Recruit, Jonathan Brazee [which ebook reader .txt] 📗

Atacama

Sergeant John Nbele barely glanced at his heads-up display as he climbed the huge rise of tailings leading to the open-pit mine.  Small green triangles being projected onto his visor represented each of the men in the squad, and all were moving in the squad V formation, two fire teams out front, one trailing between them.

This was the sergeant’s fifth campaign, but his first as a squad leader.  He’d risen up through the ranks quickly, with two meritorious promotions, the last one a battlefield promotion for valor on Case’s World.[1]  He knew he was on the fast track, and this operation would cement his reputation as not only a fierce fighter, but also as a leader of Marines.

He didn’t really expect this campaign to amount to much.  Atacama was sparsely populated, and the miners didn’t have a military as such, only a small police-slash-guard force (the type of guards Marines and Legionnaires called Jimmylegs) that was formed to protect the mines.  They had no heavy weapons.  John had bet a bottle of Jack—the real stuff from Earth, not the fake shit that most people drank—with Royal Teristry, a sergeant in Bravo Company, that the Jimmylegs would bolt at the sight of the platoon’s Marines in the assault.

His suit subtly shifted to remain vertical as he started up the tailings.  Wearing a suit was pretty easy.  Most recruits could walk, run, and jump within 30 minutes of being introduced to them.  Still, there were a few tricks to them. Sergeant Nbele’s body instinctively wanted to lean into the hill as he climbed, and he had to relax and let the suit take over.

The suit was the 980 kg mechanical monster each of his Marines wore, the PICS, or Personal Integrated Combat Units.  With its sandwiched Ceramic Array and LTC (Lutetium Tungsten Carbide) armor, it was impervious to all small arms and most larger weapons.  While the Corp’s PICS were not the modern Rigaudeau-3s that the Legion and some world militias had, or even the Brotherhood’s Saul line of combat armor, it was more than enough proof for the poorly-armed miners.  Naval intelligence had assured the Marine command of that.

“Bentley, close it up,” he sent to the PFC in First Fire Team.

Corporal Kim should have caught his lagging Marine.  He, as the squad leader shouldn’t have to be getting after individual Marines.  He’d have to have a one-on-one with Kim when all this was over.  He stared directly at Bentley’s triangular avatar, blinking his eyes once long and hard to initiate a full data dump.  The Marine’s data filled his visor.  Heart rate, respiration, suit dynamics, all were within normal range.  Bentley’s nerves were fine; he had just lost focus.

That was a bad precedent.  While this mission should be a cakewalk, losing focus on a more dangerous battlefield was a recipe for disaster.  Nbele’s battlefield promotion on Case’s World was a result of his squad leader on that mission “losing focus.”  Three Marines had been KIA,[2] and Nbele had had to jump into the breach to save the rest.

He blinked away Bentley, then brought up Kim. 

“Corporal Kim, monitor your Marines.  I don’t need to be keeping Bentley in line,” he said on the direct person-to-person comms.

“Aye-aye, Sergeant,” was the reply.

Sergeant Nbele’s Second Squad was the point of main effort.  He and his 12 Marines were the heavy squad, the ones with PICS.  First Squad had taken a blocking position at a crossroads on the other side of the mine, some 15 kms out.  Third was providing security for the platoon headquarters back at the LZ.[3]  Normally, 13 Marines, even suited, would be too few to be operating like this, but no one expected much, if any, resistance.  Third Platoon had taken its objective, the mine headquarters at the planetary capital, over an hour ago without a fight.

His leading fire teams crested the tailings, ready to descend into the pit.  He switched to monitor Corporal Kim’s view, which showed up to the right of his visor.  There were the same pieces of heavy equipment in the pit as he had seen on the satellite photo, but it was still good to get confirmation.  There wasn’t any sign of miners.

As always, the projected display was somewhat transparent so he could still see the real world through the image.  He wanted a better view, so he picked up his pace from inside the V formation.  His suit’s servos adjusted.  While it didn’t take any more effort from him, the motion of the suit swung into a higher tempo as he went up the rest of the incline.  Cresting the hill, he could see down into the pit, and he closed Kim’s feed.

The pit was huge, maybe 1,500 meters across and 400 meters deep.  Unlike the open-pit mines he’d seen elsewhere, this one had several smaller sub-mine heads, holes leading deeper into the ground as they followed veins. From the plans they had downloaded, he knew those mine shafts went on for kilometers underground.

He held up the squad as he linked to the eye-in-the-sky.  The drone circled somewhere out of sight, but the feed was clear.  There was no sign of any movement in the pit.  It was possible that the miners had bugged out, but a leader who wanted to live a long and prosperous life didn’t assume anything.  He checked all his data feeds, but everything was quiet.  He considered sending out one of the two dragonflies housed in his sleeve to get a close-up look, but the threat was pretty low, and he wanted to save them in case he might need them later.

“Zipper-six, this is Zipper-two.  There is no indication of any enemy activity. We are commencing our descent into the mine, over,” he sent to his platoon commander, careful, as always to keep the Houseman slums out of his voice when on the radio.

“Roger that, Two.  Keep your heads down.  Six, out.”

Sergeant Nbele gave the command, and the squad started moving down into the mine pit.  Their march discipline remained tight with good dispersion as they descended.  Unless the mine was abandoned, there had to be eyes on them now, and the more professional the Marines looked, the more intimidating and the less likely that any Jimmylegs would want to tangle with them.  Loyalty to an employer could only go so far.

He glanced to his left for a visual on Kim’s team.  The icons projected onto his visor gave him an exact picture of their movement, but human nature sometimes took over, and he wanted to see them with his eyes.  He could see three of the four Marines as they made their way through the rocks and dirt of the pit slope.

He blinked at Kim’s icon to bring him up on a direct comms when with a flash, his visor’s electronics went blank, and his suit came to a sudden halt.  His PICS had failed, something that had never happened to him before.  He thumbed the emergency reset, but nothing changed.  He tried it again, but with the same result.  Of all the times for this to happen, it had to happen now, on his first assault as a squad leader!   He cursed CWO2 Slyth, the company ordnance officer, the man