Lieutenant (The United Federation Marine Corps Book 3) (21 page)

“What?  You getting soft, Ryck?  She threatened me!”

“No, not soft.  And you know the threat’s a non-player.  She’s just concerned about her own people.  She doesn’t understand what we do.  So let it go and focus on the mission.  Don’t brood over it like you always do.”

“I’m not brooding.  I never brood!”

Gutierrez laughed out loud at that.  “No, not you.  You
never
brood, my friend.”

“Oh fuck you both,” Sams said, stalking off.

Ryck knew he would be fine.  The bottom line was that he was a professional.  He’d probably bring it up two weeks from now in the chow hall, brooding about it until then, but he’d do his job here and now.

Sams started getting the people in their order of march.  If he was a little forceful about it, Ryck chose not to notice it.  It took almost 20 minutes, but finally, they were ready.  With Ryck on point, Sams in the rear, and the other two on each flank, they moved out.

Normally, Ryck wouldn’t be on point.  But as he was the one who had managed to master land nav with a magnetic compass, he had to lead the column.  Initially, he didn’t use an azimuth, though.  He made his way alongside the creek until he hit the teak forest.  Then he went to his azimuth to take them to the LZ.

They slowly, very slowly made their way forward.  Reiko, the pregnant woman, could barely waddle along, each step an effort.  Ryck had a horrible thought of her going into labor.  Mr. Saunders, one of the old men, was even slower, if that was possible.  One of the younger men put Saunders on his back, but that lasted about 300 meters.  Despite his intentions, Ryck had to call a stop before they’d gone a klick.  They had to rest.

Ryck was staring at his watch, resenting each passing second, when Dr. Jarvis came up and said, “I assume you recovered Dr. Kopowski’s PA?”  And after Ryck nodded, “Can I ask you if I can take charge of it?  I’m sure you know how important that might be, and well, if we have any problems, well, you’re a Marine, and, well—”

“And I might get killed.”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Jarvis protested.

“Sure you did, and that’s fine.  You might have a point, there.”  Ryck considered it for a moment, then nodded and reached into his pocket, taking out the PA and handing it to Jarvis.  “Better chance of it getting back with you.”

Jarvis eagerly took it, turning it over looking for signs of damage.  He looked into the dead screen, then flipped on the power.

Ryck stared at him in shock.  “Are you fucking high!?” he yelled, grabbing back the PA and turning it off.

Jarvis paled as he realized what he’d done.  “I wasn’t thinking.  I just wanted to see if it still worked.  I’m sorry!”

Ryck ignored the trembling man, trying to figure out how long it was on. 

Two, three seconds?  Was that enough to set off some sort of capy alarm?  Probably not, right?  Fuck!  I can’t take the chance.

“Shart, get over here!” he shouted out for Sgt Gutierrez.  “Sams, get them on their feet” he shouted, eliciting groans from half of the people.

As Sgt Gutierrez ran up, Ryck told him, “Look, we may have alerted the capys.  I want you up ahead on point, but five hundred meters or more.  You’re our early warning if they’re in front of us.”

“But I can’t use that fucking thing,” he protested, pointing at the compass.

“You don’t have to.  Just follow the ridgeline.  We’ve got four klicks or so to go.  But remember, that’s right at the edge of where it opens up to grassland, just like they told us the capys prefer.  So if there are any capys here, that’s where they probably are, so keep your eyes peeled.  Got it?”

“Yeah, Toad.  I’ve got it.  Just . . . oh shit.  I’ll try not to get lost.”  He wheeled about, and Ryck heard, “
Dios te salve, María, llena eres de gracia
. . .” as he hurried off.

Sgt Gutierrez was a hell of a Marine, but Ryck knew he was petrified not of a fight, but of getting lost and not doing his job, not providing frontal security. He just had to suck it up and get it done.  If he just kept the ridgeline to his left, he should be OK. 

Ryck considered moving the column over a bit, closer to the ridgeline, but if they were moving this slowly through the teak plantation, then they would be crawling through the thicker mixed forest higher up.

Ryck told Caruthers to move out his left flank security.  He told Sams to be conscious of capys to their rear, but he couldn’t drop him back to give the column a buffer.  He needed Sams to keep the stragglers moving.  Ryck was naked to the left flank, but with the ridgeline there, that was his least likely problem area.  Still, Ryck kept his eyes peeled towards the left as the column started up again.

Ryck pushed them.  Or to be more accurate, Ryck led the way at a faster pace while Sams pushed them.  Ryck could hear Sams, haranguing, pleading threatening, and using everything in his power to keep the slower ones moving.  If the column separated, he knew Sams would send up word. 

“Should some of us push forward?” Jarvis said, pulling up alongside of Ryck.  “Some of them can’t move very fast, and that’s holding us back, so what about those of us who can move quicker, if we get going to make our pickup time?”

Ryck just glared at the scientist, evil intent in his eyes. Jarvis faltered.

“Just a suggestion,” he said, before falling back behind Ryck.  Somehow they made it one, two more klicks.  He was beginning to hope that they would get to the LZ unmolested.  He looked at his watch.  Three more hours to go two klicks.  Surely even this group could get that done.  He slowed down the pace slightly.

When he saw Gutierrez running back, he initially started to point his arm in the correct direction of march.  That was until he saw the sergeant’s expression.  His heart fell.

“Capys!” Gutierrez gasped out as he reached Ryck.  “More than a hundred, all coming this way.”

“Soldiers?”  Ryck asked, already knowing the answer.

“Soldiers, yeah.  No doubt.”

“And do they know where we are?”

“They’re coming right at us, Toad, and they’re deployed for combat.”

Ryck spun about and screamed, “Everybody, now, turn around!  Sams, Crutch, to me!”

Some of the people stopped, looking confused.  A few showed panic beginning to form on their faces.  Still fewer, Jarvis being one of them, actually turned around and started heading back the way they had come.

“We’ve got trouble.  Our LZ is out.  The capys are heading our way from that direction.  I don’t think we can make the alternate LZ either, not with this group.  Sams, I want you to take our charges and head back to our DZ.  You can’t make that, either, but keep moving.  Try to get into someplace open, and exactly at 17:15, signal for a pickup.” 

He handed Sams three cylindrical tubes he’d bought at a hover shop back in Goattown outside base. 

“You think this’ll work?” Sams asked.

Ryck had shown the roadside flares to the others while enroute aboard ship.  They were used by emergency crews responding to accidents, and were pretty old techno.  They emitted a bright red flare that could be easily seen both in darkness or in daylight.  A simple twist of the bottom cap set them off.

“If we can’t use comms, we have to use visuals.  This was the brightest man-packed, non-electrical light I could find searching the net.  I’m guessing if they see our LZs are hot or we aren’t there, they will see these.  I hope.

“You two, we have to delay the capys.  You’re with me.”

He pulled Sams in low to his face and whispered, “If it comes to it, don’t wait for us.  Get these people out of here.”

Sams didn’t protest.  He just punched Ryck in the shoulder.

“Then make it back in time so we won’t have to leave you.”

With that, he turned around and started yelling at the column, getting it turned around and moving.  Sams pulled out his Ruger just as Tara came up to find out what was going on.  He handed his side arm to her and pointed to the front of the column, then used his hand to give a direction.

Ryck wouldn’t have chosen the young woman as a point man, but he was already moving out with the other two Marines, and that was Sams call.  Ryck put the column out of his mind as he led his two Marines into a fast jog to a spot where the trees were a little denser.

“Let’s see if these things are as advertised,” he said as he pulled out five tiny cylinders.  “Crutch, run the trip lines.  Give me, oh, seven meter lengths.”

Ryck knelt in the dirt and emplaced the tiny mines.  The mines didn’t have regular fuzes.  There were no sensors, no emissions.  These were mechanically detonated.  Very carefully, he wired the mines to nearby trees.  Two were to larger trees, three to smaller ones.  Then, he and Gutierrez attached the trip lines.  For the smaller trunks, they attached two trip lines each, one to each side of the small trunk.  For the larger two, only one was used, going away from the trunk on the same side as the mine.

He had watched the training holo on arming, and it was not that much different than with the more normal Marine Corps issue ordnance—with the slight problem that these could be prematurely set off if the hand was unsteady.  He told the other two to back up while he armed all five, knowing he had to rush, but afraid of making a mistake.

“OK, that’s it,” he said, scanning the trees in front of him.  “Now, over there to the base of the ridgeline.”

The three Marines sprinted the 150 meters to where the rocks started up the ridge.  They turned just in time to see movement in back of them.

The capys were moving slowly, but steadily.  Ryck didn’t know if the column was slower.  Maybe so.  But from experience, the capys never faltered.  If the civilians had to stop, the capy’s would crawl up their asses, one deliberate step at a time.

Something odd about them caught his eye, and for a moment, he couldn’t make out just what it was.

“What the fuck are they wearing,” Crutch asked in wonder.  “Is that fucking armor?”

Then it hit Ryck.  That was exactly what it was.  Armor!  This was a new twist.  He pulled up his binos to get a better look.  It was plate armor of some sort, covering their compact torsos.

“They ain’t got no armor,” Gutierrez said in bewilderment.  “They fight naked!”

“They do now.  It was stupid to think they wouldn’t adjust. We adjusted, so why wouldn’t they?” Ryck asked in disgust.

Of course they would adjust, but not in one brief, not in one brainstorming session, had anyone thought of that contingency.  The assumption was that nothing would change, that the capys were a static entity.

They were approaching the trip wires.  Ryck leveled his HGL and waited.  Had they passed them?  Did the stupid things even work?  At least 40 capys were in sight, and nothing was stopping them.

The first mine went off with a sharp bang, felling four capys on either side of the small trunk.  Two stayed down, but two struggled to get up.  Ryck could see the red-blue blood staining one of the capys’ leg hair as he made it back up before taking one step and falling down again.

“Hold your fire,” he told the other two.

The capys reacted, moving into their synchronized dance formation.  It shouldn’t confuse him, but it did.  He knew from the nature holos that fish schooling did the same thing, as did birds wheeling in flocks to confuse predators, but it didn’t make sense. 

Wheeling or not, the mines didn’t care.  Two went off almost simultaneously, downing another five capys.  At this, the capys suddenly stopped as if on command.  They started looking down, moving carefully.  One capy bent over and reached down, hand out to pick up something.  The blast of the mine is set off was satisfying.

“OK, gents, pick a target and engage.”

All three Marines fired their HGLs.  Ryck hit his target in the chest, and the grenade detonated, but the capy didn’t go down.  One of the other two Marines hit one in the unprotected leg, and the leg was blown off.

“Again!”

Three more rounds went off, but once again, two were hit in the armor.  One seemed to be hurt, possibly from shrapnel blowing up to its muzzle.

“Up!” Ryck yelled. 

The three stood up, and while the other two shouted and jumped up and down, Ryck turned on his monocle.  Immediately, whether because of his monocle or the yelling, all of the capy heads swung towards them.

“Take off, and misters on!”

The three turned to run up the ridgeline.

“Shit!” Caruthers shouted.  “That fucking burned me!”

Ryck wasn’t sure if he felt any tingle, but he could have.  Running up hill had its own sense of distress on the body.  They made it over a slight leveling off of the rise and dropped down.

“You OK, Crutch?” he asked.

“I think I took a shot in the ass.  It feels like my leg is asleep,” he said, flexing his leg at the knee.

“Did you have your mister on?” Ryck asked.

“Sure as shit did.  You think that thing actually saved me?”

“Who cares, Crutch.  You’re here now,” Gutierrez said with the fatalism of a combat vet as they edged forward to look down the slope. 

The bulk of the capys were heading their way.  Ryck’s heart sunk, though, when he saw a good 50 or so splitting off to follow the human column.