Lieutenant (The United Federation Marine Corps Book 3) (2 page)

To the rear of their lines, another 300 meters back, Ryck had some alternate positions dug.  If it got too rough, he could order the platoon to fall back to those positions.  That would give the high ground to the enemy, but it would also highlight any vehicles as they crested the pass.  The AI’s best-guess positions on the enemy, though, had them getting closer.  If Ryck did decide to fall back, he’d have to do it before the armor arrived.  They would be sitting ducks if they tried to fall back while under fire.

It was almost too late for that.  Ryck could hear the approaching Canolians, and a few tree tops swung violently as vehicles hit them from below.  The AIs were firming up their projections.

“Get ready, here they come,” Ryck passed needlessly.

Each Marine was getting the same feedback from the linked AIs.  They could see the avatars just as easily as he could.

The trees started opening up at about 800 meters away, just as the slope started to rise.  Ryck strained to see the first Tamika, but it wasn’t he who made the initial spot.  From the left flank, from LCpl Finich’s position, one of the Banshee’s took off.  The telltale
bop, bop, bop
of the guidance rockets sounded in the three seconds it took the missile to cover the 800 meters, then an explosion rocked their front, just out of Ryck’s view.  He could see the flames shooting up, though, over the intervening trees.

Hell yes!
he shouted to himself.

“One-six, one confirmed kill of the lead tank,” Cpl Yurong, the First Squad’s Second Fire Team leader passed. 

The Canolians broke out from the trees and spread out over the slope.  Two more Banshee’s took off, but instead of hitting two separate targets, they both converged on the same Tamika.

Shit!

“First Squad, all anti-armor to the left 300 meters,  Second, the middle 300 meters, and Third, the right” he passed as the third Tamika opened up on the platoon’s position.

The AIs should have been coordinating, making sure two missile gunners were not targeting the same vehicle, but even without the armor emerging at about the boundary between First and Second, Ryck should have made their targeting priorities more clear.

“LCpl Dowell, your target is the Tonya.  I repeat, the Tonya.  Do not fire on anything else.  Do you understand?” he passed to one of his remaining Banshee missile gunners.

“Roger,” came Dowell’s flat voice.

The second remaining Tamika rushed into view, moving quickly to the right.  Another Banshee took off, but just before impact, it exploded in a shower of sparks.  Ryck thought the missile had hit, but the tank emerged from the smoke unscathed, its 90mm canon firing.

Just like that, Barnum and Lumsden’s icons went grey.  The two Marines had taken a direct hit.  Ryck wanted to stand up to look, to see if they were really KIA, but he had to focus on what was happening.

The Bunker Buster was not a long-range weapon, and the team had to wait until a target was within about 400 meters.  Ryck had guessed right, and they were in position to take out either of the two remaining Tamikas, but they couldn’t fire yet.

“Wait, Corporal Zakharchuk, they’re still too far out,” he said, even if he hadn’t seen the M-76’s tracker engage.

Ryck knew that the Weapons Platoon heavy gun team leader understood that if he was tracking the Canolians, they would see that and most likely target him, but Ryck figured it didn’t hurt to remind him.

“There!  The Tonya!  Dowell, take it!” he shouted into his mic as the plasma tank came into view.

The Tonya got off one shot before the missile hit it head on.  The turret flew up lazily, turning over and over before it fell back to the ground.  The plasma round hit short before detonating, the plasma field just reaching out over two Marines, but their icons remained a healthy dark blue. 

Ryck felt a wave of relief sweep over him.  There were still two Tamikas facing them along with the rest of the company, but at least the big threat was gone.

As the first of the Patties came into view, several of the M72’s opened up.  It was a long shot for a moving vehicle, but they had plenty of grenades, and as cold-blooded as it sounded, they gave the enemy targets other than his last Banshee and the M76 team.  The two Tamikas were lumbering up the slope, guns pounding as the first Patty opened up. 

Ryck waited for the last Banshee to open up to take out one of the tanks, but then he remembered that he’d just ordered the weapons team with Third to hold their fire unless their target was in the right 500 meters of their frontage.

“Park!  Weapons free!  Target the tank on the right,” he shouted as he realized his mistake.

Almost immediately, the Banshee took off.  This time, the missile hit true, and the Tamika stopped dead in its tracks.

Ryck was out of missiles, and there was still one tank, but it was almost within range of the M76 team.   For the rest of the armor, which was now pouring onto the slope, they would have to use their M72 grenades.  If it came to that, then their hypervelocity rifles could take the trucks with the mounted militia under fire.

Ryck ducked as a round impacted just in front of him, pelting him with a shower of dirt clods.  He wiped the dirt off his face shield as another explosion sounded a few meters t to his right.  Another Marine, PFC Reem, was down. 

“Riflemen, keep your heads down!” he shouted over the platoon circuit.  Until the trucks got there, or if the Patties dismounted their troops, there was nothing they could do.

“Alpha-Six, we’re getting pounded.  Any change in the air support?” he passed back to the company commander.

He could see the orange slave light blinking in the corner of his display.  The skipper was watching everything in real time, so he knew what was happening.  If he had air, he would have told Ryck, but Ryck couldn’t keep from asking.

“That’s a negative, One-Six.  No change.  You have to stop them with what you have,” the entirely predictable and disappointing reply sounded in his ear.

The problem was that Ryck didn’t have much.  The lone Tamika was raking the line with fire, and it was by sheer luck that no one else had been killed yet. All of the Patties were deployed and firing. 

A grenade managed to penetrate the engine block of a Patty, stopping it.  She wasn’t moving, but her gun hadn’t ceased firing. 

One of the 50mm short-barreled guns scored a direct hit on Sorenson, silencing his M72.  His icon went light blue:  he was out, but not KIA—yet.

Finally, the M76 powered up and started firing.  The Tamika started to swing its cannon at Zakharchuk and Tsung, Zakharchuk ‘s A-gunner.  Ryck could see what was happening through the other Marines’ feeds, but he couldn’t help himself.  He raised his head over the edge of his fighting hole to watch the duel.  Three, four, five grenades hit the tank as the 90 mm cannon swept at them.  One of the grenades hit something vital just as the cannon came to bear.  There was no catastrophic kill.  The tank simply stopped.

He pumped his fist in the air as something caught his eye.  The immobile Patty was disgorging troops.

“All riflemen, get your heads up and take the troops
here
under fire,” he ordered, toggling the location of the Patty to display on their face shields just where “here” was.

Within moments, the M-99 fire started, cutting down a full half of the militiamen who had left their vehicle.  The remaining men hit the deck and took whatever cover they could find.

Three more Marines—Medvedev, Vargas, and Portuno—were killed in quick succession before another Patty was taken out.  The fog of battle started taking over, and Ryck lost his focus.  This was a battle of wills, with the remaining M72 Marines taking on the two Patties and the trucks that were now deploying.  When he saw the first truck, he lowered his own M99 and started pouring fire into it.  This was something he could do, something he was used to.  The trucks armored glass spiderwebbed, but didn’t break.  Ryck’s darts penetrated the cargo bed of the truck, though, surely hitting militiamen.

“One-six, we’ve got vehicle sounds in front of us,” Sgt Bonnyman passed, breaking Ryck’s rhythm.

Ryck’s heart dropped.  In the heat of the fight, he’d forgotten about that second possible avenue of approach.

“What does it look like?” he asked, afraid of what he might hear.

“Wait one,” the sergeant passed as another Marine from Second’s icon went grey.

LCpl Payute.  Another Marine killed.

“One-Six, we’ve got at least another Tonya and two Patties,” Sgt Bonnyman passed at the same moment that Ryck’s AI put them on his display. 

The lead vehicle, the Tonya, was still in the trees, about 150 meters from where it could deploy its gun.  Ryck had no more Banshee’s, and Zakharchuk was toward the left side of the platoon, well out of range from where the Tonya would emerge.  He had to get someone down there before that occurred so they could get close enough to lay a bullfrog on the vehicle.  The good thing was that if they could get close, the Tonya’s gun would be ineffective against them.

He started to give Bonnyman an order, but addressed it to SSgt de la Cuadra, his platoon sergeant, instead.  De la Cuadra was his best Marine, and Ryck trusted his abilities more.

“SSgt de la Cuadra, take Hakkenberg with you and whatever bullfrogs you’ve got.  Get to the second avenue of approach before that Tonya gets here and do what you can.  We will cover you,” he ordered.

Ryck had a reputation for liking the toads and the larger bullfrogs, small limpet breaching devices that could burn through about anything.  His reputation was deserved, given his past, and here he was, trying to employ them again as an offensive weapon.  Ryck hadn’t planned that, but he was out of options.

Without hesitation, the two Marines jumped out of their holes and started running.  The massed fire of the Marines had little effect on the Patties, but another truck was stopped.  Somehow, the two Marines kept going, going, going.  The Tonya emerged, and the first plasma round reached out, graying out two more Marines, Carlotto and Schwab.  The Tonya didn’t seem to notice the staff sergeant and corporal as it cycled another round and waited for the barrel to recharge to send it downrange.

The Tonya’s crew might not have seen them, but one of the remaining Patties’ did, and its coaxial cut the two Marines down less than 100 meters from their target.  One moment they were running—the next they were flopping bonelessly onto the dirt.

“No!” Ryck shouted.

He jumped out of his hole and started charging, fumbling for his own toad.  Normally, a Marine would use a special glove to handle it so it wouldn’t stick to the skin, but Ryck grabbed it barehanded.

He barely noticed as another Marine, one of HIS Marines, was killed.  All he could think of was to close with the Tonya.  The blue lights on the barrel pulsed, and the gun swung to Ryck.  With the flicker that indicated a round was fired, the shell zipped past Ryck, detonating behind him. 

He had gotten past the kill zone!

By the time the tank cycled again, he would be too close.

Ryck never saw the militiaman who cut him down as everything went black.

EARTH

Chapter 1

“You did it again, Mr. Lysander.  Don’t you think it’s about time you got it right?” the flat voice cut through to Ryck.

With a sigh, Ryck reached up to detach his helmet feed.  He blinked as the cavernous studio of one of NSA Annapolis’ RCETs
[5]
flooded his view.  The fictional planet of Canolia, the enemy vehicles, his Marines, even his rank of Second Lieutenant (Training) had disappeared back into the electrons that had created them.  What didn’t disappear was Gunnery Sergeant William Meader, UFMC, much to Ryck’s annoyance.

Gunny Meader was the bane of Ryck’s training.  The man seemed to have it in for him, but Ryck didn’t know why.  Ever since Ryck had moved to Phase 2 of the Naval Officer Training Course, the gunny had been on his ass, never letting up. 

Phase 1 had been easy.  Ryck and the other midshipmen had taken courses on military law, leadership, history, military theory, and political science, and his college courses had prepared him well for those classes.  Wearing the Navy uniform had been the oddest thing he’d experienced.  Mixing with the Navy-appointed midshipmen had been interesting, and he’d even known one, Midshipmen Terry Halsted, who’d been a snipe
[6]
on the
Adelaide
back when Ryck was aboard her.  But along with the other Marine-appointed mids, he felt out of place wearing the Navy dress blues.

Phase 2 (Marine) had been a different story.  Along with the Marine-track mids from the Academy who had joined them for this phase, the training had been more specific to being a Marine officer.  Classes were more detailed, the PT more strenuous.  These things didn’t bother Ryck, though—it was the practical applications in the RCET that was killing him.  It was hard to believe that as a recruit, he had loved RCET training:  now, he dreaded it.

“I don’t think you are ever going to learn, Mr. Lysander,” the gunny said.  “Nope, I don’t think so.  It takes more than being able to fight to become an officer, and you just don’t have it.  You’re just a barroom brawler, sir, not officer material.”

A midshipman was technically an officer, ranked between a WO1 and a CWO2, but the gunny made his “sir” sound like an insult.  During a Phase 1 history class, the mids had been told the tale of Midshipman
William Sitgreaves Cox, from back in the old wet-water navy days.  Midshipman Cox was court martialed
for dereliction of duty for taking his commanding officer, Captain James Lawrence, of the “Don’t Give Up the Ship” fame, below decks when the captain was wounded.  As a midshipman, though, he had then been technically in command of a ship in battle and had left his post, so he was convicted of the charges and dismissed from the Navy in disgrace.

The lesson had been meant to instill a sense of being an officer into the mids, most of whom had just come up from the enlisted ranks.  No mid, though, was stupid enough to think that a simple appointment gave him any degree of authority or respect.  The chiefs and Marine SNCOs held all the cards and could make or break any one of them.  They may call them “mister” or even interject a “sir” into their speech every now and then, but that didn’t fool anybody.

Ryck just stared at the gunny.  He knew he’d failed the task—just as he had failed every other RCET assignment so far.  He didn’t need the gunny to remind him.

He was a freaking combat Marine!  He’d succeeded in real life battles.  Why the hell couldn’t he get through a simple simulation?

“Give your slug to Mr. Uttley, sir, and report back to the master guns,” Gunny Meader told him.

The “slug” was the simulated M99 which was used for RCET training.  As per the Charter, sailors and Marines were not allowed on earth’s surface while armed, so for the training at NSA Annapolis, they used a basic game wand that looked nothing like a real M99.  Ryck walked back to the prep area and gave it to Hank Uttley before marching through the hatch and up the stairs to the observation room. 

Prince Jellico caught his eye as Ryck came in and gave a sympathetic shrug.  The midshipmen who had already finished had all been watching Ryck’s feeds and knew what had happened.  This session had been particularly brutal.  Only Jorge Simone had managed to accomplish the mission so far.  Jorge, a no-neck heavy worlder might look dull, but he had managed to succeed in all six RCET missions they had been assigned.  Ryck, on the other hand, for all his reputation as being a fighter, had failed each and every one. 

After the last session, the only other mid to have failed every task, Pietr Hartman, had been called into the Captain’s office.  He never returned, and his stateroom was emptied by the BOQ
[7]
staff.  Ryck didn’t know if Pietr had opted to revert back to his previous rank of corporal or if he merely resigned from the service.

Ryck straightened his back as he marched up to the small hatch leading into the control booth.  Inside, Master Gunnery Sergeant Kofi Ghanaba was watching the screen as Hank Uttley began his simulation.  He didn’t even glance up as Ryck entered.

“Mr. Lysander, please go to the company office.  I will meet you there after the final two ranks go through today’s training.  We have a meeting with Captain Klein,” he said as he watched over the RCET training staff. 

“One-Six, we have lost air support.  Your requested mission has been denied,” a rat-faced civilian kid, barely out of his teens, spoke into a headset from where he was sitting on the other side of the master guns. 

So this kid was my so-called company commander?
Ryck wondered. 

Ryck knew they worked off a script and had canned responses for most contingencies, but this kid had probably never even gotten into a school-yard fight.  Now, he was having an input into whether Ryck would make it through training.  It didn’t seem right.

The master guns said nothing else, so Ryck turned and left.  He felt the eyes of the other mids on him as he made his way down the steps and out the hatch.  When he got outside, the muggy August afternoon breeze carried more than a hint of the Chesapeake in it.  The planet was the birthplace of humanity, but to Ryck, it was a foreign world.

He stood for a moment, knowing these few hours were probably his last as a midshipmen.  He felt defeated, but other than his pride, he was relieved.  He could go back to his previous rank where he belonged.  Other Marines would know he had failed, and that might affect his ability to lead Marines, but that couldn’t be helped.  Gunny Meader was a right royal dick, but he was correct.  Ryck wasn’t officer material.  He didn’t belong.

Looking over the Severn River, he could see Bancroft Hall nestled between old, but still more modern buildings.  For hundreds of years, midshipmen had lived in that huge dormitory while the Academy molded the men (and women, for the bulk of its history) into the leaders of first the United States, and then the Federation.  How many midshipmen had slept, eaten, studied, and lived there?

Ryck wasn’t an Academy mid.  He’d been appointed from the ranks.  Most Marine-appointed mids were like him.  Only a few spent the four years at the Academy proper.  There was a higher percentage of Navy officers who attended the Academy, but still, the majority were just like Ryck, appointed out of the ranks. 

Phase 2, though, included the Academy mids training with the “peons.”  That gave Ryck a connection, tenuous as it might be, to the Academy.  Ryck could feel the history flow out from Bancroft Hall and seep over the Severn to the Naval Support Station.  He knew, though, that storied history would not include him.

Ryck made his way to Alderman Hall, the headquarters for naval officer training.  It occupied a prime piece of real estate right on the Severn with views of the entire Academy, part of the city of Annapolis, and the Chesapeake Bay, with Maryland’s Eastern Shore a hazy shadow on the horizon.  A two-star blue flag flew beside the Federation’s black and silver—the blue flag indicating that the Commander, Officer Training Command was in the building.  Not that it mattered to Ryck.  He was so far down the pecking order that the great man would neither know nor care that Ryck was on his way out the door.

Ryck walked through the main entrance, then up the main ladderwell one deck and to the right where midshipman training was developed and monitored.  The Academy itself had its own staff, to include a three-star superintendent, but the Midshipman Training Division technically even monitored the Academy. 

Ryck made his way past the desks of the civilian staffers and few Navy ratings who kept the office humming and then to the left to where the training class staffs had their offices.  He spotted the placard “The Naval Officer Training Course” and walked through the open hatch.

“Mr. Lysander,” the middle-aged woman at the desk greeted him.  “Please have a seat.  Captain Klein will call for you shortly.”

Ryck took a seat, studying the woman who had returned to her screen and to whatever task she had been doing.  He’d never met her, and he was sure she’d never met him, but she recognized him.  Granted, she probably knew he was coming, but there were over a thousand mids going through courses at the time.

The leather couch looked good, and it had a nice cushion, but it was slick.  Ryck kept sliding on the seat, and he had to keep hitching his butt back up.  He wondered if that was some sort of psychological tactic. 

After at least 30 minutes, Master Guns Ghanaba walked in.

“Grace, is he ready?” he asked the woman behind the desk.

“Yes he is, Khofi.  You’re to go in first, then come back out to get Mr. Lysander,” she told him.

The master guns didn’t even look at him before walking to his right and into a hatch with “59-2” identifying it as the office for the staff of Ryck’s class.  As the minutes dragged on, Ryck’s nerves got the better of him.  He had already accepted that he was getting the boot, but waiting for confirmation of that was excruciating.  Finally, the hatch opened back up and the master guns motioned him in.

Ryck took a deep breath, and only hesitating a second, marched in and centered himself on Captain Klein’s desk.

“Midshipman Lysander, reporting as ordered, sir!”

“Take a seat, Mr. Lysander,” the bull-necked officer told him, indicating one of the two chairs that were placed in front of the desk. 

Ryck took the one indicated and sat on the outer six or seven centimeters of the seat while MGSgt Ghanaba took the other. 

The captain studied his PA for a few moments before looking up at Ryck.  Ryck tried not to stare, but the captain’s eyes were two different colors.  One was blue, the other green.  He’d heard that, of course, but seeing it up close was different.  Ryck had to focus on the subject at hand, not the captain’s eyes.

“Mr. Lysander, I have here the results for PA-06.
[8]
   As you know, you did not perform particularly well.  In fact, while you did well in Phase 1, you have not done well in any assignment for Phase 2, starting with your first assignment.”

Ryck grimaced.  On their first day in Phase 2, the instructor had given them a pop quiz.  They were given a list of resources—including Marines, tools, cement, a pole, equipment, and sensors—and were asked to write down what they would do to get that pole erected as a flagpole.  Ryck got into the problem, calculating the amount of cement required to hold the pole steady, the necessary supports, the time for the cement to cure—details in that vein.  He was the last midshipman done, and when he’d uploaded his response, he was sure he’d aced it.  Instead, he’d been one of only five to fail.  The only acceptable answer was anything along the lines of “Staff Sergeant, erect that flag pole.”  Ryck had made the fatal mistake of getting down into the weeds.

The captain went on, “I want to find out why this has been a difficult transition.  You’ve got an exemplary record as an enlisted Marine, but that has not translated to NOTC.
[9]
”

He paused and simply looked at Ryck for a moment before asking, “What do you think of your men?”

Ryck couldn’t help but to look confused.  His men?  The computer generated men assigned to him?  He thought carefully, wondering what the captain wanted to hear.

“Um, sir, well, I respect each one of them.  They are part of our history.”

Each “Marine” was named for a hero of one of the old Marine Corps or the Federation Marines.  They had been awarded Federation Novas, Medals of Honor, Victoria Crosses, Heroes of the Soviet Union or Russian Federation, the Military William Order, Philippines Medals of Valor, Taegeuk Cordons, even a
Laureate Cross of Saint Ferdinand, the one that Ryck found the most historically interesting.

“You know as well as I do that naming them for old heroes is part of the Marine way, to keep tradition alive.  I don’t mean the historical figures, but the men attached to you for each exercise.  What do you think of each one of them as individuals?  Who is your strongest Marine?”

“Staff Sergeant de la Cuadra,” Ryck answered immediately. 

Each Marine had been given an extensive bio, complete with schooling, experience, and evaluations by those senior to him.  Each midshipmen had to study those bios to get to know their platoon as if they were flesh and blood Marines.

“De la Cuadra?” the captain asked.  “Are you sure?”

“Yes, sir,” Ryck responded without hesitation.

“Then why during the course of the exercise, did you fail to address him until sending him on that suicide mission?”