Immediately, the four Marines sprang to work. Skeets and Killer started maneuvering the 309 forward while Brock and Noah stood ready at the lock-downs. The 309 could be programmed for a hands-off connection, but for this entire training evolution, it was to be in the manual mode.
The M-309 was a very simple looking device resembling a full rack in the gym. It was strong, steady . . . and slow. As it started to straddle the MGS-MC, Noah reached forward for the first snake, grabbing the head and leading it right to the coupler. His pulling on it wouldn’t make a difference, but he couldn’t help but make the effort. Finally, he felt the small tug as the connector ends detected each other and pulled together. With a click, they fused, and the telltale flashed green.
“Two connected,” he shouted out a moment before Brock announced that number One had connected as well.
The two snakemen jumped back to help guide in numbers Three and Four, almost jumping back as the final two connections were made. They bolted forward to the B103 while Killer and Skeets walked the 309 up, Skeets on the controls, Killer monitoring the MGS.
There hadn’t been a reason for the two Marine to sprint ahead. They waited impatiently on top of the tank while the 309 trundled forward. The MGS was fairly lightweight as armor weapons went, but it was not exactly without much mass. While the 309 had no problem lifting one, if the MGS started to sway, that could keep feeding on itself until the MWSL became unstable and even tip over. It was Killer’s job to make sure that didn’t happen, lowering the MGS to the ground, if necessary, but it was better to just keep any oscillating from even starting.
“Look at that! A race of the snails,” Brock said.
Noah had to laugh out loud. It did look pretty funny. All eight crews were slowly walking forward, a slow-motion race to get their MGS’s to their tanks. Everyone looked so serious, too.
It took a couple of minutes for the first of the teams to reach their tank, and by the time Killer raised the MGS to clear the top and Skeets eased the 309 forward, they were in second-to-last place.
“Come on, come on,” Noah said, watching the alignment from inside the tank.
There wasn’t much he could do from inside to make sure the MGS came down in position—in fact, he was not allowed to reach out to help. A slight shift, and his arms could get crushed between the MGS and the tank body.
But between Killer and Pie, the MGS came down smoothly, all alignment lights green. Noah flipped the connector switches, checked the circuits for continuity, waiting for Brock’s “All secure” from outside of the tank where he was locking the MGS in place.
He received that 15 seconds later, and he immediately powered up the weapons module, watching the readouts. The Mad Mike, the nickname for the 2.5 KJ meson cannon, took a lot of energy to power up, whereas the MGS-AT railgun and the MGS-HE 90mm canon would be ready to go almost immediately. The B103’s crew was already behind most of the other crews, and handicapped with the Mad Mike, Noah wasn’t sure they could catch up. One after the other, the red lights turned green as the whine of the charging cannon grated on his ears.
Finally, the last light turned green, and he shouted “Gun up!” before scooting out of the crew compartment.
To his relief, it looked like there were two more crews still setting up. He gave Pie, who was backing up the 309, a thumbs up.
Noah had to wait for the chief weapons instructor, retired Sergeant Major Sylvester Tarpon, to reach them. He down-checked 122, which surprised the heck out of Noah.
How can you get down-checked? Either you’re green or red.
That made him nervous, though, as the sergeant major climbed up on the 103. He wondered if he’d forgotten anything. The sergeant major never completely entered the tank. Hanging upside-down with his head in the gunner’s turret, he barely took five seconds to emerge with an up-check, much to Noah’s relief. It took another ten minutes until all seven tanks were given the up-check and were deemed ready to fire.
But Noah and his crewmates had to wait. The firing line was constrained, and while all Davises were supposedly hardened to each other, it was theoretically possible for the side lobes or leakage from a Mad Mike to set off sympathetic explosions in the 90mm rounds fired by the MGS-HE. Safety regulations required that the MGS-MC’s maintain 40 meters distance between them and other tanks while firing on ranges, so the B103 and B129 remained back at the ready-line while the other five tanks loaded their rounds and moved into their firing positions.
Noah and the other three sat on top of the 103, watching, as the first tank was cleared to fire. The crack of the 75mm sabot round as it blew past the sound barrier almost hurt his ears, so sharp was it. Almost instantly, it seemed, there was a flash as the round punched through the sides of a hulk so damaged that Noah couldn’t tell what it had once been.
“Get some!” Brock said, fist-bumping Killer.
Noah was impressed. While the 90mm rounds to be fired today were the blue practice rounds, there was no such thing as a “practice” 75mm railgun round. It was an inert hunk of death shot at hypervelocity speeds. They didn’t have a warhead, relying on simple mass and inertia to destroy a target.
The gunner fired two more rounds before the next tank in the line was ready. This would be the MGS-HE, firing the 90mm round. Unlike the sharp crack of the railgun, the 90mm shook the firing stations with the concussion of the chemical propellant. Noah could feel it, as if someone was thumping his chest. Downrange, the impact was a little anti-climatic, but that was because the rounds were inert and not nearly as fast as the 75mm rounds. Whereas the railgun was a superb anti-armor weapon, and while it did have an HE round that could be used, the 90mm was a much better choice against fighting positions and soft targets. And just as the railgun had an HE round, the 90mm had a sabot for anti-armor.
It took over an hour for each of the students in all five tanks to get his or her three rounds, but eventually, the tanks were backed off the firing line, and the two MC tanks took their positions. With the kinetics, the range officers had been standing next to the tanks. Not so with the two MC tanks, and for the same reason that the offset was required. So much power was about to be released that any leakage could mess up a person’s day something fierce. For that reason, a range officer was inside each tank, making an already-cramped situation even more so.
Given Noah’s higher driving scores, he was the first one in the gunner’s seat. He hadn’t done as well as Killer and Skeets in gunnery drills in the simulator, but he wasn’t about to give up his first-to-fire status.
Noah imagined he could feel the angry powers of the electrons and positrons, jockeying for release as pi neutral mesons. He was sitting right next to an immense pool of energy, ready to send it downrange.
The meson cannon could stop an infantry attack in its tracks. It could destroy or put out of action almost any unshielded equipment, sweeping the terrain with the force of an angry Norse god. Yet, it had limitations. A meson beam had problems with simple rock and earth, so dug-in infantry were difficult targets, and armor such as the Brotherhood’s Romakh was hardened enough to deflect any land-based meson or plasma weapon. None of that was on Noah’s mind as he waited for the signal to fire. All he could think about was 2.5 KJ about to blow past his head.
“You may fire when ready,” the range officer said into his mic.
Noah was sighted in on a hulk 1034 meters downrange. His display had the cannon at 100%, ready to fire. His mind “itched,” if he could say that with the amount of energy that seemed to hover around him. Slowly depressing the double thumb paddles, he released the fires of hell.
He would swear later that he could see the bones in his hands on the paddles, even if he knew this was impossible. What he knew was possible was the tightly focused meson beam that reached out and enveloped his target—he just hadn’t realized how intense the beam would be.
“Grubbing hell!” was about the best he could manage as the afterimage still burned in his eyes as the charger whined as it strained to get the canno
n ready for the next shot.
He’d only fired from a sitting tank on a controlled range, a range officer at his side, but still, Noah thought he understood at a gut level now what it meant to be a Marine tanker.
Chapter 6
“I want another apple,” Killer said, already two sheets into the wind.
“Me, too!” Miriam chorused, and just about as far gone as Killer was.
She punched the order into the console, and leaned back against the small Marine, her arm companionably around her shoulder.
“My man’s a sergeant now, so we can afford this!”
Noah glanced at the readout, grimaced, but forced a smile back on his face. The bill had already climbed to devour at least two months’ worth of his increase in pay. Wetting downs were a tradition and part of Marine life. He’d enjoyed himself often enough at the expense of other newly promoted Marines, so he couldn’t very well complain.
With a loud whoosh, which Noah was sure was mostly for show, two red apple-shaped containers came down the overhead track to land in their table’s center cradle. Killer and Miriam grabbed their ice-cold ciders, clinked apples, then sucked on the extended “stems.”
The apples were the latest craze, but to Noah, the cider contained in them was bland and over-manufactured. He lifted his own glass and took a sip.
Much better, he thought.
If he was going to drink cider, at least he was going drink a naturally-brewed cider from a local supplier. Miriam, God bless her, didn’t have much in the way of a refined palate, and she was more impressed with the slick packaging rather than the drink inside.
Most of the party had drifted away. This would be the last weekend before the final Armor War, an eight-day practical application exercise that was the last graded event of the school. For those who passed—and most everyone who was left should pass—they would be receiving their first set of orders within a day of Endex. Even at this stage of the game, no one had a firm idea of where he or she would be going. Noah had remained near the top of the class, buoyed by his Class Four Quals in driving all three platforms (where he ended up third in the class), but his Class Three gunnery and Class Two maintenance scores had been more to the middle. The Honor Grad was probably going to be Opania Bester, who was sitting across the table from him right now, and while it hurt his ooh-rah to have an FCDC trooper receive it, he had to admit she deserved the honor. And she’d turned out to be a “cope,” what some of the younger generation was now calling people or things that his slightly older generation and even older had called “copacetic.”
Noah wanted to cut Miriam off. He wanted her clear-headed, but she was enjoying getting out of the apartment and being able to socialize.
Two more of the Marines got up to leave, congratulating him on his new rank. “Sergeant Lysander” did sound good to him, he had to admit. As a sergeant, the Marine Corps deemed him mature enough to get married. It seemed stupid, in many ways, that yesterday, he wasn’t capable of being a Marine and a married man, but today, suddenly he was, but Noah had long ago simply accepted the many incongruities of being a Marine.
“Well, sister of another mother, it’s time I pull chocks,” Killer said, pulling Miriam in for a kiss on the cheek.
“No, Patty! One more, OK?” Miriam protested.
Killer looked over Miriam’s shoulder at Noah, who quickly shook his head.
Killer nodded at him, then said, “No, really. We’ve only got tomorrow to get our vehicles ready, and the Dead Eye’s got problems.”
The four crewmates were starting the Armor War in the Aardvarks, and unlike with Davises and Mambas, each training Aardvark had a name. “Dead Eye” was more often called “Dead Ass,” by the crew for her continually breaking down.
“We’ll get together after the war, OK? Noah may be a bad-ass sergeant now, but I’ve got him handled. He’ll do what I say,” she said as Noah rolled his eyes.
“Sergeant Bester, are you on your way back?” she asked the FCDC trooper.
“Sure. I guess I’m ready.”
She started to take out her PA as if to pay, and Noah had to reach out to stop her.
“My bill. Tradition.”
She didn’t bother to put up a fake protest, but nodded and said, “I’m glad we don’t have the same tradition in Feds. That would have bankrupted me when I made sergeant. Congratulations, though.”
“What about him?” Miriam said, draining her apple and looking at Brock, who was slumped down, head back, and snoring.
“It’s an autocab for him. Here, help me get him out of here.”
Brock mumbled a few times, and only half-way moved his feet while they mostly dragged him to the entrance, then poured him into the cab, programming and paying for the trip back to the main gate.
“YATYAS!” Killer yelled out the window as the cab pulled away.
“YATYAS,” Noah yelled back.
It hadn’t been until after their Phase 2 rotations that Noah had learned what it meant. “Now, it had become almost a habit, much like “Ooh-rah.” Depending on whether shouted by a tanker or tracker, it meant “If You Ain’t a Tanker (or Tracker), You Ain’t Shit!”
Miriam intertwined her arms in his as they watched the cab until it turned the corner and was out of sight.
Miriam pulled Noah down and whispered into his ear, “I’ve never fucked a sergeant before.”
Noah pulled back in surprise. Miriam was a little earthier than he was, but she was rarely so coarse with her language. The word “fuck” may be the most commonly spoken word in the Marines, but this was different.
And it kind of turned him on, even more so when her hand strayed to his crotch.
Not now! he told himself.
He pulled her across the street and into the park, and for a moment, she seemed to think he wanted to have at it outside in some dark corner, and she started pulling him along, only to be surprised when he stopped and sat them both down on a park bench.
“What, you don’t want to fuck me?” she asked.
“No,” he started until he saw the expression on her face change. “I mean yes, of course, I do. I love f . . . fucking you,” he managed to get out. “But first, there’s something I want to say.”
She sat back, arms across her chest, the expression on her face not too inviting.
Oh, shit. Now I’ve got her mad at me. This isn’t going like I planned.
He’d had three drinks that night, and while not drunk, he knew it could be clouding his mind. A rational Noah would just go home and make love to her. A slightly tipsy Noah, though, wanted to get things straight. The last 30 some-odd weeks had been rough on them. He’d felt them drift apart a little, and he wasn’t 100% sure about where they were with each other. Even though Miriam had been around Marines on Wayfarer Station, being in a relationship with one, living with one, had to be an eye-opening experience. For a Marine, duty interfered with family life, no matter how hard the Marine tried not to let it get in the way. Noah knew that Miriam had been unhappy, and he’d feared he was losing her. He had to find out just where they were before he received his next orders.
He should have done this before going to his wetting down, but to be honest, he’d chickened out. He’d thought a drink might calm him, but that turned into three for him and four or five for her.
Doesn’t matter. Just go for it.
“So, what are you going to say that’s so damned important?” she asked.
“Look, honey,” he said, reaching out to take her hand.
At least she’s not pulling it back.
“I know, things have been rough for you during the school, and I’ve not always been there for you.”
She stared at him with an emotionless expression on her face, which made Noah more nervous.
“And, I don’t know where my next set of orders will be to yet. I can’t tell you if two days after I get there, I won’t be off deployed, leaving you there alone to get our home put together.”
Still nothing from her.
&n
bsp; “But I want you to know, that I still feel the same way about you. I love you, and I want to be with you, and now that I’m a sergeant, well, the Marine Corps—”
“Are you proposing to me?” she asked, her brows furrowed together in confusion.
“What? Well, yes. I mean I’m trying to,” he said, pulling the ring box out of his pocket.
She tilted her head back in laughter—not the sweet giggle of someone excited, but the belly busting laughter of someone who’d just heard something hilarious. Noah had expected a happy hug or a sorrowful rejection, but not this.
“And is that the ring?” she asked, trying to stifle her laughter.
“Yes,” he admitted softly, opening up the box to reveal the ring that now looked way too small, way too insignificant to him.
She took the box from him, turning the ring to catch the glare from the streetlights.
“And, why are you asking me this?”
What? he wondered, at loss for words.
He gaped at her like a fish out of water before he was able to strangle out, “Because I love you.”
“And I love you, too, Noah,” she said, putting her hands around his necks and pulling him forward until they were forehead to forehead. “But why are you asking me this? We decided all of this on Wayfarer Station.”
“Not exactly, no, we didn’t.”
“Yes, my muddle-headed sergeant. You said you wanted to marry me. I said I would, and I said you were mine. Hell, why do you think I followed you to this shithole of a planet?”
Noah tried to think back to their conversation. He had said something to the effect that he would like to marry her, as in sometime, but he hadn’t thought it was actually decided. And with her moping around the apartment, he wasn’t sure things were still on track.
“I don’t think I actually—”
“Get on your knees? No, you didn’t. You didn’t have to.”
“But—”
Noah's Story: Marine Tanker (The United Federation Marine Corps' Lysander Twins Book 3) Page 5