Lieutenant Colonel (The United Federation Marine Corps Book 6) (17 page)

Ryck didn’t want his actions to change the way the battalion fought.  On the other hand, he thought being able to see the town would be beneficial, and he didn’t want to wait until a team was formed.  The fight would bypass the area.

“No, I’m fine.  I’ve got two tracs in back of me, and all of Golf in front of me.  You focus on the fight and quit worrying about me.”

Ryck turned around and spotted one of the two tracs that were in back of him.  The other one obviously was not as close as he had told Proctor.  Well, one was enough, and Golf had already cleared the area.

“Let’s go, Hans.  I want to see if we can get to the top of 1128,” Ryck told Çağlar.  “Keep your eyes open,” he added.

The building was only 40 meters in front of them.  It didn’t look particularly sturdy, and Ryck wondered if it could support the weight of the two Marines in their PICS.

It has too
, he told himself. 
They must have building codes here
.

From off to his right, a big gun opened up from a position on the right hill.  Almost immediately, several tanks opened up as well, silencing the gun.  A few Marines had been degraded, but there was no major damage done. 

It all seemed like a waste of resources, something Sylvington was not noted for.  The company was up to something; Ryck just hadn’t quite figured out what that was, though.

When entering a building, it was always better to make an entrance rather than using an existing door, and a Marine in a PICS was more than capable of breaking through walls.   This was friendly property, however, and while Ryck had no problem blowing up a building from which they were taking fire, this wasn’t the case here, and Ryck would undoubtedly have to fill out reams of paperwork explaining why he had to break down the wall on Widow Smith’s office for orphans and the destitute.

With Ryck covering, Çağlar reached out and turned the doorknob.  To his surprise, the double doors swung open.  Çağlar ducked in first, followed by Ryck, who was careful not to hit the jamb.  Ryck entered an obvious reception area.  It was somewhat barren, and Ryck had the impression that this was the home of various almost-rans.  An LED display was behind the receptionist’s desk, listing the 20 or so offices in the building.  Names of accountants, lawyers, a dentist, a couple of engineers, and a Psyche Suppressor, whatever that was, and their offices still shone brightly. 

Ryck took a look at the elevator, but two Marines in PICS took up a lot of space, and it really wasn’t a good idea to be potentially trapped.

“You OK, sir?” Proctor asked on the P2P.

“I’m fine, don’t worry.  You keep your mind on the mission,” Ryck answered.

A lone stairway at the end of the hall would be their only possible egress to the roof.  It looked OK, but Ryck couldn’t be sure until one of them actually tried it.  He had to make a decision.  The fight for the town was still going on, even if the firing had become more sporadic.  Either Sylvington was running out of weapons or the Marines were being lulled into a false sense of impending victory.

“Let’s give it a shot,” Ryck told Çağlar, not willing to just give up on it.

“I’ve got it,” Çağlar said, carefully placing one big foot on the stairs. 

They didn’t even creak.  The sergeant quickly went up the first flight of stairs to the second floor.

“Looks good, sir.”

“I’m coming up,” Ryck said as he stepped on the stairs as well.

It was a fairly tight fit in a PICS, but within a moment, Ryck had joined Çağlar on the second floor.  For all of Ryck’s concern, the stairs were a non-issue.  Çağlar went up the next flight.

“I’m at the top now,” Çağlar said.

There was a crashing sound, then the sergeant passed, “I’m on the roof.  The hatch was a little tight, so I kind of had to push my way through it.”

Ryck shook his head, passed “Coming up,” and climbed the stairs.  A short flight led from the stairwell to the roof, where sunlight was streaming in.  A wrecked doorjamb hung in tatters, but at least nothing else looked damaged.  Ryck carefully edged through the opening, then joined Çağlar on the flat roof.  A low, one-meter tall wall ran along the edge of the building.  Ryck moved forward and looked out over the town.  Visibility was not quite as good as he had hoped.  The lower buildings below him cut off too many of the lines of sight.  Directly in front of him, though, and about three blocks in front, a Davis rumbled in and out of view.  The tank was followed by two Marines in PICS.  A quick check, and Ryck knew they were from Golf’s Second Platoon. 

The battle had turned into a game of whack-a-mole. A weapon would appear and fire, drawing a fierce Marine reaction.  At close ranges, the Sylvington energy weapons were more effective, taking less time to overwhelm a Marine.  Ryck’s heart fell when two more Marines were killed.  He wanted to react, but that was for the small unit level.  He had to keep the entire battle area in his mind.

Sometimes, though, the Marines reacted and attacked nothing.  Images would suddenly show up on the Marines’ sensors, then disappear as the Sylvingtons continued in their spoofing efforts.  Lieutenant Wormack was hard at work trying to get the
Derne’s
powerful decrypting AI’s to break through the real and the fake, but as soon as the AIs seemed to make progress, the Sylvingtons were switching up.

Both Ryck and Çağlar were hit with a passing meson beam.  His AI calculated the POO,
[15]
but before Ryck could pass it, someone fired off three grenades that either put the gun out of action or caused it to displace.  Ryck tried to call up one of the hummingbirds to check out the merc gun position, but the little drones were either knocked out or blocked.

Ryck couldn’t see as much as he hoped, and the fight was moving to the far side of the town.  Golf on the right and Fox on the far side were getting close enough that friendly fire was a real possibility.

“Fox, Golf, I want you to shift to confirmed targets.  All AIs on Fire Control,” he passed to the two company commanders. 

Putting the AIs in each PICS as a governor for weapons engagement slightly slowed reaction time.  In practice, it shouldn’t be enough to affect anything, but theoretically, it could make a difference in a firefight, and if a valid target was between two Marines, the AIs might not let either Marine engage it.  But the risk of friendly fire was growing, and having the AIs kill any fire that had a friendly as a target made sense.  The fight with the mercs seemed to be slowing, and Ryck was half-expecting a surrender at any time now.

He checked Weapons Company and the H & S cats and dogs following in trace of the rest of the battalion.  He and Proctor had discussed possibly bringing up the M54 field gun or the M61 crew-served plasma gun as both were direct fire weapons, but in the end, given the ROEs,
[16]
they had decided against it, knowing they could call the teams forward if the tactical situation warranted it.

With the fight petering out, Ryck started to relax just a hair, which was always a mistake.  A laser designator hit him, sending his alarm screaming.

“Colonel!” Çağlar shouted, rushing to push Ryck out of the way.

Ryck was already moving, though, juking to the side, then juking back to jump through the open hatch, all 900kgs of him slamming down on the landing below.  A moment later, Çağlar landed beside him.  The floor shook, but held.

His heart racing, Ryck let out a laugh and said, “Well, that got the juices flowing.”

His alarm cut off, thankfully.  It was one of the most raucous noises a PICS could make, scientifically designed to elicit an almost instinctive reaction.  And it had succeeded.  Ryck had reacted without thinking, quickly enough so that whomever, or whatever AI had targeted him, had not gotten off a shot.

“Won’t do us any good getting zeroed when they’re about ready to surrender, huh Hans?” he asked.

“No, not much, sir,” his ever-present bodyguard said in a sour voice.

Ryck didn’t know for just what weapons system the laser was targeting him, but lasers in that frequency tended to be for the more powerful weapons.  Powerful enough to take out a Marine in a PICS?  Ryck didn’t know, and he hadn’t wanted to stick around long enough to find out.

“OK, I think we’ve had enough fun here.  Let’s get down and move forward,” Ryck said.

The two Marines made their way down the stairs and out of the front of the building.  One of the Armadillos was stopped 30 meters in front of them, a Marine crouching over the chain gun on the top.

“What’s your status, Dogpound 8?” Ryck asked, pulling up the number from his display.

The Marine on top didn’t turn around, but the trac commander responded, “We took a hit from something.  It screwed up the chain gun.  Lance Corporal Hodges is trying to fix it.”

“Are you going to be combat effective?” Ryck asked.

“We’re trying, sir.”

“If you have no weapon, I want you to pull back.  You’re doing no good here,” Ryck said.

He switched to the platoon commander.  “I’ve got Dogpound 8 sitting here in front of me, just a big target.  Their chain gun has been knocked out.  Why is it still here?”

“Uh, roger that, sir.  Corporal Albert is assessing to see if they can get her back up,” Lieutenant Wells said.  “And if not, she can still be used as a transport for extracting wounded, and it also spreads the focus on anyone targeting the tracs.”

“Look, I want Dogpound 8 out here.  It can’t fight, so there is no benefit to the risk.  Your other tracs can be used to extract anyone.”

“Roger that, sir.  I’ll pass the word.”

“Grubbing hell,” he said to Çağlar.  “Who keeps a damaged trac in combat?  That’s just asking for trouble.  We don’t want another Cennet here.”

Ryck took a quick glance at his display.  Parts of Fox and linked up with parts of Golf, and they had shifted their advance to sweep up the rear of the town, heading for Echo’s sector.  Even if the mercs in the town did not surrender, this would be over soon.

“Proctor, I want the Alpha Command to displace to 1377.  Start moving everyone there,” he passed on the P2P.  “Keep good dispersion, though.”

The Alpha Command didn’t have to be co-located to coordinate the fight.  But Ryck wanted a face-to-face with the principles before the next phase of the battle, and the bank designated as 1377 would be centrally located once the three line companies had linked up.  He could easily call in the commanders.

“OK, Hans, let’s go,” he told Çağlar, turning himself around to step off in that direction.

His vision was engulfed with a blinding white flash as his displays went crazy, mostly flashing red of systems being overwhelmed.  His AI was knocked out as his shielding flickered a few times before giving up the ghost.  Ryck slowly tipped over, seeming to take an eternity to fall to the ground.

“Hans!” he shouted, waiting for a second shot.

Even without his AI designating what had hit him, he knew it had to have been a meson cannon.  And it had to be close in order to overwhelm his PICS that quickly.  He was just lucky that his shields had held out long enough to keep him alive, but he was in deep shit.  Another eight or maybe ten seconds at most, the merc cannon would have recharged, and Ryck couldn’t survive another shot.

Ryck didn’t know if this was pure bad luck, or if the mercs had had a seeker team trying to take out the Marine leadership.  Given the laser that had been on him, he suspected the latter.

He had limited movement, very limited.  Not enough to get up and out of the way.  He tried to bring up his M77 to engage a target, but his arm was almost frozen.  And then he saw, only 20 meters away, a squat, ugly looking cannon, poking out of the dirt.  In back of the clear shield, a face stared down at the controls.  A smiling face.

The merc was either a solo seeker or part of a team, and he’d been hiding, underground, heavily shielded from surveillance, poised like a trap door spider waiting for its prey.  And Ryck was that prey.

His comms were silent, knocked out.  Sandy and Proctor would know something had happened, and they would react, but in another handful of seconds, it would be too late.  With a huge wrench, Ryck willed his arm around, pointing his M77 at the seeker.  His targeting was out, but at this range, he didn’t need it.  He pulled the mechanical trigger, sending a stream of darts at the merc, who at least ducked as several darts hit the shield.  Then the man smiled as he reached out to touch the shield that had blocked the darts.  He gave Ryck a thumbs up, then reversed it to a thumbs down, his smile even bigger.

Grubbing hell!  Hannah!
Ryck had time to think before a huge shape burst into his vision and crashed into the cannon. 

It took him half a second to realize what had happened.  Dogpound 8, the
Retribution
, had driven itself right onto the cannon, crushing it.  Her chain gun might have been out, but 32 tons of titanium alloys and durosteel were a weapon in themselves.  Lance Corporal Hodges had driven the beast right on top of the cannon and was making zero degree turns on it, crushing it flat.

Ryck almost cried out in relief.  He’d been sure that his time had finally come and now, he gulped in the air, hyperventilating.  His PICS was dead, but he was alive.

I’m still here!
he told Hannah.