Sergeant (The United Federation Marine Corps Book 2)

by Jonathan P. Brazee

  Hartono had a buttpack, and what was left of Prifit fit inside of it. Cpl Evans took two of his bullfrogs, the EOD version of the toads

  [23] each Marine carried, and put one on top of the Gazelle launcher, one on the PICS’ codpiece. He lit them off, and the Marines stepped back. All of them stood watching in silence as bullfrogs ignited and burned their way through the armor. Packing two or three times the punch of a normal toad, it didn’t take long.

  It wasn’t until the bullfrogs flickered out, leaving a smoking pile of junk, that they turned and left to rejoin the rest of the platoon.

  Chapter 18

  Ryck sighed with contentment. He felt naked, his visibility was low in the darkness, and something was digging into his back, but it felt good to be out of his PICS. With power levels down for all the Marines, particularly for the seven who had made the two recons, the lieutenant had ordered a rotating watch, with those off watch out of their PICS.

  More vital than the power levels, though, were the coldpacks. With the two per Marine, they had about 50-60 hours of operating time before the PICS became unusable. The lieutenant hoped that the Intrepid would be back by then, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

  Getting out of the PICS was a calculated risk. If they were hit, it would take up to 30 seconds or possibly longer for the Marines to get back in, sealed, and ready to fight. If the PICS were completely powered down instead of on standby, it would take even longer, but while that would save more power, it increased the risk dramatically.

  The lieutenant had sent out three OPs[24], Marines without their PICS and under tarnkappes.

  [25] Simple vibration sensors were placed to fill in the gaps between the OPs. Even under a full charge by R-3 legionnaires, the platoon should have the time needed to be ready to meet the threat.

  Four Marines were in their PICS and on full alert around them—the rest of the empty PICS stood like sentinel statues, ready to come to life.

  “Thanks for getting my PICS back up to speed, Ryck,” the lieutenant said as he took a seat beside his sergeant.

  Ryck? That’s a first, Ryck thought.

  With the lieutenant, it was always rank and last name. Ryck wondered if sitting there in the dark in their longjohns affected the degree of formality between the two Marines.

  “No problem, sir. It wasn’t hard.”

  Ryck didn’t mention that it hadn’t been difficult from a technical standpoint, but he had cannibalized the controls from Tipper Prifit’s helmet, which had been a bit rough emotionally.

  “I guess your time in the armory paid off, huh?” he asked, then continuing before Ryck could respond. “My time as a genhen was in admin, so I can help unscrew a pay problem, but that’s about it.”

  From what he’d heard, the lieutenant had spent almost as much time as Ryck had in regen. He wondered if his platoon commander had hated it as much as he did. Not the discomfort and pain--everyone hated that--but being away from his unit, away from his fellow Marines, and most of all, the feeling of uselessness. At least Ryck had been with weapons while he was a genhen. With all respect and gratitude to the admin types who kept things running smoothly, Ryck thought he would have died had he been locked up in an office somewhere, shuffling papers.

  “This might seem odd, given the circumstances, but I’ve been watching you pretty closely,” the lieutenant continued.

  What now? Ryck thought.

  “What I mean is that you are a good Marine, a good NCO. You think on your feet. That’s why I wanted you with me today on the recons. I knew I could count on you.”

  “Uh, well, thanks, sir,” Ryck answered, unsure of where the conversation was going.

  “You finished your degree, right?”

  “Yes, sir. I received my diploma two months ago.”

  “Yes, I saw the message. Well, I just wanted to tell you that it’s not just me, but Captain Davis had taken note of you, too.”

  Captain Davis? He’s hardly said ten words to me since I’ve been in the company, and now he’s gone.

  “My point is, and I just want you to think of it, if you ever want to apply to be an officer, I would endorse you, and Captain Davis told me he would have endorsed you. I can write that endorsement from him as well.”

  “I . . . I don’t know what to say, sir. I mean, it’s an honor to hear you tell me that, but I’ve never even thought of applying for a commission.”

  That was a lie. He had thought about it, but he kept denying it to the rest of the Marines. For some warped reason that Ryck didn’t understand, Marine culture ruled that enlisted Marines who wanted to be officers were suspect, not full members of the “brotherhood.”

  “Just consider it, OK? The Marines need leaders like you in the officer corps. Anyway, that’s all I wanted to say. You make sure to catch some sleep. We don’t know what tomorrow will bring, right?”

  “Right, sir,” Ryck said as the lieutenant stood up and excused himself before walking over to where SSgt Hecs had bedded down.

  “You should be an officer,” Sams said quietly beside him, his voice several octaves higher than normal. “Oh really, sir? You mean that? Of course I want that,” he went on, answering himself.

  “Fuck you,” Ryck said. “I can’t help what the lieutenant thinks.”

  “Sure. You are such a fucking brown-noser, Ryck. I didn’t hear you tell him no.”

  “Eat me,” Ryck grumbled.

  Despite himself, the lieutenant’s words had piqued his interest. In order to become an officer, a Marine had to get recommended by his unit, even if he met all other qualifications. To know he had one, or two, if what the lieutenant had said about Capt Davis was true, opened the door.

  He wasn’t sure he wanted to become one, though. Sure it was an advancement in responsibility, not to mention pay, and it would take care of one of Ryck’s constant frustrations, that of not knowing what was happening all the time, of being kept in the dark. On the other hand, it would take him farther from his Marines, and there was all the other BS that officers had to deal with that had nothing to do with leading Marines.

  Ryck generally liked it as a sergeant, and becoming a platoon sergeant would be pretty awesome. Why take the BS of being an officer when you could get all the good parts as a SNCO?

  “Eh, what does Lieutenant Personality know, anyway.”

  “You know, Sams, you keep calling him that, but the guy is good. Look at us now. He’s put in for every contingency. That’s pretty copacetic, if you ask me.”

  Sams was one of his closest Marines in the platoon, and with Popo dead, there were only two sergeants. Ryck loved Sams like a brother, but his cynical attitude sometimes pissed Ryck off.

  “Sure, I’ll give you that. But any manual-reading bozo could do that. I don’t think he’s got the fire that, say, Lieutenant Hargrave’s got, or the skipper,” he said.

  That put an immediate damper on things. Both officers had been killed this morning.

  “He had fire today,” Ryck muttered.

  “What do you mean?” Sams asked.

  “You should have seen him. When we both got hit by the legionnaire with his hadron gun, here I am diving to get out of the line of fire. Does the lieutenant do that? Fuck no. He charged the motherfucker. Charges like some knight with a lance. No fucking hesitation.”

  “He charged into the fire? I thought you were supposed to get further away, ‘cause the beam dissipates,” Sams asked.

  “That’s for a plasma gun, like ours. But I said hadron gun, which you know the Legion uses. The beam’s not going to dissipate for a long, long distance.”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “So I’m getting out of the way, Keiji’s shooting like some rabid wolf, and he even hits the other legionnaire’s gun port, knocking it out of action -- ”

  “He hits the gun port?”

  “Didn’t you listen to the debrief? Yeah, one of his grenades hits the gunport that this asshole is using to fire on us, and that knocks his weapon offline. That’s why he took off.
No weapons.”

  “Pisspot froggie. Running away,” Sams said.

  “Yeah, well anyway, I’m trying to get a shot in, and I can see the lieutenant’s shield glow, I mean, I can really see it. He’s going all orange. But he doesn’t stop. Five rockets, no fucking guidance on them. Four hit the legionnaire, and the fourth does it. Bam! He’s smoke-checked. And let me tell you, when I worked on his PICS, if that last rocket hadn’t hit, the lieutenant would be KIA now. One more second, and his PICS would have been fried. It’s because he didn’t hesitate, that he went into the attack, that he lived, and maybe the rest of us, too. So don’t tell me he’s got no fire, OK?”

  “Shit, OK, OK. Back off. I meant, with us, at least, he’s like a robot. Never excited. Just does his job.”

  “He’s a good officer. Made his ancestors proud, I bet.”

  “Something special about his ancestors?” Ryck asked.

  “Yeah, he’s Navaho,” Ryck told him, wondering why Sams had to ask.

  “And . . . ?”

  “Saint Harry on a rope, Sams, don’t you keep track of anything? The lieutenant’s from Dinétah,”

  “Again, and . . .?”

  “You know about Dinétah, right?”

  “It’s a country on Manitoba. Some of them join the Marines. So? Lots of planets send more than their fair share to the Marines.”

  “You’ve never heard of the Code-Talkers?” Ryck asked.

  “No, I’ve never hear of the Code-Talkers,” Sams responded, his voice inflected to show his lack of interest.

  “You really should. They’re part of Marine Corps history. Back in WWII, the Navaho people sent their young men into the U.S. Marines to fight the Japanese, and they were vital in keeping Marine comms secure from being compromised by the Japanese.”

  “Ancient history, my friend, ancient history. I’m not the one trying to get a history degree.”

  “It may be old, but it is our history, and when the Navajo relocated to Dinétah, they re-established their warrior culture. So guess where their best and brightest go? Yep, to the Marines. Like the old-time Gurkhas, only the very top few were able to join the Marines.”

  “Gurkhas, I know about them. We had a Gurkha gunny before you got here. He had this wicked knife he took everywhere, a cokry or something,” Sams said.

  “A kukri,” Ryck corrected him. “The Gurkhas were big in the old Royal Marines, the Navaho in the U.S. Marines. They both still serve in our Marines. My point is that the lieutenant comes from a long line of warriors, and they only let the best enlist. So he’s made his ancestors proud, today, not just for what he’s done when he was an enlisted slob like us.”

  “Ah, whatever. He may be some kick-butt warrior, but I still think he’s got a stick up his ass. He needs to lighten up a schosh. Now, you heard your hero. We’ve got the get some sleep.”

  With that, Sams laid back, turning away from Ryck. Within a minute or so, Ryck’s friend started snoring.

  Chapter 19

  The next day, the Marines spent time preparing their position. The hadron comms had been with the skipper, so the platoon had nothing with which to communicate with a ship out of planetary orbit. But the lieutenant assigned LCpl Vargas out of First Squad to monitor all the ground-to-orbit frequencies. When the Intrepid returned, the platoon commander wanted to know immediately.

  The lieutenant, SSgt Hecs, Ryck, Sams, and Cpl St. Cyr, the new Second Squad leader, met several times in a mini-war council, going over their options to take the fight to the enemy. It was during one of these that a mass of explosions sounded off to their southwest, possibly 30 km away. The firing kept up for almost two minutes before dying off. Ryck knew there were no Marines there—Justice and the WIA were almost 40 km away to the northeast, and they were the only other Federation forces on the planet. He turned to ask the lieutenant what was going on, but the platoon commander was high-fiving SSgt Hecs.

  “And that, sir, is how it’s done,” SSgt Hecs said.

  “What was that?” Ryck asked.

  “Oh, our good platoon sergeant set up a little decoy last night. It seems like it’s not only the French who can spoof.”

  “And it looks like you owe me 20, sir,” SSgt Hecs said.

  “Duly noted, there, Staff Sergeant Phantawisangtong.”

  The lieutenant got down in the dirt and pushed out a quick 20 pushups.

  Ryck hadn’t even realized the platoon sergeant had slipped out during the night. If that was 30 km away, then that was 60 km back and forth, quite a trip even in a PICS.

  About 30 minutes after the “attack,” a voice came over several frequencies at once. The Marines outside of their PICS heard the message over the external speakers of the active PICS.

  “Federation Marines, let’s avoid any further bloodshed. First Lieutenant Nidishchii’” the voice went on, stumbling a bit over the name, “we are offering you our full guarantee of humane treatment if you surrender your force to us. No one will be hurt, and all needing it will receive medical care. The war is almost over, so let’s sit it out. That was a nice feint you pulled, but we have your position locked now. You and your 32 surviving Marines have no air support, no supporting arms, and without those, I am sure you can do the math. You really don’t have much chance against a larger Legion force. We outnumber you and outgun you.”

  There was an explosion of protest from the Marines.

  “No need for an immediate reply. No one is doubting your courage. Lieutenant, you have proven your courage time and time again, and several of your men, notably Staff Sergeant Phantawisangtong,” the voice said, making even more havoc over the name, “Sergeants Samuelson and Sergeant Lysander, Lance Corporal Westminster, Lance Corporal Laste Holleran, and Private First Class Ling, are well known in the Legion, so this is not a matter of whose balls are the biggest. Most of you have even been of service to the Legion, and you have our gratitude. This is a matter of simply living without needless bloodshed.”

  While the voice was going on, SSgt Hecs had wormed into the back of his PICS, and the voice was cut off. He wormed back out and went up to the lieutenant.

  Ryck, Sams, and several others came as well.

  “How do they know my name,” Ling asked with a worried tone to his voice.

  SSgt Hecs held up his hand, forestalling him, then looking up to the lieutenant.

  “Well, that’s a nice ni hao,” the lieutenant said to them. “Interesting in what they gave away.”

  “Sir?” Sams asked.

  “Well, first, they were specific on us being 32 Marines, and they mentioned every Marine in the platoon who’s been awarded a BCS-1 or higher. What does that tell you?” he asked the group.

  “Well, Westminster was KIA from the crash,” Ryck said.

  “Yes, and they have not taken into account that we have seven WIA still alive, and no mention was made of Cpl Evans and HM2 Grbil. Grbil’s been decorated, so it they knew about him, they would have mentioned him. What they have is partial intel, and they are guessing the rest. You could have found out most of that from our battalion facebook.

  [26] By telling us too much, they are revealing their limitations.”

  “They don’t have more men than us, either, right sir?” SSgt Hecs said.

  “I doubt it. We know they lost one and probably two others. If you count the Navy sailors, then yes, they probably have more, but as far as legionnaires, I am guess we are about even-strengthed.”

  “But they’ve got R-3s, and we don’t have air now,” Vargas said.

  “True, but I don’t think the R-3 is really that great. I took one out yesterday, and I’m still here, right? And if we make them come to us, maybe we can even out the odds.”

  “So do we answer?” asked SSgt Hecs.

  “Can we get a mic out here, out of the helmet?” he asked.

  “Sure, no problem,” Cpl Evans said.

  He took a length of ignition wire, then crawled half-way inside his own PICS. A moment later, he emerged, holding the small chin mic in
his hand, the wire trailing from it back to inside the PICS. He handed it to the lieutenant.

  “Turn back on the broadcast,” he told SSgt Hecs.

  Since SSgt Hecs had overridden the broadcast from his PICS-C, he had to turn it back on from either his or the lieutenants. He squirmed up inside the back of his, and a few moments, the French voice came back on.

  “ . . . too long before we will be forced to take offensive action.”

  “Our French friends, if I may interrupt, I do have a response for you. This is First Lieutenant Nidishchii’, UFMC.”

  The voice stopped for a moment, then said, “Uh, yes, Lieutenant. Please go on.”

  Every Marine and Doc Grbil had stopped what they were doing and stared at the lieutenant. Slowly, the lieutenant lowered the mic to his ass, and after a moment, let out a tremendous fart, amplified to its max.

  There was dead silence before the Marines erupted into howls of laughter, “oohrahs,” and “get some, Lieutenant!”

  Ryck, trying to control his laughter, looked to Sams and said, “The lieutenant’s got no fire, Sams?”

  Chapter 20

  “Steve, when we attacked the SOG back on Billiton, they used a mine to take out one of my Marines,” Ryck told their EOD Marine.

  “Yeah, Yancy Sullivan. I remember,” Cpl Evans replied.

  “What was the result of the investigation, something about them using wood and an organic explosive?”

  “Yeah, the mine body was wood, of all things. For the explosive, they used simple fertilizer. A pressure plate was the trigger. Yancy was pretty unlucky. He stepped right on it.”