Commandant (The United Federation Marine Corps Book 8) (18 page)

Chapter 26

For the next two months, Ryck never left Headquarters.  He had a bed put in his office, he ate in the cafeteria when Top Ekema could not entice him with favorites, and he hit the weight room and bikes late at night when he could be alone.  Jorge, Sams, and Çağlar tried to draw him out, but they’d given up, instead, just hovering around to be there if needed.

Without his family, Ryck told them, there was no reason to use his quarters.  The more time he spent at his job, the sooner he’d be reunited with Hannah and the twins.

And despite a direct link to any specific causation, things were going well from a military standpoint.  While the Navy battled essentially to a draw in three skirmishes since the ambush off Corinthia, the Marines had won a flurry of limited battles, taking two stations, and destroying facilities on three planets and a loyalist country.

Others were taking notes.  Two planets declared for the evolutionaries, and emissaries from all over human space were making contact.  With the prohibition against massive Naval strikes on planets, the situation favored the provisional government and the Marines, and Ryck was not about to let up.  Admiral Chandanasiri had asked Ryck to slow down the tempo—it was his ships and chartered civilian ships that had to transport the Marines overall—but Ryck said they had to fight while momentum was on their side.

And now, Ryck was going over the after action report of the capture of Geilgud.  Intel (provided by the Confederation) had revealed that this stalwart loyalist planet, close to the home system, was not as loyalist as they had been led to believe.  With First Marine Division, in whose AO Geilgud lay, in the process of taking the huge PTA Mining fields in the Stravonskiya Belt, Fourth Marines, en masse, “snuck” in behind the loyalist major defenses and quickly took down the capital, defeating a much larger FCDC and local militia force.  There were not enough Marines in the Corps, probably, much less in Fourth Division, to hold the planet, but the Confeds had been right.  The citizens were not hard-and-fast loyalists.  Far from it.  They welcomed the Marines, in fact, and within two days, the Fourth Division was leaving a planet that was being organized as the newest member of the “legal” Federation.

Ryck was proud of how quickly Major General Hank Uttley, the Fourth Marine Division commanding general, had reacted.  Between Hank, Jorge, and Ryck, they were the only flag officers from their NOTC class.

What with Geilgud and the other planets declaring for them, there was now close to a parity between those who supported the loyalists and those who supported the evolutionaries.  And with the navies somewhat hobbled, the balance was shifting away from the loyalists.

Yes, things were looking up, and for once, Ryck had a true hope that they would prevail.

He was glad for that, and he felt a sense of justified pride.  But as he settled into his cot in the back of his office to try and get some sleep, he was not a happy man.

Chapter 27

“Shit happens, sir, in war.  That’s the way it’s always been,” Zeke Montero said.

“That ‘shit’ was 11,000 civilians,” Ryck said coldly. 

“Loyalists,” Montero said.

“They were civilians, and we don’t fight civilians,” Ryck said, rising to his feet.

I hate this guy!

Jorge interrupted before Ryck could explode.  “Zeke, those people did not deserve to die.  We targeted the complex, and we leveled it before we realized who was in it.  Yes, ‘shit’ happens in war, but we need to rise above the level of barbarians.  We’re the good guys, right?”

“Of course,” the public affairs liaison said as if brushing it off.  “But issuing an apology won’t do anyone any good, and it will stop the momentum we’ve been experiencing.  We can’t just say we fucked up.  Maybe later, after we’re in power, we can run an investigation, and you can slaughter a sacrificial lamb, but not now.”

I’d really like to slaughter you
, Ryck thought, hoping the man had ESP and could catch that.

“No, for now, the loyalists cowardly used civilians as human shields.  We reacted accordingly, and once we realized that civilians were being sacrificed by the militia, we stopped our assault.”

Jorge jumped in again, cutting off Ryck and technically taking responsibility for the decision. “OK, run with it.  But I want a comment that we will conduct a thorough investigation.”

“I can live with that, as long as there isn’t one until after we’re emplaced in power,” Montero said happily.

“Does he realize that those were people there, people we killed?” Ryck asked as Montero left the office.

“Of course he does,” Jorge said.  “He just doesn’t care.  This is all a game for him.  He’d be happy with us or back on Earth with the loyalists, just as long as he got to play in the sandbox.”

“I caught what you did.  You gave the order.  Are you trying to protect me in case this all goes rotten?” Ryck asked.

“Not really, sir.”

“Bullshit, Jorge.  You really need to learn to lie.  Remind me never to put you in front of the holocams to explain this.”

Jorge shrugged, then looked at his PA to see what was next.  Ryck reached out and pushed the PA back to the table’s surface.

“Should we have authorized the thermobarics?”
[13]
Ryck asked.

Ryck knew that one of his weaknesses was second guessing himself, but he really wanted to know what Jorge thought.

“No, we shouldn’t have, but that was hindsight.  Given what we knew, it was the right decision.  I hate that maggot Montero, but he was right.  Shit happens.”

“But 11,000 people!”

“And you saved 12 billion on Ellison?  Look, sir, I grieve for them, and I swear I’ll get to the bottom of what happened now and not later.  But we chose thermobarics to destroy the complex before the militia division could launch a counterattack.  OK, it was bad intel, but our decision, based on what we knew, was sound.  And we prevailed in the mission.

“And now, sir, with all due respect, we’ve still got the list from the CAC, all 62 items that need yours and the admiral’s OK.  We’ve got the conference with the admiral at 1100, so we need to put Watershed behind us and get about the job of governing.” 

Chapter 28

Slowly, but surely, the noose was tightening around the loyalists.  Goods and material were flowing into the evolutionary side, most through supposed independent ship owners, but in reality, Confederation contractors.  The Confederation paid the bills, too, for the imports.  At least, they lent the money for the bills.  Ryck knew they were incurring a huge debt to the Confeds, and he didn’t like that one bit, but it was better than slowly being strangled by the loyalists.

The loyalists had instituted a draft for their Marines, something that hadn’t been done since the Federation was formed, while Ryck’s Marines had more volunteers than the ability to train them up.  Camp Charles was bursting at the seams.

Ryck dispatched Sergeant Major Ito once more to the camp to make sure that standards were still maintained and to do an initial evaluation of how women were being integrated into the process.  It would do no good to have more Marines, but Marines who could not perform as Marines should.

On the ground, the Marines had racked up one victory after the other.  Watershed had the huge number of civilian casualties, but from a military standpoint, the Marines had swept aside a full five divisions of militia, so even their lone setback was not much of one from a tactical standpoint.  Yes, the Tenth Marine Brigade was stuck on Killdeer, trapped by five loyalist ships, but they had succeeded in destroying DelPat’s largest munitions plant first.  The loyalist ships couldn’t do anything about the Marines on the ground, but they could keep them there, so Ryck and the admiral decided just to leave them on Killdeer for the time being.  That kept two cruisers, a frigate, and two destroyers tied up and out of the fight, and the Marines in the brigade were able to train unmolested for their next mission, whenever that might be.

Ryck knew it must be killing the Council members.  The Navy could sit off and devastate the Marines on the ground, but their hands were tied. 

Ryck and Jorge had discussed at great length the probability that the loyalists would continue to hold their hand.  They still had the advantage in ships, but as more forces and governments defected to the evolutionaries, even that could shift.  Ryck was fairly certain that the Council would not let that happen, the rest of humanity be damned.  Jorge felt that they might try something else, but he doubted that they would resort to planetary bombardment.

Jorge was right.

“Vice-Bishop Hadad is here to see you,” Vivian said over the intercom as Ryck was eating a quick tuna sandwich at his desk.

“Did I miss something?  Did we have an appointment?”

“No, sir.  He just showed up at security. He says it’s vital that he sees you.”

The vice-bishop was one of two Brotherhood representatives to the provisional government.  “Observer” was the term they used.  The Brotherhood was officially neutral, so it would not appoint an ambassador, but the fact that the previous ambassador on Earth had not been recalled spoke volumes to Ryck.  And that pissed Ryck off to no end. 

According to the provisional government’s own Intel, the proscription against space to ground weapons was instigated by the Brotherhood in an effort to protect Mother Earth.  They hadn’t realized until after it had been rammed through the Universal Assembly that the proscription would heavily play into the evolutionaries’ hands.  By then, and with the Confederation’s full support (who realized the tactical advantage that gave the evolutionaries, according to Pohlmeyer), it was too late for them to back down.

Ryck wanted to tell the vice-bishop to make an appointment, but he knew he couldn’t.  Even if the Brotherhood favored the loyalists, Ryck could not afford to piss them off.

“OK, tell security to let him through,” Ryck said.

He wolfed down the rest of the sandwich, licking his fingers clean.  It might have been just tuna, but Top Ekema, in his indubitable fashion, had somehow made it into something special, and Ryck had just treated it like the ghost shit they ate while in their PICS.

Ryck started to get up to wash his hands, expecting he’d have to shake the vice-bishop’s hand, but on second thought, he sat back down.  If he had a little spit on his fingers, what of it?

It took the vice-bishop a few minutes to be escorted in to see Ryck, not that Ryck got anything done in the interim.  He wondered what the man had to say that was so important, getting the feeling that it would just be one more headache.  He looked at the clocks above the door—the one on
Prometheus
-time showed 21:52.

At least its working hours here
, he thought, guessing that the vice-bishop’s counterpart with the Third Fleet was showing up to see the admiral at the exact same time.

“Vice-Bishop, what can I do for you?” Ryck asked as Vivian escorted the man inside the inner office.

Ryck offered his licked-clean hand to shake, but the vice-bishop didn’t take it, merely handing over a recording stylus instead.

Damn!  Didn’t get him with that
, Ryck thought as he took the stylus.

“A physical message, Vice-Bishop?” Ryck asked.  “Isn’t that rather cloak-and-dagger?”

“General, I’d appreciate it if you could read it,” was all the vice-bishop said.

Curiouser and curiouser
.

Ryck stared at the envoy for a moment, then shrugged and started to touch it to his PA jack, stopping just short of actually making the transfer.  Instead, he opened his drawer and took out a stand-alone PA, making the data transfer onto it.

It wasn’t that he didn’t exactly trust Hadad, and his security would have scanned the stylus, but still, there was no use taking any chances.

The screen flickered, and to Ryck’s surprise, the smiling face of Hopkins Garrison, the loyalist First Minister and Ryck's former boss, appeared.  Ryck stopped the recording and looked at the vice-bishop.

“Have you seen this?” Ryck asked.

“Yes, I have.  It was sent via a Level 12 encryption to our liaison office.  I was ordered to personally make a physical copy under a CAD, so only I have seen it.  I was told that my superiors have not seen it, yet.

A Copy And Delete was a high-level transfer that moved a file from one system to another, deleting the file from the first host.

“And this is a CAD-1?” Ryck asked.

“CAD-2T,” the vice-bishop said.

Well, no shit, Ryck.  Come on.
 
Think before opening your mouth!
 

It had to be sent to the vice admiral first, so a CAD-1 wouldn’t work.  It had to be at least a CAD-2, allowing for one more transfer, which Ryck had just done.  And it being a CAD-2T, or terminal, then it could be viewed only once.

“I think I need to get some other people in here,” Ryck said.

The vice-admiral held up the stylus cap.

“I’ve been instructed that if you attempt to do that, or if you try and remove me from your office, I’m to delete the file,” the vice-bishop said.

Ryck stared at the man.

Is he bluffing?  Security should have caught a remote trigger, but it’s certainly possible. Grubbing hell, I’ll just watch the damned thing.  It’s not as if I need witnesses when I relay what it says.

His mind made up, he turned back on the recording.

“Major General Lysander—or, General, if you want—I’m not sure you’ll be too surprised to hear from me.  You’ve done pretty well, I grant you, in out-playing that idiot Fred Nottingham, so maybe you’ve been expecting this.

“As long as I’m mentioning General Nottingham, I’ve got to ask you, is he still working with you?  He might as well be,” the first minister said with a laugh.

What the grubbing hell?  The first minister’s playing comedian?  What is all of this?

“Eh, not that it matters.  He’s out the door one way or the other.  And when I say ‘out the door,’ I think you know what I mean.”

Yeah, I know.  The Federation does not suffer losers lightly.  A quick trip out to the Cube
[14]
and an equally quick execution.

“Well, if you haven’t figured it out already, the chairman is not too happy with you, and he’s not pleased with the way things have progressed.  I might add that he’s not happy with me, either, considering you worked for me, but no hard feelings, huh?”

The first minister’s flippant attitude was beginning to piss Ryck off, and he wished the man would get to the point.

“And lately, your little band of oathbreakers. . .”

That stung Ryck.  No matter the justification, he had broken his oath.

“. . .has managed some surprising gains.  Do you know that on Varius, the oddsmakers have raised you from 23% to 54% to succeed?  The chairman was livid when he heard.”

54%?  That’s up from 43% yesterday.  What changed in the last 24 hours?
Ryck wondered.

None of the gambling meccas in the Federation—either one—had issued odds, but humanity is vast, and gambling is part of the human DNA.  The two biggest gambling planets were the “twin V’s,” Vegas and Varius, and Varius was in the Confederation, so it was not surprising that they had been keeping the odds and taking bets.  They knew how to extract wagers on just about anything.

“So, as you can imagine, he’s ordered a game-changer, and that’s what I’m here to convey to you.”

Ryck’s heart skipped a beat.  He looked up at the vice-bishop, but the man was giving away nothing.

The recording switched from the first ministers, sitting behind his desk, to a barren room with three people in it.  It was not the best quality recording, and it took Ryck a moment to recognize the three.

“Hannah!” Ryck said, jumping to his feet, unable to contain himself.

Hannah and the twins were sitting at a table, the only furniture in the room.  The twins were on one side, Hannah on the other.  Hannah and Esther were holding hands across the table. 

After about five seconds, the recording switched back to the first minister.

“Well, Ryck, it’s like this.  We’re pressing charges against your family.  Treason, of course.  The trial will be quick, the trip to the Cube quicker.  All completely legal, of course, I might add.  Oh, your Confed friends might scream and shout, but the law is the law.”

The blood rushed from Ryck’s head.  He’d been worried about his family, despite the assurances from intermediaries that they were fine.  And this was why.  He knew that the Council wouldn’t hesitate to use them against him.  He’d been hoping that his family would be kept out of the fray, but that had been naiveté and wishful thinking.

There was no doubt in his mind that the first minister was telling the truth.  It would be a quick trial, and then his Hannah, his Esther, and his Noah, would be taken up to the execution chamber in the Cube.  Hell, they’d just take them behind the courthouse and shoot them like dogs if capital punishment was still allowed on Mother Earth itself, and that rule was one they’d never broken in the 290-odd years since the Tripoli Accords which ceded most of the control of the planet to the Federation to administer.

“Did you know this?” Ryck shouted at the vice-bishop, needing to let loose at someone, anyone.

“Yes, I’m sorry to say.  We do not condone this, of course.”

“But you’re willing to let it happen!”

“It is not in our control,” the vice-bishop said quietly.

“. . .sign of a traitor ship, and we might not wait to take them to the Cube.  Accidents do happen, you know,” the first minister was continuing.

Ryck pushed the vice-bishop out of his mind.  He had to listen.  He’d missed the first part of what the first minister had just said, and he couldn’t afford to miss anything else.

“I hate to be the bearer of bad news—no, the hell with it.  I don’t hate it.  I’m rather enjoying it.  We had such high hopes for you, and now you’ve screwed me and stabbed me in the back.  I’m not that far from the Cube myself, so to be honest, I’m happy I was the one chosen to give you the message.

“So it almost pains me to tell you there is a way out.”

A way out?  How? Ryck wondered, hope springing to life.

“The thing is, we need a trial, and a public trial is best.  And who better to stand accused than the great oathbreaker himself?  The one who ordered his men to slaughter 11,000—or maybe that was 50,000—civilians on Watershed? 

“Oh, before you get your panties in a twist, that might not be quite what happened, but the truth is written by the victors, don’t you know?

“But you know what I’m getting at.  You for them.  An even swap.  You come in, and we release them, as simple as that.”

Ryck’s subconscious probably knew that was coming, and hearing it was almost a relief.  There was a way out for his family.  Ben might be gone, but Hannah and the twins could live.

“Now I can say you’ve lived a good life, that you’ve survived the Brick and all that, but let’s not get bogged down with sentimentalities.  Let’s keep it pure and simple.  You for them.

“You’ve got 24 hours to decide.  You know my secured line.  I haven’t changed it.  Dial me up and say ‘Pantry Elephant.’  That will clear you to me.  Don’t call me, and your family dies.  Forget the access code, they die.  Call me to tell me to fuck off, they die, and the next time you see them will be a holo of them being executed.