Sergeant (The United Federation Marine Corps Book 2) (20 page)

The “battle” such as it was, was on the far side of the
battlespace from the Ark Royal. After an hour, the ship downgraded to Battle Stations Charlie. A few of the Marines trickled out to get some chow, but most stayed, watching the display.

The
Bismarck
positioned itself 40,000 km off the
Jean d’Arc
. The two ships were motionless in relative terms, but like the entire task force, were hurtling through space at tremendous speeds. LCDR Huang signed off, giving way to a JG, as the 1/9 Marines loaded their rekis, and with a Gryphon monitor and several Experion fighters in support, started the long journey to the French ship. Forty-thousand klicks were nothing to a warship, but to a reki, that was an hour-long journey. Forty-thousand klicks was also the by-the-manual minimum safe distance for a warship to maintain when approaching another. The
Ark Royal
had gotten closer to the
Marie’s Best
, but that had been a civilian ship. The
Jean d’Arc
was a warship, and if she somehow blew, either by design or by accident, the stand-off safe distance was greater.

The
Jean d’Arc
didn’t blow. What it actually did, though, was confusing. Just as the Marines started their journey, there was a flicker on the display as sensors detected some sort of energy emissions.

A warning icon flashed, and the JG stopped mid-sentence. Ryck knew the meson cannon as well as other weapons would be trained on the
Jean d’Arc
, but he knew the meson cannon would need approximately five seconds to activate the electron and positron collisions that resulted in the mesons. More importantly to him, the Marines were outside the ship, now almost 500 km away, between the
Bismarck
with its meson cannon and the French ship.

Time seemed to slow down, but it was
actually fewer than the five seconds needed to fire the meson cannon when a number of yellow streaks took off from the
Jean d’Arc
.

Immediately after that, the
Bismarck
opened up.

Ryck
jumped up, his heart in his throat as the small blue icons for the rekis immediately faded to grey. The embarked Marines had no chance. The meson beam had swept through them. A battalion of his fellow Marines had just been killed, something that seemed unimaginable.

Ryck was numb as he watched t
he yellow icons rushed to the
Bismarck
at a blazing speed, undeterred by the meson cannon. The icons switched from the yellow of an unknown object to the orange of a KE weapon of some sort a second after the
Bismarck
fired, but the meson beam had no effect on them. Another two seconds, and the battleship’s point-defense auto-cannons opened up, their stream of railgun projected depleted uranium rounds making a ribbon on the display as the rounds rushed out to meet the incoming weapons. The yellow icons split up into nine separate— rounds? Missiles?—as the AIs analyzed the readings. Six of the French weapons were knocked off their course by the intense fire, but three made it through the
Bismarck’s
defenses and pierced the shields, slamming into the battleship.

The anonymous JG’s voice was cut off,
then the display went out.

Each Marine was on his feet, staring at the dead display in shock.

What the fuck had happened?

The display flickered,
then came back on as the
Ark Royal’s
AIs took over from the
Bismarck’s
feed. The
Bismarck
was still there, but the icon was light blue. Then a new red icon appeared about 500,000 km to the
Bismarck’s
upper right, an icon with full identification.

The
Jean d’Arc
.

It fired its own weapons at the
Bismarck
, more kinetic rounds. Almost immediately, the
Decatur
opened up on her, followed by the
Monty.
Neither ship was the match for the
Jean d’Arc
, but that didn’t stop either one. They started rushing to attack, to protect what was left of the
Bismarck
.

Battle Stations Alpha sounded on the
Ark Royal
.

“To your stations, now!”
Lieutenant Nidishchii’ shouted, the first Marine to utter a word since everything unfolded only 15 seconds ago.

As R
yck rushed to leave the lounge, he glanced back to see the
Chakri Naruebet
and several other ships converge on the French flagship when the icon for the
Jean d’Arc
disappeared from the display.

Chapter 1
3

Twenty-two hours after the battle, Ryck was with the rest of the battalion NCOs and Marines in Hangar B while the senior chief briefed them. All over the ship, the all hands were getting their first explanation on what had happened.

The Navy was a political animal, the forward projection of the government’s power. But it was still a professional fighting force that believed in transparency in after action reports and keeping all hands informed.

The ship had stayed at Battle Stations Alpha for almost twelve hours before standing down. As soon as the
Bismarck
was hit, Commodore Weinstein, the assistant task force commander, took full command from the new flagship, the
Chakri Naruebet
. He initiated rescue operations, started analyzing what happened, and sent ships, including the
Ark Royal
, after the fleeing French fleet. Other than a few data hits, though, the French slipped away, and the commodore recalled his ships, not willing to disperse his forces.

Marines and sailors were fed and put to the rack, but not many really got much sleep.
Hours later, exhausted and still in emotional shock they gathered to hear the brief.

“ .
. . and remember, these are only initial findings, but we have put engineers on what we thought was the
Jean d’Arc
. As I said, it wasn’t even a ship. It was a construct of tubing, propulsion, and launch rails that gave off the same signature as the real ship. We were spoofed into thinking this was the French flagship. I don’t need to tell you that this is some pretty sophisticated cyberwarfare, something beyond our present capabilities given the nature of existing sensors.

“The best that we can determine is that the
decoy ship was turned off prior to the
Bismarck
opening fire. Only very heavily shielded switches remained, and in the quiet mode. When the meson beams struck the ship, they flowed around the framework, causing no damage as there really wasn’t anything to react with.

“When the meson cannon was turned off, the switches remained intact, ready for activation. The
Jean d’Arc
, cloaked but nearby, or possibly another platform, reactivated the switches and powered up their rail guns, which were actually part of the structure of the ship. They waited until the Marines launched, knowing that the AIs would need an override to fire with the Marines between the ship and the target.”

There was a rush of murmurs as the Marines took this in.

“At ease, at ease,” Gunny Greuber said, holding up his hand. “Let’s listen to the senior chief.”

“As I wa
s saying they wanted that split-second advantage as they needed the rail guns to power up. Nine inert, non-conductive missiles were launched. We have recovered particles of one from the
Bismarck
and are analyzing it, but it looks to be a dense synthetic. Each one was approximately 40 meters long and massed 350,000 kg. Being non-conductive, the meson beam had no effect on them. They were essentially big rocks being thrown at the ship.

“Travelling at 10,000 kilometers per second, it took five seconds to reach the
Bismarck
. Point defense deflected six off course, but three hit the flagship. Serious damage was done to these three sections,” he said as a holo appeared over his head.

Ryck sucked in his breath. This was the first image
of the
Bismarck
after the battle that he’d seen, and huge chunks of the ship were simply gone.

“Immediately after impact, the
Jean d’Arc
deliberately uncloaked and fired two BC-8 anti-ship missiles at the
Bismarck
. With her defenses compromised, both missiles struck the ship here,” he said as the holo rotated, showing two more chunks taken out of the ship.

Inside the
Bismarck,
all compartments were sealed and fire-fighting measure taken. Within five minutes, the ship was secure, but non-effective. Overall, we lost 9,787 men in the attack. We believe that 6,000 were lost in the initial strike, another 3,000 in the missile attack, and the rest due to exposure to vacuum within moments after the strikes. We should note that most of the remainder could have survived had they been in the correct gear.

“As to the casualties, almost all of the command was taken out in the missile strike, to include Mr. Starling.”

“Mr.” Starling was telling. The Navy was a fighting force, but it was political, and blame had been laid. “Admiral” had been stripped from him even in death. It was just as well that he had died, though. He would have faced execution had he managed to survive the battle.

“As to Marines,” the senior chief continued, and here he stopped to look up and the men facing him. “I, uh, I regret to inform you that only three embarked Marines survived: Sergeant Mark
Tillhouse, Lance Corporal Sig Poulson, and Private Spencer Hamilton. These three were bedridden in sickbay on the other side of the ship. Most of the Marines were killed when the
Bismarck
fired on the launch platform. Your Marine command was located with the Navy command when they were hit, and the rest were at the launch hangar when the first strike hit them. I’m sorry to pass that to you.”

Some Marines sat in stunned silence, others broke out into exclamations.

Only three survived?
Ryck asked himself.

Ryck knew the toll was going to be high. He’d seen the lights turn when the rekis were in the way of the meson cannon. But more than that had to have survived. He knew Mark
Tillhouse. They had attended the NCO course together. And he was grateful that he had survived. But that was all? Only three Marines?

They had all been so jealous when they heard 1/9 was going to help salvage a warship. But that
mission had been their death sentence.

Ryck was barely aware that the senior chief was continuing, and he had to focus to catch what he was saying.

“ . . . a lack of leadership, a failure to follow established operational procedures, and most of all, a sense of individual ambition that overcame Navy policy and put his command at risk. Any one of a number of steps would have kept this from happening. The decoy ship was unable to maneuver once it had been set on its final course, so simple course change would have revealed the plan. One kinetic missile could have destroyed all the launch rails. Even after the decoy seemed destroyed, sensor readings were off, and a simple recon could have discovered that this was, in fact, a decoy, but arrogant pride wanted there to be a prize to capture, and by wanting it, the command ignored normal warnings.

“This is not the Navy way, and such actions will not be tolerated. Rest assured that procedures will be implemented to ensure this will not be repeated.

“That is all I have for now. I will not be able to take any questions at the moment, but we will issue a more detailed report available for download onto your PAs. The commodore wanted all of you to get an update, though, before we issue our complete findings.”

The senior chief and the sergeant major stepped of the platform and walked through the
seated Marines. Not taking questions was probably a smart move. He would have been there forever.

Ryck was impressed with the senior chief’s candor. There was no question that the blame was on the admiral, but to tell the enlisted
so with such candor was rare. Ryck wondered if the officers had gotten the same brief, or if theirs been even more candid.

He stood up, mentally and physically exhausted. Sams was still sitting on the hangar deck, head down. Ryck grabbed him under the armpit and hauled him up.

“Head up, Sams. We’ve got to get our heads on straight. We’re going to get a chance for revenge, mark my words, and we’ve got to be ready for it when it comes.”

FS
Intrepid

Ryck looked across the hold to where SSgt Hecs was waiting. Their visors were clear, so Ryck could see that the platoon sergeant was in dreamland. Ryck could almost hear the snoring. He nudged Cpl Winsted, more of a bump, given that they were mounted in their PICS, and pointed at their fearless leader.

“How the hell can he do that?” the Third Fire Team leader asked on the P2P.

“Beats the hell out of me,” Ryck admitted.

In the midst of a naval battle, where they could be reduced to their component atoms in a second, not many Marines could drift off to sleep. It was an admirable skill, but not one Ryck possessed.

Many things had changed since their last disastrous fight. The battle was broadcast to the populace as a victory, and with three French ships destroyed to one Federation ship, that claim could be made. However, no one in the military thought it was anything other than an ass-whipping. Outnumbered and out-gunned, Admiral DeMornay had managed to take out a Federation battleship. More lives were lost on that one ship than in all three French ships combined. Complacency may have been the order of the day before, but the foe was taken much more seriously now.

Now,
the forces were ordered to follow naval doctrine more closely. Of course, the French fleet knew Federation doctrine, but with the Federation’s much stronger fleet, there wasn’t much the French could do with the knowledge. Only a week prior in the First Quadrant, TF-202 had met and destroyed five French ships without a loss of its own.

One of the changes was that the Marines had been cross-decked to smaller platforms. The loss of an entire battalion, although only a percentage of the total loss of life on the
Bismarck
, had hit the community hard. There were to be no more units that large together on any one ship. Golf Company, along with two Storks, had been embarked about the
Intrepid
, an old destroyer.

Another change was that during any action, or possibility of action, all hands were to be in EVA
suits, or in the case of Golf Company, two platoons were in PICS. Over two hours ago, the call for Battle Stations Alpha had gone out, and Third Platoon had donned their PICS and entered one of the ship’s shuttles. First Platoon was in their PICS hooked up to the two Storks, ready to go if the need arose. Most of Second Platoon were in EVAs, sitting in two 14-man rekis.

In the hangars
, the Marines had no idea what was going on. If Ryck stood perfectly still, though, he could feel the subtle “pull” along his body that signified the ship was doing some serious maneuvers. The compensators, arrayed around the ship, kept the men inside the ships alive through the huge G-forces that would crush an unprotected crew. However, G-forces worked along one axis. The compensators reacted in concert, “pulling” to counteract the effect of the G-forces. At any given time, several of them would be working on the body, and that counteraction varied with the distance to the various repeaters. So the counter-force would be slightly different on one side of the body as the other. Most people said they couldn’t feel anything, but Ryck was positive he could. To him, it felt like skin drying with an almost-itch.

About ten minutes earlier, he had noticed a very slight dimming of the ship’s lights, something that repeated two more times. Ryck was pretty sure that meant they had fired their plasma guns.

The first time they had gone to Battle Stations Alpha, the Marines had stood in the shuttle for almost seven hours before the all clear was sounded. It had been a false alarm. Ryck was almost positive that this time, they were all in the middle of another battle.

As if reading his mind, Cpl Winsted said on the P2P, “I think the ship fired her guns a while back. Did you notice it?”

Cpl Winsted was John Beady’s replacement, joining the squad when they were cross-decked. He had never seen combat before.

“Yep, sure did. But not everyone noticed it, I’m sure, and as there is nothing we can do about it one way or the other, then no use bringing it up, right? No use getting your team stressed.”

“Oh, yeah, right, of course. I didn’t mean that. It’s just, you know, kinda hard to sit here not knowing what’s going on,” the corporal said.

Ryck closed his eyes and said, “Well, I’m going to follow in our leader’s footsteps and catch some
z’s.”

There was no way Ryck was going to sleep, but he had to exude a sense of calm. What he had said to Winsted was right, there was no use in stressing out his Marines, and if they knew he was st
ressed, then they would stress.

Ryck was amazed when, sometime later, he was jolted awake by the skipper’s voice. He had no idea how long he’d been out.

“We’ve got a potential mission. While we’ve been waiting, there has been an engagement,” Captain Davis passed. “A French gunship has been damaged and is trying to escape. The AIs put its probable destination as the planet Weyerhaeuser 23, an uninhabited corporate holding. The
Intrepid
has been ordered to give chase and destroy the ship if possible. If it turns out she is heading to the planet, it will be to offload the crew as the ship itself is too damaged to attempt an atmospheric re-entry. Or entry, I guess, would be more correct. If that happens, First and Third will land and attempt to force a surrender, eliminate them if they don’t accept. I will be the operation commander. The XO will be the contingency commander and will be ready with Second Platoon for any possible ship-to-ship boarding. Commander Sukishi has given us possible launch time of 50 minutes. I know there is not much we can do while we wait, but squad leaders, I want one more check of your Marines’ readouts. Gunny Greuber will be downloading the planet specifics, and I want everyone to make themselves familiar with them. Platoon commanders and sergeants and company headquarters, over to the command circuit for your orders. This is Captain Davis, out.”

Even with the Marines in their PICS, there was a palpable sense of alertness, if not ex
citement. Within an hour and a half, maybe two, they could be in action, where they could influence what they did, not just sitting like cargo, wondering if any moment could be their last. Anything was better than not having any control over their destinies. Ryck knew that most of the Marines would be remembering 1/9 and wanting to extract some revenge.

Ryck did a quick check of the squad
’s readouts. Other than a bump in heart rate and breathing, nothing had changed. They were ready.

The planetary specs came over the link, and Ryck toggled them up.
Weyerhaeuser 23 was another corporate holding, this one uninhabited. The huge galaxy-wide conglomerate had seeded vast tracts of the planet with various genmodded tree species some 30 years ago, then left. It wasn’t scheduled for a first harvest for another 10 years. Atmosphere was 18% O2, 81% N2, and the remainder trace gasses, and pressure was 95% ES, or “Earth-standard.” Gravity was .96 ES. Planetary rotation was 22.4 hours. Temperature ranged for -10 degrees at the poles to 40 at the equator.

These were all very close to ES, and Ryck wondered why the planet was not open to human colonization. He knew that Weyerhaeuser was not in the people business, but
comparing this planet to Prophesy, where his family had struggled to scrape crops out of the parched soil, this looked like paradise. It hadn’t even needed any terraforming. From what he read, the trees had minor genmods to be able to out-compete the native flora (which had been infected by the company biologists to clear them to help make room for the earth species), the symbiotic-type insect life was released, and that was about it. Seed, then leave until the trees grew into a commercially valuable crop.

There was more to the report, but Ryck had the gist of it. The atmosphere was not going to kill them, they would not burn up nor freeze, and they could move around without issue, even outside of their PICS.

“Everyone ready?” he sent to the squad circuit. “Looks like a nice vacation spot, right?”

“Sure, Sergeant L, I’m ready for some libo
[22]
,” Lips responded.

It really wasn’t that funny, Ryck knew, but most of the squad laughed
, if somewhat nervously.

Ryck knew the company staff was furiously hammering out a basic plan, adjusting from hip-pocket
ops orders that had been developed long before. But for the Marines in the squad, it was sit and wait until the word came down. And that wasn’t good. Just being inside their PICS tended to psychologically isolate the men psychologically, making them feel alone. Simple chatter helped combat that feeling.

“Uh, Lips, I don’t think
libo is your strong suit. Why don’t you tell the rest of the squad about the Monster Hut?” Ryck told the lance corporal.

There were hoots from some of the other Marines, those who had been in the squad for a
while. Lips had been busted for a drunken liberty incident at the bar. Already selected for sergeant, the then-Corporal Holleran was demoted to lance corporal. He was salty enough to understand Ryck’s intentions, though, so he launched into a rather exaggerated tale of his demise, bringing in the bar owner, her husband, and two FCDC officers. Even Ryck was laughing, despite knowing that only 20% of the story at best was true.

It was almost disconcerting to be pulled back into reality when the lieutenant came back from the command
net to give them their orders, but the tactic had been effective. Almost 20 minutes had passed, 20 minutes when the men were not standing there like statues with only their own thoughts for company.

Their orders were
pretty basic, about what Ryck had expected. Until the situation on the ground became clear, it was hard to plan anything concrete or too elaborate. If they launched for the planet, The two Storks with First Platoon would lead the way with Third in the
Intrepid’
s shuttle coming in behind. The Storks were transports, but they were armed, and without dedicated Navy air support, they would take the air cover mission. Depending on where anyone might land, the skipper would decide on whether to split up or to remain one unit. The opposing forces would be given the opportunity to surrender. If they refused, they would be attacked.

This wasn’t really an ops order, Ryck realized as he listened to the lieutenant. At best, it was a vague concept of operations with a list of coordinating measures. But until they knew more, any detailed plan was probably a waste of time.

A few minutes after the lieutenant was done, the skipper came back up on the company circuit.

“All hands, I have an update.
We were not able to close with the enemy gunboat in time, and they have reached Weyerhaeuser 23. Two shuttles have been launched and are descending to the planet. Given the class of the gunboat and the listed crew, either each shuttle is only half full or there was a Legion platoon on board. We are now operating under the assumption that we will be facing the legionnaires. The
Intrepid
could knock the enemy shuttles out of the sky, but we have been ordered to attempt to garner a surrender first, so we will be launching as soon as we get into range, in about six minutes. Second Platoon, you will launch immediately after us and board the gunboat as it orbits. The XO will issue your specific orders in a few moments.

“I charge all of you to be ready, remain flexible, and do your duty. If in fact there are legionnaires among the enemy, they represent a real threat, so it is imperative that we work as a team. We still outnumber them, and we have the
Intrepid
at our backs.”

Ryck perked up when the Capt Davis mentioned legionnaires. If the
legionnaires chose, they could put up a fight. Still, the Marines outnumbered them, and the
Intrepid
was a pretty big stick to wield.

“Platoon commanders, make ready. Let’s kick some ass,” the skipper
said.

Six minutes was a short time in the grand scheme of things, but it stretched out
while the Marines waited. Ryck wondered if the French shuttles had landed, and if so, were they preparing to surrender or fight. They would know the
Intrepid
was on their tail, and sitting out the rest of the war sure beat being blasted by a plasma gun. The Legion R-3s might be a great combat suit, but they couldn’t stand up to a Federation destroyer.

A Navy sailor in a bright yellow EVA ran up the back hatch of the
shuttle, took a reading at a gauge, then scrambled back out as the hatch closed.

“What was that about?” Cpl Winsted asked.

“Just routine. You know the Navy,” Ryck responded, even though he was wondering the same thing.

The
Intrepid’s
main hangar was a far cry from that of the
Ark Royal’s
five hangars. The
Intrepi
d was designed to fight, not carry Marines. It barely fit the two Storks along with its two shuttles. In the ancillary hangar, where Second Platoon was loaded on their rekis, the ship’s skiff had been pushed to the side just to prep the rekis to launch. With a limited launch crew on the
Intrepid
, launching shuttles, Storks, or rekis wasn’t the synchronized ballet that characterized the bigger ship’s launch ops.