Captain (The United Federation Marine Corps Book 4) (9 page)

The beating had begun.

When the Federation Marine Corps was formed from the 48 extant Marine Corps at the time, there had been a competition to see who would form the basis of the new Marine band.  Not surprisingly, the US Marine Corps band, made up of who were essentially professional musicians, won the competition—as judged by senior Marine and Navy officers—and became the bulk of the new band.  The members would no longer be professional musicians and would come from the ranks, but they would serve alternate tours with the band.  “The Chairman’s Own” couldn’t be complete amateurs, was probably the thinking.

However, the Royal Marine Band, especially the Corps of Drums, caught the attention—and hearts—of the rank and file.  Almost immediately, separate Corps of Drums sprang up in almost every unit.  They followed Royal Marine traditions, including the leopard skin worn by the members.  All corps members were Marines first, drummers second.  They were infantry, armor, artillery, support, or whatever and practiced when they could.  Rank had no bearing, and they kept up a degree of mystery about themselves.  Practices were almost always hidden from public view, and their performance plans might as well have been Corps-wide operation orders stamped TOP SECRET.

Ryck had no idea what the corps had planned, only that it would be stirring.

The 21 Marines in the back started a slow, almost straight-legged march to close the distance with Sgt Horatio.  As they beat their drums, each man paused in turn for two beats, drumsticks raised and frozen, before joining back in.  Ryck couldn’t hear a difference in the sound, but it sure looked good.

The second to last man, just in front of the bass drummer, was Major Tschen, the battalion XO.  He was the second senior Marine in the battalion, but in the Corps of Drums, he was just another drummer.

The Marines married up, and Sgt Horatio slipped into his position within the group. For the next ten minutes, the 22 Marines moved through a series of intricate maneuvers, never stopping their drums.  When the two bass drummers came to the front and somehow performed a duet that would put a side drummer to shame, the crowd erupted into cheers. 

Ryck was caught up, and he thought he could feel his heart beat in time with the corps.  He’d been at many beatings over the years, but they never failed to move him.

Too soon, the Corps of Drums went into their finale, the crescendo rising as they moved like Dervishes, sure to crash into each other, but never doing so.  The crowd was calling out and cheering, but the drums’ pounding beat drowned the crowd out.

Just when Ryck thought their drumsticks surely had to burst apart, they stopped dead, one stick raised, the other on their drum.  Ryck shouted himself hoarse as he cheered.  He had the rhythm of a drunk with one leg, so there was never a hope that he could be in a corps, but even listening, he felt that he was part of them, that they had somehow invaded his body and taken him over.

The drummers stood like statues, not moving.  The applause started to die out, and Ryck took a look back.  The Navy shore patrol was motioning to the civilian stewards to start uncovering the booze.  With his throat raw, Ryck started to edge his way to the tables, anxious to be one of the first in line as soon as the governor declared the ceremony over.

A huge crash made him jump—not startle, but actually jump.  He spun around to a sight that at first, just didn’t register.  Four PICS Marines had entered the hall.  Around each one was an enormous leopard skin—Ryck didn’t realize fabricators could make skins so large—and under each PICS’ left arm hung a huge kettle drum.

The 22 Marines broke their position to beat out a “Forward, march!”

The four PICS Marines started forward, their long legs quickly closing the distance, one of the other drummers keeping a cadence.  Within moments, they reached the rest of the drummers, and somehow spun around in unison on one leg, the other leg up in the air and splayed out. 

A PICS was an amazing piece of fighting gear:  strong, powerful, and fast.  But it was not really nimble, and Ryck’s mouth dropped open at this display of dexterity.  Ryck didn’t think he could do it, but right then and there, he vowed he would try as soon as he could.

With the four PICS drummers facing the crowd, they started a booming tattoo that Ryck could feel in his bones.  The other drummers moved to form a semi-circle behind them, and their beatings, so powerful before, seemed like that made with child’s toys.

Ryck had never seen, had never heard, of PICS in a corps of drums.  They were just too unwieldy.  They were combat units, not musical units.  But then again, all Marines were “combat units.”

What amazed Ryck even more was the juxtaposition between the PICS and the other drummers.  The normal drummers in the back were crisp and robotic in their movements, mechanical.  The four PICS drummers were fluid, more like dancers who had been on the stage earlier.  While pounding on their drums, they swayed and moved with the beat.  They were the human drummers and the others were the mechanical ones.

This time, when the finale approached, there was no question.  The combined pounding of 26 Marines, four of them augmented by their PICS, simply blew the huge hall away.  Ryck wasn’t sure what he was hearing and what he was feeling.  All he knew was that this was the best beating he’d ever attended. 

Someone pounded his back, but he was too into the moment to even look to see who it was.  He was a Marine.  He’d been led in combat, and he’d led men into combat.  That’s what Marines did.  But somehow, this beating, something taken from Marines long past, transcended the “job” of a Marine and touched on the
soul
of a Marine.  Just as ancient homo erectus sat with hollowed logs around a campfire, this set off a sympathetic beating in his very DNA.  At this very moment, he was not a man who was a Marine; he was the Marine Corps.  A small cell in the bigger organism, to be sure, but still, he was the Corps.

The Corps of Drums stopped with a deafening silence—at least that was how it felt—a silence that was almost painful.  The cheering erupted once again as the drummers marched out, Sgt Horatio the only one keeping a steady cadence.  Up on the dais, the governor was pounding LtCol uKhiwa’s back.  Ryck knew that the battalion had made an impression on the people of Sierra Dorado. 

The
Inchon’s
CO, Captain Rotigue, was flushed and smiling as he quit clapping and leaned into the podium mic.  “Sailors and Marines, there is nothing I can say after that except the bar is open!”

This was one grubbing amazing beating!

KAKUREGA

Chapter 9

“Another corporate police mission,” First Sergeant Hecs grumbled.  “We might as well put on company uniforms.”

Ryck had to agree.  He had taken an oath to protect the Federation, not break up labor strikes.

“Come on, First Sergeant.  If the people on Kakurega are rioting, don’t you think that is a public threat?  And what if PI is burned down or something.  You heard the brief.  Look how much the company makes.   I’ve seen you munching on Paradise Bars.  What are you going to do if you can’t get your ice cream?” the XO asked.

“He’s got you there, First Sergeant.  You take more of those bars out of the chief’s mess than anyone I know, and guess who makes them?  Cool Swiss is a Propitious Interstellar brand,” Sams said with a chuckle.

“So I like my ice cream bars,” Hecs said.  “Big deal.  The point is that our mission is to protect the Federation, not to act like some corporate jimmylegs.
[10]
”

“I’m with the First Sergeant on this,” Ryck interjected.  “But ours is not to reason why—”

“Ours is just to get shit on,” the first sergeant interrupted.

Ryck involuntarily looked around his small stateroom, packed with his five lieutenants, First Seregeant Hecs, and the gunny.  He wouldn’t put it past the Navy’s political division, or even the FCDC, to have had the stateroom bugged, and he didn’t want the conversation to get any further into something actionable.

“Be that as it may, we’ve got our marching orders.  XO, I want you and Gunny to start preparing an equipment and supply list.  We could be on the planet for months, maybe even up to the end of our deployment.”

“You don’t think they’ll extend us, do you sir?” 2dLt Gershon Chomsky asked.

Gershon had gotten married just prior to this deployment, and the XO had told Ryck that the young lieutenant was not taking the separation well.

Get used to it, Lieutenant,
Ryck thought, but responded with “We don’t know.  That’s a possibility, but I would imagine that if it got to that, another battalion would be relieving us.

“Platoon commanders, I want you to start briefing your men.  We need to get them in the proper mindset.  This isn’t like the
Julianna’s Dream
, much less the Trinocular War.  The people on this planet are Federation citizens.  They are not our enemy.  We’ll protect ourselves, if need be, but we are not going in to kick ass and take names.  The ROEs
will
be followed to the letter.  Am I understood?”

There was a chorus of “yes, sirs,” in response.

“This is going to be more a show of force than anything else.  At least that’s what I hope will happen.  We need to be prepared for anything, though.  I’m not about to lose any Marine to a labor strike.”

For a brief moment, he recalled the CO’s admonition on being too cautious.

Screw him
, he thought. 
He’s never lost most of his men in combat.

That wasn’t fair, he knew.  He still respected the CO, and it wasn’t his fault that his units had never been in combat, but Ryck still smarted from the CO’s dressing-down.  Besides, this was not going to be combat.  This was a police action, nothing more, and he’d be damned if he lost a single Marine to it.

Suddenly in a sour mood, he decided to end it at that.  The platoon commanders had work to do anyway, and it was time they got on to it.

“That’s it.  Get you men briefed, then let’s get them ready.  I want us to look professional when we make our grand entrance.  XO, I want that list in three hours.  If there’s anything else we need from battalion, we’ve got to get that submitted. 

“This may not be the mission we wanted, but we’re going to conduct it like Marines.  That’s going to take every one of you to make it so.

“Let’s get cracking.  Dismissed.”

Chapter 10

The stork swooped down low, and Ryck’s stomach rose in his throat.  Null-G was easier on him than these atmospheric acrobatics.  He wished he was on one of the shuttles used to take his company to their temporary (he hoped) home at the old refinery.  But the CO wanted all his enlisted and officers to make a grand entrance over the city.  He wanted there to be no question that the Marines had landed, and that meant the MAU’s four Storks were to come in from various directions and then meet for a synchronized landing at the city stadium. 

Ryck looked out the windows to both keep his mind off of his stomach and to get the lay of the land.  The city was like any other industrialized city he’d seen.  While it was bigger than his own home town of Williamson, and it was much greener with vegetation, it still wasn’t impressive.  Generic high rises formed the center of the city, bisected by the River Tay. 

Ryck craned his neck to try and look upstream.  The refinery was about 15 klicks from the city.  He’d seen the photos and holos, of course, but he wanted to see his new home with his own eyes.  Unfortunately, the Stork swept to its right and the river swung out of view.

Bravo and Weapons Companies were going to be with the CO at the stadium.  They were the point of main effort and would conduct most of the local operations.  Charlie was going to be at the refinery, ready to react as needed as well as provide a force on the main route from Tay Station to other cities.  Alpha was going to be independent at Dundee.

If Charlie wasn’t going to be the point of main effort in the city, he wondered if it might be better to be completely away in Dundee.  He wouldn’t have the CO breathing down his neck on a daily basis.  The point was moot, however.  The decision had been made, and the refinery was where he’d be.

John Levin brought the Stork over the wall of the stadium, flaring the bird perfectly at its designated landing spot.  Ryck got a glimpse of one of the other Storks flaring in about 40 meters off the port side.  It looked like at least these two pilots nailed it, coming in together.  Ryck imagined that the other two were synchronized as well.

They didn’t rush out as if this was an assault.  The Storks shut down, and the Marines took their time to unbuckle and stand up.  Top Forrest stood at the back ramp, waiting for the CO’s bird to commence debarking.  Ryck wondered if all the choreographing was necessary, but it was not that big of a headache, so he let it slide.

The Top suddenly stepped back and spun one finger in the air.  It was go time!

Major Tschen was the senior man on the bird, and he led the rest out and to the right where they had a truncated formation.  This was going to be a top-heavy formation as most of the main body was taking the shuttles.  Ryck wondered if this plan had been a good idea.  If the intent was to impress the natives, then possibly a bunch of officers and senior staff were not the best choice at looking good in formation.  A couple of platoons of infantry would fare much better.

It didn’t turn out quite a bad as Ryck had thought, but it was still a bit of a gaggle as the Marines moved into formation.  Luckily, there was no marching, no pass in review.  It was just get into formation behind the CO and his senior staff officers, then wait for the CO to report aboard.

In the first row of spectators’ seats, a small entourage awaited the CO.  Ryck knew that the Governor and Federation administrator had arrived from Dundee, and with them, the Propitious Interstellar CO would be accepting the report.  He kept his eyes forward, but he could see the worthies standing up.

“Battalion, Atten . . . HUT!” the CO shouted out, his voice reverberating nicely within the stadium. 

Ryck thought everyone was already at attention.

The CO conducted an about face, then shouted out, “Sir, First Battalion, Eleventh Marines, “The
T
iburónes
,” reporting for duty!”

A voice responded, but too softly for Ryck to make out the words.  The CO responded with, “Aye-aye, sir.”  Then after conducting another about face, “Commanders, carry out your orders!”

And that was that.  Ryck had to admit that the Storks had probably been a nice touch, but the so-called formation was sort of a joke.  The people they were trying to impress (read, to cow them) couldn’t even see into the stadium.  Holo cams had been recording, of course, but still, they couldn’t make emeralds out of farts.

Ryck looked around for Hecs.  He and the first sergeant had to catch a ride to the company, and Ryck hoped the brotherhood of senior enlisted had rustled something up. 

He saw his first sergeant and started over to meet him when a woman’s voice called out, “Captain Lysander, may I have a word with you?”

He turned to see an immaculate woman fitted out with a designer suit.  She had a small directional mic on her lapel, and a man with a bulky holo cam trailed her.  He kept a smile plastered on his face while he inwardly groaned.  The ship’s PAO had warned him that his presence within the battalion was not a secret, and the press had already reported his imminent arrival.  Ryck had hoped that he might escape media attention, at least for awhile.

First Sergeant Hecs smiled and mouthed out “Better you then me” from over the reporter’s tailored shoulder.

Ryck steeled his nerves.  This might take awhile.

“Yes, ma’am, how may I help you?” he said, ready to do his duty.