The Infinity Brigade #1 Stone Cold Read Online Free PDF Page B

Ramirez took the other half.  Our training task for the morning (after the first of our 10K runs) was to carry the components of a breaching bridge from the supply depot to a staging site. A class that was four weeks ahead of ours would be needing the parts to build the bridge as part of their training later in the morning.
    Normally a series of gravity carts would be pulled behind an Armored Attack Vehicle (AAV) but the ‘enemy’ had destroyed all the AAVs so we had to hump the components the six kilometers to their destination.
    I looked at the inventory of items we had to move. It seemed that there would be no problem moving it in the time frame allowed with half the platoon. Part of me was saying… this will be easy … and another part was saying… not a chance in hell bucko! I wish I would learn how to listen to the correct half but alas I am, and have always been, the eternal optimist.
    Since New Parris Island was only about two kilometers across at its widest point this meant that we would have to cross it several times with our load. There was a real possibility that we could get bored but fortunately we had the Drills whose mission in life seemed to be keeping ours interesting.
    About one and a half kilometers into our mission we began to take fire. Our first clue this was happening was when Private McDullis took a kinetic round dead center in his passive body armor. It knocked him back a good four feet. He looked down at his chest and saw the digital display flag him as dead. Per his standing orders (pun intended) he immediately fell to the ground as a casualty. 
    “DROP AND SEEK COVER!” I yelled. My helmet had a HUD display. We really hadn’t had a lot of time to practice with it yet but I had spent what little free time I had in the evenings reading the tech manual on it. After a few attempts I managed to turn on its friend-foe imager. Sadly everything it saw was flagged as a friend. I could see the snipper positions and began to fire in their general direction with my play-pointer which was the only weapon they would allow us to carry at the moment.
    “Bloody Hell Sir… What are you firing at? I don’t see a damned thing!” JJ bellowed from the hole he had managed to find. Did I mention before he was British?
    It occurred to me that I was probably the only one using my ‘Heads-Up-Display.’ I tapped a control and took control of the HUDs for the entire platoon. As a guy, I hated to admit it, but reading manuals sometimes helped.
    “WOooo!” I heard several of the platoon yell as their displays went live.
    I started firing again at the guys firing at us. Kinetic rounds kept hitting the dirt near our position. Now understand, lunar dust is like talcum powder. It fine and once it stirs up into the air it can take a while to settle out.
    “I only see friendlies,” Ramirez yelled.
    “If they are firing at you they are not friendlies!” I yelled back.
    “How do we know for sure?”
    I gritted my teeth. We would get killed arguing about this. Suddenly inspiration hit. It’s rare but it does happen upon occasion. I pressed the HUD’s audio interface. “Computer, flag all shooters not within twenty feet of my present position as hostiles.”
    Immediately four green icons turned red. “Take’em out boys!” I yelled. Thirty toy-pointers immediately converged on the four snipers. Their icons on our HUDs soon disappeared.
    I was feeling pretty good about myself. The Senior Drill Sergeant must have been psychic because his ever-cheerful voice came over my commlink a few seconds later.
    “Ensign, give me a sit-rep on your progress with your platoon’s medical workup.”
    “Crap!” I said out loud.
    “I see… situation normal, all fouled up. Address it Ensign… or I will demote you and promote someone who can, Harris out.”
    “FORM UP!” I yelled at the platoon.
    I had planned to use the entire platoon to carry the breaching bridge until we got near the medical center and then split off