Commandant (The United Federation Marine Corps Book 8) Page 4

  “The problem is that you brought your shit along with you to my station, something I don’t appreciate.”

  The meister was a large woman, easily 120 kgs, and somewhere in her upper middle ages—exactly where, Ryck couldn’t tell as her turquoise-spiked hair, currently a fad among young teens, threw him off somewhat. She was seated in a large hoverchair, her sturdy legs spread, feet planted firmly on the deck. For a moment, Ryck imagined her springing forward to take down the little gnats who had dared to interfere with her small kingdom. She stared at Ryck, ignoring Plummer and Kaawa, her light blues eyes piercingly intense. Ryck stared back while trying to maintain a neutral expression. In the grand scheme of things, a major general in the Federation Marine Corps had more power than a station meister, but this wasn’t the grand scheme of things. Ryck didn’t have the backing of the Federation behind him, and on her station, Meister Henricks-Pata had full control over him.

  She finally wrinkled her upper lip in an expression Ryck couldn’t interpret and leaned back. The hoverchair gave a little mechanical squeal as it valiantly tried to compensate for her shifting weight.

  “So what do I do with you and your merry band of men?” she asked rhetorically, pausing for dramatic effect. “The Federation has offered a nice—well, no use playing coy—a substantial reward for your arrest and return to their tender embrace. They are sending a fleet here to facilitate your transfer.”

  “Seems to me that they’re already here,” Ryck said calmly.

  His voice might have remained calm, but his thoughts were bouncing around his head like a songbird in a cage.

  “Ah, yes, them. I should have realized that you probably had ways to pierce your cage.”

  “Not really,” Ryck said nonchalantly. “I saw them as we passed your observation window.”

  He neglected to mention Major Pohlmeyer, although he was sure she’d be told that he’d been in contact with someone.

  She leaned back forward and stared hard at him before bursting out in a peal of laughter.

  “I guess we forgot about that. Good on you,” she said as she fought to get out the words through her laughter.

  “You know, General? In another day and age, I could like you. And I don’t mean the you portrayed in the flicks. For all I’ve heard, you can be somewhat pompous, and you act like you have a stick up your ass, but you are also an honorable man. And that is rare in this day and time.

  “But this shit sandwich, this is beyond me. My little station—all of the Juliette Group, for that matter—we can’t stand up to the Federation, even if we wanted to.”

  Behind him, Ryck heard Plummer stir.

  I should have figured it’d come to this. What the grubbing hell did I expect? Ryck asked himself, his face outwardly emotionless. Their vaunted defenses can’t stand up to an entire fleet.

  “So for me and mine, we need you off the station. Sorry, but your request for asylum is denied.”

  Well, that’s that.

  Ryck had a momentary thought of rushing the meister, of holding her hostage. And judging from the sound of a step from behind him, either Plummer or Kawaa had the same thought. But to what good? The meister was only looking out for her people, and even if the three of them somehow managed to gain control through Henricks-Pata, then what? There were still 42 Federation ships out there, and the Kravitch was a sitting duck while docked.

  No, it was better to sacrifice himself and others in the leadership and try and save as many of the Marines and crew as they could.

  “I understand, Meister. Your hospitality has been appreciated, as has your consideration. So, I’m sure you’ve been in contact with the fleet out there. How is this supposed to work?”

  “General!” Captain Plummer said from behind him.

  Ryck held up one hand, stopping the captain.

  “Meister?”

  “Well, there are two officers in the next room waiting for you. They would like to talk first.”

  Ryck gave the meister a curt nod, then spun around so quickly that he almost collided with Captain Plummer.

  Plummer’s eyes were wide, and he had that twitchy motion of someone about to swing into action.

  “Captain, we are guests here. We will cooperate,” Ryck said, with as much authority in his voice as his 36 years of service could muster.

  This was a turning point. Ryck’s mind was on the men waiting in the ships. Plummer’s mind was undoubtedly on how to fight, how to extricate themselves from the situation.

  He could have been a Marine, Ryck thought.

  But there comes a time when no action at all is the correct choice.

  Plummer seemed to be at war with himself, but within moments, he calmed down. He nodded, then turned around as the door opened.

  Their guide stuck his head in. “Gentlemen?”

  “Go with God,” Meister Henricks-Pata said as the three men left the office.

  “Not much chance of that, thanks to you,” Plummer muttered, too low for the meister to hear.

  Ryck sucked in a deep, calming breath as he followed their guide about 15 meters down the passageway to another door. The muscle had disappeared, which seemed odd, given the circumstances. But there were probably armed guards waiting inside the room. For personal reasons, Ryck hoped they would be FCDC, not Marines. He wasn’t sure he could take getting arrested by Marines.

  Their guide knocked several times on the door, a ratatatat that seemed too loud. He turned the knob, pulled the door open, and motioned to the three men.

  Ryck took another deep breath, stood up straighter, and marched into the room. . .

  . . .to see General Hank Ukiah, the 91st Commandant of the Marines, and Rear Admiral Lester Linney, alone and waiting for them.

  Ryck stopped dead, looking at the two men. For a split second, he felt a surge of hope. General Ukiah was his rabbi,

  [6] his mentor. Rear Admiral Linney had been the CO of the FS Brandenburg while Ryck had been embarked, and the two men had formed a strong friendship over the ensuing years.

  That hope quickly turned to anger as he realized what was happening. The Federation had sent two men, two friends, in the hope that Ryck wouldn’t fight back, that he’d go quietly. For a moment, he wanted to fight back, to punch the Federation in the jaw one last time.

  Ryck had sent his own brother-in-law on a suicide mission, so he’d absolutely fight his two friends if he had to. But once again, to what end? That was just his hubris trying to force him into action. If his goal now was to save as many of the men as possible, that would be a good way to sabotage that effort.

  “General, I see they’ve sent you to do their dirty work,” he said, his voice dripping with scorn. “Glad you could make it, too, Lester,” he added.

  “What? Who sent me?” the commandant asked. He shook his head in confusion, and then continued, “Look, we don’t have much time. The task force from First Fleet is on its way here, and we’ve got to be long gone by then.”

  What?

  Now it was Ryck’s turn to look confused. His scorn evaporated as he tried to process what the commandant had said.

  “I. . .what? You’re not here to arrest us?”

  “Arrest you? Hell no! We’re here to rescue you. You think I’d agree to arrest you? Me?”

  “But, the meister, she said the Federation was here, and she would not grant us asylum, so, well—”

  “General?” Lester Linney asked, tapping on his watch.

  “Ryck, we’ve really don’t have much time,” the general said, turning to Ryck. “And we are not prepared for a fight yet when the First Fleet’s task force arrives. We’ve got to get the Kravitch and Temperance fired up and moving, then all of us need to diddiho out of here.

  “Going where?” Ryck asked, his mind still reeling.

  “To Tarawa, of course,” the commandant answered.

  What? Tarawa? But—

  “Unless you want to stay here,” he continued.

  “Ryck, we really have no time. I don’t want to be c
aught in orbit when the task force arrives. I know you’ve got questions, and we’ll answer on the Kravitch, but now, we’ve got to get onboard. Unless you have a better plan, I really, really suggest we blow this joint and get out of the meister’s turquoise hair,” Admiral Linney said.

  For a moment, Ryck’s suspicious mind wondered if this was some elaborate trick to get the two ships off station where they could be easier dealt with. He pushed that thought away. He was being thrown a lifeline, and only a fool in his position would wonder who was doing the throwing.

  “Lead on, Admiral Linney. We are at your command,” he said, his heart suddenly lighter.

  FS KRAVITCH

  Chapter 6

  “The Third Fleet?” Ryck asked, trying to get his mind around it.

  “Not 100%, but enough so that every ship is with us, except for the Pieter Smolev, which was loaded with the 2,800 dissenters who wanted to remain with the government and then sent back to marry up with the First Fleet,” Lester Linney said.

  Ryck, Captain Plummer, Genghis, and Commander Bortello were with Lester, the commandant, and Colonel Prince Jellico in what had been Ryck’s stateroom until he’d insisted that General Ukiah take it over. Over the last thirty minutes, Ryck had been bombarded with facts, too many to absorb. And he was still in shock that after essentially giving up and being ready to sacrifice himself in an attempt to save most of his men, he’d been given a second chance.

  As the task force commander, Rear Admiral Linney and the 42 ships of the Third Fleet had “accepted the transfer” of the “prisoners” from Meister Henricks-Pata and Juliette Station 2, thereby giving her reasonable deniability. She was turning them over to the Federation Navy, after all, and how could she know that the Third Fleet had joined the mutiny? It made no sense, and no reasonable person could have assumed that she’d been in on the plan.

  She’d been standing in her doorway as the five men were being escorted back to the Kravitch, her slight smile all Ryck had needed to know. She’d done what she could to protect him and his men without endangering her station, and General Ukiah had been more than willing to play along and give her the cover she needed. She could have refused, and the Third Fleet would have done nothing. And she’d get the reward from the Federation along with its gratitude. But she’d gone with her conscience and her dislike for the Federation.

  Picking up Major Pohlmeyer as they left the building, the now six men had been whisked back to the ship. The cages were dropped, and within what had to be a record time of 37 minutes, the engines were fired up and the two ships pulled out of their berthing. An almost unbearably long 98 minutes later, with Ryck expecting the arrival of Task Force 1.1 at any moment, the Third Fleet task force was sliding into bubble space. It was only then that Ryck could start to relax and find out just what the heck was going on.

  And what was going on boggled his mind.

  First and foremost was the fact that there had been a cabal of Navy and Marine officers and senior enlisted, along with some members of the bureaucracy and even at least one ex-minster-level official, who were unhappy with the federal government and its increased suppression of the citizens, using the war with the Klethos as an excuse, much less the growing, but business-as-usual, revolving door between the top government officials and big business.

  Numbers within the loosely organized cabal had increased over recent incidents. The “accident” that had claimed the FS Justice two years ago had been a summary execution ordered by the chairman himself when the ship’s CO, Commander Kurt Nilsson, refused to fire on striking workers on Rainment Haven (Brian Plummer swore out loud when Lester mentioned Commander Nilsson’s name, slamming his fist on the small conference table). The Justice was a Third Fleet frigate, and when Admiral Chandanasiri had conducted an investigation, he’d been told to stand down by the chairman and why. Only instead of bringing Chandanasiri into the fold, the Admiral had been alienated. That was his crew that had been vaporized, his men.

  The problem with this cabal, if it even rated the term, was that it was powerless. It had no organization, no focus. While those who wanted a change were numerous, they didn’t know who else felt that way. With the FCDC spies everywhere, to say anything to the wrong person would be a death sentence.

  But Ryck’s open defiance had been too big to ignore, and the genie could not be shoved back into the bottle. The government had to act quickly, and that meant arresting and putting Ryck on trial with a quick conviction followed by an equally quick execution and then worrying about damage control later. There could be no Justice-style accident to take care of this problem.

  With the facts out in the open, Admiral Chandanasiri had taken a huge gamble. Instead of surreptitiously feeling out his fellow fleet commanders or the Chief of Naval Operations, he’d placed a call to General Ukiah, knowing Ryck to be one of the commandant’s posse. This was a huge leap of faith, and he was rewarded when General Ukiah expressed similar concerns about the Federation. After the admiral had sent the commandant the evidence about the Justice, the general was fully on board. The admiral put his handful of confidants into motion, disseminating the same Justice evidence, along with other documents he’d gathered over a long and distinguished career, and presented it to the fleet. To his surprise, over 95% of the Third Fleet followed his lead, declaring themselves for, well, just for what wasn’t exactly delineated yet. It was to save the Kravitch and the Temperance, and to rescue not only the sailors but also the famous Ryck Lysander and his Marines. But the words “mutiny” and “revolution” were never mentioned. It was a “rescue.”

  It was a clever sleight-of-hand, though. Whether the words were used or not, that was exactly what it was. With 25% of the Federation Navy suddenly refusing to follow orders or acknowledging the central government, it was a mutiny. And when Ryck mentioned Major Pohlmeyer, that upped the ante. With the Confederation potentially on their side, the fledgling movement actually had a chance to succeed—once they figured out just what they wanted. But accepting any help from a foreign government now meant they were treating with the enemy, and that was treason. After that, there would be no turning back even if it weren’t already too late.

  There were undoubtedly more people out there who were unhappy with the government. But just how far they would go, or if they would even declare themselves, was a question that none of them could answer. What was pretty clear, however, was that Ryck’s unique position in the public eye, and the fact that he’d kept a Federation planet from being vaporized, had galvanized a huge segment of the population. But while important, what they really needed were enough of the power brokers to join with them. And no one in the stateroom knew how to do that. None of them had ever run a revolution before.

  “What about the other fleets?” Ryck asked.

  The fleets were the source of the Federation’s power, and while having the Third Fleet for protection was welcomed, that still left three others of equal strength.

  “First has declared for the Federation. We had nothing from Second and Fourth before entering bubble space,” Lester said

  “And the Brotherhood? The other governments? Other than Major Pohlmeyer, and we don’t know how that will pan out.”

  “Nothing yet. At least that we know of,” the commandant said. “I imagine we’ll get more when we reach Tarawa.”

  Ryck shook his head. He hadn’t planned on starting a revolution. Hell, he’d sworn an oath to the government, and he’d done some pretty dicey things in his career at the behest of it. All he’d wanted to do was to save the citizens of Ellison and keep the government, his government, from making a huge mistake. Now, it seemed as if he’d been a catalyst in bringing forth what had been an underground feeling of dissatisfaction.

  He felt no pride in that. Chaos could destroy the people of the Federation, something the government, despites its many faults, had held at bay. If he could nudge the government in some way, that would be fine. What he didn’t want, however, was a war. But the die was cast. He’d been caught up
in the growing maelstrom.

  “Well, sir, for the men of the Kravitch, the Temperance, and 1/10, we owe you our lives. And to Admiral Chandanasiri, too, of course,” he added, addressing Lester. “And whatever you decide, we are there for you. I am, at least. Let me know what you want, and I’ll do it.”

  That got a quick exchange of looks between Lester and the commandant.

  “Uh, that’s the thing, Ryck. You see, this entire groundswell of support is based on the fact that it’s you and what you did. So you have to be the focal point of the movement,” the commandant said, avoiding any stronger word than “movement.”

  That took Ryck aback. He’d taken one simple action, that was all. He wasn’t yet experienced in the big strategic arrows needed to manage anything as potentially complicated—and political—as what this might become.

  “Well, if you need me as a figurehead, of course, I can do what’s necessary.”

  “I don’t think you understand. You need to lead this. Not me, you. Admiral Chandanasiri agrees.”

  “But you’re the commandant, sir. Not me,” Ryck protested. “And we’re Marines, not the Navy. We’re ground pounders.”

  “Ryck, I’m old, and I’m tired,” the commandant said.

  Which was probably half true, at least. General Ukiah should have been the 89th commandant, not the 91st. But politics had raised its ugly head, and he’d been kept around in billets back on Earth before he could slide into the position. Old, yes, but tired?

  “And I just don’t think I have the heart for this, or what this could become. I’m resigning as soon as we get back, and you need to step up into the position.”

  That hit Ryck hard. Ever since Ryck was a lieutenant, Hank Ukiah had been there, his rabbi, his protector, his guide. He’d been Ryck’s safety blanket. Now Ryck wouldn’t have that anymore, and he felt suddenly vulnerable.

  “What about Fred Nottingham? Eric Yeong? Bert Nidischii’? They’re all senior to me. Hell, there are 15 officers senior to me.”