Sergeant (The United Federation Marine Corps Book 2) by Jonathan P. Brazee Page A

door barring our way. I’ve got my dragonfly on it now.”
    The small dark blue light that flashed on let Ryck know the lieutenant had slaved onto his dragonfly’s feed.
    “Hold your position. I’m sending Sgt Kyle in now,” he passed after a few moments.
    Sgt Kyle and his team arrived. Ryck switched over control of his dragonfly to Frank and let him fly it across the face of the door. The EOD sergeant gave the drone back, then took the DSD off its harness on his back, and sent it forward.
    “Just checking for little surprises,” The EOD sergeant told Ryck.
    They hadn’t sensed the mine or whatever that had taken Sullivan out, so Ryck was not totally confident that the DSD could sniff out any other booby traps.
    As soon as the DSD h it the door, instead of having the robot analyze it, Kyle moved his team forward. Ryck motioned Cpl Beady to move his team forward for security as well.
    SSgt Hecs came up alongside of Ryck and asked, “What have we got?”
    Ryck shrugged the best he could while in a PICS and ran a 10 or 15 seconds of the dragonfly’s previous feed.
    “Frank Kyle’s in there with his team. I sent Beady’s team in, too. I think I’m going to tag along,” Ryck told his platoon sergeant.
    “Lead on, then,” SSgt Hecs said.
    Both Marines walked down the passage. The overhead was low for a PICS, so low that Ryck could have jumped up and hit the top of his PICS on it. But it was plenty wide enough for two PICS Marines to walk in side-by-side.
    At the corner of the door, Frank Kyle and Cpl Zhou, one of his team members, were gesturing along its breadth, obviously in deep conversation. They quickly seem to come to a course of action. The three Marines, in their PICS-Es, brought out their jack-off hands. Like corpsmen, sometimes EOD Marines needed more dexterity and control than offered by the normal arms and hands of a PICS. When that happened, they could open their PICS’ arms, then slide their real arms out the bottom, protected by a much thinner PICS “skin.” The jack-off arms provided nothing other than atmospheric protection, but they Marines could use their real arms almost as if they were in a regular uniform. Ryck always thought that they looked like insects molting when they used the jack-off arms.
    The three EOD Marines began placing their shape d charge limpets in a pattern. It took less than a minute to get all six charges placed. A small red light on each limpet indicated that they were ready for detonation.
    “Gentlemen, I suggest we move back out of here,” Kyle said matter-of-factly.
    The Marines moved to the warehouse proper, stepping to the side of the passage as they reached it. Kyle reported back to the lieutenant that they were ready to blow the door.
    “You holding up, Ryck?” SSgt Hecs asked him on the P2P.
    “I’m fine. I might be a bit stiff tomorrow, but no problem now,” he answered.
    Lieutenant Nidishchii’ and Capt Davis lumbered up to them. The captain took Kyle’s report, then had a P2P discussion with the lieutenant, after which, the platoon commander brought up the three squad leaders, Sgt Kyle, and SSgt Hecs on the command circuit.
    “We think there’s another staging area on the other side of that door. We know there’s at least 20 SOG here, maybe more. We’ve seen only one body. That leaves no fewer than 19 others, and we know they don’t meekly surrender. We’ve got to anticipate that at some point, they are going to fight. Capt Davis thinks the staging area might give them cover to put up a defensive position, and I agree. We’ve got to get in and hit them hard, but this passage is a choke point. They can Horatio at the Bridge it and make it tough for us. What we’re going to do is at the moment the door comes down . . . “ he paused. “You’ve got that covered, right Sergeant Kyle?”
    “I abso-fucking-lutely guarantee it, Lieutenant,” Kyle responded.
    “OK. Then, as I was saying, the second the door comes down, Weapons is going to pulse