Esther's Story: Special Duty (The United Federation Marine Corps' Lysander Twins Book 4)

by Jonathan Brazee

  She reclined in her chair, tipping it almost to the point of no return, and rubbed her eyes. Her back hurt more than if she’d put five hours in the gym.

  Come on, Lysander, just buckle down and finish it.

  She knew that her list of Marines had been pre-screened, so all of them she’d reviewed so far would probably be fine for the mission, but she wanted to assemble the absolute best team she could. She had no control over which FCDC troops would be assigned to the mission, nor the civilian scientists, but this was the one input she had, and she wasn’t going to rush it.

  She looked down at her list. Gunnery Sergeants Manuel Chun and Gracie Medicine Crow had been fairly easy choices to make. Each was considered among the Corps’ very best. There’d been something about Sergeant Tennerife Delay that had caught her eye, and Sergeant Spig McConnaughy had a sterling record. She’d hesitated over Staff Sergeant Tibone Mubotono. There had been a few oblique comments relating to his attitude, but his accomplishments in the field were impressive, so with only minor hesitation, she’d selected him. Now with Rapa, she was up to six. She had 13 in her maybe list, so if she didn’t find the rest on the first go-round, she’d have to go back and re-examined the maybes.

  Ten more to go, she told herself as she leaned forward and brought up the next record.

  **********

  Two days later, Esther was standing in the back of the briefing room as Colonel Soeryadjaya briefed her 16 Marines. She and the colonel had already briefed Sergeant First Class Enrico Juarez and his FCDC Internal Security team. And as soon as their civilians arrived, they’d embark aboard the FS Portoluma Bay for the Kepler 9813 system.

  Things were happening quickly, which wasn’t that unique in the Corps, but this was just one more mission that fit the pattern for her, a pattern of deploying with Marines she barely knew yet. And this time, she had FCDC and civilians in her command as well.

  Not command, she reminded herself.

  The colonel had been pretty clear about it. Esther was in command of the Marines, and she could infer command of the FCDC troops (but he told her not to put that to the test if she could avoid it), but this was a Council mission, and Dr. Tantou was in charge of it. Officially, he wasn’t even in one of the ministries. He was from Allied Biologicals. The colonel, however, had hinted that the man might be affiliated with the Fourth Ministry somehow, and he advised her to keep that in mind. Esther could step in for reasons of security, even over-riding the doctor, but for all other purposes, she took her orders from him.

  She chaffed at this restriction, but it was no different than anything else she’d been doing for the last year. At least this time, she had Marines with her. She was an addict, finally getting her Marine hit.

  She looked over her Marines as the colonel briefed them. Medicine Crow and Rapa were the big names here, but all of them were the cream of the crop. Sergeant Marco Piccolo had even served with her with 3/14—not in her platoon, but in Second Platoon.

  “And this is Kepler 9813-B,” the colonel was saying. “The planet’s claim to fame has been its life forms, which look somewhat similar to fungus on Earth.”

  Esther kept back a smile. He’d used almost the exact same wording to her two days previous. She wondered how many other times he’d briefed this mission.

  He switched the view on the table display to an image of the planet’s surface, a section of land covered with what looked like rotting mushrooms.

  “No terraforming, sir?” Staff Sergeant Rapa asked.

  “Not worth it, Staff Sergeant Rapa. As you can see,” the colonel said, switching the display back to a system image, “9813-B is tidally locked. Kepler 9813’s gravity is so powerful that the gravitational gradient creates a synchronous rotation in the planet. That means, the same side of the planet always faces its sun.

  “This is not that rare of an occurrence, but usually, planets like this are blasted with too much solar radiation to allow for life. However, because Kepler 9813 is an ultra-cool dwarf, the radiation that hits the planet is in the habitable zone, but only along the rim between the day side and the night side.”

  “Oh, like Ribbon World,” Sergeant Shaan said.

  The colonel gave Esther a quick glance, a small smile tilting the corner of his mouth. One of the FCDC soldiers had said the very same thing earlier in the morning.

  “Ribbon World is a figment of some Hollybolly writer’s imagination,” the colonel answered. “The idea might make for an interesting setting, but the practicality isn’t there. Yes, the trope has been alive in scifi books and flicks for centuries, but there is a reason why no tidally locked planet has ever been terraformed.

  “Oh, sorry, let me get off my soapbox. The bottom line is that the planet has not been terraformed, nor will it be. You can’t survive on the planet. There are only traces of oxygen, but don’t worry about that. Before you could suffocate, the hydrogen cyanide would kill you.”

  If the colonel had been waiting for laughter, he was waiting in vain. The FCDC troopers hadn’t laughed at the same word-for-word comment, either.

  Esther watched the Marines as the colonel went on. So far, they all seemed attentive, but not too concerned. She wasn’t surprised, but still, an MC-100 was simply a file of records. It could never be a total picture of someone, and the slightest change of expression could be indicative of a problem. They would be boarding the Portoluma Bay in about seven hours unless there was a glitch, but that left plenty of time to drop someone. Two of her alternates were here on Tarawa, and they could be brought in if needed.

  “So, why not send in the FCDC?” the colonel said, bringing Esther back to the brief. “The problem is that if we send in the troops, we’re essentially opening up a Pandora’s Box. We’re announcing to the galaxy what we’re doing, and we need more time to develop the potential before we do that. Sending the FCDC, or a Marine battalion, will require a response in kind from the Brotherhood, and we don’t want war.”

  “So, you send us in unofficially to protect the research station from the unofficial Brotherhood personnel and the unofficial corporate personnel, and no one raises a fuss, right Colonel?” Gunny Medicine Crow asked. “There’s nothing really happening, after all.”

  “You got it in one, Gunny. That’s about the long and short of it.

  “And with that, I’m going to turn it over to Captain Lysander, who will be the mission commander. She’ll give you your initial brief now on what you have to do to get ready, then you’ll receive more on the ship. You embark in seven hours, so I suggest you pay attention. Captain?”

  He stood, waving everyone else down as they started to rise as well, then nodded and left the room. Esther waited until the hatch shut behind him before speaking.

  “As the colonel said, I’m Captain Lysander, and I’ll be commanding this mission.

  “First, I’m sorry to say, all of you have failed your interview for the CEAC.”

  This time, the Marines all laughed. The CEAC, or the Commandant’s Enlisted Advisory Council, had been the purported excuse to draw the sixteen Marines here to Tarawa.

  “But as the colonel said, we embark in seven hours, and we’ve got a lot to cover, so let’s get down to it.

  “First, we will not be on this mission alone. We have an FCDC team attached—”

  There was a collective groan and a couple of muttered “Fuckdicks?”

  Esther held out her hand to quiet them, saying, “I don’t want to hear ‘fuckdicks’ for the duration of the mission, even when you think you’re alone, understand?”

  There were nods and mutters of assent, and so she continued, “And we will be working under a civilian team of scientists.”

  There were more groans, and this time Esther didn’t stop them.

  “I’ve broken you up into two sections with Gunnies Chun and Medicine Crow as section leaders. We’re expected in the division armory in 20. Each Marine will draw the primary of his or her choice, but section leaders, ensure that your section has the full spectrum of weapons
for any contingency.

  “Gunny Medicine Crow, you are senior, so you are the SNCOIC of the detachment. Get everyone to the armory, then to supply for equipment draw. You’ve got full authorization at supply, so take what you think you need. Then meet me back here with full kit by 1400 for your deployment brief. Understood?”

  “Roger that, ma’am,” she said, then turning to the rest of the Marines, “You heard the captain. Let’s move out.”

  Within moments, the Marines had gotten out of their seats and exited the room, all with minimal fuss, all without horseplay and grab ass. Digesting what she’d observed over the last 20 minutes, she was pleased. These were professionals, all proven in combat.

  This is going to go without a hitch.

  FS PORTOLUMA BAY

  Chapter 11

  “Ears, got anything?” Lieutenant Commander Chacon, captain of the Portoluma Bay asked.

  The Porto was a schooner, a new class of small, stealthy ships with more surveillance and stealth capabilities than arms. As a smaller ship, she rated a lieutenant commander as a skipper. Most of the ships Esther had been on had been commanders and captains, but she’d also been on the Space Guard ship UFSGS Manta, commanded by the then Senior Chief Arleigh Carpenter, so this wasn’t that odd. What did feel odd to her was that along with a few of the navy officers, she had the second highest rank aboard the ship.

  Now, falling out of bubble space 900,000,000 kilometers from Kepler 9813-B, the Porto was running silent in full stealth mode, silently drifting while it tried to pierce the shielding of any other ship that might be in the system.

  The Porto had Kylefelter meson cannon and Clovis launchers, so she packed a decent punch when compared to commercial freighters and pirates, but she was outclassed as a ship-of-the-line. If there was a Brotherhood man-o-war in-system, the captain wanted to know about her before her counterpart on the other ship knew about the Porto.

  “Negative, sir. All quiet,” Lieutenant (jg) Haddad, the Surveillance Officer said.

  “Guns, stand down the cannon, but keep the missile tubes ready,” the skipper ordered before turning to Esther and saying, “We’ll just sit quiet for an hour or so to see if our arrival was noticed. If there’s nothing, we’ll start moving in until the POC; then it’s your call.”

  Dr. Tantou was the actual mission commander, or Chief of Mission as his official title, but LCDR Chacon had ignored the man, treating Esther as the mission commander. Dr. Tantou hadn’t objected, so Esther hadn’t corrected the man. Whether Tantou or Esther commanded, however, it was the skipper who was in charge of the mission at the moment, and he would remain in command until the ship reached the Passage of Command, a control measure that signaled the shift of command from the Navy to the ground element. From that moment on, the Porto would be the subordinate element.

  Esther nodded and settled in to wait. She and the gunny were the only two Marines in the crowded bridge, and there wasn’t much they could do except observe.

  Ten minutes later, the first class petty officer in charge of communications, spoke out, “Sir! We’ve got comms going out. Putting it on the speakers now.”

  “. . .don’t know how much longer we can hold out.”

  “Who is that, and why are we just now hearing it?” the skipper shouted.

  “That’s Alpha-Three, sir, the research station. I’ve only just now got through the protocol for booting in-system comms.”

  “Any identification on who is attacking?” another voice asked.

  “That’s Goby Station responding to Alpha-Three,” the petty officer said without being asked.

  “Fuck! I think they just broke through!” a panicked voice said. “You’ve got to help us!”

  “Ears, what’s going on?” the skipper asked the lieutenant (jg).

  “I’m picking up the same broadcast, but not much else. I don’t know who’s attacking them.”

  Esther’s mind was whirling. That was the Federation research team being attacked, and a Marine’s purpose in life was to protect all citizens.

  “Captain, how long to get my team down to their position?” she asked.

  The skipper looked to her master chief for confirmation, then said, “As fast as we could? Maybe eight hours. That’s using the shuttle, not the duck eggs. Add another ten hours if you want to use those.”

  “We need help now! You’ve got to get here! I can hear them outside the door!” the operator from Alpha-Three said.

  “Wait one,” Goby Station passed.

  “I can’t wait!”

  Esther knew they couldn’t get down to the surface in time to help, and she felt helpless. She’d listened before when Gunny Monty Montogomery and his recon team had been lost, and she’d swore then never to go through something like that again, yet here she was again. But what could she do if they couldn’t get down to the surface in time?

  And then it hit her. They could make it seem like they could get down. They could spoof whoever was attacking. At the minimum, a threat of retaliation could make the attacker pause, leaving the station crew alive. At the worst, it could reveal who they are, and then revenge could be extracted.

  “We can’t make it,” Esther said. “They’re lost. But maybe there’s something we can do.”

  “I’m all ears,” the skipper said.

  “First, if we initiate comms with them, can anyone trace us?”

  “Depends on what kind, ma’am,” the communications chief said. “On a direct beam, not likely, but possibly.”

  “I don’t mean that. On the hadron comms.”

  As a Navy ship, the Porto had hadron comms, which weren’t broadcast as in normal communications. Hadron repeaters were linked together upon manufacture, and through the magic of quantum mechanics, what was input into one was input into all of the other 15 twined repeaters. This allowed for instantaneous communications that were also secure. Esther knew that they were secure, but her plan was forming as she talked it through.

  A Navy ship and large entities would have hadron comms, but they were expensive and difficult to manufacture. Most worlds had large hadron nodes that communicated with other nodes, bouncing around the network until reaching the intended recipient.

  On a world like Kepler 9813-B, there would be no large nodes, so the first explorer ship would have left a satellite which would be linked to a node somewhere. Messages intended to go off-system would be sent to that satellite, and that message could be intercepted. If the Porto tried to communicate with the station, that would almost certainly be picked up by any ship in the system.

  “Well, we could use the hadrons back to PEM302, then have it re-routed here and sent out under standard comms.”

  “And whoever is out there won’t be able to pick us up?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Captain, send a message to them to hold on, and we’ll be there in two days.”

  “But we can get you there sooner than that.”

  “Yes, sir. But we can’t get there in time. Those unfortunate souls are lost,” Esther said. “We can’t save them, but maybe we can flush out who’re the attackers.”

  “Ah, I get it. Pass that, and then sit here and see who bites.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The skipper paused for a moment, head tilted up as he thought about it, and then he grabbed a stylus and started scribbling on his PA.

  “Pass that over the hadrons via NF3, Greg, and make sure it comes back over the node in the open.”

  “Aye-aye, sir.”

  Esther stood silent, her nerves on fire as she waited for the petty officer to sent the message.

  A few moments later, the speakers broke with “K9813B Alpha Three, this is the FS Admiral Miguel Posov. We are on our way, ETA 40.32 hours. Hold on the best you can.”

  “I can’t hold on that long!”

  “Understand your situation. Get into your panic room and wait. Do not attempt to resist or secure property. God be with you.”

  “The Posov, sir?” Esther asked.

&
nbsp; “Might as well make it something with a little more punch than we have. And I know she’s out cruising right now. We sent that out through Third Fleet, and they’ll tell the Posov to keep low for the next 40 hours.”

  With the message sent, it was time to wait to see if anyone took the bait and reacted. It didn’t take long.

  Less than two minutes had passed when the comms chief said, “I’ve got an anomaly, sir. Probably a shielded ship moving closer to the planet.”

  “Brotherhood?” the skipper asked.

  “I’m running the probabilities on that, but I don’t think so. Looks commercial, probably Yantos-made, possibly GE.”

  Esther had been listening with every fiber of her body, and she was relieved to find out that the ship was commercial. They just didn’t have the strength to take on most Brotherhood men-of-war.

  Esther hoped that the message would save the lives of the station personnel. The message, however, gave the attackers a timeline, and whatever research was on the station would be taken and whisked away. Even if they launched now, Esther doubted they could get there in time to prevent that.

  But we don’t have to stop them on the surface, now, do we?

  “Sir,” Esther asked, “Are your lifeboats shielded?”

  “No,” the master chief, “Boats,” they called him, answered for the skipper. “That sort of defeats the purpose of a life boat in being seen. Our rekis are shielded, though.”

  “You have rekis? I didn’t see them on the manifest.”

  The Porto was not a full-sized ship of the line. There was no Stork or Navy fighter sitting in a hangar bay. As far as Esther had known, the ship only had her shuttles and lifeboats.

  “I don’t think they were originally part of the TE, but we’ve had them as long as I’ve been aboard. They’re in C24. I can have them assembled in an hour.”

  “So, they’re the R version?” Esther asked.

  “That’s affirm.”