Sergeant (The United Federation Marine Corps Book 2) (3 page)

“Well, yes, sir, they are. But we took a bunch of different sets, and with most of the Tylarian negotiators gone, we have plenty to
pick and choose.”

“I appreciate the consideration, but I hardly think that wearing ill-fitting clothing leaves a good impression. I think we will remain in our parade dress. If that leads to an
injury, that will be on my head,” the Legion officer said with an air of finality.

Either Mr
. Gelan or Mr. Liu (Ryck never got which one was which) stepped to face SSgt Hecs and hurriedly spoke up, “Um, officer, we would like to put on your uniforms.”

The platoon sergeant nodded to Sams, and the two Tylarian functionaries
began to paw through the skins and bones looking for a close fit.

“If you will wait a moment, sir, let me
get back into my suit so I have full comms and can report back to my command for an update,” Hecs said, stepping back and moving to where his empty PICS stood like an empty insect molt. “You, too, Sergeant Lysander.”

Getting back
into a PICS was easier than getting out of one, but it still took a bit of dexterity. Ryck had to connect his hood, then push his arms in first and squirm up until he could bring up his legs to clear the opening. There were two handles inside the PICS up near the shoulder that made donning the PICS much easier. Some enterprising armorer had installed a set some years back when the PICS was first introduced, and now they were standard to the combat suits. Ryck grabbed the handles, pulled up, bringing his knees up past his belly, then slid his legs back down inside the PICS. He hit the closure button, then watched as his lights indicated the check process. Twenty seconds later, he was combat-ready.

He checked on his platoon sergeant.
SSgt Hecs didn’t look much different from the other Marines as they stationed themselves near the entrance and around the rotunda, but from the slight forward tilt of the platoon sergeant’s PICS, it was clear that he was in intense comms with the lieutenant or the skipper.

The two Tylarians had selected their skins and stripped down. One was in his skivvies, the other was going commando. Ryck couldn’t help but hope that it wasn’t his set of skins that the
skivvie-less man had selected.

There was the ever-so-slight click as SSgt Hecs came on the open circuit and activate
d his speaker.

“Sir, our drones are showing thousands of people converging here. Captain Davis, our commanding officer
, has been ordered by higher headquarters that we need to move now. With thousands of people out there instead of hundreds, they don’t think we can extract you without harm to the civilians, and they do not want to bring in air assets to the city proper to try and extract from the roof,” SSgt Hecs said.

“Captain Davis is going to push forward to just short of the rear of this building, trying to attract as many of the protest
ers as possible. Lieutenant Nidishcii’, our platoon commander, will move into the square to the northwest in an attempt to draw those right outside the entrance to them. As soon as we see the ones outside begin to draw away, clearing the entrance, we’re to move out and run directly to the northeast as fast as we can go. There will be ground transport about four klicks away that will take you to an LZ
[4]
outside of town where you will be lifted off and taken to where a French packet ship, the
Améthyst,
is waiting in orbit. Mr. Gelan and Mr. Liu, you will be met at the LZ by one of your own representatives.”

Ryck saw one immediate problem. There
was no way five legionnaires in parade dress and two Tylarian politicos were going to keep up with PICS Marines. Major Greunstein had evidently realized the same thing.

“Staff Sergeant
Phantawisangtong, I am afraid that ‘as fast as you can go’ is much faster than we will be able to go. How do we get around that?” he asked.

“Yeah, that’s the thing, sir. It’s been discussed, and with the concurrence of the
captain of the
Améthyst
, who has taken command the French side of the operation, you are going to have to ride us,” SSgt Hecs, said, waiting for a response.

“
Capitaine de corvette Blanchard is in command? I am senior to him, but that is not your problem,” the major said, sounding miffed. “We will
ride
you? How?”

“The best we can come up with is piggyback, sir,” SSgt Hecs said sounding unsure.

“’Piggyback?’ Like a child on papa’s back?” came the incredulous response.

“Yes, sir, like that.”

As if in punctuation, a large rock crashed through one of the windows of the rotunda. One of Sams’ Marines moved to cover the new opening. Chanting could be heard outside.

“Piggyback,” the major said with a shrug.
“
C'est la guerre, mon
staff sergeant. If you can show us how we will ride you, then that is what we will do.”

They needed seven “mounts.” SSgt Hecs took three from First Squad and four from Ryck’s Third Squad. This wasn’t the first time PICS had been used to carry people.
A PICS was a pretty good platform from which to go into the line of fire to take out besieged Marines, so this was something almost everyone had trained for at least once.

SSgt Hecs had them drop their weapons pack, leaving each of the Marine’s back bare of anything extra. The clips on the shoulders to which the tops of the weapons packs
were attached functioned as handles, even if they were not designed with that in mind. Below the PICS chest carapace and above the girdle, the waist narrowed, making a natural place around which a rider could latch his legs. It took only a few moments before the method became clear to the seven passengers.

“The ride will be quite rough. You will be jolted around, so you have to hold on tight. We haven’t seen anything out there that can damage a PICS, but you are not PICS, gentlemen. A rock thrown off a roof can kill you, so we need to get you out of the area as soon as possible,” SSgt Hecs told them.

“Jolted” was an understatement, Ryck knew. The one time he had ridden a PICS in training had shown him that. The seven men would be hard-pressed to stay on, and they would undoubtedly suffer bruises and cuts as they bounced around the hard-backed PICS.

“Are you ready, sir?” SSgt Hecs asked the major.

“This is not quite as I would have wished, but yes, we are ready.”

Ryck would have felt more comfortable if all the passengers were in skins and bones, not just the two Tylarians. He hoped the major’s vanity, if that was what it was, would not result in someone getting seriously hurt.

“Sergeant Samuelson, I want just one Marine watching outside. Everyone else step back out of sight. We don’t want to play our hand too early,” the platoon sergeant said.

“Lieutenant
Xie,” he called out to the militia commander. “The word from your higher headquarters is, I’m sorry to say, that you are on your own. My commander suggests that you leave with us. You won’t be able to keep up all the way to the rally point, but you should be able to get out of the square, at least, before we pull away.”

And if anyone had to fire on
possible pursuers, Ryck realized cynically, it would be better if it was Tylarian militia rather than Federation Marines.

SSgt Hecs passed to Capt Davis that they were ready. The men in the rotunda stood around, doing nothing, basically waiting. Within a few minutes, though, the noise from outside shifted somehow.

“Some of them civvies is moving to the right,” LCpl
Jurić
from First Squad said as he watched out the window.

“Your right or their right, Jurić?” Sams asked his Marine.

Jurić
, inside his PICS, moved the big suit back and forth, arms out, as he tried to figure out which direction was right and which was left.

“Our right,” he said after a moment.

“Captain Davis is in position, and he says he can see the crowd gathering in front of him,” SSgt Hecs reported.

Suddenly, Ryck’s comms with the company opened up. SSgt Hecs must have switched both squad leaders onto the company command net.

Ryck knew both SSgt Hecs and Sams could see what Jurić was seeing, but as their lone set of eyes was in First Squad, not Third, Ryck didn’t have that capability.

“Sams, can you slave me to
Jurić’s visuals?” he sent on a P2P
[5]
circuit.

“Sure thing,” Sams said, and a moment later, Ryck was able to see
Jurić’s vids displayed on the upper right quadrant of his visor.

There were still about 50 people right outside the front entrance of the building. One man was talking to several other, pointing back at the entrance. He had the
posture of someone in authority. Capt Davis’ plan, if it was even his and not something higher headquarters was throwing at him, had not drawn everyone away from the building.

In the distance, more people were gathering, but those should be the
protesters around the lieutenant and Popo’s squad. Ryck wanted to tell Jurić to pan and zoom in to focus on them, but that wasn’t his place to do that.

“Sams, Ryck,” SSgt Hecs said over the
command net, one linked to just the three of them.

“These civvies aren’t moving. We can push through them, but our cargo is going to be at risk. Until we get everyone out and we can get up to speed, those yahoos out there can do some serious hurt to them. If they have any small arms, they really can’t miss at that range, and rocks, or even just yanking their asses off of us could be pretty serious. We need a distraction, for at least 20 or 30 seconds.
Any ideas?”

“What about sending a team, like out to join the lieutenant,” Sams offered. “Think they would follow the team?”

“Nah, I don’t think so. The team would be through them and gone,” SSgt Hecs said.

Right then, Ryck knew what would work
, but he hesitated to say it. As a new private on Atacama, in his first engagement, Ryck had seen the results of when miners had managed to knock down several PICS Marines and cracked them open with LTC drills. The sight of those Marines, opened up like a can of sardines, had stuck with Ryck through the ensuing years, a phobia that Ryck tried to suppress.

“We need someone to take a dive,” Ryck said re
luctantly.

“A dive?”
Sams asked.

“Yeah.
If a team runs through them out there, the staff sergeant is right. No one will follow. But what if two or three Marines make a dash, like they are making a break for it, but one Marine falls down? They’ll swarm him, jump all over him.

“Shit!” Sams said,
his opinion of the suggestion clear even over the circuit.

“No, I think Ryck’s right. We need a distraction that’ll keep their attention,” SSgt Hecs said. “That would probably do it.
We just need a few moments. I don’t think they could actually do anything to us in that amount of time.”

“What about if one of them has a
toad?” Sams asked, referring to a hand-held incendiary that could slowly burn through about anything, including a PICS.

“That’s a chance I think we have to take. We haven’t seen anything to suggest that they might have something like that, and if they do, then our bait will just have to get up and out of there.”

“So who’s going to do it?” Sams asked. “Who’s going to take the fall?”

“I will,” Ryck said immediately.

It was his idea—it was his responsibility to take the risk.

“No,” SSgt Hecs said. “You’
re a squad leader. I need to you for control. You need to bring up the rear, keeping everyone together, and trying to keep Marines between the bad guys and our cargo. Who else you got?”

Ryck thought for a moment. Ling, Stillwell, Khouri, and Hartono were “mounts” for the dash out of there. Peretti would be a good choice, but Ryck wanted him to help cover the rear. That left Holleran as the best choice. Knowing him, he would probably even think it was fun.

“Sams, give me one guy to go with Holleran, like two are making a break for it. Holleran will take the fall,” he said.

“You
gonna ask him if he volunteers?” Sams asked.

“Don’t need to. He’ll do it. And sometimes, you just need to pick the best person for the job anyway,”
Ryck said.

“That’s it, then,” SSgt Hecs said. “I’ll tell Lieutenant
Xie to bring in his men outside the door to encourage the civvies to focus on Holleran. Let me pass this up the chain, and you go tell Holleran. Sams, who’re you sending?”

“Lopez. That mother can really get his PICS flying.”

“OK, good. Get ready. I want to leave in two mikes,” he said before flipping back on the command circuit.

Ryck
could hear him reporting to Captain Davis their plans as Ryck grabbed Holleran and briefed him. As expected, Holleran was up for the idea. He thought it would be “fun.” Ryck couldn’t help but think of Sgt Nbele lying out on the ground on that Atacama mine pit, his PICS opened up and half of his guts spread out all over the dirt.