Major (The United Federation Marine Corps Book 5) Read online

  They were ready, but Ryck didn’t like sending in only 26 men when Intel didn’t know how the SOG outpost was manned. He’d much rather have the rest of the company embarked on the 12 eight-man rekis stacked up in the cargo hold, but those rekis were not as fast nor nimble as the coffins, and evidently whoever developed the order felt that speed was more of an essence than firepower.

  So, even if his Marines were on their way to combat, Ryck was essentially out of the picture except as a conduit for comms. The operation was being run out of battalion, and Slug was the commander on the scene. For Ryck, this was torture, knowing he had men in harm’s way, but having no input into the situation.

  With First in transit, nothing was being passed over any of the nets. The Marine comms were quite secure, and Ryck was not sure that the SOG had the capability to crack the crypto, but with the simple fact that if there was traffic, even if it couldn’t be read, its very existence could be a clue that something was up.

  Sams had his head back, his eyes closed. Ryck wondered if he was really asleep or if he just didn’t want to talk. Either way, Ryck left him alone. The mission was slated for only four hours, start to finish, but combat ops rarely, if ever, went according to plan. If Sams could get a little shut-eye, he would be better prepared if things got extended. Ryck wished he could catch a nap as well. Anything was better than this waiting. But unlike Sams, Ryck was too wound up to even hope to be able to doze off.

  Ryck had asked the captain if he could bring the Conveyor around and closer to their target in case things went wrong and First needed support or a quick extract, but the captain told him his orders were to maintain his course. It was bad enough, he said, that he was skulking around this solar system, but to be in the vicinity of the target moon would expose the ship’s supposed identity as a tramp freighter and reveal that she was something more official.

  When the captain said his “mission,” Ryck had to wonder once more just who and his crew were. They looked like the normal hodgepodge of crew that might be on a cargo ship, but the Marines’ presence was no secret, and they had been quite professional in getting the coffins launched. The XO thought the crew was active-duty Navy, part of a secret special ops version of their own, while the first sergeant thought they were FCDC. It didn’t matter in the long run who they were, but within the enforced inactivity aboard the ship, these kinds of discussions and conjecture were about all they had to keep from getting cabin fever.

  It was almost 45 minutes after the launch that the single compressed pulse reached Ryck. To someone scanning the communications bands, the tiny, millisecond-long transmission could be anything: background noise, reflection, the last gasp of some far-off, dying star. But to Ryck’s AI, it was the code for Phase Line Apple. First Platoon had reached the moon’s orbit and would be maneuvering for the assault itself.

  Sams opened his eyes and sat up, fully alert. Ryck had his headquarters in the wardroom along with the other two platoon commanders, platoon sergeants, and the six remaining team leaders. With 15 men in there, the wardroom was cramped, but no one noticed that as they stared at Ryck’s PA, which was acting as a comms repeater, as if they could will more information out if it.

  Ryck stared at his right thumb. He’d chewed the nail down until blood showed. He put his thumb in his mouth and sucked the blood clean before starting on his left.

  After ten more minutes, the signal came for Phase Line Panderfruit. The platoon was on the moon and entering the passage into the underground center. The assault was on.

  “What’s happening?” Ryck asked aloud when no word came back. With the assault underway, Slug could communicate by voice, but no word was getting back. The moon itself might be able to block comms, but the platoon was supposed to leave minireps, the small comms repeaters, along their advance to that comms could get back to the surface and reach back to them on the ship.

  Evidently, battalion was wondering the same thing as the request for a status check came back. Ryck had passed on the two phase line reports, but he had nothing else to pass yet.

  At 12 minutes with no word, Ryck was about to order the rest of the company to get into their vacsuits while he formulated a quick rescue plan when Slug came on the comms.

  “Six, this is One. There is no one at the target site. I repeat, the target site is empty.”

  “Roger that, One. Please clarify your last. What is the status of the objective?” Ryck passed, his voice calm and projected while his mind raced.

  Did Intel fuck up that badly? he wondered.

  “We have completed our sweep. The objective was in use by someone, but it has been abandoned. I have set up the scan sticks and will collect evidence after that. We should be leaving this pos in 30, I say again, 30 mikes.”

  The scan sticks were three collapsible stand-mounted holo scanners that would collect a high-definition scan of a room or space. When played back, the recording would re-create a very accurate and detailed model of that space. Originally designed for forensic evidence gathering, it had become an essential piece of gear for covert ops. Ryck hoped that the analysts would be able to determine just who had been in that space and possibly why they were not there anymore.

  He looked around the wardroom. Disappointment was evident on most of their faces. They had spent over a year learning new skills and a new mission, and to have it come down to a miss hurt. Even if they had not been with First on the actual mission, it still was a punch to the gut to each of them.

  Ryck reported back to battalion. It could have been his imagination, but the comms operator didn’t seem surprised. Ryck had to wonder how the other battalion missions had gone.

  First didn’t actually leave the objective for another 45 minutes. They collected as much evidence as they could fit on their coffins, then lifted off, rendezvousing with the Conveyor another hour after that.

  Ryck, the XO, and his two SNCOs got into their Grey Ghosts and met First as it returned. With the help of two of the ship’s crew, the evidence was collected and put inside a null-box, where it would remain in stasis until the techs could start analyzing it.

  Ryck told each man that he’d done a good job, but he knew none of them believed it. No one had done anything wrong, but it felt like a failure. And no one was surprised when the recall went out two hours later.

  The Conveyor met up with another cargo ship, the Ural Light, and the company conducted a ship-to-ship transfer. Four days later, they were back on Tarawa, subdued, and anxious to find out just what had happened.

  Chapter 19

  “Any saved rounds?” LtCol Nidishchii’ asked his staff and commanders.

  They were in the company conference room, a somewhat grandiose description of the windowless room with a plastifiber table and folding chairs. The company headquarters itself rather spartan, a temporary building inside the secured Camp Donahue. The brand new camp, completely inside the larger Camp Lorenzo, was the home to Marine Corps Special Ops, but only a few of the permanent facilities had been constructed as of yet.

  “So what does all of that mean, sir?” Major Stan Lubjinski—“Light” —the Alpha Company commander asked.

  “Just as Colonel Lipper-Mendoza said, this was a monumental Intel fail, but that doesn’t reflect on us. We’re to keep marching, and they will get us our next mission,” the CO said.

  Ryck snorted. A “monumental intel fail” was an understatement. With no fewer than eleven separate missions, only one had any degree of success, and that one was minor when six SOG laggards were captured before they had evacuated their position. Despite security so tight that the actual operators were kept in the dark, the word had leaked, and the SOG had simply moved on, only temporarily inconvenienced. Blame was thrown around the various governments, but so far, nothing had splattered on the Marines, the SEALs, and Seraphim Special Host of the Brotherhood, the Confed Exploratores, the Purgatory Commando, or the Greater France COS (Commandement des Opérations Spéciales), which were all the combat units involved. This was an Intel fail, n
ot a military fail.

  “Are we getting another chance to prove ourselves, sir, or is this it?” Stan continued.

  “I didn’t hear anything about our mission changing, Major. Did you? So until we hear differently, it’s business as usual,” the CO said, then hesitating before going on. “But I will say this. The Federation has spent significant resources on this new look special ops, and we have not had the opportunity to validate a proof of concept. If I was a betting man, I would bet that we will get that opportunity before anyone even considers closing us down and distributing all of us back into the general T/O.”

  Ryck thought the CO was right. Somebody’s, more like several somebodies’, careers were on the line with the new organization, and they would not be throwing in the towel—and committing career suicide—over a screw-up that probably occurred outside the Federation military command. Those “somebodies” certainly started with Lieutenant General Devon Papadakis, the current Director of Marine Corps Personnel and a former recon Marine, who was the prime mover for the new Special Ops command. The general was reportedly on the short list for Commandant, and he couldn’t afford a black eye with something that was pet project.

  What this operation showed was that joint operations with other governments were particularly difficult and that the SOG was far better integrated or had better intelligence than anyone had given them credit for. What it did not show was if the new concept of offensive special ops was viable or not.

  The last op was a huge disappointment, but because nothing had been proven one way or the other, Ryck was sure another operation was coming down the pike at them. He planned on being ready, and if the concept failed, it was not going to be because of the actual conduct of his Marines. No matter what, they would excel.

  FRESH BEGINNINGS

  Chapter 20

  Ryck scratched his full beard. Grown in under two days with an inducer injection and regen, it itched mercilessly, and probably would for a few more days. He could take an inhibitor, but this soon after regen, the doctors didn’t recommend it.

  Ryck had been in real regen before, months of it on two different occasions. This was his first time with a two-day intensive regen and a bariatric chamber. The Ryck that came out of the chamber did not look quite like the one who’d shown up that morning, the Ryck he’d known for all his life. A subtle change in the nose, a slight alteration in his eye sockets and forehead, and no facial recognition software would hit on him. A slight change in his tibias, fibulas, and heels altered his gait. He felt odd, but was assured that after the tour, his face and legs would be returned to his old self.

  His kids thought he looked pretty funny, but that mostly settled around his beard. He’d had one day with them, and he’d had to wrap his face in a balaclava before being allowed to leave the medical facility in order to spend one last night at home before shipping out.

  He’d known about the facial reconstruction for some time before it took place, and at first, he’d almost balked, thinking it overkill. But when Stan Lubjinksi was identified as a Federation Marine via a facial recognition program by a media watchdog group on Polyutopia, the fallout was pretty severe. The Brotherhood government had to deny knowledge of him even if he was there coordinating with the Special Host at their invitation, and the Federation had to announce that he’d been there on his own during his annual leave. Stan had been dropped from the battalion and transferred to places unknown. With Ryck being a more noted figure, he’d be in pretty much every data bank in human space.

  Now, Ryck—or Seth Pockery, as his wrist chip and documents identified him—was one of over 2,000 second-wavers aboard the Grozny Three, bound for Fresh Beginnings out of Ellison. Coincidentally, Ellison was the home planet of his parents, who also had been second-wavers, but to Ryck’s home planet of Prophesy. “Seth” was an agritech, indentured to Natural Plantation, a non-official subsidiary of GKA Nutrition.

  In the next bunk, Çağlar—or “Joachim Banks”—lay on his back, softly snoring. He’d spent most of his time in the rack since boarding, and Ryck wondered if it was taking longer for the big man to recover from his inducer and regen. Below him was Sandy—“Oscar Templeton.” The three were an ad hoc team. Ryck had always planned on bringing Çağlar into headquarters. He’d gotten used to having the Marine around him, and he gave Ryck a feeling of security, and with this mission, this seemed like the right time to do that instead of waiting until he got more operational experience. And with Sandy still an assistant team leader, he was somewhat out of place, so it made sense to pull him as well.

  This was not a normal mission, one in which there was a chain of command, orders were given, and operations conducted. The company had been broken into independently operating teams, all with the same mission. This was a takedown. Intel had uncovered that the second highest ranking member of the SOG was holed up on the planet, and the Universal Joint Task Force wanted him gone. As the teams were operating independently, Ryck was no longer a commander in the normal sense but just another operator.

  Bravo and Charlie Companies were being inserted into Morning and Ellerville, respectively. No one knew the exact location of “Ferret,” the codename for the SOG #2, but initial indications were that he frequented the less-populated areas between the two main cities, something that Ryck thought might bring Ferret in contact with his team, given that they were going to be in the farmlands.

  Ryck fingered his beard again. Historically, special ops soldiers often had relaxed grooming standards, but this was the first time since he’d enlisted that he wasn’t clean shaven and with a high-and-tight. It felt weird. At first, it had given him a feeling of freedom, but it actually made him feel slightly uncomfortable. Hannah had thought it was funny and had incorporated it into their traditional bon voyage love-making, but Ryck had felt self-conscious then and still felt that way. He knew, though, that it gave him an added degree of anonymity, and it was in keeping with current Ellison fashions.

  “Hey, Joachim, time to get some chow. We don’t want to be late,” he said, kicking Çağlar on the bottom of his feet.

  Sandy hopped out of his rack, but Çağlar took a few more seconds to wake and register what Ryck had said. With a grunt, he rolled out of the rack and stood up, stretching his frame in the confined space. A couple of the others in the berthing took notice and stood up as well. With a cattle car transit like this, the galley was their one interruption to their day. The ship did have a common space where a screen ran flicks and a lucky few could play cards, but it could barely hold 30 people, and it was always packed.

  On the way to the galley, Ryck passed two of his teams. No one acknowledged the others though. The three Marines got in line fifteen minutes before chow opened, but there were at least another 50 people in front of them. Sandy got in a conversation with the next man behind them in line, but both Ryck and Çağlar stood silently. At last, the line started moving, and a few minutes later, they were holding their trays under the dispensers, their meals plopping down. Ryck grabbed a drink and sat down. Several other people sat down around him before Çağlar came up, and Ryck could see the slight look of concern on his watchdog’s eyes as he took a seat several places away. Ryck was going to have to talk to him about that when he had a chance. Çağlar was not his private protector. They were a team, and the mission came first, not covering Ryck’s ass.

  At least the food was good—surprisingly good—on the Grozny Three. Dinner was rabbit vesuvio, rice pilaf, and a mixed fruit cup. After he’d thought about it, though, it made sense. The bases for the fabricators cost the same, whether for good food or bad. So while a better fabricator might cost more, over the long haul, that incremental cost was tiny, and keeping 2,000 men and women, people perhaps uncertain and possibly nervous about their future, happy, was important to a ship’s security. The tiny increased incremental cost for a quality fabricator was probably just good insurance for a quiet voyage.

  Ryck finished his meal. Sandy was only half-finished, deep in conversation with yet ano
ther fellow passenger. Çağlar saw that Ryck was finished and started to wolf down what was left of his food, but Ryck gave his head a slight shake, and the Marine slowed back down. Ryck didn’t think he needed any protection in the corridors of the ship, and any unusual behavior could only make them stand out.

  He got up, dumped his tray, and slowly wandered back to berthing. One of his berthing mates was racked out hard. Everyone else was gone, still at chow. With nowhere to sit, Ryck eased back into his rack and turned on his PA. The ship had a pretty decent selection of flicks and holos, and Ryck settled in to watch “While You Waited,” a horror flick he hadn’t seen in at least ten years. They had another 41 hours until arriving at Fresh Beginnings, and anything to pass the time was appreciated.

  Chapter 21

  The offload from the Grozny Three was surprisingly painless. Each new indentured had been given a company jacket that easily identified them. The Natural Plantation jacket was bright green and yellow and very hard to miss. Immediately after debarking the shuttles, they’d been herded into a large hangar-like building, and all along the walls were tables with company signs lofted above them. Ryck spotted the sign with the same green-and-yellow as the jackets and made his way to it, followed by his two teammates.

  They were checked in by a company rep who scanned their wrists. Ryck knew that their small identity implants were quite a bit more sophisticated than those given to real indentureds, and he couldn’t help but tense as his was scanned, but the woman never even blinked. He should have relaxed, he knew. The Federation would not have given them a different implant if it could set off any alarms on the primitive scanners used in the corporate world.