Lieutenant Colonel (The United Federation Marine Corps Book 6) (5 page)

He toggled back to normal vision as Echo came to a halt exactly 500 meters from the closest bunker. 

“Six, do we have permission to fire?” Sergeant
Bergstrøm asked on the command circuit.

Ryck hesitated, hoping that the separatists would come to their senses.  Normally, the battalion CO would not be the one to give that order, but regiment wanted him to have final control over the situation. 

He could picture the Mountain Home Secretary of Security, who was aboard the
Tremaine
as an observer, urging him on to give the command.  That wasn’t quite fair, though, he realized.  More than a few of the Marine brass would be watching, waiting for the grand coordinated assault to unfold so they could analyze ad infinitum what went wrong and what mistakes had been made.  Ryck didn’t give a rat’s ass about that, though.  What happened next was up to those opposing his battalion.  As if in response to his thoughts, another beam of energy reached out, bathing the
Berserker
.

Well, I guess that is their vote
, he thought.

“One round, Wolfpack-3.  Fire at will,” he passed.

Almost immediately, the
Berserker
opened fire with its 75mm main gun.   At 500 meters, the 4kg inert shell hit the bunker almost instantaneously, easily piercing the bunker’s armor.  A burst of white-hot fire exploded outward as the stored energy was released.  No one inside the bunker could have survived.

Ryck had personal control over initiating the first round.  Once that was fired, though, it was open turrets, and Phase 2 of the assault would commence, with command decentralized as normal.  The Three would handle the battalion-wide coordination, but the overall fight was down to the NCO level.

But Wolfpack-2, which was facing the second bunker, didn’t immediately open up.  Ryck knew the tank gunner was locked onto the bunker, ready to fire, but the spectacular results that Wolfpack-3 had achieved, with bolts of lightning still shooting up into the air, and the cessation of any outgoing fire from the second bunker, had stayed the gunner’s finger.  This was not a good trait for a Marine, but Ryck understood it.

“All hands, hold your fire unless fired upon,” Ryck passed on the open circuit. 

He knew LtCol Lin Herrera, the G3 rep on the
Tremaine
would be going into a conniption fit over the halt, but Ryck was the commander on the ground, and he had to command as he deemed fit, not what division wanted.  He knew he’d have Colonel Dove’s support, and the colonel was his direct commander, not someone in G3.

He couldn’t stall the assault indefinitely, though.  He just wanted to give the separatists a moment to digest how easily their bunker had been taken out.  He’d give them a minute or so, then re-commence.

It took only 30 seconds.  The surrender was broadcast on a dozen or more frequencies.  Ryck felt a surge of relief—mostly.  A part of him, a part of which he was not proud, still wanted to mix it up.  He’d been excited, ready to go, and this was an abrupt and decided let down.  Not one Marine had been scratched, and the mission was accomplished (maybe not to what Herrera wanted to see, but the separatists had surrendered), and that was something any commander wanted.

So why was he vaguely disappointed?

The separatists may have signaled surrender, but that didn’t mean the danger was over.  For any of the established militaries, a surrender was an oath, a bond.  But for non-professionals, especially extremists of any ilk, surrenders had been used as ploys before.  If someone were willing to suicide to take out an enemy, the niceties of modern battlefield culture would hardly be a deterrent.

Maj Juventus was already on the comms, broadcasting for the separatists to power down their remaining Borisovitches.  Ryck watched his display waiting for them to comply.  Two of the remaining guns immediately powered down, but two, including the one still aimed at his Marines, remained powered up.

“Surrendering force, I say again, power down your weapons.  If you do not, we will not accept your surrender and take immediate action,” Stig passed.

One of the remaining guns began to power down, but the last one defiantly remained powered-up and capable of firing.  Ryck needed to get Fox up to the objective to clear it, and he wasn’t going to do that until all of the Borisovitches were down.  Old weapons technology or not, they would really spoil the day of any unarmored Marine.

“Sir, what do I do if it doesn’t power down?” Stig Juventus asked Ryck over the P2P.

“Come on, major.  You know what to do.  If the crew won’t power down, we have to take it out.  Give them one more chance, then let Wolfpack-2 do its thing,” Ryck said, keying in the comms so the XO could listen in.

“Roger that, sir.  I’ve got it,” Stig said.

“Remaining bunker, you have 30 seconds to power down or you will . . .oh, you’re doing it now.  OK,” Stig said as the last gun started the power-down process.

Ryck rolled his eyes.  That hardly sounded professional. 

“Tell them to exit the bunker complex in our direction, and without any weapons,” Ryck prompted his S3 on the P2P.

This was standard operating procedure, SOP, and Juventus shouldn’t need any guidance.  He could pull it up on his display and just follow along the delineated steps.

“And Echo?” Ryck prompted.

With Golf only now reaching the valley floor, it was up to the Echo Company Marines to take position outside each of the bunkers and the main service tunnel leading inside the complex.  A Marine in a PICS was a pretty threatening figure, and Ryck wanted to cow any fight left right out of the separatists. 

“Roger, I’m on it,” the Three said before ordering Genghis to get his Marines into position.

“Does he have this?” the XO asked over the P2P.

“I hope so.  It’s all right there for him, and we’ve gone over it enough times,” Ryck said.

For the umpteenth time, he wondered how Stig Juventus had ever made major.  This was really a simple procedure, and he shouldn’t be leaning on his commander to lead him by the hand.  He followed along as the Three gave the commands, listening for any screw-ups.  Miracle of miracles, he seemed to get it right.  Within minutes, the first of the separatists made their way out of the mountain and were herded by a line of PICS Marines out and away from the bunkers.  Each prisoner was scanned for weapons at the initial station, then passed to Weapons Company and a platoon from Fox who did a more detailed search.

“Three, have Golf molt.  Have them assist Weapons in the POW processing.  All of Fox has to be ready to clear the interior,” Ryck passed.

A PICS Marine was the ultimate fighting unit, but it wasn’t really that effective patting down prisoners and interviewing them.  With the fight looking to be over, Ryck didn’t need two Marine companies in PICS, so he could better employ Echo with the initial processing of the prisoners.  The POWs would be turned over to the local authorities soon enough, but after his experiences on Kakurega where prisoners had been abused by the FCDC, he wanted to have a complete list of each and every prisoner on record. 

Fox entered the complex, which seemed like a grandiose term for what had simply been access tunnels for the temple before the Yuri Front took them over.  Ryck monitored Captain Koske’s command circuit, but it all seemed to be unfolding as planned.  They’d found no living separatists, only scattered body parts of an unknown number that had been in the bunker the
Berserker
had taken out.

Ryck, with the ever-present
Çağlar at his side, strode over to where the prisoners were being processed.

“Where’s their leader?” he asked LCpl Montre, the closest Weapons Company Marine.

“That guy over there, sir.  The one in the blue shirt,” Montre said, pointing.

Ryck approached the sitting man, coming to a stop and looming over him.  The young man—
really young
, Ryck thought—seemed calm and collected, despite his hands being zip-tied behind him and two PICS almost on top of him.  He looked up and waited for Ryck to say something.

“Are you the leader of this group?” Ryck asked.

“Yesah, you can say that,” he said with an odd inflection to his voice  “An’ who you?”

“I’m Lieutenant Colonel Ryck Lysander, the commanding officer.”

If Ryck expected any reaction from the man, he was disappointed. 

“And your name?” Ryck prompted.

“You can call me Eagle, Marine-man,” came the reply.

Ryck didn’t know if that was the man’s name or simply some sort of code name the man had chosen.  It would all come out in the end, so Ryck did not press the issue.

“I want you to know that you will be treated in compliance with all regulations concerning POWs,” Ryck told him.

“Yesah, as you choose,” the man said.

Is he high on something?
Ryck wondered.

“Your men and women will be turned over to your government for disposition—” Ryck started.

“Not mah government,” Eagle said with the first hint of any emotion.

“Well, be that as it may.  I just wanted to let you know that if you have any questions or issues, just ask any of the Marines, and someone will respond to it.”

The man said nothing, and Ryck started to turn away before the question that had been nagging at him broke free.

“I have to ask, why did you fight?  You had to have known you had no chance,” he asked.

“The man who sold us the guns, he say they can take anything down.  Ten megajoules of power.”

“But this is on land, and those Borisovtiches are old tech.  Too much energy gets lost.  You had no chance.”

“So he lie,” Eagle said complacently.

Ryck didn’t understand the man.  He’d just gotten his ass kicked, he’d lost men and women, and he’d been sold a false bill of goods.  But he didn’t seem upset or emotional.

“But when you fired on us and we kept coming, didn’t you know then?” Ryck persisted.

“Yesah, after the first shot, we know.”

And?
he wanted to shout out.

“So why continue?  You got your people killed, for nothing.”

“Nothing?  We had to show we serious, like Gandhi and Forsythe.  By dying, we do that.  We won,” Eagle said assuredly. 

Ryck stared at the man for a moment, and then simply turned around and left.  Humanity was a diverse organism, and people were all different. Sometimes, the differences were enormous.  Ryck just didn’t understand this Eagle guy, and he didn’t think he could bridge the gap.  To throw away lives for a simple message was something he could not fathom.

Ryck was still going to follow all regulations concerning prisoners before turning them over to the police force, but after that, he was washing his hands of them.  He had his own Marines to worry about, and that was enough.

TARAWA

Chapter 8

“Not a bad show,” the XO said.

“
Braço às armas feit
, Liam.  As arms to weapons,” Ryck responded.

Ryck was actually slightly underwhelmed—and disappointed.  This was his first patron birthday with the battalion, and he’d hoped it would knock everyone’s socks off.  It didn’t.

The battalion commander traditionally had nothing to do with the preparations, and so this was the first time he’d seen everything unfold.  He’d been at the head table with the deputy prime minister from Portugal, the new regimental commander, and the commanding general, and he could tell that Colonel Miller, at least, felt similarly let down.

It wasn’t just the Drum Corps or the entertainment, Ryck had to admit.  He’d been less than animated during his speech.  He’d practiced it in front of the kids and Hannah five times, but when it came time to give it, he’d stumbled and fallen flat.

This had been nothing like the Patron Day celebration on Sierra Dorado when he’d been the company commander in Charlie 1/11.  That had been the high-water mark of celebrations, and with the colonel and the CG attending this one and as the battalion CO, Ryck had wanted the battalion to nail it.

Part of the problem was the date.  No one really knew on what date during 1618 the Corps of Fusiliers had been formed, so by tradition, probably going back to the founding of the Federation Marines, January 10
th
had been used as the battalion’s patron day.  With the slew of holidays between the Marine Corps birthday of November 10 and through the New Year holiday, the Marines and sailors didn’t have the time to really rehearse and practice before the 10
th
.  

That was a BS excuse, though, Ryck knew.  All of the prep and coordination could have been done prior to the Marine Corps birthday.  With the tempo of the battalion, however, Ryck had been more than happy to turn all of the prep to the sergeant major, who seemed more focused on his retirement next week.  For the celebration next year, Ryck would have Hecs, who was already onboard, but he vowed he’d maintain closer observation on it.  The celebration may not have a direct relationship with the battalion’s combat readiness, but it was tradition, and tradition was a huge part of what made the Marines the Marines.

“The sergeant major seems happy enough,” the XO remarked.  “Maybe more so that he’s about to retire.”

So he agrees with me
, Ryck thought, glad he wasn’t the only one.

But this wasn’t a time for recriminations.  This was a celebration, and Portugal was hosting a huge spread of food for the battalion and guests.  From the aromas rising from the tables set up in the back of the hotel’s main conference room, the food could easily be the highlight of the celebration.

“Nice celebration,” a voice said from behind the two Marines.

Ryck turned to see Jorge Simone, his NOTC
[4]
classmate.  Jorge had some staff job in the J3, but he’d been a company commander in the battalion for a year, so he was an alumni, and along with other alumni who were on Tarawa, he’d come to help celebrate.  Ryck tried to detect a note of sarcasm in Jorge’s comment, but the man seemed sincere.

Jorge was an anomaly, as far as Ryck was concerned.  Extremely intelligent and capable, Ryck had always been sure Jorge would be the first flag in the class, and they would all be drinking the champagne awaiting in the class box at the Globe and Laurel in his honor.  But Jorge’s career was not going according to what was considered as that of a rising star.  He had very little time in command of infantry units.  His time was spent on staffs.  His tour with the Fuzos had been cut short after only a year as he was pulled to the regimental S3.  This was a testament that he excelled at staff work, but he hadn’t been able to prove himself as a commander.

Ryck had spoken with Derrick Ohu, another NOTC classmate who was close to Jorge, and he’d told Ryck that Jorge had been livid at losing his company and hated being pulled to one staff after another.  But commanders had a habit of pulling those Marines who could help them achieve success.

Ryck looked guiltily over to the senior staff table where Sandy was deep in conversation with Proctor Christophe.  He’d pulled Sandy into the battalion, against his initial wishes, because he hadn’t thought Stig Juventus up to the task.  Had that been concern for the battalion or more selfishly a desire to shine as a commander? Ryck wasn’t sure, if he was completely honest with himself.

“Thanks, Jorge.  I guess this brings back memories for you, huh?” Ryck said.

“I only had one birthday celebration with the Fuzos, but yes, it does,” Jorge said.

“Well, do you know my XO?  This is Major Liam Stilicho.  Liam, this is Lieutenant Colonel Jorge Simone.  We were classmates at NOTC, ” Ryck said, introducing the two men.

“Stilicho?  Ah,
Vandalii antes portas
, Major,” Jorge said, taking the XO’s hand.

“Correct sir, and I will do my best to keep Rome safe,” the XO said.

What the . . ?

“Uh, if you don’t mind, what the heck are you two talking about?” Ryck asked.

“My name, sir,” the XO said.

“Liam?”

“No, sir, Stilicho.  As in Flavius Stilicho, the great half-Vandal, half-Roman general and regent for the emperor,” the XO explained.  “He was referencing the ‘barbarians at the gates.’”

“He was half-Vandal, but he kept Alaric, the Vandal leader, out of Rome until political backstabbing resulted in his execution.  Two years later, Rome was sacked.  The barbarians were not just at the gates, but through them.  Stilicho was the last of the great Roman generals, and when he fell, that was the beginning of the end for the empire,” Jorge told him.

“You really need to keep up on your history,” Jorge added light-heartedly.  “Those who fail to learn their history—”

“Are doomed to repeat it, I know,” Ryck cut in.

Ryck thought he was pretty well-versed in history, but maybe that was more about how it pertained to various marine corps and their battles.  He knew there was much more to history than that, but that had never interested him as much. And now Jorge comes along and makes a quick comment about the XO’s name, using Latin, of all things, and the XO understood him.  Ryck knew the mottos of all the Marine Corps battalions, and many of them were in Latin, but really?  These two were conversing in it?  Ryck suddenly felt out of his league.

“Well, then, don’t get yourself executed, Liam.  We don’t need barbarians at our gates,” Ryck said, trying to interject a little humor to deflect the conversation.

He was saved from more when Hannah came out of the woman’s head.

“Jorge, this is my wife, Hannah,” he said as she joined them.

“Yes, of course, we know each other well.  We’ve worked together on a number of projects,” Jorge said, kissing Hannah on the cheek.

“Jorge is one of the up-and-coming stars, Ryck,” Hannah told him. 

“You compliment me, ma’am, undeservedly,” Jorge said, but without conviction.

They know each other?  How do I not know that?

“Well, honey, I think we need to get back to the main table.  They’re going to be serving in a few minutes,” Ryck said.  “We have to make nice with the deputy prime minister, after all.”

Ryck was more interested in what the CG and the new regimental CO thought than the deputy prime minister, but that wasn’t the type of thing that a Marine admitted in public.

“Oh, he be a sweet man,” Hannah said, taking Ryck by the arm.  “You should talk to him.  You’ll be seeing him at the Military Outlook and Beyond Conference in Lisbon, after all.”

As the commanding officer of the battalion, Ryck had a standing invitation to the annual MOBC conference, which was hosted by Portugal at the Z Resort and Casino complex in Lisbon’s ever-so-trendy Bairro Alto district.  If the battalion wasn’t otherwise deployed, the Marines usually sent the current CO to attend.  With Ryck’s service in the Raiders and now with the assault battalion concept, his attendance would actually make sense and not just be a formality.

“Better you than me,” Jorge said with a laugh.

“Colonel, my wife pulled out with a migraine, so there’s an empty seat at my table.  If you want to switch and join me there, I’ll introduce you to our staff, and we can discuss Rome or anything else,” the XO said.  “As you might guess, Rome is somewhat of a hobby of mine.”

“I’d be honored, Major.  Lead on,” Jorge said.

The two groups split to go to their respective tables.  Ryck glanced back at Jorge and the XO, realizing he knew very little about either one of them as people.  He didn’t know that his own XO, a man he spent more time with now than his own family, was a student of ancient Rome?  That bothered him.  He wondered if he was just used to considering Marines as parts of the unit and how they could contribute to the mission.  Oh, he cared for his Marines and sailors.  He’d gone to enough weddings alone, and even a christening and bar mitzvah or two, so that he thought he had every type of each service memorized.  He cared deeply for his men.  But did he really know them?  Did he know who they were when they were not in uniform?  Listening to both Liam and Jorge, well, he wasn’t sure.  His posse?  He knew them, he thought.  But the battalion was more than Sams, Hecs, Sandy, Ling, Çağlar, and the others.

Ryck had over a thousand Marines and sailors in the battalion.  But as he walked to the head table with Hannah on his arm, he made a vow right there that he had to get to know more about each one.  They were not just cogs in the big machine, but real men with individual stories to tell.