Sergeant (The United Federation Marine Corps Book 2) (26 page)

He half-expected that the legionnaires would have taken over the position while they were gone, but it was quiet. Each Marine, including
Wilz, took the dead man’s handle
[28]
on the back of those PICS that still had them, or if they didn’t, on anything they could grab, and lifted their dead comrades to carry them to the no fire zone. They had to help Wilz hoist Cpl Franks to his shoulder, but once up, the one-armed Marine had no problem. It took two trips, but all the Marines had been moved. Ryck looked at the time. They had an hour left.

The legionnaires, with sleeker armor on their R-3s had less to grab
onto, and several times, the dead legionnaires were dropped, but once again with two trips, each legionnaire was carried to the spot.

Ryck took a look at his Marines. They were a grubby lot, the fighting marring their PICS. Ling and Denny looked the best of
them, and Denny had the greatest charge on his PICS, so Ryck told both of them, along with Cashew, to stay. He gave Sgt St. Cyr his orders. He concluded with what St. Cyr should do if this was a Legion trap.

“If that happens, you’re in charge. I’m not going to tell you what to do then. You’re going to have to make that decision.”

The corporal looked like he was going to say something, but he stopped and followed the rest back to their position.

Ryck looked around him. He had three Marines with him, to face who
knew what. He was going to do this in good faith, though. No surprises, no hidden Marines. He checked over the WIAs, then took a position in the center of them. He had the other three Marines stand in back of him. Cashew was wobbly and not totally with it, but all he had to do was stand.

At 0425, Ryck’s sensors went off, indicating movement in front of him. The contacts slowly made their way forward, slower than expected. He counted three R-3s, then readings for two more people.

At 0446, the group came into view. One legionnaire led the rest. Two sailors, a man and a woman, followed. Behind them were the last two legionnaires.

Ryck stood still as the first legionnaire walked up to within five meters of him.
His face shield was clear, as if he had nothing to hide. A ruddy, round face stared at him. Freckles were plastered across his nose and cheeks.

“Lieutenant . .
. ” he started, then obviously noticed the sergeant’s chevrons Ryck had illuminated on his combat suit’s shoulders.

“I’m representing the Federation here,” Ryck said.

Ryck could almost see the legionnaire’s thoughts as the man’s eyebrows scrunched together. He would be wondering if the lieutenant was out of action, or if he was back there somewhere, waiting and watching.

“Very well.
Capitaine de corvette
Benyamina
would like to have word with you.”

He stepped to the side, making way for Ryck. Ryck walked forward to the older sailor standing there and waited for the man to start.

It was the woman who spoke, and Ryck had to turn and face her. He felt embarrassed. He had often thought that women could serve just as well as men in the Federation military, and here he was, assuming that the gunship’s captain had to be a man.

“Do you have a name?” the woman asked.

Ryck hesitated, but as they already knew his name as one of the platoon, he replied, “Sergeant Ryck Lysander, sir.”

Sir? Is it supposed to be ma’am or something like that?

Capitaine
de corvette
Benyamina
didn’t seem to notice as she went on, “Sergeant Lysander, thank you for agreeing to this truce. And thank you especially for taking care of our wounded comrades. You and your commander are men of honor.

“With your permission, I would like to check our wounded?”

Ryck gave his
consent, and the male sailor, who had on what Ryck only now noticed was the caduceus of the medical service on his collar, walked forward to where the legionnaires, both WIA and KIA, were laid out. If he thought it strange that two legionnaires were in a single ziplock, he said nothing. He peered at them through the clear walls of the bag and checked the stasis readout. He seemed satisfied and said something in French to his commander.

“We will be removing our two wounded men first, then return for our fallen.
If time becomes short, may we contact you for an extension?” she asked Ryck.

“Let’s see how the time goes. We will be leaving LCpl Cashew here,” Ryck said, pointing at the Marine.

That seemed to take her aback, and she said, “This is new to me. I thought this was to be a no-fire area.”

“LCpl Cashew has a concussion. He will not be returning with us,” Ryck said, keeping his voice steady, and with what he hoped sounded like conviction.

“Yet he is in your combat suit, which you must acknowledge is an offensive weapon,” she countered.

“And as I am sure you have been briefed, our PICS have some basic medical capability. Our corpsman has stressed to me that it would be best if LCpl Cashew remain in his PICS.”

“If you keep an armed soldier here, I will have to re-evaluate our position for this area at the conclusion of the truce, Sergeant. You may tell your commander that. Our soldiers will not purposely fire on your wounded, but we would have to treat this area as a potential for combat operations. Would you reconsider your position on that? For the good of your wounded?” she asked.

Ryck thought about it. Cashew, although ambulatory, was in no condition to fight. He barely knew where he was.
There was a hard and fast rule in the Marines, and that was not to separate a Marine from his weapon. Cashew’s rockets were all expended, though, and while he had 52 rounds left for his M77, those had shown to have little to no effect on the Legion’s R-3s.

“If I removed his M77, that gun on his arm, would that satisfy you?” he asked.

The Navy officer went silent, most likely listening to what one of the three legionnaires was telling her over their comms. Ryck wondered if one of them would call Ryck on Cashew’s P-gun.

He was relieved when she turned towards him and said, “If you can remove it, that will be s
atisfactory.”

Ryck
nodded, something that the PICS read and moved the suit up and down in an approximation. He turned and walked up to Cashew.

“Sergeant Lysander, what was that? You’re taking my M77?” Cashew asked on the open circuit, his speech still slurred.

Ryck switched both of them to a P2P. “Look, uh, Spence,” he said, after checking Cashew’s readout to get his first name. Ryck had forgotten that.

“
You’ve got 52 darts left, and they won’t do anything against the R-3s. We need to keep our WIAs safe, and that means here out of the line of the line of fire. I want you to guard them, OK?”

“But how, without a weapon?”

“You’ve got your P-gun, right? They don’t realize that,” Ryck said.

“Oh, right. But I can go with you and the lieutenant and fight. I’m good to go.”

“I know you are, but I need you here, Spence. I need you to watch over everyone. The lieutenant’s here, not back there. He needs you here.”

Cashew didn’t like the idea of not going back, but orders were orders. Ryck went to remove the M77, but realized he hadn’t any
armorer tools. The Marines didn’t know what to do, but finally went with brute force. With Ling and Denny holding Cashew’s arm steady, Ryck grabbed the M77, barely getting his gauntlet fingers under it, then gave it six good yanks. On the sixth, the M77 broke free, the barrel breaking off the receiver embedded in the arm of the PICS.

The gunship commander watch closely, and once Ryck held up the barrel of the M77, she nodded. She signaled the two quiet legionnaires, and they moved forward to their KIAs.

“Taking a Marine’s weapon, that’s a keister kick circus,” someone said.

Ryck turned to see that the legionnaire, the first one to speak, had spoken to him through a directional speaker, which from the look of things, could not be overheard by the rest of his team.

“Don’t worry, though, I didn’t mention his plasma gun. It’s a piece of shit, but a man’s gotta have something, you know?”

Ryck didn’t know how to respond.

“It’s not like he’s gonna need it. The captain is by-the-fucking-book, but would never go back on her honor, so no matter what happens, we won’t be back here. We’ve left your guys back at your shuttle alone, too. That’s some sailor-boy you’ve got there, though, by the way. The guy was about shitting his pants when we came up, but he stood up to us, telling us we had to go through him to get at your wounded. No weapons, and he’s gonna hold off a bunch of us in our Rigs?”

The shuttle crew chief?

Ryck didn’t even remember the guy’s name, but he’d have to find that out if they ever made is through this. The guy evidently had balls.

Ryck looked at the legionnaire, wondering just what the man’s game
was. He seemed sincere, though, and that was surprisingly disarming.

“Hey, where you from?”
Ryck asked for lack of anything better to say.

The others turned towards him when he said that.
Ryck didn’t have a direction speaker, and his voice went out in surround sound.

“Why you
askin’?” the legionnaire asked, voice suddenly wary.

Ryck did a quick scan of available nets and directed his AI to initiate a P2P with the legionnaire. To his surprise, a direct connection was made.

“You there?” he asked.

“Yeah, so again, why you
askin’?”

“It’s just, my dad, he always said that, a ‘
keister kick circus.’ He said it was an Ellison thing.”

“No farting?
You from Ellison?”

“He said that, too, ‘no farting,’” Ryck said with a laugh. “No, my parents were from Ellison, but they immigrated to Prophesy before I was born.”

“Got out when they could. Smart folks, your parents. Yeah, Ellison born and raised. Took the Legion route out of town, and I’ve never looked back. Lots of guys do that.”

“Not too many Marines from Ellison, though,” Ryck said.

“No farting, Castor. We all go Legion. It was the Marines that broke the general strike in ’24. Killed lots of folks. So the Marines are persona non grata.”

Ryck vaguely remembered reading about that. Ellison was a true corporate world, and
there had been a worker uprising, not a strike, as this guy was saying. Ryck’s grandparents on both sides had been alive then, but he’d never heard any family stories of the time from his parents.

“But that’s old news. It’s a new age. Who ever thought that GF and the Fed would be at war?” the guy said.

Ryck was suddenly struck at how surreal this was. Greater France and the Federation were at war. A few hours ago, Ryck and this legionnaire had been doing their best to kill each other. Now this guy was chatting as if they were long-lost cousins.

He had an urge to ask the legionnaire how he could still be fighting for the Legion. Whatever the Federation did in his
grandparents time, Ellison was still a Federation world.

“Well, the captain is calling. Looks like we’re
gonna start hauling the cargo. Nice meeting you,” the guy said.

“Hey, you know
Ezekiel
Hope-of-Life?” Ryck asked.

“No, not really.
He a friend of yours?”

“My girlfriend’s brother.
He’s Legion.”

“No, sorry.
But it a big Legion, as they say. Look, I gotta run. Hope we don’t meet again until the politicos get their heads out of their keisters and end this cluster.”

“Sure. Uh, good luck,” Ryck said to the legionnaire’s retreating back.

“Name’s Meyers. Coltrain Meyers. Look me up sometime when this is over, and I’ll buy you a beer.”

The truce was officially long gone, but through the night and next day, there had been no sign of the legionnaires. Ryck wracked his brain for a way to take the fight to the Legion, but he couldn’t think of anything that would give them even a 10% chance at success. He convened a “war council”
of the rest of the Marines and Doc, but no one else had any decent ideas, either.

He kept hoping that the Navy would get back, taking the matter out of his hands, but the airwaves remained silent. He had no idea what was happening out there in the space lanes.

Ryck was a Marine, and now in command of a fighting force. He was supposed to be aggressive. Yet, he was secretly wishing that the legionnaires had been hurt badly, too badly to want to tangle again. On one hand, his emotions threatened to take over when he thought about the Marine dead and wounded. He wanted to extract revenge. On the other hand, the rational part of him realized that the legionnaires were just doing their job. Coltrain Meyers was no different than he was, and his comment was telling. The legionnaires and Marines were not fighting each other because of some deep-seated hate. They were fighting because the politicos were playing statesmanship games, maneuvering for a better hand. This was about economics and who was able to pocket the most.

Just because Ryck couldn’t come up with a decent plan to attack the Legion, and just because he hoped the two groups would not clash again
, did not mean he could just sit there on his butt doing nothing. He had to plan for the worst. And once he decided to stay in their present position, that meant coming up with a better defensive plan. He didn’t have much in the way of resources, so he had to out-think any attackers.

They didn’t much in the way of
intel. They didn’t know where the legionnaires were. They didn’t know how many there were or what they had left in the way of weapons. But Ryck had formed several opinions that, if correct, might be put to use.

First, the vaunted R-3
’s, or “rigs” as Meyers had referred to them, were not as invincible as they were made out to be. They had hadron guns, true, and those were as advertised. However, the armor on the R-3 was not as good as that on a PICS. Their stealth capability disappeared when their gun ports opened, and that capability only worked when they were out of visuals, anyway. The fractured array of the PICS seemed to work even when in line-of-sight, leading Ryck to believe the R-3’s relied on electronics even when using visuals, unlike the PICS where the eyeball saw what was through the face shield.

Second, the legionnaires seemed pretty confident in themselves. They had hurt the Marines in their attack, but a front
al attack was something you only did when you knew you had overwhelming superiority of numbers or capability. Ryck had been on a number of frontal assaults, but always when they could overwhelm the enemy. He had to think the Legion worked the same way. But the fact that the Marines had taken out so many legionnaires was a good indication that even without air, even without Navy support, man-for-man, the Marines were a match for the legionnaires. His short chat with Meyers wasn’t all revealing, but the man had sounded confident.

How Ryck was going to make use of th
ose guesses and observations, he wasn’t sure, but he had to come up with something.

The issued mines were still emplaced surrounding their position. They hadn’t worked in the first assault, but they still formed a barrier by their mere presence. Ryck
had Evans make two more of his improvised mines, but without a timer, he had to rig up simple pressure plates. That meant a legionnaire would actually have to step on a mine to set it off. There was only a small chance of that, but any chance had to be taken. Ryck had the position of the two mines entered into the PICS of the Marines so that even in the heat of battle, if it got to that, each member of the platoon would know where the mines were. These mines had no way to distinguish between friend or foe.

Ryck had managed to salvage two more dragonflies. He sent these, along with his last one, out to the most probabl
e avenues of approach. The dragonflies had limited power, normally good for about two hours of total flight time, so he landed them on high branches and powered them down, only using enough juice to send back feeds. It wasn’t a perfect warning system, but with the vibration sensors still out there, he thought they would get a good warning in case of someone approaching.

The shuttle’s 2
5mm gun was still working. When the legionnaires had fired on it during the fight, they had used their hadron guns. That had killed Cpl Stuyvestent and PFC Bokaw, but the beam had no effect on the gun itself. It would have taken a shipboard hadron gun to put out enough power to slag metal, and as they didn’t even have any electronics for the gun, nothing was affected. At the base level, it was just an iron sight gun, like an old WWI machine gun. Without its advanced targeting system, it was, in a sense, too primitive to be hurt by the most modern weapons technologies. Of course, that old Vickers gun was designed to be fired with the technology of the time, so it would have been more accurate than the 25mm being fired as the modern gun no longer had any targeting capability. Still, the round itself was deadly to anyone in an R-3. If the Marines could hit them, the legionnaires would go down.

The shuttle’s gun was still functional. The same cou
ld not be said of the M229. Its firing electronics were fused, so even if the barrel and breach were sound, it could not send a round downrange. Ryck had six rounds for it, but no way to use them. With their electrostatic jacketing, Evans couldn’t even come up with a way to jury-rig them into something more useful.

Power reserves on each
PICS were woefully low. Without the proper tools, Ryck couldn’t even switch out powerpacks with those from any of the fallen Marine’s PICS that still had some degree of functionality. Technically, there was a way to vampire power from one suit to another, but that required cabling that Ryck didn’t have. Ryck kept everyone out of the suits as much as he could, but some of the preparations required the strength of a PICS, and there was no getting around that.

By the middle of the next night, Ryck had a good deal of his preparations completed. He half-expected an attack during the night. With both the Marines and Legion’s equipment, night and day made little difference.
But his men were dead on their feet, and Ryck needed them combat effective. He put six men asleep at a time, keeping up a three-man watch. Ryck took the first watch along with Ling and Perreti.

When he awoke the next morning, the sun was already climbing high in the sky. The night had been quiet. Today, he thought, would be
an important one.

Ryck had read in the civilian military journals, which seemed to be enamored with all things
Legion, that the R-3’s could operate for four days on a single power charge. This was the fourth day. True, the legionnaires could have been getting out of their R-3’s and spending time with the suits powered down, but if they were within 60-70 km, the Marine’s own sensors should have been able to pick up the cycling of the suits before the shielding was up to power. Ryck was betting that they were closer than that given the speed at which they had met him to retrieve their two WIA’s. In addition, they had been in combat, and that would have depleted their power reserves as well. Ryck knew they had field generators, just as the Marines had, but just as the Marine’s generator had gone down with the skipper, he thought any generator would have been destroyed when the
Intrepid
took out the French shuttles.

If there was going to be an attack, Ryck was sure it would happen today.
Anything after that would be Marines in longjohns attacking legionnaires in their version of combat suit underwear with pointy sticks.

Ryck looked at their position. It was good, he thought.
Possibly enough. But he had to do more. He just couldn’t think of what.

“Evans, come here a sec,” he called out.

The EOD corporal walked over and asked, “What’s up?”

“I w
as just thinking, could we take those arty rounds and hoist them up in the trees over there? Then if they come, drop them on top of their heads?”

“Sure, I could rig something up. But we could do that with rocks, too. All it will do is
piss them off.”

“But the
889 can take out an R-3. We saw that two days ago,” Ryck protested.

“
Yes, and armed M889 round will destroy an R-3. An 887 would probably, too. But it takes 10 g’s of pressure after the breach initiates the sequence to arm one of them, and dropping one from five meters high just won’t do it. Sorry, Sergeant L, it just won’t work,” Evans told him.

“Oh, OK. I’m just trying to think out loud here.”

“Look, Sergeant L, me and Nance, we were talking this morning. You’ve done a great job here, and we think we’ve actually got a chance if it comes to that. None of us two would’ve come up with half of this. So no matter what happens, even if the worst, well, we, I would say all of us, we’re proud to be here with you.”

Ryck was floored. He’d be
en feeling like a failure for not coming up with anything better. If the others were counting on him, well God help them with that, but it made Ryck feel honored. If this was going to be his last day, at least he was with men he respected, men about whom he felt proud.

“I . . . it is me who is proud. All of you,” he said, speaking louder and addressing the rest of them. “All of you, I couldn’t wish for a better
group of Marines, of brothers. I am proud to be here with you.”

There was a chorus of
oohrahs from the Marines, from
his
Marines.

As if on cue, the alarm sounded from his PICS. Ryck ran over to it and clamored inside. The feed from one of the dragonflies was dead. Ryck ran back the recording, and just a few moments ago, it picked up the slightest movement in the trees before going dead. Ryck went back and froze it at the last second it was live,
then had his AI enhance it. He couldn’t see anything concrete, but he didn’t have to. They were on their way.

“OK, Marines, enough of this mutual love fest. They’re on their way.
Everyone into your positions, now!”

There was the slight, almost inaudible hum as
his PICS powered up. Ryck checked his power level first: 14%. This was going to be it, whatever
it
turned out to be, with this particular PICS. He checked the other suits as the powered up. None were over 22%.

PFC Ling and
Pvt Peretti stopped in front of him and saluted. Ryck brought his PICS to attention and returned he salute to the two Marines standing in front of him in their longjohns. They were not going to be in their PICS. They had volunteered to man the 25 mm. Each had a tarnkappe. A dead PICS had been dragged over in front of the gun, hopefully providing cover from any Legion sensors. In back of the gun, the two Marines were to hide under their tarnkappes, and when they had targets, they were to fire. Without their face shield displays, though, their AI’s could not get enough data points to form an image of the legionnaires, so they would have to wait until the legionnaire’s gun ports opened, spoiling their stealth profile. With the naked eye, though, even when under full stealth, the R-3’s gave enough hints so the two Marines should be able to pick up something.

If they made it out of the fight, Ryck would make sure Peretti regained some of his lost rank and Ling got a meritorious promotion as well. If
anyone
made it out of this, Ryck would fight for meritorious promotions.

The Marines had no surprises downrange, unless someone stepped on one of the mines. They just had to sit and wait. A surprisingly few number of vibration sensors sounded—Ryck hoped that meant that the legionnaire numbers were few.

From over 500 meters out, Ryck’s display started picking up readings. The AI’s quickly identified them as two R-3’s. There was no way they should be able to pick them up. That meant that either this was part of their cyberwarfare games, or more hopefully, that those two R-3’s were damaged. Even if that were the case, Ryck still didn’t know how many undamaged R-3’s were out there.

They were not coming in from the same direction, into the teeth, such as they were, of the defense. They were working from the flank, evidently trying to roll up the Marines. Ryck had guessed correctly, but that still didn’t
ensure anything. He’d had two other contingencies depending on the legionnaire’s approach, but this way, none of the Marines had to move to alternate positions.

Keep it steady,
he silently thought to his men.

The legion
naires didn’t stop their advance. Previously, their field piece had taken a deadly toll on the Marines, and if they had another, Ryck’s plan would be stillborn. However, nothing was fired, and as the legionnaires closed to within 300 meters, Ryck let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. He now doubted they had another field piece.

Ryck’s AI picked up another R-3. It’s shielding was obviously in better condition, but not good enough. That was at least three legionnaires,
by his count, all with some degree of damage, or at least degradation, to their suits.