“I’m still for flattening the building,” said Powell.
“Quiet,” I said to Powell. And turned to Lambert. “We can track the shot but you said we’d have a problem accurately returning fire. And we don’t want to blow up the building.” I glanced back at Powell for this. “So rather than aiming for the sniper, we send a rocket filled with trackers into the apartment he’s shooting out of.”
“It busts open, covers the asshole with trackers, and then it doesn’t matter where he goes, we know where he is,” Powell said.
“Right,” I said. “And we don’t have to hit him head on, we just have to have him dusted.”
“Found it!” Salcido said. “I’ve got something that should work. Building up a round now.”
“So now all we have to do is wait for the next shot,” Lambert said.
“We’re not going to wait,” I said. “We’re going to draw his fire.”
“How do you suggest we do that?”
I motioned to my combat unitard. “These should be good for one round.”
“You’re going to go out there and let the asshole take a shot at you,” Lambert said.
“I didn’t say it was going to be me,” I replied.
“Well, I’m sure as shit not volunteering,” Powell said.
“For once I’m with Ilse.” Lambert jabbed a thumb at his squad mate.
“Sau?” I asked.
“You want me to build this Frankenstein rocket and take a slug to the head? Come on, boss. Cut me some slack here.”
“I’m the officer here,” I pointed out.
“And we’re all super inspired by your leadership, Lieutenant,” Powell said. “We’ll be right behind you.”
“Emphasis on ‘behind,’” Lambert said.
I looked at the both of them. “When we get back to the ship we’re going to have a little talk about military chain of command.”
“We’re looking forward to having that conversation if you survive, Lieutenant,” Powell promised.
“We might have it with me on one side of an airlock and the three of you on the other.”
“Seems fair,” Lambert said.
“Locked and loaded,” Salcido said, to me. “I’m already tracking the bots. Ready when you are.”
“Fine,” I said. I turned to Powell and Lambert. “You two make like you’re laying down fire for me as I make my way up the road. With any luck that asshole will miss me when he takes his shot. Be watching the building for the shot. Sync with each other and with Sau so you can triangulate. It will give Sau a better target for the rocket. Sau, call it in and let them know what we’re up to.”
“Got it.”
“We’ll keep him busy,” Lambert said. Powell nodded.
I had my combat unitard cover my face, loped out from behind cover, and started hoofing it up the street, Lambert and Powell’s cover fire rattling behind me.
I made it about forty meters before I was hit by a truck.
Colonial Defense Forces combat unitards are amazing things. They look like something you’d wear if you were performing Swan Lake, but the fabric, designed with the Colonial Union’s trademarked nanobotic trickery, protects its wearer better than anything short of a foot of steel. Probably better, since steel would fragment and spall and send shrapnel into your guts. The unitard doesn’t do that. It stiffens on projectile impact and dissipates the energy it receives, up to a point. It’s usually good for keeping your ass alive for a single direct hit of, say, a sniper’s bullet.
But that doesn’t mean you don’t feel the hit.
I felt it just fine. Felt the stiffening of the unitard make it feel as if my ribs were cracking, and they might have been, felt my feet lift up off the road, felt my body fly backward through the air a few yards and then crumple into a heap as gravity took hold again.
All of which was according to plan. There was a reason I ran straight on into the sniper’s sights. I wanted him to hit me center mass, where the unitard was best equipped to take the shot without killing me outright. If the sniper had been ambitious, he could have tried for a headshot, which I probably could have survived, but I wouldn’t have been happy or mobile for several days afterward.
But Salcido was right. The sniper wasn’t all that good. I figured—hoped might be the better word—that he’d go for the bigger, easier target. And he did.
Still hurt like hell.
I heard the poomp and hiss of Salcido’s rocket fizzing toward the sniper’s position, followed a few seconds later by a dull pop and the sound of glass shattering.
“Rocket hit,” Salcido said, talking to me through my BrainPal. “You alive, Lieutenant?”
“It’s debatable,” I said. “You tracking?”
“Yeah. Sending the feed over the squad channel.”
“That asshole still have a gun to my head?”
“No, he’s on the move now.”
I rolled and called up the squad feed and looked up at the building. The sniper was visible as a superimposed pattern of tiny dots, each representing a single, mite-size tracker. He was currently moving from one apartment to another.