Though the Stars Fall (United Humanity Marine Corps Book 1)

by Bill Roberts

  CHAPTER 5

  A Battle Won

  It is very dark in what is left of my Kodiak. I have never been in this situation before. I had taken some serious damage to my Kodiak in the past, but never to the point of a full shutdown. Oh we practice it in the simulators, but that is never like the real thing. I look around as I hang from my harness in my pilot seat. A little light comes from an emergency light mounted behind me. It is the pale blue light of a small LED, and it provides just enough light to make out the outline of the dashboard in front of me. There is a small green light on the Biological Support Unit letting me know it is still working. Everything else has gone black. No display. No TACNET. Nothing. The fact that I am still alive means the battalion probably defeated the Grotokai ambush. But, I have no way of assessing what our losses are going to be. I have no way of letting the others know I am alive. I decide there is nothing to do but wait.

  As I wait I think of many things. I think of the decades of never-ending fighting. I think of the terrible things I have seen and done. I think about how when I was young and innocent I thought things like honor and glory actually existed. I think about how the harsh realities of war had burned those silly ideas in a pyre of friends and family I had lost and murderous vengeance I had wreaked.

  As these thoughts fester in my mind I again ask myself the question I asked before I pressed the Master Power button just over an hour ago. Why? Why do I still do this? The pain, the fear, the losses, hell right now the Grotokai could be savaging my battalion, why keep going through this?

  I turn the question over and over in my mind. I am many years past the point I could leave the Corps with all of the gratitude and honors bestowed upon its retiring veterans. But, I do not think it will ever happen. There are too many reasons to stay. For one, I love being the commander of 2nd Heavy Armored. Leading Marines is invigorating and fulfilling. Marines never cease to challenge and amaze me. Then there are my friends. They all live aboard the Stern with me. I cannot bear the thought of leaving them behind. There also is the darkness, brought about in my soul by the horrors of the past and fed by the addiction to wreaking destruction. I am still unable to completely escape that darkness.

  Those are all good reasons, but, as I hang from my harness, one thought begins to dominate my mind. The oath I swore. When the Synti came we had come so perilously close to being snuffed out. I made an oath then to defend humanity from that threat as long as I still drew breath. The Grotokai are no threat, but their masters, the Tangul, are a different story entirely. They are out there planning and scheming and soon the hammer will fall. And when it does humanity will again be under threat of extinction, or worse, eternal slavery. I. Will. Not. Let. That. Happen.

  I am torn from my brooding when a face appears in my display. “Sir, it’s Gunny Rossi. You okay?” Rossi’s young face is creased with concern and I can hear the worry plainly through his Neapolitan accent. Gunnery Sergeant Rossi is one of the battalion’s mechanics. He has apparently dropped in the mechanic’s version of an MCS and plugged into the emergency communication jack on the outside of my Kodiak.

  I feel a huge surge of relief. Gunny Rossi’s appearance means we defeated the ambush. However, it could have been a very costly victory and worry quickly smothers the surge of relief. I reply: “I’m fine Gunny. How’s the rest of the battalion?” Please God let none of them be dead.

  The relief of finding me alive and unhurt radiates from Rossi’s face as he replies “Don’t know yet sir. We got six other vehicles down but we haven’t checked ‘em yet.”

  Six others down. Thank God for that. It could have been so much worse. That said six others down is still bad. “Whose vehicles went down?”

  “You, the gunner, one from Scouts, and four from Bravo Company. But, don’t you worry sir, the Oxes are almost here and we will have you all aboard ship in three shakes.” Rossi breaks the connection and without the power it provided the display goes dark. I briefly consider punching him in the face when we get back aboard ship. I had more questions for him. But then I decide that is just pique. Rossi really knows his job and if the Oxes are close he has more important things to do than answer questions that really could wait till I am back aboard ship. I try not to think too hard about Larry’s Kodiak going down. I am sure the tough old bastard is fine.

  Less than a minute after Gunny Rossi cut communications with me I feel the Kodiak start shifting. The shifting feels like the mechanics must be hooking me up to one of the Oxes. The Ox is how we get back to the ship whether we are broken or not. Our jump jets cannot get a Kodiak anywhere near the altitude necessary for a starship to pick us up without it landing. Landing a starship is possible, but in combat conditions such a thing would be a really bad idea. Therefore, the Stern carries the sixteen Oxes of HMH-461 (The Sea Stallions). Each one can carry six fully functional Kodiaks or Cougars. Since my Kodiak is heavily damaged and the fight is basically over the Ox picking me up would probably take me straight to the ship and then return to pick up six undamaged Kodiaks for our withdrawal from Awful.

  I feel some more shifting and then my stomach sink as the Ox takes off heading rapidly for the Stern. Good thing too. On battery power the climate control did not work. It was starting to get uncomfortably hot in my Kodiak. Nothing life threatening. After all the bio unit would chill my blood as it coursed through it. But keeping cool that way is exhausting and I did not want to live through that any more than I had to.

  The Ox has a great deal of power and can really move. After a handful of minutes I feel the transition to Stern’s artificial gravity a moment before I feel the Ox land aboard the ship. The Ox gently releases my Kodiak face down. After a few more moments I hear and feel the mechanics opening up my Kodiak to let me out. I shut down the bio unit and unplug myself, I then take off my comm helmet and drop it on the display in front of me. That done, I carefully release myself from my harness and land on my hands and knees. The hatch leading to the cockpit is in the back of the Kodiak. As my Kodiak is laying face first that means I will have to crawl up and out. I start making my way towards the hatch by feel and the small amount of illumination given off by the emergency light. About the time I reach the hatch it swings open filling the Kodiak with light.

  I poke my head out and see a mechanic in a MCS and a Hospitalman First Class (HN1) in navy enlisted coveralls standing on my Kodiak’s back. The Marine Corps has never had its own medical personnel. We have always used the Navy for that. All of the enlisted sailors of the Navy’s medical corps are known as corpsman. It is a proud title and they are always a welcome sight to Marines in need. The corpsman asks “You alright sir?”

  “I’m fine Doc. Not a scratch. How are the others?” I try and keep the worry out of my voice. The Marines of 2nd Heavy Armor Battalion are my family. If any of them were seriously injured or killed it will be a heavy blow.

  The corpsman’s face goes blank. “Uhh, sir I think you better talk to the surgeon about that.”

  Shit. If everyone is fine or just lightly injured the corpsman would have told me. The fact that he wants me to talk to the surgeon means that at least one Marine is dead or close to it. I hide my face as I climb the rest of the way out of my Kodiak. I hide it because I know the grief I am feeling would show. I would not mind such a thing on one of my Marine’s faces. But I am the commander. I must maintain the appearance of strength. By the time I stand and face the corpsman I have my expression tightly under control. “Alright Doc I understand. Thanks.”

  I quickly survey what used to be my Kodiak. Gaping blackened holes mark where the power source had vented through blow-off panels mounted on the back. Countless other holes pepper the machine where Grotokai fire had scored and punctured it. The left leg is, of course, gone and the right arm appears bent. The Kodiak looks like a complete wreck. Some people would reflect on how they survived such massive damage. I do not. When it is your time it is your time. No use dwelling on close calls. Veterans stack u
p many close calls over the years. I am no exception. If I worry over every one of them I will no longer be able to fight. I turn to the mechanic. “Looks like I didn’t leave you much to work with.”

  The mechanic replies through his MCS’ external speaker “You sure didn’t sir. Don’t worry we’ll have this thing running in a couple of days.” He points to my right. “There is a good spot to climb down over there sir.”

  I thank the mechanic and follow the corpsman down to the deck of the landing area. Once on the deck I look up to see Gloria walking rapidly toward me, feet banging a staccato on the metal deck of the landing bay. Her long braid bobs behind her and she looks distraught. “Don’t you ever do that to me again Shawn you crazy bastard.” Her sweet tenor voice is strained with emotion. Before I can say anything she wraps me in a tight hug. Her voice softer now she continues “When I heard your Kodiak went down I felt as if somebody had punched me in the gut.”

  Whoa. I hug her tightly back. “I’m sorry Gloria.”

  She pushes me away and looks me right in my eyes. “It looked like you were dead. I know you couldn’t tell us you were fine, but it was a rough time until we got the mechanics to you.” She pauses for a moment then continues: “It is just the thought of losing you would…” She fumbles for a bit. “It would just be bad.”

  Gloria is one of my oldest and dearest friends. She has commanded the Stern since it was launched decades ago when humanity pushed to the stars to enact its vengeance. The Marines of 2nd Heavy Armor and I have been with her every step of the way since. Gloria and I had clicked from the start. A prior member of the U.S. Navy, she too had fought through the horror of the Synti invasion. She also had little love for septic bureaucracy that had infiltrated the U.S. military during the Long War in Iraq and Afghanistan. The horror and destruction we have done and seen together since we first took this ship into space has strengthened our friendship with bands of iron.

  We had danced on the edge of romance early on. In many ways it would have been a natural fit. We were both old officers, both recovering from tragedy, came from similar backgrounds, and as we were technically not in the same unit we would have neatly dodged the strict fraternization regulations of the United Humanity Military. But it was and is not the nature of our friendship. I think we both just realized we needed a good friend more than a lover and we never crossed that line.

  That does not mean we do not love each other. We are old comrades in arms who have been through too much together to not feel a gaping hole should one of us finally lose to the odds that stalked people in our line of work. She has become like a sister to me. Closer, in many ways, than I ever could have been with my flesh and blood sister. That being said, I am kind of embarrassed by how concerned she is. I am fine. So I try and keep it light: “Yeah, it sure would have. I’m pretty great aren’t I?” I say it with a smile.

  She assumes a scowl and punches me in the chest. “Great huh? More like I would have been stuck buying too many drinks in the pub.”

  I laugh hard, but it quickly trails off as the grief I am trying to keep at bay reasserts itself. I start looking around the spacious landing bay and sigh. “I need to find the ship’s surgeon.”

  Gloria’s face tightens a bit. “The last I saw him he was heading for the Kodiak over there.” She points to our right. As I follow the gesture I see the line of broken vehicles in the landing bay. Three of the Kodiaks had pilots next to them talking to corpsmen. Damn, I do not see Larry among them. Further down the line I see a thoroughly wrecked Kodiak, with a mechanic crouched on top. The Kodiak looks more like a lump of coal than a fighting vehicle. Gloria and I start making our way towards it in a determined walk.

  When we reach the Kodiak I notice that it reeks of burnt metal and oils. I look up towards the pilot hatch in time to see the surgeon start climbing out. He makes eye contact with me briefly than looks down inside and says “Take him to the medical bay HN1. We’ll prep him for shipment there.” As the surgeon finishes climbing out of what is left of the Kodiak and climbs down I battle again with grief. If the pilot of this Kodiak was still alive the surgeon would have used the word ‘evacuation’ instead of shipment.

  Once on the ground he looks at me with the maddeningly distant air of doctors everywhere giving bad news. “I am afraid I have some bad news for you Colonel.” I swear all doctors are given a class where they learn the same trite lines. “Chief Warrant Officer Five Lawrence Wright was killed by severe blast trauma.” Doctor speak for being blown to pieces. He points to a smashed Cougar to my right and continues: “First Lieutenant Kwan Kim was killed by trauma to the head from some sort of blast that penetrated her pilot compartment.” Anything that got through her Cougar’s armor probably hit her head with enough force to remove most of it. Another gesture to another wrecked war machine. “Chief Warant Officer Two Jeremy Simms was killed by a blast to the chest that destroyed his heart.” Probably more than just his heart. Modern weapons are hideously powerful. “They were all killed instantly Colonel. They didn’t suffer.”

  Like I care. Like I fucking care. Dead is dead. Rage flares up inside of me. Doctors and their euphemisms. Doctors and their worthless assurances about suffering. I fight back the rage almost instantly. The ship’s surgeon did not cause these deaths. He is just doing his job. Besides it is really only the grief driving the rage. I will not use rage as a cheap trick to deal with the grief. I will deal with it properly. But that is for later. Right now I have other things that need to be done. “Thanks Doctor.” I lay my hand on his shoulder. “I know you will give them the courtesy they deserve as you prepare them to go home.”

  The surgeon grabs my upper arm and squeezes. “I will Colonel. You can be sure of it.” He steps past me with determination and leaves Gloria and me, heading for the Medical Bay.

  I turn to face Gloria and she too grabs my upper arm and squeezes. She simply says “I’m sorry Shawn.”

  “Thanks Gloria.” I pause for a moment then continue: “I’m sorry for you too. God, Larry was with us the first time we took off from Earth together.” I try to beat down the sadness welling up within me. Larry had always been the funniest member of our circle of friends. Beneath his gruff and grouchy exterior he could find the humor in the most mundane or dire of circumstances. To lose somebody like that, it just fucking sucks.

  “I’m really going to miss Larry. That guy could use profanity better than anyone I ever met.” Gloria smiles as she talks. People deal with grief in many ways. Gloria always tried to focus on remembering what she liked best about those we lost.

  I take a deep breath. “I will miss him. Kwan and Jeremy too.” I shake my head. “But, they were Marines. It happens. As much as I hate it.” It still does not feel real. Larry could not really be dead.

  As I finish my sentence a loud noise grabs our attention. We look up and see Oxes loaded with Kodiaks move through the energy field separating the landing bay from the vacuum of space. They move to their designated landing spots and touch down. The Oxes release the Kodiaks and they bang down on the deck in a controlled thunder. They quickly begin moving towards the ramp at the far end of the bay that will take them to the drop bays beneath us. As they move I am again struck with just how graceful they are. Standing on my own two feet they tower over me as they walk. They are the deadliest machines in the galaxy, we have proven that in battle after battle on countless worlds, but they are still beautiful. Some of the Marines notice me and they raise the right arms of their Kodiaks and salute as they walk by. I return the salute as they continue towards the ramp.

  I turn to Gloria. “I better head to the COC.” (Combat Operations Center). “I have stuff I need to do.”

  “Of course. I better get back to the bridge. The Commodore is probably uselessly pestering my XO as we speak,” she replies.

  We make our way towards one of the hatches leading from the landing bay to the rest of the ship. As we near the hatch it opens and my S-4 (Logistics Off
icer) Captain Richard Hiller comes through. Captain Hiller is a huge mountain of a man with a shaved head and dark brown eyes framing his young face. He makes his way over to us and before I can say a word he picks me up in a huge bear hug pinning my arms to my sides. His voice rumbles a basso profundo in my ear as he says “We thought we lost you fer a bit there. But no damn Grotokai is gonna take you down.”

  I laugh as he plops me back down on my feet. “If everybody is going to hug me today I might have to go hide in my stateroom.”

  Hiller looks chagrined. “Sorry sir. I’m just so happy to see ya all in one piece.”

  From behind me I hear Gloria quietly say “Amen to that.”

  I turn to her. “Gloria I need to talk to Hiller about the op.”

  “No problem. See you at the debrief.” She quickly squeezes my arm and walks off towards the hatch.

  I turn back to Hiller and ask: “Alright Four. How bad is it?”

  Without pause Hiller replies “Hotel three three is a complete loss.” In a heavy armor battalion we use an alpha-numeric system to identify vehicles. Pretty simple really. Well to a Marine anyway. The letter corresponds to the company, scouts or headquarters. The first number the subunit and the final number the vehicle in that subunit. Hotel three three meant Headquarters – Operations Section- Master Gunner. He is talking about Gunner Wright’s Kodiak. “Hotel six six is gonna take ‘bout a week to repair.” He is talking about my Kodiak. “Sierra one one will most likely be fixed by Friday.” Three days from now. He gestures to the Kodiaks of Bravo company as he continues: “Bravo one three and Bravo two two by Thursday. Tomorrow we’ll have Bravo two four and Bravo two three ready to ride.” He pauses for a moment. “I know the surgeon already talked to ya. The Adj wrote the message for Headquarters Marine Corps as soon as the Doc confirmed the deaths. It will go out with the next courier ship we run in ta. I’ll work with the surgeon so we can ship ‘em back home, on the same ship. I don’t know when the next courier is due, but I’ll let ya know as soon as I do.” Hiller takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “The Gunner was an angry cuss, but damn if I ain’t gonna miss him something fierce.”