Sergeant (The United Federation Marine Corps Book 2) (2 page)

A green check appeared under 11 of the avatars on his visor display.
Ryck waited another few seconds.

“Khouri,
do you understand?” he asked his 12
th
Marine. “We’re waiting!”

A green check belatedly appeared under the lance corporal’s avatar.

“Sams, this is Ryck” he passed to the First Squad leader, knowing that the lieutenant, SSgt Hecs, and Sgt Pope Paul, “Popo,” would be listening in. “In about two mikes, we’re going to hightail it to your position to link up. I’m hoping there will be some scatter when the civs see a PICS squad rushing them, so that should give us an opportunity to present a more formidable front and maybe get up into the objective. You copy that?”

“Roger than, Ryck.
Sounds copacetic. We’ll mill about smartly here until you arrive, then let’s push it forward,” Sams replied.

“Good thinking on your feet, Sgt Lysander,” Lieutenant
Nidishchii’ passed on the circuit. “SSgt
Phantawisangton
g, you’ve got command of the two squads. We’re kind of bottled up here, so I don’t think we can get there to join you until after the fact. Remember the ROE, though. No civilian casualties.”

“Aye-aye, sir,” the platoon sergeant acknowledged. “Get your butt in gear, Ryck. More rock-apes are on their way.”

The lieutenant was new to the platoon, and his enlisted time was in the Second Marine Division, so he was somewhat of an unknown entity. Both Sams and SSgt Hector
Phantawisangtong were well known to Ryck, though. Sams was Sgt
Bobbi Samuelson, and Ryck had served with him when they were both privates over in Fox Company. SSgt “Hecs” had been Ryck’s heavy hat at recruit training back on Tarawa. Despite the years that had passed, Ryck still thought of him as “King Tong.”

The squad pushed into the square. Lips went slightly deeper than two meters, but along the edge of the square, tables and chairs
were cluttered in front of what had to be restaurants. Even though a Marine in a PICS wouldn’t notice crushing a table, t there were people grouped there as well, and his squad needed to have a clearer shot to First Squad.

The squad halted. In front of them, the crowd, which had been slowly
retreating in the face of the Marine advance, eased to a stop as well. A few of the braver sorts took a step or two closer to the Marine line, but staying out of arm’s reach. In back of the squad, more civilians gathered and began to press forward. Ryck knew he had to move before they pushed up against the Marines.

“On three,” he passed over the squad circuit
, “left face and move out.”

All twelve Marines acknowledge the order by activating their check marks.

“One . . . two . . . three! Move it!”

A PICS
was not an extremely nimble piece of equipment. It had significant mass, and even with each Marine’s physical movements augmented, the suit was not as agile as a Marine not meched up. However, once they got going, they were surprisingly fast. Within a few steps, the Marines were running at almost 60 KPH, far faster than any human could match. They left the protesters facing them and were able to dodge in back of the protestors surrounding Second Squad before those civilians could react.

Just as Ryck had hoped,
when the protesters around First Squad saw the advancing Marines coming at full tilt, they scattered like a covey of quail. First Squad immediately started moving forward.

Stopping
a PICS from full speed was an exercise in physics. Nine-hundred and forty-five kilograms at 60 KPH created beaucoup momentum. There was a trick to bringing the beast to heel. Ryck leaned back and thrust one foot forward, the LTC coating on his PICS heel digging a furrow through the stone cobbles of the square, individual stones dislodging to fly through the air. He pulled up to a stop exactly where he had intended.

Hartono was not as skilled. As the newest member of the squad and new
to his PICS, he didn’t get enough braking resistance, and he crashed into Keiji. Ryck knew the PICS’ gyros would keep their suits upright despite some pretty serious impacts, and the suit’s themselves were pretty sturdy, but a collision like that could damage sensors or even the weapons packs. Ryck had no time to check out either Marine’s PICS, though. First Squad was on the move, and they had to get up to the objective before the protesters could shift with enough mass to impede their progress.

The square was covered in cobblestones, which didn’t impede the progress of the Marines as they trotted up to their objective, but it slowed down the
ability of the protesters to react to the Marines’ movement. Ryck could see several small civilian groups trying to interspace themselves between the Marines and the building, but they were not going to be able to close in time. Nearly a hundred people were at the bottom of the steps, but the vast majority of the protesters had previously flooded out to plug up the streets and were now out of the Marines’ path.

It took about 30 seconds to c
ross the big square. A single line of protesters tried to stop them, but the Marines slowed down and easily pushed their way through the crowd. The civilians didn’t even try hard. They seemed to have given up, at least for the moment. Ryck knew they hadn’t thrown in the towel, though. Getting into the government building was only part of the mission. The Marines had to get out again, with the Legionnaires, and the protesters were undoubtedly going to try and stop them. To the protesters, the Marines reaching the government house was probably considered only a temporary setback.

SSgt Hecs led the
two squads up the many steps to the main entrance. About 20 nervous-looking local militia manned two crew-served weapons which were sandbagged on either side of the big bronze doors. One soldier raised his rifle to aim at the Marines before another soldier knocked the muzzle back down.

SSgt
Hecs moved forward and addressed the soldier who had stepped out from behind the sandbags.

“Staff Sergeant
Phantawisangtong, Federation Marine Corps. I think you are expecting us?”

“Yes, sir!
Lieutenant Xie, uh, militia, uh, Tylarian Militia, I mean. Yes, we’re glad you’re here. Please, come inside,” the flustered militiaman managed to get out.

He nodded at another of the soldiers who
picked up a landline and quietly spoke into it. A few moments later, the big doors pulled open. The 27 Marines almost casually walked through them and into a very large, ornate rotunda.

Ryck listened with half an ear as SSgt Hecs reported in to the
Lt Nidishchii’. Ryck was in awe of what he was seeing. Back on Prophesy, the government building was more of an office building, perhaps befitting a planet that was colonized by a corporation. This was more in the lines of an old-fashion capitol building, with statues in the cornices and an intricate tile mosaic covering the vast floor. Ryck took a step further into the room, then stopped, conscious of his big PICS crushing some of the tiles underfoot.

The
y waited only a few moments before a Legion captain, wearing his T34 Parade Dress uniform, came hurrying down one of the large staircases. SSgt Hecs had activated his rockers
[3]
on his PICS arms, went right to him.

SSgt Hecs opened up the input to his speakers to the two squad leaders.

“Staff Sergeant, I am Capitaine Pichon. Thank you for your arrival. I understood, though, that a full Marine Company was coming?”

“Sir, SSgt
Phantawisangtong here. The company commander has been held up outside by the mass of civilians. Our ROE is very clear that we are to avoid civilian casualties, so for the moment, we are the only forces to reach this building.”

“Ah, just so.
Well, if you could, please follow me to meet Commandant Gruenstein, our senior negotiator.”

The captain started for the sweeping stairway before stopping and looking back at the Marines.

“Ah, perhaps you can evacuate your Personal Combat Systems? They may not be so maneuverable upstairs,” he said.

Ryck tried to decide if there was a condescending note to his voice. It was taken for granted that the Legion’s
Rigaudeau-3s were better combat suits than the Marines’ PICS, but Ryck didn’t think the legionnaire was in a position to dismissive of Marine Corps gear.

“Ryck, strip and join me,” SSgt Hecs told him, already starting the procedures to release the back seal so he could get out of the PICS.

It took almost a minute before Ryck could perform the Cirque du Soleil maneuvers necessary to hitch his legs up, then back down outside the PICS. He disconnected the hood interface, and he was free of the big beast, feeling naked, and not only from shedding his PCS, but also because his longjohns were so tight and thin as to leave nothing about him to the imagination. He checked his small Ruger 2mm, holstered it, and followed his platoon sergeant up the stairs.

An armed militiaman gu
ard standing outside the door leading into Conference Room A came to attention and presented arms. The captain made a cursory salute and entered the room.

Inside, Ryck saw four more legionnaires and two men in civilian clothes. The civvies looked relieved at the sight of SSgt Hecs and Ry
ck. The legionnaires showed no reaction one way or the other.

With their longjohns on, neither Ryck nor Hecs had on any indication of rank. Without hesitating, though, the tall, hawk
-nosed commandant stepped forward, hand outstretched.

“Major Nicholas Gruenstein. It is good to meet you.”

The major could have come from central casting for a new Legion flick. Ryck noted that he used the Standard “major” instead of the Legion rank of “commandant,” unlike the captain who had insisted on using “capitaine” for his rank.

Score one for the major
, Ryck thought.

“Happy to be here, sir,” SSgt Hecs told him.
“Staff Sergeant
Phantawisangtong and Sergeant Lysander. We’ve got two heavy squads inside this building. My commander, Lt. Nidishchii’ is outside holding a few hundred civilians in place. Captain Davis, our company commander, is directly behind this building with another platoon of Marines. I’ve been tasked with preparing your team for evacuation so we are ready to move out as soon as Captain Davis arrives.”

He looked around the room before continuing, “I was lead to believe that there were going to be more Tylarian personnel to evacuate?”

One of the two civvies looked embarrassed as the major said, “I’m afraid that Mr. Gelan and Mr. Liu are all that are left. Their, uh,
superiors
, decided that after the first group of protesters made it in the building, they didn’t want to draw any more here to put us, their guests, in any danger.”

“So you are saying they
diddiho’d out of here, sir?” SSgt Hecs asked.

“Yes, I think that phrase is an apt description,” the major said, only a slight hint of scorn in his voice.

Ryck wouldn’t have done so well in hiding his opinions of the officials who had fled.

“If you think it feasible, we can move to the rotunda, sir,
so we can prepare for the evac. We’ve got about a klick to go to our pick-up point,” the platoon sergeant told him, careful not to make it sound like an order.

“Sounds good, Staff Sergeant
Phantawisangtong,” the Legion major said, actually doing a pretty good job with the platoon sergeant’s name. “Lead on.”

The five legionnaires, two civilians, and two Marines walked
out the room, down the hall, and back down the stairs, but not before the major told the lone guard to rejoin his unit.

In the rotunda, Sams was taking some uniforms out of LCpl Andersen’s buttpack. The PICS buttpack, which was actually more of a small-of-the-back-pack, allowed a Marine to carry cargo with him. The problem with them
, in typical Marine logic, was that there were impossible to reach while inside the PICS. They pack could be dropped and then accessed, but the fingers of the PICS were a little big to handle smaller items that might be carried. Once dropped, the pack could not be re-attached without outside help. Most Marines simply used them to carry some extra chow and an emergency coldpack, the small gel piece of gear that kept a PICS from overheating on the inside.

Sams
brought the uniforms from Andersen’s pack over to SSgt Hecs.

“Sir, please have your men change into these utilities. They will offer you some protection as we leave,”
the staff sergeant told the major.

Major Gruenstein reached out and took one of the skins tops, fingering it before asking, “
You’ve already inserted the armor protection in these, correct?”

The
armor, what we called the “bones,” was 23 separate pieces of what looked to be cardboard or feltboard that instantly hardened upon impact of a projectile. They were lampreyed onto the trousers and blouse, the skins, and rendered the uniform system proof against most small arms.

“Yes, sir,” SSgt Hecs answered. “They
’re ready to go.”

“As I understand it, your armor is custom made for each individual, correct?”
the major asked.