Recruit by Jonathan Brazee (the best ebook reader for android .txt) 📕

a’tryin’, and before you know it, the lieutenant’s goin’ to get here, and pow, fuck you up but good!  So you keep talkin’ and jabberin’ like that, you stupid negats.”

The men obviously came to a decision.  Two of them got on the mule and put their hands on his chest carapace.  Both seemed to be avoiding looking into the visor to see him.  They looked back at the mule operator, and the vehicle gave a lurch.  He heard it hit him low on the legs as it rocked him.  It wasn’t enough to tip him over though.  But it backed up and lurched forward again, the men pushing as it hit him.  The mule couldn’t back up much or the two guys on top would fall, but even a foot or so gave it room to gain some momentum.  On the third push, Sergeant Nbele thought he was going to fall over, but the suit’s mass kept it upright.  It took four more tries before that magic center of balance was surpassed.  He teetered for a moment before falling over backward.

Without the motion suppressors working, Sergeant Nbele had the breath knocked out of him as he fell, something digging heavily into his back.  The suits were pretty comfortable to wear normally, but without power, they were only so much junk. 

On his back, he could only see the sky.  He scanned what he could, waiting to see the Stork come into view with the rest of the platoon onboard.  What he did see was the same guy who had looked at him before.  The man leaned over to look into the visor.  They stared at each other for a moment before the man crossed himself, bringing his fingers his lips as he finished the cross.  Then he nodded and stepped back out of view. 

When the drilling started again, the noise filled his ears.  It kept going, though, not skittering off his armor.  They must have gotten him wedged, or maybe the drill itself wedged.  They still would have to penetrate his armor, though.  It might be over 50 years old, but it was pretty formidable.

The sounds of the drilling changed pitch, getting lower.  A sense of panic filled the squad leader.  That meant the drill bit had gained purchase.  The sound reverberated everywhere, but he tried to locate from where it emanated.  With the vibrations that he could now feel, it seemed to be from about his waist, maybe where the chest carapace met the pelvic shield.  The newest Legionaire suits were seamless, but the old Marine suits were not.  Could the drill bit have gained some sort of purchase there?

The vibration started getting stronger, and the sounds of the bit slowed down even more.

“Break you mother!” he shouted at the unseen LTC bit.

Looking down into the small gap between the skin of his suit and his chest, he had a momentary glimpse of a spinning metallic shaft before it plunged into his groin.  He was overcome by an intense flash of agony before his world went dark.

 

 

********************

 

Private Ryck Lysander wiped the sweat from his brow as he caught his breath.  He’d just brought up the platoon’s entire load of the M887 anti-personal rounds for the M229.  He was not a trained artillery Marine, and as the newest of newbies, just reporting in two days prior to embarkation, he hadn’t been assigned to a squad yet and was instead the platoon runner, which meant doing whatever the platoon sergeant wanted him to do.  In this case, it was to hump arty shells.

When Second Squad had somehow disappeared from the net, a sense of alarm, if not panic, had swept the platoon headquarters.  The eye-in-the-sky had shown the Marines suddenly stopping cold before some miners had appeared in the pit, and the drone was knocked offline.  Lieutenant Prowse and Staff Sergeant England had a heated discussion for a few moments as they reported back up to the company and went over their options.  The platoon commander ordered Sergeant Dixon, the arty team leader, to saturate the open pit with anti-personnel fire.  Without eyes on target and no comms, there wasn’t any way to know how effective the support had been.  The lieutenant had been burning up the comm lines with the company commander, demanding the Navy get eyes on the objective and the Stork pilot to get the transport back.

“Get your gear, boot.  We’re going in with the lieutenant,” Doc Silestre told him. 

The platoon corpsman calmly checked the charge on his M99.[5]  Ryck hurriedly checked his, too.  He hadn’t fired his weapon, so it was still at 100%, enough to fire close to 1,000 rounds of the hypervelocity darts. 

“What are we going to be doing?” he asked.

“Go get our guys, you dumbshit,” the doc told him.

Ryck wanted to clarify that he meant what their orders would be and what he was supposed to do, but he bit his tongue.  He tried to look alert as the lieutenant and platoon sergeant made last-minute plans.  This wasn’t going to be some well-planned op but more of an immediate-action drill.  The problem was that Ryck hadn’t been with the unit long enough to rehearse any of the drills back on the Dirtball, and aboard the Adelaide, there hadn’t been much room for any sort of physical training.

Within moments, the platoon headquarters and Third Squad were forming up just as the Stork came floating over the LZ, its turbofans rotating to the vertical so the big transport could land.  Staff Sergeant England already had the Marines moving before the Stork touched down, jumping up on the ramp while it was still a half a meter in the air.  Ryck followed the rest of the Marines up into the belly of the bird. 

“Boot, you stick with me like glue.  I want you on my ass,” Staff Sergeant England’s voice came over his earbud, the triple tones preceding the voice message indicating that they were on a direct person-to-person circuit. 

Ryck started to acknowledge when the double tone of an open-platoon circuit cut him off.  The lieutenant started giving out his order as the Stork rose smoothly into the air.  He spoke calmly, but Ryck could sense the underlying tension in his voice, even over the M919 small unit communication modules.  They didn’t know what had frozen Second Squad or knocked out the drone, so the Stork would come in low and drop them below the lip of the mine before bolting off to pick up Third Squad.  Two fire teams of Third, along with Staff Sergeant England and the squad leader, Sergeant Piccalo-Tensing, designated Element A, would move up and over the western side of the pit and get to the Marines below them.  The remaining fire team and the rest of the platoon headquarters, Element B, would provide cover from the eastern side of the pit, then move down once Element A had consolidated its position.  This was a very basic plan, much like what Ryck had conducted in his almost 10 months at recruit training and then another three months at IUT[6] at Camp Otrakovskiy.  He knew there wasn’t much time for anything else, but still, he expected something a little more . . . well, he didn’t know what he expected, but it wasn’t this.

Ryck still didn’t know what he was supposed to do, but the platoon sergeant had told him to stay on his ass, so that was what Ryck was going to follow.  He checked his M99 once more out of nervous habit before looking up at the other Marines.  No one showed any signs of the butterflies that threatened to take over his own stomach.  He wasn’t sure if he was scared or excited, and he really didn’t make an effort to figure out which it was.  This was what he’d been trained to do.  This was why he’d left Prophesy.

He tried to lean the M99 on his thigh, but it slid off his trousers, his “skins,” which were slightly stiffened with the inserted STF[7] armor protection, or “bones,” and he almost dropped it, barely catching it with one gloved hand.  Despite the imminent combat he faced, his mind snapped back to boot where dropping a weapon was a cardinal sin.  He gave a sigh of relief that he hadn’t dropped it as he secured his weapon.

And that was all the time he had.  With less than two klicks to the mine, the Stork had them there quickly.  It flew in with the gentle approach that still amazed Ryck.  Something so big shouldn’t fly as smooth as a maglev.

The big bird flared, then the back ramp was lowered, and the Marines poured out.  Ryck followed the staff sergeant, trying to orient himself.  Within moments, the Stork took off, leaving the two elements alone to make their way up to the lip of the mine.  Ryck tried to keep aware of his surroundings while still watching the ground in front of him in order to stay on his feet.

As they reached the lip of the mine, Staff Sergeant England motioned them down.  He edged a small fiber-eye over the lip to see what was visible while they waited for the lieutenant to start the supporting fire. 

“We’ve got three, I repeat three combatants at my 10 o’clock, 550 meters from our present position, standing next to our friendlies.  The friendlies look to be down, over,” the staff sergeant sent over the net to the lieutenant. 

Two beeps then indicated that he had switched to the element circuit, followed by “Listen up.  Do not, I repeat, do not stop to assist any of the downed Marines.  We need to get to the mine entrance and inside, so get through the kill zone quickly.  The lieutenant and Doc will see to Second Squad.  Got it?  I want each of you to acknowledge.  No stopping, over.”

Each Marine responded that he understood.  No stopping. 

Ryck checked his M99 once more.  He hadn’t fired yet, so nothing would have changed, but still, he had to check.  He couldn’t see where the other element was, so he hugged the dirt, listening to his heart pounding.  If Second Squad, suited up in their PICS had been taken out, what could they do with only their skins and bones?

Lieutenant Prowse