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Book: Sergeant (The United Federation Marine Corps Book 2) by Jonathan P. Brazee
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Authors: Jonathan P. Brazee
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had debarked, then got the Marines moving out of the zone and out of the path of any possible incoming that had targeted the LZ. He toggled up the route overlay on his display, then nudged the icons for his lead team over another 30 meters. Peretti, on point, would see where Ryck had positioned the command avatar for him and then move to the right until he was where Ryck wanted him. It was a very simple, yet effective method of troop placement.
Ryck quickly zoomed out his display view. Echo was already forming the perimeter around the target, even placing a platoon behind the small mountain in case their targets had a rabbit hole that had not been identified. Ryck could see the Navy shuttle approaching with Fox, ready to land two platoons in the LZ Golf had just left. Golf’s Second Platoon was moving forward in line with Third and First Platoon followed in trace. Things were going according to plan—so far.
The Marines moved through the five-meter tall fern-like vegetation. This was the first planet Ryck had been on that had vegetation but had not been terraformed. He’d seen alien plants before at a few botanical gardens, but never in their natural state. There was an odd homogeneity to the forest with none of the variation in height or variety found in terraformed worlds.
The two platoons moved at a fairly good clip through the fern-tree-things, simply pushing them aside. As the Marines approached the target, though, the terrain worked to pinch the two platoons together. This was the reason that only Golf was going in as the point of main effort. There simply was no room for any more units within the confined area.
As they passed one of the hillocks to their right, Ryck took a quick look with full sensors. He knew the recon team was on that 40 meter-tall rock jumble, but he couldn’t pick up a thing on them. That always impressed Ryck. Going out into bad-guy territory pooping and snooping with minimal armor seemed risky, but if the bad guys couldn’t see them, then Ryck figured it was a risk worth taking. He sure appreciated having actual human eyes on a target, not just sensors. He gave the unseen team a nod of respect despite knowing they couldn’t see it.
There was a surprising lack of comms chatter. As a rule, Marines were supposed to keep talking to a minimum. Even with frequency shifting and scrambling, the enemy could pick up the fact that communications were taking place, and with good AIs, could calculate potential courses of action based strictly on the amount, duration, and direction of voice comms being made. The less said over the net, the less there was to analyze. Still, voice comms were sometimes needed. So far, though, not much had been necessary during the movement to contact.
As the squad moved around another outcropping, about 300 meters from its target, a small yellow flashing number on Ryck’s display caught his attention. Martin’s PICS was running slightly hot. It wasn’t into redline territory, but that was something that needed to be monitored. He made a mental note to have it checked.
Ryck toggled Martin’s readout to the top of his display so he could keep an eye on it when the world around him erupted into a flash of flames and smoke. Ryck was thrown to the ground, banging painfully against the inside of his PICS. His display disappeared, leaving him with only a clear visor through which to see the dust cloud forming around him.
Mother grub! was all he could think as he tried to get his thoughts straight. He could taste blood where he’d bitten his tongue.
Eve rything was down. No comms, no data display. He couldn’t even move his PICS. Ryck’s immediately thought of his first mission when a squad of PICS Marines had been put out of action through a Trojan that had been wormed into the combat suit’s control system. Four of the Marines had been killed. Despite this flashback, he was surprised at how calm he was as he hit the reset. To his tremendous relief, the status
Ryck quickly zoomed out his display view. Echo was already forming the perimeter around the target, even placing a platoon behind the small mountain in case their targets had a rabbit hole that had not been identified. Ryck could see the Navy shuttle approaching with Fox, ready to land two platoons in the LZ Golf had just left. Golf’s Second Platoon was moving forward in line with Third and First Platoon followed in trace. Things were going according to plan—so far.
The Marines moved through the five-meter tall fern-like vegetation. This was the first planet Ryck had been on that had vegetation but had not been terraformed. He’d seen alien plants before at a few botanical gardens, but never in their natural state. There was an odd homogeneity to the forest with none of the variation in height or variety found in terraformed worlds.
The two platoons moved at a fairly good clip through the fern-tree-things, simply pushing them aside. As the Marines approached the target, though, the terrain worked to pinch the two platoons together. This was the reason that only Golf was going in as the point of main effort. There simply was no room for any more units within the confined area.
As they passed one of the hillocks to their right, Ryck took a quick look with full sensors. He knew the recon team was on that 40 meter-tall rock jumble, but he couldn’t pick up a thing on them. That always impressed Ryck. Going out into bad-guy territory pooping and snooping with minimal armor seemed risky, but if the bad guys couldn’t see them, then Ryck figured it was a risk worth taking. He sure appreciated having actual human eyes on a target, not just sensors. He gave the unseen team a nod of respect despite knowing they couldn’t see it.
There was a surprising lack of comms chatter. As a rule, Marines were supposed to keep talking to a minimum. Even with frequency shifting and scrambling, the enemy could pick up the fact that communications were taking place, and with good AIs, could calculate potential courses of action based strictly on the amount, duration, and direction of voice comms being made. The less said over the net, the less there was to analyze. Still, voice comms were sometimes needed. So far, though, not much had been necessary during the movement to contact.
As the squad moved around another outcropping, about 300 meters from its target, a small yellow flashing number on Ryck’s display caught his attention. Martin’s PICS was running slightly hot. It wasn’t into redline territory, but that was something that needed to be monitored. He made a mental note to have it checked.
Ryck toggled Martin’s readout to the top of his display so he could keep an eye on it when the world around him erupted into a flash of flames and smoke. Ryck was thrown to the ground, banging painfully against the inside of his PICS. His display disappeared, leaving him with only a clear visor through which to see the dust cloud forming around him.
Mother grub! was all he could think as he tried to get his thoughts straight. He could taste blood where he’d bitten his tongue.
Eve rything was down. No comms, no data display. He couldn’t even move his PICS. Ryck’s immediately thought of his first mission when a squad of PICS Marines had been put out of action through a Trojan that had been wormed into the combat suit’s control system. Four of the Marines had been killed. Despite this flashback, he was surprised at how calm he was as he hit the reset. To his tremendous relief, the status
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