Recruit (22 page)

He couldn’t really aim, so he simply pointed the HTC at the BAAA, hoping that it was on target. 
His right arm trembling to hold the muzzle steady while keeping the thumb trigger depressed, he felt the wire and quickly yanked it and touched the end of the wire going into the firing controls.

The grenade launched, nearly ripping Ryck’s right arm off, spinning him around and to the ground.  The big PICS had the mass to withstand the recoil, but Ryck’s 85 kg did not, especially when he had not been prepared for it.  He should have been prepared
for the recoil, but he hadn’t considered that.

Ryck struggled to get up, looking back at the BAAA.  The gun had stopped firing, and its movement seemed jerky.  But it was
still very much alive and very dangerous.  Ryck managed to get up, moving towards the rear of the gun, where its armor was not as imposing.  Whoever or whatever was controlling the BAAA finally figured out that there was a threat near it.  The big gun turned to Ryck, but the cutout that kept the gun from firing back towards the center of the camp also kept it from hitting Ryck, who was not ten meters to the rear.  The turtle hatch provided the gun with some cover from the rear, but it wasn’t enough. 

Ryck leaned forward, bracing himself.  Carefully, he touched the wires again
while depressing the thumb trigger.  The recoil still felt like a mule kick, but Ryck stayed on this feet. 

The BAA
A started firing, the rounds whipping by five meters to Ryck’s front.  They couldn’t reach him.  Ryck fired again.  And again.

After the fourth round, the BAAA canted up and to the left.  The armor piercing grenades had hit something vital.  The BAAA was dead.

There wasn’t a huge explosion, which was all well and good.  Standing a mere 10 meters away and without armor, that could have messed up Ryck’s day.  To be honest, Ryck thought the kill had been somewhat anticlimactic.  He had expected something more dramatic.  But he’d done it.  Without his PICS, he’d accomplished his mission.

No rest for the weary, though.  Two more BA
AAs were still hammering away.  The nearest active gun was a good 100 meters from Ryck’s kill.  Ryck tried to shrug the pack into a better position, which was more of a “less horrible” than a “better,” and staggered down the perimeter, hoping that no one would notice him.  A simple rebel sniper further inside the perimeter would have no problem taking Ryck out.

It took a good three minutes to just get 50 meters, and Ryck was exhausted.  He had to make sure that he could hit the gun ahead, so he
limped forward another 10 meters, coming up on a wooden obstacle of some kind.  Ryck thought a PICS could simply smash it down, but to him, it was pretty impressive.  It did, however, give him something he could use as a support.  He gratefully leaned on it, taking some of the weight off of him.  He laid the muzzle of the HCL across one of the logs, then fired.  Pain lanced through his shoulder.  He was pretty sure that he had dislocated it when firing at the first BAAA.

The grenade arched up and over the B
AAA.  He’d have to fire again.

Explosions started saturating the area.  The reb
els must have finally figured out that he was there and a threat, but for some unfathomable reason, they didn’t seem to be able to pinpoint him.  This puzzled Ryck, but he was not about to question his good luck.

He fired again, scoring a direct hit, but not taking the gun out.  He sighed and touched the wires again.  Nothing happened.  There was a faint click, but the HTC did not
fire.  Evidently, the battery, which was not made for activating a firing mechanism, no longer had enough juice.

His only remaining possible weapon was his shoulder rockets.  He didn’t know if there was enough
power left to fire them, but they should take less than the HTC, so it was a possibility.  He pulled out the positive from the connector and twisted it around the positive from the battery. 

More rounds landed around him, but he had to ignore them as he straightened up, aiming his shoulder launcher in the general direction of the
BAAA.  Of the 12 rockets, six had anti-personnel warheads, six anti-armor.  The anti-armor rockets were semi-smart, that is, they could alter their course slightly to hit metal targets within their acquisition cone.

Ryck didn’t know of a way to fire the rockets separately as he could if he was in his PICS.  This would be one salvo
--that is, if he could even ignite them at all.  He reached around with the free wire, and started poking it into where he could feel the connector.  He didn’t have the time nor energy to bring the weapons pack back down, find the correct positive, and wire it.  This would rely on blind luck.

Blind l
uck was with him.  On this third poke, he touched the correct connection, the tiny rocket igniters sparked, and all twelve rockets took off.  Ryck was glad that rockets had no recoil and their exhaust was too quick to burn him.  He wasn’t sure he could stand up to either.

Ryck wasn’t sure how many rockets slammed into the BA
AA, but it was enough.  Flames erupted for a brief moment as the gun was blown off its gimbal.  A few seconds later, a huge explosion, whether from ground forces or air, Ryck didn’t see, knocked out the third BAAA another 200 meters from him.  The perimeter was breeched.

His shoulder was on fire, and the numbness in his ass was slowly transitioning to a pretty severe ache.  Ryck looked inwards to the rest of the camp, but he knew his battle was over.  He slumped against the wooden obstacle and waited.

Within moments, a PICS Marine made his appearance.  From Ryck’s perspective sitting down in the dirt, the suit looked immense.  The Marine inside stopped the suit and turned towards him.  The visor momentarily went clear, and King Tong’s face looked out at him.  The squad leader winked at Ryck before the visor went dark again and he continued his assault into the camp.

Prophesy

Chapter 24

“You
be lookin’ for a good time dere, sailor boy?” a heavily accented male voice came from behind him as he entered the passenger pickup.

Ryck spun around, took in the dark blue shirt of a Torritite, and took a step to hug the man.

“Hey sailor, we must be agreeing to price afore we be getting cozy-like,” Joshua Hope-of-Life said, but returning the bear hug.

“Josh, good to see you.
  I thought we weren’t going to get together until next week, though,” Ryck said as they broke their hug.

“Eh, I’ve already been back for a week, and my sibs are driving me crazy.  It’s crazy and boring at the same time, so I told your sister I’d come into Williamson to pick you up.  It gave me a good excuse to get out of the house for a bit,” he said, back in the accent and manner of speaking he’d cultivated in the Marines, all trace of his Torritite drawl gone.

“Looking copacetic, there, Marine,” he continued, eyeing the Silver Star on Ryck’s chest.

Ryck was still self-conscious about the medal
, which had been approved seven months after Luminosity.  The citation read that Ryck’s “ingenuity” and “courage” while “wounded” had cleared the way for the stalled assault to continue.  Ryck had only participated in the war for an hour, really.  He’d been picked up by a corpsman while sitting at the wooden obstacle, all fighting much further inside the camp.  He’d been casevac’d back to the
Prake
where they immediately began the regen on his dislocated shoulder and frostbit ass.  The fighting on Luminosity took a little longer than expected due to the arms the rebels had acquired.  Ryck tried to rejoin his platoon while they were supporting the recovery of the main mines, but even with his shoulder basically set, the Navy docs wouldn’t clear him.  The dead skin on his ass and leg evidently took longer to regen for some reason, and so he was stuck on the ship while the rest of the platoon fought. 

It was a minor miracle, from Ryck’s point of view, that no one from the squad was killed.  Four PICS had been knocked out, but only the boot Prifit had been seriously hurt and put into long-term regen.  All told, the battalion had lost
21 Marines and one Navy corpsman with 28 Marines, mostly from the light platoons, going into long-term regen.  The fighting in the mines had been the most fierce of the operation, and the light platoons, in the skins and bones, had been the go-to Marines for that. 

Two men, one of the Marines from India Company and the corpsman from Fox who had been killed, had been put in for the Federation Nova, which had been approved only a couple of months ago, while another two Marines had been approved for the Navy Cross.  One of those was Sgt
Homer
Phantawisangtong, King Tong, who had single-handedly blown the central bunker.  Along with the two Platinum Stars, four Silver Stars, a Legion of Merit for the colonel, and more than a few Battle Commendations of all three classes, that made the battalion one of the most decorated for a single operation since the War of the Far Reaches.  And Ryck missed most of it.

This was not false modesty.  Ryck realized that what he’d done was pretty grubbing copacetic.  But when the war stories on the two-week battle were brought out in the galley, at the
club, out in town, he could just listen in.  When they gushed over King Tong’s one-man assault, with “Did you see when he . . .” or “What about when he blasted  that . . . ,” no Ryck hadn’t seen.  When they described the Helicon Mine going up, a suicide by the rebels inside of it just before the Marines of India entered, no, he hadn’t seen that, either.  He was already on his way back to the
Prake
.  He stayed on the ship, getting three hots and a cot, while the Marines slugged it out on the planet below.

“Nice stripes, too,” Joshua continued, pointing at the corporal chevrons on his sleeve.

“Shit, just in the right place at the right time,” Ryck said, uncomfortable under Joshua’s gaze.

Joshua had served his entire enlistment without one actual operation.  He’d gone to First Division, yet nothing had happened.  Ryck had three combat stars while Joshua had none. 

“Hey, no more Marine shit for now.  Let’s get you home to your sister.  You’ve got to see your nieces, cute as a grub in a rug.  The big celebrations don’t start for another two days, so you’ve got to get out of the uniform and decompress.”

This was Ryck’s first time home since he enlisted.  “Home,” though, didn’t really fit
anymore.  It was where he grew up, and it was where his sister was, but not much else tugged at him.  Barret had let him know that there was a place for him in his company, a well-paying job with room for advancement.  If Ryck got out in another three months, he knew he could be set with a comfortable lifestyle.  That was one of the reasons why he took his leave back on Prophesy.  The timing also coincided with Incorporation Day.  Even with PCDC bankrupt and out of the picture, the people of Prophesy still celebrated Incorporation Day, the anniversary of when they became a legal entity.  This was a time for family and friends.

Ryck followed Joshua out into the parking and up to a brand new, shiny red Hyundai Tonora. 

“Holy gubbing shit!  This thing yours?” he asked.

“Hell no!
  You know my lowly lance corporal’s salary.  This is my baby brother’s.  Only 21, and his processing company is going gang busters.  The company is not even a year old, and look at this baby,” he said, pointing at the Hyundai.

“Damn!  Sure looks like we picked the wrong line of work,” Ryck said, stepping back to take in the sleek lines of the sports hover.

“Yeah, sure did.  Caleb says he’s got a job for me in the company if I don’t re-up.  I could get one of these for myself.”

Ryck went quiet for a moment.  Talking about re-enlisting was something generally off the table.  But Joshua was his friend.

“You going to take him up on that?” he asked.

“Me? 
In an office?  Nah, I don’t grubbing think so.  I’m not a grubbing combat hero like you, but still, I like it, and if I stay in long enough, I’ll see some action.  Show you what a real warrior can do!” he said, punching Ryck in the arm.

Ryck was both relieved and disappointed to hear that, and he wasn’t sure
why.  Ryck wanted to re-enlist, and he had a good tour, but he wasn’t sure yet.  He’d lost friends, he’d had a miserable year plus in regen, but he had actually made a difference.  On the other hand, if he took Barret up on his offer, he could make a good living, find a wife, settle down and start a family.

He dumped his pack in the Hyundai’s small trunk and slid into the passenger seat.  It felt decadent, and Ryck was in love.  That love deepened as the Tonora lifted off the pavement and slowly moved to the exit.  He knew that the hover could be almost silent, but the sound engineers for Hyundai created a low rumble, more felt than heard, that reflected
the power in the car.  Lysa’s home was on the other side of Williamson, so Joshua took the ring road around the city, opening the hover up at 240 KPH.  This was better than a Stork!

Too soon, Joshua pulled off the ring road and was on the surface streets to Elysium Hills, the subdivision where Lysa and Barret had bought a house the year before.  Ryck had been to the
ir previous home, and he thought it had been rather nice.  But with two kids, Lysa told him they needed someplace bigger, and Barret wanted to be in the capital city.

Bigger was an understatement, Ryck thought as Joshua pulled in front of a, well, a
mansion.  There was no other way to describe it.  Easily twice as large as Barret’s old home, it had all the architectural extras currently in fashion.  The front yard was stately, with two huge trees of some sort as the main features.  The water tax on those two trees alone represented a huge chunk of Ryck’s corporal’s salary.  From one tree, a rope swing hung, out of place in the new construction, but a nice touch.  Above the side wall, Ryck could see the tops of what looked like a jungle gym.  This wasn’t Barret’s old bachelor pad.  This was a family home.

“Here you go, my man,” Joshua said as he pulled up.

“You coming in?”

“Nah, this is family time.  Do your duty.  We’re all getting together on I-Day to watch the fireworks, so I’ll see you then.  Don’t worry, we’ll have some time together, just you and me,” Joshua told him.

Ryck took his pack, watched Joshua pull out, and walked up to the front door.  Before he reached it, the door opened and Lysa ran out, colliding with him in a hug.

“Little brother, it’s so good to see you.  Come in, come in!”

“Uncle Ryck, Uncle Ryck, come here,” a little voice said in back of Lysa.

Ryck
had spoken with Kylee on the cam, but this was the first time he’d seen her in the flesh.  She reached around Lysa to take his hand.

“Kylee!
  What did I tell you!  Give Uncle Ryck a chance to breathe first.  He’ll see your room later,” Lysa told her daughter.  Lysa took Ryck’s hand and led him into the house.  Barret was waiting there, a beer in his hand that Ryck gratefully took, giving his pack to Barret in exchange.

“You look good, there, Ryck.  I don’t know what all those ribbons mean on your chest exactly, but your friend Joshua says they are pretty important.  I know the girls want you to stay in your uniform, but I bet you’d like to get into something more comfortable,” Barret said.

Ryck was towed to his room by Kylee as she pulled on his arm.  He managed to get into the room alone and changed into shorts and a 2/9 t-shirt.  As he opened the door, Kylee was waiting, and grabbing his arm, she dragged him back into the living room.  Barret was sitting down, another little girl peeking out from behind his chair.

“Hi, Camyle,”
Ryck said to his youngest niece.

The two-year-old retreated back a little further behind her father’s chair.

“Don’t worry about her.  She’s a little shy, but she’ll warm up to you,” Lysa told him.

The next few hours were pure domestic
ity.  Lysa cooked up some katsudon and yakisoba, Barret talked about the job he was offering Ryck, sports, and asked about Ryck’s military operations, Kylee dragged him to her room for an introduction to over 30 stuffed animals, and Camyle even said a few words to him.

Ryck didn’t have much time alone with Lysa.  He managed to catch her while she was making the noodles for the yakisoba.  She had flour on her forehead as she kneaded the dough.  She was different.  Not just the weight, which had crept on during the last four years. 
This woman was not the woman who left the house in skin-tight dresses for a night in the bars and night-spots.  This was a woman who was at home.

“You look happy,” Ryck told her, knowing it was true.

“Like this?” she said with a laugh, brushing the hair back off her forehead, leaving more flour.

“Yeah, just like that.”

“You’re right.  I am happy.  I’m not sure I deserve it, but I thank God every day for my two little girls, my husband.  The only thing I am missing is you.  If you take Barret’s job offer, then that would complete me.  Of course, then I’ll be bugging you to find a wife and give me some nieces and nephews.”

“And I’m happy for you, big sister.  Really, I am.”

Dinner was great, and conversation was surprisingly interesting, even when initiated by a three-year-old.  Three-and-a-half, that was, as Kylee took pains to remind everyone.  Ryck had to watch his language a bit as some phrases and words almost leaked out.  Little girls should not be faced with the same language as salty Marines and sailors.

To his surprise, Ryck was tired, and he went to bed early.  He had to show up at his high school the next day to receive an award.  He’d have liked to skip it, but he got three extra days of leave for what the Marines considered a recruiting trip.
  In the afternoon, he promised he’d visit Barret at his office to check out the position being offered.

He had never been in Lysa and Barret
’s house before, and never in the guest bedroom.  But as he lay down, with the little-girl shrieks of laughter coming from downstairs, it was feeling much more like home than he would have imagined.