6
Tomiko aimed her M-49 downrange and pulled the trigger of the attached launcher. The 40mm grenade arched lazily three hundred meters and landed next to the scraps of what might have been almost any kind of Marine vehicle before it was hauled to the range.
“Shit! It didn’t detonate again!” she said, turning around where a major and two civilian techs stood watching.
“We’ll take care of that,” the major said. “But how did it feel?”
Tomiko twisted her M-49 to look at the launcher. “Like everyone else said, it works. I still don’t see why we’re using this, though. The tin-asses gotta be using filters or canned air.”
“This is just one of the employment methods we’re developing. There are others,” the major said. “So, who’s next?”
Private Radić stepped up as Tomiko left the firing position and walked back to the bleachers and took a seat beside Rev.
“You’re not missing much,” she told him. “But even if they can get the damn grenades to detonate, then what the hell good are they gonna do?”
“You heard them. They want the grenades to be destroyed by the self-defense belts. Spread the virus out faster.”
“If they aren’t zapping the air with some sort of virus killer.”
Rev didn’t respond. Tomiko, along with some of the others, was still on edge. The situation on San Jacinto might have been resolved to a negotiated stalemate by the Council of Humanity—assisted by the arrival of a Home Guard battalion—but the entire situation had come too close to ending up bad, very bad.
Rev was just grateful that things hadn’t broken down. He was a Marine on a holy mission, the very survival of the human race, and he was more than angry that the politicians, on both sides, he had to admit, were playing with fire. Why do the Centaurs’ job for them?
So, this little test firing of some prototypes was probably the best thing for the platoon. Give them something to do and bring the focus back on the Centaurs. If Rev was a betting man, he would say that was the captain’s plan. That, or the R&D folks were particularly bad at their jobs. Very few of the bio-grenades were detonating upon impact, so they weren’t field-ready.
He watched Radić fire his rounds. Two detonated with little puffs of mist. One hit a chunk of the wreck and didn’t detonate. Hopefully, by the time the actual weapon hit the fleet, they’d have ironed out little kinks like not working.
If it did work, then it would be great that finally, the average Marine could do something against a Centaur instead of using the main individual weapon to hopefully knock drones down. Other than the drone-eyes, the M-49 was useless in combat.
Well, it was fine against the angel shits.
Rev wasn’t part of this make-busy test. His weapon was Pashu, not an M-49, and according to the major, his job wasn’t going to be to send the virus to the enemy. He’d be the supporting element to keep the other Marines alive. It was a sea change from the last two missions. They were the package, and he was the security. And he was fine with that.
He’d be fine with whatever it took to win this war.