“We have no transport. Our only non-infantry assets are the Hellcats from Fourth Platoon, the self-propelled mortars from Third and three hundred and fifty recon drones. A Lamprey Combat Nest has five hundred drones, by the way. The discrepancy is even worse with anti-drone swatters: they have eleven; we have five, one per platoon, plus one for the company headquarters. That means they will likely be able to win the ‘eyes on the sky’ battle. Cover and concealment are a primary concern here.”
“Zero support, too,” Gunnery Sergeant Freito noted. Companies weren’t organized to perform field ops on their own. “We’ll have to bring rations, just in case this becomes an extended operation. On top of everything else we’ll have to lug on our backs.”
“That’s why we’re going to sort through our logistics and figure out how to bring along as much as we can without compromising our battle effectiveness, and speed,” Fromm said. “At full power, our standard suits allow us to carry three hundred pounds of extra equipment; we are going to use that to our advantage. Lampreys do not equip their troops with powered suits, but they augment them via muscle and bone enhancement. We estimate their own carry load to be around a hundred and fifty pounds before their stamina and performance are significantly degraded. That gives us a logistical edge.”
“Get there firstest with the mostest,” Lieutenant Hansen quoted.
“Exactly.”
“We can use my Hundred-Mike-Mikes as pack mules, too,” First Lieutenant Chambal said, referring to the self-propelled mortars in his weapons platoon. “They are over-engineered for their normal load; those little mag-lev engines can carry a literal ton of extra weight and still keep up with us.”
“Good. We’ll make use of that. We are going to bring forward as much ordnance and equipment as we can, seize the objective before the enemy can reach it, and adopt a defensive posture. Our goal is to impress the locals so they will support us and not the Lampreys. Make sure everyone understands the stakes here. This is important.”
Lieutenant Berry was still upset, but the anger was fading away. Verdi, the CO of the Mobile Infantry Platoon, didn’t look convinced, or maybe his glum expression came from the suspicion Fromm was planning to use his precious Hellcats to bring along more bullets and beans for the company. Unlike the 100mm mobile mortars, the four-legged battlesuits didn’t have a lot of spare power; if anything, they used more energy than their specs indicated. Overloading them would further cut down their battery life.
“We’ll go over everything to determine everything we might need, and how we can bring it to the fight. We’re going to treat this like the real thing, and we’re going to win. It’d be nice if we had a company of LAVs to ride in, but this kind of situation is why we practice forced marches. Let’s treat this like a leadership opportunity, people.”
Fromm went over the battle plan, noticing that the grumbling died down as the officers and NCOs focused on the mission at hand. Nobody was happy they were playing games with the enemy instead of doing what came naturally, but training exercises were designed to simulate the experience of combat as closely as possible. The only difference between a field exercise and a real fight was that you didn’t have to write as many deeply-regret emails at the end. And if winning meant the Tah-Leen cast their lot with the US, that would help the war a million times more than destroying a Lamprey Combat Nest. This was a lot more important than the dog and pony show they’d been expecting to perform.
The whole thing still left a bad taste in his mouth.
Eight
Let the games begin.
Heather had half-expected the Tah-Leen to recreate a Roman coliseum for this event. Instead, the large chamber awaiting the American delegation was a near-facsimile of the John F. Kennedy Conference Room that had once been located in the pre-Contact White House. Better known as the Situation Room, it had a rectangular shape with a long table at its center and 2-D screens on the walls. The Great Seal of the United Stars was on the wall behind the President’s seat; it was identical to pre-Contact America’s emblem except for the number of stars above the stylized bald eagle in the center. There were a few differences from the original room. It was bigger, large enough to fit three dozen people around the table and seat an additional thirty along the walls. Plenty of space for the small delegation and the ten Security Detail agents the Tah-Leen had allowed to attend. There was also a holotank in the middle of the table.
One of the screens on the wall showed the Lampreys gathered in a copy of one of their Syndicate Halls: a round chamber that looked like an oversized igloo made of fitted stone rather than ice. The Lhan Arkh were seated, in a manner of speaking, on rows of reclining couches, since their bodies didn’t bend in a way that worked for actual chairs. The Spartan surroundings looked like they might have sprung straight from the alien’s version of the Neolithic era, except for the thoroughly modern screens and holotanks filling the central portion of the hall.
The Hierophant was in the US President’s seat, still wearing his Buddha costume, while the Priestess, retaining the shape and dress of the Kirosha Queen, reclined in the central spot normally occupied by the Lhan Arkh Activist-In-Chief.
As soon as everyone was seated and the usual fake pleasantries exchanged, the other screens switched on to display different areas of the impromptu battlefield, which covered a good nine square kilometers. The extravagant use of space in an enclosed habitat was a statement in itself. Holographic projections created the illusion of an open sky over the game board, and additional terrain extending dozens of additional kilometers away. They made it seem as if the two sets of combatants had been transported to some remote planet. An interior compartment that size was unheard of in a normal space station, but the Habitat for Unique Diversity had plenty of room to spare.
The 3-d display on the central table came to life as well, showing the scene in perfect detail, down to the hills, forests and ruins dotting the landscape. Icons marked the initial dispositions of the Marine and Lamprey forces, just like they would in a game, except this one was being played with live sophonts as its pieces.
At least they didn’t demand an actual fight to the death, Heather thought. That wasn’t surprising. Blood sports were considered barbaric among Starfarers. Funny they would have scruples about something like that when most civilizations would cheerfully commit genocide without batting an eyelash, but sophonts were weird that way.
Both sides would be equipped with practice ammunition, the kind of stuff used in training exercises. Virtual Reality projections sent to the combatants’ sensor systems and the spectators’ screens and implant inputs would make the battle seem real enough, though.
The Hierophant began to give a speech announcing the beginning of the contest. Heather tuned out the meaningless babble and concentrated on the work at hand. She’d spent much of the previous night studying the Tah-Leen network, using the access codes the Seeker of Knowledge had given her. The Conduit, as the Snowflakes called their intranet, was similar to every other distributed information system she’d studied, except in its sheer size and redundancy. Her initial perusal had uncovered no less than three separate different networks operating in the habitat.
A traditional client-server system comprised the Common Conduit. Heather had spent most of the night there, discovering that Tah-Leen data storage and communication technology was slightly faster and more efficient than current Starfarer equivalents, but not incredibly so. Apparently not much progress had been made in those areas in the past quarter million years. Disappointing but not unexpected. Passing on information technology to one’s ‘heirs’ would be easy enough, which meant fewer dark ages and also fewer breakthroughs. The good news was that some of her regular hacking tricks would work just as well here as they had in more primitive systems, especially if she could use the Seeker’s access codes for her own ends.
A restricted-access network handled Xanadu’s vital systems: life support, security, weapon systems, and control over a host of robots that did most of the man
ual work in the station. There were over a million self-propelled machines at work in the base, and a good third of them could be turned into lethal weapons with a bit of creativity, not counting a hundred thousand dedicated combat platforms, each with the firepower of a main battle tank and about as hard to kill. The Seeker hadn’t given her any access to the Master Conduit. Breaking into it would be impossible unless her new magic implants worked as advertised. Maybe not even then.
Finally, each Tah-Leen had a personal network that linked each of their drone bodies to a central node. The Snowflakes could somehow project their consciousness into multiple bodies. Each one was independent of the rest; they could communicate with each other through the network but didn’t share memories and experiences until they ‘uploaded’ them into the so-called Core. The Cores apparently held the actual consciousness of each Tah-Leen, and they were extremely well-protected. Even their physical location was kept secret. All she’d been able to learn of that network was the number of nodes, which had led her to discovering just how many Tah-Leen were around.
Ninety-three. There were ninety-three Snowflakes in all of Xanadu. In the entire universe.
No wonder they think they’re special.
Each alien ran as many as thirty bodies, although the average seemed to be closer to twelve or so. That still meant that less than two thousand individuals lived in the massive station. Xanadu was in effect a mostly empty ruin, a colossal gravestone for a nearly extinct species. A quick search of the place through the public network discovered miles and miles of lifeless corridors, most of their systems deactivated, doing nothing but gathering dust over untold millennia.
What a waste.
None of that mattered, of course. Heather kept a sliver of attention on the game being played out in the real world while she concentrated on the Tah-Leen known as the Scholar. The Seeker’s mission had been simple: find out what his nemesis had been up to. Snooping was one of her specialties, of course.
Learning how to turn the tables on enemies who thought they had the upper hand was another.
* * *
“Mulus Marianus,” Grampa mused as he checked the balance of the load on his back.
“Whose anus?” Gonzo said.
“Marius’ Mules. That’s what they called Roman Legionnaires. They carried a good sixty, seventy pounds of gear around when they went to war.”
“What a bunch of pussies. We have to run around with hundred-pound loads, usually more like one-fifty. Hell, our suits alone weight fifty pounds.”
“They didn’t have any power armor, though.”
“Guess you’re glad you ain’t a Legionnaire no more.”
“Heh. Not that old.”
Both Marines looked like ants dragging oversized bits of food. Russell figured he looked just as funny himself. The carefully-balanced loads they were lugging came in at a bit under one and a half times their body weight, not counting the fifty pounds of armor or the other fifty pounds of standard gear. Every Marine now weighed in at somewhere between five and six hundred pounds.
The exo-skeletal muscles of their suits allowed them to put that much on their backs, but they didn’t make marching under such loads anything but a grueling, painful mess. Their actual muscles still had to carry some of the weight: ten to thirty percent depending on their balance and posture, supposedly. More when going uphill, or leaning forward, less when everything was just right. Once you started moving at a good clip, you couldn’t just stop, either; the momentum four hundred-plus pounds generated while moving at four miles an hour was considerable. On top of that, under their current load they were generating about thirty pounds per square inch of ground pressure, twice as much as a pre-Contact main battle tank. On soft ground, that meant they’d be sinking up to their ankles or knees. At least it looked like the footing ahead was fairly solid. It was still going to be a mess. If you didn’t move just right, you’d topple like a felled tree, and you could break your neck if you landed wrong.
They’d trained for this, though. Forced marches, with and without power, carrying obscene amounts of shit over dozens of klicks, until the world became a gray thing you saw in between desperate breaths and nothing mattered except taking the next step. Not Russell’s thing, or most anybody’s for that matter. He’d rather hitch a ride any chance he got, and maybe catch a nap while he did.
Marine Mules. Yeah, that sounded about right. He’d never seen a mule but they were supposedly as stubborn as they were stupid. Maybe they should make the critters the official Marine mascot.
“Remind me again why you signed up for this shit,” Russell told Grampa.
“You know what? I can’t remember anymore. Must have been on some good drugs that day.”
“Shoulda brought some with you.”
Sergeant Fuller walked past everyone in the squad. He was, if anything, carrying more stuff than anyone else; word was the non-coms were loaded with live ammo, in case the Lampreys decided to cheat. FOS looked over everyone’s packs, making sure nothing was dangling loosely enough to throw them off-balance, and that the quick-release clips were properly set. There was hardly any cursing in his running commentary, which meant he was satisfied.
“Ready for a nature stroll, dick-heads?” he said when he was done.
“Yes, Sergeant.”
“Good. Don’t drop anything unless I say so. We’re going to need all this shit to take care of the Lampreys.”
Russell had to agree with that. They were carrying a ton of power packs. Those high-density batteries kept their suit systems and their personal and portable force field gennies running, and those were the real deal, just in case the aliens decided to shoot live lasers their way. Pows, ammo and rations, plus everyone had extra mortar bombs, almost all of them practice ones, of course, but still heavy as fuck.
“And try not to bust yourselves up by tripping on your feet,” Fuller reminded everyone. “You’ll make me look bad, and if you do, you better hope you’re beyond help, because I’ll make the rest of your lives a living hell.”
“Yes, Sergeant.”
Russell glanced around. He couldn’t see the entire company from where he was; the hundred and sixty-something men, women and mechanical cats were spread over along a wide front, strung out in squad-sized clumps. He could see the infantry platoon his squad was attached to; the guys on First Platoon were okay. Not the sharpest crayons in the box, and their Staff Sergeant was a dick, but when it came down to fighting, they’d do their job. Russell’s Guns squad would add its firepower to the mix, for as long as their ammo lasted. The 15mm ALS-43 burp-gun in each fireteam could go through a battle load in a few minutes of sustained fire. They were bringing a lot more than that, but you could never have enough. Fake ammo or not, running dry meant losing.
The sky above was light green, just like in dozens of other worlds he’d visited. He knew it was fake, but it looked real enough even when he took off his helmet and looked at it with his naked eyes. At least the atmo was breathable for both humans and Lampreys according to the briefing; must have taken some work to get the mixture just right. Gravity was .97 Earth-normal, just between the human and tango comfort levels. The trees and dirt in front of him looked natural and alive, even though they probably had been force-grown just for this exercise.
The ruins ahead would offer some cover and concealment, but if they were anything like the real thing, they’d also include half-buried cellars that could swallow you whole or break your ankle if you stepped on them, or walls that would collapse on you when the vibrations from a near miss or even your own footsteps tipped them over. More shit to worry about.
Funny how this was just a simulation, but he was as worried as if this was the real deal. Word had come down from higher to do just that, because if they lost, that would mean the local ETs wouldn’t help the US in the war, and that would get more people killed than an actual firefight.
Any game worth playing was worth taking seriously.
* * *
Fromm marched at t
he rear of Charlie Company while monitoring the action.
He was only carrying an extra hundred pounds on his back, mostly because he had to concentrate on the overall situation while he walked, and also so he could move slightly faster that the rest of the company if the situation demanded it. Even so, keeping an eye on the input of his drone overheads, the status of his hundred and seventy personnel, and any possible enemy movement took some doing.
So far, so good. Everyone was moving forward at a steady pace. The Hellcats led the way, also overburdened but still easily able to outpace normal infantry. Fromm had them spread out on a wide front as they advanced in bounding overwatch by squads. Like the cavalry of old, their mission was to scout and if possible seize the high ground before the enemy did.
He sent a few drones forward. The insect-sized robots flew barely above the treetops of the forest running north-south along the western side of their objective, where their minimal energy signatures might escape detection for some crucial seconds. The drones had been instructed to observe and record using passive sensors only, and then to fall back to his position before beaming their observations to him via line-of-sight laser transmitters. Their information would be several seconds old by the time he got it, but that method would spare his limited supply of recon assets from being spotted and destroyed. Lampreys had excellent anti-drone technology; he’d experienced that first-hand at Astarte-Three and Jasper-Five.
Charlie Company covered a couple hundred meters or so, about one fifth of the distance to the objective, before the scouting drones uploaded their report. They’d taken no casualties in their mission, which Fromm took as a good omen. The actual info was even more encouraging.
Warp Marine Corps- The Complete Series Page 77
