by JR Handley
Before GG could stop her well-oiled machine, fire in the hole was called and the passageway shook. Growling her approximation of laughter through the LBNet, she gathered herself to speak.
“Sometimes the path of least resistance is preferable. We could have made a short detour. Lest we forget, we will need to salvage all we can. We also can’t be sure of the structural integrity of this structure with the added pressure of tons of water,” GG explained. “If possible, let us save our explosives in the future.”
A somewhat chastised Ange ordered his Marines forward, and they continued toward Level 11, City Phase Unit 2 with no other incidents. Just as they turned the corner toward where the FCB was housed, their sensors indicated movement ahead.
— Chapter 18 —
Mid-Morning, Post-Revival Day 2
Habdisk 612, Beta City, Serendine
Whiskey Co., 8th BN, 6907th TAC RGT
Knowing that he would need to hurry to keep up with an officer like Colonel Gaarjar, Basil decided that he was better off waiting at the job site and started early. He quickly tracked down his old friend, Lance, only to be sent off to find Whiskey Company’s new first sergeant. Shaking his head at the turn of events, Basil again entered another barracks room to find First Sergeant Caelus Thorn and Senior Sergeant Cristal Thorn engaged in a deep discussion.
“Damnit, Father,” said the diminutive Cristal Thorn, “having you in my battalion was one thing, but my first sergeant? No! They’ll never take me seriously.”
The old sergeant’s reply was equally fierce as he barked back at her.
“Damnit, child, think! Captain Scipio’s star is just now beginning to rise. We stick with him, the sky’s the limit for you. You’re the reason I arranged this transfer, to be there to guide you. You’re lucky the White Knights devalued paternal ties, because it presented us this small window to take advantage of their lack of understanding of biology, humanity and family.”
As Basil shrunk away and observed the exchange, the towering sergeant stopped speaking a moment and crossed his arms in front of him. The look of anger and frustration shifted into something more. The lines and creases on his aged face deepened, and Basil, who was just a casual observer, felt he wouldn’t ever want to disappoint this man.
“Right now, there are only three people in the company Scipio thinks are ready for command: Rochambeau, Mason, and you! I want you to pounce on that, by hook or by crook, but if you think I’m gonna baby you, think again. I’m here to ride your ass until I get the privilege of saluting it. This is your moment. Your chance at more, at greatness. Now quit whining and do whatever it takes to embrace the opportunity. You’re a woman now, not a little kid. It’s time to grow up!”
When Thorn was done yelling at his daughter, spittle dripped from the corner of his lips. An awkward silence lingered, and Basil feared intruding at this moment. He didn’t have the luxury of time. Fearing the potential outburst, he cleared his throat to announce himself then knocked on the metal to the right of the open door to catch the attention of the duo.
“Sorry to interrupt, but I need the section accompanying me to be ready to leave. If we don’t get moving, those engineers will beat us to the party and who knows what they’ll break. I just need you to point me to the section you’re sending with me, First Sergeant,” said Basil.
The words poured out of his mouth but his face flushed with embarrassment at having interrupted such a private moment. Basil felt torn as to whether he should warn Lance to watch out for Cristal’s advances and her father’s intentions.
For all her full Marine status, she’s still only 18, thought Basil.
First Sergeant Thorn’s head snapped toward Basil after the interruption. Basil thought the old sergeant was about to tear into him, but instead, both the Thorns turned and saluted. After a very long moment, they both dropped their salute and Cristal walked out of the office, silently lipping “thank you” to Basil while her father wiped the spit from his lips and adjusted his uniform before speaking.
“Sir, you do realize it’s customary for an officer to return a salute when it is rendered don’t you?”
Basil’s jaw dropped as he realized what he had done, or rather, forgotten to do.
“First Sergeant Thorn I apolog–”
“We’re all getting used to this, Tech-Major. Moving on, we can’t send 1st Squad since the captain came from there and it’ll look bad. Talk to Senior Sergeant Whitfield. Tell her to grab one of her sections and to tag along so she can get to know her people. I’ll ping her, so she’ll know you’re coming. I’ll also have some extra Marines from 4th Squad meet you in the Ready Room to help you suit up,” Thorn explained. His face suddenly lightened as a smile creeped across his face. “Try not to gawk at the naked females, it’s frowned upon, sir.”
After giving that bit of wisdom, Thorn snapped to attention and saluted Basil. This time Basil was ready and rendered a salute before turning out of the office to meet his escort. As he walked away, deep in thought, he could have sworn he heard Thorn chuckling.
Letting the escort guide him, Basil focused on his Aimee. He continuously tweaked and calibrated the mission to drain the city. Finding ways to maximize time and equipment. Focused on his Aimee, he missed the nine Marines stumbling into the staging room with their combat armor.
“Sir? We’re here,” the escort stated before departing.
Looking up for a moment, Basil was pleased to see combat armor being looked over with fine-toothed combs by Mar-Techs. Returning his eyes to his Aimee, he continued walking when Senior Sergeant Whitfield bellowed out, “Officer on deck!”
Everyone dropped what they were doing and jumped to attention, and Basil nearly fell over from surprise as his eyes bounced from his wrist to the room around him. In the silence and stillness of the room, Basil observed the work which had been done to follow his orders. Wondering why everyone was still standing around, it occurred to him that if he didn’t verbalize the order to get back to work, Lance’s Marines would stand at attention until they died of old age.
“Carry on,” he said as he made a mental note to refamiliarize himself with Marine etiquette. He had forgotten how it differed from Aux etiquette, which mostly involved groveling.
The silence was shattered by everyone getting back to work and stripping down in preparation to don their combat suits. Looking over the room full of naked young Marines of both genders, he remembered what Thorn had said and refocused on squaring himself away. Stripping down and inspecting his armor as he donned it, he paused to take a proud look at his freshly painted helmet. Three parallel bars with a “T” sitting on top of them indicated his new rank.
In the half hour it took for every Marine to get suited up, run AI integration checks, and test their seals, Whitfield sent Basil a private voice message.
“Sir, I’ve personally inspected every Marine in 1st Section, 4th Squad and we’re ready to go. Yankee Comp– I mean, Whiskey Company won’t let you down, sir! First Sergeant Thorn has teams standing by to clean up the water that will rush in, and we’ve practiced a shuffle step which should allow my Marines to utilize our magnetic boots to combat the thousands of gallons of water rushing in. Give the word and we’ll be at the door awaiting the Feet Wet signal from you.”
Basil ordered her to have everyone secure their helmets and stand by at the habdisk exit. As the Marines jogged out in a column two abreast, he went over his plan again. Satisfied that he’d done everything he could, he donned his helmet and asked Dante to perform a quick diagnostic before heading toward the rest of his Marines.
My Marines, he considered, that’s an odd thought for a former Auxie.
The odd voice of his AI, Dante, interrupted his thoughts.
Sir, Technical-Major, Boss Man, how do I address you? My databases have no references to your rank or titular modifiers, so clarification is needed. My last bio-user was an alcoholic, whoremongering, reprobate, so I had to ever speak softly, lest I aggravate his self-inflicted poisoning. Said user love
d to drink liquids, sometimes called alcohol, to enjoy the day. This was highly illogical, but I was never consulted, Dante said through Basil’s helmet speaker.
Basil’s face stretched wide with a smile at his new AI’s rantings. Dante was almost amusing enough to combat the butterflies Basil had floating around in his stomach as they prepared to step into the unknown. Dante continued speaking as Basil eyed the metal door that would flood the space the second it opened.
The diagnostic check reveals the need for some slight calibrations. This suit isn’t yet adjusted for you, but we can do those in the field. Once you order the ‘Feet Wet’ command, I’ll coordinate the rest in the background while you focus on exiting the facility into the oncoming water. All non-essential personnel are already securely in their barracks rooms. We’ve teams waiting to re-secure the habdisk, but they can’t start until we do. Hop to it, Marine!
Laughing to himself, Basil spoke to Dante as if he was a long-lost friend.
“Basil, will do, and the Tech-Major position is new. Coordinate with Xena, the AI administering the new base server for all relevant updates. We’ve the highest security clearances, so you’ll get all the intel you want.”
Once he finished talking to Dante, Basil looked at his waiting Marines and jovially told them it was time to get their feet wet. Taking the misuse of the expression as an order, the Mar-Techs in the habdisk opened the door and braced for the onrush of water.
When the hatch opened, water blasted the armored Marines. Basil’s heart raced as he felt himself being pounded by the wall of plague-carrying liquid, and he leaned into the Marine in front of him. Each Marine put a shoulder into the one in front of them and they began to slowly creep out of their disk and into the flooded main passageways of Beta City. The Mar-Techs resealed the doors as they passed over the threshold and the water calmed around Basil and his Marines. Feeling his heart still pounding, he relaxed as the Marines settled into a defensive position around him.
Basil opened his comms to the Marines, utilizing their LBNet to secure and localize communication.
“Alright, Marines, I was promoted because of my technical skills and not my fighting prowess. I trust you all to escort me to City Phase Unit 2, home of the 781st TAC. I’ll turn this show over to Senior Sergeant Whitfield, and we’ll all move or stop on her orders. Once we get to the FCB, I’ll resume control. I expect you to keep your hands to yourselves. Touch the wrong thing and it could be fatal. Senior Sergeant Whitfield, let’s get this moving.”
Satisfied with his first speech as an officer, Basil slung his SA-71 rifle and grabbed the Flenser pistol Lance had issued him when his promotion was announced.
The trip through the flooded city was uneventful, though the floating corpses were disturbing. The bodies were in varying states of decay, having sat in the abandoned city for two years before it was flooded by the icy waters of Lake Sarpedona. What was creepier, by far, were the bodies entombed by their combat armor whom they encountered when they got too comfortable or turned a blind corner without checking. At one point, before the sergeants and corporals could react, Marine Holly Lapasa had slung her rifle and charged in with her combat knife. Basil thought they were under attack.
Upon further inspection, it was clear the newly perforated Marine was long dead, as were all the others. Regardless, Basil could tell the Marines were spooked by the fact that it looked like they could wake up at any moment and join their comrades. These weren’t just any corpses, but Marines with whom they had lived with for most of their lives.
Reaching Level 11 of their City Phase Unit, they prepared to take the passageways which would link them to the 781st TAC Regiment’s City Phase Unit. A floating corpse impacted the wall next to Basil, and he noticed strange markings as it scraped the surface. Raising his hand to signal a halt, one of the few hand-arm signals he remembered from his cadethood, he waited for the section to stop around him. When movement ceased, Basil pinged Whitfield who was leading the formation.
“Sergeant, there are some unusual markings on the wall. Let your section leader hold the line, you’re with me and we will have our AIs record the markings as we do a quick investigation. Let’s move out.”
Basil watched Whitfield’s helmet light slowly move up and down toward him, until she was next to him. He pointed the direction and began walking.
“Did you update your unit?” Basil asked.
“Sir, I won’t tell you how to tinker with your gadgets. Please don’t tell me how to sergeant my Marines. They received the details they needed, and they’ll hold the line or die trying. Now, let’s go on this fairy chase of yours.”
When they got closer to the wall, Basil and Whitfield used the magnification features of their helmets to see the markings that had caught Basil’s eye. Due to the years of icy saturation and submersion, the hasty patching job began to flake apart exposing a passageway that wasn’t on their maps. Taking a moment to mark their locations, and update their AIs, Whitfield used her combat knife to enlarge the holes. In just a few minutes, she carved away and exposed what appeared to be a passageway to a lower level. One that wasn’t marked on any authorized city schematics.
Basil took a step into the new passageway and was jerked backward by Whitfield. She ordered her section to join them and create a protective cocoon around their officer. The excitement Basil was feeling became tempered by potential threat. Basil ordered every helmet to switch to recon mode as they moved into the space. This would allow environmental details to be captured and evaluated later. Tiny blue laser lights began to shoot out from the helmets as they scanned for information.
Twenty feet into the downward sloping passageway, it opened into a central chamber that looked identical to the cryogenic storage levels above it. There was one notable exception. It was full, and all the terminals were glowing, indicating it was operational.
Brimming with excitement, Basil queried his AI about his cyber sleuthing skills.
“Dante, if I connect you to these computers can you grab every pertinent detail so it can be analyzed later?”
Basil, the water is likely tainted and might damage my backbone matrix if it were directly submerged. Instead, use the retractable cord housed within the left index finger of your combat armor. It’s thin but durable. There should be a slot for you to connect to their system, you’ll just have to find it.
Basil spread the word to the Marines with him so they were all looking for the same thing. It took under ten minutes before the port was found. After Basil was hooked into the system, Dante began downloading information. The Marines providing security around Basil appeared tense, as if they expected the icers to wake up on their own and attack them. When the download was complete, Basil disconnected Dante from the separate server. It was odd as the server Dante had accessed wasn’t linked to the network Lance created or the main city network.
Basil, we’ll analyze the data later, but you should know that we found the impossible. According to the data, this level and four more below it, are full of Sangurian Marines. Their species was declared extinct by the White Knights in 2298AD, over 300 years ago. The energy signatures indicate there are many more levels under the Sangurians with no species tags. Given the structure and basic mathematics, there are possibly millions of Marines here, fully equipped for war. This data needs to make it up the chain of command.
After Dante went silent, Basil was left to analyze the new, and startling, information.
“Senior Sergeant Whitfield, stand-by for a private message,” Basil said as he forwarded Dante’s information to her.
A minute passed, and Basil began to wonder if she had received his message. His doubts were dashed, when his speaker blared with her excited voice.
“Sir, this is amazing! I recommend bypassing standard protocol and limiting this intel only to Field Marshal Marchewka and Captain Scipio. Let them decide the best course of action.”
“Agreed,” Basil replied.
Having reached a consensus, Whitfield ordered her Mar
ines not to speak of the matter until they were told otherwise by Field Marshal Marchewka or Captain Scipio. When everyone acknowledged the sensitive nature of this information, Basil had them download their recorded data to Dante before erasing their suit recordings. He then had Dante send the data to Lance so he could discuss it privately with Marchewka.
Having lost time with their detour, Basil requested that they pick up speed. Moving faster and harder, they made it through the dark passageways connecting the two City Phase Units in a short amount of time. Just as they reached the FCBs, which had been converted into the base’s power plant, they saw lights and movement. These weren’t the drifting lights of dead Marines. Basil realized either the Marine Engineers had beaten them there, or they would have a fight on their hands.
— Chapter 19 —
Mid-Morning, Post-Revival Day 2
Habdisk 612, Beta City, Serendine
Whiskey Co., 8th BN, 6907th TAC RGT
The instant Basil had left on a mission to drain the city, Lance received private orders from his regimental commander to utilize Whiskey and Yankee Company personnel to secure all passageways between Level 4 and Level 5 as part of the drainage project. While no specific details were provided, Colonel Grigonna hinted that he should start leading and managing, instead of trying to do it all himself like the sergeant he used to be. Deciding to heed her advice, Lance sent a message arranging for first sergeants Thorn and Mayer to meet him in his quarters.
When the first sergeants arrived, escorted by Hayley, Lance was staring at the Digi-Pics decorating his walls. Lost in childhood memories of crèchemates he’d lost fighting for the White Knights, his thoughts lingered on Basil. Turning from the Digi-Pics to his first sergeants, he waved for them to enter.
“Come on in. Take a seat and make yourself comfortable,” said Lance. Looking directly at Thorn, Lance continued. “Would either of you like refreshments? As a humble officer, I do have several varieties of coffee available, as well as tarngrip or roasted barley tea.”
