Orders of Battle (Frontlines)

by Marko Kloos

  “All right,” Colonel Drake says. “Put me on the 1MC, please.”

  “You are on the 1MC, sir,” the comms officer says.

  “All hands, this is the commander. We are about to make the Alcubierre hop into our target system. I can’t tell you our destination until we’ve completed the transition. But I can tell you that this will not be a training mission. If you hear a Combat Stations alert from here on out, it won’t be a drill. You all know your jobs. Time to put your training to the test. That is all. Commander out.”

  He signals to the comms officer to end the connection. Then he gets up from his chair and walks over to the holotable, where he leans in to study the procession of warships heading for the Alcubierre node.

  “Well,” he says. “If this one goes badly, it won’t be for a lack of firepower. Warm up the Alcubierre drive. Pass the word to the battle group to transition in sequence. Let’s go pick ourselves a fight.”

  I’ve been on shore and in-system duty long enough to have almost forgotten just how much I dislike Alcubierre travel, that peculiar feeling of low-level ache that seems to pull on every bone in the body at the same time like growing pains, that slightly metallic taste in the mouth, and the way everything I touch with my bare hands feels like it’s charged with low levels of electricity. Over the years, I’ve learned that focusing on the weird sensations only makes the trip more unpleasant, and that the best way to ride it out is to find some vigorous physical activity that occupies the body and takes the mind off the odd sensory dissonance.

  When we transition into Alcubierre for our six-hour dash, I leave the CIC and head down to my quarters to change into exercise gear. Then I make my way to the officer gym that’s set up next to the racetrack around the nuclear missile silos.

  NACS Washington is brand-new, and so is her workout equipment. The officer gym is well stocked with the latest in strength and cardio machinery. But I am not a fan of the weight stations or the rowing machines because I don’t like repetitive workouts. Instead, I either run around the track or work on the heavy boxing bag, depending on my mood for the day.

  Today, I want to punch something, but when I put on my wraps and bag gloves and walk into the gym, the heavy bag is already in use. Lieutenant Colonel Campbell has beaten me down to the facility, and she is working the bag methodically, with a quick rotation of jabs, crosses, and body punches. She has her back turned to me, and there’s a dark sweat stain on her workout shirt already. We’re alone for now, and there’s plenty more I could be doing while she’s taking up the bag, but I don’t want to undo my wraps and take off the gloves again just to do a few sets of pull-ups or bench presses. Instead, I walk over to one of the wall mirrors and start shadowboxing, shuffling stances and exhaling loudly with each flurry of punches to make the XO aware that someone else may want to get some bag work in.

  After a while, I work through my combinations slowly to check my form while I watch Lieutenant Colonel Campbell in the mirror to observe her skills. She is giving the heavy bag a mauling with her hard-hitting crosses and hooks, and the bag is jingling loudly with each blow as it jumps at the end of its chain attachment under the barrage. Now that she’s just in her formfitting workout shirt, I can tell that the XO has quite a bit of muscle on her tall frame—not the flashy bulk from lots of lifting, but the lean and defined kind that comes from throwing lots of punches at heavy things for years. Campbell has her long hair tied back into a loose ponytail that bounces with every set of blows she lays into the bag. It’s a large bag, forty or fifty kilos at least, but she hits it hard enough that she has to interrupt her combos and reposition herself every few seconds because her force is making the bag swing out of her reach.

  I walk over to the bag stand and grab the bag with both arms as it swings toward me. Then I plant my feet and cup the bottom of the bag with my gloves to hold it in position for the XO, a common courtesy for another boxer wanting to do more efficient bag work without having to chase the bag around.

  She pauses for a moment as I position myself, then she continues her combination of punches. Her jabs are light, but every time she hauls off with a right cross or a hook, she puts all her weight into the strike, and the force travels all the way through the bag and makes me widen my stance and lower my center of gravity to avoid getting knocked back. Lieutenant Colonel Campbell is quick, strong, and sure-footed, and she keeps up her guard perfectly even as she is getting winded. After a while of gauging her technique and taking the full force of her hits, I conclude that I only have a few centimeters of reach and maybe twenty kilos of weight on her, and if we went at it in the ring, she’d be a pretty tough opponent.

  I hold the bag for her, expecting her to get tired out quickly by the relentless pace of her punches. But I keep an eye on the time readout on the bulkhead, and she keeps up her intensive tempo for five minutes, shuffling stances in between her attack flurries, breathing hard but never dropping her arms from their guard position whenever she isn’t striking the bag. Finally, she steps back a little, bends over with her gloves on her knees, and lets her breath slow down for a few moments.

  “Your turn,” she says.

  I take up the challenge and move in front of the bag while she replicates my assist position, still breathing hard, her face shiny with sweat and her workout shirt soaked.

  Anything worth doing is worth overdoing, I think, and check the tightness of my gloves’ wrist straps. Then I lift my hands into guard position and start my own bag workout.

  It doesn’t take long for me to fall into my usual rhythm of combinations. I hadn’t intended to go all-out this afternoon, but the XO set the bar high with her own workout, and after my dressing-down by her after the briefing, I don’t want to give her the satisfaction of knowing that she worked up more of a sweat than I did. So I do my best to return the favor and try to knock her back with the punches I am driving into the bag, probing jabs followed by hard right crosses that make the bag’s attachment chain chime brightly in the otherwise silent gym. I focus on my breathing and synchronize it with my punches, exhaling to empty my lungs every time I drive home one of my strikes.

  Lieutenant Colonel Campbell widens her own stance and leans into the bag, but I can tell that she’s barely holding on to the weight as I drive a successively heavier series of combinations into the bag, again and again. Before she can lose her footing, I back off a little and switch to quick jabs, satisfied that I managed to move her a few centimeters. It feels good to let off a little bit of steam in a sanctioned way after getting chewed out by the XO. It’s a long-standing tradition that rank doesn’t count during martial arts practice, and I don’t have to give deference to her insignia or her status while we are both wearing gloves and engaging in a voluntary contest out here in the gym.

  My five minutes at the bag seems like two hours. I make myself stay on the offense for the same length of time as she did, but my arms feel like pudding and my lungs are burning long before my time runs out. I know that the fatigue is showing on my face and in the increasing slowness of my movements just like it did with her, but I don’t want to show any weakness in front of the XO. When the counter ticks over the five-minute mark, I put in another fifteen seconds for good measure and then lower my gloves, standing hunched over to catch my breath.

  “Thanks for the spotting,” Campbell says. “You punch hard. But you drop your arms too much in between combinations. Especially when you get tired. Watch out if you decide to go looking for sparring partners down in Grunt Country. Lots of young and strong SI corporals who’d be happy to put a podhead officer on his ass in front of everyone.”

  “I know my limits,” I say in between panting breaths.

  She smiles curtly and undoes her bag gloves, then pulls them off her hands with her teeth. There’s a towel on a workout bench nearby, and she walks over to it to pick it up and wipe her face. Then she nods at me and walks out of the gym without another word, leaving me to catch my breath and slow down my heart rate to normal again.


  Now that I am alone in the gym, I have my pick of equipment without having to wait a turn or spot for someone first, but the burst of intense, violent focus has used up my stamina reserves and turned my muscles into aching jelly. The exercise has served its purpose, however—I can’t feel the Alcubierre discomfort anymore underneath the fatigue, and for a little while, I wasn’t thinking about the fact that we are moving a tenth of a light-year farther away from Earth and Halley with every passing minute.

  CHAPTER 12

  CAPELLA, REVISITED

  “General quarters, general quarters. All hands, man your combat stations. Set material condition Zebra throughout the ship. This is not a drill.”

  I’ve been drawing looks from some of the new lieutenants in the CIC ever since I walked in wearing my bug suit. Now I complete the ensemble by putting on my helmet and sealing it to the collar flange. Everyone else in the CIC is wearing standard Fleet vacsuits over their regular uniforms, but SOCOM personnel and SI troops put on their battle armor for general quarters. If something goes wrong and we have to take to the pods, there will be no time to change into armor, and a grunt without battle armor is useless in space or on the ground. When I turn on my helmet and activate the heads-up display, I know that I must look alien and intimidating to the new Fleet officers. The bug suit is shiny and black like an insect carapace when the polychromatic camouflage is turned off, and the helmet has no face shield or visor because those are unnecessary weak spots, useless in the hypercapnic atmospheres of Lanky-occupied moons and planets where they would fog up almost instantly in the warm, carbon-dioxide-rich air.

  Big, imperialist insect, I think as I settle back in my chair and buckle into my seat harness, and a smile crosses my face when the voice in my head has a strong Russian accent. I haven’t seen my friend Dmitry since we fought together on Mars, but we’ve exchanged messages over the last few years, and I know that he’s the SRA equivalent of a sergeant major now, the highest rung he can climb on the noncommissioned officer ladder. Like Master Sergeant Leach back at the training base in Iceland, Dmitry thinks I am a complete idiot for letting the Corps promote me into the officer ranks, and I stopped disagreeing a long time ago.

  “Transitioning out of Alcubierre in T-minus five,” the XO says from her seat next to the command chair, where Colonel Drake is observing the proceedings.

  The situational display above the plot table is empty except for the icon for Washington in the center because sensors and radar don’t work in the superluminal space-time bubble of an active Alcubierre drive, and the distances involved would be too vast for the ship’s sensors anyway. If all the other ships of the task force followed their orders and transitioned in the right intervals, we have fifteen craft traveling in the chute behind us, one every two-tenths of a light-year, strung out in a very long line that would take years to cover at subluminal speeds outside of Alcubierre. But there’s no way to verify their presence until they start to emerge from the chute after us in a few minutes. Alcubierre travel is like driving in a straight line in the middle of the night with the headlights off and the windows darkened and hitting the brakes at exactly the right fraction of a millisecond to come to a stop at the intended destination.

  “All departments report ready for action, sir,” Lieutenant Colonel Campbell says.

  “Very well,” Colonel Drake replies. “Once we are in-system, ping Nashville and make sure the neighborhood is still clear. Low-power tight beam. Other than that, full EMCON on the comms and main sensors. I don’t want anything else broadcasting outside of the hull.”

  “Cincinnati said there’s nothing stirring within five light-minutes of the node,” the XO says. “I wonder why the Lankies aren’t keeping an eye on the back door. They have got to know where it is by now.”

  “They’ve had the system to themselves for almost twelve years,” Colonel Drake says. “Maybe they get complacent just like humans.”

  Lieutenant Colonel Campbell shoots me a glance as if she expects me to challenge the commander’s ad hoc hypothesis. I take advantage of the opaque nature of my bug suit helmet and pretend that I am not noticing her pointed look in my direction. The chip on her shoulder is still firmly lodged there even after our training session together. I don’t know why she dislikes me, but I suspect that her issues go beyond the fact that I spoke out of turn in the command staff meeting.

  I watch the mission clock tick down to the transition, one second at a time, minute by long minute. Coming out of Alcubierre is always a relief because the unpleasant sensations of superluminal travel go away, and it’s always a source of anxiety at the same time because of the chance for an ambush or a collision as we emerge from the far end of the transit chute. The chance of instant death is small, but it exists, and I usually close my eyes and think of Halley when we exit from Alcubierre.

  “Ten seconds until transition,” the lieutenant at the helm announces on the 1MC. “Seven. Six. Five . . .”

  When the countdown ends and we come out of Alcubierre, it feels like the world that has been slightly out of calibration for the last six hours shifts back into its proper phase. I sit in my chair with my eyes closed, savoring the feeling of mild discomfort leaving my body.

  “Alcubierre transition complete,” the helmsman says. “All systems in the green. Executing exit turn to portside, ninety degrees by positive forty-five, ahead one-quarter gravity.”

  “Astrogation, confirm our position, please,” Colonel Drake says.

  “Aye, sir. Stand by for astrogation fix.”

  The astrogation officer brings up his console and activates data fields. A few moments later, the situational orb in the center of the command pit has a new star chart overlay, and the celestial bodies in the sector flash on one by one as the positioning system gets a fix on our surroundings.

  “We are on the far end of the Alcubierre chute in the Capella A system, sir. Right where we are supposed to be.”

  “Signal Nashville and check in,” Colonel Drake says. “And open the 1MC for me.”

  “You’re on the 1MC, sir,” the comms officer says. All around me, the CIC personnel resume their activities as we all let out a collective breath of relief.

  “All hands, this is the commander. We have completed our transition. Welcome to the Capella system. We are the first Fleet task force to enter this sector in twelve years. As you go about your duties, never lose sight of the fact that we are now on the enemy’s turf. This is hostile space. Do not get complacent. We are far from home, and if we get ourselves into a tangle, backup will be a very long way off, too far away to make a difference. Stay sharp and remain focused. And if you hear a general quarters alert, move to your combat stations like your lives depend on it, because they will. Commander out.”

  “Tight-beam signal from Nashville, sir.”

  “Put it on the overhead,” Colonel Drake orders.

  “Aye, sir.”

  “Washington, Nashville,” the voice from the scout corvette says. “Welcome to Capella. The neighborhood is quiet. Stand by to receive current recon data upload.”

  “Nashville, Washington Actual,” Colonel Drake replies. “We are ready for your upload.”

  On the plot, a blue icon appears thirty thousand kilometers in front of us. A second or two later, a label appears that marks the new contact as “OCS-9 NASHVILLE.” Our stealth ship is coasting slowly through space without burning her drive. With her light-absorbing black paint and her lack of active emissions, she is silent and invisible even to the passive sensors of the carrier. Only the active data link makes Nashville’s position on the plot unambiguous for now, and I know that as soon as the signal ends, the stealth corvette will disappear from the plot again.

  “New contact, bearing two hundred by zero. Contact is friendly. Johannesburg is through the chute, sir,” the tactical officer says.

  “Signal them to double their clearance for follow-up traffic. We have a lot more hardware coming up from behind.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  On
the plot, Johannesburg’s icon appears behind our portside stern and immediately makes a turn to starboard, mirroring our own maneuver to the other side of the transit node until the two carriers are facing in opposite directions, opening up the space between them to make room for the armada that is about to appear in that spot one by one for the next thirty minutes.

  I shift my attention back to the console screen at my station and tap into the optical feed, then I cycle through the views until I’ve found the system suns. Capella A is a binary system, but the two stars at its center orbit each other so closely that they look like a single star most of the time. I last saw the pale-yellow light of this binary star twelve years ago, when I was serving on NACS Versailles on my first spaceborne deployment, with Halley on the same ship as a junior drop-ship pilot. The thought of Halley makes me feel a pang of something like homesickness, but it’s not exactly the yearning for a place. We escaped death and beat the odds together here, with almost no experience and a lot of dumb luck. It was the cornerstone of our relationship and everything that followed, though—our eventual marriage and our long campaign against the Lankies. Being here without her doesn’t feel quite right. This is the place where we became an us. Returning here by myself feels like I am about to overwrite that memory with new ones. Masoud couldn’t have known the history of our relationship before Arcadia, but I resent him for this anyway. I’m certain I would have turned down the job if I had known where it would take me, back here where my life really began. If I die here, Halley will be alone, and the last twelve years will be undone, and now that my mother is gone, my wife’s memories will be the only evidence of my existence.