Jethro Goes to War (Wandering Engineer Jethro's tale) (24 page)

“
This one's
good,” Jethro snarled softly. His eyes scanned the surrounding
terrain. “Where...”

“
Sniper
obviously. Smart one,” Shiku breathed. “Can't get a bead
on us so he's out there.”

“
That gives me
an idea.” Jethro pulled up a map of the area and then plotted
where the other sniper was, and each of his team members. He fumbled
with the program trying to sketch out firing angles.

“
What are you
doing?” Shiku asked. “Jethro?”

“
Trying to
back track this SOB's position from his actions. He can't hit us so
that gives us something to go off of.”

“
Ah. Shoot me
the file,” Shiku asked.

“
Right.”
Exasperated with his terrible geometry skills Jethro sent the file.
After a few moments a file returned. He opened it to see the map had
changed. Probable locations of the sniper were in red. Yellow was
where he may be. Green paths were possible safe passages. He grunted.
None were around Shiku.

“
We need a
birds eye,” Jethro sighed. He wished they were allowed to use
remotes. Unfortunately the powers that be, or at least the gunny
didn't want them to become reliant on the things.

“
Weren't we
the ones who weren't supposed to be pinned?” Shiku laughed,
taking his ruck off and then rolling onto his back. He wiggled a
little so the ruck was on top of him.

“
Something
like that. If we were on a planet I'd use smoke.”

“
No air. It'd
just sit there on the ground,” Shiku replied.

“
Yeah, but
that gave me another idea,” Jethro grinned. “Remember
what you dropped in that hostage sim?”

Shiku laughed.
“Sure. Up?”

“
Yup. Time it
right. I'll make the run.”

“
Your funeral.
On three.” Shiku pulled a grenade from his pack and then pulled
the pin. “Once you pull Mr. pin Mr. grenade is no longer your
friend. One potato two potato...”

Jethro readied
himself, rising slightly so he would be able to run.

“
Three
potato...” Shiku's arm went up and behind him. The grenade went
up into the sky. Jethro's eyes went for it and then he closed and
looked down. He pulled his sun visor down.

Shiku pulled his
visor down just as the grenade got to the top of its arch and started
to fall. He smiled. “Fire in the hole!” He sent the
signal.

The grenade exploded
in a bright flash. Jethro was off like a sprinter, he ran through the
terrain, trusting his instincts and sensors. He leapt Hurranna's body
then tackled the flag pole. He went down into a cloud of dust and
rolled.

A horn blared over
his speakers. “Exercise terminated. F platoon is the winner,”
a voice said over his radio. He looked up to see Hurranna and
Pamplona sitting up with big grins. Pamplona was trying to rub her
eyes. “Damn that was bright,” she said. Her fox eyes were
fully dilated and watering.

“
Sorry,”
Shiku said, coming up beside her.  He pulled her to her feet.
“But you’re supposed to be dead.” He shook his head
as she leaned against him.

“
Damn.”
They turned to see another soldier come out from behind a hedge of
rocks off to one side behind the flag. “I thought I had you
till that thing went off,” he grumbled, shaking his helmeted
head. He fell to the ground. “Fuck me, can't see for shit.”

“
Use your
sensors,” Jethro replied.

“
That's what
I'm doing. Tried to shoot with them but I missed,” he growled.
“Nice job anyway,” he sighed sitting on a rock. “I
didn't know you could use rigging tape like that. Digicam. God. I
wish we'd thought of it. Rigatoni's going to have my ass anyway
though. Hell the gunny will.” He shook his head. “Might
as well open my suit and make it a clean death,” he joked.

Jethro snorted.
“What doesn't kill us makes us stronger. Remember that,”
he grinned and then pulled up his team HUD. Half the team was still
active. A third were considered wounded, while the rest were dead.
Not bad since the enemy had taken horrendous casualties in return. He
opened a channel. “Still kicking Valenko?”

“
You know it,”
Valenko replied. “Speaking of which...” He kicked a
snoring Sergei. “Get up you lazy cat. Game's over.”

Sergei snorted and
then opened one eye. “We win? Cause I'm not going to wake up to
a nightmare of the gunny's wrath.”

“
Yup,”
Valenko said, giving the giant cat a hand up. “Would I lie to
you?” he said.

“
Oh hell.”
“No
we won. No thanks to you Sergei. Sleeping on the job,” Jethro
said over the team push.

“
All right
people enough back slapping and ass scratching. Back to the drop
points. Hot wash when you're back to the barn,” the Major said
over the net.

“
Roger sir.”
Rigatoni and Valenko acknowledged.

 ...*...*...*...*...

Jethro grimaced as
he looked at the spreadsheets. Reams of numbers and information,
something he knew he wasn't good at processing. They were getting
class work and make work until they got to their next stop
apparently. That sucked. But then again, it beat rolling in the mud
and picking crap out of his fur afterward for hours and hours on end.
He looked over to Sergei. The big cat was having a hell of a time
trying to hold the plastic stylus pen for the padd in front of him.

“
Most of your
logistics will be handled by dedicated people and bots. But you still
need to make sure you get what you need, and have it on hand when you
need it. Which means you've got to make sure the paper work is filled
out and ready to go. Since we've got a day before our next stop we're
going to spend that time going over this and the new banking system,”
Schultz growled. He looked around at the soft groan. “Anyone
have a problem with that?”

You could have heard
a pin drop in the sudden silence. He smiled slightly. “I
thought not. Just between you and me, I hate shuffling paperwork as
well. But every marine needs to buckle down and get the job down, no
matter how much it sucks. By now you know that right?” He
looked around. They nodded.

“
Right,”
he grunted. “The new banking system is all electronic. We
deposit your pay check into your account, minus taxes and anything
you want held back for later. Your accounts are all set up, and there
is a tutorial in your inbox. Read it. Go over it. I'll check on your
progress then we'll show you how to make debits and transactions.
It's easy once you know the system. That's all I'm going to say about
that for now.” He paced in front of the class.

“
The logistics
are a bit more complicated. By now you've all sampled the spread
sheet. It's complex, and it looks terrifying, but like everything, a
little knowledge goes a long way to make sense of any battlefield.
Including this one. Now shall we begin?”

“
All right
let’s move!” Valenko snarled, waving his arm. “Gunny
Thompskin's boys want to play grab ass they can do it with
themselves, we've got more important things to do!” he growled.

“
Well, he's in
a good mood,” Sergei growled a laugh. The bear gave him a dirty
look. The Liger shrugged. “Who thought of a race anyway? Seems
like a waste of time.”

“
Terrain
avoidance and team endurance. Besides, an order is an order,”
Jethro sighed dodging through the broken landscape. They had about
twenty hours of oxygen before they had to resupply. Hopefully they
could do it at the site, otherwise they were going to be a bit short
of breath when they got back to the LZ.

Firefly had moved on
to a nearby asteroid to give them some new terrain to work on and
explore. The asteroid was probably from the planet that had been
blown up during the Xeno war, it was certainly big enough. From what
mutterings he'd overheard from the squids it was not in the usual
asteroid belts so it was most likely a wanderer.

Unfortunately it was
also fricken huge, over one hundred kilometers at its widest. It
tumbled from time to time. Firefly had reported occasional out
gassing when a side rotated into the face of the distant sun.

This was their last
field exercise before the crucible if his reckoning was right. Last
or second to last. They'd better get it right.

“
How are we
going to beat them there? Rigatoni has a straight shot through that
field,” Sergei grumped.

“
Send me
that,” Valenko ordered. He pulled up his own map and overlaid
the drop point of the opposition team. There was indeed a barren
field in their field of march.

“
Something's
hinky about that,” the bear muttered. He frowned. “Computer
time till sun up?”

“
Local sun
rise in one standard hour fifteen minutes,” the voice of his
suit reported. He grimaced again. He shifted his pack then pulled out
one of the two signal rockets he was carrying. “Here.” He
tossed it underhand to Jethro.

“
What am I
going to do with it?” Jethro asked.

“
Pass it on to
the rear guard. I don't want to lose them both if something happens
to me or my ruck.”

“
Ah. Good
point,” Jethro shook his head. “I think we should have
distributed some of the other items as well.” He watched as the
scouts moved out ahead of the march.

“
First stop we
get,” Valenko grunted. He, Ox, and Sergei had the heaviest
loads, the emergency shelters. Ox also had a more powerful
communications set and antenna. The rest of the group carried normal
rucks, spare power and  air, and their weapons.

“
We're about
two hours out from the target and sunrise is coming fast. Let’s
move people.”

...*...*...*...*...

Jethro grunted as
Valenko held out a hand. He grabbed it and together they pulled him
up over the cliff edge. “I still don't understand why they
didn't scan this wreck before. Or had us drop on top of it.”

“
Can't. Safest
landing spots were where we and Rigatoni landed. And since we needed
survival training anyway...” Valenko grunted.

“
Still sucks,”
Shiku grumbled.

“
Welcome to
the wonderful world of the corps. Just be glad it's not cold and
raining.”

“
On an
asteroid?” the fox asked, giving the bear an amused look.

“
Or in our
case a radiation storm,” Jethro replied.

“
You would
bring that up. No freaking way can we all fit in those shelters, no
matter how friendly we get,” Sergei grunted, coming up over the
cliff edge.

“
We've got one
more cliff to scale then two to rappel down and we're golden,”
Betty said. “That is if you slow pokes don't hold us up any
more than you already are.”

“
You know you
could go scale that cliff with a line. Or take a turn carrying this,”
Valenko said mildly, turning to the chimp.

She held up her
hands in surrender. “I'm going I'm going,” she shook her
head muttering darkly. “Sure send a chimp to climb... typical
stereotype.”

“
What was
that?” Sergei asked laughing.

“
Oh go claw a
scratching post,” Betty growled. She shot a line up to an
overhang then made sure the hook sank into the crevice. “Next
floor, lingerie...”

“
Sometimes I
wonder about people,” Valenko muttered watching the chimp scale
the cliff. She was good, laying down sets of safety lines where she
needed them, but not wasting them.

 ...*...*...*...*...

“
Looks like
we're first boss,” Hurranna said from the point. She waved to
the shuttle sitting in the steep crater. “I see why they didn't
drop us closer.” She shook her head. They had crested the last
cliff to find it had less than a meter on it's plateau. They had
immediately started scaling down the other side.

“
Sun's up,”
someone said over the general push.

“
Been up. Wake
up and pay attention,” Jethro growled. “What the...”
He spotted a plume and froze. “Valenko we've got plumes of gas
in that field Rigatoni was supposed to cross.”

Still climbing the
wrong side of the cliff Valenko paused. “Show me.”

Jethro muttered then
opened a data link and shunted his camera feed to the bear. “Got
it?”

“
Yeah. Okay.
Any ideas people?” Valenko asked after a moment. Long white
plumes were shooting into the vacuum. He grimaced. He was pretty sure
it wasn't any sort of signal. A suit breach maybe... but so many?
No... He pulled up a measuring program. Some of the plumes were
several meters wide and kilometers tall. Not possible.