Lieutenant (The United Federation Marine Corps Book 3) (11 page)

Joshua was only 20 meters away, and Ryck could have shouted out, but he didn’t want any panic.  Joshua caught his eye and gave him a thumbs up before going into DI mode.

“You’ve got 30 seconds to get those people up in the truck.  Thirty seconds, Thallicker! 

“Sergeant Timothy, move it out now.  Head out on the bearing I gave you.  You civilians, the ones I assigned to Green Team, follow First Squad.  You, the one in the grey shirt, you’re the first one in line, and I want you on Lance Corporal Sutarno’s ass.  Sutarno, raise your hand.  See him Grey Shirt?  Yes?  OK, head ’em out!” Joshua shouted out at the milling people.

“Lieutenant?  I’m going to head out to see if I can’t link up with my team.  If I can get you any info, I will,” SSgt Hills said as he walked up.

“Sure, and good luck.  First, though, you said you could see them with your eyes, but nothing showed up on any of your scanners?”

“That’s right, sir.  They were plain as day when we saw them, but the scanners still showed nothing.”

“OK, thanks.  And Godspeed.  I really appreciate your efforts.  I’ll make sure to tell your command when we get back,” Ryck told him.

“Just doing our job, sir,” the recon Marine said, but Ryck could see he was pleased.

Ryck pulled up the Navy supporting arms net, bypassing the Marine FSCC.
[27]
  He knew he would hear about it later, but he didn’t have time to go through channels.

“
Ashland
, this is Lieutenant Lysander of Kilo 3/6  at the coordinates I’m sending.  I’ve got a flash EIR
[28]
for you, over.”

“Roger, lieutenant.  But why send an EIR to us?  We’re fire support,” came the reply.

“No time,
Ashland
, and you’ve got the scopes.  Can you scan the coordinates I’m sending for any sign of enemy forces?  This has to be done visually, and Lieutenant (JG) Juarez showed me your old optic tracking scope.  Can you get that online?” Ryck asked.

“Uh, wait one.  Let me ask someone,” the voice on the other end said, clearly out of his comfort zone.  “I’ll get back to you.”

“Hurry on that.  We need that info right now,” Ryck said.

LCpl Abbas beeped the horn behind Ryck as he put the truck into motion.  Ryck moved to the side to let it pass.  An old lady sat in the back of the bed, and her flat, dull eyes focused on Ryck as the truck moved past.  Her grey hair was escaping the bun that had previously held it, and strands blew back and forth across her face, but her eyes never left Ryck.  It was a little creepy.

Ryck took a look behind him.  Joshua was getting the last group of civilians moving with Sgt Watson’s squad ready to bring up the rear.

Shit!
Ryck thought. 
I’ve got to get moving, too.

He ran back alongside the truck, the old lady thankfully blocked from his view.  He wanted to follow First Squad, but 15 or so civilians were between Ryck and Sgt Timothy, so Ryck just merged in behind the civilians and joined Cpl Goddard’s team.

“Marine officer calling, this is
Ashland
fire control.  We’ve approved your EIR and are bringing the J80 online.  Anything particular we’re supposed to look for?” the voice came over Ryck’s net.

“Affirmative,
Ashland
, anything that looks like a bunch of capys on the move,” Ryck responded. 

Dipshits!
he thought.
What grubbing else would you look for?

He checked his display.  Sgt Timothy and his lead two teams were about 200 meters from the salt mine.  They had another 300 meters until they reached the first hedgerow, then they would take the dogleg left, following the hedgerow for 400 meters until the intersection with the next one.  Then it was over that hedgerow, where the truck would have its only difficulty, then down the hill, alongside the marsh and into the LZ.

Ryck wished they could have designated a closer LZ, but with the marsh on two sides of it, the battalion S3
[29]
felt it would be more defensible than anywhere else in the immediate area.  Ryck though, and he assumed the pilots as well, did not like that there was high ground around the LZ.

Ryck looked back.  The final group of civilians was on the move, and Second Squad was just leaving the front of the mine.  It would be close, but Ryck thought they could get everyone to the LZ just as the Storks arrive.

He zoomed back on his route display, overlaying their positions so he could get a better idea of where they were and where they had to go.  Everyone was on the long line creeping forward.  Two Marines from Sgt Ariana’s team were off to the flank closest to the last known location of the capys, and one team was providing flank security on the other side of the column.  Those three teams were tramping through knee-high wheat, but with the slow speed of march of the civilians, they would have no problem keeping up.

Sgt Timothy’s team, in the lead, reached the first checkpoint and had bent the column around to the left to follow along the hedgerow.   Ryck checked the time on his display—they were doing OK.  If they kept up the pace, they could be at the LZ in 15 more minutes.

“Lieutenant Lysander, this is the
Ashland
, we . . . pick . . .ter . . .” the call came, flickering in and out before fading.

“
Ashland
,
Ashland
, do you read me?” Ryck asked as his AI searched the waves to re-connect.

What now?
Ryck wondered. 
Good grubbing time for comms to fail.

There was a flash of light behind Ryck.  He spun around to see the truck settle down to the ground, digging a furrow as it lurched to a stop.

“I thought you said you could drive that thing, Abbas!” Ryck shouted, running back to jump up on the passenger side running board.

He’s asleep?
was all Ryck could think as he looked inside the cab to see LCpl Abbas slumped against the instrument panel.

Ryck glanced into the bed of the truck. Every passenger was down.  There was no visible damage, but with certainty, Ryck knew they were dead.  The image of the little girl who had been so happy to get in the truck, the little boy and his mother, the old lady—all of them, motionless, was seared into his mind.

He spun to yell out when another flash, this time subdued, hit Cpl Goddard’s team where Ryck had been walking only ten seconds before.  Three of the Marines simply collapsed in boneless heaps while Pvt Hueber wheeled and went down, only to start to stagger back up.  There was no explosion, no gouts of dirt being flung up.  One moment, the Marines were looking up at him, the next moment, they were down.

Shouts and screams erupted along the line.  Ryck looked to the right, and there, about 800 meters away, a line marched steadily towards them.  The capys had found them.

Chapter 10

“Ughar, target to your right!” Ryck shouted from his higher vantage point on the truck’s running board.

LCpl Ughar and LCpl Keith made up the heavy gun team from Weapons Platoon that had been attached to Second.  They had one of the brand new M665 man-packed hadron guns.  This was the most powerful man-packed weapon in the Marine’s arsenal, new to all of them.  Three of the guns had arrived only hours before they had lifted off on the mission.

Ughar had just made the dogleg, but as Ryck shouted, he came rushing back.  The big M665 looked like an old WWII flamethrower on his back.

“Everyone else, move it!” Ryck shouted, all his comms gone. 

If he could get people on the other side of the hedgerow, he hoped that would provide some degree of cover.

By now, pretty much everyone had seen the capys.  The group of 15 civilians froze, wondering what to do.

“I said move it.  Get forward!” Ryck yelled, pointing the way for his charges.

The capys, what looked to be 40 or more of them, were slightly ahead of the column as well as far to the column’s right.  The bunched civilians hesitated, obviously not wanting to move forward when all their instincts screamed for them to turn and go back.

There was a dim flash from in front of one of the capys to the left of their line, then an instant later, a larger flash 20 meters in front of Ryck.  Five civilians, three men and two women, fell to the ground. 

That broke their trance.  They turned and started running back towards the mine.

In back of Ryck, Joshua was running forward.

“Turn those mother-grubbing idiots around! Ryck shouted at his platoon sergeant.  “We need that cover in front of us!”

M99 fire reached out to the oncoming capys.  Ryck couldn’t tell if it was having any effect, but the capys didn’t seem to stop their steady movement.  LCpl Ughar moved into a clear field of fire, leveled his beam generator, and fired.

Ryck had only seen an M665 fire on a training holo.  The shielding on the gun was extremely heavy.  It had to be in order to be man-packed.  But the side-lobes of the beam generation made Ryck’s hair stand on end.  The beam lanced out to impact among the capys. 

Technically, the beam itself was invisible, but the designers had created a sympathetic laser which could be used to walk the beam onto the target.  When that beam hit the capys, there was a blinding flare of actinic blue—and the capys emerged from the glare unharmed.

A beam like that could take down a ship, for God’s sake, and these creatures were untouched?

Ryck wasn’t sure how long the M665 could fire with the charge Ughar carried, but the Marines danced his beam back and forth among the enemy.

“Concentrate on one of them!” Ryck shouted.

If LCpl Ughar heard him, he gave no indication, and it wouldn’t have mattered.  Another flash of light, and both Ughar and Keith were down, the M665 inert.

Somehow, Joshua had stopped the flight of the ten civilians and turned them around.  Ryck finally jumped off the truck and sprinted forward to Sgt Timothy’s squad.  Two Marines were down, face-first in the wheat.  The rest were moving to shield the civilians, firing every weapon they had.

“That got one of those wind-up fucking hamsters,” LCpl La Garza shouted, still firing his M76. 

The M76 was the man-packed version of the PICS M77 bunker buster.  It was a nice weapon, with a slow-moving 8mm rocket designed to penetrate hardened targets, but it didn’t have nearly the destructive power of the M665.  Yet several of the Marines were cheering the downing of one of the “wind-up fucking hamsters,” as La Garza called them.

The description was apt, Ryck thought as he looked over at the capys.  They’d all seen the images that had been broadcast, so the general physiology was not new.  But as they advanced over the wheat fields towards them, they walked in an almost disjointed manner, extremely upright.  They reminded Ryck of when Hannah had dragged him to see the ballet,
March of the Teddy Bears
, the classic story of wind-up toy teddy bears coming to life for Christmas Eve.

The ballet teddy bears, though, didn’t march with a deadly purpose.

Two more Marines in front of Ryck fell.  It was all very surreal.  The Marines were yelling, the civilians screaming, but whatever weapons the capys were using were silent.  One moment, LCpl Thomas was firing his M76, the next moment, he collapsed, dead.

Ryck rushed to grab Thomas’ weapon, then wheeled to fire.  He took one shot at a capy still some 700 meters away.  If he hit it, the thing didn’t drop.  He started to sight in again when Gunny Meader’s admonition cut through his rising berserker mindset.  He had to lead them out of this mess, not fight. 

“Hogger!” he shouted, using PFC Highsmith’s nickname.  “Use this!  It’s got a bigger punch!”

He tossed the weapon into the air at Highsmith, not even watching to see if he caught it.

He spun around to check on the civilians.  The last of his charges were rushing past him, being forcibly pushed by Joshua and a few of Second Squad’s Marines. 

Ryck swept along side of them.

“Timothy!” he shouted.

Fuck this no comms shit!
he thought.

“Timothy!” he shouted again as he rushed forward, finally catching the squad leader’s attention.

“Pull in behind and cover our rear.  Keep your squad between the capys and the civilians,” Ryck shouted, using hand and arm singles to emphasize what he wanted.

Sgt Timothy raised a hand to acknowledge and started to turn back as another subdued flash of light illuminated him.  He dropped to a heap under the wheat tops.

“Mother fucking pigs!” Ryck shouted, firing off a burst of his M99 darts at the capys.

He pushed forward as the air crackled with pent up energy in the direction of the capys.  It was the
Ashland
, firing in support!

That seemed to buy them enough time to get everyone left alive behind the hedgerow.  It wasn’t high, and it didn’t provide much cover, but it was something.

“Squad leaders, keep moving, but give me a headcount!” he shouted out, his voice beginning to go hoarse. 

He made a quick mental tally, and his heart fell.  Barely 10 or 12 civilians seemed to have made it, and it looked as if only half of the platoon was combat effective.  Pvt Hueber had made it, dragging one useless leg behind him.  Two Marines were carrying Cpl Saul, who hung motionless between them.

Ryck looked back to where they had been hit.  The truck sat there motionless, and Ryck could just make out Abbas, still slumped in the cab.  Several other bodies were visible, but others were hidden by the wheat. 

Could some of them still be alive?
he wondered.

Marines don’t leave their dead, and that gnawed on Ryck.  He wanted to rush back, but
Ashland
or not, he had to get the civilians out of there.  That was his mission.  If he’d seen anyone alive out there, he would have gotten them, but the way most of the people had fallen, with his combat experience, he knew that they were KIA.

The crackle of the air as the Navy ship fired died away. 

“Think the ship got them all?” Hueber asked as he hobbled forward.

That was what Ryck wondered.  Joshua had the civilians moving, so it was worth a look.  Just intel, Ryck rationalized, not fighting.

“Private Lin, come with me,” he said to the nearest unhurt Marine. 

Ryck ran back to where the dogleg started.  He slowly edged around the hedgerow only to dive back, every hair on his body on end from a near miss.  Less than 300 meters away, the capys were still advancing.  Ryck couldn’t even tell if their numbers had been pared down.

“Move it, Lin!” he shouted, breaking into a run to catch up with the others.

“Move, move, move!” he implored them, willing them forward.

“Who’s got a claymore on them?” he yelled out.

“I do, sir!” Cpl Howell answered.

“Halfway to the next checkpoint, I want you to wait until the last person passes, then set it for motion detection.  Got it?”

“Roger that, sir.  Got it,” Howell said as he fell back to the rear of the ragged procession. 

Looking up ahead, Ryck could see the first of the civilians and a few Marines turning the corner.  They were only 200 meters or so from the LZ, which was down a short but steep hill and around a marsh at the bottom.

Four civilians, one who seemed wounded, were hobbling along, each one assisted by a Marine.  Ryck and the remainder of his Marines flowed just behind, slowed down but unwilling to pass them.  The four were their charges.

“Howell, here!” Ryck said, pointing out a spot on the ground.

Howell and Weiss, his grenadier, stopped and knelt.  It would take Howell about a minute to employ the claymore, but the powerful mine could make all the difference between success and failure.  Ryck kept moving, knowing the two Marines could sprint up to catch them before they made the turn. 

As Ryck got within 50 meters of the checkpoint, he turned to see if Howell and Weiss were coming.  They were just getting up and beginning to run when far in back of them, the first of the capy soldiers marched into view around the end of the hedgerow.

“Cover them!” Ryck shouted, stepping off to the side and opening fire.  Ryck could see the darts impacting the blue shielding of one of the capys, little flashes of light bursting as the darts hit.  The capys didn’t seem to try to take any cover or make any evasive action.  They just kept coming.  Ryck’s target, though, seemed to falter.  It didn’t go down, but it certainly looked like it was falling back, slower than the rest.

Someone fired an M72 HGL
[30]
, and this did have effect.  One capy went stiffly down to a knee, then toppled over backwards.

Then the capys opened fire.  The first two to fall were Howell and Weiss.  They were lit up, and down they went.

“Die you mother fuckers!” someone shouted to Ryck’s left.

Marines didn’t run from a fight, and every emotion shouted at Ryck to attack, to charge the mother-grubbers.  But he had his mission, and that was to evacuate the remaining civilians.  The fleet was leaving, and they had to get off the planet.

“Bounding overwatch, now!” he shouted.

The platoon was in shambles, the organization shot.  But Marines were Marines.  Without any more guidance, the eleven of them broke into three teams, each one with at least one M76 or HGL, the Marines’ only two weapons that seemed to have any effect on the capys.  Ryck was in one team, Joshua in another, and Sgt Watson in the third.  Ryck labeled them, and off they went.

“Watson, back, now!” he shouted while he and his team poured fire at the capys.

Sgt Watson’s team got up, ran back 15 meters, then wheeled to cover the others.

“Staff Sergeant, now!”

Joshua, with three others, ran back, passing past Watson’s Marines, and turning to face the capys.

“My team, now!”

Ryck felt a now-familiar tingle of a near miss.  Doc Camp, who was running beside and just to the front of him, stumbled and went down.  Ryck grabbed him by his harness and pulled him along. 

He got past Joshua’s team as Joshua took over, shouting, “Watson’s team, now!”

Ryck dropped Doc, then looked back to fire.  The capy’s were still coming, more and more appearing around the edge of the hedgerow some 400 meters away.  But they didn’t seem quite so rotely organized anymore.  The Marines’ fire had to be having an effect.

Ryck was only ten meters from the checkpoint.  A couple of Marines had stopped there and were covering their movement.  Sgt Watson ran by, scooping up Doc and taking his team around the corner of the hedgerow. 

Joshua yelled out his command, and his team got up, rushing through what was left of Ryck’s team and into cover.

“My team, let’s go!” Ryck shouted.

Ryck spun around and sprinted for safety.  Pvt Hueber, despite only one side of his body working, had stopped at the edge of the hedgerow and was firing, one-handed, back at the enemy.  Ryck felt pride at that, and he started to smile when his world erupted into light.  He fell to the ground, unable to move. 

He took a deep breath, then managed to get one arm out to push himself up.  Right in front of him, not a meter away, Hueber’s lifeless body stared up at him. 

Ryck wanted to scream, but his lungs wouldn’t obey his commands.  Arms grabbed him and roughly pulled him back out of the line of fire.

“You OK?” Joshua asked him, panic in his voice.

Ryck gasped twice, then managed to get out a weak, “Yeah, I think.”

But he wasn’t OK.  His left arm and leg, along with a good deal of his body, were numb and paralyzed.  He could barely keep breathing.  His heart was fluttering, but it still managed to beat.

Ryck tried to sit up, but hands kept him down.

“Get me up,” he managed to gasp out.  “Can’t breathe.”

The hands that were keeping him down now lifted him up.  He was still in trouble, but that eased his distress somewhat.

At the top of the hill, he could see the LZ, just 200 meters away.  A few of the civilians were on the LZ, covered by a handful of Marines.  And beyond them was a beautiful sight.  Three Storks, more than they needed now, he realized with a sense of sorrow, were inbound, coming in low.