Indomitable (50 page)

 

Fifty-nine

MAY 26
TH
, 92 A.E., STANDARD CALENDAR, 1312 HOURS

RNS
NITRO,
PLANET SHEOL, GEOSYNCHRONOUS ORBIT, DAYSIDE

Promise woke in the
low light of the medbay of RNS
Nitro
to a rhythmic
beep beep beep
by her head. The intake above her howled as it drew up the air. She heard slippered feet shuffling across the deck. A voice spoke. She couldn't tell if the words were meant for her, and they were garbled. Then clearer. Then, “Better get Captain Yates.” Promise opened her eyes to a blurred face and a penlight. “Sorry, Lieutenant. Hm. Not bad … all things considered. Try not to sit up, okay?” The faint inhale/exhale of a breathing machine hummed in the background. Promise tried to sit up anyway. Her side screamed immediately and told her it was best not to. Then she remembered why it hurt.

A suit of Clydesdale armor had tried to stomp her to death. She saw the metal boot mere centimeters from her skull, and the aggressive tread that had almost ground her into paste. She remembered thinking,
This is it.
The merc had pulled back when Kathy charged. Then Kathy was on the ground bleeding, her arm torn off, and Promise was at her side administering first aid. Her exosuit had lost power and they'd been surrounded. Another suit of Clydesdale armor towered over her. After that the details got fuzzy. She probed her side and inhaled sharply.
But I'm still here. Guess that means someone else got him. Kathy?
Promise's head snapped up, her heart in her throat. The room started to swim and bile filled her mouth. There, to her right in the next bay over, was a sleeping Lance Corporal Kathy Prichart. Promise breathed a sigh of relief
.
Kathy's left arm was a bandaged stump and her face was badly cut. Otherwise she looked okay. Promise took a deep breath before letting her head fall back into the pillow.

The
beep beep beep
didn't let up. “Can someone please shut that
off?
” She rolled to the side to investigate. Dared to open her eyes. A flat-screen monitor showed the outline of her body and there were an inordinate number of orange highlights from her cracked head to her broken toe.
A lot of damage. Here we go again,
Promise thought. She tried wiggling her foot. The screen indicated major damage. Strange that it didn't hurt at all. That was something.

She had a skull fracture, on the right side this time to match the one she sustained on the left side during her battles on Montana.
Which explains why my head is pounding, again. Okay … that's serious … my last one wasn't too bad and my brain recovered just fine. I'll live.

Her leg had taken damage; the kneecap had split in two.
My leg's been hurt worse than that. That's what quickheal is for. What else?

She had broken ribs.
Tell me something I don't know,
Promise thought as she probed her side. They were wrapped tightly and she didn't feel much like breathing, and the
beep beep beep
was still harassing her.

“Please, shut that off before I get up and do it myself.” She heard movement, and then silence.

She had a lacerated kidney.
Fine, I'll piss red until I don't.

Her left wrist was broken in three spots and she was missing her … “You've got to be kidding me,” Promise said aloud. She raised her right hand and saw double for a moment. Saw the bandage and more fingers than she actually had on one hand. When it all came into focus she felt like punching someone in the jaw. Her middle finger was MIA, nothing but a stub, and her brain was telling her it was still there. She even swore she could feel them bend around a phantom trigger, but where flesh and bone had been before she'd fallen unconscious there was only recycled air now.
If the driver of the Clydesdale isn't dead already I'm going to kill him myself.

“Just noticed that, huh.” Captain Yates drew up beside Promise's bed. “Promise, you are one crazy jane and a glutton for punishment.” Yates turned toward the monitor and pursed her lips. “How are you feeling?”

“Fine,” Promise said. “Well, I'll
be
fine.” She didn't know how to take the crazy jane comment.
What is that supposed to mean?
The captain couldn't possibly know she heard voices in her head, or that she talked to her dead mother on a semiregular basis.
Could she?
Promise wondered. Then Yates's stern façade cracked.

“Lighten up, Lieutenant. That was a joke. Maybe the doc needs to do another scan of your jelly.”

Promise forced a smile. “I'm just glad to be alive.”

“You and the lance corporal probably saved the pilot and copilot's life by going out there in exosuits. Probably saved the LAC too. You did good work on Kathy's arm. Otherwise, she would have bled out.” Yates's eyes grew as wide as saucers. “I can't believe you actually fought a couple of Clydesdales in exosuits.
Exosuits.
God knows what might have happened if those metal behemoths had intercepted Second Platoon after the colonel ordered them to secure the LAC. Something tells me they wouldn't have fared nearly as well as you did. Why is that?”

“Ma'am?”

“Some Marines have a knack for the improbable.” Yates pulled up a chair and sat down. “When I heard you'd fought in an exo I shook my head. ‘Sounds like Lieutenant Paen' is what I actually said. Then I replayed what happened. I watched the vids. The LAC's pickups captured most of the exchange, and your helmet got a decent shot of it too.” Yates gave her a skewed look. “At one point, you were shooting with your off hand. Did you realize that?”

“About the helmet, ma'am. I was just—”

“Violating orders. I know. You were told to leave your armor behind.”

“Technically, I did. Ma'am.”

“Promise, I've already endorsed your actions. So has the colonel, by the way. Where'd you learn to shoot like that?”

“I'm sorry, ma'am. Come again?”

“Really, Lieutenant. The fake modesty is getting old. When you took the merc's pulse pistol from him, um, after you shot him with it, it was in your left hand. Then you fired at his partner with your off hand and as near as I can tell from the vid you didn't have time to aim.”

“Ah…”

Yates cocked her head. “That was a compliment. I've tried to improve my off hand for years. I qualify with my left … barely. That was some nice shooting, Lieutenant. Not as nice as the lance corporal's. Prichart used your senior to hit the one chink in the woman's armor.”

“Ah…”

“A ‘Thank you, ma'am' will do. Do you always carry your senior into battle?”

“Right. Ah…”

“You're impossible. You know that?” Yates sat back and crossed her arms. “I've nominated you and Kathy for the Silver Star. I was filling out the screenwork for the Medal of Honor, for
you,
but the colonel reminded me that you are persona non grata with some powerful people in the Congress. We don't want to paint too large a bull's-eye on your back. I told the colonel you'd already taken care of that. Still, he has a point. Sorry.” Yates's eyes were seas of emotion. Equal parts humor and mist. Yates turned away and cleared her throat.

“Ma'am, I already have a Silver Star,” Promise said.

Yates nearly choked on her words. “I know. You've accumulated quite the collection of glittery.”

“I didn't mean it that way, ma'am.”

“Promise, I know what you meant. At least I think I do.” Yates took a hard look at her, like she was making up her mind or searching for something. She laid a hand on Promise's shoulder and squeezed before pulling back. “Sometimes you try too hard, Lieutenant. You need to learn to relax.” Yates looked across the medbay. Promise followed her eyes to the bed at the far end of the compartment. She had to sit up a bit to see who was in it. Jupiter.

“How is she?”

“That's complicated,” Yates said.

“What happened?”

Jupiter was intubated, and her head was heavily bandaged. Her arms were tied down too. Private Atumbi was sitting at her side, and both of his hands were wrapped around one of hers. Promise looked back at the captain and saw the rage in her eyes.

Yates took a deep breath, leaned forward, and gripped the side of the bed with both hands, her eyes on Jupiter. “They got away … at least Greystone did.” Yates's words were barely above a whisper. “We lost Jupiter's armor too. The Greys had a jump-capable LAC. One of ours was pursuing when the bastards jumped out at four thousand meters elevation.”

Shock registered on Promise's face. You just didn't do
that.
The calculations to enter jump-safe space were complicated enough. Throwing a planet's gravity well into the mix, and the local atmospheric conditions, and the unexpected jolt of turbulence—any one of the three could throw your calculations off by a wide margin and dump you in a part of the 'verse you didn't want to be in. Like the center of a star. “Greystone is a madman. The jump created a massive shock wave. Our LAC lost its countergravity matrix and barely made it down. If there'd been a city below…”

“Before I blacked out, I swore I saw a LAC coming down.”

“That was Captain Spears and Golf Company. It's their LAC that crash-landed when the Greys jumped out. Captain Spears's Marines reached you just in time. He took down the Clydesdale himself and he personally put a beam through the driver's head when the merc refused to surrender. Spears worked the Clydesdale over with his mechboot. You'd have thought it was personal the way he went off on that thing.

“Spears commed me from the surface to check on you. He said to tell Lieutenant Paen he'd put his new leg to good use and that you'd understand.” Yates cocked a brow.

Promise tried not to laugh because her side hurt so badly. “Captain Spears lost a leg on Montana, back when he was a lieutenant.” Promise nodded and smiled. “He got regen, and rehab, and I got field-promoted and put in charge of his company.”

“Ah, and Lieutenant Paen was born. So I have him to thank for all the trouble you've caused me.”

“Something like that,” Promise said. “What about Golf Company?”

“Thankfully, Golf Company came through with zero casualties. Some bruises and broken bones but nothing that won't mend. G Company is on the surface now, guarding Combat Outpost Danny True. Sometimes it doesn't pay to be a mechanized Marine.”

“What about Jupiter?” Promise asked.

“They … hurt her, Promise, deeper than a bullet ever could.” Yates swallowed and looked away. “They … she killed her attacker and triggered her homing beacon. We found her unconscious. Half naked after … She'd lost an eye and the nerves on half of her face were gone. Last night she came to, and she wouldn't stop screaming. She pulled the line from her arm, and tried to gouge out her good eye. Atumbi has been at her side nonstop. He's read to her and wiped her brow and told her it's going to be okay. She was awake this morning, briefly, but she's heavily drugged. He's a good jack.”

The full implications of what Jupiter went through hit Promise like a maglev.

Yates looked away. “Jupiter was my guardian, Promise. She was
my
protector and look where it got her.” Yates closed her eyes and shuddered. “She's headed home, to Hold, tomorrow. So are you and Kathy. So am I. We all are.”

“Hold? Ma'am, I don't understand. We just got here.”

“And now we're leaving on the
Nitro.
She jumps out in the morning.” Yates's voice turned flat, lifeless. “You're missing one finger and most of a second, on your dominant hand—your trigger finger—and you've got broken bones and substantial organ damage, and your second traumatic brain injury of your career. Most of your injuries will heal in a matter of weeks, but you're still looking at multiple regen treatments and therapy for the hand, and that's at least a couple of months. Kathy's in for twice as long for the arm because she doesn't regen, and I'm probably being conservative. And Jupiter. Well, only time will tell.”

I can still shoot with my left. It probably doesn't matter now.
“What about Victor Company?”

“Victor Company is down to half strength. Again. A year ago it was nearly decimated on Montana when you went to the mat with the Lusies.”

“Ma'am, we were up against—”

“Now hold on, Lieutenant. I'm not criticizing your actions. Keep your mouth shut and hear me out.”

Promise hated when she wore her emotions on her sleeve. She could lock them down in combat easy. That was no problem. Or push them aside when they'd taken casualties and the explosions and shell shock were overwhelming, and her Marines needed her to tell them what to do. Put her under the microscope and she lost all perspective, and wore her feelings like a festered wound, raw and oozing for all to see. Victor Company had been through a lot, and much of that was on her shoulders, and it always would be. Her orders had sent Marines to die. And not just any Marines either. Hers. They'd followed her orders because they'd trusted her to get them in and then get them out. Every death felt like a failure on her part. She didn't need to be reminded about it by her superiors. Promise knew that wasn't Yates's point at all.
It sure feels like it is.
The unit had pulled through before, buried its dead, welcomed new boots, and reorganized. Victor Company had done its best on Sheol when a knife in the back had nearly done it in. Promise was proud of her boots. She'd asked as much of them as any commander could hope for.

“For now, the company is returning to Hold.” Yates met Promise's eyes directly. “This time the unit's losses are on me. I'm responsible for what happened on Sheol. This was not your fault.” Yates's voice wavered. “It's mandatory counseling for everyone and extended special passes. Our people need to see their loved ones and find some sense of normalcy. Beyond that, we'll see.”