Claire Takes On The Galaxy

Claire - Chapter Fifteen

The assembly area and armoury, across the main parade ground, could be reached underground but Claire and other marines were in no mood to waste time with the tunnels even if missiles might rain down at any moment. All around the base marines were telling each other “it’s us, we’re being jumped” and sprinting directly for the assembly point. Claire and others dashed across the parade ground.

“Alert, this is no drill. Alert this is no drill. All marines to assembly..” Two more of the base’s interception missiles launched with a whoosh that drowned out the announcements. Above her and well to the east a sharp bang and flash showed that one missile had found a mark. “..Alert this is no drill. Alert this is no drill.” Several metallic clicks registered with Claire as she ran. She turned her head to see the storm cannons appear from their concrete bunkers some distance from the parade ground, and start firing.

No one had developed a force field. The storm cannons, which looked much like the Vietnam war-era mini-cannons with their multiple barrels, pointed straight up and fired, waving back and forth to pour a curtain of metal bullets into the air – a curtain designed to destroy any missile trying to penetrate it. The noise seemed to form a physical wall, hurting the ear drums, flare from the muzzles created a distinct hedge of flame that cast shadows on the parade ground. Two marines in front of Claire threw themselves to the ground.

“No one’s firing at us,” bellowed a nearby sergeant, making himself heard above the roar of the storm cannons, and kicking at the marines. “It’s the base defences. Get on your feet and get moving!” The marines picked themselves up and ran. A missile warhead exploded in the storm cannon curtain, sending out a host of rocket bomblets meant to devastate the base. The bomblets were promptly chewed up by the storm cannons in a series of explosions which merged into one blast.

The marines reached the assembly area, a reinforced concrete hanger containing the force’s transporters, as bits of the missile scattered over the parade ground. Both companies, including the transporter pilots, and much of the support group – almost the whole base – had gathered there. Captain Chan was in front listening on a comms head set, and consulting an enlarged tac screen held by himself and Captain Culp. Claire could see red dots on the transparent screen. Another cruise missile caught in the storm-cannon curtain of fire exploded, scattering more debris over the parade ground, just missing one straggler who had been at The Doll House. The marines inside the hangar instinctively crouched and flinched. Captain Chan did not move. He was revealing himself as a real battlefield commander.

“Alert, this is no drill. Alert..” The PA system fell silent. The storm cannons stopped firing.

“Marines!” roared Chan into this sudden silence. “The Mercs have jumped us.” The crowd murmured. “Silence! There was a Merc attempt to sabotage the base systems, in which Major Horne – or a Merc agent pretending to be Major Horne – was involved. Whoever he was he is now dead but not before he killed the colonel.” Mouths fell open. A few marines gasped, others murmured “what?” “I said silence! That means I’m now commanding officer heaven help us all, with Captain Culp as second. Two other members of The One-Five, Corporal Henshaw and Private Gellert, have also been implicated in the plot and will not be joining us. You may have a lot of questions. I also have questions, but we don’t have time for questions and answers now. All you need to know is that the base defences are holding.” As if to emphasise that point, the storm cannons opened up again destroying a missile with a ground shaking whomp overhead. Claire felt she was already in a battle. “And base systems are telling us three companies of Mercs have landed up valley – to our east. We’re going out into the valley to meet them in broken ground in a straight fight at odds of two to three with us defending our base. In other words marines we’re being jumped and we’re fighting back, and we’re going to win because we are marines. What are we?”

“Marines!” they yelled.

“Now it is time for our ritual,” said Chan. “You all know it. In ancient times when the Roman republic declared war a counsel would take the sacred spear from the temple of Mars,” In lieu of a spear, Culp handed Chan a standard issue LW-150 assault rifle, which the officer held aloft, “and called on the God of War to awake. Let us now call on Mars to awake. Mars!”

“Vigila!” (wake up) they screamed. Claire and Lou, who had come through the tunnels, screamed with them.

“Mars!” Chan brandished his assault rifle.

“Vigila!”

“Mars!”

“Vigila!”

Just as they yelled the third response, the storm cannons opened up again and caught two bomblet carrying cruise missiles in their blast. The explosion shook the hangar and cast a jet of flame across the now deserted parade ground. To Claire, and all the other marines in the hangar, it seemed that the God of War had awoken.

“Full combat launch to the east, marines,” yelled Chan once the noise had died down. “The full ride. Everyone to their places. I want to get well up and into the ground I’ve chosen before the Mercs get organised. Standard tac organisation on deployment. The Two-One on the left, The One-Five on the right. Now move!” This is what they had trained for. The crowd grabbed their gear from lockers and vanished into the lifters, which had been wound back for launch to the east, each marine knowing his or her place. Captain Chan lingered for a moment with Captain Culp.

“Best ground looks to be here on the north side of the Alph,” said Chan. “The Mercs are coming that way.”

“It is on the other side of the Shade barrier we set up, sir.”

“The Shade barrier is discretionary. Earth hasn’t even responded. We leave the Shades alone, and they’ll leave us alone.”

“Got it,” said Culp. The two men dashed for their transports.

Meanwhile, Claire had found herself in the thick of a different kind of conflict. When she got on board her designated transporter, the engine revving up, she was confronted by a furious Adria, her arms crossed.

“You thought I was a Merc agent,” she said.

Behind Adria, Claire could see Lou, already in her seat, spread her hands and lift her shoulders.

“No, at least the thought .. I mean we just wondered about the texting and the walks..”

“The word is James worked out Horne was an agent. Did James tell you to watch me?”

“No, no, James didn’t tell me anything. That was the reason we weren’t talking.” Claire was conscious everyone on the transporter was looking at this confrontation and she felt herself getting warm – better to get on with the fighting than this. “Maddie saw something on his desk and asked me about it. We had that big fight because he wouldn’t say anything.”

“Is that true?” said Captain Chan from behind her. He could have gone with the command group but elected to ride in his customary spot which was in the Two One HQ transporter.

“Yes sir,” said Claire whirling around. “I heard something, but James refused to tell me anything. We had a fight about it.”

“You didn’t report it?”

“He said it was just playing with scenarios. Wasn’t doing anything, he said sir.”

“Hmmm! It’s a matter for later.”

“Seating guys,” said one of the transporter pilots. “We are ready to rock with a full combat launch.”

Through the transporter windows Claire could see that the hangar doors were folding up. She took her seat and strapped in.

Lou said “It got worse with Adria after you left”.

Claire nodded and closed her eyes. She didn’t like combat launches and this one was for real.

“Okay,” said the pilot over the craft PA. “Ready for the ride! Your tray tables and seat backs better be upright, and you really, really want your seat belts on for this. Seating is now green across the board.

“Five,” said the co-pilot.

“Catapult is locked and loaded.”

Claire felt the floor quiver under feet.

“Four.”

“Engines up and hot.”

Claire heard the craft’s engines spin up to full and the air shoot out of the exhaust.

“Three.”

“Bring up rocket assist.”

Rocket packs were connected for such occasions. The hangar filled with gases. A deep roaring seemed to shake the whole hangar. Claire felt the craft strain on its mountings.

“Two.”

“Counter measures on.”

“One.”

“Clear to launch. See you on the other side.”

Claire could not see it but both pilots turned keys in the instrument panel which blew the restraining bolts. The transporter literally shot out of the hanger. Her eyes tightly closed Claire felt, as she always did, as if her stomach had been left behind.

“Booooyahhh!” yelled one of the marines, as someone always did.

“i***t!” thought Claire, as she always did, her eyes still firmly closed.

At full speed from the moment of launch the transporter hugged the ground, jinking and weaving, with counter-measures on full. This was all to discourage unfriendly missiles, or at least that was the theory and Claire hoped that the theory was right, particularly while she was inside a transporter on a combat launch. The atmosphere was tense. She noticed one of the marines cross themselves. Then someone, a thin, intense youth who operated the company anti-missile units, started reciting from memory Isaiah Chapter 2, verse 4, the King James bible.

“And they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.”

Captain Chan looked up from his tac display and switched to the force wide announcement system. “Preacher!” This was a sergeant in three platoon of The Two-One.

“Sir?” Claire heard.

“We’ve done the pagan thing, now let’s hear the Stellar Marine Corps combat prayer.”

“Yes, sir! Oh Lord, we pray that you let us give much more than we receive.”

Marines chuckled. A few yelled “Amen!” and “Yeah, baby!”

“Marines, there’s a tac display now right across your visors,” said Chan. Claire’s vision through her helmet visor was obscured by a map showing a section of the valley. The positions they were aiming for were shown in the green dots. Claire and Lou’s position well off to the left, close to the valley’s northern cliffs, was shown by a blinking dot.

“Long hike,” muttered Lou.

“You’ll see the feature we call Iron Hill.” This was just one of the many bumps in the valley floor but was a little higher than the others and had a distinctive grey rock on top. “That will be behind us and about centre of our position. If you are looking at that at any time, you’re looking the wrong way. We’ll be down in a few minutes and I expect clean, fast dispersals from everyone. We’ll be on good ground for defence and that’s what we’ll be doing for now, defending. Is everyone clear?”

“Sir! Yes sir!”

“Look where we’ll be,” muttered Lou. “Inside those reservation markers. Access Point where James cut the trees is just back from there.”

“Shade territory,” said Claire.

“Maybe they’ll attack the Mercs?”

“They’ve never been known to come onto the valley floor. Most likely they’ll stay out of it.”

“More sense than we have.”

Clou team started to apply camouflage paint to their faces.

“Two minutes, people,” said senior sergeant Gatling. “We break to the left.” That meant left facing forward. “Look to your tac displays.” As Chan was now commanding officer, Lieutenant Masters was now company commander and that meant the senior sergeant commanded headquarter’s platoon, including the snipers. “Snipers, stop at first cover on ridge and wait for Pop-ups until transports are clear.”

“Got it, sergeant,” Claire and Lou chorused.

“One minute, people,” said Chan. “Standard rules of engagement; let’s give ‘em hell.”

The transporter came down with a bump, the rear ramp fell and Claire and Lou were sprinting. Ahead of them they could see the transporters for the three platoons for their company, spread out across their front, setting down. There was a ridge directly in front of them – it was broken ground, as promised – and a clump of the local twisted trees. They made for the trees, instinctively. Clou team along with sniper team B, directly ahead of the transporter and A to the right, would initially watch for Pop-ups. Later they would spread themselves over the company front.

“Talk to me,” said Claire to Lou, as they threw themselves down by the trees.

“Pop-up detected,” said Lou, tac display in her hands. “Scudding to our right, bearing 9-5, one and half clicks.”

“One and half? What am I, Supergirl?”

The trees covered Claire’s left. She shifted a rock to give her some protection on her right, unfolded the tri-pod of her weapon and placed it between the rocks. For a moment she thought about what had led her to that spot with a loaded sniper weapon in her hand, about opening the closet door in the church and then pushed all that out of her mind. Staying alive meant concentrating on the job.

“Now 8-2. Oh man, hostiles all over,” said Lou. She risked a quick peek through binoculars, rather than her periscope fibre-optic sight. “Nothing showing in front of our guys. Second target!” she said, looking back at her tac screen. “Bearing six three, one and a half.”

“I’m still not Supergirl,” grumbled Claire.

“Multiple targets for all units,” said Lou, ignoring her. “Looks like Mercs are going to sledge the transporters!” (This meant lots of missiles launched at the same time to overwhelm defences.)

They could hear the HQ platoon transporter now revving up behind them. The HQ equipment was heavier, with some units on tracks rather than bipedal, so it was the last to unload. Captain Chan came on the force-net.

“Transporters be advised multiple pop-ups to our front. Lift-off together on count with full counter measures. Two-One craft break north and west – One-Five, south and west.”

“Yes sir!” That was the chief transporter pilot, a member of The One-Five. “Keep real low guys. All ready? On my count. Five, four, three, two, one, Go! Go!”

Behind them, the marines could hear the transport take-off, then the first pop-up appeared in Claire’s sight. She fired. Not at where the pop-up was but where it would be in the two seconds or so it took for the heavy bullet to travel one and a half kilometres – a shot only just possible against a moving target with electronics that adjusted for speed and direction of the target.

“Target five-two,” said Lou.

Claire swivelled and fired. Then again on Lou’s call.

“Incoming!” yelled Lou, “Move marine!”

One of their victim Pop-ups had targeted them with a missile. Lou threw a decoy unit and both marines sprinted to their left. Claire was aware of a massive Whump! behind her. An invisible hand swept her off her feet and pushed her head first into Lou. Both marines tumbled into a small depression in the ridge.

“Clou, report status,” Claire heard Gatling call.

“You okay C?” asked Lou. Claire, still dazed, gave her the thumbs up.

“Command, Clou in one piece.”

“Good work marines, you nailed all three of your pop-ups. Proceed at nine-zero then out to position.”

“Clou on the move.”

They got up into a crouch, Claire’s head ringing. She shook it.

“Look at Adria,” said Lou.

Despite Clou team’s good work, the HQ transporter had not made it. The craft was on its side, not far from where it had taken off, part of its hull blown away to show the seats and fittings the platoon had been using on the flight out. The rear engine compartment was on fire, billowing black smoke, making it a conspicuous target for Merc spotters. But what caught the attention of the marines was Adria, standing on the hull just above the pilot screen, tugging on a crash release lever for the polycarbonate sheet. It popped out, as it was designed to do. Adria leaned in, ignoring the smoke and the spreading fire, released the pilot’s safety harness, then levered him up so that he was half out the screen hole before he obviously came to. One arm was useless, but he used the other to gesture in a dazed way at the other side of the craft. Adria shook her head and gave him an extra tug. They both tumbled to the ground in an indecorous heap just as the craft’s interior exploded with a whump.

“Brave,” said Claire.

“Finally, she’s got a patient,” said Lou. “Maybe she’ll forget to be pissed at us. Let’s go C.”

They trotted on at a crouch, passing two platoon’s HQ unit with its howitzer and missile beasts. The squad, waiting for a fire order, nodded at the snipers.

“Target, three rounds each,” said the non-com in charge as they passed. “Fire!” The howitzers fired with a whump, three times. The marines turned their heads to watch the shells arc over to the Mercs, exploding with a distant roar. “Good shooting, let’s go,” he said, and the unit walked off. So did the snipers. If you fired, you moved. That was drummed into them right from basic. Even before electronic targeting it had been dangerous to linger after firing. Electronic targeting made it fatal.

Just as a missile exploded on the site vacated by the artillery beasts, the marines heard “Clou online?”

Both girls stopped, Claire scanning the landscape to their front as she had been taught to do while orders came. “Clou online sergeant,” said Lou

“Pop-ups a problem to your South. Reverse to 180 and double to spot on screen.”

“Clou got it sergeant. C let’s pick it up.” They turned around and trotted. Jogging at a crouch was difficult but after all their training, they were not about to stick their heads up where some attentive Merc could blow them off. Claire wanted to ask why they were being turned around when the company’s A team would be closer, but they had also been instructed to speak only when necessary on a battlefield. In any case, she suspected, Lou knew just as much as she did.

“Clou, pop-up scudding,” said sergeant Gatling. “All other teams busy. Can you take the shot from where you are?”

“Got a line of sight up here,” said Claire moving up the ridge and flinging herself down behind a tree. “But it’s nearly two clicks. Like I have X-Ray vision or something. Supergirl’s the one in the cape.”

“Scudding,” said Lou, crouching the he regulation two paces away, and ignoring the joke, “like the man said. Suggest one-six-two.”

“Doubt if I’ll get it before it gets its shot.”

“One-seven-zero.”

“It’ll pull back,” thought Claire. “It’s a guy operator. He’s trying to be smart, moving so the angle was opening then at the last minute he’d pull back, and keep pulling back while in the air.”

Claire adjusted her firing angle. Two kilometres was a huge distance for a shot against a stationary target, let alone a moving Pop-up. Rockets could adjust their course and carry electronics which tracked the target. But they moved slowly compared to bullets. The target could see it coming and use counter measures, including interceptor-missiles. Bullets still took seconds to reach the target, however, and there was no course adjustment. That meant, for all the weapons technology involved it was still a matter of the grunt controlling the pop-up to be evasive, and for a second grunt behind a sniper rifle, in this case Claire, to out-guess the first grunt.

AP (armour piercing) round chambered. Ready to rock.

“Target,” said Lou, as the Pop-up hove into sight, just above a grove of Twist-trees. Claire fired, adjusted her aim twice and fired all in a blur of motion as it she was on the practise range, spreading her shots.

“Hit, girl, you did it,” said Lou.

“A hit, sir, a palpable hit,” said Captain Chan over the comms. “Well done Clou.”

“Thank you sir,” the marines chorused quietly.

“Proceed to original mark,” said Gatling (this meant keep going south towards the Alph). “No contact with one unit.”

“You know Supergirl’s colors are blue, skin-tight with the red emblem on the front, red cape and boots,” whispered Lou as they moved off.

“Have you been talking to Bron? He’s the only one we know that’d be looking at Supergirl pics.”

“I looked it up myself. My point is those colors are not a good look for you.”

“I’d never wear boots like that,” said Claire.

They moved cautiously, as had been drummed into them, even behind their own lines as they nominally were. As it happened the ridge Claire had shot from went part of the way and another ridge, really just a fold in the ground, the rest. The marines crawled at times, aware of higher ground to the east that would be a tempting position for those who might wish them harm. As they moved a missile whizzed over from the Merc side and hit somewhere to the south of them. Behind them a machinegun fired a short burst. Then another. Two shots from a rifle seemed to answer it. Both sides were still assessing their opponents. Then Lou and Claire emerged from behind trees and saw the unit that had not answered calls. A missile beast with two bodies. One was sprawled over the unit, face turned towards them. The other was face down, two paces away. They crawled closer and realised, to their horror, that the body sprawled on the unit was Taylor.

“Oh my stars!” said Claire and started to get up, meaning to run to the body. Lou pulled her back.

“Sniper!” she whispered in Claire’s ear.

Claire forced herself to look. Taylor had been killed by a single armour piercing round straight through her helmet. Her companion, rather than duck behind the missile beast where he would have been safe, had tried to run and been nailed the same way.

“Where is he?” demanded Claire.

“He must have hit them from that high ground we’ve been hiding from,” said Lou, holding out her tac screen, “two five oh metres, but he’ll have moved”.

Claire thought for a moment “He won’t move far. That ground’s too good, and he won’t think he’s been marked. He knows marines’ll be moving between the gap in the ridges, and his male ego wants another kill. I’ll move back along the ridge here into the trees we passed at 200 metres. The ground there is almost as high as that spot and it should flank him, then you decoy him.”

“Decoy him.. Okay.” They had practised this before, and Lou knew she had to get her timing right or she would be joining Taylor in the Marine Valhalla.

Claire looped along, keeping well down, cradling her rifle. This is what they had trained for, and practised day after day. As she moved she heard Lou call it in.

“Command, Clou team, two marines down in sector two-two-one, missile beast specialists. Suspected sniper on high ground bearing nine-six and two-five-oh metres from kills. Dealing.”

The continual comms chatter about units moving and firing stilled for a few moments as the news sunk in. There must have been other casualties, everyone knew, but two deaths at once confirmed over the link was a shock.

“Acknowledged,” said Gatling. “Get him marines!”

Claire reached the clump of trees she had remembered and snaked in among the trunks. Well into the grove there was a sizable rock. She set up her weapon, barrel poking out between the rock and one of the trees, pulled the hood of her marine camouflage coat down over her head and scanned. The sniper was too well hidden for the targeting software, but if he fired the software would mark him and Claire could get a shot.

“In position,” she reported.

“Here it goes,” thought Lou. She took one pace forward into the gap, into the view of the sniper, then threw herself back again. She had practised this with Chad and Bron trying to nail her, but there was nothing like trying to do this dangerous trick for real to get the heart pumping.

‘Bang!’ a bullet whizzed through the spot where Lou’s head had been.

A target outline appeared in Claire’s weapon sights.

“You should have moved,” whispered Claire to herself and fired.

It was a year to the day since she had opened the church door.

Claire later remembered a fictional character she had read about who had received a note from her husband to be while she was dressing for the wedding ceremony calling the whole thing off, swindling her in the process. The woman then kept everything exactly as it was when she received the note, never changing out of her wedding dress or emerging from her mansion which she let fall into ruin. The memory bothered Claire until she looked it up. The character’s name was Miss Havisham and the novel Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. In the novel, Miss Havisham adopted a girl, Estella, whom she groomed to break the hearts of men as revenge for her broken heart.

Claire thought that her wedding day from hell was way worse than that of Miss Havisham, but unlike Miss Havisham she did not want revenge on men. She was not about to break anyone’s heart or kill them, just because of what some total sleaze bag guy had done to her. Instead, she had picked herself up and moved on. Maybe Miss Havisham could not have joined the Stellar Marines but she could have at least tidied up the wedding feast and changed clothes. “Get back out there, girl!” Claire thought.

No, she was not killing in revenge for anything done to her, or even to Taylor. But then what was the reason?

Claire had only a vague idea why the Mercs happened to be there fighting for access to the marine base. As far as she was concerned political talk shows were background noise on the screens in the mess hall. But she did know that the Mercs were paid and trained to come here and try to kill her and Lou if they could. She and Lou were paid and trained to stop them doing that, and to kill Mercs. That meant that it was a fair fight between professionals and the other guy had made a mistake. Perhaps one day very soon, she would make a mistake. Lou would hear a shot and turn her head to find that Claire had departed this world, and her mother would get a visit from a marine officer. That was the risk she was taking. In that overused phrase it was “just business”, although that business was about killing.

When Claire and Lou finally circled around to the sniper’s position, they found him lying face down. He had fallen forward on his weapon, but the spotter had taken it, only for the spotter himself to be killed by a marine Pop-up. Out of curiosity Lou lifted the Merc sniper’s head.

“Don’t show me the face,” said Claire and she stepped away. She did not want to know anything about her victims at all. She did not want to know what they looked like, if she could avoid it, so that their faces did not haunt her dreams, and she especially did not want to know if there was any partner or family waiting for them.

“Older guy,” commented Lou, as they moved away. “I don’t think Taylor would have been interested.”

Mars was still awake. The killing had not ended.