Lieutenant (The United Federation Marine Corps Book 3) (17 page)

Ryck popped off two more rounds before he felt the tingle that let him know he was being targeted.  Luckily it was only a tingle.  He must have been just out of range.  Ryck slid back down the tree, somewhat recklessly taking huge chunks of length with each slide.  He reached the bottom in less than a minute, slamming into the ground beside Sams, lucky not to have broken an ankle.

“I see you decided to get their attention,” Sams said as if he hadn’t a care in the world.

“Yeah, they had decided not to play, and I figured we had to convince them to hang around.”

“Did you at least ghost one?” Sams asked as Ryck caught his breath.

“Oh, shit, ghosted it but good,” he said, patting his M72.  “The grubbing grenade exploded inside its shield, I think.  Hamburger!”

“Really?” Sams said, excitement creeping into his voice.  “This thing worked?” 

“Sure did.  I’ve got another 26 rounds, and you’ve got 30.  That should hold us for awhile.  But they fired back.  Just got a tingle, not a full blast, so I think we’re about at the edge of their range.  We need to lead them further into the woods so they don’t have time to haul ass out of here before our boys come, so we can’t afford to have them lose contact.  I want to find a gully or something close by so we can get close, but not too close, and see f we can take out another couple of them.”

“Sounds like fun,” Sams said with a tone of anticipation.

The two Marines ranged back and forth, ever listening for signs that the capys were near.  Twicw, Ryck had Sams fire up through the trees and ranged so the grenades would land 200 to 300 meters away.  Ryck hoped that would be enough to keep the capys’ attention. 

Finally, Ryck found what he was looking for: a rain-washed gully between the trees.  It was only about three or four meters deep, but it was filled with bushes and vines that should impede movement.  The two Marines set up on the far side of the gully, each protected by the trunk of a good-sized tree. 

“You ready?” Ryck asked Sams.

When Sams nodded, Ryck pulled down his monocle and powered it up.  He was hoping to see where the capys were, but as expected, if they were out there, their previously exhibited shielding capabilities would defeat Ryck’s monocle.  He kept it powered up, though, for 30 seconds, then powered back down.

Then they waited.

It actually took less time than they had figured.  Within two minutes, they could make out forms moving through the trees toward them, easily highlighted by their softly glowing energy shields.  The shields were beacons.  How could they not realize that?

The capys still moved with that steady sense of determination.  As before, Ryck was struck with the March of the Teddy Bears air about them.  He knew though, that these were not Christmas teddies.  These had a bite to them.

Shooting a HGL through trees was an iffy proposition at best.  But when the capys made it to the other side of the gully, Sams and Ryck would have clear fields of fire for 25 meters.  The arming range on the grenade was 15 meters, which kept the grenades from detonating if the gunner hit tree branches or the edge of a window on the way out. 

The capys kept moving closer, and Ryck waited for them to begin to fire their energy balls.  They kept swiveling their heads as they marched as if scanning the forest for them.  They didn’t scan as a person might, darting their eyes from one place to another.  They twisted their heads in smooth arcs, covering their full frontage.

As the first capys cleared the trees on the other side of the gully, Ryck fired, followed a split second later by Sams.  Both Marines hit their targets right in the chest, blinding flashes of light illuminating the small clearing.  The two Marines shifted immediately to the next target, firing once more before Ryck realized that not only were the first capys they hit alive, but they were still advancing.  One leveled its weapon in Ryck’s general direction and fired.  The shrubs in the gully between Ryck and the capy exploded into pieces, and Ryck felt the heavy tingle of another near miss.

“Sams!” Pull back!” he yelled as he jumped up and spun to run down his designated fall-back route.

He had selected this route specifically because it quickly offered cover from the other side of the gully.  He ran a zigzag path to a huge fallen giant and dove over it, quickly turning and scrambling back to cover Sams.

“Sams, where are you!” he shouted, mindless of sound discipline.

There was a crashing sound on Ryck’s right, and he spun around, M72 at the ready.  It was Sams, who had retreated off line and had to come back to their rally point.

“I thought you said the ’72 can take those fuckers,” he said as he slid to the ground beside Ryck.

“It did!  I mean, I saw the one I ghosted.  He was dead,” Ryck protested.

“Well, I hit that fucker right in the chest, and all it did was piss him off.  My arm’s about numb now from when he fired back at me.”

“You too?  I mean, only numb?” Ryck asked.

“Yeah, so what?”

“On GKN, they took us out at 400 and more meters.  Here, they were, what, 25 meters?”

“Maybe they just missed our lucky asses?”

“I don’t know.  The one that shot at me, I think the bushes maybe absorbed some of the energy, like the bushes set them off instead of letting them continue to us,” Ryck said.

“You mean, like arming them?”

“Maybe.  I don’t know.  Maybe,” Ryck said, unable to grasp an elusive something churning around in his mind, an answer, maybe.

“Look, I can hear them coming through the gully.  I want you to move back to the rise over there.  Cover me.  I want to try something.  When you see me coming, fire over me at anything you see, and if you don’t see anything, I don’t care.  Fire.  Got it?”

“Roger that.  Don’t get caught up on their direction of advance, though.  They’re soldiers, so they should know how to flank someone,” Sams reminded him.

“So keep your eyes open.  If anything comes up from the flank, fire away.”

Sams moved down the fallen tree, then scrambled up the small rise until he had a position where he could observe Ryck and the area in front of him.

Ryck took out his Ruger.  Most Marines carried the 2mm Ruger M31.  Recon, though, had access to more weapons, and Ryck had chosen the Ruger M38, the chosen sidearm for the FCDC’s SWAT operators.  It fired a larger 3mm dart and packed a bigger punch.  There was also a larger variety of dart heads, from armor piercing to small exploding mini-warheads.

Mindful of Sams’ admonition to watch his flank, he tried to keep his eyes on both flanks as well as down toward the gully.  Within 30 seconds, though, he first saw  the glow of a capy shield from the shadow cast by a tree, followed by the capy itself.  Ryck lowered the Ruger and popped off five shots.  All five hit as indicated by the sparks which flew off the shield, but the capy never hesitated.  Ryck ducked as the capy fired, and he sensed more than saw or felt the energy ball explode against the huge fallen tree.  Keeping low, Ryck scrambled along the length of the trunk while Sams pumped shell after shell over his head and into the oncoming capys.  Ryck reached the end of the trunk, then scrambled up and past Sams, who quit firing and followed Ryck.  They ran up the rise, trying to keep as many trees as possible between the capys and themselves. A large rock jutted out of the humus-covered soil, and both Marines flopped down on the top side of it, looking back down toward the slope they had just climbed.  Below them, the forest was silent.

“I think I got one of them,” Sams told him between breaths. “Not the ones next to you, but one round went long and hit one of the ones in back, a seeing-eye shot through the trees.  The fucker staggered, I’m sure as shit certain.  I think it might have gotten back up, but I know it went down.”

“That makes no grubbing sense,” Ryck said, more to himself than to Sams.  At close range, when they have the most punch, they’re useless.  At long range, they can be effective.  That’s bass-ackwards,” he mumbled under his breath.

“You’re sure about that?  You saw it go down?”

“I’m sure it went down.  I dunno.  Maybe it just slipped in the blast.  But the others, I’ve hit four of them already, and none of them even flinched.”

Ryck mind was churning again.  He knew there was an answer in there, one that could prove to be needed to keep them alive. 

He turned to look behind him where the rise kept going.  He could see the rock face of the mountains through the tree tops.  They were running out of room.

It wasn’t actually a click, but an idea slowly emerged as if crawling out of the mist.  He hadn’t even completely formulated his thoughts when he made a decision.

“Up and at ’em, Marine.  We need to find the right terrain for this.”

The two Marines continued to climb, and as they got closer to the base of the mountain, Ryck wondered if he would find what he was looking for.  Finally, right at the base, he found it.  The trees stopped about 200 meters from where the rock face of the mountain sprung out of the soil of the basin.  Just to their left, above the rest of the treeline, a small copse of trees surrounded a huge rock, then petered out another 30 meters up the slope.

“Get up the slope and pick a vantage point where you can cover me over there,” Ryck said, pointing at the rock and small trees.  “How many rounds you got?”

“Eighteen,” Sams said, not having to count them.

“OK, here take ten of mine,” Ryck continued, handing them over.

“And what are you going to be doing?” Sams asked.

Ryck pulled out his small folding grappling hook.  He sprang it open, the three blades falling back from the sharp point. It was designed to be fired by the auxiliary attachment that could be added to almost any weapon in the inventory.  It could be fired over a lip, be that a rock or building, offering an anchor point for a climbing rope, or it could be fired directly into a wood door or wall, offering a set anchor point on a vertical surface.  At the half-cocked position, Ryck snapped it into the firing attachment on his M72, then loaded the firing charge.

“You’re going to climb the fucking mountain?” Sams asked, sounding bewildered.

“Nope.  I’m going to seat this in a capy chest,” Ryck said, turning his M72 HGL in a circle so he could admire the blades of the MA446, Grappling Hook, One Each.

“Uh, look Ryck, you’re the lieutenant and all, and with all due respect, but are you fucking crazy?”

“Maybe I am.  But I think the capy shields, well, they react to things that move fast.  They stop energy weapons, they stop hypervelocity darts. They stop a 20mm grenade at close range.  But when things slow down, they can pass through.  Remember the soldier that got cold-cocked by the giant with the log on its shoulder?  That was slow.  When do our HGL rounds work?  At long range, when they are slowed down.”

“That’s fucking ridiculous.  Who ever heard of something like that?” Sams protested.

“Whoever ever heard of
trinocular majoris
, before, huh?  Think of it.  If their shields are so good, how does air get in for them to breath?  They need oxygen, right?  I think the shields aren’t activated until something hits them hard and fast.  If it is slow, the shields let whatever it is in.  Like air.  Like a grappling hook,” he said, rotating his M72 again.

“But that’s gotta be impossible.  It doesn’t make sense,” Sams said, but with less force than he used before.

“Eliminate the impossible, and what remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth,”
[39]
Ryck said.

“Who the hell said that gem?” Sams asked.

Ryck hesitated, then laughed.  “I don’t remember, actually.  Some 20
th
Century philosopher, I think.”

“You’re basing this on a quote from ancient times?”

“Not really.  But I feel confident about this.  Look, we don’t have much time. They’ll be here soon, I would guess.  So get up there and pick your spot.  I need you to cover my ass.”

“And if you’re wrong?”

“Then, keep moving.  If the capy’s leave, so be it.  You need to get the photos and notes to Division.  Just wait until they get here,” he said before taking his journal out of his cargo pocket.  “Take this, too.”

Sams looked at the journal for a moment, a frown on his face, before sliding it into his pocket.  “Kick some capy ass, OK?” he said before turning to climb up the slope to the base of the mountain.

Ryck hurried over to the rock and trees.  He had sounded sure to Sams, more confident than he really felt.  He had to agree with his teammate that this was pretty farfetched.  But it made sense, and if he was right, then the Federation had to get that knowledge.

He ran into the small trees around the big rock, looking for a good firing position.  Nothing worked.  He was too low, and he wouldn’t be able to see a capy until it was too late.  Finally, he gave up and climbed the rock.  It was about seven or eight meters above the ground, and it offered excellent, if exposed, fields of fire.   He settled down to wait.

As he expected, the wait was not a long one.  The capys came out of the trees, but 150 meters to Ryck’s left, where Ryck and Sams had come out of the trees as well.  That was much too far to shoot a grappling hook.   Ryck was tempted to stand up and shout, but this exposed, he knew the capys’ energy ball guns would be quite effective.  He lay prone on the rock, flipped down his monocle, and powered it up.  Despite the stress of the situation, Ryck still marveled that while he could see the capys with his naked eyes, the monocle readout showed that nothing was there.