Esther's Story: Special Duty (The United Federation Marine Corps' Lysander Twins Book 4) by Jonathan P. Brazee

Author:Jonathan P. Brazee [Brazee, Jonathan P.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Semper Fi Press
Published: 2017-06-22T06:00:00+00:00

Chapter 23

“Captain, are you all-right?” Gunny Medicine Crow was passing on the P2P, something that took her a few moments to realize.

“I. . . I think I’m hit.”

Am I hit?

“Stay down. Don’t become a target,” the gunny passed.

OK. That sounds reasonable.

Esther still wasn’t quite sure what had happened, so she picked up her M99 and started to take stock of herself. Her ass and hip were burning, and it wasn’t until she caught the tiniest whiff of something nasty that she started into mini-panic mode. Twisting her body didn’t do jack in finding out what had happened, so she felt around. Her fart-catcher was askew, almost on her hip, and her questing fingers caught a hole in it.

It fell into place. Somehow, despite kneeling and facing the enemy sniper, a round had caught the edge of the fart-catcher, driving it into her ass and hip. And now, the planet’s atmosphere was beginning to seep in. Something was still keeping most of it out, but with any movement, that could open the floodgates, and she’d be dead, killed by her own HED. She’d be resurrected, but that wasn’t anything she wanted to go through.

What now?

She quickly sat down, hoping the ground would block more poison from entering her HED. Her nose started itching, whether from her thinking about the atmosphere or that enough hydrogen cyanide had reached her, she didn’t know, but she knew she’d better not sneeze.

A shot sounded out from in front of her. She wasn’t positive, but she thought it was a Windmoeller.

I hope she got him.

But there was no “Target down” passed. She wanted to call the gunny for an update, but if she was going sniper-on-sniper, she didn’t need any distraction.

She pulled up the gunny on her face shield display, but unlike a regular combat helmet where as a commander, she could pull feeds, all HEDs required a push, and the gunny wasn’t sending. Esther couldn’t monitor what was happening.

Or could she?

The Eagle Eye’s visual capabilities were limited, but she had two more Dragonflies. Maybe they could even help the gunny. Quickly, she directed both to the area.

Another shot rang out, something deeper than a Windmoeller, and Esther switched back to the main combat display. The gunny’s avatar remained a bright blue, and Esther let out a sigh of relief.

Her hip was burning more. Esther wasn’t sure why, but she feared that the atmosphere that had gotten inside her HED was just sitting there, reacting with her skin. The design of the HED 2, where the polymer skin hugged the body, had kept most of whatever had leaked in trapped around her hip, and with her sitting on the hole, at least no more was coming in.

She pushed those thoughts out of her mind. She checked the progress of the dragonflies. Number one should be over the gunny in fifteen minutes.

“Staff Sergeant Rapa, do you have eyes on Gunny Medicine Crow?” she asked on the P2P.

“That’s a negative. She told Tenner and me to move into position where we can cover her, and we’re on the move now.

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