The United Federation Marine Corps' Lysander Twins: The Complete Series: Books 1-5

by Jonathan P. Brazee

  Two minutes later, his bowl was empty, and he picked it up to lick any remaining traces.

  “Miriam? You coming?”

  He waited for a moment, but she didn’t answer.

  With one more dramatic sigh, which was wasted as he was the only one there, he reached across the small table and picked up Miriam’s dessert. He held it for a moment, listening for any sound coming from the bedroom. When he still didn’t hear anything, he plunged his spoon into the cobbler.

  No use wasting good food.

  OPAL LEXUS 3

  Chapter 12

  “The Rangers suck big time,” Chili said, flicking a gummy bear at Corporal Knight Lewis, the Ba-Boom’s new driver.

  “Bullshit. They may be down inna pisshole now, but they’ll be a’coming back up,” the corporal said, catching the candy after it bounced off his face and popping it into his mouth. “Wit Kuyiko at center, things are gonna change, you jes watch.”

  Noah tried to ignore the two, sticking his nose deeper into the novel he was reading. He found the constant bickering about sports rather mind-numbing. It wasn’t easy to keep rooting for teams while traveling around the galaxy. Growing up on Tarawa, he’d been a casual fan of the planetary teams, even getting up for some of the rivalries within the sector. He wasn’t the die-hard fan that his sister Esther was, but still, he could get excited. But with Marines coming from every corner of the Federation and even from some non-Federation worlds, they represented a vast array of not only teams, but sports that were only played locally. Yes, he watched the Olympic games, along with most of humanity, and of course he watched the Gladiatorial combat with the Klethos, but he’d lost interest in most professional sports. Heck, he didn’t even know what sport the two Marines were arguing about. There had to be a dozen professional sports that had a center as one of the positions.

  But sitting in the White Cliffs Hotel, there wasn’t much else to do. They were not allowed out into town, so hanging out or hitting the hotel gym were the daily riguer du jours. Without their tanks, there wasn’t even the daily maintenance that would keep them busy. And they were getting more than bored. Just the night before, Lessa and Jadelle Portis had gotten into a knock-down, drag-out fight that had broken Lessa’s nose and gotten both Marines restricted to their respective rooms. They were lucky at that. If the captain had gotten wind of it, they’d both have faced NJP.

  Chili flicked another gummy bear at Knight, but it flew past his shoulder to hit Noah in the chest.

  “Grubbing hell, Chili! Watch what you’re doing!” Noah snapped.

  “Well, fuck me royal, Noah. Sorry to ruin your entire day.”

  “Just . . . just . . .” Noah started before giving up and turning on his side, presenting his back to the other two Marines.

  “Shit, Lewis, I guess Her Royal Highness has got her pussy in a tizzy,” Chili said, flicking one more gummy bear, this time aiming for and hitting Noah’s back. “Let’s me and you get out of here and leave her to play with herself.”

  Noah didn’t say anything as he listened to the two Marines get up and leave. He knew he was out of line. Chili was a pretty good roommate, and they were all bored, but his mood was sour. He looked at his PA, on which he’d opened a window for Williamson time on Prosperity. It was 1233 in the afternoon there, November 8th.

  With a sigh, he turned back to his book, but while he could see the words, nothing was registering. He had no idea what he’d just read. Giving up, he turned off the book and folded it up.

  He got up and walked over to the window. The view was great, he acknowledged, and the hotel was a high-end resort. But it was a gilded cage. They were essentially prisoners, free to use the grounds, but nothing else.

  They’d arrived on the planet and been bused directly to Camp Amethyst where they’d been scheduled to provide training to the planetary militia’s newly formed armor regiment. All had gone as planned for the first few days, with the company starting the training syllabus. On the third day, however, that training came to a screeching halt. On the fourth day, the Marines were packed up and transported to the White Cliff.

  Politics had reared its ugly head, and the Marines—along with the local armor regiment—were the ones to suffer while the politicians blustered and maneuvered.

  Opal Lexus 3 was a newly autonomous world, taking control over their own governing from Exlar, the big conglomerate who’d terraformed the planet over 100 years prior. The local government was friendly to the Federation, but Exlar was almost fanatically devoted to neutrality—and the company (one of the few with only a UAM charter) still wielded significant power on the planet.

  The fledgling military had requested aid from the Federation which was more than happy to provide it, and Marine rifle, armor, and air units had been dispatched on training missions. That only lasted until Exlar-leaning politicians saw the reporting on the news holos, much to their surprise and displeasure, and they stepped in. The Marines were whisked away and hidden from sight while the politicians played their political games, with the Federation keeping in the background. That was a month ago. And while Marines and sailors of Charlie Company and 2/11’s Echo Company had initially been impressed with the pure luxury of the White Cliff, that had quickly soured. They’d been cut off from the outside worlds, and that included calls back home.

  The initial contract was to expire in a week, and no one thought the training would commence before then. They couldn’t even leave early, though. The Opal Lexus government—both factions—didn’t want to officially antagonize the Federation by breaking the contract, so the Marines were put up in luxury for the duration.

  Noah’s stomach growled, and he looked at the concierge on the table between the two beds. He’d skipped lunch with the rest of the Marines, choosing to go back to his room after the makeshift hip-pocket class Lieutenant Huang had given about living wills, only the latest in a series of classes the skipper had them attend each morning. That wasn’t a big deal, though. Room service was part of the package, and with a simple call, he could get a meal sent up, and as much as he almost hated to admit it, the food was pretty darn good. He’d snuck into the kitchens a few times to talk with the staff, and he knew he was out of their league.

  No, I’m not going to call for room service, he told himself forcefully.

  It was rather childish, he knew. He was not a happy camper, true. He didn’t like the situation, true. But it made no sense to refrain from one of the advantages of the place just because he wanted to hold onto his resentment, to keep reminding himself that the situation sucked the big one.

  His PA, which he’d left on the bed, buzzed. Snapping back to reality, Noah took two steps and picked it up. The time in Williamson was 1259. He stood there motionless, holding the PA, and watched it count to the new hour.

  “I do,” he whispered as it hit 1300.

  Without this stupid deployment, he’d be on Prosperity now, standing in the front of the cathedral, waiting to see Miriam emerge on the arm of his Uncle Caleb. He’d be getting married.

  The Big Suck, the Green Weenie, could and did make demands on Marines. Noah had eaten his fair share of shit in his career, as had all Marines. But this was the first time he’d resented the Corps. He was missing his wedding, and for what? So, he could sit in some sort of resort—one that would be great, in all irony, for a honeymoon—and be a bit-part spear carrier in a larger game of thrones. He didn’t need to be here, but the unit was bigger than the individual, and the Federation was bigger than the unit. He signed on the dotted line, so he understood it—but he didn’t have to like it.

  He pulled up his favorite pic of Miriam, one where she was laughing at something he’d said, and kissed the image.

  “I love you.”

  He put the PA down on the table, right next to the concierge. His hand was next to the power-button—none of the voice-activated room genies here—and he froze for a moment.

  “Screw it,” he said, hitting the button.

  “May I help you, Sergeant
Lysander?” a real person immediately responded.

  Neither Chili nor he had found any sort of surveillance device in the room, but the person on the other end always knew which one of them was on the concierge.

  “Yes, I missed lunch, and I’d like a . . . a . . .”

  What the heck do I want?

  “I want a piece of Black Volcano,” he decided.

  “With snow or without?”

  “With, please.”

  “Very well. Chef will cut you a piece right away.”

  If he was going to indulge, Noah thought he might as well go whole hog. The Black Volcano was the most indulgent dessert on the hotel’s menu, a spongy layer of chocolate goodness with chocolate and raspberry “lava” pouring from the top. The “snow” was the ala mode plopped right in the “crater.”

  They’d missed the wedding date, and that was that. He realized that approaching the date, he’d been getting more and more depressed, but now that D-Day had passed, surprisingly, he felt a little better, and he thought he could move on. It wasn’t as if the wedding was canceled, after all.

  And if he was going to be stuck here, he might as well try to enjoy it. Maybe he could get the chef to give him a few pointers to take home.

  A few minutes later, there was a discreet knock on the door. Noah let in the server, who wheeled in his dessert on a silver tray. When he put it on the table, the rich chocolate aroma filled the room.

  “Enjoy, Sergeant,” the server said before leaving.

  Noah felt bad about not leaving a tip, but they’d been briefed that the Opal Lexus government was covering everything.

  He probably makes more in a week than I make in a month, Noah thought as he sat down and looked at the chocolate extravaganza.

  Miriam was not a chocoholic, but he thought she’d like it. But he was here and she was there, so he just picked up his spoon and dug in.

  QUINTERO CRAG

  Chapter 13

  Noah tracked the incoming drone, barely leading it as it dove to take them under fire. With the rail gun, and with automatic targeting, the Anvil would have already engaged it, but the with Mad Mike, range was more limited. More pertinent, though, was that the targeting AI was turned off. This shot was on his shoulders.

  “Four thousand meters,” Chili said from where he was crouching beside him, scrunching up his 1.6-meter frame the best he could in the small space. “What’s your trigger point?”

  “Two thousand?” Noah said in a question despite knowing it was the textbook answers.

  Ground attack drones were moderately shielded, enough so that a shot from the Anvil’s Mad Mike would have little effect at maximum ranges. In order to assure lethality, the range needed to be narrowed—but letting the drone approach closer made the Anvil a more vulnerable target at well.

  “And at the recycle rate, how much ground will it had covered after you fire?”

  Shoot, I forgot to check.

  “Uh . . . 402 meters,” he said after checking his sight display. “So, I . . . “

  “Don’t tell me. Look at your range!”

  The range display was rapidly dwindling, and the drone was at 2,200 meters and closing.

  He adjusted the aim and fired, just at the drone passed the 2,000-meter mark. It kept coming as the Anvil’s generator poured power into the meson cannon. Either the audible whine or the inaudible subsonics grated on Noah’s inner ears as the gun powered up.

  “No effect,” Staff Sergeant Cremineli passed. “Fire again.”

  Noah worked the hydraulics, slewing the cannon to keep the drone in his sights. The drone fired before his cannon was charged, but the instant his go-light turned green, he triggered another shot.

  “Dead on,” the TC passed. “Target down.”

  Noah let out a huge breath of air as he watched the drone glide to the ground downrange.

  “Not too bad,” Chili said from beside him. “We’ll check the readouts to see what happened with that first shot. But right now, how about letting me out of here? My legs are killing me.”

  “Oh, yeah, sure,” Noah said as he popped the hatch on the cupula and scrambled out.

  “Uh, Staff Sergeant, what about the shot the drone got off?” he asked as he stood up next to his TC, who was standing in his open hatch.

  “Eighty-two for combat ready,” the staff sergeant said, meaning that the Range AIs had given the Anvil an 82% chance of still being combat ready.

  “That means a go,” Noah said with relief.

  “Yeah, a go,” the TC said, almost sounding reluctant.

  Noah had been concerned about this shot. With Chili moving to crew with the new first sergeant, Noah was next in line as the Anvil’s gunner, but only if he qualified on each of her three main guns. Staff Sergeant Jones, over in First Platoon, still hadn’t qualified, and so he was still a driver, the highest-ranking driver in the company. In most militaries, a driver would be a private or PFC—or the local equivalent—but even in the Marines, where all tankers had previously served a tour as a grunt, it was almost unheard of for a staff sergeant to be a driver.

  Noah hadn’t been concerned with auto-fire or AI assist, but the manual firing had been nerve-wracking. It would take extraordinary circumstances for him to have to manually aim and fire any of the three weapons configurations, especially the Mad Mike, but if the Anvil were hit with something that knocked out her systems, then he’d be tasked with turning her into a Marine-powered artillery piece, using glass sights and hydraulics to aim the tubes.

  How a tank could be rendered powerless in as far as target acquisition and aiming but still have power for the meson cannon was something Noah couldn’t imagine, but it was part of the qualification.

  “Crap, gotta get the blood flowing,” Chili said as he climbed out onto the Anvil’s deck and flexed his legs, one after the other. “Not much room in there.”

  Noah looked downrange where the drone finally landed on the ground. Almost immediately, like a trap-door spider sensing prey, an RB, or Recovery Bot, darted out of its hangar to recover the drone. During quals with the railgun and the 90mm, inert rounds either hit the targets or simulated detonations, but with the Mad Mike, the cannon was powered down, and sensors on the drones relayed readings to the Range AI which determined if a kill had been achieved or not. The drone Noah had just “killed” would get recharged and be ready for another mission within half-an-hour.

  “Well, I guess you passed, you lucky bastard. Shoot her straight, OK?” Chili said, slapping the cannon.

  Noah looked at Staff Sergeant Cremineli for confirmation, but he just said, “Back into your driver’s seat. You’re not the gunner yet, and we’ve got to get back to the ramp.”

  Noah was the only Marine to get qualified today, so there wasn’t another tank on the range at the moment. He didn’t know why the hurry, but he nodded and stepped over to his hatch, opened it, and did his regular contortion to get inside. Chili might have been scrunched up beside him, but with the gun turret, there were an extra six centimeters in the gunner’s seat that he in the driver’s seat didn’t have, and that would make it far more comfortable for him.

  He smoothly backed the Anvil up, turned her, and started down the trail back to the ramp. He’d gotten used to the big girl, and he was comfortable driving her. Moving to be the gunner was the normal progression, but it was new territory, to a degree, one which he still had to get used to. For a moment, he wished he could just stay as the Anvil’s driver, but a tank was its gun. A driver simply taxied the gun, and a tank commander merely directed where the gun would be. It was the gunner who operated it.

  It was time to step up.

  TARAWA

  Chapter 14

  Noah stood well behind the formation of midshipmen, avoiding the stands where the bulk of the guests were sitting. He wasn’t sure why he didn’t sit with the rest of the spectators, just that he didn’t feel part of the ceremony. He also felt unaccountably nervous.

  In front of the mids, the commandant of the Marin
e Corps had started the oath, his voice booming:

  “I, state your name . . .”

  Each midshipman repeated after the commandant, right hand raised.

  . . .do solemnly swear, to support and defend the Articles of Council of the Federation of United Nations, against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same and above all others; and that I will obey the orders of the Chairman of the Federation of the United Nations and the orders of those appointed over me, according to the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.

  “Congratulations, lieutenants,” the commandant said as he lowered his right arm. “Now get out there and lead. The Federation is counting on you. With that, I know you have family here, so celebrate today, for tomorrow, duty calls. You are dismissed.”

  The group of newly minted Marine lieutenants burst into a loud “Ooh-rah!”

  Noah tried to spot his sister, but the milling boot looies were like a school of fish, hugging and pounding each other on the back, whirling around and making it hard to spot any one individual.

  At the peripheries of the group, enlisted Marines and sailors were gathering, the sharks, swordfish, and sea lions looking to dart in and target the lieutenants.

  Noah caught sight of Esther once, but he quickly lost it, and he wasn’t going to just wade into the group. There were unspoken rules for this sort of thing, and trying to be the first to salute the new lieutenants couldn’t interfere with their own celebration.

  He looked around. There had to be thirty of them gathered, all watching the newly-minted lieutenants. Noah didn’t care about the bulk of the lieutenants—only Esther mattered, and he was not going to let any of the others give his sister her first salute.

  His sister could be a real hard-ass, one who had very strong opinions on how things should go, and Noah intended to make that work to his advantage. Behind him was the statue of General Salizar. Their father had received his first salute in front of the statue. If he knew his twin, she’d want to receive her first salute at the same place. To paraphrase the old saying, in this case, if he couldn’t go to the mountain, he’d let the mountain come to him. Taking one more look at the lieutenants as they broke to meet family, or in several cases, allowed the enlisted Marines to come close enough to salute, he turned his back and took up a station just to the statue’s left. Now all he had to do was wait.