Lieutenant (The United Federation Marine Corps Book 3) Read online

  Killington Industries Co., Ltd. and Fukimoto Corp were industrial competitors of the first rate. When Killington had been granted the charter for the planet, Fukimoto had been thrown the bone of a right-to-operate license by the Federation. Killington had erected massive conversion facilities, while Fukimoto stayed small, with only a token facility. This had worked out for almost 70 years until Fukimoto decided to expand their factory. Killington, as the planetary authority, began to stymie Fukimoto by throwing roadblocks at the spaceport for the importation of machinery and equipment, making it difficult to hire construction workers, and refusing to authorized the increased power supplies.

  Fukimoto sued Killington, claiming unfair impediment to business. Federation courts sided with Killington, acting as the Federation authority, though, stating that the Killington Industries charter only allowed for Fukimoto to operate on the planet, not for Killington, acting as the company, to have to support Fukimoto in that business. As Killington paid for the spaceport, paid to operate it, and paid for the infrastructure, they had the right to withhold services to a competitor or at least not work to improve them.

  This raised a pretty heavy outcry throughout the Federation. A majority of Federation planets were under corporate charter, charters held by a tiny select group of corporations. Other companies needed freedom to operate on all planets, and this was setting a bad precedent. Fukimoto appealed the decision.

  Ryck thought Fukimoto, and by inference, all the companies siding with their legal battle, had a good case. Federation charters granted wide powers to corporations, but they also incurred obligations, not the least of which was the requirement to be neutral representatives of the Federation itself on all planetary matters.

  Then Fukimoto upped the ante. One of Killington’s largest facilities, Killington Industries Plant #5, was located about 30 klicks beyond Fukimoto’s own factory, and the power lines ran from the generation plant to Fukimoto’s factory and then on to Killington’s. Fukimoto threatened to shut down the power, and Killington responded by deploying corporate security into the Fukimoto plant, physically taking control of the power substation. Fukimoto was not going to simply accept that, so they hired a company from Kracivik’s Battalion that not only cleared out the Killington jimmylegs[18] at the Fukimoto facility, but took over Killington’s factory for good measure.

  Fukimoto issued a press release that this was only to “protect” the power grid until the appeal process made its way through the court. The Federation stepped in, ordering both corporations to the negotiating table. The Marines were brought in to emphasize the Federation’s resolve in the matter. When Fukimoto walked away, the Federation ordered the Marines to take back Factory #5.

  Ryck had been in more than his fair share of conflicts, but never as a fully organized battalion landing team: 3/6 was only the infantry element. The landing team had two sections of arty, a tank platoon, a composite air squadron, and assorted combat and logistics attachments. Ryck glanced over to his right where an M1 Davis sat in defilade, its big Chrysler engine idling. A factory was not a great battleground for tanks, and Ryck had witnessed an M1 get taken out on Luminosity, but still, having it there gave Ryck a feeling of confidence.

  As the countdown on his display reached zero, Ryck heard the crump of outgoing fire as the 160mm section opened up. The section had five tubes, each capable of putting out 10 rounds per minute. This time, though, the arty only fired only round apiece.

  All eyes were focused downrange on the factory, waiting for the impacts. Ryck knew the targets, and with GPS sensors in each round, accuracy was not going to be an issue. Despite knowing where and when the rounds were going to hit, Ryck still flinched when the five explosions rocked the first five targets. One of those was a chemical storage tank which erupted in an impressive fireball, sending flames, then black smoke roiling 150 meters up into the air.

  “Oo-rah” and “Get some” burst out of the Marines around him.

  “Think the message got through?” Joshua asked him.

  “Oh, I think they got the message. Killington’s willing to sacrifice the factory,” Ryck answered.

  “So, they gonna surrender?” Joshua asked.

  Ryck took a deep breath before answering, “That’s the thing, right? I hope they do, but that’s Kracivik’s company. You know their rep.”

  Theodyne Kracivik had been a Congress of Free Worlds army officer before forming his own mercenary company. Over the years, it had grown into a battalion, one with a reputation of professionalism and loyalty to its employers. The mercs in the battalion were among the best paid of any military unit.

  “All the money won’t mean rat shit if they’re dead. They’re only a company, and we’ve got a battalion landing team with Navy support. They can’t win,” Joshua countered.

  Joshua was thinking with logic. He hadn’t been in combat and hadn’t seen how men reacted when under fire, sometimes defying logic or reason.

  “I hope you’re right, but Kracivik’s mercs get paid so well because of their rep. If they just give up, their rep goes out the door, right? So even if they can’t win, they have to make a good show of it,” Ryck told him.

  “Good for the company bottom line, maybe, but if we zero the mercs, what about that? They won’t be around for more campaigns to enjoy that rep.”

  “How many will be actually zeroed? Lot’s of WIAs, lots of regen, but they can afford the best regen, and each merc gets that regen bonus. I just don’t know what they’ll do. But I guess we’ll find out soon enough.”

  When the 160mm section opened up again not two minutes later, they had the answer. The mercs had evidently turned down whatever the CO[19] had offered them. The Wyvern missile section also fired, the big missiles showing up on Ryck’s display. These were probably overkill given the targets the arty was authorized to engage, but Ryck knew they wanted to play too, and the arty det commander would have pushed hard for them.

  A series of explosions lit up the factory, demolishing storage tanks, pipes, chimneys, and warehouses. Ryck could track the kinetic rounds on his display, but when the Wyvern arrived, he could actually see the two missiles with his naked eyes. One flew right in the front door of the factory headquarters, bringing down the entire building in a cloud of dust and smoke. The other Wyvern flew through the dust and hit a target out of Ryck’s sight.

  “OK, Josh, time to get going. Take your position,” Ryck told his platoon sergeant as the warning light flashed on his display.

  “Roger that. Keep your head down,” Joshua said as he stood up and rushed to take his position.

  “You too,” Ryck sent on a B2B before checking his display again.

  Ryck really would have rather been in a PICS again. He was most comfortable in them, but Kilo only had one PICS platoon, and that was First. Donte Ward was the First Platoon commander, and he’d never fought in PICS before, but the skipper told them he felt each lieutenant needed to expand his experiences. Consequently, Donte, who had fought well in skins and bones was in PICS, and Ryck, who was highly decorated for actions in PICS, was in skins and bones. It didn’t make much sense to Ryck, though. He felt Marines should maximize their strengths. Unfortunately, it was Capt Portuno’s call.

  Most of the factory compound was a mass of flames and smoke. The heart of the factory, though, where the fabrication took place, was untouched. There were corporate reps with the battalion CP, the arty sections, the assault section, and with the FS Holle in orbit above the battle area to make sure that the most valuable part of the factory did not suffer damage.

  Lima Company was ordered to move out. It was to advance through the trees to a position north of the factory. Lima would then provide a base of fire for Kilo and India to move forward into the assault.

  “Ten minutes,” Ryck passed over the platoon net.

  He’d hated it when his own commanders had stated the obvious, but he’d hated it more when he didn’t know what was happening. Giving his Marines a countdown was not really necessary, given th
at they had the same countdown on their own displays, but Ryck was bound and determined to keep the comms open and flowing.

  “Grizzly-two-five, give me a status check,” he sent to Joshua.

  Capt Portuno had insisted on using “Grizzly” as the company call sign. “Two” was second platoon, “five” was his platoon sergeant. Ryck liked the cleaner, more traditional method of call signs, in this case, a simple “Kilo” instead of the fanciful “Grizzly.”

  Ryck could have done the status checks on each Marine himself, but this was Joshua’s first taste of combat, and he wanted his platoon sergeant to be busy with routine functions instead of imagining what might happen. It took a little longer than he would have expected, but finally Joshua reported that everyone was up and ready to go.

  Ryck watched Lima move into position. The arty kept up intermittent fire: they had pretty much leveled all that they were allowed to hit, but the rounds served to keep the mercs’ heads down as the two line companies started to move out. Kilo was on the left flank with India on the right. India was the heavy company, so they had two PICS platoons and one light platoon. Kilo had First Platoon in PICS and Second and Third, flanking First, in skins and bones.

  Flanking the two assault companies were two tanks, their 75mm hypervelocity railguns seeking a target. Ryck had been offered tanks for his first reenlistment, but he had chosen to remain infantry. That didn’t mean the big machines didn’t impress him. They were mean and very threatening, but not for him.

  The tanks’ target acquisition systems were slaved into various sensors, both automatic and organic. The unseen recon team, for example, was hidden somewhere with eyes on the targets, and Navy spotters had the factory under full surveillance from up in orbit. The fact that the tanks never opened up was a pretty good indication that no mercs were showing their heads. With no enemy to engage, the company kept a steady pace, covering the 1,000 meters in just over 10 minutes. The arty suppressing fire tapered off as the two companies entered the campus, PICS in the lead, the light platoons following.

  The data the suborbital sensors were gathering were analyzed up on the Holle and sent back down to the Marines as intel. There were organic remains from four humans within the wreckage at the plant. A few of the mercs, at least, would not be making it to regen. Their shields had kept them invisible as they waited, probably there to keep the Marines under observation. An arty round, though, doesn’t care much about shields. It just pretty much blasts everything in sight. When the round hit, the shields were destroyed, so the human remains then became visible to the Navy sensors.

  First Platoon, in their PICS, made their way through the outer walls and into the campus. They encountered no hostility. Ryck’s platoon followed in trace, clambering over the ruins of the outer walls. His face shield display indicated that two of the dead bodies were just to his right. Ryck took a look, but the only thing he could see was a severed hand, dusty, but surprisingly intact, in the dirt. The rest of the mercs were under the rubble. Ryck watched his display first as LCpl Fielder, PFC Meung, and finally Joshua passed the hand. None of the three had been in combat before, and Ryck monitored each of their bioreadouts. Meung had almost no reaction, and Joshua only had a slight one, to Ryck’s relief. Quite a few of Fielder’s bioreadouts, though, had spiked, his pulse and blood pressure jumping as he gagged. Ryck started to switch to a P2P with the lance corporal

  “Concentrate, Fielder,” Sgt Timothy, the Marine’s squad leader passed on his squad’s circuit before Ryck could key in. “Nothing to see there.”

  Ryck grimaced. It wasn’t his job to monitor each individual Marine. By focusing on the Marines behind him as they approached the merc’s severed hand, he was not looking forward to where live mercs were certainly lying in wait. Gunny Meader’s continual mantra of letting his NCOs do their job came back to him.

  “All clear to Crazy Horse,” SSgt Mourka passed back to Ryck. Mourka was the First’s platoon sergeant, and he had half of his platoon clearing the way to Ryck’s platoon objective, the QC Lab, designated Objective “Crazy Horse.” Donte Ward was leading the rest of the platoon to Third Platoon’s objective, the power station, designated “Light Finder.”

  As far as Ryck was concerned, the PICS Marines could have stormed the objective. The building, consisting of offices and a number of labs filled with quality control equipment, was where all of the factories products underwent quality testing. The ceilings were high, the labs large. A PICS Marine would have no problem maneuvering inside. However, the Killington reps had nixed that. It seems they didn’t want Marines in PICS “blundering about,” as they put it, “destroying valuable testing equipment.” So First Platoon, with limited weaponry, was to go in and root out any mercs who had taken up position in the building.

  A quick look-up on Janes

  [20] revealed that the Kracivik Battalion had recently bought Farnham CYL Plate armor for its soldiers. The “lobster” armor consisted of a tough, one-piece torso shell with strap on arm and leg plates. The main shell was fairly impervious to kinetic small arms, including the Marine’s M99s. It could even deflect larger man-packed rounds, such as the M76 “bunker buster” that one Marine in each fire team carried, although a direct hit would pierce it.

  The relative weakness in the armor was in the extremities. The arm and leg plates never seemed to fit well, leaving areas of vulnerability. Kinetic rounds could find those seams and joints, while energy weapons had even an easier time breaching the armor’s protection. Against poorly armed fighters, and that included most militias, the lobster armor was quite effective. Against the better-armed Marines, it didn’t match up to the Marines’ skins and bones.

  The lobster armor couldn’t protect the four mercs who had been out in the arty barrage, but it should keep most of the mercs alive, if missing limbs, in a battle with infantry Marines.

  “Grizzly-six, this is Grizzly-two-six. We are now passing through Grizzly-one and are assuming point of main effort,” Ryck passed back to the skipper.

  SSgt Mourka gave Ryck a nod as Ryck passed him. In the PICS, it was more of a lean than anything else, but the intent was clear. The field of battle had been passed to him.

  “Sgt Timothy, send up your team,” he passed on a P2P, foregoing the “Grizzly” call signs.

  Their comms were shielded, encrypted, and employed frequency hopping, which made listening in by the enemy almost impossible, and Ryck wanted to leave no room for misunderstanding. On a simple P2P, he felt he could be more direct.

  The Killington liaison team had given the Marines the combinations for all entrances, assuring the battalion that they would still be valid. They were confident that their codes could not be breached.

  Ryck couldn’t see any damage to the lab building, and if the codes could not be breached, then there couldn’t be any mercs inside, right?

  And if you believe that, I’ve got some great beach-front property for you on Deseret, he thought sourly to himself.

  Ryck watched as Sgt Timothy sent forward his second fire team. Ryck slaved Cpl Goddard’s feed to his own display, and he watched as LCpl Pannata keyed in the combination. Instead of a steady green light of an open door, the lock display went to a flashing amber. Pannata tried again, but no green. He turned to look right at Goddard, his hands raised, palms up, in the universal “I don’t know” gesture.

  Grubbing hell! Ryck thought.

  He knew the codes would have been broken. This was a professional merc company in there, not some half-assed hackers.

  His alternate plan had been to call the skipper to request a demo team, but that would take time, and he would have to explain why he couldn’t open the doors to the lab. He looked up to see SSgt Mourka standing there, a huge hulk in his PICS.

  “Staff sergeant,” he keyed on a P2P. “Seems like the combos we got are not worth a rabbit’s hop. I could call back for a boomboom team, but seeing as you guys are just standing around, you want to see if you can crack that door open?”

  Ryck couldn’t
see inside the staff sergeant’s visor, but he swore he could see the Marines posture change, the big PICS seemingly more alert.

  “Uh, blow it open?” he answered back, holding up his attached HGL.

  “Well, if we have to. But first, let’s see if one of you can just ram your way through.”

  Ryck didn’t think highly of the Killington reps, and if it came down to it, he’d level the lab if he had to, but still, sending a grenade through it might mean a ton of paperwork to explain why he’d dared to damage some piece of shit lab equipment.

  “Well, it’s not like that’s some sort of military installation,” the staff sergeant said. “Yeah, I’ll give it a shot myself. Clear me with the company, though, will you, sir?”

  “I’ve got you covered,” Ryck said as the platoon sergeant left the P2P to coordinate with a few of his Marines.

  “Grizzly-six, this is Grizzly-one-six. The combination codes were not valid. I repeat, they were not valid. I am commencing my own breach,” Ryck sent back to his commander.

  Ryck thought the captain might want a longer explanation, or worse, tell Ryck to wait until he could come up to the position. Instead, the captain merely told him to go ahead and report back when he got the door open.

  If there were mercs inside, they had to know the Marines were there, ready to come in. The delay was frustrating, and it gave any mercs more time to prepare. If Ryck had his way, he would have had a team from Weapons Platoon, and they would have blown open an entrance right through a wall with a Banshee. Never enter where an enemy thought you would was one of the prime lessons taught at recruit training. When he’d suggested this, he thought the Killington rep was going to have a heart attack. The rep had gone on about how the company was “allowing” the Marines to destroy the outer facilities, but Killington would not stand for any of their core facilities being damaged.