After their parents had been killed, Esther had pulled away from the family on Prophesy while Noah had spent a year there. The fact that Esther wanted to re-connect was welcomed news to him.
“That’s great, Ess. I think you’ll find that—.”
Esther reached out a hand and put a forefinger on his lips, saying, “Once he gets going, Miriam, it’s sometimes hard to get him to shut up. Just take your husband and get out of here before he starts spouting obscure historical facts about the planet.”
What? Noah thought before it hit him, and he could feel his face redden. I’m not that bad, am I?
“We’ll talk tomorrow, Ess, OK?” Miriam said as she took Noah’s hand and starting leading him off. “And now, Mr. Lysander, will you get me the hell out of here so we can do some serious connubial consummation?”
“Your wish is my command, Mz. Lysander, your wish is my command!”
QUINTERO CRAG
Chapter 17
“Keep your head down,” Miriam said, her hands on Noah’s hips.
Noah could see the worry on her face, despite her obvious attempts to hide it.
“I will. And don’t worry. The Anvil will keep us safe.”
The tanks hadn’t kept the Alpha Company Marines safe, but he didn’t bother to mention that.
Alpha Company had been on Novyy Ural for four months, a blocking force between the two opposing sides. Things had seemingly quieted down, and Charlie had been relieved as the Hot Alert by Bravo, then just re-assumed it two weeks prior. Yesterday, Novyy Ural time, things had fallen apart. The details weren’t too clear yet, or at least, the word hadn’t been passed down to the rank and file, but a hot-headed grandstanding had resulted in a skirmish between the Pytor Velikiy naval infantry and the Novyy militia, one that Alpha Company had tried to break up. Caught in the middle, four of the company’s Davises had been destroyed, with six Marines KIA.
The orders were given, and Charlie was deploying to the planet to reinforce Alpha. They’d be joined by a mechanized infantry company and a section of arty a week after arriving, but with the situation still unsure, this was being treated as a combat insertion.
Noah put his hand on Miriam’s belly. Sometimes, he thought he could feel the baby inside, despite everyone telling him it was too early.
“You just take care of yourself. If you think working is too much for you, go ahead and quit. We can manage.”
With them officially married, Noah was now receiving a married allowance. It wasn’t much, but they could squeak by on his pay if they had to.
She put her hand over his and said, “Don’t worry about me. Women have been working and having babies for hundreds of thousands of years. I’ll be fine. You just make sure you’re back before he’s born.”
“That’s in five months, Miriam. We should have this wrapped up by then.”
“You’d better hope you’re right. I don’t want to go through this alone.”
Noah pulled her into a hug. Over her shoulder, he could see the Marines and sailors standing around, many with families gathered around with the single and geographic bachelor Marines and sailors gathering in loose groups.
Just a couple of meters behind Miriam, the first sergeant was sitting cross-legged on the ground, one of her four children sitting in her lap, another standing, his hands on her shoulder, while she read a book to them. Her husband, a former corporal himself, if the rumors were correct, stood silently, a tiny red-headed girl asleep in his arms. He looked resigned, but the oldest child, a skinny, frizzled-haired girl of maybe seven, looked like she wanted nothing of this, of her mother leaving.
Miriam’s belly was up against him, and he wondered about his future son inside of her. They’d known his gender for over a month now, but neither of them had suggested a name yet. If Noah reenlisted again after this enlistment was up, would his son understand when he deployed? Would he resent his father leaving in the same way that the first sergeant’s daughter was resenting her deployment?
One of his earliest memories was crying with Esther while his father left on a deployment. Time had a way of fuzzifying memories, and he wasn’t sure if he was crying because his father was going to be gone for a long time or if it was because their birthday party celebration was going to be postponed. Whatever the reason, he remembered crying, and he remembered the look on his mother’s face as the bus that was taking his father to the shuttleport pulled out.
“Hey, Miriam,” Chili said, walking up behind Noah. “You doing OK?”
“Yeah, no problem. It’ll be good to have some freedom for a while. Noah’s been trying to wait on me hand and foot since we found out I was pregnant.”
Noah didn’t buy that for a moment, and he was sure Chili didn’t either.
“Enjoy your freedom, ’cause I think we’ll be back before you know it,” Chili said.
“I hope so,” Miriam said quietly.
“Check out the first sergeant,” Chili said. “Four kids.”
“What? You’re her gunner, and you didn’t know that?”
“Hell, I knew she had kids, but she’s pretty tight-lipped about her personal life. This is the first time I’ve seen them . . . or him.”
Noah didn’t need him to specify who “him” was. He’d been checking out the first sergeant’s husband, too. First Sergeant St. Cloud had proven to be a hard-ass, a polar opposite from the skipper. She wasn’t unreasonable, and Noah respected her, but she could make life tough for her Marines. When he’d heard that she was married, and that her husband might have served as a Marine, he’d wondered what kind of man would have ended up being her husband. “Pussy whipped” was the crude term thrown about when conversation drifted that way.
He wasn’t talking much, simply standing beside her, but he seemed like any other guy. Give him a high-and-tight and a uniform, and he would fit right in with the rest.
There was the whine of hover fans, and everyone looked up. A moment later, a line of three buses entered the quad. It was time.
“I’m serious. Keep your head down,” Miriam said hugging him tighter. “No hero bullshit.”
“Don’t worry. Nothing’s going to happen to me.”
“Easy for you to say.”
“Charlie Company, say your goodbyes and mount up. We’ve got a zero-one-thirty liftoff,” Gunny Michealson shouted out.
“Hurry up and wait,” Chili said, checking the time. “We’ll be sitting on the apron for three hours, mark my word.”
There was a general movement towards the buses, initially with the single Marines, then as the stick leaders scanned them off, the married Marines and sailors started to break away from their loved ones.
Miriam wasn’t letting go, however, and Noah was fine with that. He could feel her tears, hot on his neck. The first sergeant was saying her goodbyes, and the smallest boy suddenly wasn’t having any of it. He grabbed her leg, looking up at her with tears in his eyes. Her husband stepped in, kneeling, and after a few words, the little boy released her leg and took a step back, hand clasped together, tears still welling.
“I’ll meet you on the bus,” Chili said.
“Take care, Chill-man,” Miriam said, her mouth muffled by Noah’s shoulder.
“I will. You know me.”
The first sergeant hugged each of her kids, then her husband, giving him a surprisingly passionate kiss.
Why am I surprised? he wondered. He’s her husband.
It seemed like she tore herself away, and then the first sergeant he knew, the hard-ass, hard-charging Marine, reappeared as if turning a switch.
“OK, Sergeant Lysander, time to go,” she said as she caught him looking at her.
With a sigh, Noah leaned back and with his hand on the top of her head, tilted her back and gave Miriam a deep kiss. He could taste the salty tears, and she returned his kiss with passion.
“I’ve got to go,” he told her, dropping his hands.
She gave him one more hug, then released him.
“Come back,” she said.
Noah turned and went to the second bus. His gear had been put into the mount-out boxes and was already on its way. All he had was his assault pack with what he needed for the transit. Staff Sergeant Cremineli was the stick leader, and he scanned off Noah with an “About time, Lysander.”
Noah spotted Chili, who’d staked out two seats on the right side of the bus, leaving him the window seat.
“Thanks, bud.”
They waited on the buses for another ten minutes while two more checks were made to make sure everyone was onboard, which was ridiculous as their wrist chips could simply be scanned again, but sometimes, the Corps worked in mysterious ways. Or as Lessa liked to remind them, if the Corps did something inane like this, it was because at another time, Marines had screwed it up. That was probably true, even if Noah couldn’t imagine how a chip scan could have gotten screwed up.
Finally, the numbers must have matched, because the bus lifted off the deck and slowly started moving. Noah could see Miriam standing next to the first sergeant’s husband, waving. A few of the Marines from the left side of the bus crowded over to the right to wave to their loved ones, but Noah had an unobstructed view thanks to Chili.
And then they were leaving the quad, on their way to a potential fight.
NOVYY URAL
Chapter 18
“We’re up,” Noah told Staff Sergeant Cremineli.
“About time. I’ll report it in.”
“About time,” you say? It might have gone quicker if you’d helped Jankowski and me, he thought sourly.
Davis tanks were transported powered and locked down. The fusion generators were turned off, and no fewer than 284 digital and manual switches were thrown to keep the tank as rigid as possible during transit. Upon arrival, the generator had to be powered up, which took almost two hours in and of itself, and each of the lock downs had to be released. Many of them had to be released in particular order, and most of the manual releases required special tools to turn them. The bottom line was that with the two Marines clambering over and inside the Anvil, sometimes contorting themselves enough to make a circus performer proud, it had taken close to seven hours to make the Anvil combat ready.
Noah sucked on his bloodied knuckles, courtesy of balky releases in confined spaces, and resisted making a comeback. Cremineli knew he hadn’t helped with the scutwork, so nothing Noah would have said would render the TC suddenly apologetic.
At least the Anvil was in good shape. For a piece of very robust equipment, tanks often had issues after interplanetary transport, which made no sense to any armor Marine. The Navy had huge ships that flew through space, and simply sitting in a ship’s hold could affect a tank’s calibrations? But the Anvil’s readings were all far into the green, exactly as they’d been back on base. She was ready to go to war.
And she might have to. Charlie was moving out in the morning to take a position where Alpha had been hit. Nine Alpha tanks were still out there, trying to keep the two sides apart.
Noah looked over to the opposite ramp. Two of the Alpha tanks had been deadlined—they were not repair-worthy. Another two were now being fixed, or at least, the attempt was being made. One had its 90mm torn right off. Normally, a damaged cannon could simply be replaced with one of the other three systems, and Alpha had brought three of each with them. However, in this case, whatever had blown off the 90mm had torn the coupling ring out of the tank as well. When Noah had first seen it today, he’d been sure that if it was ever going to fight again, it would have to go back to the factory. But the Cat 4 crew was working hard on it, and they wouldn’t be wasting time if they thought it was beyond them.
The Roar’s gunner, Olia Destaffney, had been killed when the tank was hit, and she’d been damaged too much for resurrection. Noah hadn’t really known her well, but the fact that she was a gunner hit him hard. Of Alpha’s six KIA, three had been gunners.
Both the Novies and the Peters, as the Alpha Marines had taken to calling them, had thrown accusations at the other side for starting the skirmish, and they had accused the other side for hitting Alpha, but it was pretty clear that the Peters had fired the shots that had taken out the four tanks.
Not that Charlie Company could take any punitive action. No public acknowledgment was to be made, and Charlie’s mission was to keep the two sides apart, just as Alpha’s had been.
And look where that got them.
“Go get cleaned up, Ski,” Noah told his driver. “And get some chow. We’ll be on field rats for the next whatever.”
Jankowski nodded, then wiped his own bloody knuckles on his tank suit, leaving two red bloody swathes on each thigh.
Noah shook his head and said, “And go get Doc to clean you up. Your nanos can’t fight off every infection with you grinding the crud in.”
He hopped off the Anvil, giving her a pat on the nose. She would be all he had between the two sides to keep him safe.
Chapter 19
“I’ve grubbing got you,” Noah said, hitting the tag command as his AI registered the myriad of details about the vehicle that would enable it to locate and target it if given the command.
The small armored car had too many transmitters on it. He was sure this was the elusive command car for the Novie forces facing them. He felt it in his bones.
Noah had spent the last seven hours registering armor, geographic points of interest, and weapons systems. Already, he had 71 targets, all prioritized. Theoretically, he could trigger a combat sequence that would hit all available targets, in order, without him being part of the process. All he would have to do would be to initiate it. Combat rarely worked out so neatly, but even if he didn’t trigger the auto sequence, his display would keep track of all of his target, alerting him when any of them were picked up by his sensors.
His targeting display still amazed him. As a driver, his display had been primitive in relation to his new one. At full data input, the flow of information was simply too much to comprehend, which made the option to go full auto a nice safety valve. But he also had the option to cut back on what was displayed, so he could keep the info blast at manageable levels.
He’d been searching for command and control targets all day, and as the armored car slipped back into defilade, he felt a moment of victory.
It would have felt better if he’d been facing the Peters, however. They were the ones who’d targeted Alpha Company. But the platoon, along with the first sergeant, were facing the Novies. Second and Third Platoons, along with the skipper and the XO and 150 meters behind him, were facing the Peters instead.
Noah could pick up the Peter targets on his display as they were registered, and if he spun his turret around, he was sure he could spot some as well. But First Platoon’s job was to present a united front against the Novies.
With their infantry, either side could bypass the Marines to the flanks. Fifteen tanks just couldn’t cover the frontage. Even when the Marine mechanized company arrived, they would still be hard-pressed. But as the skipper had briefed them, their presence was more symbolic than anything else. As an individual unit, they were too small for the mission. But as a representative of the Federation, they cast a much bigger shadow than their mere numbers.
As far as the Alpha casualties, Intel’s point of view was that the Marines had not been specifically targeted—they’d just been caught in the crossfire.
The whizz of an artillery shell passed overhead, as if in emphasis to his thoughts. Noah waited, and the round landed somewhere back in the Peters’ area. Supposedly, both sides were in a truce, but no one would know it with the harassing fire that kept passing overhead.
Noah reached into his thigh pocket and pulled out an apple. It was the last of four he’d taken from the ship, and here, 21 hours later, he’d already eaten two and given Jankowski one.
These were fab apples, without seeds or core. Noah liked real ones better, of course, but he had to admit these were better for eating inside a tank. There was no waste. He twisted his body to where he could s
ee the staff sergeant. As usual, he was standing in his open hatch, and that meant he couldn’t see Noah. Although it wasn’t Marine regulations, the staff sergeant was death on food inside the Anvil.
Noah had felt the tiniest twinge of guilt when he’d given Jankowski one of the apples and not offering one to the TC, but he was able to push away that feeling with ease. And he didn’t feel the least bit of guilt as he leaned back and bit into the red Braeburn.
The tart taste filled his senses. Noah knew he could be somewhat of an elitist with regards to food, eschewing fab food whenever he could. But fab or not, this was a good apple. Centuries of food fabrication had resulted in some superior products, and most of the population liked fab food even more than real. While organics were popular (and expensive) as vegetables and fruits, the vast majority of the human population preferred fab meats to that coming from actual livestock.
Noah had watched a show on the holo that decried the fact that 95% of all agriculture consisted of growing the 27 base products for mankind’s fabricators. That allowed the teaming trillions of humans to be fed, but in the case of some sort of catastrophe, that left humanity vulnerable.
“I haven’t seen any more targets designated,” Staff Sergeant Cremineli shouted down at him. “You day dreaming?”
“No, I’m on it,” Noah yelled back, taking a last swallow of the apple and starting to scan the Novie lines again.
As much as the staff sergeant was a worry-wort, he was right. Noah knew he didn’t need to be contemplating humanity’s food paradigm. He had a mission to accomplish, and the more targets he identified and register, the better it would be for them if everything went to shit.
Chapter 20
“Whaddaya tink dey’re gonna do?” Corporal Jankowski asked in his heavy General Optics accent, one so thick that Noah could barely detect his driver’s nervousness.
Jankowski was a good kid, but unlike most Marines coming to tanks, he’d never experienced any real operations, much less combat. He’d been born and raised in the vast megaplexes of General Optics, never getting off planet until he’d received his ticket to Camp Charles, and he’d stayed with First Marines on Tarawa for his first tour, never leaving the planet except for some live-fire training on some of the Corps’ remote ranges.
The United Federation Marine Corps' Lysander Twins: The Complete Series: Books 1-5 Page 64
