Эрик Флинт - The Service of the Sword

At least she was still alive. For now.

She'd never imagined she could feel so tired, so exhausted. A part of her was actually almost glad that it was nearly over.

Mateo Gutierrez interrupted his focused, intense study of their back trail long enough to glance down at the exhausted midshipwoman briefly, and the hard set of his mouth relaxed ever so slightly for just a moment. Approval mingled with bitter regret in his dark eyes, and then he returned his attention to the night-covered valley behind them.

He'd never thought the girl would be able to keep up the pace he'd set, he admitted. But she had. And for all her youth, she had nerves of steel. She'd been the first to reach Tillotson when the pulser dart came screaming out of the dark and killed him. She'd dragged him into cover, checked his pulse, and then—with a cool composure Gutierrez had never expected—she'd taken the private's pulse rifle and appropriated his ammo pouches. And then, when the three pirates who'd shot Tillotson emerged into the open to confirm their kill, she'd opened fire from a range of less than twenty meters. She'd ripped off one neat, economical burst that dropped all three of them in their tracks, and then crawled backward through the rocks to rejoin Gutierrez under heavy fire while the rest of Sergeant Harris' first squad put down covering fire in reply.

He'd ripped a strip off of her for exposing herself that way, but his heart hadn't been in it, and she'd known it. She'd listened to his short, savage description of the intelligence involved in that sort of stupid, boneheaded, holovision hero, recruit trick, and then, to his disbelief, she'd smiled at him.

It hadn't been a happy smile. In fact, it had been almost heartbreaking to see. It was the smile of someone who knew exactly why Gutierrez was reading her the riot act. Why he had to chew her out in order maintain the threadbare pretense that they might somehow survive long enough for her to profit from the lesson.

She'd killed at least two more of the enemy since then, and her aim had been as rock steady for the last of them as for the first.

"I make that thirty-three confirmed," he said after a moment.

"Thirty-four," she corrected, never lifting her forehead from the rock.

"You sure?" he asked.

"I'm sure. Templeton got another one on the east flank while you were checking on Chantal."

"Oh." He paused in his rhythmic search and raised his pulse rifle. Her head came up at his movement, and she brought her own appropriated rifle into firing position.

"Two of them, on the right," Gutierrez said quietly from the corner of his mouth.

"Another one on the left side," she replied. "Up the slope—by that fallen tree."

"You take him; I'm on the right," he said.

"Call it," she said softly, her youthful contralto calm, almost detached.

"Now," he said, and the two of them fired as one. Gutierrez dropped his first target with a single shot; the second, alerted by the fate of his companion, scrambled for cover, and it took three to nail him. Beside him, Abigail fired only once, then rocked back to cover their flanks while the sergeant dealt with his second target.

"Time to move," he told her.

"Right," she agreed, and started further up the valley. They'd picked their next two firing points before they settled into this one, and she knew exactly where to go. She kept low, ignoring the pain in her wounded knee as she crawled across the rocky ground, and she heard the sergeant's pulse rifle whine again behind her before she reached their destination. It wasn't quite as good a position as it had seemed from below, but the rough boulder offered at least some cover, as well as a rest for her weapon, and she rolled up into position, thanking the Marine instructors who had insisted on drilling even midshipwomen in the rudiments of marksmanship.

The pulse rifle's built-in telescopic, light-gathering sight made the valley midday bright, and she quickly found the trio of pirates who were engaging the sergeant. She took a moment to be certain of their exact locations, then swept the lower valley behind them from her higher vantage point, and her blood ran cold. There were at least thirty more of them, pressing up behind their point men, with still more behind them.

Gutierrez had the lead trio pinned down, but they had him pinned down, as well, and he couldn't get the angle he needed on them.

But Abigail could. She tucked the pulse rifle into her shoulder, gathered up the sight picture, and squeezed off the first shot.

The rifle surged against her shoulder, and the left shoulder and upper torso of her target blew apart. One of his companions darted a look in her direction and started to swing his own rifle towards her, but in the process, he rose just high enough to expose his own head and shoulders to Gutierrez.

The platoon sergeant took the shot, and then Abigail had her sights on the third pirate. Another steady squeeze, and she keyed the com they hadn't dared to use until they were certain the pirates were already closing in on them.

"Clear, Sergeant," she said. "But you'd better hurry. They brought along friends."

"Piss on this!" Lamar snarled as the latest reports came up from groundside. His ground troops had run the damned Manties to ground, but in the process they'd run into an old-fashioned buzz saw. He didn't believe the kill numbers they were sending up to him for a moment. Hell, according to them , they'd already killed at least forty of the bastards . . . and even at that, they'd lost forty-three of their own. Not that there was any damned way the Manties had sent forty people down to a dirt ball like Refuge in the first place!

"Piss on what?" St. Claire asked wearily.

"All of this—every damned bit of it! Those frigging idiots down there couldn't find their asses with both hands!"

"At least they're in contact with them," St. Clare pointed out.

"Sure they are! Such close contact that we can't get in there to use the shuttles for air support without killing our own troops! Dammit, they're playing the Manty bastards' game!"

"But if we call them back far enough to get air support in there, the Manties will break contact again," St. Claire argued. "They've done it three times already."

"Well, in that case, maybe it's time for a few 'friendly fire casualties,' " Lamar growled.

"Or time to give it up," St. Claire suggested very, very quietly, and Lamar looked at him sharply.

"I don't like how quiet Ringstorff's been being for the last several hours," his exec said. "And I don't like hanging around this damned planet chasing frigging ghosts through the mountains any more than you do. I say bring our people up, and if Ringstorff wants these Manties, he can go down there and get them himself!"

"God, I'd love to tell him that," Lamar admitted. "But he's still calling the shots. If he wants them dead, then that's what we have to give him."

"Well, in that case, let's go ahead and get it done, one way or the other," St. Claire urged. "Either pull them back far enough to get in there with cluster munitions and blow the Manties to hell, or else tell our ground people to get their thumbs out and finish the damned job!"

"We've lost Harris," Abigail told Gutierrez wearily, and the sergeant winced at the pain and guilt in her voice. The dead staff sergeant's thirteen-person squad was down to four Marines . . . and one midshipwoman.

"At least we did what you planned on," he said. "They're way the hell and gone this side of the others. No way they're going to backtrack and search for survivors that close to the original contact site."

"I know." She turned an exhausted face towards him, and he realized that it wasn't as dark as it had been. The eastern sky was beginning to pale, and he felt a vague sense of wonder that they'd survived the night.