Sergeant (The United Federation Marine Corps Book 2) (15 page)

This young man undoubtedly never had that type of training, though. He was probably the factory worke
r he seemed to be. What he was doing in a ship trying to run a Federation blockade was a mystery to Ryck. Whatever the reason, it ended up killing him.

The man was drifting in front of Keiji, and the lance corporal tried to avoid the body. He just n
udged it, though, as he passed, sending the body slowly tumbling. Ryck tried to scoot past the body, but the body’s tumbling took up a lot of space, and it rotated into him. This could slow down the squad it every Marine was trying to avoid the corpse. Ryck took a hold of it and planted his feet on the corridor’s overhead. Slowly turning, he steadied himself, and with a sure push, sent the body down the very center of the passage. With the Marines around the corridor’s periphery, the body floated past them, making it beyond the last Marine before hitting the far overhead as the corridor curved.

“The passage to the next deck isn’t here,” Cpl Rey passed. “It’s supposed to be here.”

Ryck turned back and moved forward, switching to the ship’s plan on his readout. Every ship moving through Federated space was required to have complete ship’s blueprints registered. Rey was correct. He was right at the spot where the passage to the inner decks was supposed to be, and the galley was two decks in. There was a fine seam in the bulkhead where the entrance to the ladder should have been. The ship had been modified, and the new plans had never been submitted.

“There has to be a way,” Ryck said, checking his readout.

“Sams, is your access to Bravo and Charlie decks there?” he asked the First Squad leader.

There was a pause until Sams came on the circuit and said, “Roger that. We’re just passing
Bravo. What’s up?”

“They’ve modified the ship. Our ladder is sealed off. There’s
not another passage on the plans until we reach yours, but there is a compartment, Alpha-One-Six, between us, and it looks like it opens on both decks. If it’s sealed, though, or doesn’t open to Bravo, then we’re going to have to move on and use your route in,” Ryck said.

“OK, just give me a heads up if you are going to be coming up our butt,” Sams said.

Ryck reported the issue to the lieutenant, who told Ryck to keep moving and try that compartment as a passage to the inner decks.

“Rey,
do you see Alpha-One-Six on your plans?” he asked.

“Not really. How far down is it?” Cpl Rey asked.

With a PICS’ more advanced display capability, Ryck could have highlighted the compartment and activated that highlight on Rey’s display. With the EVA suits’ less-capable displays, that wasn’t possible.

“Thirty meters ahead,
proximal,” Ryck told him.

“Oh, proximal, I was looking at the regular compartments. Yeah, I see it,” Rey said.

The
Marie’s Best
had artificial gravity, and that oriented the ship so that down was proximal, towards the center of the ship. The overhead was distal. For ships that used rotation to simulate gravity, this was reversed. With both methods, the larger compartments tended to be medial, on the horizontal axis, surrounding the corridors. In between decks, though, there was space, valuable space. This was primarily used for conduits, air tubes, and the like, but wherever small compartments could be jigsawed in, they provided extra storage space, control rooms, or even hydroponic farms.

“Head for that. Let’s see if we can get through to Bravo. According to this ship’s diagram, it should,” Ryck said.

“Yeah, but it also showed this ladder going though, and this is one of the main ones,” Cpl Rey said.

Ryck snorted,
then replied, “Got that right. Well, let’s see if it’s right on this.

Cpl Rey led his team down the passage, pushing with the grip-tite toes of his EVA for forward momentum and the hook on his weapon to keep him close along the bulkhead.

Ryck liked to use the hook more than anything el
se. If someone hit them while the hook was latched onto something, he knew the split second it took to release that and bring his weapon to bear could be the difference between getting shot and shooting the enemy. But First Team was in front of him, so he felt simply using the hook kept his eyes steady and gave him a better picture of what was going on. The grip-tite that was on the toes of the EVA suit did as advertised, gripping most any surface and giving traction, but the push and dolphin motion it took to move forward without drifting out interfered with his line of sight.

It only took a few minutes before First Team reached the round
door on the deck that led to the compartment. Ryck pulled Second Team up, then gave Cpl Rey the signal to open it up.

Hartono slid the M99 into the
magholster on his thigh and grabbed the door’s wheel, bringing his legs under him and flat on the deck. Braced by holding the small, recessed wheel, he could exert as much force on the door as his hands could maintain their grip. He spun the wheel, and the door immediately opened without resistance. With his right hand, he grabbed his weapon; with his left, he pulled himself into a dive down through the door and into the compartment. Keiji and Prifit were on his ass.

Cpl Rey was about to follow when Ke
iji told him to stop. Ryck crowded up, ready for anything, but Keiji’s head appeared through the open door.

“It’s
kinda tight here. This is some kinda bunkroom. Harts is ready to open up the door to Bravo Deck, so me and Tip are gonna cover. That’s all the room there is.”

“Wait one,” Ryck said, pulling himself over to the door so he could see inside.

Keiji was right. Inside the cramped space were six racks, three on a side. This had to be crew’s quarters. Ryck had heard that some lines were tight-ass stingy, using all bigger compartments for cargo or paying passengers, but this was the first time he’d ever run across this shoehorning in crew wherever they could.

Ryck called up Cpl Mendoza’s team, arraying the Marines the best he could around the small round door. It would be extremely difficult to provide supporting fire if there was anyone right there at Bravo Deck as First
Team would be in the way, but at least they were closer and could get down there quicker if need be.

“OK, hit it,” Ryck told PFC Hartono.

Hartono spun the wheel on the door, and it silently opened into Bravo Deck. Ryck could just see the overhead past him as Hartono’s infrared torch lit up the area.

“Oh God!” the PFC exclaimed as he pushed into the corridor.

“Go, go!” Cpl Rey shouted at his other two Marines who quickly pulled through the door to join Hartono.

Ryck was already diving through, right
on Rey’s ass. In front of the
two NCOs, Keiji was motionless just inside the door.

He held up a hand and quietly said, “All clear.”

Letting Rey go first, Ryck followed through the door and into the Bravo Deck corridor. He twisted and landed feet-first on the deck. He immediately saw what elicited Hartono’s exclamation. In front of him, illuminated in the infrared, were six people, all dead. Two adults, four children. The man looked to be in his early 30’s. All he had on a pair of dark shorts. The man was facing the others, one arm reached out towards them. Facing the man was a woman. Ryck couldn’t see her face, so only her close-cropped hair and unitard registered. With one arm, she was reaching out for the man. Her other arm was crooked, holding the baby. In death, her arm was still positioned to hold the baby, but her grip had slackened, and the infant’s legs could be seen protruding to the side of the woman. Ryck was suddenly glad he couldn’t see the baby’s face.

He could see the other three children’s faces though. The closest victim to the
Marines was a young boy, possibly 10 or 11 years old. He had on a Thunder Bluster t-shirt, the band’s skull logo catching the infrared beams and looking as if it was lit. He would have looked like any other kid scoping the mall after school—if it weren’t for the look of utter agony frozen on his face. His eyes were protruding and dark with petechiae, his mouth opened
in a silent scream. One arm was obviously broken, probably from being slammed against something as the air rushed out of the ship. The kid had not gone easily into the night.

In front of him and
up against the overhead were the two girls. They looked like twins, around five or six years old. Each was locked in the other’s embrace, faces against each other’s. At least their eyes were closed, and while they had to have suffered, they seemed more peaceful.

In a complete vacuum a person would lose consciousness in less than 15 seconds. However, when the ship this size was breached with the degree of destruction the
Marie’s Best
suffered, it would have taken 20 or even 30 seconds for the ship’s atmosphere to be vented. That meant this family would have known what was happening. They would have suffered as the air pressure dropped towards zero.

Airtight bulkheads could have kept pockets of air inside, but for some reason, they had not been activated. The crew had probably felt the AI would take care of that, but the AI could have been destroyed in the initial strike. That
was why on all military ships, at least, the AIs had several secondary “brains” located throughout the ship, and all ships going into battle had airtight bulkheads sealed.

The family was stretched out over about 20 meters. They must ha
ve been bounced through the corridor as the air evacuated, trying to stay together. With the artificial gravity fading, it would have been even harder. Ryck tried not to imagine what it must have been like.

He swallowed trying to keep the bile from rising in his throat. Vomiting in an EVA suit was not a good idea, but this scene hit him hard.
He tried to block it, but images of Lysa and his two nieces floating in the cold vacuum of space flooded his imagination

The rest of the squad slowly made their way into Bravo Deck. Everyone was silent as they took in the scene.

Why hadn’t the family been in evac suits? They had to have known they were running a blockade. And why run a blockade in the first place? These were not combatants. They were just people. Why was it that important to get them to the planet’s surface?

Ryck knew that warfare was dirty, that civilians got killed. He’d been on ops where he knew that had happened. This was the first time, though, that he’d really seen the effects right before his eyes.
This was the first time he’d really seen “collateral damage.” He’d cheered when he’d heard the
Ark Royal’s
monitors had scored the hit. He’d felt pride when he’d seen the damage to the
Marie’s Best
. He wasn’t feeling so enthused now.

“Three-six, this is three-three” he passed on the platoon circuit, “we’ve got six dead civilians here. Looks like a family.”

“There’s quite a number of bodies throughout the ship,” Lt. Nidishchii’ passed back. “They’ll be taken care of later. What’s your progress now? I can’t get a good fix on you.”

“We’re on Bravo, heading back to see if we can make it to Charlie,” Ryck
replied.

“Three-two is already at the objective. We will be there momentarily. You need to get a move on.”

“Roger that. If we have a ladder, it shouldn’t be more than five mikes,” Ryck said.

“Understood.
If you have any problems, keep me informed. Three-six, out.”

“Let’s move it. We’re behind schedule,” Ryck passed through the squad circuit.

“Which way?” Cpl Rey asked.

Trying to see if the original ladder connected Bravo and Charlie meant passing through the family, and Ryck could hear the strain in Rey’s voice as he asked. Going the other way, though, meant they would be using the same ladder as First Squad. Ryck didn’t want to disturb the family as they floated in the corridor, but that was the direction they had to take.

“Forward,” was all he passed.

Ryck tried to keep his
gaze forward as they moved between the bodies. The twin girls were blocking his route, so he jumped across the corridor to use one of the bulkheads. He also made pretty heavy use of his microjets to not only maintain attitude, as they were designed for, but to bend him around the bodies. He determinedly refused to even glance at the woman’s face or the infant still in her arm as he passed her.

Thankfully, they reached the clear corridor ahead. A few moments later, Cpl Rey passed that the ladder between Bra
vo and Charlie was in fact there. Whatever modification had been done to the ship had only affected the space between Alpha and Bravo.

They went down the ladder, one at a time, to emerge in a cleared Charlie Deck. No bodies rose to greet them. From there, it was only about 25 meters to their assigned entrance to the galley.
Ryck let the rest of the platoon know the squad was entering, then when given the all clear, the squad filed inside.

Emergency lights lit the galley, bringing color back to their view. The four lights in each corner cast harsh, but sufficient
illumination. The galley was about 20 meters across, and there were probably close to 100 people from the ship there. With the 40 Marines there as well, it was somewhat packed. However, with no gravity, groups had drifted in all three axis, making it a little less crowded.