Major (The United Federation Marine Corps Book 5)

by Jonathan P. Brazee

  “Shift to the two lovebirds,” he ordered.

  The screen shifted to four views of the two. They were still slowly walking into the trees.

  “Does that seem odd to you?” Ryck asked the others.

  “What, that they want to have some privacy?” Çağlar asked.

  “No, that they are going so deep into the woods. If that was me at that age, I’d be wanting to get at it as soon as possible. Look at him. He keeps looking around.”

  “Sure, Skipper, to see if they’re out-of-sight,” Sandy said. “Besides, he’s too young to be Ferret.”

  “We don’t know how old the Ferret is,” Ryck countered. “Besides, that’s easy enough to spoof.”

  “Well, she’s into him,” Sandy said. “Look at her.”

  Ryck had to admit that the young woman was very into the man. Her hands were roaming, and she kept trying to pull him down onto the ground.

  One of the nano-drones pulled higher and scanned back, giving a better view of the area around the two lovers. Just to the south of them, Ryck noted the same access road over which Ryck’s team had observation. If the two didn’t find someplace for their little liaison soon, they would have gone too far and would have to turn back. At the edge of the screen, a small hover was making its way along the road.

  And it clicked.

  “Çağlar, Sandy, on the roof now, in position!” he shouted.

  The two Marines didn’t hesitate and grabbed the sniper rifles before crowding Ryck out the door and up the ladder attached to the side of the building.

  “What is it, Skipper?” Sandy asked as he and Çağlar flopped down beside the prone major.

  “I think your paranoia was well-placed. And I think our two lovers are at least partly involved with all of this.

  “AI, run me a history on those two,” he ordered into his PA.

  “See that hover there, at our 2:00 O’clock?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “That’s a pick-up, I’ll bet a month’s pay.”

  Just then his PA chirped. They’d gotten a hit on the dead man. Franklin Terrahote had a record for extortion, assault, and burglary before disappearing off the grid some ten years ago. This could fit the profile of someone who could rise to the SOG #2, but Ryck wasn’t buying it. From his AT scores, he was pretty far from a braniac, and someone so high up the ladder should have some degree of mental acuity.

  “And there’s our lovers,” Çağlar said as the two emerged from the trees. Instead of retreating back, they stayed at the edge, 20 meters from the road. Ryck was sure the two were waiting for the hover to travel over the kilometer or so that separated them.

  They’re waiting for that hover. But does that make them SOG or just a couple waiting to get a ride back home? he wondered.

  If they were indentureds, then this might have been their only chance at a discreet rendezvous, being dropped off by a company driver to be picked up on his return trip.

  “What do we do, sir?” Sandy asked.

  Ryck was positive the two were SOG. Almost positive. He tried to sort his thoughts. If he were wrong, though, and they were not SOG and he did anything, heads would roll—namely his. He couldn’t let that spill over to either of his two Marines.

  “Give me the 569,” he told Sandy.

  “Sir?”

  “The 569, give me it.”

  Sandy reluctantly handed over the meson sniper rifle.

  “What’s the ECR of the M569 round?” he asked his AI.

  “Twenty-five meters,” both Sandy and his AI said.

  Ryck queried the scope as to the distance to the pair. It was 1067 meters to the male. He entered that and flipped the reticule, measuring off 35 meters from the man. He flipped off the seek function, turning the round into a simple straight-trajectory projectile. He took in a deep breath, let it half out, and squeezed the trigger.

  A moment later, the jacketed meson round reached the programmed range limit, and the tiny meson generator blossomed into a glowing sphere of energy, which Ryck hoped would dissipate enough to incapacitate, but not kill, the man. What happened was not what he had expected.

  Instead of the two people dropping, an actinic flash of white filled his scope. As his vision cleared, the woman was turning to run back into the woods while the man moved forward, suddenly armed and ready for bear.

  They’d had some very sophisticated shields protecting them, shields that had been invisible to the nano-drones. Any doubt Ryck had about the two vanished. No casual lovers had shields like that or went around armed.

  “All hands, the Ferret is alive and running. He is—” he started to pass as his mind processed what was happening.

  Why is the Ferret in full protection mode? he wondered as the man stayed put, obviously ready for action.

  Then it hit him. There was no other explanation.

  “The Ferret is the female,” he passed, toggling the feed.

  “Hans, take out the hover,” he ordered Çağlar as the pickup vehicle sped up to reach the man. The Ferret could be just inside the tree line, ready for the pickup.

  He was barely aware as Çağlar fired the M565.

  “AI, track the female,” he said. “Team 2, move to B56 and spread out. I want you to cut her off. Team 4, secure the body—”

  “Unable to acquire the target,” his AI reported.

  Ryck glanced down at his PA. The woman was had dropped off the data field.

  “Grubbing hell!” he shouted.

  She had more than a shield. Her counter-surveillance was top-of-the-line.

  “Hans, take out the guard, then follow. Sandy, let’s diddimac, now!”

  Ryck slung the big M569, then slid down the ladder fireman style. He was running forward as Sandy hit behind him. With the Ferret off the grid, he needed visuals, and he needed them quickly.

  Two shots sounded from above him, then no more. Either Çağlar had hit the guard, or the guard had retreated.

  “All teams, converge as ordered,” he passed, trying to give placements on his PA as he ran. It was awkward, and he could have probably saved time by stopping for a moment and indicating where he wanted his teams, but he knew he couldn’t afford to lose contact. Every step the Ferret took made her that much closer to getting away.

  Sandy pulled up alongside of him, the two men running at a full-out sprint.

  “Hans, did you take out the guard?” Ryck asked as he put away his PA and pulled down his M77.

  “Affirmative, sir. He’s ghosted. I’m on your ass now.”

  Çağlar, for all his strength and courage, was not the fastest Marine in the Federation, something Ryck had almost subconsciously realized as he had given him the task to take out the guard. Sandy, on the other hand, was half-antelope with his running ability.

  “The guard’s down,” Ryck shouted to Sandy between breaths.

  The two Marines ran down the short depression, vaulted the irrigation canal, and climbed back up the other side before reaching the road. To his right, Ryck could see the hover off the road and up against a tree. There was no sign of movement from it. After a few more steps, he could see the dead guard lying face up in the grass.

  “Here, take this,” Ryck said, unslinging the M569 and tossing it to Sandy. “Spread out, and let’s find her,” he said as the two entered the forest.

  Ryck knew the Ferret would be armed as well, but the question as if she would simply run or stop and make a stand. In their Nature Plantation coveralls, Ryck felt exposed and vulnerable. He wished he had on his skins and bones, which would give him decent protection against most man-packed kinetic weapons. With his coveralls, he might as well be going into battle naked.

  He motioned for Sandy to stop as he pulled out his PA. He could see his teams starting to deploy as he ordered, but the distance was such that it might take Team 1 an hour or more to get into position. The Ferret could be long gone by then.

  Ryck motioned Sandy back into motion, and the two men, separated by about 20 meters, moved forward. This p
atch of trees was typical of a terraformed world. They’d probably been planted only 20 or so years ago, but under forced growth, had reached the size of 60-year old naturally grown trees. And as in many commercial worlds, the undergrowth found on Earth or more mature worlds was missing.

  This made visibility relatively good and limited the cover the Ferret might need for an ambush. With that in mind, Ryck broke into a trot, knowing Sandy would follow.

  He pulled out his PA again, trying to get a better idea of what direction she would take if she was trying to escape. He missed his battle helmet display. It was hands-free, and he could manipulate it with his eyes, which made things much easier. With his PA, while it was not the normal civilian PA, it was still a handheld device. When he was using it, he lost the use of one hand and had to look down at it, which was not what he wanted to do when he was hunting—or being hunted.

  This wooded area was about 800 meters deep. On the other side, was an open field of modified soybeans. The bean plants were stood about 20 centimeters tall, so someone would have to low crawl among them not to be seen. At the far end of the fields was the main road, but there were also two work teams in the fields at the moment, and Ryck was pretty sure the Ferret would not want to be spotted by them. She obviously had the ability to block herself from the nano-drones, but the naked eye was harder to spoof. A Marine in a PICS had the fractured array that didn’t hide the PICS from visuals but merely confused the mind as to just where the Marine was. The array was a pretty big piece of gear, though, and Ryck didn’t know of any man-packed piece of equipment that could completely hide a person from another’s view. Well, a tarnkappe[13] could, with its ability to bend light around an object, but that was only practical with a stationary blind spot, good for snipers or ambushes, and limited effectiveness from only two 180 degree directions, but not for a moving person or 360 coverage.

  To the east of their position, the trees converged to a point some 3000 meters down with the soy fields on one side and wheat on the other. The wheat had been harvested and tilled back into the soil, so that provided no cover. The main road was only 150 meters from the point, but Ryck had placed Team 2 on a small hill that covered the open area. They should be in position before the Ferret could make it there.

  To the west was from where the Ferret and her guard had come and where they had sent their sacrificial decoy. They had to have come from one of the private homes in the area, and Team 4 was in a good blocking position there.

  Ryck kept his senses on alert and the two moved through the woods, trying to spot the Ferret before she could spot them. He was aware of his vulnerability, of his lack of body armor, but that concern was swept under by his sense of excitement. He was on the hunt, and he reveled in it. He’d spent too much time lately as a commander, as a facilitator. Now, he was a warrior, and his heart sang with exultation.

  He knew he shouldn’t feel this way. “Civilized” men only fought as a last resort, and they did it reluctantly, as a duty, nothing more. But this is what made Ryck feel alive, and it provided a rush he couldn’t replicate anywhere else.

  He was trying to channel his inner wolf, his inner tiger when the rational Ryck pushed to the fore and he came to a sudden realization. He stopped suddenly, his mind churning. Pulling out his PA, he recalled the map of the area. Right there, in Ryck’s own AO, a natural draw crossed the open fields. It was a seasonal stream bed that fed into the irrigation canal. If the spring rains hit, a flooded field could wash away the valuable seeds, so the draw had been left in place to canalize the water and feed it into the canal. It was slightly over a meter deep, and from the pump house roof, the bottom was in sight. But Ryck’s team was not at the pump house. They were chasing the Ferret through the woods. A small person, a woman, might be able to push her way through the draw and escape into the more populated area to the south.

  “Hans, get back to the pump house, get on the roof, and cover the draw to the west,” he ordered over his comms.

  “She’s going to double back,” he told the lieutenant, who had stopped and was looking at him with a questioning expression. “She’s going for the draw.”

  Ryck could see understanding dawn on Sandy as he wheeled about, leading the way at a run with Ryck in trace. The gap between them widened with the faster lieutenant running full out.

  Ryck wanted to tell him to slow down, but they had to beat the Ferret to the draw. If she got there quickly, she would beat Çağlar and be lost. As long as Ryck had Sandy in sight, he could cover him.

  But he couldn’t. Not 100 meters from the tree line across from the draw, a shot rang out, and Sandy tumbled to the ground. Ryck immediately veered off to the left, closer to the edge of the tree line, zigging and zagging to throw off her aim.

  He pulled up behind a large tree and asked, “You OK, Sandy?”

  “I’m hit. My arm’s fucked up, but I think I’m still with you.”

  “Can you cover me?” Ryck asked.

  There was a pause, then “I think so. I’ve got to go lefty, so let me try.” There was another pause, then “Shit!” came over the open mic.

  “Uh, I think so,” was passed after a few more grunts.”

  “Did you see her?” Ryck asked as his AI reversed the trajectory of the round that hit Sandy.

  “No, sir, sorry. I never saw anything,” the lieutenant said, breathing hard.

  Ryck knew Sandy would be going into shock soon, but he needed him functional. In a PICS, he would be getting injections to stave off the shock, but in Natural Plantation coveralls, that wasn’t happening.

  “I’ve got it. Check your PA. She’s 220 meters at your . . .” he tapped his screen to change the vantage to Sandy’s, “. . . three-four-six.”

  “Uh, I’ve got it, sir. I, I can’t see anything, though,” he managed to get out.

  The lieutenant was fading fast.

  “Can you lay down some fire for me? Just aim along that axis. I don’t care if you’ve got a target or not, just fire.”

  “Uh, roger, sir. Give me a moment.”

  Rycvk took a quick glance and saw Sandy some 20 meters away, on the ground, back up against another tree.

  “Don’t expose yourself. Just reach around and pump out rounds,” he ordered.

  “Six, this is two. We are in position,” Team Two passed on the net.

  Ryck didn’t think they would be involved, but it was good to know they were ready to support as needed.

  “Let me know when you’re ready,” he told Sandy, trying to keep his voice calm and steady, knowing his lieutenant was struggling.

  “Roger, sir. I think I’m ready now.”

  “OK, on three. One, two, three!” Ryck passed quietly on the net when his adrenaline wanted him to shout out loud.

  Ryck spun around the tree trunk and rushed forward, sending a stream of darts forward. He knew where the Ferret should be, but he couldn’t see anything. A single shot sounded from where Sandy lay.

  Grubbing hell! Not the 569!

  “Sandy, use the M77!”

  The M569 was a powerful weapon, but it was slow and could not put out large numbers of rounds downrange. Sandy would have to eject the round and chamber another, something the one-armed and shocky lieutenant probably couldn’t manage. Ryck would lose his covering fire.

  Before he could finish his telling Sandy to use the M77, the M569 round detonated, and once again, a blinding white flash reflected among the trees, right where his AI had calculated the Ferret would be. But there was nothing there. Nobody.

  Ryck kept running, trying to figure out what had happened when a flash came out of empty air 150 meters ahead, and something whizzed past his ear.

  Mother-grubbing son-of-a-bitch! he thought as realization hit.

  He’d dismissed a tarnkappe as being impractical for the Ferret’s escape. But if she was trying to take Sandy and him out to clear her way, then setting an ambush with a tarnkappe made perfect sense. She’d figured from where the two Marines would come, then orient her tarncappe in that
direction. With the poncho-like device, and with Ryck obligingly coming up the same way, he and Sandy had run into her ambush, never seeing her. The M569 round had actually worked as at least some of the meson beam went through the side of the tarnkappe and interacted with the shield she still had.

  She’d managed to hit Sandy in the arm from her ambush, but the limited visibility from within the tarnkappe had spoiled her shot at Ryck. Ryck shifted his aim and fired off a stream of darts as a figure appeared as if from thin air and darted to the side. Leaves fell between the two, knocked down by Ryck’s darts. The hypervelocity darts were very effective against most targets, but they could be deflected by even small amounts of vegetation. Ryck probably fired 20-25 darts at a range of about 150 meters, but his target darted out of sight among the trees.

  “Hans, where’re you at?” he passed as he sprinted forward.

  “I’m climbing onto the pump house roof now,” Çağlar told him.

  At least the Ferret’s attempted ambush slowed her down long enough for Çağlar to cover her probable intended route of escape.

  Ryck thought the Ferret would sprint forward, then try and ambush him again, so he closed the distance as fast as he could for ten seconds before slowing back down. He passed her discarded tarnkaape, visible from the side aspect with only standard camouflage printed on it.

  Up ahead, maybe 200 more meters, he could see the sunlight from the open area to the south. Unless she was doubling back again, this time to the north (and he should have spotted her if she were doing that), she had to be somewhere ahead of him. If she broke out of the trees, Çağlar would see her and take her out.

  Ryck could wait, maybe should wait, and call in his teams. But his instinct told him he has to push, to keep up the pressure. The Ferret had gotten to her position somehow, and she was most likely a very capable woman. If he gave her time to collect her thoughts, she might come up with a better way to escape. No, he had to push, and push her hard. If she bolted, then fine, she’d be Çağlar’s target. If she waited, she was Ryck’s. Of course, she could just surrender, but Ryck didn’t think that was going to happen.