Jethro: First to Fight (12 page)

Fonz nodded dutifully. “Obviously.”

“And we might fail the mission. That
would suck too.” Jethro made a face. He'd come to grips with that now that he'd
had to save a girl. Before, failing a mission was embarrassing. Now the thought
of lives hanging in the balance was there, hovering like a cloud over them.

“I see. So coming home dead isn't so
bad?”

“Tell that to Miles and Chirby,” Jethro
growled, ears flat. “We're cutting you some slack since you didn't train with
us as a boot. But you'd better
learn
fast. We're a combat unit.”

That got the human excited. “What is
combat like?”

“You had sims right?” Jethro asked. Fonz
nodded. “But not a full up exercise?” Fonz reluctantly shook his head no.
“Sims... They're a pale comparison.” He looked away, eyes lost. “They don't
cover all the crap, the itches, galls, blisters, muscle aches, vomit. The
agonizing wait, boredom, the splinters you get, bugs crawling all over you,
spitting bits of your partner out of your mouth, the piss dribbling from you
when a mortar goes off a little too close for comfort...”

“Really? You pissed yourself?” Fonz
asked in scornful disbelief.

“You'd be surprised what your body will
do under stress. Get used to it. We did. Get over it too. There's nothing to be
ashamed of, it's a natural reaction. Just like the fear and the other crap.”

“I'm not afraid,” Fonz replied
indignantly.

The panther turned slowly making Fonz
freeze. Jethro eyed him with just a hint of pity. “Then you will be. You will
be,” he said ever so softly. Something in Fonz shivered at that. He looked
away.

...*...*...*...*...

Major Forth heard about Hurranna's
latest brainstorm as it made its way up the chain of command and snorted. “Why
is it that she's coming up with these things and we're not?” he asked in
amusement.

“Just lucky I guess?” Captain Pendeckle
joked. The Major snorted. “I think we're too close to the problem. We're not
thinking far enough out of the box, or it could be training. She's a member of
F platoon. The Gunny was pretty thorough in training them sir.”

“I see,” the Major replied, steepling
his fingers together. “Speaking of training, how is Fonz progressing?” He had a
special interest in Recon of course. Captain Pendeckle, Lieutenant Halsey,
Lieutenant Myers, second Lieutenant Silverman, and Ensign Valenko were the only
officers in Recon, the Captain was in command. Recon was the cream of the crop,
the best Marines they had. A lot of Marines wanted Recon assignments, but they
were keeping the group limited to a half platoon and being very selective about
who joined.

Like the infantry and specialists, they
were still transitioning over and growing into their proper rolls. Most assumed
that the officers led the squads because of the lack of bodies, or because they
were screwed up. That wasn't so, Forth had his own reasons. One was to get his
officers some hands on command and leadership experience, and two, to allow
them to grow into their new roles.

Captains usually ran companies,
lieutenants ran platoons, platoons ranging from eighty to a hundred and twenty
Marines. Squads were usually eight Marines led by a Sergeant, and each squad
was broken down into two fire teams of four led by a Corporal.

His plan was to let his officers gain
valuable experience, allowing his enlisted to also gain in experience and rise
through the ranks until they could take over the squads. Then transition his
officers by giving them more over all responsibilities and letting the
sergeants handle the squads. That was the plan anyway.

Unfortunately they weren't quite where
they wanted to be by the book. Having his people thrown all over the system in
penny packets was a part of that problem. He had men and women manning posts
for recruiting, security, on the ships, and where ever needed.

The good thing was that the penny
packets was a good cover, it let his people have some independence, after all,
he couldn't micromanage their actions from half way across the system! They had
to learn to stand on their own. Some did so, some he had been forced to counsel
or shuffle to other posts.

Hopefully, once the majority of his
Marines were concentrated on Agnosta, they could settle down and grow the corps
properly.

“Well, Schultz and Jethro haven't killed
him. He hasn't been sent to sickbay, but I heard some rumors in passing that
the squad is getting mighty testy with him lately. He's no longer coasting.”

The Major smiled ever so slightly.
“Good.”

“He's a character sir. Why stick him
with Valenko? Aren't you afraid he'll be the monkey wrench in the works?” the
Captain asked.

“I'm thinking he's the first in a long
line of monkey wrenches, but the squad can learn and adapt. Also Fonz is good,
he just needs to get that snot rubbed out of him. When he gets a real taste of
what it's like to be a Marine, he'll shape up or ship out.”

“I bet,” the Captain smiled wryly.
“About the station idea sir? We could ask Commander Logan to purpose build one
for us...” He suggested hopefully.

The Major shook his head, frowning. “No,
we're still on for Agnosta, so it would be  a waste of time and resources.
No, we'll stick to plan A, but slip that in as plan B in case we are delayed or
held up.” They were still planning the move. It wouldn't happen until after the
upcoming Fleet and Marine exercises however.

The Captain sighed and then nodded. “Yes
sir.”

“Still not eager to move Captain?” the
Major asked.

The Captain shrugged. “There's always
something you miss, no matter how much we plan. These damn meetings are a pain
in the ass.”

“I know. Well, we could always have a
certain Lynx lend a hand if we need it,” the Major replied with a smile. Ever
since Agnosta the Captain had shown more interest in training, even sims, than
in meetings. It was one reason why he'd kept the Captain as head of recon.

The Captain rolled his eyes. “If it's
all the same to you, I'd rather not have a lance Corporal around who can tell
me my job.”

“Even when she's doing a better apparent
job than we are?” Forth asked with a twinkle. Pendeckle snorted.

...*...*...*...*...

As they worked Fonz came to enjoy the
time in the armory. It was mentally and sometimes physically challenging, but
it was less stressful than the combat sims the squad trained with. He'd found
out that the squad trained in sims at heroic level, beyond the normal settings
other squads used. He knew he was still messing up, but he finally felt like he
was making progress, not dying so many times in the sim.

Absently, the human mused about shields
in Jethro's hearing. Jethro thought about the idea, turning the idea around in
his head and not automatically dismissing it due to the source. As he did so he
had a pang about his armor not having full shields. They did, he just couldn't
use them since he didn't have an on board AI to run them and his other systems.
As a Marine he was trained to use equipment to its fullest potential, right now
his was handicapped. It would also be nice if everyone had the same ability.

He looked over the known specs of his
armor again. It was designed to have shields, it had the equipment, but they
still didn't have the programming worked out. He'd heard something about it
needing a dedicated AI or something.

“It would be nice,” Ox rumbled.

“Hell, it would be nice if everyone had
shields, not just a select few special suits,” Fonz said, eying the panther's
black suit. It rankled a bit that he, a human had to make due with a half ass
suit with a few hours of power, while the panther had that elite suit.
Sometimes there really wasn't any justice in the universe.

“Nothing we can do about it. The lock
outs prevent it,” Valenko rumbled. He was still taking it easy, being outfitted
with his very own armor. It wasn't perfect, not fully milspec unfortunately,
but at least it was a leg up over his skin suit. “That it?” the bear asked.

“That's it, sir,” Riley said, watching
as the bear shifted about and then snorted. “I've got your scans, we'll work on
refining the design. The whole quadruped thing though, that's a pain in the
arse,” Riley growled. “If you don't mind my saying so.”

“Go ahead and gripe away,” Valenko
replied with a snort. “I've heard it all before. Just get it done.”

“Yes sir! And will you be building
bridges across the system as well sir?” Riley deadpanned.

Valenko cocked his head, pretending to
think about it. “Nah, not this week. But if I hear about anything, I'll be sure
to let them know you volunteered,” he said. He chuckled when Riley growled.

“Hold still,” Was all the Sergeant
finally said. The bear snorted, watching with amused eyes as the armorer went
to work adjusting the suit.

“Fun,” Fonz said.

“It is,” Ox said.

“Maybe for you. I'm a shooter. Shoot and
scoot. I'm not a tech weenie,” the human grumbled.

“We all have to know our equipment
backwards and forwards in case we need to do a field repair. Get over it Private,”
Jethro said, not looking up from the micro adjustments he was making on an
valve assembly. Fonz snorted.

“How are we going on the squad's
upgrade?”

“You mean getting your squad in armor?
Just about everyone is or will be by the end of the week,” Riley said.
“Including the motor mouth over there,” he said, jerking his scared thumb over
his shoulder to indicate Fonz. “Gunny Schultz was the last one to get scanned.
I'm still at a loss on his helmet though. I may have to go with a bubble top or
something. Maybe staple his ears together or something,” he grumbled.

“Oh, I'd love to see you try to do
that,” Jethro said, looking up with a chuffing laugh. The others laughed too.

They made idle talk with the armorer
Riley who with Ox's help was outfitting Valenko and the rest of the squad who
didn't have armor. The five of them bounce ideas off one another. “What about a
portable shield?” Fonz asked.

“What?”

“A portable shield. You know, from
history. Ancient history, but I'm talking about something you hang on your
arm,” Fonz said, putting his right arm out in front of him as if he had
something clenched in his fist. “See? Like um, a riot shield?”

“Can we use a riot shield?”

“Ineffective in combat,” Ox said. “Same
for a prison shield. Those are convex and have a taser to subdue someone by the
way. No, we need something that can sustain impacts.”

Fonz nodded. “But light weight, man
portable. Maybe set it up or something? Mobile cover?” Riley looked up and
snorted then went back to zip tying the wiring harness together.

“An energy shield,” Jethro said,
returning to their original idea. “But man portable.”

“Won't work. Bubble.”

“Um...” Ox rubbed his jowls. “Not
necessarily,” he said quietly, deep in thought. “Not if we made it small, just
a field emitter. We'd have bleed off on the outer edges, but anything hitting
dead center wouldn't get through easily,” he mused. Riley looked up, tucked the
wiring harness up into the torso, then picked up a wrench to work on bolting
the armor plate back together. The armorer wasn't interested, but Ox pointed
out that a hand sized emitter would work.

"So? can't build em," the
armorer said dismissively. He kept torquing the nut. "Try it now."
The bear rolled his shoulders. “Now the other way.” The bear did. "Okay,
that works."

Jethro frowned. "What about
re-purposing a shield emitter from a shuttle?"

"Won't work, energy hog and they
are too big I tell ya!" Riley said as he shook his head. “Better off
making it out of metal. Be worth a half cred after it gets chewed up. The
weight alone...”

"But what about a gravity
emitter?" Ox asked, carrying a cable harness. He sets it in place and
began to clipping leads.

"That's what..." the armor
paused as Ox taps his hoof. He looked down and blinked in thought.

The bear looked down. "Something
I'm missing?"

Riley paced for a moment.
"Something we're all apparently missing. Or overlooking. Ox wasn't though.
It'd have to be small, about a kilo or two, flat, um..." the armor stopped
what he was doing and knelt, pulling up the decking.

"Hang on there a sec, let's finish
one project at a time!" Valenko laughed. He was still only half outfitted.

"He was right," Ox said
snorting. "I believe we can adapt it..."

"Aha!" the armor said. He
tapped a cylindrical gravity emitter. "Perfecto!"

"If it's not more than ten
centimeters thick. We also don't know the power specs or forces it can
exude..."

"Yeah, but this... we've got
something. Won't work for a bubble though."

"Why not?"

"Ain't going to happen. Too weak.
But concentrated. Like a shield..."

"Thought that's what we were
doing?" Jethro asked confused.

"Not that kind. He means a shield.
Roman style?"