Lieutenant (The United Federation Marine Corps Book 3) (18 page)

Ryck kept the monocle on for ten seconds, then turned it off.  He risked a quick glance and was relieved to see that six capys had turned away to come toward him.  Several of the other capys fired their weapons up the slope.  Ryck hoped that they hadn’t located Sams and were firing at him, or at least that Sams had taken cover.

Ryck waited, listening, trying to determine just where the six capys approaching him were.  They just moved so silently that it was hard to tell.  He finally risked another quick peek.

Grubbing shit!  They’re right here!

With a shout, Ryck jumped to his feet, HGL leveled.  He triggered the auxiliary launcher, and with a bang, the grappling hook shot forward, trailing the climbing rope.  The capy directly in front of Ryck tried to bring his gun to bear, but while the grappling hook was slow, the distance was too short.  The hook slammed into the capy’s belly, penetrating the shield to plunge deep into the flesh.  The sensors of the hook released the half cock, and the blades flashed completely open.

For the briefest second, Ryck looked into the enemy’s eyes, eyes that finally showed some sign of emotion.  Or at least something.  Was it the capy equivalent of despair?

Ryck stared in wonder.  He’d been right!  Then he realized how exposed he was.  He turned and dove off the rock as several energy balls flashed through the space he’d just occupied.

His HGL was jerked out of his hands before he hit the dirt.  The grappling hook was embedded in the capy on the other side.  Ryck jumped back up to where the weapon dangled against the rock, and then hit the release, dropping the rope.  He started his mad dash through the low trees and shrubs, finally aware of the sounds of Sams’ 20mm grenades detonating.

Ryck reached the end of the little finger of trees and kept on going, willing his legs to get every ounce of push they could muster.  Once, he felt the kiss of an energy gun sending his nerves twisting and turning, but he kept to his feet until he could get cover behind a rock not nearly as large as he would have hoped.

He turned back and tried to acquire a target.  This wasn’t as easy as he would have thought.  The capys were not marching lemming-like to their fates.   They were not hitting and rolling as Marines might do, but they somehow wove back and forth between each other as they advanced, and that had a very disquieting and distracting effect on the two Marines.  Still, half a dozen of the capys were down when the firing from up the hill ceased.  Ryck looked over, and Sams was looking down at him, holding his HGL upside down.  He was out of ammo. 

Using hand and arm signals, Ryck told him to take off.  He had the camera.  He had Ryck’s journal.  He had to get away.  Sams had smartly picked a firing position that had a small egress from it, and Ryck was sure Sams could get far enough away that he could simply outrun the capys until the Marines landed. 

Sams signed the negative.  He was not going.  Ryck once again signed for him to leave, this time using the final motion that made it an order.  Recon or not, friend or not, Sams was still a Marine, and an order was an order.  Even at this distance, Ryck could see Sams was angry.  Ryck made the “this is an order” sign once more, and Sams glowered, but finally nodded.  In a crouch, he saluted Ryck, then started running.

Ryck popped back up and fired three more grenades.  He didn’t hit anything, but he was sure that it was affecting the capys ability to fire.  Ryck was giving Sams the cover he needed to make his escape.

Ryck fired his last two rounds, the first scoring a direct hit on a capy and sending him down.  He did a quick inventory.  He had his Ruger, which was ineffective.  He had three grenades, but they would explode outside the capys’ shields and be effectively worthless.  He had two toads.  Ryck laughed.  It had come to this.  He had first made his name with a toad, and it looked like he would go out with a toad.

He briefly considered making a run up the mountain, but to get to where Sams had made his escape, he would have to almost hand over hand it, and the capys were well within their energy gun range.  No, this was about it.

He arranged the two toads in front of him.  When the capys got close, he would simply throw them.  They should penetrate the shield before flaring into small, white hot suns.  He would burn the suckers. 

After that, well, it had been a good run.  He wished he’d been able to patch things back up with Hannah, but maybe it was better this way.  She’d lost two of her manfolk to the Marines, so when she found out about this, it wouldn’t hit her hard.  Ryck hoped though, that she’d at least shed a tear for him.

Grubbing shit, you pussy!  Snap out of it.  Get beserker and show these grubbing teddy bears how a Marine does it!

He knew he was just psyching himself up, getting his nerve up to go out warrior fashion, but he didn’t care.  It was working.  He risked a quick look and almost got fried, the hair on his head standing up in the side lobes of the energy blast.

He picked up the two toads, in one hand, the other hand ready to pop the fuze.  Crouching in back of the rock, he drew a deep breath. 

The explosions took him by surprise, the heavy blast waves squeezing the air out of his lungs.  He struggled to his feet amid the chaos, pulling the fuze on the first toad, arm back ready to throw.  A huge dragon was in the sky, spitting fire to the earth.  Ryck stared in shock as the Navy Experion fighter peppered the hillside. 

Ryck just stood there, toad in hand, only realizing at the last second that it was armed.  He flung his hand backwards, sending both toads to the hill behind him.  The armed toad detonated  just a meter from his hand, falling to the ground in a blast of heat and light.  It burnt a piece of the rock face loose and rolled back down at him, and Ryck had to leave his cover as it came up against the rock and started burning its way through.

Standing there, hyped up to fight only to find the battle was done, he tried to gather his wits.  The Navy Experion was not a great atmosphere fighter, but its big kinetic guns simply overpowered the capy shields.  The turf below Ryck looked like a plowed field, it was so chewed up.  Capy bodies, or rather parts of them, were scattered about.  Ryck had the field of battle to himself.

The Experion came low in front of Ryck and hovered, the two pilots saluting him before peeling off.  It was only then that Ryck really looked to the basin below.  The capy ship was gone, but the basin was full of activity as Storks and Navy shuttles landed.  The three capy guns were more holes in the ground than anything else.  Ryck couldn’t see any sign of downed Federation craft.

Ryck took a seat on the rock to watch.  There wasn’t any sign of fighting, but the Marines buzzed about like a nest of disturbed fire ants.  After about five minutes, a Stork took off, circled once, then flew up to the hill where Ryck was sitting.  It landed in the chewed up dirt below him.  Several teams in isolation suits got out and started to walk the battlefield.  A fire team of Marines broke off from the scientists and marched up the hill to where Ryck was sitting.

“Are you Lieutenant Lysander?” the young corporal asked.

“Yeah, I guess I am.”

“Um, is, uh, SSgt Samuelson, did he make it?” he asked, looking around.

“I imagine so.  I think you’ll find him up there along that path, but I’m sure he’ll be down shortly.”

“Well . . . uh . . . OK, sir.  Uh . . . the colonel, that’s Lieutenant Colonel Toritino, he said that Stork there is by his compliments, in case you want to come down and join him.  He said you, and I quote,” he said, pulling himself up straighter, “‘saved the frigging day,’ sir, only he didn’t say ‘frigging,’ sir.”

The corporal stood there waiting for Ryck to respond.

“Uh, so are you coming . . . sir?” he asked.

“Yeah, I think I am.  I think I am.”

Pearson’s Refuge

Chapter 22

Ryck tried to adjust the Federation Nova that hung tight on his neck.  Whoever designed the medal had to be a sadist.  The sharp points of the exploding star dug into Ryck’s chin anytime he lowered his head.  He took a quick look in the mirror.  He’d only had the medal for less than a day, and this was the first time he’d worn it with the neck clasp.  The night before, at the medal ceremony, the Chairman of the Federation himself, Admiral Wulstan Yance, had put it around his neck, but with the ceremonial ribbon, so it had hung looser.

Well, I’ve gotta admit, it sure looks good
, he thought to himself as he gazed in the full-length mirror.

Ryck still wasn’t convinced he deserved the medal.  If it wasn’t for the photo Sams had taken, which caught him on top of the rock, grappling iron midflight between him and the capy, he was sure he wouldn’t have been awarded it.  But the photo—which Ryck had to admit caught the action just right, enough to make him
look
heroic, at least—looked pretty
taut
.  The press had been using the word “iconic,” but Kylee had used “taut” when she cammed him, excited that everyone at her school had seen the photo of her uncle.  That had made her somewhat of a star.  If Kylee said it, then taut it was.

He’d talked to the chaplain back on
Zephyr-Hadreson about it when the word had first come out that he’d been put in for it.  He’d even talked with Col Ukiah, the regimental commander, on the trip over to Pearson’s Refuge for the conference. 

This wasn’t false modesty.  Ryck knew he had stumbled across something pretty significant, one which would have eventually come to light, but still, this gave the forces of man a jump on developing tactics with which to fight the capys.  And it had taken some balls to stand up on the rock and fire away.  But no more than what other Marines had done.  Like Joshua, who had been awarded the Navy Cross, posthumously.  Or Felicity, Jones, and Hogger, who had gotten Silver Stars even though they had been doing the exact same thing as Joshua.  Ryck wondered why he was getting the Federation Nova when Joshua had insisted on giving up his life for the rest of the platoon and the civilians but only received the Navy Cross?

Col Ukiah, who had nothing higher than a BC2 on his chest, had seemed to understand.  He acknowledged that there were politics involved, but the fact of the matter was that Ryck’s actions would save far more lives than what Joshua and his three Marines had saved.  This wasn’t to denigrate Joshua, he quickly added when Ryck started to take issue with the statement, but merely to bring up cold, hard facts.

To say that there were politics involved was an understatement.  The entire pageantry of the night before, where Ryck was paraded around like a prize stallion, was half politics and half marketing, although the differences between the two were almost indistinguishable.  With Admiral Yance presenting the award in front of the First Brother of the Brotherhood, the president of the Confederation, and various heads of state of other planets and alliances as well as the top corporate chairmen and CEOs, this was a symbol of the Federation’s claim of supremacy.  They were taking the fight to the capys, or at least the brunt of it.  It was a Federation Marine who was the big hero. 

Ryck understood that he was a pawn in all of this, but he couldn’t help last night but to be caught up in the atmosphere of it all.  He’d been pretty keyed up while accepting the congratulations of the bigwigs.  It hadn’t been until he got back to his BOQ room several hours later that he lost some of his high.  It would have been so much better if Hannah had come.  The CG had almost insisted that Hannah make the trip, not caring when Ryck told the general’s aide that he and Hannah were not together at the moment.  The general had even called Ryck directly to try and pressure him, but Hannah didn’t care what some Marine general thought. 

The two had cammed several times, but Hannah had never even mentioned the upcoming award, something that had hit the newsfeeds, so she certainly knew about it.

He pulled down the Nova again, trying to seat it a bit lower.  He would have been happy just wearing the ribbon for the conference, which was appropriate for the Alpha uniform, but the PAO
[40]
had rather forcibly insisted that he wear the actual medal today.  He gave his blouse one more tug and stepped out of his room just as Col Ukiah came down the passage.

“You ready there, devil dog?” the colonel asked.

“Yes, sir, locked and loaded.”

“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,” began the colonel, “that’s still a far better fate than what we’ve got there, Ryck.  We’ll just sit in the back with the other peons and keep quiet.  You get briefed again by the good LCDR Kangilla?”

“Yes, sir, in triplicate.  I’m to shut up, and if asked by the press what I think, say we’re going to win, and then defer to my seniors, in whom I have the utmost faith and confidence.”

“Ha!  At least you get to speak.  All O’6’s, and that includes yours truly, are to keep our mouths closed.”

Ryck laughed.  He’d never really met the CO.  He wasn’t sure he’d ever had much of a conversation with any senior officer before.  But on the trip over, then all day yesterday, he’d gotten o know the colonel, and he rather liked him.  He may have an eagle on his collar, but he was just a Marine like anyone else, one whose personality meshed with Ryck’s.

They left the BOQ and headed over in the direction of the conference hall.  The first talk didn’t start until 0845, but as two in the mass of underlings, they wanted to get there early and at least get a seat.  Standing up for several hours at a time didn’t sound very appealing.

They had gotten only a few hundred meters when the bugle sounded.  They stopped, came to attention, and saluted toward the flag pole where several sailors held the Federation colors.  The Federation Anthem started up, and the sailors hoisted the flag.  As the last strains died down, Ryck waited for the flourish that signaled that they could go about their business.

Instead of the flourish, though, the Brotherhood Hymn started up.  It was only then that Ryck noticed the flagpoles in front of the 5
th
Fleet Headquarters building.  A group of Brotherhood knights raised their flag while the Hymn played out. 

The morning ceremonies didn’t stop there.  The Confederation, the Advocacy, Greater France, five independent worlds, even the autonomous Rottwilhelm Trust (the huge business conglomerate that operated by its own rules at the edge of explored space) had music played and flags raised.  It took about 20 minutes before the flourish finally sounded and the two Marines could break their position of attention and drop their salutes.

“Well, now we know why the conference doesn’t start until 0845,” Col Ukiah said.  “No one wants to be caught out in all of that.”

“That’s got to be some sort of record,” Ryck said with a laugh.   “But you know protocol.  Everyone, no matter how small or if they’ve even sent troops into the fight, if they are here, they’ve got to get their acknowledgments in.  If we’d left a minute earlier, we could have watched all of that from inside.”

The two Marines made their way into the conference hall.  It was one of the biggest in the entire Navy, and given that the planet was as close to the center of human space as a Federation World could get, Pearson’s Refuge had been selected to host the conference.

Security was very tight.  They had to show their badges and were scanned no less than three times.  That did not include any number of discreet surveillance methods that Ryck could not even begin to list. 

The two Marines finally made it to the cheap seats and found a place to sit.  Within ten minutes, all the seats were taken, and the attendees just arriving had to stand in the back.  One Confederation one-star didn’t take it too kindly that he had to stand and raised a fuss, at one point ordering a Brotherhood guardian, their equivalent to a colonel, to stand and give up his seat.  At that point, two ushers, who looked more like bodyguards, closed in to escort the recalcitrant general out of the hall.

At 0855, the conference still hadn’t started.  Most of the assigned seats in the first level had been taken, but the ones in the very front were mostly empty.

“I bet they’re jockeying out there to see who comes in last,” the colonel whispered into Ryck’s ear.

“Are you Lieutenant Lysander?” a huge man in a tailored suit asked, leaning into their row.

“Yes, that would be me,” Ryck said, wondering why he wanted to know.

The man spoke softly into some sort of hidden mic, but Ryck caught “GG-19.” 

GG-19, was Ryck’s seat number.

“Thank you,” the man said to him before turning away.

“What was that all about?” Ryck asked.

“I’d say you’re going to get an honorable mention,” the colonel told him.

Ryck was about to respond when the final worthies started down the aisles to their seats.  Evidently, who could piss the highest had been determined, and everyone had their place in line.  Within moments, all had found their seats. 

The 5
th
Fleet Commander, resplendent in his whites, walked to the podium.  “Heads of state, commanders, ladies and gentlemen, I welcome you to the United Federation Navy’s 5
th
Fleet headquarters.  I trust this be will an informative and productive session.  If there are any issues of a personal nature, please contact any of my liaison officers.  Without anything further, I am turning the opening ceremonies to the Chairman of the United Federation, Admiral Wustan Yance.”

The Chairman made his way up to the podium.  There was a smattering of applause, but it never seemed to really gain that groundswell.  Admiral Yance gave the talk Ryck would have expected.  It was full of exhortations for cooperation, yet it inferred  a Federation primacy.  When the chairman stated that the conference and the fight against the Trinoculars were beyond politics, the colonel whispered a quiet “Yeah, that will be the day.”  Ryck had to hold in the laugh that threatened to burst free at hearing that.  For an O6, Col Ukiah was pretty grubbing cynical!

The colonel had been right about something else.  Halfway through the chairman’s speech, the admiral said “And one of those brave Marines is here today.  First Lieutenant Ryck Lysander, the newest holder of the Federation Nova, awarded just last night.”

A spotlight suddenly shone on him, and Ryck had to stand up and accept the applause.  Col Ukiah noted that he got a much more robust round of applause than the chairman had received.

The chairman was surprisingly short and sweet, though, giving way to the First Brother.  A few of the heads of state were a little long-winded, but most were fairly direct.  Still, it took almost three hours to get through everyone.  This without a break.  When the last head of state, Princess Ryliar finished, there was a mad dash for the heads.  Ryck had to wait in line until it was his turn up at the trough.

After lunch, the conference broke down into working groups.  Ryck was not in any of the exalted groups, which was fine with him.  Instead, he was able to choose, and both he and the colonel went to a brief made by a joint scientific team to listen to what had been discovered so far about the capys.

Of course, the big news was already known.  Based on the DNA collected on the planet, the soldiers, the giants, and the little capys were one and the same.  By inference, the shepherds, and several other types observed by other teams were probably one in the same, too.  Evidently, the little capys were juveniles, and at some point, in a method still a mystery, they matured into different adult forms.  There was extensive debate going on about how or why this occurred, but to Ryck, this was immaterial.  As a Marine, he only needed to know which ones posed a threat.

The third eye on the soldiers was far more evolved than the simple biosensor on the juveniles.  It was a pretty sophisticated organ, and it should be able to detect a wide range of electrical emissions.  Some xenobiologists (and scores of biologists were now claiming that title) postulated that the soldiers did not vocalize at all, but communicated through their bioreceptors.  When Ryck thought about it, he had never heard the soldiers make any noises, while the juveniles were constantly squealing and whistling.

Much of the biology was above Ryck’s head, but the next working group on capy weapons was more up his alley.  The capys’ main weapon, the energy ball thrower was beyond human technology, but some secrets were being whittled out.  At its base level, the weapon held balls of energy at the ready, and somehow shot those balls forward at its target.  Details were sorely lacking, as were defenses against them.  No human had been able to get one to fire.  They seemed to have a limited range, and anything in the energy balls’ paths dissipated their power. 

The information gleaned seemed light for the expense in obtaining it.  On HAC-440, most of the capys had gotten off the planet and evaded the Navy fleet.  Combat had occurred in five locations, all with varying degrees of success.  The humans had overwhelming numbers in each of the five assaults that culminated in combat, but while three of the assaults had minimal to no human casualties, two units—a Freison battalion and a Brotherhood host—had taken huge casualties.  The Freison battalion had gone in with their meson guns, and the infantry had been almost powerless against a mere 40 or so capy soldiers.  Without heavy Navy support, they Freisons might have lost the battle.  It was a pyrrhic victory as it was.  They had tested their tactics, and that was the intent, but the battalion had suffered 75% casualties.