John Ringo: Vorpal Blade

“Reloading,” he subvocalized, trying to keep his sector in sight as he pulled out a magazine. He got the reload in place just in time to spot something dropping from the trees. It looked like a sheet of paper but it was headed either for the Marines or the dead beast. Berg fired at it and the sheet ripped apart, falling in tatters.

Jaenisch had been firing at something as well and the two Marines went back to back as more of the bipedal monsters came through the jungle after them. Berg picked his shots more carefully since he only had thirty of the 7.62 mm rounds in a clip. He managed to drop three of the monsters before he ran out of ammo. The fourth and fifth, though, got him and the “jungle” vanished as the harness gave him a zap of electricity.

“ Grapp me,” he said, shaking his head.

“Not bad, actually,” Jaenisch said, looking over at him. “I’m going to reset the system so we’ve also got .455s. You qualified on the .455?”

“Yes,” Berg said. The high velocity Colt magnum was rarely used by combat forces, but he’d qualified with one in Force Operators Training. He had wondered at the time why they were training on a civilian “gun nut” pistol that no other force considered worth its time. Now he had to wonder how much FOT was influenced by the Space Marines. A group that, officially, didn’t exist.

They returned to the prep room and added the big magnums to their kit. The gun’s blue barrel was nearly a foot long and it was a heavy mother. But civilian hunters had used them to hunt both elephant and tiger at short ranges. It should stop even one of the bipedal monsters. He stopped before going back and readjusted the position of the ammo pouches on his armor. Every serious shooter had his own idea of where stuff should ride and Berg wasn’t any different.

“Same general scenario?” he asked as they reentered the “jungle.”

“It changes,” Jaenisch said. “You never know what’s going to come at you.”

Berg kept a watch out as they reentered the path and while it was a different beast, they attacked at the same point. This time they got low-slung bright-red centipedes, about the size of a leopard. And there were more of them than of the bipedal monsters. And, the 7.62 mm rounds just bounced off again.

He let go of the M-10, which pulled back to his chest on its straps, and drew the .455 Colt. The magnum rounds did penetrate the centipedes’ armor and, even better, he was a very good one-handed shooter. He fired all ten of the rounds in his magazine, getting six of the beasts, then did a rapid reload by just dropping his empty mag down the front of his armor and sliding another in. He got four more before they got him at last.

“This seriously sucks,” Berg said, holstering his smoking pistol.

“Hell, you held out longer than I did,” Jaenisch said, shaking his head. “I stayed on the M-10. Where’d you learn to shoot like that?”

“I just enjoy shooting,” Berg said, carefully. The real answer was in Force Recon Operator’s Training. Force Recon had always been a tough unit with a killer qualification phase. But its advanced training had mostly been ad hoc at the unit level. The new FOT included an Operator Combat Training program that far exceeded the normal Force Recon official training program. He was beginning to realize that the “regular” Force Recon guys might have much more experience than he did, but he was probably better trained . He was going to have to tread that path very carefully.

“Can you two-gun mojo?” Jaenisch asked.

“A bit,” Berg said. “But I can’t fire simultaneously. That’s total bull maulk . Usually what I do is empty one pistol then empty the other one. The problem is, it really slows down reload. So if you’ve got more targets than you’ve got bullets…”

“Want to try it that way?” Jaenisch asked. “I’ll stay one gun on pistol, you go for two-gun?”

“I’ll try it,” Berg said. “But I’ll stay on M-10 to start since we don’t know what it’s going to throw at us.”

“I’ll set it up for the same scenario,” Jaenisch said. “I’m really curious.”

The third time through, Berg carried two of the magnums and Jaenisch one. The centipedes attacked at the same time and in the same way, which was a bit of cheating, since it meant Berg didn’t have to guess where they were coming from.

But the two-gun mojo worked. This time, knowing where and how they were going to attack, he managed to start winnowing them down earlier. When his right pistol ran out of rounds he holstered it and pulled out a clip. When the left ran out he did a fast reload then switched hands and went to a two-handed fire position, backing away from the centipedes until he had the last one dead. The things thrashed as they died, splattering green blood over the mostly blue vegetation and opening out the underbrush as they crushed it in their death throes.

“Damn,” Jaenisch said, shaking his head. “Shiny. Now, let’s see if we can make it to the far side of the room.”

They were hit twice more but Berg’s two-gun fire managed to stop both attacks cold and they eventually reached the “stream” that marked the far side of the room. He only had four rounds of magnum left, though.

“Clear VR,” Jaenisch said when they reached the limit. “Not bad, Nugget. Not bad at all.”

“Thanks,” Berg said.

“This scenario is set up for a two team maneuver,” Jaenisch admitted. “Six guys, not two. I wanted to run you through something harder than I thought we could handle, just to knock the starch out. So much for that idea. As a matter of fact, I hereby designate you Two-Gun. You may now call me Jaen.”

“Thank you, Jaen,” Berg said. “But I don’t think it’s a good way to do battle normally.”

“Agreed,” Jaen said. “But it was grapping awesome. I can’t wait to replay the clip.”

“This is recorded?” Berg said.

“Two-Gun, every second of every day we do this maulk is recorded,” Jaenisch said bitterly. “Why do you think there are grapping cameras everywhere? We’re guinea pigs. I’ll explain when we get back to the armory.”

All the Adar tech in the world hadn’t helped the lunchtime traffic on Monticello. Bill weaved his Ford Electra into the left-hand lane, getting around a late model Chevy pickup that was carefully doing the speed limit, and floored it, trying to make it through the turn at VA 168. Once past 168 he’d be clear most of the way to base.

Unfortunately, as he approached the light it turned yellow. He figured he had time so he floored it but the car instead decelerated, the electric motor dropping to idle as the brakes automatically slid him to a controlled stop.

Oh, yeah, Adar tech was good for some things!

The pickup blew past him, still doing a stately forty-five miles per hour. He hoped the old fart got a ticket.

The bright purple Chevy Neon that had been on Bill’s bumper suddenly pulled out, the light having changed to red, and sped through the intersection causing a flurry of honks but, fortunately, no accidents.

Speaking of Adar. Worst drivers in the world .

Christ. Could this day get any worse?

It wasn’t really a florist’s shop. It was a shop that supplied flowers for corporations and hotels. The company had no storefront, just a back door through the loading area. And the people who worked in the company were much more accustomed to the occasional street person wandering in and looking for a handout than fourteen-year-old girls with some alien pet.

“Can I help you?” the young man with his arms full of arrangements asked curiously. He couldn’t help but stare at the thing on her shoulder; as he watched it moved from one side to the other, its green eyes glittering in interest at the bustle in the room.