These were not random movements, though. The twirling sword spun through space around it, nearly slicing off feathers on most passes, but never quite. This was a choreographed dance, Ryck was sure. It reminded him once again of the Zulu warriors at Rorke’s Drift, pounding their drums and dancing with their assengai and iklwa before launching into the attack. There were far fewer Klethos in front of him than Zulus facing the British Royal Engineers and Infantry, but Ryck suddenly felt a degree of kinship with Lieutenants Chard and Bromhead despite the tremendous distance in both space and time.
The Klethos’ dance continued for close to five minutes. The humans watched in silence, their comms, both from above in the observing ships and between themselves empty of chatter. Ryck knew that the recordings of this extraordinary event were being broadcast back to human space where thousands of experts would be pouring over them to determine the meaning of the dance. In his gut, though, Ryck knew what it meant. This was a call to arms, whether to challenge the humans or build up a fighting frenzy among the other Klethos, he didn’t know. But it was not a simple hello, Ryck was positive.
With a final frantic twirling, the creature came to a stop, not even breathing hard the best Ryck could tell. It froze dead still, looking straight ahead to where the humans were waiting. A full thirty seconds later, it broke its pose and let out one final shriek. As if on cue, the entire line of Klethos launched into a run.
“Hold your fire!” Ryck shouted into the net.
This is it!
But he was under strict orders. Humans could not initiate. It had to be the Klethos.
And this could be a feint, he admitted. Not that he believed it for one second. The Klethos intended to fight, he knew.
Within ten seconds, the Klethos had halved the distance to the front ranks of Fox, Golf, and the Outback company.
Ryck started to repeat his order to hold when one of the Klethos, down near the Aussies, fired its weapon.
Ryck immediate changed his order to “Open fire!”
Almost immediately, a Davis opened up, simply obliterating one of the Klethos, bright red blood and feathers exploding into the frigid air. A missile shot down the line from the New Budapest company’s position, hitting and taking down one of the Klethos on that side of the line.
Ryck felt a surge of confidence rush through him. These things were not invincible. They had just never run across the fighting might of humanity.
“Arty, give me some fire,” he ordered his guns, waiting for their direct fire mode to rake the Klethos that were within seconds of reaching the lines.
His display started screaming alerts. It took a moment for it to register. Every single tank, every Armadillo, every arty piece, was down.
That’s impossible!
He looked to his right where the Berserker had been a comforting presence. The hatch was being flung open, and a moment later, Sergeant Bergstrøm was flinging himself from inside to bounce down and fall in the snow. He was followed moments later by PFC Meinheim, his driver.
And then the Klethos were in among the Marines and soldiers. Ryck looked up to see a Klethos sweep its sword around, slicing right through a PICS-mounted Fox Marine, completely severing him in two. Ryck was shocked, but he pushed that back into the recesses of his consciousness. He had to act.
“Gangun, give me fire!” he shouted into his mic to his naval gunfire coordinator. “Danger close!” he added needlessly.
Orders were filling the airwaves as Marines and soldiers concentrated their fire on the Klethos. Just off to his left, Baker was firing his Stinger in long, sustained bursts. Ryck didn’t have time to see if he was having any effect.
An energy beam burst through from above, ionization making it clearly visible as it incinerated a Klethos, leaving the Marine facing it from only a few meters away untouched.
That’s more like it!
He waited for another shot, but nothing came as more and more Marines were being cut down. Ryck’s display was flickering madly as bright blue icons switched to light blue or gray—too many to the gray. “Gangun!”
“The Smithfield, she’s down,” the Navy officer shouted back, panic edging his voice. “The monitor, too!”
“Get them back online!”
“No, I mean she’s destroyed!”
That was a body blow. Ryck didn’t know how the Klethos had managed that, but he had to deal with the here and now.
Ryck didn’t have the Budapestian nor Outback company on his display, but the Klethos were in among the Aussies as well. He could see that there was fighting, but it was too far to discern the details. He wanted to query Captain Hortense, but he knew the captain didn’t need him interfering.
He checked on Echo, which hadn’t been hit. It was still in place.
Shit Sandy! What are you waiting for?
He jumped both S3s and Sandy and went right to the company commander. “Genghis, sweep around and assault up their flank!” he ordered.
“Roger,” came the relieved if anxious voice of the Echo company commander.
“I’ve got it,” Sandy interjected. “It’s my battalion.”
Almost immediately, Ryck could see the Echo avatars break their positions to swing around and move up to support Fox.
From a klick or so behind Ryck, a concussion wave triggered Ryck’s sensors. One of the Navy Experions had just crashed. Ryck did a quick tally. Twelve aircraft were up with Jorge, but the rest had been knocked out of the sky.
His immediate instinct was to call for those twelve remaining aircraft, but he held off just before giving the order. He tried to step back mentally for a moment to understand what was happening. The task force’s man-packed energy beam weapons seemed to be pretty ineffectual. The big guns on the tanks and from above had killed Klethos, but they were knocked out. The New Budapest Kígyó missiles had worked, but Ryck had no idea if the Budapestians were still effective. Kinetic weapons were slowly wearing down the creatures, but not before Marines were falling.
A quick memory hit him, on how effective the capy shields had been against the more powerful Marine weapons, but the slower, less powerful weapons had been able to penetrate the shields and record kills.
Before he really digested this, his subconscious was shouting over the command net, “Rockets! Use your shoulder rockets!”
Immediately, salvos of rockets reached out from Marines as they struggled with the Klethos. Ryck could see some of the creatures stagger, but it still took quite a few hits for one to fall. More and more Marines were falling, though. Even with Genghis and Echo entering the fray, the Fuzos were down to 60%.
Just ahead of Ryck, a Klethos took off the left arm and shoulder of a Marine, taking his rocket pack with it. The creatures had obviously realized that the rockets were more effective against them, and they were focusing on the rocket packs. Now, with no one between that Klethos and Ryck’s command group, it had a free shot at the command group. It broke into a sprint, sword raised high.
Ryck raised his M77 and fired as he spun to sight in his own rockets. From beside him, a Marine rushed forward. Ryck thought is must be Çağlar, but his display revealed the Marine to be Staff Sergeant Kyser. The armorer was charging the Klethos as if to meet him head on rugby pitch.
Ryck held off on the rocket; a single rocket could take out a PICS Marine.
“Kyser, to the side!” he shouted over the net.
Kyser didn’t pay attention as he crashed into the Klethos, head down and hitting the creature at about waist level.
The Klethos was swinging its sword down, but Kyser’s charge evidently threw off its timing, and the sword swung down over the Marine, scoring a gash in the PICS’ back, but not a killing blow.
Kyser’s attempted tackle staggered the Klethos, knocking it back several meters, but not sending it to the ground. Kyser was punching with abandon, and he scored on one arm, but not the correct one. He knocked the rifle out of the Klethos’ hand, but he should have been concerned about the sword arm. Ryck started to yell out
a warning as the sword arm swept around, cleaning taking most of Kyser’s head off. Blood sprayed impossibly high as the staff sergeant fell.
He had not fallen in vain, though. By knocking the Klethos out of his charge, he’d given the rest of the command group the time they needed to aim their rockets. Çağlar stepped in front of Ryck, blocking him from engaging, but four other Marines and Doc Lewis had the thing to rights, and at least 20 rockets hit it, sending it to the ground.
One leg had been completely blown off and its other limbs were hamburger. But it wasn’t done. As Ryck stepped forward, the Klethos glared at him from its prone position in the snow, as one of its little, comparatively spindly upper arms took the sword from its shattered main arm and tried to raise it to confront Ryck. The thing had just killed Kyser, and Marines were falling, but he had to respect its will to fight. Respect or not, Ryck could almost feel the alien hate directed at him.
Before he could contemplate further, Çağlar stepped back around him and fired a single rocket into the creature’s head, killing it.
Get back in the game! he told himself. No time to admire their warrior ethos!
His eyes went back to his readouts. As a commander, the incoming data was almost overwhelming, but he’d had practice screening out the superfluous and pulling what he needed. The Fuzos were down to 50%, but as he scanned the battlefield, only a handful of Klethos were still fighting. As he watched, one more fell.
The initial frenzy that had taken over the net in the first few moments had become more professional as commanders took command and directed the swarming Marines in taking down the last of the Klethos. Ryck listened in to Sandy for a few moments as the major fought the fight. Whatever seemed to have taken his nerves before had faded, and he was back to being the Marine Ryck knew him to be.
At 16 minutes and 32 seconds, according to his display timer, after the first Klethos had fired, the last one was dead. None had surrendered, which didn’t surprise Ryck in the least. Ryck pulled in the data from Hollyer and Hortense. The Budapestians had not suffered a single casualty, and they had accounted for no less than eleven Klethos kills. The Aussies had not fared so well. Out of 214 soldiers, 79 were KIA and another 51 were WIA. But they had held.
Lieutenant Grabowski, the battalion surgeon, was already swinging into action. His triage team swept over the battlefield, ziplocking the Cat 1 WIAs into stasis. KIAs would be ziplocked next where hopefully some would be zombied and saved. Ryck listened in on the mednet for a moment, but Grabowski had things well in hand, covering both the Marines and the Aussies.
He was about to switch back to the command net when HM2 Hahn came on the mednet with, “Doc, I can’t get a reading on the capy! It’s still alive, but I don’t know for how long.”
Ryck immediately keyed in Doc Hahn’s heading and swung around to see where the corpsman was standing over the prone figure of one of the three capys. Bluish blood stained the snow. A quick check revealed two more capys were standing 40 meters away. Ryck couldn’t see who the downed capy was, whether Carl or one of the other two.
“Did you give it the glucose?” Doc Grabowski.
“Yes, sir, but I think it’ll need more than that.”
“Is it going to make it?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Fuck it all. Ziplock the thing, and if that kills it, so be it,” the surgeon said.
Ryck closed the connection. There had been quite a bit of conjecture on how to treat a wounded capy before they left, and the consensus was that human stasis might be fatal to a Trinocular. Ryck didn’t know how the capys would react to one of them dying in stasis, but that was Grabowski’s call, not his.
Commanding the task force was his call, though, and Ryck switched his display to the Federation forces. Eleven aircraft were destroyed, and as hard as it was to believe, possibly a Navy cruiser. Five Davis tanks and ten Armadillos were now of piles of useless junk as were ten arty tubes. But what hit Ryck hardest was the men and women. Ryck had gone into battle with 1,687 men and women. The battalion triage team had just gone into action to see who could be saved, but as of the moment, with the 79 Aussie KIAs, the total was 472 killed and 283 wounded. Facing them had been 53 Klethos. The forces of man may have won the battle, but it had been a Pyrrhic victory at best. And somewhere out there, another 200-plus of the creatures were ready to fight.
Ryck had been looking at the overall numbers. He hesitated a moment, taking in a deep breath, before looking at the KIA list. It only included the Federation forces as of yet, which were updated in real-time. Ryck scanned the names, looking, but hoping not to see certain ones. All Marines were equal, and Ryck mourned each and every loss, but he was human, and he’d know certain Marines a long, long time.
Sams’ name caught his eye first, and he swallowed back the rising bile in his throat, but his friend was only WIA. He’d lost his right arm and was due for some extended regen. He continued to scan. Kyser, of course, but he’d known that. LtCol Demornay, the Greater France liaison, had been manually entered into the database as KIA, which surprised Ryck as he hadn’t seen the colonel moving forward into the teeth of the fight. Gunny Henderson from Echo. Lieutenant Vaviar from Fox. Sergeant Winston—he’d never see his little Eugenia again. Captain St. Armis.
Then a name hit him. Micheal C. McAult. Hog. The broad-shouldered heavy-worlder had not made it. Ryck didn’t know how he’d fallen yet. He didn’t know the stories of bravery that has just transpired, he didn’t know each individual fight. But he knew the losses, and they were weighing on him.
Hog!
Ryck’s priority comms warning was flashing, and Ryck finally keyed it in.
“Lysander here.”
“Colonel! I’ve been trying to reach you. What’s wrong with your comms?” Admiral Parks asked, sounding more than a little peeved.
Shit, be pissed off all you want. You kept your men out of the fight, after all. Maybe not a bad idea, though, he thought.
But he said, “Sorry, sir. It’s been hectic here.”
“It’s about to get more hectic, Colonel. The Klethos forces are gravitating to your position. We estimate that the first force will arrive within two hours.”
“What about the Bravo force?” Ryck asked.
“The Klethos who had been heading that way have changed direction to head to you,” he answered.
Well, at least Jorge won’t be faced with this, he thought.
“You can’t stand up to any more of them. We watched the battle . . .”
Yeah, I’m sure you did, safe up there in far orbit.
“. . . and it’s a miracle you were able to defeat them. But you can’t survive another fight. You are being recalled, and all of your governments agree. Get your bump plan ready, and we’ll have shuttles attempting to pick you up.”
“Sir, the Klethos somehow knocked down all our aircraft. I don’t think the shuttles can make it.”
“You expect us to abandon you? They also destroyed the Smithfield, with all hands onboard. But we’re going to try. There’s no lack of volunteers to fly them.”
That hit Ryck hard, too, but in a different way. Every fighter had been destroyed within seconds, but now men were volunteering to brave a rescue in mere shuttles. Sailors were every bit as brave and sacrificing as Marines, and this proved it.
“Roger that, sir. And we appreciate it. How much time do we have?”
“I’m not sure, to be honest. Our LSO is coordinating it now, but get your people staged. You’re going first, then your Bravo force. I just wanted to give you the order face-to-face. You’ve got a lot to do, so I’ll let you get to it. Go with God, Colonel.”
Ryck signed off, then went to pass the word, but it had already bypassed him. The men and women were converging on the broad, open slope where the shuttles could land. It was chaos, but a controlled chaos as the able-bodied and walking wounded gathered the WIA, KIA, and all 53 Klethos bodies while the human armor hulks and artillery pieces were slagged. Manifests were hurriedly put toge
ther without too much regard to the bump plan, which had manifest procedures should a shuttle go down or ground forces go down. But with every piece of armor left behind, it became more of an exercise in priority of personnel.
Along with the rest, Ryck waited apprehensively as the first shuttle came in to land, but there was no opposition. The welcomed vehicle came in gently, blowing up a small cloud of snow as it touched down. Immediately, the first stick was loaded, and the shuttle blasted up for a quick getaway.
With the first shuttle down and back up without incident, the rest landed in multiple waves. The Aussie company loaded first, followed by the New Budapest company, with the remaining effective PICS Marines providing security. Finally, it was their turn, and they quickly loaded. Ryck and Çağlar were the last two Marines to load, a Navy cargo master motioning them to hurry. The shuttle lurched into the air before the back ramp closed. Ryck’s last view of Tri-30 was of blood-stained snow as the ramp closed.
FS BRANDENBURG
Chapter 18
“You need to get some sleep, sir,” Jorge said as he closed up his PA.
The two Marines were in Ryck’s stateroom and had just gone over the list of casualties and had worked on coming up with a plan for the return to Tarawa. A half-eaten sandwich was on Ryck’s desk, but while he knew he should eat, the only thing he could get down were two slices of bacon slathered with raspberry sauce that Staff Sergeant Ekema had brought by. For all the staff sergeant’s skill in the kitchen, he was well aware that the dish, which brought sickly stares by the others, was Ryck’s comfort food, something Ryck had eaten since he was a kid.
Ryck knew Jorge was right. He was exhausted, both mentally and physically. But his mind was still racing, and he knew it wouldn’t let him drop off to sleep. He could see Doc Grabowski, of course for a little help, but he didn’t want to shut off his mind artificially. He needed the stress to run its course.
Colonel (The United Federation Marine Corps Book 7) Page 12
