Recruit

by Jonathan P. Brazee

  Marines started leaving the mess decks. Ryck looked at his watch.

  “Hey, eat up. We’ve got to go.”

  They crammed down their food and got back to their staging area, a large space that they shared with crates of some sort. Then they waited. And waited. The lieutenant gathered them all together to go over their ops order, but in reality, that was busy work. They had gone over it ad infinitum, and no plan lasted past the first few minutes of contact, anyway. So it was hurry up and wait, which was par for the course.

  It was a relief when the word was broadcast throughout the ship that the landing was on. Most of the Marines gave an “ooh-rah” as they scrambled to their feet and rushed to their respective walk-ins. Ryck rushed to his PICS and slithered through the back. This actually took some effort as the weapons pack was still attached, so Ryck had to get low, over the butt of the PICS, then worm his way through the opening and up the suit, then pulling his legs up until he could slide them down inside. Some of the other Marines were having problems, but there was enough assistance, Marine and Navy, to get them suited up. An armorer ran a quick check on each Marine and initiated the cold pack.

  One of the problems with any type of armored suit was getting rid of built-up body heat. The old-fashioned fins that dissipated heat into the atmosphere made it easy for heat-seekers to pick up a suit’s signature. The PICS were the first Marine suit to use cold packs. The packs were a surprisingly small mass of a molecularly-arrayed synthetic heat sink. To the layman, it looked like jelly. What it did was capture heat. It had to be controlled carefully, though. If left unregulated, it could literally suck all the body heat from a Marine, killing him from hypothermia. If it didn’t work efficiently, it could kill a Marine from heat stroke. Any damage it received in the field could have deadly consequences, which was why each cold pack had a small jettison command that could be sent to eject it from the PICS. The same access could be used to exchange the pack as each pack was only good for 24 to 30 hours, depending on the weather and other factors.

  Finally, they were ready and the lieutenant was given the OK. He ordered the platoon out and to the hangar. The Stork waiting for them was configured for PICS. It had no enclosed cargo bay. Marines and their corpsmen backed up to the overhead racks, and the back of their PICS married to the “clothes hooks.” With a click, they were attached.

  Within moments, the Stork lifted and flew out the hangar. The Stork was dual-purpose, but it was better designed for air operations. In space, it was a little slow. So the Storks took off before any of the support craft, the fighters and attack craft.

  With no deck, the Marines were suspended “above” open space. Some Marines didn’t like the “dangle,” even Marines who could do EVAs without a problem, but Ryck rather liked the sensation. He’d only had two training lifts, and this was his first combat launch. Without having to fly an EVA suit, he could just sit back and enjoy the ride.

  The Stork rotated and the Prake fell out of view behind them, the planet filling their field of vision. Ryck knew that it would be another 30 minutes until they landed. He looked around, trying to catch sight of one of the other Storks or fighters, but space was big, and he couldn’t see anything.

  It was obvious when they reached Luminosity’s atmosphere. It started with a glow, then a burning fire that filled the space with light as the gasses of the atmosphere compressed in front of the vehicle. Ryck knew that if the diversion field on the Stork failed, they would all burn up within moments, but that really was not a concern of his, any more than if the powerpack on his PICS would explode, or if his Navy chow was contaminated. He just didn’t think about odd possibilities.

  “Fifteen minutes to touchdown,” his comms’ AI intoned.

  Ryck looked, trying to see through the flaring of the atmosphere, trying to pick out some landmarks. Nothing. It wasn’t for another 30 seconds that the burning died down, and he could see the planet’s surface.

  The bulk of the planet’s population was on two main land masses. There was a small unit of the People’s Army, as the militia was calling itself, on the larger mass, holding the main city there, but they would be dealt with during the second phase of the operation. Phase 1 was to take back control of the capital and the second largest city, rescue those being held as prisoners, and secure the three main mine sites. The militia was larger, but it was spread fairly thin. The Marines could concentrate their forces and have local numerical superiority. That, in addition to the Marines better training and equipment, should give the Marines the upper hand.

  The Rules of Engagement were fairly stringent: minimize friendly casualties as well as damage to the infrastructure. For this reason, Fox

  (REIN) had the point of main effort at the capital to dispose of the illegal Luminosity government and rescue those citizens held as prisoners. PICS were not particularly effective in combat in a built-up area, unless full-scale destruction was allowed, so the more nimble-foot Marines, in skins and bones, would be employed there, with a squad of PICS Marines in support. Weapons Company would take out the militia camp outside of the capital. Echo Company would take the first mine objective (this was a foreign-owned mine, and rumor had it that this was selected due to some very highly-placed people in the Federation government having stock in the company).

  Golf’s mission was the encampment located outside of Green Falls, the planet’s second largest city. This was the largest encampment uncovered, and it was well-situated to react to any threat towards the bulk of the largest mines on the planet. Without friendly infrastructure or significant friendly personnel at the camp, this was more of a free fire target, where all Marine and Navy assets could be employed. Golf, with arty and armor attached, was on a mission to destroy, not rescue or save. The People’s Army at the camp was to be destroyed so that none of the forces could deploy to the mines.

  As the surface of the planet became visible, Ryck tried to place their own position relative to the ground below. They wouldn’t be coming straight in from above, so the target was not under them. They would sweep in from southeast to northwest, supported by the two of the attached Wasps and three Navy Experion fighters. Coming in on that trajectory kept them below any anti-air defenses until the end of the approach, but it also kept them out of the way of the Navy bombardment. The Prake had deployed one of its monitors to soften up the rebel camp. This ball of firepower had no sailors on board; it was completely operated from the dreadnaught. It did carry a pretty solid punch, though. Parked in orbit right over the camp, so weapons had to travel through the least amount of atmosphere, it swept the camp with particle beams, disrupter fire, and explosive ordinance.

  Ryck had the map pulled up on his visor, watching as they approached. At 3o klicks, though, he could actually see the flash of ionized gasses as the particle beams reached down from orbit to the camp.

  Ryck ignored most of the chatter coming over the platoon circuit. It was mostly a countdown until they hit the deck. If there was anything important, he would pay closer attention. He only half-listened as he did yet one more status check on his PICS and ammo load.

  As the Stork swooped in, he waited for the green light. It wasn’t as if he would have to do anything. Technically, a PICS could withstand a 5 meter fall without damage, and the Stork could land on the ground so the Marines could take one step and be on terra firma. But the Storks were a valuable piece of equipment, and a land mine could take one out, so the Marines would be lowered via a hoist that was incorporated into each station. After the flare, a Stork could debark a platoon of Marines within five seconds.

  The ground got closer, and a voice came over the circuit, “Fox-1, stand by!”

  The go-light flashed green. Three seconds later, Ryck fell out of the sky. Five seconds was not very long, but it was more than long enough for the bad guys to take them under fire, so Ryck quickly scanned the ground, waiting to fire at any threat. They had trained to fire while being dropped, and with varying, if not very effective, degrees of success, but Ryck would
go down trying if it came to that.

  Nothing presented itself, though, and Ryck hit the ground, his hoist line automatically disconnecting and retracting back to the Stork, which had already begun to move out.

  Ryck moved to his left, relying on visuals to get into position. His head’s up display had every member of the platoon identified, and if he zoomed out, he would be able to see the entire company, but he still felt more comfortable with actual visuals.

  “Fox-1, move out” the lieutenant passed.

  In another time and place, the first few minutes of an assault would be taken up with getting oriented, of getting a head count, but the lieutenant’s PICS-C had even more information flowing to him on each and every one of them. The common statement was that he knew if you got a hard-on and why. SSgt Grabrowski’s PICS was “C-capable,” which meant it had all the bells and whistles. He could view the same incoming information on each Marine, but if anything happened to the platoon commander, the AI would switch over and give his PICS the same capabilities, not only downstream but upstream as well. Ryck’s PICS was the basic model with more limited upstream capabilities.

  As the platoon moved out, a Navy LCC came in carrying a tank. It had to land in order to discharge its cargo, and that took a little bit of time. Still, even if it was behind them at the moment, knowing that a Davis was there was a nice security blanket.

  Ryck moved forward, trying to divide his focus between what he could see in front of him and his displays. There was quite a bit of data streaming in, and he still was not totally comfortable with watching the real world out there and the electrons symbolizing the world on his visor at the same time. He could see Greg Hohn moving up just in front and to his side, but Greg was also the first blue triangle that appeared on his visor display. He knew that was Greg, but he hadn’t yet made the leap to “feel” that it was Greg.

  The platoon had about 900 meters of forested land through which to move, then there was another 400 meters of cleared land to cross before reaching the outer defenses of the camp. It wasn’t as if this was a surprise, either. Storks in the air and PICS on the ground were somewhat hard to hide. Tactical “surprise” in the assault had to be how the Marines were employed, not in trying to hide the fact that there was going to be an assault in the first place.

  He looked up to the upper-left section of his visor and blinked twice. The feed there switched positions and filled the center of his visor. It was a visual of the camp. A recon Marine out there somewhere had the camp under surveillance and was beaming the view to every Marine. There was the tiniest hint of a flicker, which was a good sign that the enemy was trying to jam the signal, but the AIs kept switching the frequency every micro-second, both for the broadcast and receiving, faster than whatever equipment the rebels had could catch up.

  The vid showed a devastated landscape. There were no intact buildings. The Navy had leveled them. Ryck was not complacent, though. He knew the rebels were still there. He quickly switched back to visual, scanning the area in front of him. His PICS was moving smoothly, just an extension of his movements. He moved his leg, the PICS moved its leg. It was all done without thinking. His head being almost three meters up, his “hands” reaching out over two meters had taken a little getting used to during training, but now it was second nature.

  For the thousandth time, he checked his HGL. The “Heavy Grenade Launcher” was his prime weapon, the principle weapon in any Weapons Pack 2. Greg, to his right, had Weapons Pack 1, which gave him the hypervelocity rifle, similar to the M99 Marines carried when on foot, but at 8mm, packing a much bigger dart. The HGL, though, fired a 20mm grenade. A combat load of the grenades was 250 and could be anti-personnel or anti-armor. The anti-armor could take out almost any tank if employed correctly, and the anti-personnel had an ECR of 30 meters. It could fire 60 rounds per minute, so it packed a pretty powerful punch.

  Second Platoon was heading right up the gut of what had been determined to be the brunt of the defenses. They were doing this to set the defense, to get them to commit while First Platoon swept up their flank. Weapons Platoon was supporting both heavy platoons, and Third, the light platoon, was in reserve, ready to exploit any advantage.

  Ryck’s visor lit up with activity. Second was being hit. As a grunt, he was not privy to all the comms, but it was obvious from the display if not from the sounds of explosions a klick to his right.

  “All hands, be advised that the enemy forces are employing both Boost-Assisted Anti-Armor weapons as well as anti-armor mines,” the lieutenant’s calm voice came over the platoon circuit.

  That was a surprise. Mines were part and parcel to modern combat, but Boost Assisted Anti-Armor rounds could take out a PICS. Only one power used those weapons: The Congress of Free Worlds. The Congress was a loosely allied group of 14 planets in the Third Quadrant, a long way from Luminosity. If the People’s Army had Congress weapons, that meant either the Congress was sticking its nose into Federation space or that arms dealers were supplying them to the rebels. Congress weaponology was no match for Federation, even the older Marine equipment, but still, getting hit with a BAAA round was sure to spoil a grunt’s day. The Marines had to trust their PICS to deflect the rounds as they were “dumb” ordinance as the PICS’ defenses could not fool a round that had no brain. All suits could do was to confuse the sighting of the weapon and hope for a glancing blow that the LTC armor could deflect.

  Ryck started to blink up his scheme to change it, but the platoon sergeant beat him to it. With the command capabilities, he could switch each Marine’s paint, and with visual sighting the norm for BAAA weapons, the “LSD” mode was the book answer. The LSD was the nickname for the Fractured Array. It didn’t make a PICS actually invisible, but rather “fractured” the light waves, making visual sighting difficult, even causing headaches for those looking at them. An observer knew something was there, but exactly where and what would be difficult to determine.

  The sounds of war to his right grew in intensity. Second was getting into it. They wouldn’t be closing unless the opportunity presented itself, but that meant First had to step it up and breach the defenses.

  A Wasp showed up on his readout. Ryck hoped the platoons were showing up on the pilot’s readout as well. There was the incoming icon, but in flashing amber instead of the flashing red of a near miss by friendly fire. Ryck didn’t hesitate in his advance as the sky lit up in front of Second’s position as the Wasp’s ordinance hit home.

  Ryck’s visor flashed green twice, signaling that Phase Line Liverpool had been reached. This was when First Squad changed their advance to a new heading, slightly oblique of the other two squads. No verbal orders were given as the new heading was centered in the nav panel.

  They had reached the rise leading up to the outer perimeter of the camp. The ground was torn up from the pre-assault bombardment. This was nothing that Ryck’s PICS couldn’t handle, but the servos still whined a bit with each step over the rough ground as they worked to keep Ryck upright and oriented to the enemy.

  Ryck didn’t need the speakers to hear the blast just 30 meters to his right. The sound waves easily penetrated his PICS as Greg Hohn was lifted into the air. Ryck watched as the big PICS flew up 10 or 12 meters, then crashed back down. He hesitated a moment, then took a step to check on Greg.

  “Back in position, Ryck,” King Tong’s voice came over the direct circuit.

  The squad leader was right. Greg’s fate was already determined, and he would be fine or not, but Ryck could not leave the assault. The force had to be focused. He did glance up at Greg’s icon. It was still blue, but a light blue instead of the normal dark blue. He was alive and not in immediate danger, but his PICS was damaged. His weapons pack was operational, so he could still provide supporting fire if he could not advance.

  The PICS were supposed to be able to locate mines, which had to be what hit Greg. Ryck wondered what happened, then started looking more closely at the ground in front of him.

  They were less than 300
meters from the outer perimeter when all hell broke loose. There were at least four BAAAs facing them. They had not been sucked in to confront the frontal assault, which would have been too easy for the Marines. Going against four BAAAs with thirteen PICS should be a reasonable mission. That was, of course, unless the rebels threw something else into the mix.

  The PICS could cover the 200 meters over broken terrain in about 20 seconds, and the immediate action for this would be a full charge. He started to lurch into a run as his target comp zeroed in on one of the BAAAs. He lifted the HCL and put three rounds downrange. All three hit the gun. There wasn’t a catastrophic kill, but the gun went silent.

  One problem with the combat visors was that there could be info overload. There were traces of incoming and outgoing fire, there were orders being given. To Ryck, though, unless he personally received a direct order to do something different, his war narrowed down to who and what was directly in front of him. Nothing else mattered, and frankly, that was about all he could take in. He had to trust his fellow Marines to take care of business on either side of him.

  He fired at another position, a light automatic weapon of some sort, but nothing that could affect a PICS. And then he was inside the outer perimeter. He was within the camp. To his left was the BAAA he’d taken out, a light plume of smoke rising from it. There was an arm visible, but most of the body was hidden from sight. His original course of action was to breach the perimeter, then force his way deeper, past the outer belt of defenses. However, with Greg out, then the 60 meters or so to his right had not been cleared. Marines were not automotrons. They were trained to think. Ryck knew he had to clear the area and not leave a potential pocket of the rebels there. He veered to the right and followed the defensive line until his movement sphere intersected with that of Cpl Nimoto, who’d had the same idea with Greg’s sector uncovered and had been moving to his left. As each Marine moved, the AI’s determined a “cleared” area and pushed that up to the lieutenant so that he would know what areas had been cleared and what areas still had potential bad guys in them.