In Every Clime and Place by Patrick LeClerc Read Free Book Online Page B

from the mortar and stone around them amid the hail of 5mm ball ammo and 20mm grenades.
    “OK, listen up!” I said into the mic. “Johnson! Get a full ammo box on the TAR. When I say, rock and roll!”
    “Got it.”
    “Sabatini!”
    “Yo!”
    “When Johnson opens up, we beat feet to the rubble below the target. Get out a frag, then we cook ’em off and toss ’em over.”
    “You sure friggin’ know how to show a girl a good time.”
    “What about me?” asked Nolan.
    “You stay put. We need you alive to get us out of this shithole. Help Johnson cover us. Is everybody good to go?”
    I heard a chorus of yeses.
    “OK. Hit it!”
    Johnson sprayed the lip of the front wall of the enemy position, while the rest of the squad blazed away.
    “Let’s do it!”
    Sabatini and I leapt up and made a crouching run to the wall below the enemy position, flattening ourselves against the rubble. I looked at her, got a tense smile in return.
    I pulled a hand grenade, activated the fuse.
    “On three,” I said.
    She nodded in reply.
    I counted down. We rose and heaved our bombs over the parapet, then flopped down against the stone as the squad kept firing, in case the enemy tried to return our grenades.
    After two very long seconds, a double explosion sent gravel raining down on us as the stone rumbled against my chest. I swear it made my molars vibrate.
    “Cease fire!” I ordered.
    We scrambled up the sliding rocky slope. I was almost at the crest when a shape reared up in front of me. I fired and it flopped back. We reached the top and aimed our rifles over the rubble. I saw one man in a corporate uniform on his knees groping for a dropped rifle, but Sabatini pumped three rounds into him and he sank down on the deck. Nobody else was moving.
    “All clear above!” I gasped.
    I was sweating like a pig. I looked at Sabatini. She was smiling her shaky little nervous grin.
    “Well done, Marine.” I thumped her on the shoulder.
    We climbed over the wall and examined the enemy. They were corporate guards. Seven of them, sprawled in their own gore. A German manufactured 5mm machine gun with several belts of ammo lay idle, the gunner staring blindly at the overhead, the top of his skull blown off. “What the fuck?” I wondered.
    Gunny Taylor climbed over the wall. Surveyed the carnage. “Cocksuckers thought our weapons would get captured by the rebels, so they decided to take us out. They probably thought the rebels would get blamed for it, and the rest of the platoon would help ’em out. Maybe more troops would even get sent to stomp this rebellion. So what if we take it up the ass? Marines are cheap.”
    That was pretty unsubstantiated speculation, but we all thought he was right on the money. It would be typical of the way corporations and governments tried to use us poor grunts.
    Not all of the enemy were dead. One was groaning, mostly just knocked down and disoriented from the concussion of the grenades. He must have been shielded from the worst of the blast. On closer examination, two more were breathing, but so badly cut up by fragments that they might not make it.
    “Corpsman,” Taylor called into the mic, “is that Marine stable?”
    “Shit, Gunny,” Sabatini said softly, “he was never stable.”
    The gunny ignored her and continued speaking over his helmet radio. “OK, when you think he’s all set, get your ass up here. Chan! Keep your team down there and secure the area.”
    Johnson was next over the wall. “Damn,” he whispered in awe.
    “You did good, Marine,” I told him. “First firefight?”
    He nodded, staring at the enemy soldier with half a head. The corpse was a bit gruesome. Sabatini’s round had hit him just at the hairline and topped his skull like a soft-boiled egg. A dark pool of blood, cerebrospinal fluid and bits of grey matter spread slowly from beneath his head.
    Doc Roy arrived shortly, and proceeded to stabilize the wounded guards. The rest of us piled the enemy weapons around the