by Randy Dyess
“Explain myself, sir?”
“Yes, explain yourself!” the major shouted. He walked to a side table and threw back a tarp covering one of the rifles and a .30 caliber machine gun. “What are these and who told you to train our marines to use them? I see nothing in your operation orders allowing something like this.”
“We found the designs in an old manual, sir,” McCoons replied, wondering how much the major knew and where he’d gotten the weapons. “I came up with an idea to train on a few of the weapons, so we could use them in parades and demonstrations—something to make the marines seem more powerful, sir.”
“Not a bad idea, Major,” Colonel Keswick broke in. “The navy always has some kind of demonstration to pull off when appropriations come around. It might help with funding if we had something other than our dress uniforms.”
“Yes, sir,” the major stammered, “but these are not regulation. The sergeant major needs to go through channels to start a program like this on his own. Proper paperwork has to be filled out, Colonel.”
“Sergeant Major McCoons, did you start the paperwork?” Colonel Keswick asked.
“Paperwork, sir. I thought we turned it in,” McCoons lied.
“Lt. Anderson, did you see the paperwork?” Colonel Keswick asked.
“No, sir, I didn’t.”
“Sergeant Major McCoons, the lieutenant says she didn’t see the paperwork. Care to explain?”
“Excuse me, Colonel. All of this about the paperwork does need to be settled,” the major broke in, “but we need to find out what Sergeant Major McCoons was actually doing with the weapons.” Major Chung looked at McCoons before saying, “I went to his little training area out in the desert. I had my aid fire one of these things, and they are a little loud to be used during parades, aren’t they, Sergeant Major?”
“Yes, sir. We haven't figured that out, yet, but we’re working on it.” Major Chung didn’t believe a word he was saying, but the colonel seemed to. Colonel Keswick looked at his comm unit several times during the meeting. He had an appointment with the governor in less than an hour—some corporate bigwig was coming in and the governor wanted Colonel Keswick to organize a parade.
“Sergeant Major McCoons,” the colonel said, “get your unit to pack up these weapons and put them away until we can sort this out. Right now, I need you to prepare your marines for a shine parade tomorrow. An important visitor is coming in and that's what marines are here for—not for playing around with ancient weapon designs. You leave it up to the general to figure out if we need something to spruce up our parades with. I’ll write this up and send it to the general for his consideration. Thank you, Sergeant Major McCoons. That is all.” McCoons knew the Colonel would take credit for the idea, but right now, he didn’t care. He wasn’t sure the colonel would even be around after the spider attack.
He came to attention and was about to salute the colonel and leave his office when Major Chung interrupted. “The sergeant major doesn’t have to worry about having his men go all the way out there to pack up the weapons—I’ve sent a detail to take care of it. They should all be locked in the armory, by now.
“The sergeant major should get ready for the governor’s parade—that’s all his marines are good for, anyway. We can have the general find an actual assault team for the demonstration. I bet Commandant Gainsborough would love for some of his people at the academy to take over this project—let some proper marines show up the navy. The sergeant major and his outer-rim unit do not need to be involved.”
“Very well, I’ll put that in my recommendations. Right now, I have to go to an important meeting,” Colonel Keswick said. “Dismissed.”
This time, Sergeant Major McCoons, Lt. Anderson, and Major Chung came to attention and saluted the colonel before leaving. On the way out the door, Major Chung whispered to Lt. Anderson, “I’m not done with you or the sergeant major. Be in my office once I get back from my meeting.”
McCoons didn’t stop to see if Lt. Anderson wanted to see him or not, and he hurried out the door back to his office. He needed to contact Sergeant Henry and let him know about the weapons and the major.
“He took all of them, Alphus,” was Sergeant Henry’s response. “I’ll go see if Rodney can get into the armory, but right now we have nothing.”
“Damn,” Sergeant Major McCoons said, “those spiders are going to attack any day and that damn major took everything we can use to defend this base. Come on back, Sam. I’m going to round up the others and we’ll figure something out. I heard Lt. Ambrose likes brandy—maybe we can slip a crate his way to get our weapons back.”
“Rodney says he tends to never come into the armory. He might not even need the brandy—Rodney might be able to get him to sign a release form without telling him what he’s signing. It happens all the time.”
“Okay, I’ll ask Rodney about it when he gets back. I doubt he’ll do it when the major is still here, though—that little snot has all the brass worked up.”
“Yes, but there’s a large dinner party after the parade tomorrow, and don’t you think all the brass will be there? It might give us some time to reposition a few of the weapons from the bottom crates. The major never takes the time to open all the crates.”
“Good point. Get back as soon as you can, Sam.”
*****
Private Frans joined the marines five years ago and had spent the whole time in the communications center on Shaserus. He didn’t care—he absolutely loved the marines and the fact he got to sit in a heated and cooled room all day. The captain in charge of the comm center treated him better than his parents had, and the marines fed him three meals each day, plus snacks. He’d been lucky to get one decent meal per day back at home. He had an actual bunk to sleep in every night, even if he shared the barracks with twenty-three other marines. At home, he’d slept in the barn most nights. Yes, he loved the marines and his job in the comm center, sitting and staring at a bunch of monitors for twelve hours each day. The captain didn’t even say anything when he used one of the spare monitors to watch holo-vids while eating popcorn.
After five years of watching satellite feeds showing Shaserus and the empty space around the planet, it came as a surprise when, one by one, his monitors went blank. “Captain,” Private Frans said, “there’s something wrong, sir. All the feeds went blank.”
Captain Ogden put down his data pad and looked up. “Did you run a diagnostic?”
“I’ve never run one of those before, sir. I’m not sure I know how.”
The captain thought for a moment. He wasn’t sure he knew how, either. There had never been anything wrong with the feeds before that the AI systems couldn’t correct. “Pull up the manual and figure it out.”
“Yes, sir,” Private Frans said before looking at the data pad in front of him.
“Never mind,” the captain said. “I’ll do it.” He looked at his own data pad and navigated through the menus. Five minutes later, he looked up: the monitors were still blank.
“Still nothing, sir.”
“Thank you, Private—I can see that,” Captain Ogden said. “Go get Sergeant Major McCoons. He’s been around this type of equipment a lot longer than we have. Maybe he can figure out what is wrong.”
“Yes, sir.”
McCoons and his group of NCOs had just started their discussion when the private barged into the room. “Private Frans, who gave you permission to enter?”
“Sorry, Sergeant Major. It’s the captain—he wants to see you right now. The feeds went down.”
“Did you run a diagnostic?”
“Yes, Sergeant Major. The captain did one, himself, but nothing worked. We can’t get them back online.”
Sergeant Major McCoons was about to reply when the power in his office went out. His face turned pale and he stood. “Listen up, everyone. This may be the start of the attack I told you about. Round up your teams and get any weapon you can find. I know most of you have been keeping your nano-blades with you, but if not, take
your unit and go get them. Also, see what anyone else has stowed away in the barracks—I bet a few of the men have a rifle or two hidden.
“Rodney, take a squad and go to the armory to recover our weapons. I don’t care if you must tie up Lt. Ambrose and blow the door off the storage room—we need those weapons. Private Frans, go with Sergeant Preston.”
“Sergeant Preston? I’m supposed to bring you back to the comm station. What’s this about an attack? The captain didn’t say anything about an attack.”
“Just go with Sergeant Preston,” shouted McCoons.
*****
The sergeant major was heading to the colonel’s office when he saw the men and women of his unit running out of the barracks carrying every piece of combat gear they’d been able to snatch up. He had made it halfway to the colonel’s office when he saw the first plasma ball enter the atmosphere. He turned around and started running back to his unit.
“Incoming!” he yelled out as he waved at Sergeant Henry to get his attention. “Sam, there’s not enough time to wait for everyone before forming up! Have them ready with defensive pattern five on the tarmac!”
Sergeant Henry shouted at the few men and women who had made it out of the barracks. McCoons remembered Sergeant Preston and was about to head toward the armory when he felt the heat on his back and was violently thrown to the ground. He lay there, dazed, before spitting the dust out of his mouth and clearing his eyes.
All the marines on the tarmac had dropped to the ground. McCoons turned around to see the headquarter building had been hit and destroyed. The shock wave had also leveled the mess hall and parts of the main barracks. He looked up and saw another group of plasma balls coming his way. They’ve changed tactics—they’re targeting specific buildings, he thought as he stood and started running toward the tarmac.
In less than a minute, he found himself on the ground again, along with the marines around him. Plasma balls had destroyed the armory, the officer housing units, and the main hangar. Another group of plasma balls were heading toward the fuel storage area at the end of the spaceport.
“I thought you said they only bomb once and it would be sporadic!” Sergeant Henry called out.
“It wasn’t like this on Candus—they only used the plasma balls to clear landing zones!”
“Well, they’ve seemed to change their tactics!” Sergeant Henry responded.
“Let’s hope they didn’t change any others! If we can survive the next few minutes, we should be able to get to the lake! Have a detail head over and see if anyone else made it out—Rodney had taken a group to the armory!”
“I’ll get on it!” Sergeant Henry responded before running to Sergeant Yamikani. McCoons shouted at the marines to get up and form their defensive pattern.
“Landing ships incoming,” one of them yelled. “A bunch of them!”
The sergeant major looked up before looking over to Sergeant Henry. “Sam, it looks like they changed their pattern again! They’re after us, this time, and that’s a lot of ships!”
“Sergeant Yamikani,” Henry shouted, “have your men join up in formation! Sergeant Preston and any other survivors will have to be on their own during the first wave!”
“There are only seventy-five of us here, Alphus! Sergeant Yamikani is the only other NCO!”
“I know, Sam! We’ll just have to do the best we can! Adjust the formation to have two lines of seven on each side and put everyone left in the center as a reserve! I want you and Taketa to each cover two sides; I’ll handle the reserves!”
Sergeant Henry nodded and started issuing commands. McCoons tried to add up the number of landing ships heading their way but lost count after fifty. He turned around and joined his unit. “At least we can give them a fight!” he shouted as he activated his sword, thankful that it still worked. Seventy-four other marines activated their swords and braced themselves for the first wave of spiders.
Chapter 10
Agent Brown looked to Agent While and asked how the hull of the ship was holding up. “Looks good so far, but I don't think we should go any deeper. These hulls weren’t made to handle the pressure of deep water.” After their successful weapons experiment on Chaovis, Agent Brown’s team had been dispatched to Shaserus to perform another test. This time, Brown wanted to use the lake as part of the experiment, hoping it would protect the ship from the spider’s EMP weapon.
He had flown their ship over the deeper part of the lake, near the marine base on Shaserus, and let it sink. Currently, it was resting on the bottom at over one hundred meters below the surface. Agent Brown intended to stay underwater until the spider EMP and maybe after that, depending on whether the new weapons worked.
“I don’t understand why they didn’t let us take any of the weapons from Chaovis on this mission,” Agent White said. “We know they work, so why couldn’t we bring them along as back up?”
“I don’t know,” Agent Brown replied. “I think they don’t want us to use them, instead of the new rifles the lab sent.”
“You mean they don’t want us to look at a million spiders coming our way and try to save our lives before testing their new design,” Agent Blue commented.
“Something like that,” Agent Brown agreed. “The researchers are sure the new railgun will work after the EMP. They made a breakthrough with a ceramic mixture and have all the confidence in the world that it will work this time. They kept saying they were right about Chaovis and they’re right this time, so we should just follow our orders. The new railguns and comm units are guaranteed to work.”
“I remember them saying the same thing on the last three missions. They only got it right last time, and that’s because they didn’t invent anything—just copied a proven weapons design,” Agent Blue said. “The odds are not exactly in our favor.”
“Well, odds or not, we have a mission and we have to do it their way. Give me a diagnostic check on the probes. I want to make sure everything is working. According to the researcher’s schedule, the spiders are due any time now. At least they’ve gotten that part right.”
Before sinking the ship to the bottom, the agents deployed a series of probes on the surface of the lake. Agent Brown believed the EMP would disable them, which would warn them of the burst.
“Probes are fine,” Agent Green replied. “Nice blue day out there and nothing in sight.”
“Very well, then,” Agent Brown responded. He sat and thought about the last few weeks. He had fought his boss and the researchers for two solid weeks about their inability to carry some of the weapons they’d used on Chaovis. He didn’t trust what the researchers were saying about the new electronic railguns they had created and he’d let his supervisor know. The lives of the researchers weren’t on the line, and he doubted the Chaovis weapons would be restricted when it was Hybee’s turn to be attacked.
He had made his boss and the researchers mad enough that they’d ordered the Chaovis weapons to be locked up and restricted to the highest levels. Agent Brown had had enough. He was tired of being a guinea pig for Senate Intelligence and he wanted to give his team the ability to survive if the new railguns failed. This was the main reason he’d had them sink the ship.
Even if the ship survived and the new weapons worked, he wasn’t planning on completing any of the missions assigned to his team. He would have them fire off rounds into the lake and hide underwater until the spiders left. Brown didn’t think they would try to capture the ship since they were afraid of water, but he didn’t want to take the chance that they would use a plasma ball on them.
“The probes are offline—the spiders are here,” Agent Green said to everyone.
The whole team went into action. Each of them had been assigned various pieces of equipment to monitor, and they fired off their diagnostics. Agent Brown was opening his mouth to tell everyone he thought they would be fine when equipment started shorting out all over the ship. The water had not protected them from the EMP.
“Blow the emergency ballast and get us to
the surface. We need to make sure we can get out of the ship and make it to shore!” he shouted.
The five men and women jumped into action and turned the manual cranks they had installed to hold the emergency ballast to the bottom of the ship. All over the bottom hull, small pieces of lead broke free and fell to the bottom of the lake. The agents could feel the ship shuddering and then slowly begin to rise. A large sigh of relief went out—at least they wouldn’t drown.
During the ship’s ascent to the surface, Agent Brown’s team gathered their equipment. “Once we break the surface, get on the new comm unit and find out if it works,” he commanded Agent White. “Agents Blue and Black, get to the top of the ship and fire the new railguns. Let’s see if they work.”
Agent Brown and the rest of his team smiled when they saw sunlight filling the bridge window and the ship broke the surface of the lake.
“Move!”
*****
Water poured into the ship as the top hatch swung open, but the team ignored it. What was a little water when you had almost died under one hundred meters of water?
Agent White raced back to the comm compartment and tried to bring the new comm unit online. “No luck with the new comms!” she shouted. “Trying secondary unit.”
Agent Brown watched as Agents Blue and Black scrambled through the top hatch and started prepping their new railguns. “No luck. Weapons are offline and I can’t get mine back,” Agent Black shouted.
“Me neither,” Agent Blue shouted. “We’re screwed! None of these new weapons work!”
“The ship’s taking on water!” Agent White shouted. “One of the seals on the cargo hatch has ruptured and I can’t stop it!”
“Settle down, everyone, and start grabbing whatever might come in useful. We’re going to swim to shore and set up camp. If we hide when the spider ships come our way, they’ll probably leave us alone. We should have enough time to get to shore before any spiders land way out here, and if they do, we’ll go back into the water until they’re gone. Agent Black has been through this before on Candus—he knows the spiders are afraid of water.”
