39
Four hours later, First and Second Raider Platoons were embarked aboard the frigate PUNS Pandia. Rev barely had time to breathe between the time the orders can down to prepping for the deployment to riding up on the shuttle. Even with Punch helping with the checklist, he had a sinking feeling that he’d forgotten something, and probably something vital.
A surprised Daryll was on board, too, with his junior tech Taneesha. He seemed excited to be part of . . . whatever this was. Taneesha, not so much. She looked scared.
“All embarked Marines and civilian personnel, please report to the Hangar Alpha,” came over the 1MC.
“Maybe they’ll tell us what the hell is going on,” Hussein said as the guide strips lit up to show them the way.
“What is going on is we’re going to kick those bastards off the Mother,” Tomiko said.
Rev thought Tomiko was right, but Hussein wasn’t the only one to be surprised by her statement.
“You really think so?” he asked, his eyes bright with excitement.
“Look around. Who’s here? Rev and Pierson. I saw that messed up IBHU. What’s her name, Rev?”
“Randigold.”
“Randigold. And one more getting off one of the other shuttles. There are seven IBHUs on the planet, and credits to donuts that all seven are here.”
“OK, Miko. Maybe so, but what makes you think we’re going to Earth?”
“Where else could we be going? We’ve got to get the fucking tin-asses off the Mother, but you think the Navy’s just going to bombard their asses? That’s the Mother, for Pete’s sake.”
“I hope you’re right,” Hussein said in awe. “Us, going to the Mother? Stepping on her soil?”
Rev was just as awestricken. With such strict limits, it was almost impossible for a citizen to ever set foot on the birthplace of humankind. The most even the wealthiest could manage was to take one of the tourist ships that made a few very high orbits before returning to Titan or Enceladus.
But he’d already come to the same conclusion as Tomiko had. Their emergency deployment couldn’t be a coincidence. He didn’t know what excited him more—the ability to visit the Mother, something he’d never dreamed of doing, or being part of the attempt to punish the Centaurs who dared corrupt her sacred soil.
They reached the hangar. Rev saw Randigold and Eichenbaum, the two IBHUs in Second Raiders. Another two IBHUs Rev didn’t recognize caught his eye and nodded a silent greeting. They were joined by a third a few moments later.
First Division on the Gold Continent had ten IBHUs before the Centaurs hit. Those three had to be the survivors. No matter what else happened, whether they really were going to Earth or not, Rev looked forward to getting together with his counterparts to see what they’d experienced. He didn’t see any of the t-shirt harnesses on them, and none had the enhanced sleeve, but that didn’t mean they hadn’t suffered the same as he had.
“Damn! Look who else is with us,” Doc Paul said as the final group entered the hangar.
Rev did a double-take. Hitching a ride on the frigate were Colonel Destafney, two other colonels, Major General Sirirat, Lieutenant General Begay, and a small entourage of staff officers and enlisted. Captain Omestori pulled up the rear, and he immediately broke off to join his platoon.
“Good news?” the master guns asked as the captain took his place.
“Maybe,” was all he said.
The Pania’s skipper, a full commander, stepped forward first. “General Begay, General Sirirat, and Marines. I’m Commander Neon-Filtzer, the skipper of the Pania. I’d like to welcome all of you aboard.
“This deployment took us by as much surprise as it probably took you, but the circumstances, as you all know, are dire, and my crew and I are proud that the Panny is being asked to respond. But we are not a troop carrier, so things are going to be tight. Please have patience while we make the transit to the Home System.”
Tomiko gave Rev an elbow to the side.
“What? I agreed with you,” he whispered.
“If you need anything, Master Chief Massie will be your point of contact.”
A grizzled master chief with an impressive, pronounced beer belly stepped forward and waved her hand.
“General Begay, I’ll be moving out of my stateroom so you can use that. Between that, the galley, and here in the hangar, those are probably our biggest spaces for whatever you need. And with that, I’ll turn it over to you General.”
The general stepped forward and made a sweeping scan over the gathered Marines and sailors. “You all know what’s happened, so I’m not going into details about that. But I want to bring you up to speed on what’s happening now and why we were yanked aboard this ship.”
A hundred Marines and sailors took in deep breaths and held them as they listened.
“First, we do not have a mission at this time.”
Rev could hear a hundred sets of lungs deflate in unison.
The general held up his hand in acknowledgment of the disappointment. “But we may very well end up with a mission. As we speak, the Council and military representatives are meeting at Enceladus, trying to come up with a plan. We don’t know yet what it’s going to be, but someone realized that as our hands may be tied concerning the use of normal weapons systems, our IBHU Marines might be an asset that can be used. So, the Union is sending all twenty-three in active service, including our seven from New Hope, to the Home System to stand by.
“Stand by to stand by,” Hussein muttered.
“The director prime himself made the decision at the recommendation of the commandant, who thinks you—all of you, not just the IBHU Marines—are perhaps the best weapons to use in a surgical removal of the invaders. The director prime is on his way to the Home System now as well, to offer our services.
“And yes, to whoever just whispered ‘stand by to stand by,’”
Porter turned to glare at Hussein, who kept his eyes locked straight ahead.
“You didn’t think I heard you, did you. But you aren’t the only ones to get augmented,” he said, tapping an ear with his forefinger. “And yes, we might be going over for nothing. But back in the early history of the various marine corps and naval infantries, there was a saying that the Marines were like fire extinguishers. It was kept behind glass, but if there was a fire, you broke the glass and pulled it out.
“Ladies and gentlemen, there is a fire right now. And if we’re there in the Home System, ready to be used, then the Council will, by the Mother, reach out and use us.”
“This isn’t a pleasure cruise, so, no matter how long we have to wait, I want you mentally, physically, and morally prepared to react at a moment’s notice. I want you to be ready to rid the Mother of the vermin who now infest her. Understand?”
A hundred sets of lungs screamed out an ooh-rah that reverberated through the hangar.
* * *
“And this thing really works?” Lieutenant Milei Macek asked, holding Rev’s external harness, twisting it back and forth, testing its strength.
“Not perfectly, no. But it’s a sight better than I had before. I think it’s the power that keeps the anchors in place.”
“Well, you’ve had your IBHU longer than any of us, so I guess it makes sense that you’d have the problems first. I’m just glad I’m not the only one. Wait. I didn’t mean it like that, of course. But that means there might be an answer.”
The First Division lieutenant, the senior IBHU Marine from New Hope, turned to Daryll and asked, “And you think you can print one up for Lance Corporal Thassom and me?”
“Me, too, sir,” PFC Marie del Mar added.
“You, too? Why am I only finding out about this now?” the lieutenant asked.
The PFC shrugged but didn’t say anything.
“To answer your question, I think I can. I’ve spoken with the chief in the ship’s machine shop, and I think we can make their VU-4500 work. Pretty close, at least.”
“So, that’s three of them?” the lieutenant asked, looking at each of the IBHU Marines. “None of the rest of you?”
When there was no response, he said, “Then let’s do it. If it works for Sergeant Pelletier here, even partially, then I think it’s worth the effort.”
Rev hadn’t been that surprised when he met up with the other six IBHU Marines and found out that a few of the others had the same issues as he did. None of the others were as severe as his situation, but as the lieutenant said, he’d had his the longest and had more missions than anyone else. He’d fetched Daryll to talk to the others. If anyone could help, it would be the civilian tech.
But it wasn’t just Daryll helping the three other Marines. Rev was happy to meet more of his . . . not posse. Not team. Not even Brothers in Steel. This was a sub-tribe, one of the most exclusive in the galaxy.
He was close to Tomiko and his team, he was close to his posse, he was close to Malaika, but no one else could really understand what he’d gone through. McAnt had been a good sounding board, but with him gone, he’d lost that. Pierson, although he’d proved to be a warrior, was almost an inert lump when it came to a discussion, and Randigold was at Camp Falcon. To be standing together with the other six made him feel among his own kind and not so alone.
“OK, with that out of the way, I want to discuss our cannons now. What issues or observations do you have that need to be addressed? And Mr. Begay, if you could stay and listen to see if you have any input, that would be appreciated.”
“It’s Daryll, not Mr. Begay. But of course, I’ll stay.”
It felt a little weird no longer being the senior IBHU Marine around. Although the lieutenant was not exactly in Rev’s chain of command, he was monopolizing the discussion, taking charge. But Rev didn’t care. Let him officer. That’s what they do, after all. An IBHU wasn’t going to change that fact of nature.
* * *
“When are they going to send us down?” Hussein bitched for the hundredth time, if it was once.
“Too many bosses, all trying to make sure their voices are heard,” Top Thapa said.
Rev thought that was probably true. Lieutenant General Begay, who was a god on New Hope, had left for Enceladus immediately after the ship entered the Home System, where he was probably serving coffee and donuts to those senior to him. The Union commandant and chief of naval operations joined all the other politicians and military leaders as they tried to come up with a viable plan to eject the Centaurs from the Mother.
Information back on the Pannia was sketchy at best, but from the bits and pieces they’d received, there were several competing courses of actions. One was just to stand back and hope for negotiations. Another was to hit the Centaurs and hit them hard, damage to the Mother be damned. Their stand was that the Earth had fared far worse environmental damage back before the Expansion, and she had recovered once, so she could recover again. The third was to conduct a surgical strike, and that was the one most likely to include the Marine Raider teams.
The big problem was that no one knew what the Centaurs had planned. The Mother was covered by more feeds than possibly any other piece of human real estate, but except for them cutting off all comms from the surface, they’d made no attempt at hiding their presence. Small teams of between ten and thirty Centaurs had taken up positions across the planet. Many were at historically significant sites, while others were seemingly scattered haphazardly without obvious rhyme or reason.
It wasn’t as if the Marines and sailors aboard the Panny were getting their information through the chain of command. They were out of that loop. But the civilian resources were being openly disseminated throughout human space. The human caretakers on the planet were cut off, as were the cams on the surface, but not those in orbit. Those on the ship could see Centaur activity from the HSN weather feeds, which had by now made Leif Talmage a household name as he brought everything to the public.
So few Centaurs should not be an obstacle to the combined might of every human organization, but the enemy had to know that. Given that knowledge, what were they doing? What did they have up their sleeves? And that was the main topic of discussion across the vast reaches of space where humans were glued to their screens and holopads.
The galley had become the de facto center of the ship. Normally used by the junior enlisted sailors, it was now regularly packed with Marines of all ranks and the off-duty crew as they watched the news feed. At the moment, the HSN feed was on again, showing what looked to be two mini-Centaurs at Angkor digging in the ground while the analysts discussed what they might be doing.
Initially, Rev had hung on every word the so-called experts said, but he’d quickly learned that they knew no more than he did. He just watched and waited for orders, whatever they might be.
One of the ship’s crew sidled up to Rev and asked, “Have you heard anything about the Mad Dogs?”
Just as the experts didn’t know more about the Centaurs, Rev didn’t know more about the Manifest Destiny super-soldiers. It had been mentioned in passing by one of the analysts earlier that their version of IBHU Marines were inbound, but Rev had no way of confirming or denying that. He was just a grunt in a ship. But because of his being an IBHU Marine, some of the sailors, in particular, seemed to think he had a personal conduit to the MDS rumor.
“Just what we heard this morning.” That was a safe answer, he thought.
“Can you guys, you know, can you beat them?”
“The MDS? They’re our allies. Our enemy is down on the Mother,” Rev said, a little taken aback by the question.
“Yeah, I know. But they’re bastards, and some of us were just wondering.”
Tomiko leaned over and interjected, “No fucking Mad Dog can take on a Union Marine.”
The sailor smiled and said, “Yeah, that’s what I thought.” He slapped Rev on the shoulder and threaded his way to the other side of the galley.
“I thought the Navy had standards as to who they allow in,” Tomiko said.
“Eh. I’ve had Marines ask me the same thing, too.”
“Well?”
“Well, what?”
“Can you beat up a Mad Dog android?” she asked with a laugh.
Rev rolled his eyes and turned back to the screen.
“Seriously, though. That’s why we’re waiting,” Tomiko said.
“What do you mean?”
“We can’t bomb the crap out of the Mother. I mean, she’s the Mother. But even if we thought that was the only way, the true Gaia-type believers would revolt. They’d freaking invade Titan if the Council OK’d it.
“And waiting for some sort of demand to negotiate is going to take time, and not just the Gaias are screaming for action. The normal folk are, too.”
“So, what’s your point?”
“How many of you IBHUs are here?”
“On the ship? Seven. All told with the other ships? Twenty-three.”
“And if we make you the point of main effort, you know, so you can kill the tin-asses without blowing the planet up, can we hit every one of them down there?”
“No. You know that.”
“And think of this,” she said, lowering her voice to a whisper. “Are the other countries just gonna want to hand the rescue of the Mother to the Union? Hell no. They all want to participate. And if the Mad Dogs have their own androids, they’re gonna be part of that. We acted first to get here, but the others, they’re not gonna just give us a free pass to run this show.”
She leaned back with a smug look on her face. But Rev couldn’t fault her logic. The more he thought about it, the more he was sure she was right.
The Marine in him wanted to move now. Whatever the two mini-Centaurs were doing in Angkor couldn’t be good, and the more time they gave them, the more time they could prepare nasty surprises for when the freeing of the Mother did kick off.
But this was the Mother, not New Mars, and she transcended political lines. Maybe it was best if this wasn’t a Union mission, but one with input from all the worlds of humankind.