Mutineer

CHAPTER THREE

Gunny's LAC slid to a stop on the sandy beach ten meters from Kris. As Gunny and his squad readied themselves, Kris hiked over to them, stepping over driftwood and a half-eaten fish thing, and had Nelly beam Approach March B to Gunny.

Long before the call came for the Typhoon to drop everything and jump for Sequim, Kris had been following the kidnapping; it was the number-one media event this month among the rim worlds. The betting in the wardroom had been two to one that Sequim would holler for the Navy when the second attempt went bust. Kris had put the bets down more to hope than expectation. Then the third local effort to storm the cabin ended with two of their best trackers taking a dive off a 100-meter cliff into raging white water. That, fifteen clicks from the cabin, was the closest the local police got. Kris figured the Navy would get a call, but she never expected the Typhoon to answer it or that she'd lead the platoon. But as an old commander growled at OCS, ''Ours's not to reason why, ours's but to do and then fill out the paperwork.''

So Kris had spent every waking moment for the last four days either preparing her platoon or planning this assault.

Gunny and Captain Thorpe wanted a fast drop and grab, so Kris prepared for a fast drop and grab. Still, one of Father's Rule Ones was always to have a backup in your hip pocket.

With little spare time on her hands, she drafted Tommy to help look for plan B.

''That tundra looks mighty rough,'' Tommy said, studying the Stool pigeon feed of the front yard they were to drop in.

''It's summertime. Tundra gets messy. The computer says it's within standards. Don't you trust the computer's standards?'' Kris asked with a nudge in Tommy's ribs.

''Nope,'' Tom answered without looking up. ''If I or someone I trust haven't fed the computer the numbers, why trust it?''

''So you trust God, but not computers.''

''And didn't my Grandma Chin tell me to?'' he answered without so much as a blink.

''Find me a back door to this place,'' Kris said.

''I could set the LACs down on this pond, and you could walk in from there,'' Tommy pointed out.

Kris had been studying the pond and the ground between it and the hunting lodge housing the kidnappers. ''These woods show as much electronic noise as these other places where the civilians got themselves dead.'' Kris had memorized the electronic signatures of the three different spots civilian rescue teams had died. Their bodies were still there; no one would risk bringing them out.

''But isn't the swamp kind of quiet, I ask you?'' Kris pursed her lip, studying the mud and muck.

Unlike some city kids, Kris had no illusions about how nice Mother Nature was in the raw. She'd split her last summer at university between running brother Honovi's election campaign and hiking the rugged Blue Mountains of Ward haven. ''Just the kind of place some lazy hoods might not bother with.''

''But marines and certain dumb boot ensigns like to play in the mud.'' Tommy grinned and got elbowed in the ribs…hard this time. But the point was made; there was an exit from the landing site. It took Kris another half hour to put all of plan B in Nelly's memory.

Now she laid out a soggy line of march to Gunny. He nodded. ''Tough, but nobody joined the Corps for easy.''

Kris signaled her tech specialist. ''Hanson, sniff the route I fed to your heads-up.'' It was 10:00 P.M. by Sequim's 25.33-hour clock, and going from gray, stormy day to dark, even this far north, when Kris's two squads headed into muck up to their waists. The going was slow. Battle suits kept the icy water out, even as the camouflage systems struggled to match the suits against the ever-changing backdrop. One poor marine's suit gave up; head to toe, he was sand yellow, no matter what background he waded through. The suits kept the water out, but armor was thin insulation against a chill as cold as Gunny's heart. And whether the water was up to their waist or below their knees, each step still buried their boots in mud up to their ankles. To make matters worse, gnats or some local equivalent developed a taste for them. Kris slapped her faceplate down as her troops followed suit. Breathing became slow as they sucked against filters designed for nasty things a lot smaller than a gnat.

As 2300 hours approached, Kris's tiny command was back on hard ground. She signaled a break while she, Gunny, and her tech examined the woods ahead. The trees here stood thirty meters tall, their greenery perched high on bare, scaly trunks much like the Earth evergreen forests that had so quickly spread across the Blue Mountains of Wardhaven's temperate region. But unlike Earth stock, these evergreens' needles ended in barbs. Kris's briefing didn't say how allergic her troops were to whatever was in those barbs, and she didn't want to find out. ''Keep buttoned up,'' she ordered.

While the others rested, Hanson searched the woods for any sign of human life, booby trap, or general discomfort. The Stoolpigeon swept low, adding its contribution. ''There're a few big things here and here,'' Hanson advised, overlaying his sensor reports onto Kris's map. ''Probably nothing we can't handle, but it would make for a more exciting night than my recruiter ever promised, and mixing it up with party animals is bound to get the neighbors talking.''

Kris marked them on her team's charts with a ''No Go,'' and asked what else.

That got a shrug. ''Plenty of medium to little stuff. For the local furry residents, this is the time of year to make hay.''

Kris dismissed him with a ''Thanks.'' I'm coming Eddy.

The break seemed to have refreshed her troops; Kris's legs had gone from screaming to just hurting. I got to spend more time in the workout room if I'm going to hang with marines.

Around her, the night was deepening into solid dark. She was right on her schedule. Kris and her troops moved silently among the shadows of the sparse undergrowth. The techs kept a lookout for human presence, but it was nature that got them. The rain had left everything with a sheen in the fading light—and slippery. Twice, a marine went down. One was just embarrassed by her fall; the other ended up activating the pressure bandage at his suit's ankle. He continued with a limp and teeth gritted against the pain.

Half an hour later, Kris hand-signaled another halt about 100 meters before the trees petered out. While her troops settled in, she and Gunny inched forward carefully to get a personal look at the doors they'd come to kick in.

The hunting cabin was a two-story log structure; the few small windows gave a good idea of just how cold the winter months were around here. A steep-roofed veranda covered the front and the back of the house. Infrared showed a half-dozen man-sized heat sources scattered front and back. However, night-vision scopes showed only two of the six supposed guards to have a real human body to go with the heat.

Kris brought the Stoolpigeon in as low as she dared, five hundred meters above the house. Get too close, and even stealth gave a radar return. With two gunmen outside, Kris wanted a solid lock on inside target locations. Four in-house heat targets showed temperature variations. Kris opened her faceplate and whispered, ''Six targets.'' Gunny nodded.

For fifteen minutes Kris studied the six as they slept. Only one, the guy on the back veranda, showed any action, and that was merely to clomp inside to visit the head. In the house, three men seemed pretty solidly asleep in beds. A fourth man, on the upstairs landing, the appointed executioner if any effort was made to rescue the girl, never moved from his chair.

''Pretty unprofessional,'' Kris observed. Negotiations had dragged out for a week, the main sticking point a starship willing to take them wherever they wanted to go. No captain wanted to have anything to do with these bozos.

''If we'd followed my plan, my squad would have taken these duds before they even knew we were here,'' Gunny growled.

With a shrug for what might have been, Kris waved Hanson forward to examine the 300 meters of cleared ground circling the lodge. From 500 meters, the lowest they dared risk the Stoolpigeon, it had identified nothing interesting about that plot of land. Up this close and personal, Hanson quickly spotted the hum of several low-powered batteries.

''What they powering?'' Gunny demanded.

''Working on that, Sarge.''

Not fast enough for Gunny, he ordered his own tech forward. Both took a few more minutes of fiddling with their sensor suite before Hanson let out a low whistle. ''Hyper low power lasers,'' he whispered. A moment later, he had the frequencies. Kris adjusted her laser defense system and found herself looking at a cat's cradle of beams, crisscrossing the field but only rising twenty-five or thirty meters. Nothing on the Stoolpigeon would have spotted these things unless it buzzed the field—and that was against policy. Damn! These fellows knew too much and were way over-equipped. Who the hell staked them for the up-front costs of this job and was telling them what to do?

Then again, Sequim was a rich planet, and its manager had a wide range of investments in its wealth. Kris wondered who he was meeting with tomorrow to borrow the millions demanded to ransom his young daughter's life.

Kris, raised the daughter of a cynical politician herself, expected there would be many offering help…for ''minor'' considerations. Kris frowned; she'd never thought about who offered to loan money for Eddy's ransom and what collateral was demanded. Interesting thoughts…for later.

Hanson was still busy; he grinned when one of his sensors started blinking in several multicolored sequences. ''I got residue from the out-gassing of C-12 and soft plastics,'' he whispered.

''Let me see that,'' Gunny barked softly and grabbed the instrument from the tech's hands. He frowned at the gadget, batting it on the side once, then studied it some more.

Finally, he glared at the field. ''I don't see any digging out there, Didn't see any from orbit. Don't see any now.''

''Mark 41 Chameleon land mines?'' Kris suggested.

''They aren't issue yet,'' Gunny snapped. ''They just started up production!'' His words slowed as what he knew was possible fought with what he saw. ''Damn, if these sons-a-bitches have that kind of pull?'' He left the rest unsaid

''There's mines out there, Sarge,'' Hanson said with surety.

''Rigged to the lasers or just pressure?'' Kris asked.

''Your guess is as good as mine, ma'am, but I'd bet both.''

Kris took a good smell of the marshy tundra ahead of her. Rubbing her eyes, she studied the sky. Cloud cover was thick, but there was a graying light to the south. Dawn was an hour away. True, these fellows had a tendency to sleep until well after the sun was up, understandable when the sun was only down for three or four hours. Still, the guards were more restless come daylight. And a single noise would change a sleeping watchman to a shooting one—with enough daylight to see what he was shooting at. Kris needed to get herself and ten fit marines across that last 300 meters and get them across fast.

Kris backed into the woods to face her team. ''Whose laser spotters are bust?'' she asked. A few moments later, four very embarrassed troopers acknowledged that the gear they'd so carefully nursed into operation in the loading bay was now dead weight. Kris's one bit of luck was that both her limper and her sand-yellow were among the laser blind; she'd only have to leave four behind.

''You four are my fire support team.'' That, however, was only the start of Kris's problems. The two-millimeter darts of the M-6 came in two flavors. One left you dead.

The other was Colt Physer's best efforts at a sleepy bullet, a round with nonlethal intent. The M-6 did not have cartridges. Once the range finder established the distance to the target, it automatically squirted an appropriate charge into the chamber. Still, there was a problem with sleepy bullets. If you put too much energy behind a dart, it shattered bone, artery, and brain. At 300 meters, the low-power sleepy dart was very subject to wind drift. The odds of it hitting anything were way past bad.

''Gunny, have the two best marksmen among those four load sleepy darts. The other two load live ammo.'' Gunny handed out firing orders with deft hand signals. ''If things get interesting, Gunny or I will say who and what gets fired.'' Kris told them softly, then decided it was time to make her own pre-fight statement. ''Remember, Marines, we're here as cops. These kidnappers have a right to face a jury of their peers. But Sequim still has the death penalty. We bag ‘em. They hang' em.''

With a happy growl, the marines mounted up. Gunny's fire team led, reduced to him and his tech. Behind him followed in single file his corporal and a shooter. Kris led her squad off, Hanson with his gadgets ahead of her. Corporal Li and a trigger puller brought up the rear.

Gunny's tech went first, using her satchel of magic tricks to tell those following when to step high to avoid laser beams, when to edge right or left away from mines.

Kris eyed one mine as she passed it. Its surface was a perfect match of the tundra surrounding it. At fifteen centimeters across and rising slowly to maybe one centimeter high, it left no shadow. It was, however, developing one telltale.

The summer sun had warmed it. It now sank two or three millimeters into the tundra. Kris looked around. Now that she knew what to look for, she could spot a half dozen. No footprints, though. That was what she'd looked for from orbit; footprints on the fragile tundra. They must have dropped these from a chopper. Again, more expenses. Who was footing the bill for this?

Kris badly felt the need for a shower, some coffee, and someone to talk over what had been thrown at her in the last few hours. There were patterns here, patterns that eluded her.

Eddy didn't need patterns solved. Eddy needed rescuing.

Kris concentrated on the problem at hand. Hunched down, halfway across a 300-meter minefield, she discovered a whole new meaning for naked and vulnerable. She watched her step. She watched the Stoolpigeon's feed for action in the house. She watched the sleeping guards for any hint of wakefulness. Occasionally, she remembered to breathe.

Reentry had taken what seemed like a year. Kris aged centuries crossing the tundra in front of the lodge. When finally she was close, Kris signaled Gunny to take his squad around back; the front door was hers. It gave her a direct run at the central staircase and the upstairs gunman. Kris wanted her battle armor over that terrified child's body ten minutes ago. Whatever happened in the house after Kris got to the kid, harm would come to that little girl through Kris's dead body.

Kris's luck ran out ten meters shy of the lodge. One of the sleeping beauties roused himself for a head visit. In his ambling, he wandered in front of the lodge's one picture window.

''Marines, we got action in the house,'' Kris whispered into her mike as the guy stopped in front of the window to scratch.

''We start this show on my count. Gunny, you take down the back and pacify the downstairs. My squad will take care of the front and the upstairs.'' She paused for questions—just as the thug in the picture window yanked up his gun and went fully automatic at them. ''Fire support, get that guy in the window. Corporal Li, you get the sleeping guard on the front porch before he wakes up. Hanson, blow us a hole.''

''Doing it,'' Hanson whispered, stuffing the end of a line charge into his grenade thrower and taking aim at the front door.

Behind Kris, Corporal Li's private took rounds, full in the chest. The force threw her a good five feet. She landed on a mine and got more air time.

''Fire in the hole,'' Hanson shouted. Kris hit the deck while her tech's grenade launcher went off with a whoosh, lobbing a charge at the front door and draping a line charge between her and said door. The door blew in; then, like failing Christmas tree lights, the charges on the line behind it went off. Most just went pop; three set off mines. Waiting just long enough for the explosives to blow, Kris dashed for the door. She was on it before it finished falling in.

Kris struggled to catch her balance as she hurtled into the living room. The stairs were ahead of her. She could not see the upstairs gunman. Off to her right, one man collapsed under a hail of fire from across the yard, even while another man rolled off the couch, gun coming up.

Kris wanted the upstairs gunman, not this one. The nice thing about keeping company with marines was that one of them was always behind you, always on backup. Ignoring the gunner, Kris raced for the stairs, gun up, magazine switching to sleepy darts. Eddy, I'm here!

Halfway up, the sleeping gunman came in view. The racket was bringing him awake. His eyes popped open wide as he saw Kris's gun aimed right at him. His hands came up. Maybe he was going for his gun. Maybe he was just trying to fend off her fire. It didn't matter. Kris shot.

Darts stitched up the man's chest, throat, and face, knocking him over backward. Kris reached the top of the stairs, did a hard left, and headed for the middle bedroom. Scream after scream came from that room; there was no question where the hostage was.

Kris hit the door and bounced off.

Hanson was right behind her. He slid to his knees at the door, jammed a wad of explosives in the lock, covered it with a flap of armored cloth, and ducked his head.

The door blew open.

Kris was moving before the explosion finished. That wasn't possible, but later she'd swear she did. She flew in with the door, did a quick scan with her rifle to the right and left, then dashed for a tiny figure in torn jeans and a filthy green sweater. The girl was sitting half up in bed, yanking at her restraints and screaming at the top of her six-year-old lungs. All Kris wanted to do was hug the child to her chest, but there were rules in situations like these. She dropped to the floor. Something small and nasty looking was attached by wires to the bottom of the bed. ''Hanson, we got a bomb here.''

Her tech slid to a stop on his knees while Kris did a further check on the room. What looked like a school backpack had been reloaded with clothes and other junk. Kris decided it could be ignored for a moment. Otherwise, the room was as bare as its wooden floor, light green walls, and tan ceiling permitted. No closet. Kris turned back to the howling child just as Hanson finished his examination of the monster under the bed.

''Bomb, rigged to the restraint. I pop them, it goes boom.''

''Disarm it,'' came from Corporal Li as he entered the room, trailed by his trigger puller, much the dirtier but apparently no worse for wear from her encounter with live rounds and mines.

''You okay?'' Kris asked the private.

''She's fine,'' the corporal answered for his gunner. ''Landed on the mine flat on her back. It she'd stepped on it, it would have blown her foot off. As it was, it only tossed her around.''

''Remind me to tell HQ their mines suck.'' Kris grinned.

''I'm ready to clip the leads on this thing,'' Hanson said, bringing them back to a child who hadn't quit screaming. ''If this doesn't go well, it would be nice if we had some armor between the kid and this bomb.''

Nothing would harm this girl. Kris gauged how much the little girl was bouncing around under restraints and slid herself onto the bed between the ragged blanket and the child. As Kris wrapped her arms around the girl, she stopped crying, though her breath came in short, choked gasps.

''Nobody's going to hurt you now, honey,'' Kris whispered in her ear.

''Nobody?'' the child said with a hiccup.

''Nobody,'' Hanson assured her. ''Now, everyone back in the hall.'' Once the corporal and private were gone, Hanson sighed. ''I think I got this right.'' He pulled his faceplate down and slid under the bed.

For a long moment, nothing happened. Kris waited. Nothing still happened. Then Hanson was getting back to his feet, raising his faceplate, and grinning like the man who broke the bank at Harrah's. ''Don't just stand there,'' Kris snapped, ''cut the girl loose.''

''Yes, ma'am.'' Hanson said, producing clippers.

Li and his gunner were back, forming a wall between the outside world and their little girl. Kris raised her faceplate. ''The Marines are here, honey. You're safe. Nobody's going to hurt you.'' The girl took it all in, her face sheet white and frozen, her eyes darting from one marine to another. As Hanson freed the child's arms, the tension in her tiny muscles began to loosen under Kris's hug as she tried, really tried, to believe what this stranger said. Finally free, the girl rolled over and wrapped herself around Kris, buried her face in the hard battle armor, and gave herself over to deep, racking sobs. Ensign Longknife held her, protected her, and mingled in some tears of her own. Tears from a Navy ensign who'd saved a stranger's child. Tears from a ten-year-old who'd failed to save a brother.

Above Kris, three marines kept guard, guns out, grins proud.

''Way to go,'' Corporal Li cheered.

''Way to go,'' Hanson echoed.

''God almighty, God almighty,'' the private repeated.

''House secure,'' Gunny reported on net. ''Tech verifies no deadman switch. One bad guy dead. Five are cuffed and sleeping soundly. A few of the sleepy darts were at mighty close range. Some of these guys could use medical attention.''

Kris sniffed, then managed to stand without the kid losing a square centimeter of body contact. ''Very good, Gunny.''

Kris blinked her commlink to full local net. ''This is Ensign Longknife. The hostage is safe. Repeat, the kid is unharmed. Five bad guys are in custody, some injured. Request emergency medical backup. Warning, the ground around the target is mined. Do not land until we disarm them.'' Kris got acknowledgments from a half-dozen police nets and the Typhoon.

Kris looked down into red-rimmed eyes looking up at her. She hugged the girl tight. You are wrong, Mother. The Navy's not a waste of my time. Some days are worth more than anyone could ever pay.