Issue In Doubt

by David Sherman

  It took nearly two weeks of hard negotiating, but everybody eventually settled for double the normal fees. Both the European Union and the South Asian Cooperative felt it was in their interest to aid the NAU in paying the higher fees. After all, whoever those aliens were, they probably had EU or SAC colonies in their sights—possibly even Earth.

  Greater Eurasia broke the news publicly, so President Mills hastily convened a press conference to inform the world at large of what was known about the invasion, and what the NAU was doing about it.

  Austro-Pacifica, the Caliphate, and the Junta were considerably put off by not having been notified earlier. But they got over it. Then everybody settled back to watch developments.

  Military staffs require constant work. If they aren’t planning or running an actual mission, they are making contingency plans. So after standing up the VII Corps (reinforced), the Joint Chiefs’ staff began planning to stand up the Second Army, which would be the largest military force to be assembled under one commander in centuries. Second Army would consist of four Army corps, each with three combined arms divisions. Two Marine Combat Forces were designated to fill out the Second Army. In addition to transport ships, the Navy would provide a battle group with three carriers, each with four atmospheric combat squadrons and two space combat squadrons; a mix of thirty combat ships; cruisers, destroyers, frigates, and—perhaps most important—three dreadnoughts. The Navy didn’t have enough transport shipping to carry Second Army with all of its heavy weapons, and other equipment and supplies, so they assumed that they’d have to commandeer a full quarter, perhaps more, of the NAU’s civilian space fleets. Not an eventuality anybody looked forward to.

  They issued a training order: Stand up the Third Marine Combat Force and XII Corps. After all, there was a possibility, no matter how remote, that the VII Corps (Rein) might run into more than it could handle on its own. Together, the Third MCF and XII Corps would form the core of Second Army.

  Second-level navy staffers began back channel negotiations with their counterparts in the major supra-nationals that had navies to possibly enlist their aid in transporting a larger force should it prove to be necessary. All hypothetically, of course.

  Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, California, North American Union

  The Marines of the First Marine Division, the ground combat element of the First Marine Combat Force, were resplendent in their dress blues as they marched, battalion by battalion, onto the parade ground and formed into three infantry regiments, each with three independent battalions; a light armored infantry regiment; an artillery regiment with three medium gun battalions and one heavy; another regiment included three armored amphibious battalions, one armored, one reconnaissance, and the division’s headquarters battalion. The division band followed, its drummers beating a tattoo as the regiments and battalions marched in. Twenty-two thousand, five hundred and seventy-five Marines in all. All were armed save the musicians; most with rifles carried at right shoulder arms, the others with sidearms holstered on their belts. As each battalion reached its designated position in the formation, their commanding officers called out, “Order, arms!” and as one, the rifles flashed off the Marines’ shoulders to be positioned alongside their right trouser seams. Sunlight glinted off the brass of the Marines’ buttons and emblems. The splashes of color on the left chest of their stock-collared jackets were the ribbons that told a Marine’s history.

  Major General Hugh Purvis, the division’s commanding general, stepped onto the reviewing stand and stopped front and center to face his Marines. He took a moment to look them over. More than a quarter of them had no decoration on their uniform jackets other than rank insignia and marksmanship badges. Half or more of the Marines had one or more medals; the Good Conduct Medal, perhaps one or two deployment medals, indicating whatever peacekeeping or humanitarian aid deployments they’d been on. Fewer than a quarter of them had the expeditionary or campaign medals that showed they’d gone in harm’s way. Not all of those wore the Combat Action Ribbon on their right chests, to demonstrate that they’d come under enemy fire. Fewer than one in ten of the Marines who’d gone in harm’s way wore the decorations awarded for heroism in the face of the enemy.

  Internally, Purvis sighed. Not one in five of his Marines had looked into the mouth of the cat. He and his officers and senior NCOs had done their best to train the Marines. But had they done enough? Finished scanning his division, Purvis looked directly at the division chief-of-staff, Brigadier General James Dougherty, who stood on the parade ground before the reviewing stand.

  Dougherty raised his right hand to the gleaming black bill of his barracks cover. “Sir,” his amplified voice boomed out loudly enough to be heard even in the rear ranks of the division, “First Marine Division, all present and accounted for!”

  Purvis brought his right hand up sharply in salute, held it for a beat, and cut sharply. Dougherty cut his, then marched to the side of the reviewing stand and mounted it to stand to the left and rear of his commander.

  “Marines!” Purvis said, his amplified voice easily reaching everyone in the formation before him. “You have heard on the news, a colony world allied with the North American Union has been attacked.” He paused a beat, then continued. “It’s true. And it is true that the attackers were an alien sentience—that is, not human. It’s also true that it appears that the entire population of Semi-Autonomous World Troy has been killed or taken prisoner. All attempts to contact the authorities, or anybody else, on Troy since the initial alert of an attack have met with failure. We do not know who attacked Troy, or in what force. Nor do we know the strength of any force presently occupying the planet.

  “The First Marine Division has been selected to establish a planethead on Troy, to kick in the door to allow the Army to land and retake the planet. We will be supported in this endeavor by the First Combat Support Brigade, and, once we secure space for their operations, the Second Marine Air Wing will fly cover for us.

  “We will take this planethead against a foe of unknown strength, with unknown defensive capabilities. We are Marines. We will do it. No enemy has ever successfully withstood us when we attempted to establish a beachhead—or planethead.

  “When you return to your barracks, you will be briefed on everything we know about the alien enemy. We are going to respond with full force, and defeat them.

  “We begin embarking on Navy shipping in three days.

  “We are Marines! We always win. Semper Fi!”

  As one, the men and women of the First Marine Division roared out, “Ooh-rah!”

  As the last echoes finished reverberating across the parade ground, he said, “That is all.”

  Dougherty stepped forward and called out, “Pass in review!”

  The division band began playing, its drums, brasses, and skirting bagpipes sounding the chords of The Marine Corps Hymn. Battalion by battalion, the 22,575 Marines raised their rifles to right shoulder arms, columned to the right, marched to the end of the parade ground, turned left and left again, to pass before the reviewing stand, their arms and legs flashing metronomically.

  Fort Bragg, North Carolina, North American Union

  Lieutenant General Joel H. Lyman’s chest swelled with pride as he watched the VII Corps assemble. His VII Corps! Four divisions strong; the 2nd, the 9th, the 25th, and the 106th. Three of the divisions each had three brigades, the 25th Division had four. Each brigade had one infantry battalion, leg or mounted, one armored battalion, heavy or light, and an artillery battalion. One brigade in each division had a fourth battalion, three of the extra battalions were aviation, the fourth was rocket. And there were the brigades directly under the Corps: engineers, signals, Rangers, military police, and medical. Eighty-five thousand soldiers, his to lead into combat.

  Lyman had great confidence in his troops. He knew that he, his generals, their officers and senior noncoms had done an exemplary job of training the soldiers of the VII Corps. He and his corps were ready to take on and defeat anybody who
dared oppose them!

  He watched his eighty-five thousand soldiers take to the parade ground in their camouflaged war dress. The camouflage pattern was designed to trick the eye into not making out details, or even forms. As he looked out over his corps, except for the faces, he was unable to distinguish individual soldiers; the camouflage pattern blurred them together. Indeed, at the farther edges of the mass formation, the soldiers effectively disappeared from his sight—save for their bare faces.

  “Soldiers!” Lyman said in a firm voice, picked up by repeating amplifiers so that every soldier could hear it no matter where in the formation he stood, and never boomed out. “Your time for training is over, now it is time to put your training to work in war. You’ve heard by now that Troy has been invaded by aliens! We don’t know who these aliens are, where they came from, or why they attacked without warning. But that lack of knowledge won’t stop us, won’t slow us down in our mission to kick them off a human world, and teach them that when they decided to tangle with h. sapiens, they bit off more than they can chew!

  “You, the officers and men of the VII Corps, are beyond doubt the best led, best trained, most prepared, and best armed military force in history. You are going to perform splendidly, and wipe those aliens off all human worlds!

  “When you are dismissed, you will spend the next week learning everything we know about the aliens, what they’ve done, and how we are going to deal with them when we reach Troy.” He paused and, with a chuckle, added, “The Marines are going in first, to be our doormen.”

  Then more firmly, almost solemnly, “That is all.”

  Battalion by battalion, regiment by regiment, division by division, with the division and brigade bands playing When the Caissons Go Rolling Along, the soldiers of VII Corps passed in review. Lieutenant General Lyman saluted each division’s, each regiment’s, each independent battalion’s colors as it passed in front of the reviewing stand.

  Chapter Seven

  Barracks, Company I, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines, MCB Camp Pendleton, California, NAU

  “Jesus H....” Lance Corporal Mackie whispered.

  “No screaming shit,” Corporal Adriance whispered back.

  Master Sergeant Thomas W. Kates from 3rd Battalion’s S2 section, intelligence, had just shown them the vids of the attack on Troy, and was now standing next to the projector on the company classroom’s small stage, silently looking at the Marines as they digested what they’d just seen. The company’s officers and senior NCOs stood stone-faced at the rear of the classroom—they’d already seen the vids and been briefed. Some of the Marines sitting on the benches facing the stage were likewise stone faced—they were mostly squad leaders, although some were fire team leaders, or even junior enlisted. Many, including a couple of the squad leaders, looked appalled, or even frightened. The eyes of a few glowed with the excitement of facing a new and horrible enemy, eager to test themselves.

  After a moment Kates spoke calmly. “Nobody knows who they are, where they came from, or why they attacked.” That was a statement that had been made many times, at every command level since the word of the attack on Troy was first given by Fleet Admiral Welborn and Commandant Talbot to Lieutenant General Bauer and his top staff. The same statement Jacob Raub had given to the group assembled by Secretary of War Richmond Hobson. The same given by Lieutenant General Lyman to his staff and subordinate commanders. And that statement would be repeated many more times, by officer and enlisted, Marine to Marine, soldier to soldier, sailor to sailor, until nearly all were sick of hearing it.

  “All we know for certain,” Kates continued, “is they attacked without warning. The defenders of Troy managed to send off these vids and some text messages via hyperspace drone.” He paused for a beat before saying, “We haven’t heard anything more from them.”

  A soft buzz broke out as Marines whispered to each other.

  “As you were, people!” Kates shouted over the susurration. The Marines quieted and returned their attention to him. “I’m sure most of you are aware of the fact that in human exploration of the galaxy we have discovered evidence of at least seventeen civilizations that have been destroyed by someone, or something. Totally wiped out. And I’m sure you’re wondering if the aliens who attacked Troy are the same aliens responsible for those destructions.” He took a deep breath before shaking his head. “We don’t know. Actually, there’s very little we do know that isn’t in the vids I just showed you.

  “But there is something more.” He popped out the crystal that held the vids he’d shown them and inserted another one. “Shortly after the initial data came in from Troy, the Combined Chiefs sent a Force Recon mission to Troy to find out what the situation was. An entire Force Recon Platoon, forty Marines, made planetfall in eight different locations. These are the recordings they returned. Not the entire recordings, mostly just the parts that show the aliens. I’ve left out the audio on these recordings.” He pressed the “play” button and stepped aside so he wouldn’t obstruct anybody’s view.

  The first images that flickered across the screen showed the cityscape of Millerton in the middle- and background, with the idle McKinzie Elevator Base in the foreground.

  “Where is everybody?” someone asked, just loudly enough to be heard by most of the Marines in the classroom.

  They watched as four Marines in hard-to-focus-on cammies headed for the base of the elevator and the control building. The picture abruptly jumped to show feathery, beaked creatures jinking and jagging toward the cams, firing weapons as they ran. A Marine watching the vid gasped. On the screen, some of the aliens dropped, shot by the Marines recording their charge. Then the aliens were on the Marines, and the vid cut off, to be replaced by the view of a similar attack somewhere else.

  By now most of the Marines were shouting, and many were on their feet, leaning forward, hands clenching as though grasping weapons, looking like they were about to charge the aliens. Someone vomited when a cam’s pickup was spattered with blood.

  “You’re cleaning that up, Marine!” First Sergeant Robinson barked. He let everyone react to the vids of the Force Recon Marines losing their fights for a moment or two longer, than ordered, “Seats! And shut up! Pay attention so you can learn what we’re going up against.”

  Less quickly than they had quieted when Kates had ordered them to when they learned that there hadn’t been any other reports from the people on Troy, the Marines settled back onto their benches and resumed intently watching the scenes unfolding in front of them.

  The intelligence NCO let the vids run their course, from all eight of the squads, ending with the capture of the alien. When Kates resumed his position on the stage and looked at them, he saw something different from what he had before. This time some were angry, others stunned. Then he hit them with what he knew would be a real shocker.

  “Eight Force Recon squads landed on Troy. Only one made it offworld with only one dead. Two didn’t make it off at all, because all five Marines in each of those squads were killed.” That drew gasps; Force Recon hardly ever lost anyone, they were too good at snooping and pooping.

  “Now you have a good idea of what we’re up against, so I’ll give you back to your officers and senior NCOs. Captain Sitter?”

  “Thank you, Master Sergeant,” the company commander said as he marched to the front of the classroom and mounted the stage.

  “Thank you, sir,” Kates said, and left the classroom. He had to give the same presentation to another company.

  “Now you know everything that I know about the aliens.” Sitter looked over his company. “Make no mistake, we’re likely going to be in the toughest fight any of us has ever seen, maybe the toughest since the world wars of the twentieth century.”

  Alpha Troop Barracks, 1st of the 7th Mounted Infantry, Fort Bragg, North Carolina, NAU

  Second Lieutenant Theodore W. Greig carefully watched his men from his position at the side of the classroom while they watched the vids of the attack on Troy. He and the other officers o
f Alpha Troop had already seen them at an officers’ call at Tenth Brigade’s headquarters. He didn’t know whether the troops would also be shown the vids from the Marine Force Recon mission. He hoped that collection of vids wouldn’t be shown until the troops were aboard the Navy transports and on their way to Troy. Not that he thought any of the soldiers would desert if they saw those vids, but he thought it was better if they saw them on the way, psych them up for the coming mission when there’s no possibility of finding a way to get out of it.

  The vids of the attack stopped and Captain Henry C. Meyer, Alpha Troop’s commanding officer, took the stage.

  “Men,” he said, “as you just saw, we are going up against a manic alien enemy. Nobody knows who they are, where they came from, or why they attacked without warning.” He didn’t know how many times that sentence had been said by officers and noncoms throughout VII Corps, and wouldn’t have cared if he did—it bore repetition, and he was certain he’d say it many times more.

  “It doesn’t matter how manic these aliens are. The Marines are going in first to secure a planethead for us. Let me guarantee you, after those aliens chew up the Marines and spit out their bones, they’re going to find out what a real fighting force is like. We will make them regret they ever attacked Troy.

  There were hoots and catcalls at mention of the Marines. “Hey diddle-diddle, straight up the middle!” one soldier called out. “Show offs!” another shouted. “Marines!” someone cried, and gave a Bronx cheer. “Better them than us,” a more thoughtful soldier said quietly.

  Captain Meyer let them go for a moment, barely repressing a smile. “All right, all right,” he said at last, “quiet down and listen up. Now, all intelligence services, both military and civilian, are working hard and fast to learn everything they can about this enemy. As we learn more, you will be told everything you need to know to help us defeat them. When you are dismissed, you will return to your quarters and prepare to move out. We will be heading into space via the elevators in Kenya.”