The United Federation Marine Corps' Lysander Twins: The Complete Series: Books 1-5

by Jonathan P. Brazee

  The Anvil had far more power and massed much less than the Ataturk Teresa, and he quickly closed the gap and edged ahead while running parallel only a block over. The excitement of the chase rose within him. Just two more blocks, and he thought he could take the next cross street and cut the Teresa off—until the Ataturk crew turned their tank to the right and away from them.

  “Shit! Get on his ass!” Staff Sergeant Cremineli shouted.

  Noah spun the Anvil around on its axis in a neutral steer, tracks going in opposite directions, then dashed forward, hoping to reach the street the Teresa was on in time to give Chili a shot up the tank’s ass-end. Just as he reached the road, however, almost sliding the Anvil around the corner, the Teresa turned left, taking it out of Chili’s line-of-fire.

  Just as Noah could see the Teresa on his display, he knew the Ataturk crew could see the Marine tanks. They were trying to counteract his attempts to get into position to fire while maneuvering their tank to fire on the Anvil and Ball Shot.

  “I’m switching to AI routing,” the TC passed.

  Immediately, the AI highlighted the routes it calculated for both Marine tanks as they tried to corner the Teresa. Noah would rather be choosing his own route, but he followed where the AI directed him—which changed each time as soon as the Teresa changed its direction.

  “It’s trying to hook up with the other one,” Staff Sergeant Mauser-Lopez passed.

  Noah realized that the Ball Shot’s TC was right. The Teresa was darting around like a bird in a cage, but it was slowly making its way towards the south side of the town where the lieutenant and the other Teresa were maneuvering against each other.

  They’d never learned anything like this at armor school. The battles there had been in wide open spaces, covering long distances. Maneuver had been on a larger scale, not individual tanks darting up and down small roads and alleys in a city.

  Six or seven years ago, there had been the historical Hollybolly flick, David Bowie Takes on Wall Street. Set in the 20th Century, Old Reckoning, the hero Bowie had challenged one of the Wall Street princes to an ancient game called Pacman. The game had made a very brief reappearance as part of the marketing for the flick, and as a big-time gamer, Noah had played the modern release a few times. Used to modern games, Noah had been bored with the slow and one-dimensional play, but what was happening now reminded him of that game. In this case, the three Marine tanks in the fight were doing the chasing, but his display looked like that of the ancient game, with figures chasing each other through the maze of roads and alleys.

  “Lieutenant, he’s going to be on your ass!” the gunny passed from where he was monitoring the action.

  Noah took his eyes off the road for a moment to look at the Kiss of Death’s avatar, and the gunny was right. Her target had doubled back, and in a moment, it would emerge behind her with a free shot up her ass end. Sergeant Juniper was rotating the main gun, but there was no way she could get it around in time to engage.

  Noah held his breath, staring at the screen, as the Teresa emerged and pivoted to take the shot just as the Kiss of Death darted down a side alley. The display registered the shot, but the Marine tank kept moving, untouched.

  Pay attention to your own fight, Noah scolded himself as he let out the breath he’d been holding.

  The flash and explosion took him by surprise, the clang against the top of the Anvil reverberating throughout the crew compartment. Immediately, another Teresa had appeared on his display, but he could see it with his naked eyes, just a couple of meters away off his left side where it had been hiding in ambush inside a shop of some sort. The muzzle of the 90mm gun looked huge, so close he thought he could reach out and touch it.

  A Teresa was larger than a Davis in both weight and height. The Ataturk tank’s 90mm was depressed as far as it could go, and the Anvil was beneath the line-of-fire. The Teresa’s round had skipped off of the turret instead penetrating. If the eager gunner had just waited ten seconds, the Anvil would have been far enough away for the Teresa’s main gun to be depressed enough to score a direct hit.

  More on instinct than anything else, Noah swerved the Anvil into the Teresa, slamming into it with a jolt that knocked Staff Sergeant Cremineli completely out of the tank. He fed the power, keeping contact, and started pushing the Teresa back into the building, walls being smashed as the two tanks struggled against each other.

  The Teresa’s 90mm gun extended over Noah’s hatch. If he opened the hatch, he could reach out and touch the barrel. As Chili brought his longer 75mm railgun around, it ran up against the Ataturk gun, locking together with it.

  Noah’s initial burst of power pushed the Teresa back, but as its own tracks began to gain purchase, it started to force the Anvil back, more walls collapsing as the two tanks banged into them. The Davis had a much more powerful motor, but the Teresa was 60 tons to the Davis’ 40. The Anvil’s tracks started to slip on the hard floor of the building, so Noah adjusted the tread elevation, raising them—and immediately started getting pushed back even quicker. He reversed the elevation, making them almost flat, and that was better, but the Teresa was slowly gaining an advantage. The Anvil might have more power, but the Teresa’s low-tech polyuthe treads were giving more traction on the building’s slick flooring.

  “I can’t fire!” Chili shouted out, his gun stuck fast, aiming over the front of the Teresa. “Get us out of here so I can take a shot!”

  But Noah couldn’t just back up, even had the two tanks not been locked together. With the angle of the two guns, as soon as he disengaged, the Teresa would be in position to fire first. He looked out his front port block to try and visualize exactly how the guns were situated, and he caught sight of the Ataturk tank commander, looking down at him through the blocks in his commander’s hatch. To his surprise, the commander smiled and nodded at him.

  Noah didn’t nod back. The Ataturk tank commander was not part of the fight. This was now between both drivers and both gunners.

  “Ball Shot, cut off that Teresa!” the gunny passed over the platoon net.

  Noah risked a glance at his screen. The Teresa he’d been chasing had turned around and was heading back. The Anvil was slowly being pushed back out into the street as the two tanks struggled like bull moose during the rut, their antlers locked together. As soon as that first Teresa reached their street, it would have an easy shot up the Anvil’s ass end. Noah figured they had 30 seconds until then, and he didn’t think the Ball Shot could get there in time.

  Noah could feel it as the Anvil’s tracks began to gain better purchase. The two tanks were probably beginning to tear up the road and the building’s shallow courtyard, which would give his higher-tech tracks more of an advantage and maybe give him the chance to do something with his tank’s greater power output. But he had to steer clear of the Teresa’s gun, which was still positioned right over the Anvil.

  “Do something, Noah!” the sergeant shouted.

  He just couldn’t quite visualize how the two tanks were locked together.

  Screw it, he thought with resignation as he popped his hatch.

  It opened half-way before hitting the Teresa’s gun, but he twisted far enough around to see how the Anvil’s 75mm had traversed up and in front of the enemy gun, lodging between the turret and the front of the tank. If both tanks stopped and slowly backed away, they could come clear of each other—not that either one of was going to stop and suggest that. Noah was pretty sure he could back up on his own, but that would leave the Teresa aiming down at the Anvil and Chili still aiming forward off target.

  And then it hit him.

  “Traverse back!” he shouted over his headset.

  “I can’t! The fucking turret!”

  “Just grubbing do it! Now!”

  A split second later, amid the roar of the battle, he heard the whine of the turret servos as they strained to bring the 75mm around. At that instant, Noah reversed his port tracks and slammed the starboard into forward. For a moment, Noah feared that his track
s would just spin, doing nothing, but enough of the road had broken up that the tank started to rotate, ass end first, counterclockwise. The driver of the Ataturk tank didn’t realize what was happening, and probably thinking he had an opening, pushed forward, which was exactly what Noah had hoped he would do. He caught a glimpse of the tank commander, eyes wide as he started shouting inside his tank. He could see what Noah had intended, but it was too late. With the Teresa pushing forward and the Anvil rotating, the two tanks slid apart, the Teresa’s main gun pointing more than 90 degrees away from the Anvil, the Anvil’s much longer 75mm railgun pointing almost on the Ataturk tank.

  “Fire, fire!” Noah shouted as both guns started to traverse, but the Anvil’s 75mm didn’t have as far to swing.

  Noah reached back just as Chili brought his gun to bear. He didn’t quite get the hatch closed when the sergeant fired and the Teresa erupted into a blinding flash of fire, the force of the explosion slamming Noah’s hatch down with enough power to smash his left hand and push the Anvil several meters back.

  Noah didn’t wait. The first Teresa was just reaching the intersection, and Chili Fulford was out of position to engage it.

  “Tank, eight o’clock!”

  He slewed the Anvil around, using his tracks to rotate, seeing the enemy tank as it emerged from the side street, its 90mm swinging over to engage them. His display showed him both his tank’s main aspect as well as that of the main gun. He forced himself to look down from his port to the screen, using his tracks to orient the main gun. He couldn’t go too far, or he’d take the gun off the target, but he couldn’t wait for Chili to traverse, either. It would take too long, and the Teresa would get off the shot first. The two Marines had to work together.

  He stopped just short of what he thought the alignment should be, letting the gunner aim in the gun. Only then, did he look up and out the blocks at the Teresa, 70 meters away, and its big 90mm seemingly pointing right at them.

  Fire, Fire!

  And Sergeant Fulford, UFMC, did.

  The hypervelocity round, traveling 5000 meters per second, crossed the 70 meters and slammed into the heavy frontal armor of the Teresa, penetrating the crew compartment with enough kinetic energy to blow the turret off and send it 100 meters into the air to crash down on the roof of some building in the distance. Pieces of the tank shot in all directions, several chunks hitting the Anvil with resounding clangs.

  Noah leaned back in his tight hole, his head hitting the hatch mount as he slowed his breathing. His heart was pounding at a million beats a minute, and he wasn’t sure he could breathe.

  “Mother fuck,” Chili said, his voice quiet with awe.

  “What now?” Noah asked him, looking down at his screen.

  Three enemy tanks were burning hulks, and the avatars for two more could now be seen. As he watched, the Ball Shot fired through a building, it looked like, the sabot round passing completely through to hit the tank on the other side.

  “Target down,” Staff Sergeant Mauser-Lopez passed.

  “Two and Three, help me with this asshole,” the lieutenant passed, still playing cat-and-mouse with what was now the sole remaining Teresa.

  Noah started to reach for his controls, and he screamed out in pain. His hand was on fire. He held it up, and it looked pretty bad.

  “You OK, Noah?”

  “Uh, yeah. I’m OK.”

  There was a clatter on the outside of the tank, and Noah reached for his Ruger as a body dropped in through the commander’s hatch. Noah fumbled to bring his handgun up when Staff Sergeant Cremineli’s familiar voice asked for an update as if nothing had happened. When the TC had fallen out of the tank, Noah had figured he’d been crushed in the struggle or blown up when the Teresa had exploded, but here he was, looking none the worse for wear.

  “We’re on our way to back up the Kiss of Death,” Chili told him.

  “Then let’s go, Lysander.”

  Noah reached out with both hands on his yokes, but his left hand wasn’t working. He’d somehow managed to use it to get the Anvil around for the third kill, the one coming around the corner, but now, it was useless. The Anvil lurched forward, smashing into the side of a building, sending a shower of debris down on the TC.

  “What the hell, Lysander? You drunk or something? Drive it right!”

  “I . . . I don’t think I can. I’m down one hand.”

  The TC bent over in the hatch and looked at Noah, who held up his now throbbing hand.

  The staff sergeant shrugged, then said, “Switch with me” as he started to slide, feet first, into Noah’s hole.

  There wasn’t any room for Noah to slide past him in the constrained crew compartment, so he had to open the hatch with his right hand, then crawl out, feeling very vulnerable as he scrambled to the commander’s cupula, dripping bright red blood onto the dusty skin of the Anvil. He almost fell through the hatch, then pulled it closed after him.

  The staff sergeant was now the driver, with the hatch open, of course, and his head sticking out, he put the Anvil into motion, ready to join the last fight. They didn’t make it. Before they’d driven 200 meters, the Kiss of Death and the Ball Shot had cornered the remaining tank, forcing it to surrender.

  One short Marine tank platoon had defeated a five-tank Ataturk platoon, destroying three Teresas, disabling one, and forcing the surrender of the fifth. For a bunch of previously untested tankers, that wasn’t too shabby.

  ITZUKO-2

  Chapter 1

  Ten months earlier . . .

  “Here, let me look at you,” Miriam said, turning Noah around and touching his collar, straightening what was already straight. “OK, give me a kiss, and don’t be late.”

  Noah obediently leaned in and gave her a quick peck on the cheek.

  “Are you going to be OK here today?” he asked.

  “I’m a big girl. I think I can handle being on my own for the day. Now go,” she said, turning him back around and giving him a slap on the ass.

  “OK, I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  Noah slipped out the door, walked down the hall, and descended the decrepit stairwell. Miriam was putting on a good face, but he worried about her. Camp Ceasare was an unaccompanied tour for students, even if he would have been a sergeant, so there was no base housing. He’d been assigned a shared room in the barracks, but with Miriam with him, he didn’t plan on spending too much time there—even if the conditions were much better in his assigned quarters. As a corporal, without rating a housing allowance, the only apartment they’d found that they could afford was a run-down shithole that catered to transients, drug-heads, and other Marines in his situation. He didn’t feel good about leaving Miriam alone there.

  It would have been better if she’d been able to find a job, any job. It would help with the rent, but more importantly, give her something to do. He had a nagging fear that after a month or so, she’d give up on the situation and run again, and that meant giving up on him. He was confident that she loved him, but her past record of sticking with something when things got rough was not encouraging.

  But there was nothing he could do about that now. Today was the first day of the Marine Corps Armor Operator’s Course. He was going to be starting his journey to become a Marine tanker. The course trained Marines to maintain and fight the two Marine tanks, the Davis and Mamba, and the Aardvark armored personnel carrier, but for Noah, only the Davis would do. Despite his concern about leaving Miriam alone for the day, he was excited as he boarded the maglev to the front gate of the camp, an excitement that only mounted as he got off the train and looked up at the huge Garcia mounted on a pedestal at the gate. The largest land vehicle ever used by the Federation military and FCDC at 120 tons, it almost took his breath away. At 40 tons, any modern Davis could defeat an old Garcia, but even so, the sight of it still filled him with awe.

  He only had to wait a few minutes before the shuttle arrived, taking him and the other 20 or so waiting Marines and civilians into the main base, a good 20 kli
cks in from the gate. Camp Ceasare was a huge, expansive base leased from Itzuko Daihatsu, the corporate owner of the “Itch,” as the Marines called the planet. A sparsely-populated commercial planet, the company had been happy to lease the 1,350,000 hectares of what had been unused land to the Federation. Most of the built-up area of the base was located at the 40,000-acre far eastern tip of the base. The rest consisted of firing ranges and maneuver areas. While the base population was small, the land area made Camp Ceasare the largest military base in the Federation and the second largest in human space.

  Noah sat quietly in his seat, looking at the other passengers, but not saying anything. He wondered if any of the others were in his class. Camp Ceasare was home to the United Federation Marine Corps Training Command, and there was more going on than just the armor school. Marine pilots received their level two training at the camp, and almost every type of mechanics, technicians, artillery Marines, and engineers also received their training onboard. The vast spaces also provided First, Second, and Third Marine Divisions with their combined arms ranges.

  Noah might have been happy to just sit there in silence, but not everyone was so reticent.

  “You going to armor school?” another corporal asked him, her voice kept low.

  “Yes,” he said. “First day.”

  “Well, yeah. First day for the course for everyone,” she said, rolling her eyes.

  Duh, Noah. Of course, it is. The next class won’t convene for another six months.

  He didn’t know how to respond, but she reached out a hand and said, “Patricia Chopra. They call me ‘Killer.’”

  Noah took the hand, but he couldn’t help but question her nickname, simply asking, “Killer?”

  “That’s me. And you are?”

  “Noah.”

  Some Marines put a lot of importance on their nicknames. They’d even come into a unit making up a name that they felt fit them better, or at least how they wanted others to see them. That rarely worked as it was pretty easy to check on the undernet, and when caught, the new nicknames were rarely something anyone wanted. If this small Marine, who couldn’t have massed more than 40 kg, said her name was Killer, then so be it. He was sure others would check up on that.