One Good Soldier

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We're surrounded, Tommy! his AIC shouted into his mind.

Holy shit! They've got us and will take the hill. We have to do something now!

What?

'Staff Sergeant Tommy Suez authorizing suit autodestruct now, now, now!' Tommy shouted over the net not for his squad or Top's squad to hear because they would be dead. He announced the order over the tac-net so Colonel Roberts would know what happened and how to react. Tommy just hoped that his sacrifice would do enough damage to the enemy force that had just appeared from nowhere to give Colonel Roberts and Colonel Warboys enough advantage to hold the hill.

'Suez, what the fuck are you doing?' McCandless turned to him with a horrified look on her face and shouted at him. But it was too late; Tommy had already given the order to his suit to detonate.

'Sorry, Top. I didn't see anybody else thinking of anything brilliant, so I took action.' Tommy more than half expected the first sergeant to tear into him. He braced himself for the onslaught and verbal defilement, but it didn't come.

'Well, fucking shit!' is all Tamara managed to get out, and then she kicked at a boulder with her jumpboots. Tommy watched her as she realized that all the blue-team forces around them were cursing and kicking at boulders as well and realizing that their weapons had been locked out. Then the top sergeant seemed to settle down. Tommy almost thought he heard her laugh.

'Top,' Tommy dared to add, thinking the entire time that he should just leave well e-goddamned-nuff alone. But his brain was slower than his mouth, so his mouth just kept on talking though his brain knew better. 'That'll teach 'em to attack Ramy's Robots outnumbering us more than ten to one. Oh, the carnage.'

'Oh, the humanity,' Corporal Bates added. He had never been smart enough to keep his mouth shut as long as Tommy had known the marine.

'You two, don't try my fucking patience.' Tamara shot them a stern look they could barely make out through her visor.

'Got it, Top.'

The simulation referee AICs officially announced to all attack teams in the simulation that all troops within a two hundred meter radius of red team's Staff Sergeant Tommy Suez were all dead. Tommy could just imagine how the captain of the Blair must be reacting to the sim refs' announcement. The troops who had teleported down from the Blair never had a chance to fire a single shot before their weapons were locked out and they were reported as killed in action.

As far as Tommy could see it, he had done his job. He had kept the blue team from taking the hill under overwhelming circumstances, for now. It would be up to Roberts and Warboys from here on to hold it. Tommy found a big rock and sat down on it.

'What do we do now, Sarge?' PFC Howser asked him.

'Nothing, Private. We're dead.'

Chapter 5

July 1, 2394 AD

Mars Orbit, Sol System

Friday, 7:59 AM, Earth Eastern Standard Time

'Aw shit!' Lieutenant Commander Buckley said as Engineer's Mate Petty Officer First Class (EM1) Andy Sanchez screamed from behind a control panel. 'What now?'

'Caught a little extra current flow in my elbow, Joe. I'm all right,' The EM1 replied while rubbing at a new burn mark on the left elbow of his orange coveralls.

'You've been trained on that shit, Engineer's Mate Petty Officer First Class. Don't make us have to write some incident up.' Joe laughed at his senior enlisted man on the team. Hell, Andy looked young, but he had at least fifteen years in carriers. He had transferred over from the Lincoln just after the Battle of the Oort. Joe liked him, mostly because he was a very proficient engineer's mate. He planned to do everything he could not to fry this petty officer with hard X-rays like he had done his last one. He turned to his main propulsion assistant for an update on the jaunt projector.

'All looks good, Joe.'

'Engineering! Bridge!'

'Go Bridge,' Joe replied. He could tell by the voice it was the Air