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| The Premier Military Magazine for Professional Adventurers Issue #6 |
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Index |
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Classifieds |
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There We Were... |
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| FIX BAYONETS Part One | |
| By Andy Thorne
After three months of patrol on the old light cruiser Xenophon we grunts were getting ship happy. The scuttlebutt as we came into Heya was that a band of Corsairs had been seen. My squad was second on the deployment roster and as any good Marine PFC I wanted some action. Anything to get away from the bullshit drilling our evil Gunny Halloran delighted in inflicting on our tender feet in the now empty forward missile bay. Our drop and surface patrol was a piece of cake. There was a 0.19 G and no atmosphere. Since I had graduated from Papa Foxtrot (Protected Forces training, Ed.) first in my class I was sweep man, last in line on my fireteam. The only draw back was the aforementioned Halloran had come along and insisted we rope off like boots at the first day of Basic Vacc. Trust a lifer to kill a chance at getting some good low grav fun. Everything was cool until we hit a dust plain and the team kicked up little sprays of fine powder I knew were going to be hours of work to clean off back on the Xeno. I was cursing the rope that wouldn't let me clear the plumes when the first burst threw up huge plumes of the dust just in front of our point man Chung. The rest of second squad returned fire as we scrambled for the very tiny rock ridge they were already behind. The fact that we got there says a lot about how bad the Corsairs were shooting. It wasn't until we got to the rest of the squad that we got the joyous news that the lumbering cruiser had gone off to investigate something only the sensor squids could get hot about. The Xeno would be back in cover fire orbit in about thirty minutes. They wanted to know if we were sure there were Corsairs in our patrol area just about the same time the Varg’rs’ mortar rounds hit. Don't you just love the Navy? Between the incoming smallarms and mortars (why mortars on a low grav moon? Musta been a sale somewhere) the dust was getting thick. Gunny said to toss out frags and then fix bayonets. I said things about senile lifers under my breath as I cleared my Imperial Marine ration opener and snapped it into place. We all tossed out grenades as Halloran ordered us to blackout our faceplates and “go instrument”. I was late so I saw the grenades detonate. I had to admit our screwy sarge had an idea with the frags and faceplates because the dust the grenades raised totally blotted out vision of any kind. |
I was wondering how we were going to keep from tangling ourselves on instruments alone when I heard the order “Maaa-rines left FACE!” echo in my commo. I and every other Gyrene in the squad turned left like a machine. With the all too familiar orders and cadence calls Gunny Halloran marched us out of the grayout up to the crater wall. I found the wall by cleverly ramming my bayonet into the stone.
After a quick jump up we found out why the Corsairs were so distracted. About a dozen cargo pods littered the metal rich scree of the crater lip where sensors hadn't seen them or the old freighter the Corsairs had stolen. The few Varg’r left trying to load the bulky rectangles were dropped by the usual precision Marine rifle fire. It wasn't until we were clearing the pods that I noticed the bend in my bayonet. If my gauss rifle had taken the blow instead of my pigsticker I would have had a slightly (say about 5 degrees!) off kilter weapon. Very bad things can happen with hypersonic rounds in a barrel that's a bit off like that. The ship and the cargo were declared prizes and by the time the beancounters got done I got CR 1492.5, after they deducted the cost of my broken bayonet! It almost made the three days I spent clearing the dust off my AND my squad's equipment seem worth it. Seems my mike wasn't off when I was ranting about senile lifers. Well, Semper Fi, learn or die. Next time my mike would be off! Writer Bio- -ed. |
