Commandant (The United Federation Marine Corps Book 8) (6 page)

Chapter 8

“So you’re feeling strong?” Ryck asked Sams.

“Like an ox, sir.  I’m ready to come back.”

Ryck looked at Master Gunnery Sergeant, (Ret) Bobbi Samuelson as the man sat nervously across from him, hand fidgeting along the brim of his bush-cap.  Sams was one of his closest friends in the Corps, a man he trusted implicitly.  But after so many years together, he knew Sams was lying. 

Like Ryck, Sams suffered from BRC, Boosted Regeneration Cancer, the bane of too many Marines who’d undergone regen.  Ryck had only had two bouts and was in remission, although no one was ever completely cured of the disease.  Sams, however had had three bouts within the last four years, the last one so severe that it had resulted in his medical retirement.  And he didn’t look good, Ryck saw.  Sams was haggard and gaunt, a good 15 kgs less than what he was at his fighting weight.

What was equally as evident was that Sams needed this.  His nervousness couldn’t hide the hope he held in his eyes, the hope that as commandant, his old rabbi could overrule the Navy medical staff. 

Ever since the conclusion of his 0600 meeting, he’d had a steady stream of men seeking his time.  He’d already welcomed Sergeant Major
Phantawisangtong
and Gunnery Sergeant Hans Çağlar into the fold, Hecs from his position as the Senior Enlisted Monitor and Çağlar from the First Marines Three shop, and he’d given Hecs a list of names of men he wanted on his staff, but he’d been surprised when Sams had shown up.  Surprised and not sure what to do.  His old friend was suffering, that much was plain, and the pace of what was to come might be too much for him.  But Ryck also knew that Sams didn’t have much of a life now.  His ex-wife, Tara, after keeping him company for so many years after their divorce, had finally left once the Brick had robbed Sams of his ability in bed, and from what Hecs told Ryck, Sams was pretty much alone. 

Ryck was tired, and he wanted to go home and see Ben.  As he looked at Sams, he hoped he was not making a decision while his mind was clouded by fatigue.  But even if Sams was weak, it wasn’t as if Ryck needed him to be kicking down doors and taking names.  Sams’ mind was still sharp, and despite his irreverent attitude, he held a wealth of knowledge.  And something told Ryck that by giving Sams a purpose, he might be saving the old grunt’s life.

“I want you to report in at 0700 tomorrow, Master Gunnery Sergeant.  You’re going to be my special advisor on enlisted morale,” Ryck said, quickly picking the first thing to come to his mind.

“Master gunnery sergeant?  You mean?”

“Get your ass in gear, there, Marine.  You’re back in, and I expect I’ll work you to the bone.  I’ll have Hecs work up the paperwork, but I think I have the pull now to get this done.”

“Oh, shit, sir!  I was just hoping to do something.  I never thought I’d get back into uniform.  Thank you, sir!” Sams shouted, jumping up to take Ryck’s hand, shaking it madly.

Sams seem to fill out and come to life.  Ryck could have sworn that his friend gained five kgs right then and there.

“OK, get out and get your kit back in shape.  Some of us have work to do!” Ryck said with a laugh.  “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Sams thanked him several more times as he backed out of the office.

Well, I’ve made at least one person happy
, Ryck thought to himself, relaxing for a brief moment. 

Then the situation caught up with him.  Both his secured and personal PAs were flashing for his attention.  He took a quick glance at the personal—there were four messages now from Ben.  Ryck felt a wave of guilt wash over him.  He wanted to respond—hell, he wanted to go home and hug his son right then, but he kept hesitating.  With Hannah and the twins in the hands of the Federation, Ryck wasn’t sure how to handle things with Ben.  He knew they needed to support each other, but something was keeping him from confronting the reality that it was only the two of them now.

Grubbing hell, just do it!

“Vivian, I’m going home.  Please have my driver ready,” he said out loud, the office AI picking up his voice and sending his statement to his secretary.

“I’ll have him ready, but there’s one more person waiting for you.  A Colonel Sandy Peltier-Aswad?”

Oh, shit!  Sandy!  I should have contacted him earlier
, Ryck told himself as he wondered where he wanted his protégé.

Sandy was still too junior for one of the major billets where he could really help Ryck out, but maybe junior aide would be appropriate.  Sandy was buried in a staff job in J1,
[7]
and Ryck knew he’d jump at the chance to get into a position of more impact.  And Ryck looked forward to it.  Ryck and Sandy had not served together since the first battles of the Klethos War, and their relationship since then had been slightly strained.  Ryck had given Sandy room after that, out from under his shadow so the younger Marine could make a name for himself.  It hadn’t quite worked out that way for Sandy, but he’d made colonel, at least, based more on his past history of performance than on his more recent billets.  But if they got out of this mess in one piece, after serving as an aide to the commandant, Sandy should be able to convey that into a command, putting himself back into the running for a star.

Ryck stood up as Sandy came in, moving to meet him in the center of the office, hand outstretched.  Sandy had come to a position of attention, but then he broke that to take Ryck’s hand and shake it.

“Sandy, it’s good to see you.  Really good.”

“Thank you, sir.  And I guess I should offer my congratulations on your new position,” Sandy said formally.

Sandy’s distant attitude took Ryck by surprise, but he was now the commandant, he knew, and that changed things.  Sandy might be an old friend, and he was Ben’s godfather, but he was still a Marine, and Ryck was the commandant now.  Ryck knew it would take the by-the-book prim and proper Sandy a while to come to terms with that.

“Well, I’m glad you caught me.  I was just on my way out to see to Ben.  I haven’t seen him yet, and with Hannah and the twins. . .” Ryck said before trailing off.

“Yes, I heard, sir.  I’m sorry about that, but I imagine your family will be fine.”

“Well, yes, I hope so,” Ryck said in a subdued voice.  “Well, anyway, I don’t have much time right this moment, but I’d like you to come onboard and be one of my aides.  I know what you think of riding my coattails, but I could really use you, and I think that after all of this is over, you can work your way into a regiment.

“In fact, why don’t you come with me now.  We can discuss this on the way, and you can be there in case Ben doesn’t take what’s happened to his mom and the twins all that well.”

“Sir, I don’t think I can do that,” Sandy said.

“Oh?  Well, of course, this is short notice, and you can’t just leave your office without telling them what’s going on.  I’m not sure if I’ll make it back tonight.  I don’t have all of this scheduling down, and I’ve been running on fumes for about 30 hours now.  So why don’t you take care of things on your end, and we can start fresh in the morning?”

“No, sir, with all due respect, I can’t.”

“What?  Are you still worried about those coattails?”

“It’s not that, sir.  I’ll be leaving in two hours with General Nottingham and the rest.  To Alexander.  I just wanted to tell you that personally, face-to-face.”

Ryck stood looking at Sandy stupidly for a moment until what he said registered.

“With Nottingham?  You’re for the Federation?” he asked, astounded.

“And so should you be, with all due respect.  We swore an oath, you and I, to the Federation.  And I thought men of honor upheld their word,” Sandy said, more than a hint of anger seeping into his voice.

“Honor?  Honor, you say?  You do know the Federation was going to murder 12 billion citizens, don’t you?” Ryck shouted back.  “And you think I should have let that happen?”

“No, sir.  That order was a mistake, and you did what you had to do.  But that’s in the past, and now, to lead a revolution, to break your oath?”

Ryck just stared at Sandy, at a loss for words as his protégé, or what now looked like former protégé, stared back at him defiantly.

Finally, Ryck quietly asked, “So, after stopping the genocide, what was I supposed to do?”

“Surrender, sir, and defend yourself within the system.”

“And you think that would have worked?  Did it work with the
Justice
?  Did they even get a trial?”

Sandy had the grace to look troubled at that, but he took a deep breath, and then said, “If it’s for the good of the Federation, then any sacrifice must be accepted.”

“And just give up the Marines of 1/10, and the sailors of the
Kravitch
and
Temperance
?  Genghis was one of those Marines, you know.”

“Nothing would have happened to them, sir.  The Federation does not punish subordinates for the actions of their seniors,” Sandy said, seemingly more in an attempt to convince himself rather than Ryck.

“Once again, like the
Justice
?” Ryck said, scorn evident in his voice.

Sandy stood at attention, his face getting redder and redder. 

He started to say something, stopped, took a deep breath, and then said, “The
Justice
was a sacrifice to law and order, to keep chaos at bay.  Sad, but shit happens, sir, and they knew the risk when they enlisted,” he said, his anger rising to the surface and spilling out.  “But what are the consequences?  How many people are going to die now because of your ego?  How many people are going to die because you wanted to save your own ass, and so you broke your oath?”

Ryck stared at Sandy in shock.  He couldn’t believe what he was hearing, and a purple rush of his own anger threatening to take over him.  He balled his fists as he took a step closer to Sandy, ready to lash out and crush the little cockroach onto the ground.  He felt himself starting to lose it as he imagined his fist smashing into Sandy’s face when the slightest change of expression in that face stopped him.  It wasn’t fear; it was almost satisfaction.

And Ryck left his hands at his side.  Sandy wanted him to hit him.  Whether that was so that he could feel the righteousness of him abandoning Ryck, of choosing to oppose him, or if this had been planned out by Nottingham as just one little piece of evidence that Ryck was out of control, a madman bent on violence, Ryck had no idea. He suspected the latter, but regardless, he wasn’t going to give Sandy the satisfaction.

He slowly leaned in until he face was centimeters from Sandy’s, then just as slowly, he said, “Colonel, I believe we are done here.  You are dismissed.”

With that Ryck spun around and marched back to his seat.  He sat down and picked up his PA.

“I said, you are dismissed,” he repeated when Sandy didn’t move. 

Ryck didn’t even look up, his eyes on his PA, even if he didn’t take in a single word of what was written there.  With his peripheral vision, he watched Sandy slump ever-so-slightly.

“Aye-aye, sir,” Sandy said before conducting an about-face and marching out of the office.

“Vivian, please have Gunnery Sergeant Çağlar escort Colonel Peltier-Aswad to the gym,” he said.  “The colonel is not to deviate from the direct route.”

“The traitors are already being bused to the spaceport,” Vivian said.  “Should he still go to the gym, or do you want him on one of the buses.”

“Get him on a bus.  And if the last bus has gone, get him to the spaceport by donkey cart, if necessary.  I want him off this planet now.”

“Yes, sir.   I understand.”

Ryck stared blankly at his PA before throwing it against the wall, its almost indestructible body bouncing back to take a chip out of the side of his desk.  His anger was still seething, but another emotion was starting to make itself felt.  He’d lost his friend, someone he trusted.  Hannah and the twins were being held by the central government.  And now, he had a revolution on his hands, one where people were depending on him to bring about a successful conclusion, something that he hadn’t a clue yet as how to achieve.

He might be the Commandant of the Marine Corps, something to which he’d long aspired, but he’d throw all of that away if he could just turn back the clock and get his family—and yes, Sandy, too—back.

Chapter 9

Ryck stared at the simple plastisheet on the table in front of him.  It looked innocuous, just another routine piece of admin requiring a physical signature, but it caused a pounding in his head, a narrowing of his vision.

Slowly, the signature “Amarin Frederick Kean Chandanasiri” appeared on the paper.   A moment later, the retinal scan was shown as accepted.  Light-years away at
Prometheus Station
, the home of the Third Fleet, Admiral Chandanasiri signed his copy of the Articles of Assumption, which were molecularly linked to the copy in front of Ryck.

There were few documents that have stood the test of time as turning points in human history:  the
Summa Theologica
, the
Magna Carta
, the US
Declaration of Independence
, the
Federation Charter
, the
Munich Accord
, and the
Writ
, coming to mind.  Ryck didn’t know if the short declaration on the plastisheet in front of him would hold the same weight or if it would be relegated to a footnote in history about a foolhardy and failed attempt at fundamental change.

“Sir, Admiral Chandanasiri has signed his copy,” Major General Talliman Hayes said needlessly.

Ryck picked up the stylus and looked at the gathered men around him.  All of the flag and command sergeants major at the Headquarters, Sams, Hecs, Jorge Simone, and five randomly selected junior Marines were there to represent the Corps.  Brian Plummer and his senior staff from the
Kravitch
were there as representatives from the Navy.   The governor and his staff were gathered together, representing the civilian population.  And Major Titus Pohlmeyer, the Confederation of Free States Army, was the loan witness from a foreign government.

The news teams, three in all, couldn’t be ignored as they jockeyed for position to best record what was about to happen; whether for posterity or a future trial, Ryck didn’t know.

Ryck hesitated.  Up until now, there had been no direct action between the loyalist Federation forces and the new government, or “Evolutionary forces,” as they were now calling themselves.  (“Not revolution, evolution!”)  Signing this document, though, was essentially a declaration of war.  There would be no turning back.  And Ryck didn’t want war.  He knew the consequences of war, the horrors, far more than most, and he knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that people were going to suffer, and people were going to die. 

Most of all, though, Ryck didn’t want to lead a revolution, for that was what it was, despite all the play on words the experts were bandying about.  He could fight battles.  That was what he had been trained to do throughout his career.  But being the co-head of a government scared him shitless. 

What do I know about government?

Just 30 minutes before, he’d received a briefing about the banks.  Most of the largest banks in the Federation had their headquarters on Earth, and they had already cut off funding to the planets that had come out siding with the new provisional government, or what was about to become the provisional government as soon as Ryck signed the document.  The few banks that had promised to work with the new government did not have the financial wherewithal to support them, to fund a revolution.  The whole thing made his head ache.

He took a quick glance and Titus Pohlmeyer.  Ryck was going to have a one-on-one with the major right after the signing ceremony—they needed Confederation support.

He knew he had to sign, but his brain screamed at him “No!”  The consequences were just too great.  Part of him realized that his hesitation as he looked at the gathered men had a dramatic effect for the news teams to record, showing the import of the act, but any more hesitation could turn that into someone unsure if this was the right step.

Which was true.  He was unsure.  But the die had been cast, and he couldn’t reverse course.  It was too late for that.  He had to forge on, seemingly positive that this was the right—and legal—course of action. 

“In accordance with Section 3(a), paragraph 1 of the Federation Charter, whereas the current government has contravened Section 1, Paragraph 1 by ordering the murder of the planet Ellison and all Federation citizens therein, and as the co-representative of the people’s military forces, I am ordering the dissolution of the Federation Council and the imposition of martial law and formation of a provisional government until a new government can be formed,” Ryck said in the speech crafted by the Third Fleet staff judge advocate.

Ryck lowered the stylus and signed his name, knowing that his signature would be appearing simultaneously on the second copy at the Third Fleet headquarters.  He leaned forward to the small pick-up in the lower right-hand corner of the sheet, and a small light flashed green indicating his retinal scan was accepted.

Ryck lowered the stylus and tried to look confident in front of the news teams.

The federal government had just been toppled by a coup d’état.  That was the easy part. 

Now if they could only get the old government, along with the bulk of two Navy fleets, most of the FCDC, and the 13% of the Marines who sided with them to go along with it.