The next floor up was empty, but the sound of the big gun above them was a beacon. Five PICS slammed up the wide stairs, pieces of tile chipping off and flying in all directions. They reached the wide hallway and turned as one to the left, barely slowing down as they pelted to whatever was at the end.
His display timer read 3:22 as Ryck and his Marines burst through the big wooden doors. There were six of them in the room, two on the cannon, four firing their M77s. Ryck let loose his shoulder rockets as he took the enemy on the far left under fire. The two on the cannon would have to wait. They couldn’t get that thing around to engage his team, but the other four could.
His felt a thrill as his target went down, but not before Ryck’s PICS came close to redlining. Two more of the enemy went down, and he saw one of his men go down, too. Two of his team focused on the last gunfighter while Ryck charged the two men on the cannon. They were well aware of what was happening, but they stuck to their guns, firing at what was left of Charlie Company.
It took only a few moments for the last of them to fall.
And the power came back on.
“Cease fire, cease fire,” came over the circuits. “The exercise is over.”
The “dead” enemy and Charlie Marines stirred and sat up.
Ryck hurriedly checked his display. There were eight blue icons: Doc, Müller, Jaanson, and his along with four outside the building. Sams wasn’t one of them.
“Is that you, Lysander?” a voice asked from behind him. “Leave it to you to be the fucking hero!”
“Hell, if I’d known that was you, I would have gone hand-to-hand,” he said to Captain Donte Ward, the Bravo Company commander.
“How did you get in here?” Donte asked.
“You’ll get it in the debrief,” Ryck told him. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”
The eleven Marines went down the stairs where the dead rear security caught up with them. If it was possible to look sheepish in a PICS, then that Marine somehow managed it.
They walked out of the front of the building and into a wide courtyard where the living and dead were gathering. A low murmur began to get picked up by Ryck’s mics. It took a moment for him to make it out.
“Charlie, Charlie, Charlie!” reverberated from the adjoining buildings.
As the battlefield contracted, the exercise referees had brought in the boundaries, and all the dead, Bravo and Charlie alike, had climbed to the tops of the combat-town buildings to watch the final battle. Ryck knew the feeds would have been available to them, so they had watched the entire assault unfold. Their reaction hit him in the heart.
He knew he was famous, but that came with baggage. This was his first exercise with the company and one in which the attacking force almost always lost. Yet they had pulled it off. They probably wondered about him, how he would be as a commander. And now, he had proven himself.
“Charlie, Charlie, Charlie. . .” the chant sounded.
Ryck stopped and looked.
Behind him, Doc, Jaanson, Hollington, and Müller started chanting, too.
This was what it meant to be a commander, he realized: to earn the respect of his men. That was all that mattered.
He lifted a fist, and with his externals on max, shouted “Charlie!”
Chapter 2
Ryck and Donte, along with their XOs and first sergeants, sat outside the conference room, waiting for their exercise debrief. The two had been platoon commanders together back with K 3/6 for the first part of the Trinocular War, and by chance, they were now company commanders together with 1/11.
Ryck looked up at First Sergeant Hector Phantawisangtong, who was deep in conversation with his Bravo counterpart. He and Hecs went back even further, to where “King Tong” had been his recruit training heavy hat. But Hecs and he being together was no coincidence. Ryck had pulled strings to get Hecs assigned to him, just as he had pulled strings to get Sams, Jaob Ling and a few others. A captain normally did not have that kind of pull, but what good did it do to be a certified “hero” if he couldn’t get some favors done, right?
“You ready for this?” Donte asked.
“Heck yeah. I won, didn’t I?”
“Charlie won, but yeah. And winning is breathing, as they say. But I heard the FCDC
[2] is pretty pissed at you, breaking down their walls.”
“Oh, screw them. There’s no rules against that.”
“Maybe not, but we don’t get real projectile weapons for a reason. They’ve got to repair Combat Town now, especially as you destroyed the control room down in the underground,” Donte said.
Ryck took a moment to glance up at his fellow captain. Donte looked fine, but Ryck thought he detected just a hint of annoyance in his voice, as if he thought Ryck had cheated to win the battle.
Screw you, too, he thought.
Donte was a friend, but it was not his fault that Donte hadn’t foreseen Ryck’s assault. No matter, what was done was done.
The Federation Civil Development Corps could be another matter, though. Sunshine was the FCDC’s primary training world in this sector, and the combat town was one of its pride and joys. It was heavily used by them for crowd control training. As it was far better than anything the Marines had, it was often rented for UO—Urban Operations—training. It was a given that the FCDC resented the Marines using their facility, and the restrictions they placed on the Marines were pretty heavy. Projectile weapons were only simulated, and no explosive ordnance could be used.
Ryck had essentially simulated breaching charges by using his team’s PICS as battering rams. This would have raised an issue on the small building along Route Tiblisi, but when he broke through the walls in the underground, he’d damaged a small training control room, something not part of their exercise but vital for the Combat Town exercise staff for other scenarios.
Ryck wasn’t worried about any fallout, however. He hadn’t broken any explicit rules, even if he had skirted the intent of those rules. The FCDC assholes could bitch, but there was not much they could do about it. Ryck knew for a fact that the Corps was not about to throw him to the wolves over a battlefield success.
He glanced down at the readout Top Forrest, the battalion operations chief, had handed him before they arrived. On it was the raw battle data, which included each “casualty.” This had only been an exercise, but as he read over the names, it hit him hard. Hecs, Sams, Ling: all dead. Each of his lieutenants: dead. Corporal K’Nata, his new admin clerk who had reported in just the day before: dead. Out of 212 Marines and sailors, 204 had “died.”
It was just an exercise, Ryck knew, and he’d been more liberal with lives because of that. And with Marines in PICS, all combat casualties were listed as KIA, ignoring the fact that some would have been WIA and would recover. But still, that was a lot of dead.
Ryck was finally beginning to feel comfortable with the “hero” label slapped on him, but in order to earn that designation, he had seen too many die. He’d sent his own brother-in-law to his death, for grubbing sakes! Those deaths ate at him and left a black hole that he could never completely cover up.
This had been an exercise, but seeing the names on the list of KIA brought it home to him. You fight as you train. Was this an omen of the future? He closed the folder and leaned back in his chair.
“What, done gloating over your numbers?” Donte asked.
“It’s all grubbing bullshit, Donte. You know that. If this had been real, none of it would have gone down like that. The numbers don’t mean squat. We’ll go in, have the training staff tell us how great we were, then we’re gone. Until it’s real, none of this matters.”
“Whoa! I didn’t mean to get you going all Socrates on me. You OK?”
“Yeah, sure. Don’t mind me,” he said, his mind already wandering.
He’d been pumped up at the win, pumped up at the chants of “Charlie!” But seeing the names on the list had snapped him back. This wasn’t some huge video game developed just for him. When they did go out on an ac
tual mission, and he was sure that time would come, losing men would be for real. He hoped he would be able to handle that.
FS INCHON
Chapter 3
“And when I say no liberty incidents, I mean no liberty incidents. Zero!” LtCol Fearless uKhiwa told his gathered staff and commanders.
Even after four months with the battalion, Ryck was still slightly in awe of his battalion commander. He’d actually been born with the name “Fearless,” and whether his parents had seen something in him or if the colonel had simply grown into it, the name fit.
He certainly did not “grow” tall, though. At 165 cm, he was at the bare minimum height to fit in a PICS. The ongoing joke was that he didn’t need a PICS. He had a huge chest and shoulders and could bench 300 kgs. For such a muscle-bound man, however, he could run forever. Ryck thought he was in pretty good shape, but the CO had run him into the dirt, leaving him gasping and almost throwing up, on more than one occasion.
There was one more thing about him, at least as it pertained to Ryck. The CO was not a combat vet. During the “disagreement” with Greater France, the French had bypassed much of the Federation forces, including the CO’s unit at the time, and he’d been stuck at Headquarters during the Trinocular War. Despite this, he didn’t seem impressed with Ryck at all. Ryck wasn’t used to this. Marines all seemed to have an opinion of him: most Marines gravitated to him, and some seemed to resent him. But at least they had an opinion. It wasn’t as if the CO didn’t seem to like Ryck. He just didn’t seem to have much of an opinion of him one way or the other.
Ryck wanted to change that. He wanted the CO’s approval and respect. He knew his past was the past, as far as the CO was concerned, and all that mattered was how he performed as the Charlie Company commander.
“Any saved rounds?” the CO asked. When no one said anything, he turned off his PA and said, “OK, then. Let’s get the men off the boat and on their way. This might be their only chance for a decent libo for the entire cruise. Dismissed!”
The staff came to their feet as the colonel left the wardroom.
“Staff NCOs, I want to see you in the Chief’s mess in five,” the sergeant major called out as the staff started to file out.
Ryck clapped Hecs’ shoulder. “It sucks to be you. I’ll be a six-pack down by the time you get off the ship.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll make it up tomorrow when your wife gets here,” Hecs told him as they left the wardroom, the Navy stewards standing along the bulkhead, patiently waiting for the Marines to clear out so they could begin the evening meal prep.
The FS Inchon was a Falklands Class Integrated Assault Transport. The IATs were designed to bridge the gap between putting Marines on Navy battleships and cruisers or putting them on simple, unarmed transports. During the conflict with Greater France, thousands of Marines had been killed who were nothing more than spectators. The idea was to have a ship that could carry battalion-sized Marine Expeditionary Assault Force with enough firepower to protect itself and even carry the fight to smaller naval vessels. Not everyone at the top levels was convinced that this was the way to go, but Ryck rather liked being in space with his entire battalion.
Ryck hurried down to officer’s country where he had his own, if small, stateroom. It was tiny, with barely enough room to turn around if his rack was lowered, but he was glad it was his. The colonel’s stateroom had a small office in the front, and the three majors—the XO, the Ops O, and the Flight Commander—all had slightly larger staterooms than Ryck’s, but of the captains, only the four company commanders rated their own staterooms. Drayton Miller, the S4, shared a room with two of the pilots, and Frank Lim, the chaplain, Shabah Mouldin, the surgeon, and the last pilot shared another.
Ryck threw off his skins[3] and pulled on his skivvies. He was glad that Hannah would arrive tomorrow, but that meant that this evening would be his only boys night out. Coulder 45, or “Colt 45,” was not one of the wildest military liberty planets around. There wasn’t much of the more prurient night life that many young Marines and sailors sought, but the draft beer was rumored to be the best in Federation space, and its well-stocked mountain lakes had produced more than a few UGFA[4] records. Food, fishing, and beer was on the agenda of most of the ship’s crew and Marines, and while Ryck was not going to do any fishing, he intended to sample the food and beer before his wife arrived and he’d have other things on his mind.
“I have permission to go ashore,” Ryck told the quarterdeck watch officer, as he saluted aft to where the Federation Shield was engraved on the stern of the ship. He’d never actually seen the shield, but tradition was tradition, and salutes were required. He rushed into the waiting shuttle, sure he was the first captain to make it. To his disappointment, Donte, Drayton, and Frank were already there, taking up a row of seats. At least he was on the first shuttle.
Within a few minutes, the shuttle was full, and the hatch closed. With an almost imperceptible lurch, the shuttle detached and started the 3-minute descent to the planet’s surface.
The mood was festive as the shuttle descended. Colt 45 might not be Vegas, where Ryck had his first liberty call, but they had at least nine months ahead of them, and this might be their last chance to relax until they returned.
Once down, the four of them grabbed an autocab to Saja. While on liberty, there wasn’t any segregation by rank, at least formally. But with some sort of herd instinct, ranks somehow congregated together. Saja was a well-regarded beerhall, its micro-brewed pilsner having won more than a few awards, and this became the defacto headquarters of the O3s.
[5]
The entrance was impressive, with two huge stylized Asian lions guarding the door. Inside was Korean kitsch, but it was the smell of hops in the air that grabbed their attention. Two Navy lieutenants had already claimed a table, and from the look of it, had already made a good dent on the beer stocks. They lifted their steins in a toast as the three Marines and Frank came in.
Frank went right to their table and poured himself a stein out of their pitcher. The ship was smaller than most, and most of the men already knew each other, and if the chaplain wanted some of their beer, then who were they to object?
The drinking started, and the next six hours went by in a blur. Ryck remembered the CO and the ship’s captain stopping by for a round. He remembered seeing three young privates, probably just out of recruit training wander in and then look at them in panic as they realized who had laid claim to the place before they took off at a run, much to all of their amusement. He vaguely remembered standing on the table with Felipe Something-or-other, one of the Navy lieutenants, and singing “That’s Why I Love You,” while getting doused with beer from the unappreciative gallery. But that was about it.
Somehow, probably with help, he made it back to the ship where he collapsed in his rack. Tomorrow, he would be the good husband and spend time with his wife, but tonight, that had been righteous!
Chapter 4
Thanks to modern medicine, Ryck felt surprisingly human the next morning as he went back down to the planet’s surface. Shabah hadn’t made it back to the ship the night before, but the duty corpsman didn’t even ask when Ryck showed up at sickbay and simply gave him the injection. Within minutes, his head shrank to half its size, and his brain actually started to work again. His mouth still tasted like a sewer, but a quick shower and brush, and he was ready to go meet Hannah.
He was looking forward to the four days with her. During workups and getting ready for deployment, they hadn’t had much time together. Ryck’s schedule, Hannah’s schedule, and most of all, the demands of the twins had them parenting instead of being husband and wife. Now, with Hannah’s cousin watching the twins, they could focus only on each other, and Ryck could use the loving. It was going to be a long stretch of sleeping alone, and he planned on making good use of their time together.
There was a flower vendor at the commercial terminal, so he scooped up a dozen roses. He buried his nose in them, inhaling. These were some new
strain, and their scent was heady. It reminded him of Hannah—not so much that Hannah liked roses, but that Ryck did, and he continually bought her rose bubble bath and toilet spray. The more he smelled them, the more excited he was to see her and the harder the wait.
There were no immigration formalities for Federation citizens on Colt 45, but still, it took quite a bit of time for a passenger liner to unload close to 6,000 passengers. Ryck looked up anxiously each time a shuttle unloaded, but it wasn’t until the seventh load that he spotted his Hannah.
She looked a little bedraggled as she followed the throng through the glass entryway, pulling her small suitcase. Hannah was a Torritite, and so she was never much into make-up. She had gained a little weight over their years together, especially after having the twins. But to Ryck, she was as beautiful as ever. He still wondered how he had ever gotten her to fall in love with him, and he prayed she would never realize she was too good for him.
They’d had a rocky patch after Joshua, her brother, had been killed by the trinoculars, but since then, Ryck thought their relationship had become stronger than ever. And now with the twins, his personal life was about as good as it had ever been.
She didn’t see him as she came through the exit. He snuck up behind her and thrust the roses around and in front of her face.
She took a sniff, then without looking behind her, said, “Thanks for the roses, but you should know, I be married to a Marine, and he’d not be taking kindly to you hitting on me.”
Captain (The United Federation Marine Corps Book 4) Page 2
