Ryck called up Cpl Mendoza’s team, arraying the Marines the best he could around the small round door. It would be extremely difficult to provide supporting fire if there was anyone right there at Bravo Deck as First Team would be in the way, but at least they were closer and could get down there quicker if need be.
“OK, hit it,” Ryck told PFC Hartono.
Hartono spun the wheel on the door, and it silently opened into Bravo Deck. Ryck could just see the overhead past him as Hartono’s infrared torch lit up the area.
“Oh God!” the PFC exclaimed as he pushed into the corridor.
“Go, go!” Cpl Rey shouted at his other two Marines who quickly pulled through the door to join Hartono.
Ryck was already diving through, right on Rey’s ass. In front of the two NCOs, Keiji was motionless just inside the door.
He held up a hand and quietly said, “All clear.”
Letting Rey go first, Ryck followed through the door and into the Bravo Deck corridor. He twisted and landed feet-first on the deck. He immediately saw what elicited Hartono’s exclamation. In front of him, illuminated in the infrared, were six people, all dead. Two adults, four children. The man looked to be in his early 30’s. All he had on a pair of dark shorts. The man was facing the others, one arm reached out towards them. Facing the man was a woman. Ryck couldn’t see her face, so only her close-cropped hair and unitard registered. With one arm, she was reaching out for the man. Her other arm was crooked, holding the baby. In death, her arm was still positioned to hold the baby, but her grip had slackened, and the infant’s legs could be seen protruding to the side of the woman. Ryck was suddenly glad he couldn’t see the baby’s face.
He could see the other three children’s faces though. The closest victim to the Marines was a young boy, possibly 10 or 11 years old. He had on a Thunder Bluster t-shirt, the band’s skull logo catching the infrared beams and looking as if it was lit. He would have looked like any other kid scoping the mall after school—if it weren’t for the look of utter agony frozen on his face. His eyes were protruding and dark with petechiae, his mouth opened in a silent scream. One arm was obviously broken, probably from being slammed against something as the air rushed out of the ship. The kid had not gone easily into the night.
In front of him and up against the overhead were the two girls. They looked like twins, around five or six years old. Each was locked in the other’s embrace, faces against each other’s. At least their eyes were closed, and while they had to have suffered, they seemed more peaceful.
In a complete vacuum a person would lose consciousness in less than 15 seconds. However, when the ship this size was breached with the degree of destruction the Marie’s Best suffered, it would have taken 20 or even 30 seconds for the ship’s atmosphere to be vented. That meant this family would have known what was happening. They would have suffered as the air pressure dropped towards zero.
Airtight bulkheads could have kept pockets of air inside, but for some reason, they had not been activated. The crew had probably felt the AI would take care of that, but the AI could have been destroyed in the initial strike. That was why on all military ships, at least, the AIs had several secondary “brains” located throughout the ship, and all ships going into battle had airtight bulkheads sealed.
The family was stretched out over about 20 meters. They must have been bounced through the corridor as the air evacuated, trying to stay together. With the artificial gravity fading, it would have been even harder. Ryck tried not to imagine what it must have been like.
He swallowed trying to keep the bile from rising in his throat. Vomiting in an EVA suit was not a good idea, but this scene hit him hard. He tried to block it, but images of Lysa and his two nieces floating in the cold vacuum of space flooded his imagination
The rest of the squad slowly made their way into Bravo Deck. Everyone was silent as they took in the scene.
Why hadn’t the family been in evac suits? They had to have known they were running a blockade. And why run a blockade in the first place? These were not combatants. They were just people. Why was it that important to get them to the planet’s surface?
Ryck knew that warfare was dirty, that civilians got killed. He’d been on ops where he knew that had happened. This was the first time, though, that he’d really seen the effects right before his eyes. This was the first time he’d really seen “collateral damage.” He’d cheered when he’d heard the Ark Royal’s monitors had scored the hit. He’d felt pride when he’d seen the damage to the Marie’s Best. He wasn’t feeling so enthused now.
“Three-six, this is three-three” he passed on the platoon circuit, “we’ve got six dead civilians here. Looks like a family.”
“There’s quite a number of bodies throughout the ship,” Lt. Nidishchii’ passed back. “They’ll be taken care of later. What’s your progress now? I can’t get a good fix on you.”
“We’re on Bravo, heading back to see if we can make it to Charlie,” Ryck replied.
“Three-two is already at the objective. We will be there momentarily. You need to get a move on.”
“Roger that. If we have a ladder, it shouldn’t be more than five mikes,” Ryck said.
“Understood. If you have any problems, keep me informed. Three-six, out.”
“Let’s move it. We’re behind schedule,” Ryck passed through the squad circuit.
“Which way?” Cpl Rey asked.
Trying to see if the original ladder connected Bravo and Charlie meant passing through the family, and Ryck could hear the strain in Rey’s voice as he asked. Going the other way, though, meant they would be using the same ladder as First Squad. Ryck didn’t want to disturb the family as they floated in the corridor, but that was the direction they had to take.
“Forward,” was all he passed.
Ryck tried to keep his gaze forward as they moved between the bodies. The twin girls were blocking his route, so he jumped across the corridor to use one of the bulkheads. He also made pretty heavy use of his microjets to not only maintain attitude, as they were designed for, but to bend him around the bodies. He determinedly refused to even glance at the woman’s face or the infant still in her arm as he passed her.
Thankfully, they reached the clear corridor ahead. A few moments later, Cpl Rey passed that the ladder between Bravo and Charlie was in fact there. Whatever modification had been done to the ship had only affected the space between Alpha and Bravo.
They went down the ladder, one at a time, to emerge in a cleared Charlie Deck. No bodies rose to greet them. From there, it was only about 25 meters to their assigned entrance to the galley. Ryck let the rest of the platoon know the squad was entering, then when given the all clear, the squad filed inside.
Emergency lights lit the galley, bringing color back to their view. The four lights in each corner cast harsh, but sufficient illumination. The galley was about 20 meters across, and there were probably close to 100 people from the ship there. With the 40 Marines there as well, it was somewhat packed. However, with no gravity, groups had drifted in all three axis, making it a little less crowded.
Doc Grbil, with the red cross illuminated on his shoulder, was easy to spot as he worked on one of the civilians. The much taller Doc Francis, one of the battalion aid station corpsman attached to the platoon for the mission, was there assisting. From the civilians waiting, it looked like many of them needed help.
The civilians were in “walmarts,” the cheaply made but effective emergency suits that were never intended to be worn for long. By Federation law, there had to be at least one temporary emergency evacuation suit for each and every soul on board. Ryck wondered why the first man they’d seen and the family hadn’t gotten into their walmarts. The recon team had reported 133 people alive on the ship. Take away those killed in the bridge and close to it, and there still would only have been a little over 200 people. A ship this size would be able to provide emergency suits to that number and more.
Unless more were killed, Ryck thoug
ht soberly.
There were a few commercial evac suits being worn, so it looked like some of the crew had survived. They were sized for each wearer, not like the one-size-fits-all walmarts. Ryck could see at least two baby bubbles, so at least some infants had made it.
This was a deflated group, and they didn’t look to be offering any resistance. Only one crewman, in the far corner of the gallery, had a defiant posture that suggested different. He had stationed himself in front of three bodies, all in walmarts, but obviously dead. The walmarts were actually a pretty good piece of gear, but they seemed to have failed with the three dead people in front of the man. In the maelstrom of the air rushing out of the ship, they could have been breached when the three had been pushed up against something hard or sharp.
The crewman reminded Ryck of the vids of dogs, guarding over their dead masters. None of the Marines were bothering him.
Ryck made his way to the lieutenant and SSgt Hecs, who were with the Navy chief from the engineer division as they discussed what could be done to make conditions better for the civvies. Most of the work was being done by Capt Davis and the head engineer up in the destroyed bow as they evaluated the damage done to the ship.
“Sgt Lysander, spread your teams out. There doesn’t seem to be a threat here now, but keep alert. We’re awaiting orders at the moment. If we get them, I’m going to want you to escort Senior Chief Han here to aft engineering. But for now, just spread out, keeping it low key. I want eyes open, but no aggressive posture,” the platoon commander said as Ryck came up.
“Aye-aye, sir,” Ryck acknowledged as he turned and went back to where the squad waited.
He’d wanted to get more of the scoop as to what was going on, but orders were orders, and he figured that whatever he needed to know, he would be told. Keeping the “no aggressive posture” part of his orders, he broke the squad into teams, sending each team to a position towards the back of the galley. He put each team on a different plane, one on the overhead, one on the deck, and one on the bulkhead. This would give them a better view on the people. This was right out of the training pubs, as people tended to process things better when what they were observing was on the same plane as they were.
Ryck decided to move around his little claimed sector of the galley. There were around 20 or 25 people crowded in the back. Most seemed to be ignoring him, but that could be just shock. They’d been through a lot.
Doc Grbil popped a ziplock out of his med-pack and deployed it. Normal ziplocks were simply clear bags that could hold a person and maintain an atmosphere for a number of hours while people were transported to safety. The corpsmen had special ziplocks that had small stasis units that could slow down the metabolism of whomever was inside. These were not the same stasis units as those which were in a ship’s sickbay. They were portable units that slowly lowered the metabolism, never reaching full stasis. Still, the time they gave a patient could make all the difference between life and death.
The civvie was unresponsive, and he was probably fading, but Doc must have thought the ziplock could help. He and Doc Francis maneuvered the civvie inside, then partially closed the ziplock. Doc Grbil reached in with a scalpel, and with a quick slash, slit the man’s walmart before pulling his arm out and sealing the ziplock. Almost immediately, the ziplock puffed out.
Ryck wondered why he’d compromised the walmart. Maybe it would have interfered with the stasis? He’d have to ask Doc later.
Ryck turned back and pulled himself along, using the galley tables as anchor points. Three civvies, a man and two women were sitting at one of the tables, their legs under the tabletops and keeping them in place. These walmarts were the basic ones, without comms, so they weren’t talking but just keeping each other company. As Ryck pulled himself past, he gave them a thumbs-up. The man and one woman stared at him blankly, but there was a flicker in the eyes in the second woman as she inadvertently glanced over to the recessed fabrication nook of the galley.
Ryck looked over in that direction but didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. There were three fabricators, a double sink for clean-up, and cupboards for plates and utensils. He glanced back at the woman, but she was once again staring blankly ahead.
Ryck pushed off towards the nook, pulling his legs under and thrusting them in front so he hit the sink area feet-first. He couldn’t see anything that caught his attention. He felt eyes on him, though, that weird, tingling feeling that he could not explain. Casually glancing back into the galley seating, he could see one of the crewmen carefully avoiding looking at Ryck, in a way that told Ryck the man had seen Ryck’s interest in the nook. Ryck moved to his right, and he thought the crewman relaxed slightly. He then reversed and moved back to his left. He could swear the crewman tensed up again.
There was nothing there, though. The nook ended. There was the small access hatch through which the bases for that meal’s recipes came. But that was only a passage leading up from storage. It wasn’t a compartment. But that small compartment they’d taken from Alpha to Bravo deck hadn’t been designed for people, either. On the Marie’s Best, it had been crew berthing. Ryck casually left the nook and approached Cpl Beady.
“John, bring your team and follow me. There’s something fishy about the fabrication nook. I don’t know what it is, but at least two people out there seem to be very interested in it. Could be something there. All I can see, though, is the feed tunnel for the food bases, but let’s take a look.”
Cpl Beady motioned for his team to follow. All five Marines looked over the nook, which was only about five meters long and two meters deep. Ryck pointed at the small hatch, about one meter square, though which supplies were delivered. If this was like any other delivery chute, when the hatch was opened, a small tray would slide out on which the supplies would be loaded. As one carton was lifted up, another would slide in to take its place.
Ryck took a look back. The crewman who’d been so studiously ignoring him before had abandoned all pretense now. He had moved closer and was staring at them.
Ryck pointed at the access hatch with the muzzle of his M99. Cpl Beady motioned Ling to the overhead, where he would be looking down at the hatch. He positioned LCpl Martin to the sink, just to the side of the access hatch. Martin put his feet in the sink, his grip-tites keeping him in place. He motioned Lips Holleran to get ready to open the hatch.
“First and Second, it may be nothing, but we’re checking out the supply access hatch here. Keep an eye on anyone who might not want us to take a look,” Ryck passed on the squad circuit.
He joined Cpl Beady, oriented on the deck, facing the hatch. They had three of the four directions around the hatch covered. The fourth was the nook bulkhead, and there wasn’t room for anyone to fit in given the half-meter between the edge of the hatch and the bulkhead.
“OK, Lips, let’s see what we’ve got,” Ryck passed.
Just as LCpl Holleran started opening the hatch, Ryck couldn’t help but turn slightly to see what their crewman friend was doing. The crewman had edged forward, but had stopped and was simply watching. Ryck knew he should have put one of the other Marines on him.
Holleran had opened the hatch, which opened outwards to the rest of the nook. Ryck turned his head just as the hatch was forced open quicker, pushing Lips back. A small blue light flashed in the dark recesses of the tunnel, followed by a shape erupting out of it. Ryck felt more than saw Cpl Beady getting hit.
In front of Ryck, coming out was a man in a white, military EVA suit. It was Legion design, Ryck realized, and the Legion Sallie Gun that had hit Beady was swinging right at him, the hypervelocity darts making a stream that could easily puncture his EVA suit.
In null G, it is impossible to quickly turn and dodge. Ryck had shifted his attention to the Marie’s Best crewman, moving him out of position. Martin was out of position, too, on the other side of the open hatch and with Lips tumbling between him and the legionnaire. Ryck started the kip-around to get his own M99 deployed, but he knew he wasn’t going to make i
t in time.
Just as he expected to feel darts impacting on him, something big and heavy hit him from above, sending him flying. He started spinning, bouncing him off the deck and back up. He tried to get a grip with his toe, but his momentum was too high.
As he spun, though, his M99 was out, ready to fire. In null G, the M99 automatically shifted from the Roeniger Display scope to old-style “iron” sights. The Roeniger scope inputted drop from gravity, coriolis, wind, and any other influences that could affect the trajectory of a dart. In null G, those forces did not exist, so what you saw is what was hit. As he bounced off the deck, Ryck caught a flash of white through his peep site. It wasn’t a good sight picture, but at a meter-and-a-half, it was good enough. He depressed his trigger, sending three or four darts into the legionnaire before he spun past. Martin was clear by that time, and he also fired a burst into the man.
Cpl Mendoza and LCpl Khouri bounded in just then.
“Cease fire!” someone shouted, but Ryck was too busy regaining control to pay attention to just who passed that. He kipped his legs under and absorbed the shock as he hit the overhead. His grip-tites kept him in place.
“Doc, get over here. Man down!” he shouted into his mic.
Above him, he could see Cpl Beady, arms barely moving as he drifted slowly backwards. A small pink mist was coalescing in front of his chest. It looked like he’d taken two hits, through and through, but his suit had already sealed the holes, the bright blue sealing patches very visible.
Ryck’s helmet speakers exploded into a cacophony of talk. That suddenly quit as the lieutenant over-rode the circuit, switching Ryck to the command circuit.
“Report!” he commanded.
Ryck could see the lieutenant pulling himself over the tables, rushing to the scene.
Sergeant (The United Federation Marine Corps Book 2) Page 13