Duty from Ashes (2 page)

Ahead and to her left, a head popped up from the culvert. A split second later, it exploded. She smiled slightly as Eagle gave a war cry that almost split her skull. She’d remind him later about how that sort of thing sounded through the battle-net. Not that she blamed him. They had spent too much time hunkered down behind makeshift barricades and hiding in the shadows. It felt good to finally be on the move again. Now it was time to make the enemy pay for all they’d done.

“Angel, to your right!”

Loco’s warning came at almost the same moment that her armor’s sensors warned her of someone – or something – suddenly appearing and moving in her direction. She turned, bringing her combat rifle to bear. Her finger slipped behind the trigger guard and she felt her combat implants coming to life as she focused on the figure running hell bent for leather in her direction.

“Hold your fire!”

Without waiting for confirmation, she broke into a sprint, racing toward the small figure. The child couldn’t be more than five or six. Where he had been hiding during the fighting she didn’t know and, just then, she didn’t care. Not when her armor’s onboard computer was telling her that several of the enemy were bearing down on them.

She had to get to the child before he was hurt – or worse.

Without conscious thought, she switched out her battle rifle for her sidearm. Using the targeting system of her HUD, she laid down fire in the direction of the nearest enemy soldier. A scream of pain followed. Good. One down but who knew how many more to come.

Three more steps and she scooped the child up in her arms. He cried out as an enemy trooper appeared to the right and opened fire. Reacting on instinct, Angel shifted the child so he was shielded by her armor before returning fire. Then she pivoted, running in the direction of Loco and the rest of his team. They were laying down cover fire, forcing the enemy troopers to duck back down into the trench. At the same time, Sorceress was calling in air support. But that was all in the background as Angel focused on the child in her arms and the need to get him to safety.

“Down!”

Loco’s shout was all the warning she needed. She dropped, sliding feet first toward the barricade. At the same time, Loco stepped forward, Tank and Hound on either side of him, and all hell seemed to break loose. As they opened fire with everything they had, so did the rest of the squad. If that wasn’t enough, three Sabres, the newest and most deadly fighters the Fuerconese Navy currently had in operation, screamed overhead and opened fire on the culvert.

The ground shook again and another explosion – no, a series of explosions – deafened her. Then there was silence, the kind of silence that really wasn’t. Angel’s pulse pounded and her breathing was ragged. The crackling of fire mixed with the heavy smoke that filled the air. She heard someone, one of her people, offering up a quick prayer of thanks. Someone else uttered a curse. For once, she agreed with both sentiments. Then she heard the boy whimper. Much as she wanted to reassure him, she couldn’t. Not yet. She had to make sure the area was secure first.

Still cradling the child in her arms, Angel twisted around so she could look in the direction of the culvert. Nothing moved except for the smoke rising from it. Without warning, the silence was broken by a single shot to her left. Instantly, half a dozen battle rifles responded. Then nothing.

Barely daring to hope that it was over, Angel went to active scans. For several long moments, she studied the readouts on her HUD. The locations they had tagged as being held by the enemy were either showing red, indicating they were too hot for anyone – even armored – to survive or there were the tell tales of the dead and dying. Could it finally be over?

“Sound off!” she ordered as she carefully climbed to her feet.

As she did, the medic assigned to her squad hurried forward to take the child from her. Except the child had other ideas. He wrapped his arms and legs more firmly around her and burrowed in. with a jerk of her head, she motioned the medic off. She could spare the child a moment as she caught her breath and her people reported in.

One by one, each member of her team sounded off. A few sounded the worse for wear but she had lost no one that day. Thank God. The nightmare hadn’t replayed in all its horror. It had come close, though, and she wanted to know why.

Relieved, she looked down into the child’s face and the world came to a crashing halt. No! He couldn’t be there. Damn it, he couldn’t be there. As bad as that time had been, that would have made it worse, so much worse.

“End sim!” she ordered, ripping off her combat helmet. “I said to end the damned sim!”

C
HAPTER
T
WO

E
VERYTHING
WENT
DARK
for a moment. Then the lights came up and, with it, the return to reality. Gone was the battle torn landscape. Gone was the school building with the barricades before it. The smells of smoke and death lingered only in her memory. Instead of standing in the middle of a warzone, she stood in the center of a large room the size of a warehouse. Battle armor had been replaced by BDUs. Battle rifles and other arms had been replaced with training weapons. It hadn’t been real.

Her team looked around for a moment, reorienting themselves, before moving in her direction. Despite the return to so-called normal conditions, nothing could hide the aftermath of what they’d been through. Each member of the squad looked as if they’d been through hell. Panting, sweating, exhausted from four hours of almost non-stop battle, it had been real for them.

Almost too real, at least for Major Ashlyn “Angel” Shaw.

“What the hell was that, Major?” Tank demanded as he turned to face her. “That wasn’t what we were briefed on.”

The others grumbled in response. At least they hadn’t appreciated the change in mission parameters any more than had she.

“Quiet!” Ortega snapped, her eyes on their commanding officer, her expression worried.

Ashlyn didn’t respond. Instead, she closed her eyes and breathed deeply. She had to get control of her emotions before she said anything, even to her squad.

“Very good, Devil Dogs,” a male voice said over a speaker hidden somewhere in the shadows. “You are dismissed. Debriefing for officers and senior NCOs in two hours. As a reminder, your squad is to report back here at 0800 hours tomorrow for your next training mission.”

As if from a distance, Ashlyn heard her people grumbling in ill-temper. She knew it was a combination of frustration over the just completed
mission
as well as having to do it all over again come morning. Not that she blamed them, especially about the change in this particular
mission
. They had been given the parameters and had prepped accordingly. As their CO, she’d made sure of it, for all the good it had done them. Not a one of them, least of all her, had expected to find themselves suddenly on Arterus and in the middle of that thrice-damned firefight. The members of this particular squad might not have been on the original mission with her, but they had studied it. She’d insisted they be given access to her reports on what happened. But this, having them actually go through the scenario without at least giving her a heads up was too much. It was too close to being set up again and she wasn’t going to stand for it.

And that didn’t even begin to take into account her anger with whoever had the audacity to write her son into the sim. Someone had better have a damned good explanation for it or she wouldn’t be responsible for what happened next.

“Major, did you know about this?” Sergeant Major MJ Adamson asked softly as she moved to Ashlyn’s side.

“I did not.” She forced herself not to turn and hit the wall – or the nearest person. “I have just one question for the rest of you. Did any of you know about this change in the mission parameters?” She waited, watching as they processed what she’d asked and knowing the answer before it came.

“Ma’am, no, ma’am!” each member of her team answered in unison.

She nodded, trying to rein in her anger. “Go hit the showers and then get some chow. Forget about the debriefing as well as the morning’s mission until you hear from either Captain Ortega or myself.” She held up a hand to ward of any argument. “And don’t discuss what happened here with anyone, not even the other Devil Dogs. Not until you get the go ahead from me.”

With that, she turned on her heel and moved toward the only entrance to the room. Her boot heels hitting the floor sounded loudly, a sure indication of just how angry she was. She didn’t care. She wanted answers and they’d sure as hell better be good ones. Otherwise, she might just find herself back in the Tarsus military prison. At least if she did, she’d have earned the trip this time.

As she reached the door, she paused. A frown touched the corners of her mouth. For a moment, she looked at the three who had followed her and considered telling them to do as she’d ordered. Instead, she simply punched in the code to end the lockdown and stepped through the door as soon as it slid open. If the three meant to follow, they’d have to keep up.

Without a word, she moved through the corridor leading between the different simulation rooms toward the control room at the far end of the building. The few people they passed quickly made room for them. Whether they read the anger on her expression or it was just the sight of four members of the Fuerconese Marine Corps’ best SpecOps battalion moving with undeniable purpose, she didn’t know nor did she care.

The door to the control room slid open and she stepped inside. A split second later, silence filled the room as the junior officers and ratings manning the monitoring stations turned in her direction. Without a word, she glanced around, her anger rising. As if sensing it and knowing they didn’t want her focus on them, everyone turned back to their stations and tried to look busier than they had been just a moment before. She knew what they were doing and didn’t care. They weren’t important, at least not just yet. Their only part in the sims was to monitor and record how the different groups reacted to the scenarios thrown at them. They had nothing to do with setting up the sims. That person was in the office beyond the control room, hiding, too much of a coward to come out to greet her.

“Major Shaw.” A lieutenant with more guts than common sense hurried around his desk to intercept her before she could barge through the next door.

She stopped, the toes of her boots almost touching his, her hands fisting at her sides. “Lieutenant Young.” She made a point of glancing down at his name tape since he hadn’t identified himself, much less called the others to attention as senior officers entered the room. “Step aside.”

“Ma’am, you know I can’t do that.”

She simply stared at him, her expression closed.

“What I know is that I outrank you, as well as everyone else in this room, by some magnitude,
Lieutenant
.” A hand gently touched her arm and she turned, ready to tear into whoever had been foolish enough to interrupt her. Then, seeing her XO standing there, she nodded slightly. Something in Ortega’s expression told her to let the other woman handle things, for the moment at least.

“Lieutenant Young, you happen to be the senior officer on duty, isn’t that correct?” Ortega’s voice was deceptively gentle but her eyes flashed dangerously. Recognizing it, Ashlyn closed her mouth and waited, wondering what her XO was up to.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“As an officer, I assume you actually went to the Academy and passed your course work. Would that be a correct assumption?”

“Y-yes, ma’am.” Sweat now beaded on his forehead and upper lip.

“And part of your time at the Academy was spent learning proper protocol when senior officers enter a room. Isn’t that correct?”

A slight smile touched Ash’s lips. Her XO – and one of her closest friends – was about to teach the poor lieutenant a lesson he wouldn’t soon forget.

Young nodded.

“I’m sorry, Lieutenant, I didn’t hear you.” Ortega’s voice turned cold.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And were you taught proper uniform appearance for both officers and enlisted personnel?”

“Y-yes, ma’am.”

“Master Sergeant Adamson, please inform the good lieutenant of the number of uniform violations you spot on him with just a cursory inspection.”

“Yes, ma’am.” The blonde stepped forward and glanced almost casually at the young lieutenant who was starting to look more than a little green. “Without doing a proper inspection, Captain Ortega, I see at least eight violations of the uniform regulations.”

“I see.” She shook her head, her expression grim. “And the rest of the personnel in this room?”

“Ma’am, there are far too many to list without actually taking notes.” Now Adamson’s voice was as cold as Ortega’s had been. “There is more than simple carelessness being shown in here, Captain.”

“Master Guns, how many violations of protocol did you note as we entered the room?”

“Is the captain asking about what I saw as we immediately entered or since our arrival?” Talbot asked in return.

Ashlyn almost laughed as Young flinched and paled.

“Let’s limit it to our immediate arrival.”

“Then there were three actual violations of protocol and another two violations of common military courtesy,” Talbot responded.

“And what would you do if someone assigned to the Devil Dogs failed to follow established protocol?”

“Well, Captain, I’d have them out on the O Course until they were ready to drop and then I’d have them standing watch, greeting every officer and NCO by rank and name for the next week.”

Ashlyn considered telling her people that they had made their point. It wouldn’t surprise her if, at any moment, the lieutenant either fainted or pissed his pants. No one enjoyed being dressed down the way he’d just been. If they were smart, they certainly didn’t want it happening by two of the most well-respected NCOs in the Corps.

She held her tongue, however. Ortega was right to make an example out of him. He had violated protocol and his uniform, as well as most of the others in the room, did not come up to standard. If his CO wouldn’t teach him the error of his ways, she’d let her XO and senior non-coms try.