Commandant (The United Federation Marine Corps Book 8) (10 page)

Chapter 15

“No KIAs?” Ryck asked.  “And she’s fully operational?”

“Yes, sir,” Vice Admiral Jeremy Mendez, the Navy liaison to the Marines, said.  “Our techs think that given the shielding, which affects the general detection capabilities out of the ship as well, the crew didn’t know the SEALs were there before they breached the hull.”

Given the explosive nature of a hull breach on a ship that size, unless the crew had been suited up, there would have been no survivors.  Ryck didn’t know if the little spy ship had a crew of two or twenty, but as there were no reported POWs, he knew the loyalist sailors had all died.

It had been a miracle that the spy ship had been spotted in the first place.  Only 25 meters long and crammed with every anti-surveillance piece of gear known to the Federation, it should have remained invisible as it kept a watch on the Doughnut, undoubtedly monitoring the comings and goings of all the ships from the station.  But the ship’s skipper had made a small, but ultimately fatal, mistake.  While keeping within a celestial blind spot of the homeport itself, he had let his ship occlude the light from a far-off star that an observant petty officer aboard a picket ship had caught.  Running it through the picket’s AI, it was quickly apparent that something was out there.  They didn’t know what, but given the situation, Admiral Chandanasiri rightly concluded that it had to be a loyalist ship and had authorized the quick reaction force into battle.

Using stealth techniques about which even Ryck and the Marines were kept in the dark, the SEALs had approached the ship unnoticed, placed a breaching device on her, and detonated it.  With the crew dead, the ship was in the provisional government’s hands, a prize of war.

“And we think we can hack the system.  The loyalists wouldn’t be expecting comms back unless necessary, so we believe we can feed them bad intel.”

The admiral looked quite pleased with himself.  And Ryck had to admit that this was a welcomed piece of news, even if he felt somewhat embarrassed that the Navy had been the tip of the spear so far.  With three operations—one loss and now two successes—it was the Navy crossing swords with the loyalists.  The Marines had yet to fire a shot in anger.  If he could get the Marines through this with no loss of life, he’d be quite happy with that.  But that sense of hubris that still lurked inside his heart created a desire that it would be the Marines carrying the day, not the Navy.  It was stupid and childish, he knew, but that didn’t make the desire any less real.

He wished he could be the one bloodying the Council’s nose.

They’ve got my wife,
for grubbing’s sake
, he thought, his blood pressure rising as he gripped the edge of the conference table. 

If he’d been alone, he knew he’d slam his fist on it as he’d done more than a few times each day when he thought of his family.

He tried to force an image into his mind of a calm tropical ocean wave, picturing it enveloping him, relaxing him.  He’d read about the technique in a self-help book.  But when he tried to force calmness, it usually had the opposite effect.

Ah, fuck it
, he thought, abandoning the wave he’d imagined.  He’d just act calm, even if his insides were roiling.

“Well, Jeremy, that’s great news.  Please relay my congratulations to the admiral and the SEAL team itself,” he said, putting a smile he didn’t feel on his face.

“Why don’t you hang around for lunch.  Major Pohlmeyer’s coming over for an informal, and Top Ekema’s ginned up his famous Hawaiian medallions.  I’d like you to hear what the good major has for us today.”

A smile broke out over the admiral’s face—not for the meeting, Ryck knew, but because Marten Ekema’s skill in the kitchen was half legend already.  One of the perks of being the commandant was a full-time kitchen staff, and Ryck had brought the master gunnery sergeant along.  Top Ekema knew Ryck’s tastes, so Ryck hadn’t had to break in anyone new.  And just the thought of those glazed medallions was beginning to calm him down where his imagined gentle tropical waves had failed.

Hah!
Ryck thought as he realized the unintended connection. 
Tropical meal, one; tropical waves, zero!

Chapter 16

“Vivian, where’s Montero?  He’s late, and we’re running out of time!”

“He’s still five minutes out,” Ryck’s secretary informed him.

“Make a note of it.  If I’ve got to clear things with him, he needs to be here in the headquarters.  He can sleep here if need be.”

Ryck had agreed to follow Admiral Chandanasiri’s request that any unilateral action concerning the political situation be vetted first by his PA office, and that meant Zeke Montero for Ryck.  With only an hour before embark, Ryck was running out of time.  He was sick and tired of Hannah and the twins being used as pawns, but pawns about which the public was unaware.  Ryck wanted to issue a press release, but that fell under his promise to the admiral to run it by his PA advisor.  Actually, Ryck had a brigadier general, Rapiko “Rapper” Weisener, as the Marine Corps spokesman.  Rapper was the face of the Corps for the press, but this went beyond the typical Marine Corps fodder.  As a provisional government issue, even if a personal one for Ryck, the Office of Information—and on Tarawa, that was Zeke Montero—had to weigh in.

“What about Colonel Edison?” Ryck asked.

“He’s here,” Vivian’s voice filled the office.

“OK, send him in.”

Within a few heartbeats, the FCDC colonel rushed in, coming to one of the disjointed positions of attention peculiar to the FCDC.

“At ease, Colonel.  Are you and your men ready?”

“Yes, sir.  We still don’t know to where we’re going, though, right?”

“Not until we get on the ship, which will be in. . .Vivian, how long before we leave?”

“Your driver will pick you up in 52 minutes,” she immediately responded in her calm voice.

“Well, sir, we’ve got five contingencies that we’ve rehearsed, from an open field planetside to a ship to a station.  I’ll trust you to ensure that all hands obey my commands upon arrival, sir.  I mean, as a colonel, and as, well—”

“As an FCDC colonel among generals and admirals, you mean.”

“Well, yes, sir.  You know how it can be sometimes.”

“Don’t worry.  I’ll make sure everyone toes the line.”

“And one thing, sir.  As soon as possible, and before we arrive, I need face-to-face comms with whoever is leading the overall security.  I need to make sure our side isn’t at odds with whatever they’ve set up.”

That seemed reasonable, so Ryck said, “OK, you’ve got it.  As soon as we’ve got comms, you’ll have priority.”

“General Lysander, Mr. Montero is here,” Vivian announced over the intercom.

“Well, Colonel.  I’m sure you are busy, and I sure am, so you take care of your business.

“Vivian, send him in.”

It took Montero more than a few heartbeats to walk into the office, and Ryck was getting impatient.  Time was short, and he’d gotten used to the deference people gave to him as the commandant.  Maybe that’s why he didn’t like Montero, he knew.  Montero didn’t even come close to acting as someone under Ryck’s authority.

“I’m ready to release the statement to the press,” Ryck said without preamble.

“About your wife?” Montero asked.

No, you grubbing idiot!  I meant how big of a shit I took this morning.  That should interest them!

“That’s the only press release, to my knowledge, that I have sent to you over the last 24 hours, so yes, that one.”

“Well, sir, after careful consideration, I can’t really endorse that.”

Why the hell doesn’t that surprise me?
Ryck wondered. 

“And why not?  They’ve got my wife and children as hostages, and no one knows about it.  And that directly contravenes the Universal Charter, right?”

“Well, yes, it does.  And that’s the problem,” Montero said as if lecturing a child.

Why isn’t anything clear with this guy?  It’s “good news” when the Council slams me as a war criminal, and now that he admits the Council is breaking the charter, he says we can’t act?

“And why might that be?”

“Well, General, right now, your wife and children are, well, sort of ‘guests’ of the Council.  There are no charges against them.  But if we force the issue, do you really think they are going to relinquish this advantage over you?”

This “advantage” is my wife and kids you’re talking about!

“I think not.  So what are their options?  Well, limited.  The most logical one is to charge your wife and children with treason so that their arrests are legal.”

That hit Ryck with a gut shot.  He hadn’t considered that, nor had his SJA. 

“And what is the penalty for treason?” Montero asked.

“Death,” Ryck said hollowly.  “But they wouldn’t do that, would they?  Think of the bad press they would get.”

“Really?  They were ready to interdict a planet of 12 billion people.  Do you really think they’d hesitate to kill three more?”

Ryck knew the answer to that, even if he didn’t want to admit it.  The Council would murder hundreds, thousands, hell, millions to get what they wanted.

“With that in mind, I can’t sign off on this.  I can’t be parcel to the executions of your family.”

Ryck stared at his advisor.  Part of him wanted to scream that it wasn’t up to him to decide what would happen and what wouldn’t.  Ryck was the commander, the co-head of government.  Montero was just some jumped-up bureaucrat. 

But he was right, Ryck knew.  When Ryck, Jorge, and Major General Devarja, his SJA, had come up with the plan, they really hadn’t considered the ramifications.  As military men, they tended to think in simple terms of right and wrong, of maneuver and outcome.  Montero, however, was one of those slimy men who couldn’t be trusted farther than they could be thrown—which is why he was able to understand how the Council would react.   Slimy or not, he’d probably just saved Hannah and the twins from Ryck’s rash actions.

“Look, I’m running out of time.  I’m leaving for the conference shortly, but we’ll discuss this when I get back.”

Which he wouldn’t, he knew.  The man was right, but Ryck didn’t want to admit defeat to a man he didn’t respect.  Ryck did shake his hand, however, and escorted him to the hatch.

“Sir, Major Pohlmeyer left this package,” Vivian said, spotting Ryck in the doorway.  “And you have one more visitor.”

“No time for anyone else,” Ryck told her, accepting the small package.

“Sir, it’s Corporal Hailstone,” she said.

Ryck stopped, taking a moment to recall just who Corporal Hailstone was and why a corporal would be calling on the Commandant of the Marine Corps.

Shit!  Of course. The Wall.

Corporal Peyton Hailstone was the first Marine assigned to the UAM, the Universal Assembly of Man, as a Klethos Gladiator, as they were commonly called.  He’d undergone extensive genmodding and training, and only two months ago, under his nickname of “The Wall” and as the human representative, had defeated a Klethos queen on Isseret.  The previous two fights had resulted in human defeats, so his win had been highly heralded.

Ryck checked his watch.  He had a few moments.  Çağlar would have his kit and get him in time.

Ryck walked into the outer office.  Corporal Hailstone was impossible to miss.  Standing almost four meters tall, or hunching in this case, he was simply huge.  Ryck had watched some of the training sessions of the recruits, but from bleachers.  This was the first time he’d been so close to one of them.

“Welcome, Corporal,” Ryck said, walking up, hand outstretched.

Corporal Hailstone tried to come to attention the best he could in Ryck’s three—and-a-half meter office.  He reached out, and Ryck’s hand completely disappeared in the big man’s horny and huge paw of a hand.

“Thank you for seeing me,” the Marine stuttered out, his voice surprisingly normal given his bulk.

“I’m about ready to leave, but I’ve always got a few moments for one of humanity’s guardians.  Um, shall we go into my office?”

Ryck turned and led the way back into the inner office.  Hailstone followed, ducking through the front hatch.

“I, well, I’m not sure I have furniture for your size,” Ryck said, unsure of himself and proper protocol.

“If you want me to sit, sir, I can sit on the floor.  I’m used to it.  And maybe it will be easier to talk,” the corporal said.

“Uh, sure, if you think so.”

Corporal Hailstone smoothly lowered himself into a cross-legged seat, his head now even with Ryck’s.

He moves like a cat
, Ryck noted.

Not for long, though, Ryck knew.  The intensive genmods, all accelerated, would have drastic consequences.  Ryck, with his relatively innocuous genmods, had twice come down with the Brick, or Boosted Regeneration Cancer.  The gladiators had undergone vastly more invasive procedures, actual genetic modification, and then forced regen.  Whatever Peyton Hailstone had been as a boy, he was no longer that person.  His body had undergone huge transformations, more than it could possibly accept.  Doctors gave this generation of gladiators fewer than four years before the Brick would claim them.  And two of those years were in the medical transformation, then the therapy and fight training. This huge, immensely powerful Marine sitting in front of him had probably less than a year to live. 

“And what can I do for you, Corporal?” Ryck asked, unsure why the Marine had requested a meeting.

“Sir, I’m sorry to bother you.  But I want to come back.  I want to be a Marine again and fight the Federation.”

We are the Federation
, Ryck thought, but kept quiet.

“But you are serving all of humanity, son.  You’ve gone beyond the Marines.”

“There’s no such thing as an ex-Marine, right sir?  I’m still a corporal.”

“Well, yes.  You’re still a Marine.  You are carried on the rolls.”

“And I want to fight with you, sir.  I can help,” he said, a hint of pleading in his voice.

“I’m sure you can, Peyton. Can I call you Peyton?”

“Yes, sir, but I’m rather proud of my rank.  I earned it.”

“That you did, Corporal.  And I know you can help.  But you can’t.  I mean you could if it was allowed, but even a Marine has to bow to the treaty.  All governments have to contribute gladiators, and no one can interfere with any of you.”

“But you aren’t interfering.  I want to,” Corporal Hailstone protested.

“And I know you want to.  But this is bigger than us.  It is bigger than the Corps.  We’ve got an agreement with all of humanity.”

“You fought a
d’relle
, and you’re still in the Corps,” the corporal said quietly.

“Yes, I did.  But I’m not. . .a. . .I’m not—”

“You haven’t been made into a freak,” Corporal Hailstone finished for him.

“Right,” Ryck answered, not bothering with the facade of disagreeing with the corporal’s blunt description of himself.  “I’m still mostly me, at least the physical me.  A few new limbs, some fiddling around with my hippocampus so I can navigate, but out of uniform, no one would give me a second look.  And you, I can’t know what you are feeling, but I can guess.”

“I’ve probably got one more fight left in me.  Even if I win. . .”

“Do you know when you fight next?”

“No one knows.  It’s up to the Klethos’ challenge.  Rock is next, but the schedulers tell me I might be after that, given the last fight.”

And if he lives, the Brick will be about ready to take over
, Ryck thought sorrowfully.

“Well, sir, I thought I’d try.  I’m on home leave now, so I came in.  Rock said you couldn’t take me, but you know.”

“Home leave?  But you aren’t from Tarawa.”

“All Marines are from Tarawa, sir.  And Alexander, but, you know.  I’m from Respite, but my grandfolks were from Vandum.

Grubbing hell.  Vandum? No wonder he wants to fight.

“Were?  They’re on Respite now?” Ryck asked hopefully.

“No, they were killed in the fighting.  FCDC troopers got them.”

Ryck shook his head.  Twenty-some-odd years ago, there had been one of the periodic strikes on Vandum.  The FCDC was sent to suppress the strike, but fighting broke out, and the FCDC went berserk, killing indiscriminately.  Some 30,000 civilians, out of a total planetary population of only a million, were killed.

A thought hit Ryck.  He couldn’t take the corporal back into active duty, but maybe he could do something.

“When is your leave over?”

“Sir?  I’ve got about three weeks left before I’m back into training.”

I can’t take you back in uniform, not that we have any big enough to you,” Ryck said with a lame-sounding laugh.  “But if you want to go with us to a conference as an independent observer, I think we can swing that.  There will be other observers from the other governments.  I have to check with my SJA, but I think it would be OK.”

“A conference?  About what?” Hailstone asked.

“I can’t really say.  It’s pretty classified.  But if you’re ready to go now, why not?  We’ll be gone for only two days.  Are you interested?”

“And I’d be traveling with you and other Marines?”