Lieutenant (The United Federation Marine Corps Book 3) (13 page)

Chapter 12

“Congratulations, there, Lieutenant,” Major General Han said, shaking Ryck’s right hand.  “You’re getting a habit of making a name for yourself.  Pretty soon, you’ll have more fruit salad on your chest than me!” he said.

The other Marines in Ryck’s ward room dutifully laughed.  When the big man jokes, everyone reacts.

“Well, duty calls.  I’m sure some of your friends here will want to stay and help you celebrate.  No alcohol for you, son.  I know you young guns like to lift a cold one, but your buddies will have to drink up for you!”

Again, everyone laughed, even though the general’s words really weren’t funny.  Ryck, while undergoing regen, was not allowed to drink alcoholic beverages as they could affect the regen process.

The general, followed by his aide and his civilian photographer, left the room.  Ryck could hear the aid giving him the background for the next Marine on the ward who was getting a medal today.  Ryck didn’t even recognize who that Marine was.  He’d been stuck in his hospital bed for almost two weeks since Hannah had left, and he had no interest in trying to find out who else was going to be one of his fellow genhens as they started therapy.

LtCol Montrose came up first and shook Ryck’s hand.  Lying on his back, the angle was a little awkward with the colonel having to lift up his elbow and reach down.

“The general’s right.  That was a damned fine job you did.  You deserve the medal.  You need to concentrate on getting better so you can rejoin us before we take the fight to the capys.  We need you,” he told Ryck.

“Thank you, sir,” was all Ryck said. 

The entourage followed:  the battalion XO, the sergeant major, Capt Portuno and the other captains, the battalion’s lieutenants.  The members of his platoon were also there to watch the ceremony.  Doc Camp and Cpl Torrington were alive but in regen, but all the rest of the survivors, all who had gotten off GKN, were there.  It was a very small number.  Including Urghard and Keith, Ryck had gone ashore with 40 other men.  Nine Marines were there in his ward room.  Nine.

When Sgt Watson came forward to shake his hand, Ryck had to control himself.  He wanted to ask Watson just what he’d told Hannah.  Deep inside, he knew he just wanted to blame someone, but still, he felt what he felt, and he was angry with his sergeant.  Well, not his anymore.  Ryck had been transferred out of the platoon and was officially assigned to the WWB.
[32]

While Ryck’s platoon had been devastated, the battalion as a whole had gotten off pretty lightly.  There had been no other contact within the battalion’s AO, although the capys had been closing in on India Company when a flight of Navy shuttles had swooped in to pull the company and over 50 civilians to safety.  They had taken capy fire as they were flying off, and one shuttle, with over 100 people crammed aboard, had almost been disabled.  From all accounts, it had been a miracle that the pilot had kept the shuttle aloft and flew it back to the ship.

Second Battalion, Sixth Marines, though, had been almost wiped out.  Details were still sketchy given the capys’ ability to block electronics, but from accounts given by the last few shuttles to leave the area, the capys had come in along three major axis of approach, completely surprising the battalion when they suddenly appeared on the city outskirts.  What happened after that was somewhat of a mystery, but one in which rumors ran rampant.  The
Rio Pacure
sent in its flight of four Experion fighters, but all four were lost as soon as they swept in over the city.  The sensors on the monitor stationed over the city could discern nothing, and the drones it controlled all fell off the circuit. 

Admiral Hennesy, Commander in Chief, Third Quadrant, monitoring the situation from back on New Halifax, ordered the withdrawal after consultation with the Federation Council.  Two days later, with full approval of all the governing authorities of the human worlds, GKN was interdicted, the hulk placed under quarantine.  A fleet of 30 ships patrolled the area, trying to locate the capy ship that had made an appearance before disappearing.

There was a strong rumor, which Donte assured him was more than just a rumor, that when the four battle cruisers surrounded the planet to drop their planetbusters, a message was seen, cut out of the wheat outside of Peterbund, asking for a pickup.  Marines from 2/6 had fought their way outside the city.  That became moot, though, when the Navy killed off the planet.

Ryck put up with all the well-wishers, just waiting for them to leave.  He was not in a socializing mood.  Finally, it was just Donte and Unger left. 

“Glad that’s over?” Donte asked as he sat down, pulled off his shoes and put his feet up on another seat.

“I was about ready to scream, if you really want to know the truth,” Ryck admitted. 

“I know what you mean, man,” Donte said.

“You need anything?” Unger asked.  “Do you want to be alone?”

“No,” Ryck said, surprised that that was the truth.  He didn’t want to be alone.

“How about that kiss-ass with the general.  I went to NOTC with him, and he was a kiss-ass there, too.  Acts like he’s this big war hero and such, but that ain’t how it went down, as I hear it,” Donte said in a conspiratorial tone. 

“No shit?  What’d you hear?” Unger asked.

“Funny you should use that word, shit,” Donte started.

Despite himself, Ryck perked up and listened to Donte relate how one Second Lieutenant Hawk Pfiser had a malfunction in his PICS absorbing gel and had to take a dump.  He had exited his PICS, taken off his longjohns, and was squatting in the bushes when a Legion platoon attacked.  Pfiser’s NCOs saved the day while he was running around, bare-assed naked, his Ruger in his hand, trying to direct the fight.

For the first time since GKN, Ryck laughed.  He and Unger couldn’t contain themselves while Donte pranced around the room, acting out what he thought Pfiser would have been doing. 

Finally, Ryck had to hold up his good hand, crying out “Stop!  You’re going to set me back a month if I disconnect myself from this Frankenstein contraption.”

“Oh, I haven’t gotten to the good part.  The mother-fucker gets put up for a BC2
[33]
, and the wormhole accepts it!

That quieted Ryck, obviously not what Donte expected.

“Hey, what’s going on,” he asked, concerned.

“Um, can you come over here a sec,” Ryck asked.

“Sure,” Donte said, getting up and walking to stand by Ryck’s side.

“Can you lift that thing up so I can see it?” Ryck asked, pointing to the medal case on the side table next to his rack.

Donte picked it up and flipped it open, tilting it so Ryck could see the silver Distinguished Meritorious Service Medal hanging from the maroon and green ribbon. There was a gold combat “V” pinned to the middle of the ribbon.

Ryck studied it for a moment.  The medal was given to him for getting his men and civilians off the planet.  The citation lauded his “tactical acumen” and “fierce resolve.”  This was his reward for losing over half of his platoon.

“Toss it,” he told Donte.

“Excuse me?” Donte asked, confused.

Unger got up and came to stand by Donte.

“Toss it.  In the shitcan.”

Donte and Unger looked at each other, concern on their faces.

“Look, Ryck, we know how you feel.  But why shitcan the medal?  You earned it, man,” Unger said.

“Earned it?” Ryck said with a sarcastic-sounding laugh.  “Earned it? How?  I got 29 Marines killed.  We were sent to rescue civilians, and I lost 21 of them.  There were kids, little children there, for God’s sake.  And you say I earned it?”

“You also brought back eleven of your men and fifteen civilians,” Unger said quietly.  “Against the odds.  No one else has faced those fucking rats and brought back anyone, so yeah, you earned it.”

“Do you know I ordered my own brother-in-law to his death?  I ordered three Marines to die with him.  One of them, fucking Hogger, I picked him just because I had already given him Thomas’ M76 when Thomas went down.  It was pure fucking chance, but I still gave the order.”

“And if you hadn’t, none of you would have gotten off that fucking planet alive.  You had to do it,” Unger said while Donte nodded his agreement.

“I don’t care.  That grubbing piece of shit is for killing my men.  Whether I had to or not, that’s what it means.  Shitcan it.”

Both Donte and Unger were combat vets.  Both had lost men.  They understood.  Donte held his arm out, parallel with the deck.  He waited a moment, then dropped the medal, case and all, into the plastic trash can alongside Ryck’s rack.  It landed with a thud.

“I will never wear that medal,” Ryck promised.

And he never did.

Chapter 13

“I already told you a thousand times.  When the M665 fire hit the capys, there was a flash of blue light, light blue, but bright, and they just kept coming,” Ryck said, frustration evident in his voice.

This would be the sixth time he’d been debriefed.  A Marine captain, a Navy lieutenant commander, a civilian, and a petty officer made up this team.  Each team asked the same questions over and over, as if he were a criminal, and they were waiting for him to mess up his story.

To make matters worse, this time, they’d actually let some information slip.  The claymores that Howell and Weiss had set up at the cost of their lives had evidently never detonated.  That was two more men added to Ryck’s butcher’s bill.

“OK, Dr. Telluren, why don’t we give Lieutenant Lysander a breather,” the Marine captain told the civilian, who had been particularly interested in the shade of the glaring light.  “Say, five minutes?”

Ryck shot a grateful look at the captain.  He wasn’t doing much of the questioning, and Ryck knew his command had sent the Marines to watch out for him.

Ryck completely understood why he was being questioned.  The capys, or
Tricnocular majoris
, as they were being officially called, were an unknown entity.  Not many humans had observed them and lived to tell anyone about it.  The Federation was on a full push to take the fight to the capys, but they didn’t know yet just what they were.  All they had were specimens of the
Trinocular minors
, the ones the farmers had slaughtered.  The current thinking was that the smaller trinoculars served some sort of livestock function, although there was a good deal of disagreement about that.  If the similarities in appearance were an indication of similar evolutions, then the big capys might be vegetarian.

What the brains had been able to glean was that the soldier capys have an unknown but highly effective form of shielding against energy weapons, seem to be more susceptible to kinetic weapons, and have shielding against detection better than anything known to man.  They didn’t seem to have armor or supporting arms, but were essentially somewhat slow light infantry.  That didn’t mean they were inferior to Marine units.  They had devastated 2/6, after all.

The one silver lining was that despite the capy ships seeming to have superior shielding, the Navy intel types thought the Federation ships might have a weapons edge over capy ships, based on their analysis of their brief encounter.

All over human space, the governments were in deep talks on Arrival, the Brotherhood’s capital planet.  Humans were gearing up for a conflict, and every scrap of intel on the capys was being processed.  The little capys were being analyzed in an attempt to design weapons that might be effective against the soldier capys.  Deep space scouts had been dispersed to try to find capy worlds, or hopefully, their homeworld.  Ryck knew he had to contribute any way he could.  But it was frustrating, to be stuck on his back in a hospital ward, being asked the same thing over and over.

The captain stuck his head back in the door, and asked “You ready for some more.”

Ryck sighed quietly, but spoke up and answered, “Yes, sir.  Bring them in and let’s see what they can pick out of my tired brain.”

Alexander

Chapter 14

Ryck stood in the office, looking at the photos on the wall.  There were Marines in small groups, on underwater sleds, in re-entry pods (Ryck knew they were referred to as “goose eggs), airborne on powered wings, and firing all sorts of exotic weapons.  This was high-speed, low-drag stuff.  Despite himself, Ryck was impressed.

“Hey, Ryck, sorry I’m late.  I was out on a run when you got here,” Captain
Bertrand Nidischii’ said, coming through the hatch.  “Pull up a chair.”

Bert looked good, Ryck thought.  He was in running tights and a form-fitting shirt, and to Ryck’s eyes, there was no sign of the injuries that had put the captain in regen for almost two years.

“You need anything to drink?” Bert asked while reaching in his small reefer to pull out a Kick Ass.

“No thanks,” Ryck started automatically, then, “No, wait a minute, yeah, maybe I can use one.”

The captain tossed his Kick Ass to Ryck, and then grabbed another for himself before sitting down and looking across the office at his former sergeant.

“So, how’re you holding up?” he asked Ryck.

This could be a simple question about his regen status, but Ryck knew what the captain had meant.

“Not much better.  We cam about once a week or so, but only for small talk—how’s my regen, things like that.”

“I wish I could say something about that, but I’m at a loss.  I hope she comes around.  She’s an intelligent woman, but she doesn’t seem smart enough to know you two need to be together,” Bert said.

Ryck had needed a shoulder during regen, and not the chaplain or the Navy psychs.  Not his fellow lieutenants, either.  They were all fine, but he needed someone out of his chain, out of his unit.  Captain Nidischii’ had been through two regens himself, so he had a personal feel for the stress that created in a man.  The fact that Ryck had saved his life was not a small factor, either.  They had fought and bled together, and that created a strong bond. 

At some point, the captain became more than a mentor to Ryck.  He had become a friend, and with Joshua gone, Ryck thought that Bert might be his closest friend, the one in whom he could confide.

“Hey, Warpath, we’ve got the reports . . . oh, sorry.  Didn’t, know you had company,” another Marine in PT gear said after sticking his head in the door.

Bert held up a hand and said, “Leave it on Grease’s desk.  I’ll get to it in a bit.”

“‘Warpath?” Ryck asked, raising his eyebrows after the Marine had closed the door behind him. 

Ryck knew that in recon, it was the norm that each recon Marine went by a nickname, but “Warpath?”  For a Navajo?

Bert, or “Warpath,” looked down and laughed before saying, “Well, you know how it is.  Almost none of our names are PC, and most are not very complimentary, to be honest.  But you get what you get, so I could have done worse.”

“You like it here?  I mean in recon?” Ryck asked.

“Yeah, sure.  As a captain, I might be too senior for the teams, but these are great guys, really the top one-percenters.  I’ll be putting in for a rifle company when this is over, but it’s been a great tour.  And with the capy situation, we’re a resource that’s getting a lot more attention.”

Ryck had heard that while the Federation geared up, recon teams had joined Navy picket-skiffs stationed at strategic points around Federations space.  It sounded like a necessary, but lonely job.

“And you need to get back into the infantry if you want to make stars someday,” Ryck added.

“Hey, no jinxes.  But yeah, recon for officers really is considered career limiting.”

The two Marines stared at each other for a moment before Bert asked, “So you pulled your growing reputation to wangle a flight out here, while still in regen, to see me.  What couldn’t you say on cam?”

“Hey, I’m almost done with regen,” Ryck said, holding out and stretching his left arm.

The captain just stared at him.

“OK, well, I’m thinking about resigning my commission,” Ryck admitted.

There, he’d finally said it to someone.

To his surprise, Bert didn’t seem shocked, nor did he recoil in horror.

“And do you think it’ll be accepted?  With the state of emergency?” Bert asked.

“I’ve gone through major regen twice now.  That’s been the bottom line for over a hundred years now.  If we want, we can opt out, even with a commitment left.”

“I’m not so sure about that.  A state of emergency might take precedence.  But say you can resign.  Why?  I mean why now?  Is it Hannah?”

“No.  Yes.  I don’t know.  I mean that isn’t the only reason.  It’s a big one, though.  She hates the Corps now.  It cost her two of her brothers, and both were
aldrebruten
, which is—”

“I know the term,” Bert told him.  “Go on.”

“OK, well, she hates the Corps, so that means she hates me, right?  If I were out, maybe we could work things through, you know?”

“So that’s part of it.  But what’s the real reason?” Bert asked calmly, no judgment in his voice.

“Ah, OK.  Here’s the thing.  I think I’m done, mentally done.  Both times I’ve been in charge of a platoon, I lost almost all of my Marines.  With you, on Pannington, I lost 13 men.  Then, on GKN, I lost 29
men and 20 civilians.  I couldn’t keep them alive.  Worse than that, I ordered men, more than I can count, to their deaths.  It was my decision on who lived and who died.  I made it out, but they didn’t.”

Bert didn’t rush to protest, something for which Ryck was grateful.  He didn’t want platitudes.  He wanted someone who understood.

“You know,” Bert said after a few moments,” on Pannington, I didn’t even make it far enough to fight with you.  I left you to pick up the pieces.  It’s taken me a long time to come to grips with that.”

Both men sipped their drinks.  Ryck studied the label on the can, not wanting to look anywhere else.

“Germaine Highsmith,” Ryck said.

Bert didn’t respond.  He just waited for Ryck to continue.

“That’s his real name.  They called him Hogger.  I don’t know why.  Nineteen years old.  From New Northumberland.  Went to Public School 5670.  Graduated 486 out of 561.  Mother, Tessa.  Father, Derek.  Brother, Roger, died in 309 in a hover crash.  He liked billiards and BBW porn.”

Ryck listed each piece of information, each piece of Hogger’s life, as if reading a checklist.

“And he’s dead now.  Why?  Because I gave him Corporal Thomas’ M76.  That’s why.  I gave him the weapon, and he had it when I was picking who had to die.  If I’d given the 76 to Private Joinovic instead, Hogger would be alive and Joinovic dead.  But I didn’t, and Tessa and Derek lost their last son, because of my decision.

“I see him, you know?  Hogger comes to me at night.  Sometimes the others come, too.  But always Hogger.”

“What about Joshua?” Bert asked.

“No, Joshua doesn’t come to me in my dreams.  Never him.”

The two men sat in silence for a long minute before Bert asked, “Have you lost your nerve?”

Some men might have bristled at this.  Ryck took it as it was intended.

“No, not really.  Hell, I think I would welcome going like that.  Like them.  I haven’t lost my nerve.  It’s numb, maybe.  But I am not afraid of the fight, and I’d love to get some payback on those grubbing animals.”

“Then what are you afraid of?”

“I can’t take the responsibility.  I can’t face playing God, deciding who lives and who dies,” Ryck said.

“That’s about what I figured.  And so I’ll ask you, have you considered going recon?”

“What?  Recon?”

“Yeah, recon.  I’m not going to sit here and psycho-analyze you.  I know the psychs have told you about survivor guilt and all of that, how you saved some of your men and civilians.  I know what you’re feeling.  I lost men on Helvelle, and on Pannigton. Those were my men, and I was in a damn ziplock for most of the fight.

“I just think you’re wrong, and I don’t think your resignation is going to be accepted.  So what can you do about it?  You can sit and refuse to accept orders, and you’ll be in the brig, war hero or not.  You can accept the orders, but you won’t be as effective, and you could get more men killed.  Or you can change jobs.  You could probably swing a desk job somewhere.  You’ve earned it.  But if you’ve got fight in you,  why not go recon?  You’ll have some of the best Marines around, and you won’t be making tactical decisions.  As a lieutenant, you’d be running interference with the infantry command staff and making sure your team is prepared, but when it gets down to it, you would be a fighter.  At the most, you would have seven Marines with you, and in the field, you would probably only be with one other Marine.  You’d be a fighter, not really a commander making command-type decisions.”

“But lieutenants are team leaders,” Ryck protested.  “That means
lead
.”

“Listen to me.  Not everything is by the infantry bible.  In recon, you are in charge in training, you help form the reconnaissance plan, but once inserted, you are a fighter.  The teams are too small for it not to be that way.”

Despite himself, Ryck felt a stirring of interest.  He didn’t really want to leave the Corps.  Yes, he wanted Hannah back.  But he was a Marine.  It was in his blood.  He just needed a break.  He couldn’t face ordering men to their deaths.  If it really was as Bert described, then that horrible decision would be out of his hands.  He could focus on fighting, on killing capys.

“But,” he started, lifting up his left arm, “I’m still in regen.”

“I used my own rehab time to get ready for the Sifter.  It’s tough, no lie, especially coming off regen.  But you’ve got two more months, right?  Start getting in shape. Take your month’s convalescent leave and see to Hannah.  Then get back and get in the next Sifter platoon.”

Ryck considered what his friend had said.  It made sense.  He still had two months left on regen, and he could put off any decision until then.  Meanwhile, he could put in the papers for recon.  If he still wanted to resign, he could do it after he was back on full duty.  If he didn’t want to resign, then he had an option that just might work.