Recruit (2 page)

Four men darted out, and by bounding back and forth, hitting the deck before bouncing back up for another burst of 15 meters, they made their way up to the mule in front of Sgt Nbele.  Once there, they stood up and stared at it. 

Typical civilians
, he thought as he saw that. 
All that dodgin’ and bobbin’ to get up the slope, then they stand around gawkin’.  I wish to God I’d left a sniper up behind us.

The mule looked worse for wear.  He could see that several of the tires were blown.  He hoped the drill had been messed up, too.   All four men turned as one to look directly at him.  They were only about 30 meters away, and Sgt Nbele could see them arguing, several times pointing to the ground between them and him. 

One guy got on the control and started the mule up again.  It lurched forward, then the drive shaft of one wheel started to spin while pieces of the tire flew off.  Two of the men got behind the mule and pushed.  It lurched forward again, this time going maybe five meters before getting stuck once more.  Once more, the men got behind, and with brute force, got it moving again.

Whatever Sgt Nbele had hoped about the mule and its cargo, it looked like the
miners would make it up to him.  If they did, he had to rely on his armor to keep him safe until help could arrive.  No matter how many scenarios he went over in his mind, nothing he could think of would make any difference.  He had no secret powers, no way to fight back.  He didn’t even have some way to jury-rig a suicide blast that would take them out with him like what happened in the war flicks.

Withi
n a surprisingly short time, the miners were right in front of him.  One of them, an older guy with a two-day’s stubble covering his face, stood on the mule to stare inside Sgt Nbele’s visor.  The guy looked like anyone.  Dark complected with a narrow face, the only thing notable about him was his icy-grey eyes.  Even with the eyes, though, Nbele would never have given the man a second glance if he passed him walking down the street.  He seemed so, well
normal
.  The man looked to be studying him as well.  After a few moments, he shrugged and got back off the mule. 

As the men struggled to horse around the drill, Sgt Nbele had a sudden urge to take a piss.  With his suit powerless, though, he didn’t know if the catchment gel would work, and he would be damned if he was going to piss down his legs with the miners out there. 
He couldn’t see the drill bit anymore, but when it clanked against this armor, he almost let his bladder go.

He heard the muffled whine as the drill was turned on.  His suit
dampened most of the outside sounds, but as the drill bit started to try and force a way into his suit, the screeching reverberated loudly.  Sgt Nbele felt the vibrations, and his suit tilted slightly back before the drill skittered to the side and lost contact. 

His armor had held!

They wrestled the drill back, and set the bit directly on his front carapace.  Once again, as the bit made contact, the sound filled the inside of the suit.  But just as before, the suit deflected the drill, sending it off to the side.  This seemed to put a pause to things as the men stopped and started discussing the issue.

“Fuck you too, you freakin’ slugs,” he said quietly to himself.  “Just keep a’tryin
’, and before you know it, the lieutenant’s goin’ to get here, and pow, fuck you up but good!  So you keep talkin’ and jabberin’ like that you stupid negats.”

The men obviously came to a decision.  Two of them got on the mule and put their hands
on his chest carapace.  Both seemed to be avoiding looking into the visor to see him.  They looked back at the mule operator, and the vehicle gave a lurch.  He heard it hit him low on the legs as it rocked him.  It wasn’t enough to tip him over though.  But it backed up and lurched forward again, the men pushing as it hit him.  The mule couldn’t back up much or the two guys on top would fall, but even a foot or so gave it room to gain some momentum.  One the third push, Sgt Nbele thought he was going to fall over, but the suit’s mass kept it upright.  It took four more tries before that magic center of balance was surpassed.  He teetered for a moment before falling over backwards.

Without the motion suppress
ors working, Sgt Nbele had the breath knocked out of him as he fell, something digging heavily into his back.  The suits were pretty comfortable to wear normally, but without power, they were only so much junk. 

On his back, he could only see the sky.  He scanned
what he could, waiting to see the Stork come into view with the rest of the platoon onboard.  What he did see was the same guy who had looked at him before.  The man leaned over to look into the visor.  They stared at each other for a moment before the man crossed himself, bringing his fingers his lips as he finished the cross.  Then he nodded and stepped back out of view. 

When the drilling started again, the noise filled his ears.  It
kept going, though, not skittering off his armor.  They must have gotten him wedged, or maybe the drill itself wedged.  They still would have to penetrate his armor, though.  It might be over 50 years old, but it was pretty formidable.

The sounds of the drilling changed pitch, getting lower.  A sense of panic filled the squad leader.  That meant the drill bit had gained purchase.  The sound reverberated everywhere, but he tried to locate from where it emanated. 
With the vibrations that he could now feel, it seemed to be from about his waist, maybe where the chest carapace met the pelvic shield.  The newest Legionaire suits were seamless, but the old Marine suits were not.  Could the drill bit have gained some sort of purchase there?

The vibration started getting stronger, and the sounds of the bit slowed down even more.

“Break you mother!” he shouted at the unseen LTC bit.

Looking down
in the small gap between the skin of his suit and his chest, he had a momentary glimpse of a spinning metallic shaft before it plunged into his groin.  He was overcome by an intense flash of agony before his world went dark.

********************

Private
Ryck Lysander wiped the sweat from his brow as he caught his breath.  He’d just brought up the platoon’s entire load of the M887 anti-personal rounds for the M229.  He was not a trained artillery Marine, and as the newest of newbies, just reporting in two days prior to embarkation, he hadn’t been assigned to a squad and was instead the platoon runner, which meant doing whatever the platoon sergeant wanted him to do.  In this case, it was to hump arty shells.

When Second Squad had somehow disappeared from the net, a sense of alarm, if not panic
, had swept the platoon headquarters.  The eye-in-the-sky had shown the Marines suddenly stopping cold before some miners had appeared in the pit and the drone was knocked offline.  Lieutenant Prowse and SSgt England had a heated discussion for a few moments as they reported back up to the company and went over their options.  The platoon commander ordered Sgt Dixon, the arty team leader to saturate the open pit with anti-personnel fire.  There wasn’t any way to know how effective the support had been.  The lieutenant had been burning up the comm lines with the company commander, demanding the Navy get eyes on the objective and the Stork pilot to get the transport back.

“Get your gear, boot.  We’re going in with the lieutenant,” Doc Silestre told him. 

The platoon corpsman calmly checked the charge on his
M99
. 
Ryck
hurriedly checked his, too.  He hadn’t fired his weapon, so it was still at 100%, enough to fire close to 1,000 rounds of the hypervelocity darts. 

“What are we going to be doing?” he asked.

“Go get our guys, you dumbshit,” the doc told him.

Ryck
wanted to clarify that he meant what their orders would be and what he was supposed to do, but he bit his tongue.  He tried to look alert as the lieutenant and platoon sergeant made last-minute plans.  This wasn’t going to be some well-planned op but more of an immediate-action drill.  The problem was that Ryck hadn’t been with the unit long enough to rehearse any of the drills back on the Dirtball, and aboard the
Adelaide
, there hadn’t been much room for any sort of physical training.

Within moments, the platoon headquarters and Third Squad were forming up just as the Stork came floating over the LZ, its turbo fans rotating
to the vertical so the big transport could land.  SSgt England already had the Marines moving before the Stork touched down, jumping up on the ramp while it was still a half a meter in the air.  Ryck followed the rest of the Marines up into the belly of the bird. 

“Boot, you stick with me
like glue.  I want you on my ass,” SSgt England’s voice came over his ear bud, the triple tones preceding the voice message indicating that they were on a direct person-to-person circuit. 

Ryck started to acknowledge
when the double tone of an open-platoon circuit cut him off.  The lieutenant started giving out his order as the Stork rose smoothly into the air.  He spoke calmly, but Ryck could sense the underlying tension in his voice, even over the M919 small unit communication modules.  They didn’t know what had frozen Second Squad or knocked out the drone, so the Stork would come in low and drop them below the lip of the mine before bolting off to pick up Third Squad.  Two fire teams of Third, along with SSgt England and the squad leader, Sgt Piccalo-Tensing, designated Element A, would move up and over the western side of the pit and get to the Marines below them.  The remaining fire team and the rest of the platoon headquarters, Element B, would provide cover from the eastern side of the pit, then move down once Element A had consolidated its position.  This was a very basic plan, nothing like what Ryck had conducted in his almost 10 months at recruit training and then another three months at
IUT
at
Camp Otrakovskiy.  He knew there wasn’t much time for anything else, but still, he expected something a little more . . . well, he didn’t know what he expected, but it wasn’t this.

Ryck still didn’t know what he was supposed to do, but the platoon sergeant had told him to stay on his ass, so that was what Ryck was going to
follow.  He checked his M99 once more out of nervous habit before looking up at the other Marines.  No one showed any signs of the butterflies that threatened to take over his own stomach.  He wasn’t sure if he was scared or excited, and he really didn’t make an effort to figure out which it was.  This was what he’d been trained to do.  This was why he had left Prophesy.

He t
ried to lean the M99 on his thigh, but it slid off his trousers, his “skins,” which were slightly stiffened with the inserted armor protection, or “bones,” and he almost dropped it, barely catching it with one gloved hand.  Despite the imminent combat he faced, his mind snapped back to boot where dropping a weapon was a cardinal sin.  He gave a sigh of relief that he hadn’t dropped it as he secured his weapon.

And that was all the time he had.  With less than two k
licks to the mine, the Stork had them there quickly.  It flew in with the gentle approach that still amazed Ryck.  Something so big shouldn’t fly as smooth as a maglev.

The big bird flared, then the back ramp was
lowered and the Marines poured out.  Ryck followed the staff sergeant, trying to orient himself.  Within moments, the Stork took off, leaving the two elements alone to make their way up to the lip of the mine.  Ryck tried to keep aware of his surroundings while still watching the ground in front of him in order to stay on his feet.

As they reached the lip of the mine, SSgt England motioned them down.  He edged a small fiber-eye over the lip to see what was visible while they waited for the lieutenant to start the supporting fire. 

“We’ve got three, I repeat three combatants at my 10 o’clock, 550 meters from our present position, standing next to our friendlies.  The friendlies look to be down, over” the staff sergeant sent over the net to the lieutenant. 

Two beeps then indicated that he had switched to the element circuit, followed by “Listen up.  Do not, I repeat, do not stop to assist any of the down
ed Marines.  We need to get to the mine entrance and inside, so get through the kill zone quickly.  The lieutenant and Doc will see to Second Squad.  Got it?  I want each of you to acknowledge.  No stopping, over.”

Each Marine responded that he understood.  No stopping. 

Ryck checked his M99 once more.  He hadn’t fired yet, so nothing would have changed, but still, he had to check.  He couldn’t see where the other element was, so he hugged the dirt, listening to his heart pounding.  If Second Squad, suited up in their PICS had been taken out, what could they do with only their skins and bones?

Lieutenant Prowse finally had Element B in position, and on order, the element opened fire.  Element A immediately pushed over the lip and into the mine.  Ryck had a glimpse of a miner off to his front left turning to flee, only to be cut down from
the Marines’ fire.  Ryck hadn’t even tried to fire himself.  That was Element B’s job, and he was having enough trouble following SSgt England as they raced pell-mell down the slope.  It wasn’t really pell-mell, though.  Their jerky movements were reasoned.  From an assaulted position’s perspective, the rush was intended to make it difficult to bring the Marines under fire with any degree of effectiveness, and the Marines practiced this kind of movement until it was second nature to them.  Ryck hadn’t had much experience yet, though, so he just focused on keeping up with the staff sergeant.