He turned off his externals as a tear slid down his face.
FS OMAHA BEACH
Chapter 29
“You are one lucky motherfucker,” Sams said in awe as they stood in Ryck’s stateroom.
Çağlar just shrugged and said something unintelligible.
Ryck had been amazed and thrilled when he’d gotten word that Çağlar had been brought on board, by a Navy Experion, no less. And he’d had company that could have made the entire fight on Roggeri’s World worthwhile. He’d watched the recording, of course, which as it was taken from orbit, had not provided much in the way of a clear view.
“So what did you think? I mean, come on, Hans, you have to admit that’s a little, well, unique,” Ryck said.
“Freaking copacetic,” Sams said.
Çağlar looked uncomfortable, but with Ryck, Jorge, Hecs, and Sams leaning in eagerly, he didn’t have much choice.
“Well, I, uh, I knew that if the Klethos got into us, he could take the shuttle down, so I just thought I’d knocked him overboard, sort of. But when I did, me and him, we sort of went together.”
“Sort of,” Ryck said, rolling his eyes.
“Yeah, I mean yes, sir. Me and him, we hit the water, and like I don’t think the birds can swim too good. I sank like a rock, so I hits my buoyancy compensators, and I’m shooting to the surface, and I feels his arm on my leg, and me and him, we come up together,” he stopped, looking uncomfortable.
“And?” Hecs asked. “Go on.”
Çağlar looked to Ryck, who nodded, so the sergeant went on, “Well, I’m looking at him, sort of, and he’s looking at me. I tried to push him off me, but he’s real strong like, you know? And then he takes his sword and holds it over me, but not swings it. So I take the hint and stop.”
“And?” Hecs prompted again.
“Well, then the Navy fighter swoops down and uses its tractor beam to grab me, and ‘cause he’s leeching to me, we both go up to the ship,” he said, seemingly relieved to be finished.
Ryck knew the fighter had not used a “tractor beam” to pull Çağlar out of the water. All Navy fighters had parking pads that held them fast to a ship deck while the ship was under maneuvers or in Zero G. The used a molecular attraction similar to magnetism, but they were nowhere near as powerful as a tractor beam. The Navy pilot had witnessed Çağlar’s fall, which had been broadcast on more than a few channels, and ignoring the fact that other Experions had been blown out of the sky, he’d swooped in to snatch the sergeant, unintentionally snatching Çağlar’s “guest.”
“That’s it?” Sams complained. “What about when it tried to fly away? You don’t think that’s important?”
“Oh, yeah, Master Guns. About that. Well, like were flying up, and the bird’s just hanging on to me for dear life. When we get up high, I think it’s going to pass out, and then we’re surrounded by a fuzzy bubble.”
“Fuzzy bubble?” Ryck asked.
“I don’t know, sir,” Çağlar said, looking miserable. “That’s what it seemed like. The fighter starts to wobble, like. And the bird, he lets go of me and it’s like we are all going together in the other way. The Navy pilot puts on his afterburners and fights it, but we’re moving away. Then I’m pinned and can’t move. And me, the fighter, and the bird, we all get pulled into the ship. We’re there in the hangar and can’t move, and a million squids come and look at us. Finally, they send in one of those little mule things. It ties up the Klethos guy, and then we can move. Then I told them I need to get back, so they brought me here.”
Ryck shook his head in amazement. That was probably the most Ryck had ever heard his sergeant speak at one time, and while he hadn’t been the most eloquent man around, he’d covered the gist of it.
Ryck had already read the report while Çağlar was enroute to the Omaha Beach. The Klethos had waited until the Experion had taken it into orbit, then activated what was undoubtedly its personal spaceship, which was more of a force field than a physical ship. It had tried to pull the Experion and Çağlar with it, and it was winning the tug-of-war with the Navy fighter when a quick-thinking crewman on the FS Barcelona captured the fighter with a focused tractor beam and reeled it in. While the Klethos space-conveyance might have been more powerful than an Experion, it was no match for a Federation cruiser.
Once on board and realizing the importance of their prisoner, the Barcelona’s crew had to come up with a way to separate the Klethos from the Experion and Çağlar without letting it fight or escape. So they had sent in a simple cargo mule that was impervious to tractor beams as part of its purpose. It had tied up the Klethos, as simple as that. The Klethos was secured in the ship’s brig, and with xenobiologists onboard, the cruiser was dispatched for an unknown solar system—but not before Çağlar was returned to the brigade.
Ryck stared at his sergeant. If this had been in a flick, he’d have jumped all over it as being complete and unbelievable BS. But it had just happened. And Çağlar just stood there looking sheepish as if he was embarrassed about the whole thing, as if he’d done something wrong. They kid was a hero, and with a live Klethos to poke and prod, the science types just might come up with ways to defeat them.
Ryck looked at his watch. Time was getting short, so he had to cut this off, as fascinating as it had been.
“OK, Sergeant. That’s pretty amazing, and I’m proud of you. But we’ve got about five hours before we’re in orbit. Go get some chow and accelerated shuteye. You need to be ready to go.”
Sergeant Çağlar came to attention, then stepped out the hatch.
The other four Marines looked at each other for a moment before simultaneously breaking out into laughter.
“Holy fucking shit!” Sams said.
“I’ve, never . . .” Jorge added. “I mean, have you?”
“No, and I still can’t believe it,” Ryck agreed. “But what I told him is true. We’ve still got more to do, but I need you alert and capable. So all of you, back to your racks, and accelerated sleep. That’s an order.”
The three Marines nodded, still laughing over Çağlar’s little adventure, and got up and left. Ryck took a moment to check on the refit. The Navy and Marine armorers were working frantically to refit and replenish each of the PICS. Satisfied that all was being done that could be done, Ryck got up and moved to his rack, laid down, and put the AS armband over his left bicep. Dialing in three hours, he hesitated. Accelerated sleep was painless, but no one liked it. Vague, uncomfortable dreams filled AS, dreams that faded as soon as the person woke up, but dreams that still left an unsettled feeling.
With a sigh, he pushed the enter button, and within moments, had fallen into the dark, troubled reaches of AS.
YAKIMA 4
Chapter 30
Ryck watched the tall conifers sweep by as the surface effect craft whisked them up the Skykomish River. It was frankly beautiful. Yakima 4 had been terraformed for over 400 years, so the forest was mature, rivaling any of the few pockets of old growth left on Earth itself. In another time, he could imagine taking his family here, camping and fishing for the huge runs of salmon that migrated up the stream.
As if on cue, the craft crossed a series of shallows, and the bright red humped backs of sockeyes stood out against the graveled river bottom as they swam upstream. Klethos had landed and had engaged with FCDC troops only 120 kms away, yet the salmon ignored that, following the call of their DNA, on a world far from where they evolved. Nature worked its way as she willed.
The FCDC troops, using tactics developed by the Marines, had tried to interdict the advancing Klethos. Most of the planet was still free of the threat, but if the 4,000 or Klethos were allowed to continue, and especially if they were reinforced, there was little doubt that the planet’s 9.5 billion people would be exterminated. Evacuation plans were already in progress, but 9.5 billion was a huge number.
As on Ruggeri’s World, the sheer mass of people could crush 4,000 or 40,000 Klethos. But Ryck knew it wouldn’t happen. No one wanted to be the fi
rst to sacrifice himself, preferring to let the trained fighters take the creatures on. Even when the Marines were overrun and the planet lost, the civilians would still flee rather than fight. Regrettable, but a fact of life.
If we’re overrun, Ryck reminded himself, trying not to be pessimistic.
The top brass wanted the initial wave of Klethos to be stopped before they reached Spokane, a city of over 10 million, and where the Marines had landed. Heavily populated, the planet hosted close to a million FCDC troops. Some 20,000 of them had been in Suquamish, the state for which Spokane was the capital, and they had deployed up the Skykomish to try and stop the Klethos before they had even begun their advance.
The FCDC troops had fought hard, but they had been readily defeated with only a handful of troopers escaping into the deep forest. Very few of the Klethos has been killed, but what the troopers had succeeded in doing was to delay the Klethos long enough for the Marines to land. Now, they were being rushed up river to the Green Canyon Gorge, a bottleneck where they hoped to stop the Klethos advance.
Once in the gorge, the Klethos could very easily bypass them, but no one expected that. The Klethos seemed to seek confrontation rather than capture land or strategic points.
First Brigade was the Marine point of main effort. Ryck had demanded it of the general, and as the most robust unit left in the force, it made sense. That and their success on Roggeri’s World made them the logical choice. If they could stop the advance, then several million Marines and FCDC troopers would have time to deploy to the world. Humans may not be able to match Klethos one-on-one, but there were a lot of humans to throw into a fight.
Ryck had another reason that he wanted to be thrown into the breach, a reason his subconscious just couldn’t quite seem to release. As he watched the river flow underneath him as he leaned over the rail, whatever it was seemed to hover just out of reach, almost there, but not quite. He hoped whatever it was would surface before the fight.
As a warrior, he’d learned to trust his gut, but at the moment, he just had a whole lot of nothing.
“You ready for this?” Hecs asked, coming up to lean on the rail alongside or Ryck.
“I think so,” Ryck said, watching a heron take off in flight, frightened by the big surface effect craft zipping up the river.
“We’ve come a long ways, you and me,” Hecs said.
“Yeah, we have, Sergeant Major Phantawisangtong, that we have. But if you’re going to get maudlin on me now, I think I’ll just have to toss you over the rail here and feed the fishes.”
Hecs laughed, but it wasn’t a very enthusiastic effort.
“Yeah, I know. I just wanted to say, sir, that it’s been an honor.”
“Fuck you, King Tong,” Ryck said, embarrassed.
This time Hecs laughed with more emotion.
“And you were that skinny, selfish kid, always me, me, me,” Hecs said lightly.
“Hey, I wasn’t skinny!” Ryck protested.
“But you were me, me, me,” Hecs said more soberly. “Remember that inspection?”
“The junk-on-the-bunk? With Calderón?” Ryck asked.
“Yeppir. That one. You were so pissed to lose your recruit stripes. I knew then that was your what-if moment.”
“Huh?”
“That was when you were either going to become a Marine or become a shitbird,” Hecs said.
“And?”
“And I think we can safely say you became a Marine. And I’m damned proud to have been one of those who helped you become one.”
Ryck said nothing, but he felt a warm glow sweep over his body. More than his medals, more than that damned movie, this was what made him want to be a Marine. He wanted, no he needed the respect of those who he respected. With that, if this were going to be the end of the road, he couldn’t complain.
Even if they got through this, however, he was pretty sure his cancer was too far advanced. He’d regret leaving Hannah and the kids, but given the choice, he’d do it again.
“Calderón, huh? I wonder what happened to him,” Ryck said, more to change the subject than anything else.
“You never heard? He’s retired, now. He made gunny, married, and has a couple dozen kids or so.”
“No shit? A gunny?” Ryck asked, surprised.
They stood silently, watching the river for a few moments before Ryck asked, “As long as we’re in the reminiscing mood, you remember Recruit MacPruit?”
“The MMA champion?”
“Well, planetary champion, but yeah. You know what we did to him at boot?”
“You beat the shit out of him,” Hecs answered. “In the showers.”
Ryck felt a wave of guilt wash over him as if he’d just been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “You knew that?”
“We’d have been pretty shitty DIs if we hadn’t, right? Besides, the little shit needed it.”
“You know, he saved my life,” Ryck said after a few moments.
That seemed to take the sergeant major by surprise.
“He did?”
“Not in that way,” Ryck said. “Not in combat. But in MCMA[16]. He broke my arm, you know. On purpose.”
“And that saved your life.”
“Sort of, yeah. He taught me that in a fight, everything is legal. Eye-gouging, ball kicking, whatever. If you’re going to fight, do it for real.”
“Good advice, but that saved your life?”
“When I fought the capys on GenAg 13, the hand-to-hand stuff, I was remembering what he taught me, and without it, I don’t think I would have won. I knew I had to do what needed to be done, and I just did it.”
“Hmph,” Hecs grunted. “Well, I guess the little shit had some value after all.”
“We’ve known a lot of Marines, you and me, Hector, and all have had value. All of them,” Ryck said.
“Ain’t that the truth, sir. Ain’t that the truth.”
“And we’re going to know a lot more. It isn’t ending now,” Ryck said, but without the conviction he wished he’d felt.
The two friends fell back into a companionable silence. Sometimes simply not talking was the best form of communications.
“Sir, the pilot says we’ll be landing in a few,” Çağlar said, coming up and interrupting their thoughts.
“Well, Sergeant Major, it’s time to earn those big bucks. You ready?”
“Ready and able, sir. Let’s kick some avian ass.”
“Let’s get this show on the road,” he bellowed out, turning to face the bulk of the Marines in the craft. “Hop to it Marines!”
Once a DI, always a DI, Ryck thought with a smile on his face.
The line of eight surface effect craft followed the lead craft out of the river and onto the shore. The Marines had landed.
Chapter 31
The Rugged Flow River ran generally east to west. The river fell some 70 meters through the Green Canyon Gorge with a tall, vertical cliff to the south, and as the river had meandered over the eons, a wide valley stretching to the not-quite-as-steep hills to the north. The gorge was as wide as 30 km as the river flowed out into the forested land below, but the Marines were stationed at The Throat, a constricted point that was still three kilometers across. For a brigade of Marines, even one so depleted, this was incredibly tight quarters, but it would limit the forward wave of Klethos, who seemed pretty much wedded to a 30 meter interval between fighters. Just as the Marines had been able to hold the pier against two Klethos with 20 Marines, the general hoped that more Marines in depth would be able to hold The Throat.
Ryck wasn’t so sure. He had no doubt that his Marines were learning how to engage the creatures, and they should be able to defeat the first wave, but with 10,000 Klethos now confirmed on the deck, they would be able to keep advancing, wearing down the brigade until it was no more. Then it would be Second in the breach, followed by the remnants of Third with Jorge in command. As he ran through numbers in his head, asking his AI to crunch them, he just didn’t see the force being able to hold
off the Klethos long enough for reinforcements to reach them.
Ryck positioned himself just to the north of the river along the most logical avenue of advance. Something told him that he needed to be on the lines, in amongst the Fuzos. Hecs and Sams had tried to talk him out of it, and Çağlar was beside himself, but some instinct told Ryck he had to be at the tip of the spear. He knew he had a plan, but it was buried in his mind, refusing to come out. The more Ryck tried to concentrate, the further that plan sunk into the recesses.
A wave of dizziness swept over him, and he put his arm out against an old fir tree to steady himself. He refused to activate his sensor. He knew the cancer was winning. One way or the other, his time was limited.
As the dizziness passed, he decided to relax. His “plan” could just be his synapses misfiring as the cancer took a stronger grip on his body. Better to focus on the mission. His men were trained, and they would make him proud. He just hoped his body would hold up long enough to join the fight as a warrior should.
Well, I guess it will, he thought to himself as the recon team station above them on the cliff reported that the Klethos were coming down the slope and were two klicks out.
Ryck looked up to where he knew the recon team was. He didn’t even know their identity, but he wished them well. They might very well be the only Marine survivors of the coming battle.
At least they had full comms. With the capys, comms were usually blocked. The Klethos didn’t seem to give a shit about that.
At the thought of the capys, Ryck looked over to Carl and his two shadows. Ryck had lost contact with the three capys during the retreat to Knoferee, and given their slow, deliberate pace, he’d been sure they’d been overrun by the pursuing Klethos. On the Omaha Beach, though, he’d found out that Marines in 3/5 had picked up the protesting capys and carried them under their arms to the pier and onto one of the shuttles.
Neither Carl or either of the other two had offered any kind of thanks. They’d merely tracked down Ryck to find out what was next as if nothing had happened. The capys looked more Earthlike than the Klethos, but they were far more alien, to Ryck’s way of thinking. He thought humans were far more like the Klethos, who at least acted in a somewhat understandable manner.
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