Major (The United Federation Marine Corps Book 5) (23 page)

Chapter 36

Ryck looked around the rally point.  He had 52 Marines and two corpsmen with him, 36 being effectives.  Steady Doc Lyon was tending to the wounded, and Gunny St. Almans was getting ziplocked.  The other wounded didn’t need that, but they were combat ineffective. 

Luke O’Leary and eight Marines had not made it back to the rally point.  They’d been cut off, and were now running further away with five pirates in chase.  Each time they tried to double back, the pirates cut them off.  Ryck was monitoring the chase, but there wasn’t much he could do at the moment other than offering encouragement.  O’Leary seemed in good spirits though, confident in their ability to evade the clumsier, if far more powerful Nizzies.

The ambush had been successful, but at a high cost. Thirteen Nizzies had been destroyed or put out of action.  Eleven had fallen at the ambush site, one at the charging station, and one more had been found by Sandy abandoned and empty while he and six others made their way to the rally point.  A toad put the abandoned suit out of action permanently.  Where the pirate who had used the suit had gone, no one knew.

Only one of the many booby traps had worked, the one to which Ryck had responded.  Sams said a deadfall had been tripped and knocked a pirate down, but he had gotten right back up and continued the fight.  He was under the impression that might have been the abandoned Nizzie, but Ryck thought that was wishful thinking.  A couple pirates had fallen into tiger pits, but they had easily clambered back out.

All told, the fact that they had knocked out 13 of them was rather remarkable.  Except that Ryck didn’t feel much like celebrating.  He had lost too many Marines.  Of a battalion of over 500 souls, there were only 71 alive, to the best of his knowledge.  He had to assume that Bert and the rest who’d been underground were lost.  The cream of the Corps, the grand Raider experiment, had been gutted.

He still had the fire burning inside of him to kill the rest of the SOG, and he’d see it through, but there was no joy in the situation. He was just exterminating rats, nothing more.

He mindlessly munched on the last of his energy bars. Normally, he liked the raspberry sunrise flavor, but now it was just calories.  He finished the bar, and with a force of will, stood up.  He had to make his rounds. Çağlar saw him and started to get up, but Ryck waved him back down.  Surprising, his shadow relented and sank back.

“We kicked some ass, Major,” one of the Alpha Marines said as Ryck walked up.

“Sure did, son,” Ryck said, putting on a positive face. 

He had to keep them motivated and ready to go. 

“No one can stand up to us,” Ryck said to the nods of several Marines.

Sams came up to stand beside him.  “We’re not done yet,” he said, “but we’ll get the last few and then go home.  We’ve got the major here with us, and he never fails.”

Ryck wanted to correct Sams, but he left it at that.  He
almost
never failed, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to fail now.

Chapter 38

During the night, Siaomai and six Marines who’d been left at the schoolhouse managed to link up with O’Leary and his team, taking over as rabbits.  A grateful O’Leary snuck his Marines off and collapsed for some needed rest.  Captain Lee took off, followed by the five Nizzies.  Several times throughout the night and into the morning, the Nizzies looked to be about to break off, and each time, Siomai came back to engage them.  Twice, they had fired grenades, but neither time registered a kill despite at least one direct hit.

Early in the afternoon, the captain passed to Ryck that the Nizzies had broken off, this time for good, in his opinion.  He had no more grenades, so Ryck told him to break off as well and make his way back to the rest of them.

“So what do you think?” he asked Sandy and Sams as they stood slightly apart from the sleeping Marines, those who’d been on watch all night.

“I think you’re right, sir,” Sandy said.  “They’ve been running since yesterday afternoon, all night and half of the today.  They’ve got to be running low.”

“So, is it worth it?” he asked, more to himself than to the other two.

He came to a decision, which was surprisingly easy to make.

“Go get Wright,” he told Sandy, who ran off to get the new Alpha Company commander, taking over with Trap’s death during the fight.

“In for a penny, right Sams?”

“Yeah, a penny, a credit, whatever,” Sams said, his mood upbeat.  “I’ll go gather the ducklings.”

Ryck had no idea if his plan would work.  I just depended on too many moving parts, and any one going wrong could result in a catastrophe.  But it was the best plan he could device given the situation.  The first required part had evidently worked, so he had to try.

Sandy and Wright came up, and Ryck briefed the captain on his plan.  Wright balked at first, but an order was an order, and he understood that as the second senior man on the scene, he was needed to be ready to take command. 

With Wright onboard, the three officers walked to where Sams had gathered 15 Marines, the most agile and physically capable ones he could find.  They looked up eagerly as Ryck stood in front of him.

“What’s up, sir?’ Ling asked for all of them.

“We’re going hunting,” Ryck said.

Chapter 39

Ryck squirmed, trying to get comfortable.  With one foot jammed into the V, it was difficult to keep it from going to sleep.

“Is the major having problems?  A little uncomfortable?” Sams passed on the P2P.

“Eat me,” Ryck said.

“All the little squirrels, sitting in the trees,” Sams went on, “looking for some rats, onto which we’ll pee.”

Ryck rolled his eyes. 
Fucking Sams!

He looked around him.  He could see four Marines in the trees around him.  They’d climbed them almost four hours before, after a brisk run to the charging station.  By now, his body was beginning to ache.

Ryck was beginning to think that this was going to be a bust.  He knew the Nizzies needed power, but there could be another power station somewhere that they could use.  And if they powered up and hit the rest of the Marines back with Captain Wright, it could be pretty bad.  He hated splitting his forces, but too many at this ambush site could blow it, and he’d needed Captain Lee to relieve O’Leary.  Now he had Marines in four separate places.  If this didn’t work, and somehow he’d make it back in one piece, he’d have a lot to answer for.

He kept wondering if he should pull the plug on this and consolidate his forces again.  They may not have much in the way of weaponry, but still, more Marines were better than fewer.  If O’Leary hadn’t reported finding another abandoned Nizzie, powerless, he might have done just that, but the hope that they would come back to this position to recharge kept him going.

For the moment.

He over at Sandy in the next tree over.  If anything, Sandy looked more uncomfortable than him.  His tree had smaller branches than Ryck’s, and he kept shifting his weight around.

“What do you think?” he asked his captain.

“I don’t know.  We don’t have many options.”

Just then, then cicadas to the south of them, one of the more common insects introduced during terra-forming, ceased their incessant droning.  Ryck immediately felt his senses go on high alert, his discomfort forgotten.  He focused on what could have caused the insects to go silent.

He almost missed it, but almost 30 meters away, a lone Nizzie edged to the tree line.  He stood there, behind a large chestnut tree, motionless as he looked out.  Just above him, some five meters up, Staff Sergeant Albert “X-Ray” Portis crouched, a toad in his hand.

“Steady,” Ryck passed on the P2P.

Portis gave a thumbs up, never breaking his gaze from the pirate below him.

After a century or so, the pirate seemed to make a decision.  He turned to look back with the posture of someone talking.  A minute or two later, two more Nizzies came out of the forest.  The first one pointed at the charging station and then stepped out into the open.

At that moment, Portis dropped his toad, scoring a direct hit.  The pirate didn’t seem to notice it until it erupted with the temperature of a small star.  He took one step forward, sparks shooting spectacularly into the air, and collapsed on his face, his legs twitching once or twice before going still.  The other two immediately started firing, spraying the area.  They were aiming as ground level though.

Sams and two others lofted their toads, but with the distance, neither one hit.  Ryck juggled his toad in his hand, but it was just too far to attempt.  In a moment, the two pirates had to figure that the Marines were above them, and the Marines would be sitting ducks.

Out of the first tree, Portis jumped to the ground.  He fired his Rimsky at the two pirates, getting their attention before bolting toward Sandy and Ryck.

He dove to the ground just as both pirates opened up with their pulse guns.  The low, dense laurel absorbed most of the energy of the blast, and Portis madly scrambled forward.

With three huge steps, the Nizzies were under Sandy’s tree, trying to get a clear shot at the staff sergeant.  Sandy leaned forward, arm out, and dropped his toad.

And missed!

It fell to the ground beside one of the pirates. The man took a step to his right to get another shot at Portis—and stepped right on the toad as it ignited.  Fire shot up into the leg, and with a lurch, the big combat suit fell over as the man inside tried to crawl away from the awful heat.  Ryck could see the suit began an emergency molt, but his attention was on the last pirate, who somehow had not noticed what had happened to his comrade.

Ryck stood up in the V of the tree, ready to drop.  As he extended his arm, it cramped up.

“Mother grubbing shit!” he shouted, bringing his arm back before he lost the toad.

Below him, Portis looked up and caught his eye.  The staff sergeant nodded.

“No!” Ryck shouted, but it was too late.

X-Ray stood up and darted around the pirate and ran straight away.  The pirate swung about, took two steps forward, and shot Portis down.  He took one more step, as if to check the Marine, and that put him directly under Ryck.

Ryck stepped off the branch and fell almost two meters to land on the pirate’s shoulder.  Agony flashed through his right foot, but he managed to get his left arm around the Nizzie’s neck.  With his cramping right arm, he slammed the toad to the side of the pirate’s helmet.  He let go and fell to the ground as the pirate took a stumbling step back, his foot landing on Ryck’s ankle.  The toad flared, and the man did a little dance of agony before he collapsed, almost landing on Ryck in the process. 

The heat was intense, and Ryck scrambled back to get away.  His eyebrows felt singed, but other than that and his ankle—and his shoulder from the day before—he felt surprisingly, well, alive.  He sat up and watched intense beams of light pour from the holes being eaten through the Nizzie’s armor. His mouth curved into a nasty smile as he took in his handiwork.

Marines started climbing and dropping out of the trees around the charging station.

Sandy reached him first, shouting, “Are you OK?  Are you OK?”

“Check on Portis,” Ryck said, waving him off.

Still on his ass, he surveyed the scene.  Three downed Nizzies were smoldering and smoking.  Two fires in the undergrowth had started, and several Marines were trying to stomp them out.

Ryck looked back at Sandy, who was standing over where Portis was lying.  His shake of his head told Ryck all he needed to know.  Portis was gone.

He tried to get up but almost collapsed.  His ankle was already swelling up.  Broken or sprained, he needed a nano-boost.

“Six, this is, uh, hell, this is Captain Wright.”

“Captain, we’ve taken out the Nizzies.”

“You did? Uh, great, sir, but listen, we’ve got company.  It’s the Acquisition police, and they’ve got a couple of personnel carriers.  There’s about 100 of them.”

“What do they want?” Ryck asked. 

“They want the ‘Marine Commander,’ that’s how they put it.  And that’s you. What do you want me to do?”

“Well, if they want to talk to me, ask them to come pick me up.  We can use the lift.”

Chapter 40

“Where is LtCol Nidischii’?” the police captain asked as Ryck hobbled out of the back of the personnel carrier.

The captain held up his PA, looking at it, then at Ryck.  “Uh, Major Lysander,” he continued, “I wanted to speak to your commanding officer.”

What is it with these Alliance worlds? So they get a grubbing ship’s manifest?
He wondered as he observed the seemingly casual gathering of men.

It might seem casual, but Ryck could feel the tension in the air.  His Marines had their weapons pointed at the ground, but it would be pretty obvious to the gathered police that they were ready to fight in an instant, if need be.

“I am in charge here,” Ryck said.  “So you are talking to him.”

While waiting for the police vehicle, Ryck had contacted his Federation command interface.  He reported the battle and the arrival of the planetary police and had been told to cooperate with them.

Heavy emphasis was put on the fact that this was not a surrender.  The mission was over, and now Ryck’s men would leave, but on their terms.  Cooperate, but don’t capitulate, he was told.

Ryck asked if they were Marines again, and after a short pause, his voice-in-the-sky came back with no, they were still all civilians, Federation citizens acting as bounty hunters to enforce joint warrants.  As the Liberty Alliance had signed the warrants as well, Ryck and his men were within their rights to land on the planet.

“And where is LtCol Nidischii’?”

“
Mister
Nidischii’ is back there in the SOG complex, buried when the pirates suicided by bringing it down on everyone.”

“Ah, I see.  Um . . . well, I guess I should be talking to you, then,” the flustered captain stammered out.  “Um . . . I, well, you are now on Acquisition, that is, Haven territory, and you carried out an act of war, so—”

“An authorized arrest mission,” Ryck interrupted.

“Please, Major.  We are adults here.  Yes, your government has forwarded your so-called company’s bounty hunter licenses to us, but are you really trying to tell me that you are not Major Ryck Lysander of the United Federation Marines?”

“Yes,” was all that Ryck said.

“You are Major Lysander?”

“No.”

“What?  You are or you are not?” the confused captain asked.

“Yes, I am telling you that I am not Major Ryck Lysander of the United Federation Marine Corps.  I am Mister Ryck Lysander, Federation citizen, a manager of Pegasus Fugitive Recovery, Inc.”

“Yes, we received a copy of the charter.  The company was formed eight days ago?”

“Yeah, that sounds about right,” Ryck said.  “So our documents and licenses are in order, right?  We are free to go?”

“But this is all pig shit!  We know what you’ve been doing.  We’ve been monitoring you.  You are Marines, pure and simple, no matter what your papers say.”

That explains why they contacted us immediately after the last pirates fell,
Ryck thought. 

“So you, with your 100 police officers, have been sitting on your asses just out of range while we fought a known terrorist group?  Your government signed the warrants, Captain.  You were required, by treaty, to assist us in their apprehension.”

“But, we, that is, they were in combat suits, and—”

“And you decided to save your precious asses and let us fight the fight, Captain,” Ryck said, scorn in his voice.  “Or, maybe you had a prior little agreement with them, right?”

The captain dropped his gaze to stare at the dirt as if trying to marshal his thoughts.

“Don’t sweat it, Captain,” Ryck said, changing tack.  “Look, you want us off your planet.  We want off your planet.  Let’s just get it done.”

The captain looked up, a hopeful expression on his face as he realized Ryck was not going to offer any resistance with regards to leaving. 

“Um, yes, yes, um, that’s great.  I’ve got some transports waiting for you, so if you can get your Marines, um, I mean, your men together, we can expedite this.”

“Not so fast there, Captain.”

“What?  But I thought you said—“

“I said we want to get off your sorry ass planet.  All of us.  Including those in the cave complex.  We’re going to need some heavy equipment to open the caverns up,” Ryck told him.

When the captain seemed to be considering it, Ryck went on, “We will not leave without our men, so the sooner you get on the hook and get that authorized, the sooner we are gone and you can get back to your home and family.”

The captain looked around at the Marines surrounding them, none overtly aggressive, but simply beaming with the warrior aura.  He nodded and then stepped away to a group of three other police.  They had a conversation, then one spoke into his throat mic, probably back to their command.

Ryck stood in the noon sun, sweat beginning to form on his forehead.  His ankle throbbed, but he was damned if he was going to sit.

In the shade of a large tree, Çağlar, lay on his back, his eyes focused on Ryck.  His shadow had taken a bigger near-hit by the Nizzie pulse gun than he had let on, and Ryck had to order him to stay put during their tree ambush of the last of the pirates.  He had struggled to sit up when Ryck came back, and Ryck had to motion for him to lie back down.  Ryck knew, however, that he was still ready to jump up and fight if it came to that. 

Ryck winked at the corporal and was rewarded with a smile and a slight relaxing of the big Marine. 

“Um, uh Major?  I mean Mister Lysander?  We’ve got the OK for you to get your men, but to help, we’ve got two dissonators and a couple of dozers and buckets to help.  They’ll ETA in about four hours.  Is that OK?”

“That should be fine.  Oh, and there are a bunch of kids and maybe some adults you’re going to need to get.”

“At the school?”

Bingo, you bastard
, Ryck thought. 
You’ve known all the time they were here
.

The captain immediately realized his mistake, and his face went white.  Ryck chose to ignore the comment other than by smiling.

“Yeah, at the school.  Be careful, though.  They’ve been taught well, and suicide bombing was evidently in their curriculum.”

He turned, and with intensive concentration to keep from limping, strode to where Sams, Sandy, and Capt Wright were waiting.  He ignored them, though, and went straight for Doc Lyons.  If he didn’t immediately get a nano-boost, he was going to collapse right then and there.