9
Fifty-four minutes later, a squad of infantry emerged onto Geltrain and headed toward the market.
“Are those Cents?” a woman asked, stepping up to stand beside Rev, her hand raised to shade her eyes.
“Those are Union Marines, ma’am,” Rev said, a wave of relief flowing over him like a tsunami.
The weight of responsibility was lifted from his shoulders.
<They may not be here to relieve you. Comms have not opened yet.>
“Hell, you have to be a fly in the ointment, don’t you?”
More people started crowding around, the general hubbub rising in volume, but even with the Marines now only a couple hundred meters away, they stayed within the boundary of the market as if a fence kept them in.
Rev knew he should be scanning the area, watching for a Centaur to pop out, but his eyes were locked onto the squad as they slowly closed the distance. As the point man reached the edge of the square, he halted, caught Rev’s eyes, and gave him the hand-and-arm signal to wait. Rev took a single step out from the market and silently stood there.
The squad members faced outboard, and Rev’s hopes took a small hit. Why face outboard in a hasty defensive position unless there was still a threat?
A staff sergeant—a glorious sight in their PAL-3 combat suit—made their way forward and approached Rev. “Looking for Corporals Pelletier or Reiser.”
“Pelletier.”
The staff sergeant reached Rev and held out a gauntleted hand.
“Thought that must be you. Staff Sergeant Prospero, Fox Company. We’re here to relieve you,” they said in a gender-neutral voice.
“You mean, we’ve won? My comms are still down, and I’m out of the loop.”
The staff sergeant looked at the civilians crowded around, eagerly waiting on the reply. “Most of the city is secure. We’re sweeping for stragglers right now. I . . . I don’t know about the rest of the planet. As you said, comms are still down.”
The murmuring from the crowd took on a disappointed tone.
“Was there a courser taken out, maybe in the river?”
“A courser? Yeah. At the central park. Echo had a tough time with that bastard. How’d you know?”
So, it made it out.
If Echo, a full Marine company, had problems with it, then Rev really hadn’t stood much of a chance against the behemoth.
“Not important, Staff Sergeant. So, what now?”
“Like I said, we’re here to relieve you. I need a full debrief, numbers of civilians, casualties, the whole situation. After that, what you do next is up to your orders, I guess.”
The civilians were crowding closer and closer. There were lots of excited faces. Rev didn’t think there were Angel shits among them, but he wasn’t sure this was the place for a debrief.
“If I can suggest we find Corporal Reiser, she’s got a better handle on the situation here. I was out there rounding up folks for most of this.”
The staff sergeant nodded, then turned on their speakers and faced the crowd. “I am Staff Sergeant Prospero, Union Marines. My squad is here to provide security until we can declare the city secure, but as of now, it looks like we kicked the tin-asses’ butts!”
The civilians cheered, people hugging and slapping each other on the back.
“I need you to remain in place for now, but as soon as we can, we’ll see about releasing you back to your homes.”
“Sergeant Amin, take over and get the squad in position while I go with Corporal Pelletier.”
The staff sergeant indicated that Rev should lead, and the two started pushing through the crowd. A Marine in a PAL-3 is a pretty imposing figure, and the people slowly parted for them, but not without calling for information. They knew something was up—they’d heard the people near Rev’s position cheer, and the mere presence of the infantry Marine got them excited.
The staff sergeant kept saying things like, “Things are going well,” and “We’ll keep you informed,” as Rev led them to the food court and Jeremiah’s Shawarmas. Rev asked one of the proctors to fetch Tomiko from where she was guarding the northeast corner of the market before going into the restaurant’s small office. There were two people inside, a proctor and a person in cooks’ whites. Maybe it was Jeremiah, but Rev didn’t ask. What he did ask was for them to give him the office.
The staff sergeant looked huge in the small room. Rev sat on the corner of the desk, but there was no place for a Marine in a PAL-3 to sit.
“How did it go? I saw the buildings there right across the street.”
“Navy Shrike. Almost hit us. And a shuttle crashed another five hundred meters away.”
Rev couldn’t see the staff sergeant’s face, but he thought he could see a slight slumping in the Marine’s posture.
“Third Platoon, Golf Company. Lost some good people there.”
“Have casualties been . . . uh, heavy?” Rev asked, his face scrunched up as he waited for the answer.
“I don’t know for sure, but I don’t think so. No one from my squad.”
That surprised Rev. A happy surprise.
“There weren’t many tin-asses in the city, at least not that we’ve found. More of those little ones.”
“The mini-Centaurs. They’re not manned,” Rev told them.
He didn’t know that for a fact, but it was the only thing that made sense.
“They’ll mess you up, the ones with weapons in the pedestals, but your Morays there,” the SNCO said, using their chin to point to Rev’s missiles, “will do the job.”
“I know. We took out two at the emitter station.”
“Good shit,” the staff sergeant said before reaching up and opening their helmet, revealing a crop-haired woman in her thirties. “Damn, it feels good not to be breathing canned air.”
She put her hand in through her open face shield and gave her scalp a good scratching. “What about you guys here? Did things go OK?”
“Lost up to a hundred, maybe,” Rev said bitterly.
“That courser you were asking me about?”
“Yeah, it hit us as we were moving here.”
“Shit, sorry. So, it hit you and moved off?”
Rev shook his head. “I kinda gave it a nudge to leave.”
The staff sergeant raised her eyebrows in an unspoken question.
“I just had the one Moray then, and my battle buddy reminded me of the shitty chances it would stop one.”
“Yeah? So . . . ?”
“It was on the bridge, so I took it out. The bridge, I mean. Dropped it into the river.”
“Damn. Really? We saw the bridge coming over. Had to detour, but I didn’t think a Marine had done that.”
Rev just shrugged.
“Most excellent thinking, Corporal, but given your rep, I’m not surprised.”
“My rep?”
The staff sergeant laughed and said, “Yeah, your rep. As in tin-ass killer.”
Rev frowned. Yes, he’d managed to kill Centaurs, but for various reasons, that had been kept under wraps. Evidently, not as well as the brass might have thought. He felt more than a little uncomfortable to have a staff sergeant defer to him when it came to that.
He was saved from responding when Tomiko entered the office. Propriety be damned, but Rev gave her a giant hug.
“You look like shit,” he told her, and it was true. Her eyes were hollow and flat.
She pushed him back at arm’s length and studied his face. “You boosted.”
It wasn’t a question but a statement of fact.
“I had to. I was at the end of my rope there, Miko.”
“You gotta do what you gotta do,” she said.
“Miko, this is Staff Sergeant Prospero.”
“Prospero? I’ve heard about you. Echo, right? Talent Moreno’s in your platoon.”
“Second Squad. Good Marine.”
Rev didn’t know who this Moreno was, but with the entire regiment coming from metro Swansea, it wasn’t surprising that there were lots of short degrees of separation.
“So, just passing through?” Tomiko asked.
“Here to relieve you while the regiment conducts sweeps. I need a brief of the situation, and Corporal Pelletier here said you’re the one I need to talk to.”
Tomiko took the next few minutes and gave a thorough debrief despite her obvious fatigue. Augmented or not, XL-12’s or not, forty hours without sleep took a toll on a person.
Rev listened to her debrief. He knew most of it, but some things were new to him. That was his fault. He should have asked the same questions of her when he arrived at the market.
“Remind me to conduct better briefs in the future.”
<Added to your long list of reminders.>
Is Punch being sarcastic? Is that even possible?
As a personal reminder—not one he asked his battle buddy to note—he was going to have to learn more about battle buddies and their programming.
But that was for some time later, not now. Tomiko was wrapping up, answering a few questions from the staff sergeant.
“Well, if that’s it, I guess you’re hereby relieved. Good job, you two.”
“Any idea when we’ll get comms?” Tomiko asked.
The staff sergeant shook her head and said, “Not until we either secure the planet or have to sound a recall.”
“Well in that case, we’re to stay here until we get word,” Tomiko said.
“Sounds good.”
“I’ll come out in a bit to help with security if you need me,” Rev said. “I’ve got another dozen hours or so before I crash from the ATP boost.”
“That sounds good, too. We can always use more trigger-pullers. Check in with Sergeant Amin. He’ll find you a position.”
“Roger that.”
The staff sergeant reached out again to bump fists with the two of them, closed up her helmet, and left the office.
“What about you? You going to hang out here?” he asked Tomiko.
“Well, since I didn’t boost, I’m running on empty. That couch over there is calling my name.”
She stumbled over to the small, ratty couch, barely big enough for two people to sit abreast. Luckily, she was a small woman, and she collapsed into it, her legs drawn up. She gave Rev a wink, and within thirty seconds, she was out cold.