “What are we drinking? San Miguel?”

  “You can’t tell? What a lightweight!” Doc Neves said. “That’s Wolfshead Red, Tammy.”

  “That’s Tamara, Doc. I’m not a freaking Tammy. But Wolfshead Red it is. What about Corporal Medicine Crow? Did she show up yet? I owe her more than I owe you guys.”

  Corporal Medicine Crow was the sniper she’d seen back on Wyxy, and she’d been the one to take out the SevRev with whom she’d been wrestling. It had taken Tamara awhile to find that out, but once she had, she’d sent to corporal an invitation to meet them for a beer. Sgt Priest might have blown the guy’s head to bits, but it had been the sniper who had done all the real damage.

  “The Ice Bitch is coming?” Wythe asked.

  “The Ice Bitch?” Tamara repeated, confused.

  “Yeah. Crow. Hot as snot on the outside, but cold as Hades on the inside.”

  He clinked his stein with Vic’s in a toast.

  Ice Bitch? She hadn’t seemed bad when they talked on the PA. Pretty, yes, even beautiful, but it was hard to tell much more than that on the small PA screen.

  “Well, she sure ‘iced’ that SevRev,” Tamara said, feeling a need to defend the corporal.

  “Touché, Tammy,” Doc Neves said. “We girls have to stick up for each other. Wythe’s just mad because he’s like all the rest of guys in the battalion, lusting after Corporal Crow when she won’t give any of them the time of day.”

  “Tamara, Doc, Tamara. But if its raging hormones talking, then I need to get the beer to cool these guys off.”

  She walked up to the bar, handing the bartender the empty. He gave it a quick sweep under the irradiator, then started filling it up. She looked back at her group while she waited.

  Tammy! she thought, looking at Doc.

  She’d never been a “Tammy.” Her little sister had called her Tamtam, but other than that, she’d always been Tamara. Marines, or corpsmen, in the case of Doc, often gave nicknames to each other, but Tammy? That wasn’t very warrior-like. Not like Corporal “Killer” Wheng. That was a Grade A nick.

  Fanny, sitting on Korf’s left side, was reaching around behind him to tickle his right ear with a rolled up napkin. Korf turned to punch the new boot Lassi Rassiter, who was sitting on his right, in the arm. Lassi, taken by surprised, punched his arm back as Fanny laughed uproariously.

  Horseplay, pure and simple: what friends did with each other. This was part of the bonding process, that which made Marines what they were. Combat was a big part, maybe the most important part, but even this was vital in forging the unit. And Tamara was part of that now. She belonged.

  “Here you go,” the bartender said, handing Tamara the pitcher.

  When she tried to pay for it, the bartender waved her off with one hand.

  “I saw you on the holo,” he said. “Copacetic to the max, Lance Corporal. This one’s on me.”

  Tamara didn’t know what to say. She knew the newscams had caught her tackling the SevRev, but this was the first time someone she didn’t know recognized her. It felt decidedly weird.

  “Are you sure? I can pay,” she said.

  “I insist,” he said, stepping back from the bar and out of reach of the PA she’d held out.

  “OK, then. Uh, well, thanks, I guess,” she said, pocketing her PA and turning back to the booth.

  And she felt whole. This was what Uncle Benjie had told her about belonging, something she’d been missing while on the track team. This was what the Marine Corps was all about.

  And free beer! she thought. It just doesn’t get any better than this!

  Chapter 3

  Tamara watched the monitors closely. Third Platoon was going through their training run, and Tamara thought they were the platoon to beat. But the lieutenant and SSgt Abdálle had been drilling Second hard, and Tamara thought they had a good chance to not only win the battalion competition, but maybe the division as well. This year, the Corps-wide Premier Platoon competition was on Transcendent Reef, and Tamara would love to make it to the fabled planet.

  Second Platoon was up next, and while tomorrow’s start of the actual competition wouldn’t be broadcast until after every platoon had made all six problems, the run-throughs were free game, and if Tamara could learn something from them, she would.

  A crew-served weapon opened up on Third’s flank, taking them in enfilade. Two Marines fell, but the flank squad quickly maneuvered through the kill zone while the rest of the platoon providing suppressing fire. Within minutes, the enemy crew-served was destroyed, the KIA tended, and the platoon was back on the move.

  Nicely done, Tamara had to admit to herself. But we can beat that.

  The hype about the new Gen Four RCET,[4] the pride of First Division, seemed to be well-deserved. The enemy in the run-through looked pretty real to her, even over the monitors hanging above the stadium seats in the theater. The Gen Four had only been operational for six months, and this was Tamara’s first chance to use it. She’d used the old RCET at Camp Charles, of course, but she could see that this new one put the that old antique to shame. She hoped it would give the platoon, if they could take the division title, the edge on the rest of the Corps. Third Division’s Gen Four was just about to be commissioned, and that would be too late for most of the competition. No other unit had theirs yet.

  “Veal! Come down here!” Staff Sergeant Abdálle shouted from the front
of the seats, earning a disapproving look from some major sitting right under the platoon sergeant’s nose.

  What now? she wondered.

  She was anxious for their turn in the breach, and she didn’t want anything, like some stupid “special” task, to get in the way. She was feeling confident as to her place in the squad, but this would be the first real field training in the three weeks since coming back from Wyxy, and she wanted to work with her fire team, squad, and this time, platoon. She’d read enough to know that the better a unit trained together, the better it would perform in combat, and she was gung-ho ready to make that happen.

  “Get down here now!” the staff sergeant said. “I don’t have all day, and neither does the CO. She wants to see you ASAP!”

  She? That meant LtCol Rhonendren, not Capt Mueller.

  Jessie Wythe coughed loudly, then rotated his clenched hand around his nose again, his favorite sign language.

  Tamara stood up, making sure to give Jessie a hard kick in the shin as she stepped past him.

  “Brown-noser, brown-noser,” he choked out, making the words sound like a cough.

  Vic was sitting with his squad in the next row down, and he gave Tamara a supporting smile. Tamara was tempted to give his shoulder a brush with her hand as she passed in back of him, but she resisted.

  There was no restriction on dating between Marines of the same rank, but a certain decorum was expected, especially while in uniform. With all eyes on her as she made her way to the center aisle, it wouldn’t go over well if she openly committed PDA.[5]