Several hours went by before the cargo shuttle could launch and make its way to the Pinckney’s crash site.
“Mike, I want to go down to the surface,” Rufo announced as he entered the captain’s office.
The Italian was still in his coverall and looked like he could use a shower.
Lt. Collins looked up from the report he was reading and frowned at his friend.
“Don’t tell me, you want to see if you can scrounge some parts from that transport to help make repairs to the Randori,” he said leaning back in his desk chair and smiling.
For once the engineer was at a loss of words but it was short lived.
“How did you know that?” he asked his grime-covered face breaking into a frown.
“What do you think a ship captain does?” Mike said leaning forward, “We sit around, worry and read damage reports.”
Rufo nodded, “You saw that we needed a few parts to get the bender drive operational, ones that we don’t have.”
“Yep, and the machine shop can’t make them?”
“No, its way to complicated but maybe that transport could help us out if I can find them and pull them out, that is if they are still operational,” the officer sometimes known as Lt. Frankenstein said while wondering if he could really do all of that.
“Ok, you have the landing party,” Mike said and added, “Take whoever you need and get it done. Just make sure you get those marines on board first.”
“Roger that, but this could take a few days,” he said trying to warn his boss to the extent of this mission.
Mike leaned back again in his chair, “From what I’ve read we aren't going anywhere for a while.
“What about the Star Wolf?” Cappillo wondered.
“She has to make repairs to the New Orleans as well as the Cody so she’ll probably be a few days out of action. With any luck we will catch up with her before she penetrates into Karduan space.”
“All right, I’m on it!” Rufo said smiling from ear to ear as he left the office to assemble his team.
Lt. Stanton watched as a pair of old Wasp star fighters flew over his base camp. When they first arrived just hours earlier, his men almost shot them down thinking that they were Karduan fighters.
This time his men were out in their space suits waving up to the fighters as they did a fly by. They all couldn’t believe that they were being rescued and by a Confederation ship to boot. It had been the hardest time in his life as their ship was damaged and cut off from their convoy. Forced into the planet’s gravitational pull they crashed on its surface killing almost everyone onboard. Then for the next few months they had to survive on battle rations and recycled wastewater. It was all a huge nightmare that he had thankfully lived to see to an end.
A few minutes after the fighters passed by two shuttles where spotted coming in on a decent course to the crash site. The first was a huge cargo shuttle and the second was an armored personnel craft, which he recognized as a M12 Knox. It was a standard armored landing shuttle capable of carrying twenty men and all of their gear.
The two shuttles slowed and easily landed to the cheers of the marooned marines. Setting down they kicked up dirt and small rocks that pelted the nearby marines but everyone was so happy they didn’t even care. A moment later the armored shuttle’s rear door opened and several men came out of the back. They were dressed in standard Confederation sealed combat armor. All of them were loaded for bear, carrying needle rifles, ship swords and gauss pistols. They then quickly fanned out and moved towards the waiting marines.
“Marines Attention!” Lt. Stanton said calling his men to order.
Training and discipline took over as the ragged bunch of warriors snapped to.
“Present arms,” he then called.
Together the men raised their hands in salute to the men that had come to rescue them. They held that salute until the leader of the shuttle came up to where Stanton stood.
Cappillo snapped out a perfect salute and called for them to stand at ease.
“Lieutenant, I’m Lt. Cappillo from the Randori, we are here with your ride,” he said with a smile and nodded back to the shuttles.
“Thank you, sir,” Stanton said “We just need to get the wounded onboard first. Most of them have injures that we couldn’t treat so we’ve kept them immobilized as best as possible.
“Gunny, have our men lend a hand,” he said to the tall but old marine standing just behind him.
The old marine nodded to the young marine officer and turned back to bark out orders to his men to help with the injured.
“How many men do you have left?”
“Twenty-four all together, my marines were in the tank bay doing maintenance when the crash alarms went off. I knew we didn’t have time to get to crew stations so I had them get into the tanks and buckle in. We activated the tanks’ anti-gravity units and let the onboard computers handle adjustments. When we hit the ground we were thrown all over the place but we survived. One navy crewmen survived onboard the ship.”
“How many did you lose?” Rufo asked
Stanton paused and swallowed hard before he answered.
“Sir, we were half of an armored regiment, that means forty-eight tanks with four men each along with support vehicles and personnel. Counting the ship’s crew, we lost three hundred and twenty-two people.”
“Holy Shit!” Rufo exclaimed letting out a hard breath and shaking his head.
Stanton pointed to his far left where Cappillo could see rows upon rows of rock mounds piled just high enough to cover a body. In some place crosses had been erected from pieces of broken metal wreckage.
Lacking anything else to say he asked, “Who was your commanding officer?”
“That would be Lt. Colonel Robert Stanton, sir,” he said with a little snap at the end of his sentence.
“What … Col. Stanton?” Rufo said a little confused, “Isn’t that your last name?”
“Yes sir, he was my father,” Lt. Frank Stanton said and pointed to one of the crosses in the field of rocky graves.
“I’m sorry Lieutenant,” Cappillo replied knowing that the kid went through more than just hell on this lifeless rock.
The young marine shrugged and looked away. Nearby, his men were hauling their rucksack and equipment to the back of the armored shuttle.
“When do we load our tanks?” Stanton questioned.
Rufo just stared at him for a second.
“I don’t have any orders for loading tanks,” he said and quickly explained, “My engineering team is down here to scavenge parts so we can help repair the battle damage to the Randori.”
“Well, who do I talk to about getting my tanks loaded?” the young marine officer asked sounding a little frustrated.
Cappillo smiled a big ass grin, “That would be Lt. Collins.”
“And where do I find him?”
“Just take your men up to the ship and see to them,” Rufo instructed trying to calm the young man down.
“But what about my tanks?” Stanton insisted.
“Don’t worry, when your men are all taken care of I’ll have Master Gunnery Sergeant Masters take you to see him,” Cappillo explained putting a hand on the second lieutenant’s shoulder and guiding him to the waiting shuttle.
Cappillo nodded to Jack Masters and the old noncommissioned officer nodded back as he climbed in behind the marine officer.
Once the shuttle had left Rufo turned toward his waiting team.
“All right, let search the area and find the parts that are on our list. If you see anything we could use send a picture of it to me and I’ll make the judgment call on it.
His team all nodded or said, “Yes sir” and quickly got to work.
Looking at the immense wreckage around them, Cappillo let out a big sigh and thought to himself that this is going to be a lot of work.
Once his men were on board the young marine officer wasted no time and approached the old gunnery sergeant.
“Master Guns, I w
ant to see the captain right now,” he said trying to make it sound somewhere between a request and an order.
For a second lieutenant the one thing you learned fast was that you didn’t want to piss off the top sergeant. Yet he had been the sole commander of these men for the last few months, barely surviving on a desolate and barren world. In all that time he learned a lot about being in command, especially about being tough and being a leader.
The old sergeant smiled and nodded his head like a father to his son.
“Sure thing sir, he wants to see you too,” Gunny said and turned to lead him through the ship.
“This is an express freighter?” Stanton inquired seeing all of the military personnel busily moving through the corridors. It seemed that everyone was on a mission. Looking down a side hallway he could see a damage control team repairing battle damage with a laser wielder and some emergency hull plating. Passing by a cargo bay he saw that it had retractable gun turrets mounted in the bay instead of cargo containers. At one of the turrets, five crewmen were working on repairing it. In another corridor two repair droids were carrying a section of hull plating towards a cargo bay’s airlock.
“Well sir, the Randori is a little more that just an express freighter,” he said and added, “It is a Q-Ship.”
Frank Stanton shook his head as they moved into hall that had been made narrow due to the combination of extra armor and hull patches fastened to its sides.
“No offense but what the hell is a Q-Ship?”
Jack shrugged with a grin.
“I’m just a grunt marine sir, but according to Lt. Collins they were used in Earth’s World Wars to trick enemy submarines to surface and lure them in to destroy them. Captain Hope, our Task Force Commander said they were also used to hunt down space pirates.”
“Where is your task force? I only saw this ship when we came up from the planet’s surface,” Stanton asked as they reached the lift and headed up to the bridge level.
“Hell if we know?” he commented, “We were in a battle at Arcadia Prime and got separated from our other ships when we tried to bend out. If it wasn’t for Lt. Collins’ quick thinking the enemy might have gotten us.”
The young marine officer sighed, “I guess we lost the battle?”
Jack stepped out of the lift, turned and looked back at him.
“Sir, we kicked the crap out of them but we had to withdraw before the enemy could bring their main force down on us,” he said with pride.
Moving a few feet down the hall he stopped and pointed to the wall. On that wall were the painted outlines of more than a dozen Karduan ships including a battle destroyer.
“This ship has seen some action,” Stanton said as he nodded with a smile at the old NCO.
“I’m sure we will see a hell of a lot more,” Jack replied as he knocked on a partially opened door that had a brass name plate that said “Captain’s Office.”
“Enter,” a voice called from inside.
Gunny opened the door and moved inside with Stanton following close behind. Once inside the sergeant stepped off to the side so that the marine lieutenant could step up.
Frank Stanton looked over to a young officer sitting behind a plain metal office desk that was bolted to the decking. He was dressed in navy duty uniform that had the rank of full lieutenant on his collar. What shocked him the most was that the young navy officer was two ranks senior to him yet he looked to be about the same age as him, maybe twenty-three or twenty-four?
Mike looked up from his desk computer’s holo screen and smiled at the young marine.
“Welcome aboard,” he said.
It took Stanton a second but he quickly snapped to attention.
“Sir, Second Lt. Frank Stanton, Colonial Marines,” he declared as he locked his heels and saluted.
Mike stood up, returned his salute and said, “At ease Lieutenant.”
The marine officer stood at ease and relaxed.
“I’m Mike Collins, captain of this ship,” he said and sat down waving for the young marine to take a seat.
Gunny had brought a chair over for the young officer as Stanton awkwardly sat down. He was exhausted, surprised and for the last four months he had been dealing with the stress of command. He was also still in his filthy combat space suit, which made it a little difficult to move.
Mike looked the tired officer over; he was twenty-two or three probably just out of ROTC or one of the service academies. He was tall and had light dirty blond hair and blue eyes. His accent told him that the officer was from North America, or a colony that had been settled by them. He turned his head a little to look at a unit patch on the marine’s shoulder. The patch was of a black hat.
“What unit are you with?” Collins asked.
The marine leaped back to his feet and snapped to attention.
“The 7th Regiment - Iron Brigade Sir!” he called out with gusto.
Mike smiled, “As you were and please sit down.”
The marine officer once more relaxed and returned to his seat.
“So you’re from Wisconsin?”
Stanton was stunned, “Yes sir, how did you know that?”
Collins shrugged a little.
“An educated guess,” he said and continued, “the original Iron Brigade was from the American Civil War. They were mostly from Wisconsin, though one regiment I believe was from Indiana or Minnesota. I had heard that the Emperor was creating new units for the war and that he was reviving some of the names from older, long retired units to instill a sense of tradition.”
“No unit fought harder than the Iron Brigade,” the marine said with pride and then added, “No unit fights harder than the Iron Brigade.”
It sounded like a motto because it was.
“Tell me how did you survive after the crash? There isn’t a lot of air on Carter’s World?”
It was the first time he heard the planet’s name and he sat there for a moment in silence looking at the top of Mike’s desk.
“We used the tanks as sort of life boats, using their air and recycling systems until the air supply was used up. That bought us some time. Luckily, one of the ship’s crewmen survived the crash. Her name is Specialist Rita Rojas. She was an assistant engineer’s mate and she managed to get the ship’s air-recycling unit repaired and modified it to draw out trace amounts of oxygen from the planet’s atmosphere. The planet also has highly charged electrical clouds that we had to deal with and which constantly threatened to burn out our air system.
We had plenty of battle rations, though water was in sort supply. Besides spending our time trying to survive, we buried the dead and worked on getting as many tanks as we could operational.”
“Mr. Cappillo informed me about your father, you have my sincere condolences,” Mike said in a lowered voice. He had to admit he was still not sure how to deal with the loss of his crewmen’s lives or how to comfort their next of kin. Maybe it would get easier as he got older but he doubted it.
“Thank you, sir,” Stanton replied in a mumble.
Behind him Gunny Masters had returned to the office after slipping away to the galley. He was now carrying a tray full of sandwiches, several sodas and a pot of coffee.
“I thought we could all use some lunch,” the older man said setting the tray down on the desk.
The young marine looked at the sandwiches like they were something from myth. He had been eating battle rations for the last four months and the sight of the simple fare almost made the tough man break down.
Seeing the young officer fighting to hold it together Mike got up and excused himself.
“Please eat, I just remembered that I need to speak to the Gunny and a bridge officer for a moment.”
Waving for the Master Guns to follow they left Stanton alone as he fought to control himself from sobbing and eat a simple sandwich.
Closing the door and moving down the hallway they stopped to talk.
“Well, what do you think?” the Q-ship captain asked.
“That�
��s one tough kid, he kind of reminds me of you,” the old marine said with pride.
“Yeah, but I want you to keep a close eye on all of them. They’ve been through a hell of an ordeal and we don’t have a doctor onboard just a corpsman,” Mike instructed.
“Don’t worry, they are Marines,” Gunny said as if that was all that had to be said.
“Still, I want you to get them settled in and squared away,” he said putting his hand on the taller man’s shoulder.
“Mike, you worry too much,” Jack said with a shake of his head.
“Top, that is what they pay me for,” he replied forcing a smile.
The old sergeant shrugged, “Well, don’t worry I’ve got this.”
Together they returned to find that the young marine officer had eaten three sandwiches and though his dirty face was streaked from tears he seemed to be doing better. He was even smiling as he took a big bite of a ham and cheese sandwich. Taking a sip of Coke, he quickly washed it down.
“Sir, I’d like to talk to you about my tanks,” he said sounding serious and back in control.
“I heard about your tanks from Lt. Cappillo and though we don’t have a lot of extra room we do have some storage available. We’ve used up a lot of extra hull plating, emergency patches and spare turrets that we brought along for prize ships as well as to repair our own battle damage.”
“That’s great sir!” he said having prepared himself for a fight over the questionable fate of his tanks.
“How many tanks do you have?” Mike inquired sitting down, grabbing a sandwich and taking a mouthful.
“Forty-eight tanks and ten support vehicles,” he announced.
“What?” Mike said with a mouthful of food. He then went into a coughing fit causing the Gunny to come over and slap him on the back.
Masters smiled at the young marine lieutenant.
“It’s the only time you get to hit an officer,” he joked, giving Collins another hard whack.
Mike raised his hand signaled him to stop hitting him but kept coughing for another minute as he slowly caught his breath and took a sip of soda.
“I don’t think we can take on that many tanks,” he stated and added, “When this was just a freighter it wouldn’t have been a problem but we now have limited space. All of our hidden turrets are nested inside cargo holds. We’ve turned E deck into a flight deck, add that to our missile stores, other essential supplies and equipment. I hope you can see we just don’t have the room.”
Wolf's Run: The Chase of War (Star Wolf Sqaudron Book 2) Page 16