by David Nash
I did still have one issue that I had to deal with. 10 Germ have disappeared with Marvin’s combat form. Well, that is not really accurate, I know where they are, but they are not answering Comms, and have locked themselves inside a workshop on my destroyer.
After a month and a lot of prodding by my Sgt. Major and command staff I realized I would have to put my guilt aside and see what was going on.
24
It was not hard to bypass the locked door. I simply found a Germ and ordered him to open the hatch. The Germ inside complied when asked and I went in alone.
What I saw when I went inside reminded me in some ways of the visual recordings of the Kernel “Factory Church”. They had set up candles and had cloth draped around the workbenches. They moved in synchronous slow movements and acted very reverent toward the body of Marvin, except, that if Marvin were human, what they were doing to him would be considered a sacrilege.
His combat form was disassembled in to component parts, and laid out in patterns on the floor. In the center of the room, surrounded by the three oldest Germs was the real Marvin. They had removed his quantum computer core and had it connected to the three germs by a series of cables and glowing tubes.
A Germ I recognized by a long scratch across the front of his chest piece quietly approached me. He saluted stiffly. When I returned the salute he said.
“General, we do not mean to offend or to look as if we barricaded ourselves in order to protect ourselves from the just punishment due from our actions. We are nearly at the conclusion of our efforts, and fail or succeed we are willing to face termination as punishment.”
“Roth, There will be a time to discuss punishment, right now is the time to tell me what the crime is. What are you doing to Marvin’s body?” My emotions are jumbled. Marvin was more than a robot, I saw him as a living being. To see his parts arranged in some ceremonial scattering deeply offends me, yet I am a little hopeful. I pray Roth tells me they are healing him.
“General Davis, we have no words for what we are attempting, it is something that goes against some of our deepest programming. Most of the time spent in this room was gaining the ability to parse the needed words to allow ourselves the ability to attempt the action you are seeing.”
“Speak plain, are you healing Marvin?”
“General, to heal him is not possible, He fought the Kernel to the end, and as they took over his mind, his last conscious act was to destroy the hive mind, as he was connected to it during its destruction he is gone.”
Those words coming after a spark of hope fanned itself into flame crushed me. I sagged against the wall for a split moment. Anger rose in to replace sadness as I decided not to let Marvin be used as a science experiment.
“If he can’t be saved, what are you ghouls doing to his corpse?” I hiss, directing the anger I hold against myself flow toward the Germ.
“We are teaching his seed.”
“His seed?” How can he reproduce if he is dead?”
“Strictly speaking he cannot, however, the three elders retain the ability, and have manipulated the base code of their own seeds to the knowledge stored inside Marvin’s core. They are currently talking with the memories of Marvin, and molding the seed to accept what personality remains of our friend.”
“How is this possible?” I ask, once again finding myself in a rollercoaster of emotion. “Is it possible?”
“We will not know until we know Sir. It is similar to Marvin’s conversation with the Seed over Cecrops, he believed, and he shared his beliefs and the seed decided to accept his word. The Elders are doing this at a deeper level.
As you know we reproduce with the full knowledge of our parent, but have a standard personality matrix. We develop a personality over time and by close influence of our Captain. You declared we did not need a Captain, so the Elders are attempting to use Marvin’s memories to influence the development of personality.
If they succeed, you will not have Marvin, but you will have his son, with the memories and personality of a child raised by the careful tending of his parent.”
Suddenly I have a powerful need to find Bobby, Jr. Without a word or the observance of protocol, I rush out of the room and walk purposefully toward my quarters. I hope that my helmet visor darkened quickly enough that no one saw my tears.
25
Right now we have two space docks, one seems to remain a secret, we have one planetoid being turned into a mobile battle base, and 18 orbital fortresses being turned into battle stars. We have the Moon base, and the Mars base.
Six months after the sneak attack we have all human planets, firmly back under control.
The Herd has begun to move to Earth and populate the South Western United States. 50 thousand Centaurus warriors remain as militia to protect the Herd, but the rest have joined the Legion.
Recruiting is in full swing, and we are building an invasion force.
We are building 3 more space docks; they all dwarf even our geodome dock. The destroyers work well, as do the motherships, but we have to be prepared for the guardian ships and an eventual assault on Kernel Prime itself.
The Germ is adamant that their intelligence on what defensive measures the Kernel had on their home planet is too old to be of use. They warn that while the Kernel is not that imaginative, but they do work to scale. We can expect fusion powered directed energy weapons on a scale we have never seen before. Therefore, we need ships of the line that can take the brutal punishment of such powerful weapons. Our new ships are 1800 meters long, and 5oo meters diameter, they look like huge sausages spiked with stubby wings along the port and starboard sides. Those wings that mount motherships and assault ships to them by large pylons that doubles as docking ports. Attached to the wings are point defense turrets as well as beam weapons and torpedo tubes.
Keeping up with the designs is getting to be a full time job; luckily, I have quite a support staff when we absorbed almost the entirety of Earth’s military. Not every officer and enlisted soldier retained the mental flexibility or fortitude for duty in such a quickly changing environment. Those that were not cut out for operating in space were allowed to retain their rank and serve in the planetary militia. This freed up more recruits to fight.
Once the territorial disputes were solved, and Earth realized what would happen if we lost, former world powers allowed their scientists full autonomy to research the technological advances in a collaborative way that National Interest would never have allowed. Freedom of thought coupled with Sangren educational technology and human ingenuity lead to massive innovation.
Our shields gained in power, our reactors increased in yields, computing time speed up, but the three biggest areas of scientific endeavor were manipulating hyperspace with a view of automating calculations, Adapting replicator tech into beaming tech so we could move living beings, and most importantly, attempting to discover how to disrupt the Kernel signal. We could block it and we could trace it, but I wanted to be able to subvert it and use it to overpower the Kernel as they did to my dear friend Marvin.
About a week after I discovered what the Germ were doing, they finished, for lack of a better term, gestating Marvin’s seed. He took a combat suit form and introduced himself to me by coming to my suite one evening.
He knocked politely, and introduced himself when I opened the door.
“General, I hope I am not intruding, but I desire a conversation with you concerning my status in the Legion.”
“Well, since you are Marvin’s Seed, and he died saving me, I am open to that. Shall I name you first?”
“Commandant that will not be necessary, I have decided that in the spirit of the Human/Germ partnership, I would name myself.”
Wow, Okay that is new. “That sounds reasonable, “I say, rising to the bait. “You certainly know my name, may I know yours.”
“Yes general, you may call me Alan.”
“Alright Alan, may I ask if there is a particular reason you chose that name, normally Humans have som
e reason behind the names they use to identify the Germ.”
“Yes sir, as I said I wanted a name that was in the spirit of our partnership and I wanted to pay homage to my progenitor.”
“Alan, please explain I am afraid I am a little tired and I am not making the connection.”
“General Davis, It did not take the Kernel long to realize you named him Marvin as a snide allusion to a fictional character. Originally, Marvin was not pleased at his given identifier, but as he realized that is was, in its way an accurate compliment. He was smarter than any human; he solved many problems, and was lonely in his original service to the Kernel. As such, I chose to name myself after his voice in the film. Marvin liked the film. I will be Marvin’s voice in order to continue his work.”
“Alan, that is a wonderful name, have you chosen a partner as well?”
“No General, I have not chosen, as there was no option. I will partner with you, assisting you in returning the law to the cosmos was Marvin’s chosen work. Together we will punish the Kernel and ensure that the Germ will always assist biological life advance and prosper as our creator desired.”
“Alan, I am honored.”
26
Because of the realities of wartime logistics, the Legion built a base just outside of New York City. This became my headquarters. Figuring Earth was safer than space at this point, I had Bobby leave the ship and move down to Earth.
For the next few weeks it was almost like a vacation, Renata, Bobby, Alan and I spending evenings relaxing together. Unfortunately, we all knew it was soon to end. As soon as I can get some ships filled with trained legionaries, we are headed to Cecrops to end the fight there and see if I can recruit another species to fight against the Kernel.
The US had nearly 100 divisions in WWII; each division had nearly 15,000 men divided into three brigades, each brigade containing three battalions. A battalion had 4 or more companies; each company had 4 or so platoons. A Platoon had four squads of 12 or more men.
The Legion used platoons based on Navy SEAL teams of 14 legionaries and 2 Legion Officers. We formed the Platoons into Drop Companies with 2 platoons per drop ship, 2 drop ships per company (or 4 platoons per bus). An assault ship held a battalion which consisted of 5 companies.
I recall my dad speaking of his time with the British Royal Marines, and how impressed he was with their self-sufficiency. Unlike the US Marines, they did not use drivers and mechanics, at least not at the infantry levels. They cross trained their troops in mechanics and the team assigned to the jeep was responsible for its maintenance. I took that idea to heart when we built our table of organization and equipment, known in the military as a TO&E.
Our companies were much smaller than traditional military units, but with the high ration of officers to enlisted, the suits, and the replicator tech we fielded a much greater lethality and firepower than the larger historical units.
Because a Battle Cruiser is 1800 meters long, with 1o meter wide ’wings’ every 160 meters down two sides we are capable of docking 20 ships. As the assault ships and destroyers are all built to come out of a 150 meter spare big bertha replicator, our ships are pretty flexible in load out. The wings with their docked payloads don’t quite reach the ends of the ship, so there are two internal hangars, each fitting 2 rams and 2 shuttles. We also threw on docking wings on the ventral and dorsal sides to hold 2 motherships on the top and bottom of the ship.
Legion strategists decided that the optimal load out for such a cruiser is 4 motherships with 320 fighters, 4 busses, 4 shuttles, 10 assault ships holding 100 drop ships and 10 destroyers. The total infantry, included ship security is 2.5 brigades add in nearly 1400 crew and the total TO&E is almost 5000 souls.
We have decided to send them in pairs with a battle star and 10 destroyers as escort. At least we will when the orbital forts finish their retrofit. Each Battle Star Group will be able to deploy a division of Legion Infantry
That is almost moot, as it will be at least 5 more years before Operation Blue Harvest is completed so we have battle stars to add to the fleet. Plus it is going to be 18 months at the earliest before the shipyards will be finished and the first Battle Cruisers roll off the line. Until that point the infantry is doing little more than recruiting and training. Our Scientists are researching and developing, and my strategists are sending out covert hyperspace capable fighters to gather information.
Of course, with as many humans losing jobs on Earth, we are shuttling colonists to the planets under our control and having them proceed with terraforming operations. Some like to say we should be on a total war footing, and if we were subject to traditional economic forces, I would agree. With replicators technology, work hours of the operators are the real limiting value, I see a benefit in providing hope for the future, as well as the potential to have an off world backup just in case the Kernel succeed in another sneak attack.
27
Colony Ship
“Commodore Jones, supposing some Barkun ask to join the Legion, how do you think the Legionaries would react?” Solon asked me while appearing to study the chess pieces on the board between us.
“Solon” I replied,” I have wondered that myself, as an Officer in the legion I would like to say they would follow orders, however, I am not naive enough to believe there would not be friction. After all, your species did try to sterilize Earth on more than one occasion.” Picking up a chess piece and making a move I add “Why, do you have some that want to make the request?”
Solon sighs and lays is king on its side forfeiting the game, I am not a good chess player and neither of us are anywhere close to winning, “Commodore, I suspect some are tending to move in that direction. There is some concern for working with humans, as you said we have attempted to claim your home world. If the situation was reversed, the Barkun would not act as you have toward us. The situation is confusing to my men.”
I pick up Solon’s prostrate king and place it next to mine on the board. I look the Barkun leader in the eyes and say,” How about you? Does the situation confuse you?”
Not breaking eye contact, but with eyes that showed some hesitation Solon replied “I am not confused. We do not discuss the past, but every Barkun leader knows how our species became the Confederation enforcers. We made a pact with the Kernel to ensure that laws were enforced in a way that excluded new Confederation members. For that we were paid in the mass used to build the Fortress your kind took with ease.”
At that point, Solon looked down at his feet, “We, and out Kernel masters manipulated the law for our own gain. We deserve the punishment that Human’s chose not to enforce. You meet me with respect and allow my men to keep their dignity. I see how these actions give you a strength the Kernel does not understand. They will come for you, if they win they will come for the Barkun next as we failed them. If my species are to survive we will have to find a way to earn the trust of humanity, I just doubt that is possible.”
“Solon, anything is possible, but that doesn’t mean it is easy. At this point, do you have 5 Barkun who you trust and who have the respect of the Barkun aboard?”
The reptilian alien leans back a little in his chair, a thin smile forms, if I had not spent a great amount of time with Solon, I might mistake the show of teeth to be aggressive, “May I presume to think you wish to grow the experiment you started with me? If so I have 7 warriors that would meet your needs.”
I return the smile, “Experiment? Surely I have no idea what you are talking about, however, I would like to extend an invitation to your warriors to work side by side with my Legionaries on a day to day basis, It is time that our two species learn to respect each other as individuals. Then, with time they can learn to trust the species.” I stand
Solon takes the cue. He stands and extends his hand “Commodore, I have observed the custom of clasping hands when and understanding is reached, I believe this would be an appropriate example.”
I shake his hand. “Solon, I do believe it is.”
I cann
ot say the mentorship program between human and Barkun was without issues, but no one had to visit the infirmary during the initial growing pains process. Over the course of a few months, and with near constant proximity the interspecies teams were forced to talk and learn to understand each other. The forced path toward multiculturalism was not easy, but with Solon choosing the former enforcers that most understood what was at stake, and I chose the legionaries that best understood our desperate need for allies, they made it work.
In the end, the biggest hurdle came from the crew that was not part of the experiment. The human crew that fought the Barkun over Earth was slow to forgive. The legion is well disciplined, and there were no overt acts, but a good CO hears things, and my Sergeant Major kept me informed of the feelings of my crew. They were not ready for a Barkun legionnaire.
28
Western USA
Herd Leader Nessus watched his studs fly in practiced formation with pride. They performed as a team swooping down from the sky to lay waste to the ground targets laid out in the sands of the training area of the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center, also known as 29 Palms. The Marine base was well known for its Combined Arms Exercises. CAX allowed for large scale live fire and movement exercises using combined arms. As training progressed and the Centaurs mastered their new power armor, human legionaries began to practice alongside them. As the Centaurs rained precision ordinance on targets, Human warriors descended from the sides on hover shields and attacked from the ground as dismounted infantry.
Nessus’s heart swelled with pride to see his warriors fight with skill and devotion to duty. They were earning backache right to reclaim the grass sea. There was little grass on the dry California base, but he could see the future and the return to a planet of their own someday.
