Tibbs and I knew it was going to be a bad tour, my divorce had been finalised, Amber and her mother were leaving and we had been moved into a new Crack Corp. and assigned a group of rookies. Lt Demitrie was to be running this shamble of a unit, we hadn't seen him since our early days. It was our job to get these misfits into shape and ready for duty. Our rooster read like a whose who of green horns.
After only a few weeks of shaping them up I was assigned to a special operation by Commander Dillon's Adjutant Yoshi, thinking about it now it was a bit strange he never gave me written orders. But the briefing was this auditor had to go, she was investigating the Marine Corp. In her profession she was the best her record read like a whose who of corporations, she had stung the lot. Pulling out dirt and irregularities where you would never dream of.
My corp. thought I was away on a Sergeants refresher course and so did the rest of the marine corp. in fact or so I thought. I arrived at my destination and booked in at my room, someone must have been flush because the room was the one below the penthouse suite. My equipment had been sent ahead and was waiting for me in my room, it all seemed to be in tact. I browsed through the files on my target again and studied the route I knew her entourage would probably take. The best place for sniper fire was also the riskiest right on the doorstep of the Marine Corp. subsidy, they would have to walk one hundred yards before they got inside the building.
I had thought about infiltrating their penthouse suite and taking her out there or maybe planting a bomb in the room below her suite but both options were too risky with too many unknown factors. So I set myself up as an employment agency and rented a small office on the fifth floor over looking the walkway they would have to traverse to the Marine Subsidiary and moved my 'office equipment' in.
When the day finally arrived, I got to the office early and checked all my equipment, the exit routes were checked again, it was a choice of either a back fire escape or the main reception I would decide nearer the time which one to take. Either way I knew I wouldn't be able to take my 'office equipment' with me as there wouldn't be time to dismantle it. Yoshi had given me a standard Marine issue 10mm Sniper Rifle, it used standard Pulse Rifle Clips but was more effective with specials, the ten specials were sitting in a clip, I needed to be sure for this job. The gun was wired to a small load, which could be primed at the flick of a switch on my way out. There won't be much left of the rifle after and anyone touching it should only get flash burns.
I watched as two limos pulled up, funny that my sources had told me she had hired three. Five Sec's got out the first limo and walked to the second. Their operating procedure was familiar. They worked with a familiar precision, though they couldn't be that good otherwise my phoney company office would have been checked out and it wouldn't take more than two corporate security guards to work out why there was no office furniture or paperwork here, when the company had only just opened for business. She got out of the limo with two escorts, the rest built a human wall around her and they started to move briskly towards the building, very unusual unless they were well trained or expecting trouble or maybe both.
Letting them get some distance from the Limos so cover would be hard to reach, I followed her in my sights, my finger rested on the trigger, this shot was going to be hard the human shield was professional, professional was right they were COLONIAL MARINES!
In my sights Sergeant Tibbs and Lt Demitrie, what was our CO playing at, maybe he thought the finger of suspicion could be pointed elsewhere if it was seen that marines had tried to protect her. At the end of the day orders are orders and I had signed up to follow those orders, orders are integral to the Colonial Marines, if we don't follow them people died. I followed her closely in my sights for what seemed like an eternity, but patience paid, my chance came I squeezed a single shot and watched as her mid drift exploded and she fell to the concrete. Tibbs should be thanking me for that, though I doubt he'll see it that way, another centimetre to the left and he would have been spraying his shoes and probably anybody standing next to him in the john.
Knowing it was marines on escort they would deploy some men to hunt the sniper and the rest to get her to the building. The marines hunting me would do what they do best and charge straight at the front door, so my escape route had been decided for me. As I began to leave I primed the small load on the rifle, removed my gloves, picked up my jacket and my smokes and walked calmly to the rear fire exit.
Walking out of the back door, I reached into my coat pocket and pulled out my lighter and a Marlboro. Looking around as I sparked up a marine comes round the corner and spots me, my natural instinct was to reach for my light pistol, but for some strange reason he just sits down and lights up a smoke himself. Only acknowledging his presence I walked across the road, when from behind the fifth floor windows explode, OOPS maybe I put too much plastic in there. But now the marines hunt for the sniper was to become impossible as civilians were rushing to leave the building and chaos had struck, my getaway couldn't have been easier, thanks to the Colonial Marines.
Before making my way to the prearranged meeting point, I stopped off at a public phone I pulled a business card from my wallet and swiped it in the slot. My contact was satisfied with my debriefing and that the job had been done, my orders were not to lie low but to join my unit at the hotel. My stripes I was informed were perfectly in order and I had passed my refresher course A1. I met up with the Helo and after a short journey was dropped at the airport, my rouse would now be that I had just arrived from my course, all records would be in order so that the last two weeks I would have been in hypersleep aboard the cruiser.
My baggage was waiting for me at the collection point, I sailed through customs and took a taxi to the hotel. After checking in at reception I was question by the guards on duty. The penthouse suite was only accessible by a single lift from five floors below the penthouse. Getting to the penthouse suite I was met by two sentry guns, they picked up my surgically implanted Personal Data Transmitter (P.D.T) and with held from firing. Reporting in with the Lt was worrying I was still didn't know if any of my unit had been hurt by the little blast I had left behind.
Lt Demitrie deposed of the formalities, told me to get unpacked, he was going to be busy with one of the troops, apparently he'd had problems on this mission and Private 'Parts' was involved in some way. Choosing a room I started to unpack, in my trunk was all my gear including a new 10mm Sniper Rifle with signature recognition, this was my personal rifle and not standard marine issue. In an envelope there was a letter congratulating me on passing the refresher course and 5000 credits in notes which I assumed to be to cover expenses incurred.
Sergeant Tibbs calls through that's there is a call on the Vid Phone and they want to talk to the commanding officer, as Lt Demitrie was otherwise occupied that was me. Picking up the phone my heart jumped, it was the local beat. They were following up on the sniper from the previous day. Even though I had been careful not to handle the rifle and the fact it was in pieces they had still managed to pick parts of finger prints from it. Though their databases had not been able to match any. They didn't have access to military or Corporate records and wanted us to run them through on our records. Requesting that he upload the files and prints to us I assured him this would be done promptly. The upload wouldn't come directly to this Vid Phone but would be available through reception.
Thanking the beat, I left Tibbs in charge and made my way to reception to pick up what evidence they had. There was quite a bit there, enough maybe to finger me, so checking the files and prints I carefully selected the worst few and ate the rest. That should guarantee anonymity. On my way back up I bumped into Lt Demitrie he was finished with the private, asking what I had in my possession I glibly told him it was my checking in papers.
Tibbs pipes up I thought you were getting the evidence the local beat were uploading. Demanding to see what I had I passed over the doctored evidence, he wanted to see me and wanted an immediate explanation. He left Tibbs to watch me while he went down to the APC to run some checks on the evidence. While we were waiting I knew lying to Tibbs was like using a chocolate fire guard. I let him in on the past days events, and I was right he didn't thank me. Time was now passing and Lt Demitrie had not returned Tibbs and I went down to the APC only to find the onboard computer running cross checks with the evidence on all personnel records available to the Military. The computer was registering as nearly finished and then the results of its search started to print, it had managed to find ten possibilities for the finger prints, Commander Dillon was one and I was another. Tibbs grabbed the printout and started eating it, neither of us was skilled enough to delete the records the computer had created but we could turn it off. At that moment the location P.D.T started to beep giving us a direction of north east, Tibbs quickly pulled out a map while I called the rest of the unit instructing them to bring all the gear. Then the P.D.T stopped. We drew a reference on the map knowing that Lt Demitrie was in trouble somewhere in that direction.
Our Unit was up and raring to go. We belted up and prepared ourselves for extracting a hostage, the worst kind of scenario available to a Colonial Marine, these missions only had two endings and one wasn't pleasant for the Lt.
We started to head in his general direction when one of the privates mutters something about one of the warehouses on the map being familiar. We headed for that location only to be stopped by the Lt himself on the comms link, he instructs us to wait one Kilometre from the warehouse. When we get there he's waiting for us, he barks some orders to return to the airport as we are leaving. Then he looked at me with a knowing look. I gave him the run down at the back of the APC, we were now heading to confront Commander Dillon and his adjutant Yoshi, When we arrive after having a slight hitch with Jason our Drop ship Simulant and some Top Secret Colonial Marine Cruiser we made our way directly towards Commander Dillon's office.
Yoshi is sitting in reception and allows us access to Commander Dillon, Lt Demitrie hands over a report of our findings and Commander Dillon hits the roof, he certainly doesn't want to see me again for quite a while. Yoshi later died in a trauma unit after we had confronted him he made a run for it, he killed two MPs in the process put was disabled by several shots. Regardless to say this episode has not been entered on my record, but is a big black mark with Commander Dillon, I don't doubt that I will ever raise beyond my current rank, though I am surprised to still have it.