Ryck could see the avatars for First in a nice L blocking the avenue of approach. Giles had them positioned well for any contingency. Bert had given him the head’s up that the Acquisition government had been officially contacted by the Federation that the assault was really a “bounty hunting mission” to arrest the members of the known criminal gang at the position, and this was not an offensive action government against the government. No one doubted that the Acquisition government knew exactly that the SOG was operating from the planet, but this gave them an out. They and the Haven government immediately protested against this “invasion,” but the current indication was that the Acquisition police were not going to interfere. Giles had to keep his men alert, but it looked like they would not be engaging the police. There was still that Patty out there, though, and who knows what other forces? Unless Intel was way off on their analysis, there were quite a few missing fighters on the planet somewhere.
“Ryck, Alpha’s pulled some data off one of the SOG comps they found and hacked. I want you to check out coordinates 509668/126873. It looks like a school or something similar,” Bert passed on the P2P.
“Roger, that,” Ryck said, pulling up an overlay and plotting the coordinates. “Do you want me to leave anyone here?”
“That’s a negative. Leave Hester where he is, but take the rest of Bravo and check it out. Be careful, though. School or not, there’s a passel of pirates we haven’t found. I wouldn’t put it past them to be using human shields. Just check it out. We know there are family here, and I want to know just where they are.”
“Roger. I’m on my way.”
Ryck called his commanders forward and gave them the frag. Within minutes, the company was on the move, silently passing through the trees to check out the coordinates. He marveled at how quickly his men could change from one mission to the other. Taking nothing away from his infantry companies, but it would have taken at least 15 minutes to get any of them moving. He felt a surge of pride at their professionalism.
The coordinates designated a spot only 600 meters away, so it was only 15 minutes before Capt Lee passed, “We’ve got a small prefab at the site, some playground equipment, and a good-sized roadway leading away back towards the complex. It sure looks like a school to me.”
“Roger, Two. Hold up until the other platoons come alongside. I want it surrounded before we investigate,” Ryck passed.
How the hell did surveillance miss that? he wondered as he came within view of the building.
There were some pretty tall trees around it, to be sure, and the building was rudimentarily camouflaged, but still, modern surveillance devices should have picked it up easily. He looked up, and through the branches of the big genmodded redwoods, he could see the stars. No, there was no excuse for this screw-up. He wondered what else they’d missed.
The other two platoons flowed around him, encircling the building. Once they were in position, Ryck gave Siomai the go ahead. A four-man team from the platoon, led by Shart, cautiously approached the half-cylinder-shaped building. SSgt Jersey, the platoon’s demo man, readied one of his charges, but Shart reached up and pulled on the door. It opened easily.
In a combat situation, doors and windows were to be avoided. Making a new opening was preferable. Shart looked back to where Ryck was crouching in the trees.
“You getting anything?” he asked Liplock.
As usual, Sams’ assistant got all the odds and ends jobs, and he was carrying a sophisticated, but miniaturized sensor array.
The sergeant looked at the readout for a moment before saying, “There’s some weird shit at the outer limits, but there’s no one inside the building, and the door itself is clear. I’m pretty sure about that.”
Ryck felt let down. They’d come tramping through the woods, away from the main action, for nothing?
“OK, Gutierrez,” he passed to Shart, “you’re clear. Check it out.”
“Roger that. We’re going in.”
With tactics that probably hadn’t changed for centuries, Shart took his team in, each member working in a precise ballet, covering each other as they checked the building.
Within moments, he passed, “All clear. I think this is a school, but there’s no one here. We’ve got a vault, though, in the back, leading down.”
“Two, send in another team. Alpha command, come with me. You too, Liplock, and bring your bag of tricks.”
Companies did not formally have “alpha” and “bravo” commands, but it still made sense to keep the key leaders separated in case one group got taken out. Ryck and Sams were the Alpha Command, while the XO and first sergeant were the Bravo Command. Liplock and Doc Lyon went wherever they were needed, and Çağlar, officially the company admin clerk and working for the first sergeant, went wherever Ryck went, his protective shadow.
Surrounded by the second team from Second Platoon, Ryck, Sams, Çağlar, and Liplock entered the building. His reticule had to struggle to collect enough light, but the lines of desks and the interactive displays looked like any school in the Federation. Instead of the Federation president, however, a framed holo of the Prophet looked out over the desks. Ryck felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise when as he took in the holo. The guy’s eyes spoke of intensity—and insanity, at least to Ryck. He knew the SOG rank and file felt he was touched by God. The Federation didn’t even know if the guy was real or a fictional figurehead invented to recruit people into what was essentially a criminal operation. He was called All Seeing before his “promotion” to prophet ten years ago, and if he was real, the Federation and the Brotherhood both agreed he’d been killed by the interdiction of their first homeworld, but the SOG still acted as if he was a living, breathing person.
Ryck tore his eyes away from the holo and surveyed the rest of the room. It looked so normal. He hadn’t thought of pirates having schools before, but it made sense. Kids had to learn if they are going to contribute as they got older.
“Skipper, I’ve got the light switch here. Should I turn them on?” Corporal Wu, “Beetle,” asked.
Ryck considered it only for a moment. It wasn’t as if their presence was any secret, and the school was undoubtedly monitored. It would be easier to investigate the school with the lights on.
“Turn them on,” he ordered.
He closed his eyes for a moment as the room lit up. He held his right eye closed as he slowly open the other. His left eye adjusted to the light, and when he saw no threat, he opened his right.
“Here’s the vault door, Skipper,” Shart said, pointing to a rather robust-looking door covering a raised platform, looking like the storm cellars used on weather planets like Changju.
Ryck could see why Shart called it a “vault” door. It had a round wheel, the kind used for centuries on bank vaults to pull back the bolts. The lock was a small box to the right of the wheel, its blue LEDs blinking “Locked.”
“Liplock, you got anything for that?” Ryck asked.
“Uh, yes, sir. Let me see if it works, though.”
The sergeant approached the door while punching in some codes to his Swiss Army Knife. The PA, nicknamed for an old multi-purpose tool, had more capabilities than a normal PA, but those capabilities were too numerous to memorize. It was just easier to put it in place and see if it could do what was being asked of it.
“OK, I’ve got it in worm mode,” he said, placing the device right on top of the lock.
Within five seconds, the LED switched to “Open.” Ryck was surprised that cracking the lock was so easy. From the looks of the thing, its security should have been much more robust.
Even Liplock looked surprised, but he turned back to look at Ryck and ask, “Sir?”
“Let’s open it and see what we’ve got,” Ryck said.
The other 15 Marines trained their weapons on the door as Liplock pushed the button, and with a whoosh of air, the door swung up and out, revealing a lit ladderwell going down.
“We’ve got children down here!” a woman’s voice called out.<
br />
Two of Shart’s Marines moved forward and pointed the Rimskies down into the ladderwell.
“Are there any combatants down there?” one of them asked.
“No. Just three teachers and 64 children. We are not armed,” the woman called back up.
Ryck stepped forward and shouted down, “I am Major Ryck Lysander of the United Federation Marine Corps,” ignoring the fact that technically, he was not a Marine at the moment. “I want all of you to come out of there. You will not be harmed if you comply with our orders. You have my word on that.”
“How do I know you won’t kill us all?” the voice asked as several small cries sounded out as the children heard what she asked.
Ryck turned to look at Çağlar, who merely shrugged his shoulders.
We’re Marines, not grubbing pirates, Ryck told thought. Does she really think Marines kill innocent children?
“Well, you have my word on that. We don’t want to hurt you, but all SOG fighters are under arrest, and one way or the other, we need to make sure there are no fighters hiding among you.”
There was a murmuring of voices from the chamber below. It sounded like an argument. Ryck waited patiently. He’d send men down there if he had to, but if there were pirates below who wanted to fight, that could be very messy. It would be much better if the kids and teachers came out on their own.
“OK, we’re coming out,” the woman called out after a few minutes. “But please, we’ve got young ones here, and they’re pretty scared. Can you back off your soldiers?”
Fat grubbing chance, Ryck thought. Scared or not, I’m not going to reduce our posture.
“Just come out, and slowly. We’re going to want to see everyone’s hands as you exit,” he said.
“OK, we’re coming.”
“Liplock, tell Captain Lee I want two more teams in here. And get Doc, too. Sams, as soon as they come up, get them out of the building and sit them alongside of it. I’m going to report back to the CO.”
Ryck moved to the door and opened up his comms. Bert could have been monitoring him, but with the limitations on the reticule and the fight going on, he doubted it.
“Six, this is Charlie Six, over,” he passed on the command circuit, waiting for Bert’s acknowledgment.
“Go ahead, Ryck,” Bert responded, switching to a P2P. “What’ve you got?”
“You were right. It is a school. We’ve got three adults and 64 kids at their count. They say no pirates.”
“Have you confirmed that?”
“No, sir. They were in some sort of shelter beneath the school, and I’m having them come out,” Ryck said, glancing over as a middle-aged woman, looking both defiant and nervous at the same time, pulled herself out of the vault and into the school room. Sams spoke to her, and she nodded.
“We’ll do a complete sweep of the area. Our sensors didn’t even pick them up under the ground, so it will have to be manual sweep.”
The first of the kids came up, looking scared as the teacher directed them out of the school. Ryck stepped aside, letting them get past him. One, a young girl in a shapeless robe and holding a little one, glared at him as she joined the others.
“I want them all searched,” he said to Sams, covering his throat mic and motioning the gunny to come out.
“They’ve got some pretty significant counter-surveillance, better than the weaponry they’ve shown,” Bert continued. “We’ve been having problems with that, too. Wait one—”
Ryck listened with one ear as he watched the kids file out. Nine of them were standing up against the school wall. Gas and Baby Girl were searching each one, and then telling them to sit, back against the wall. Gas was covering while Baby Girl was doing the actual search. He was trying to pat down a three-year-old, who wanted nothing of it. Ryck watched the crying child, wondering how his own Ben would react if he were in that situation.
“Uh, Ryck, we’ve got a situation here,” Bert said, coming back onto the P2P. “I’m going to have to cut—”
As if on cue, Bert’s transmission cut off. Ryck started to shake his head at the comms when a huge, low roar sounded off in the direction of the main objective. The ground shook, knocking Baby Girl and the standing kids off their feet. Ryck stumbled but remained standing as he switched to the command circuit.
“Bert, do you read me?” he shouted into his mic.
Çağlar appeared at the door, looking anxiously for Ryck, relief evident when he saw him. He took several steps toward him when behind the corporal Ryck saw the glaring girl, the one with the baby, get up. He didn’t know what specifically caught his attention, but there was something purposeful about her movement that sent his warrior’s senses screaming.
“Down!” he shouted, diving to the side to get a clear shot. Çağlar, facing him, dove in the opposite direction, but Baby Girl was getting to his feet, and Gas spun to look at Ryck, weapon ready.
That took his eyes off the kids, off the girl as she closed the gap between them. Ryck brought his weapon, his thumb automatically flipping the safety. Only this was the Gentry-made Rimsky, not his familiar M77. His thumb pushed at the wrong spot, and he had to look and acquire it. It took only a fraction of a second, but that was enough. As he brought his weapon back to bear and pulled the trigger, several images seared themselves into his brain.
The girl, a half-smile on her face, a small baby’s arm reaching up for her chin, just as Esther’s used to reach up and touch his five-o’clock shadow when she was a baby.
Gas, seeing Ryck’s aim and starting to wheel around, bringing up his own weapon.
The first of his darts piercing the girl’s robe low on her thigh.
The fireball as the girl exploded, enveloping Gas, Baby Girl, and the SOG kids who were sitting up against the wall.
A wave of heat swept over Ryck and Çağlar. Something sharp and hot hit his shoulder, but his bones instantly hardening and limiting the damage. Çağlar, a few feet closer, grunted in pain. He swung up a hand to cover his butt.
His ears ringing, he looked inside the school. The teacher was inside, swinging an energy weapon of some sort, laughing like a maniac. Another boy, holding some sort of device, started to the door, but before Ryck could switch targets, he was cut down by his teacher’s gun.
“Down, Sams,” Ryck calmly said to Sams, who was moving to the door.
Sams halted just as the teacher swung the beam in a wild arc, the beam momentarily firing outside the building over Ryck’s head and evidently catching Sams in a side lobe. Sams shouted out his anger as Ryck sighted his weapon and put a line of darts into the teacher’s chest.
“Hans, you OK?” Ryck asked.
“Yeah, but he got my ass. Hurts like a mother fuck,” he said, swearing for the first time in Ryck’s presence.
“It was a girl,” Ryck told him, not certain why that seemed important at the moment.
“Damn bones don’t fit right with these utilities,” Çağlar said.
The focus that had taken over him for a few moments started to fade. Warrior mode had kicked in, but now he had to get back to commanding. He had no comms with Bert, and he had a very bad feeling about that. He shook his head a few times, clearing his thoughts.
“Sams, you effective?” he asked.
“Yeah, and thanks. Another few centimeters, and I would have been cooked. Singed me good, though.”
“You and Çağlar get in there, see who’s alive and seal the grubbing vault now. No one else comes out.”
He looked up to see Captain Lee, along with several other Marines, rushing forward.
“What happened, sir?” he asked breathlessly.
“What happened was an ambush. The kids were part of it. I’ve got a feeling that it’s just Alpha and us now.”
“Sir?”
“Go check your men. I don’t know who’s OK in there,” Ryck said, using his thumb to indicate inside the school.
They sky was just beginning to show a hint of the system’s star, and color started to register again. Ther
e was too much red showing, splashed up against the school’s light green walls.
Several people were on the company net, trying to get information. As a result, nothing was getting passed.
Ryck was about to order them all to keep quiet when the override took over, and Captain Hester said, “Skipper, I think we’ve found that Patty. It’s coming right at us with a platoon of armored pirates. I think they’re in Nizzies. What do you want us to do?”
A platoon of Nizzies and a Patty?
Granted, the NZ-S Armored Combat Systems were no match for a PICS Marine, but Hester didn’t have enough effective missiles or HGLs to take out a platoon of them and a Patty.
“Pull back. Do not engage. We’ll link up and concentrate our forces,” he ordered.
Through the trees, the sound of distant firing reached Ryck.
“Uh, Skipper, no can do. We just engaged. I’ve got two teams in the shit, and the rest of us will be in it momentarily. With all due respect, I’ve got a fight to run,” he said, cutting off his transmission.
“All hands, on me!” he passed on the command circuit as he started running back toward First Platoon’s position.
He doubted he could reach the platoon in time to do any good, but as three of the platoon’s avatars suddenly grayed out on his reticule, he knew he had to try.
Chapter 33
Ryck dropped to a walk as the last blue avatar, that belonging to Staff Sergeant Manut “Tater” Odoyo, grayed out. First Platoon, the entire platoon, was gone. Twenty-five Marines, his Marines, were dead. Only two Marines, Sgt Nolan and Lieutenant Siripon were still alive, their avatars showing the light blue of being WIA.
The last 10 minutes had been torture as they ran through the forest with Ryck taking his hip-pocket battle plans and trying to come up with a course of action on the run. He followed the comms, so he had a general, if disjointed idea of what was happening. Each time an avatar went light blue or gray was a knife to his heart. He felt helpless, and he knew his mad dash was risky. But he couldn’t just stand by while his men were slaughtered.
Major (The United Federation Marine Corps Book 5) Page 18
