For a moment, there was no blood to be seen. The armor was gone and I felt at peace. It provided a momentary stasis from the pain. From the nothingness, I felt Allison’s hands wrap around mine. I heard her whisper, “You’re far greater than this, more than you know.”
“Forgive me,” I murmured back. I barely heard her response drifting into nothing but lost it when the navigator tapped the tip of my boot, rocketing me back to reality.
“Are you all right, Sergeant?”
“Yeah, yeah. Why? What do you need?”
“I came back here to tell you we’re lifting off in two minutes. You just asked for forgiveness.”
I shook my head. “Bullshit. No forgiving here,” I said matter-of-factly and stood up. He remained still as I strapped into a jump seat a few meters away.
The navigator left and I unbuckled myself. Instead of settling in the cramped chair, I laid out between two rows of bodies. I recognized a few of them. They wouldn’t mind me borrowing some of the floor space.
I slept for the three-hour ride back to our nearby capital ship. I suppose I must have been a sight when I finally got off, considering my disembarking through the cargo doors, surrounded by corpses and wearing my standard issue infantry armor, now completely soaked in human and alien blood. Nearly every other serviceman in the bay stopped short and stared when I entered. Admiral Heddings was waiting for me on the deck.
I left grimy red footprints on the clean bay’s floor as I approached the admiral.
“It’s good to see you again,” he said, looking in my strained and bloodshot eyes. “You’ve got four hours to get yourself cleaned up before my other battalion commanders arrive to plan your assault.”
Looking behind me, Heddings could see the rest of my ship’s crew making their way down the ramp, again covered in blood and obviously shaken.
“Thank you,” he said in a lowered voice. “You didn’t need to do this.”
“Yes, I did, sir.”
He nodded in understanding and I took my leave. The admiral changed his voice and shouted so loud the entire bay could hear, “What are you all staring at? I know you’re not preparing for combat! Get over here and help put our brothers to rest!”
At once, several hundred soldiers dropped whatever they were doing and descended on the transport bay. Packing the soldiers up would be painful, but not nearly as bad as leading them to their deaths over and over again in my mind.
Four hours later, I walked through the vault doors to the war room behind the command bridge. The others had already arrived. The three commanders looked up as I approached but paid me little heed since Heddings followed mere seconds later.
“Gentlemen, it’s good to see you all again,” he said and gestured to me. “This is Captain Jeff Grant. He led the assault on Ash two weeks ago and was instrumental in securing our forces here in Charlie.
“Captain,” he added, now pointing out the other officers in the room, “this is Major John Stine. His battalion secured three planetary moons in Bravo. Commander Allen Mattox, of the 3rd Carrier Group, and Colonel Jason Wolf from Special Forces have also been instrumental in many other missions.”
I shook their hands, instantly sizing each of the men up, as they were undoubtedly doing to me in return.
The admiral continued. “Since Jeff has had a number of unique experiences here in Sol Charlie, I consider him to be a valuable asset to this team. Therefore, I am giving him full executive command of this mission.”
My heart quietly skipped a beat, but I didn’t move a muscle. The others were just as surprised and subconsciously shifted to more defensive stances.”
“Sir, is that a wise decision? Shouldn’t there be—”
Heddings cut off Mattox mid-sentence. “Gentlemen, this is not up for discussion. I have already forwarded my intentions and subsequently gotten approval from General Raley.” He looked back and forth between faces. “I have zero tolerance for personal bickering, petty strife, and sense of entitlement. Captain Grant WILL have your full cooperation.”
“As you wish, sir.”
The commander ended his attack and looked over to me.
“Shall we get started?”
9
We got to work on our strategy, and in minutes we forgot that we even had a disagreement. I knew I didn’t want to be on any of the officers’ bad sides, and surprisingly, they quickly gained enough respect for me to allow me my fair say.
Planet Shai was a world half the size of Earth and several times farther away from its parent star. The aliens, for whatever reason, had chosen not to undertake the challenge of terraforming the surface and instead lived only in domed colonies.
The surface was a savage amalgamation of ice, rock, brutal storms, and endless darkness. The temperature in the sun didn’t creep above -100 degrees Celsius, while in the shade it plummeted far further. The atmosphere was thin and most likely toxic if mixed with any exhaust from the settlements. There were two moons, neither of which had anything of interest about them.
There had been no intelligence provided to us which explained the functions that the alien colonies performed. Frankly, we didn’t care. We were charged with securing the orbit and the surface. We agreed that at least some of the colonies should be preserved for our own uses, which left a full-scale nuclear or matter charge drop out of the question.
I turned the map about slowly, hoping for inspiration. Major Stine had eight thousand soldiers ready for deployment. Wolf had one thousand more of his own, all highly trained Special Forces veterans.
“Stine, if we get on the ground, how are we going to move our forces? What do you have that’ll withstand the cold?” I replied.
“Heavy APCs. I’ve got enough in the system that we can carry the entire battalion. They can run for months and defend themselves with no atmosphere at all. What are you thinking of doing?”
“Well, the only assault we’ve done so far in this system has been via drop pods, back on Ash. It’s unlikely that they’d expect anything too different from that. I suggest we use that to our advantage.” I pointed to one of the suspected sites. “First, we’ll have Wolf’s forces drop into and engage a single colony. We’ll have to breach the walls, make a huge, bloody scene, and make sure the rest of the planet knows where we are. With any luck, the aliens should mobilize forces from all around to fight us off. Once they’re on the move, Stine can deploy larger forces using gunboats at the vacated facilities and catch them from behind.”
I rattled off the plan without a single stutter and hardly even pausing to breath. They looked at me in silence after I concluded the recommendation.
“Your thoughts?” I asked, trying to open the conversation back up.
“No,” Wolf answered, shaking his head. “Hell no! Are you trying to get us all killed?”
“Do elaborate,” I responded to the blow with a cold reserve.
“Let me get this straight. You’re going to drop my entire legion to the planet knowing only one: the location of a target, two: that there are integrated defenses spread all over the surface, and three: that the environment is harsh enough to take out any one of us within only a few minutes exposure. I feel that you’re risking too much without thinking through the ramifications of your decision.”
“Actually, sir, I don’t see another way,” Stine spoke up, coming to my defense. “You’re right that we have very little a priori knowledge of the enemy’s numbers, their infrastructure, or their defensive measures, but we’ve got to make do with what we have. We’re not going to get a better picture of the place before we launch, and the captain has a moderately sound plan considering our constraints.”
“B.S. That’s easy for you to say. You’ve got more numbers and an easier job. You don’t have to be the gaddamn bait!”
Despite Wolf’s extensive career and reputation as someone who could get any job done, I was far from impressed. And I certainly didn’t need two infantry commanders getting into a fight over the validity of my campaign.
&nb
sp; “HEY!” I shouted over their combined voices. They went silent in unison and stared back at me. “Gentlemen, we don’t have time to be arguing like this. Unless you’ve got a better idea, we’re using mine, and I don’t want to hear anything about it being too dangerous. If it’s a question of my resolve, I’ll make the drop with them. I’ll lead the whole team from the ground. I know what needs to be done, and if you don’t think your boys are up to the challenge, tell them to go the hell home and I’ll do it myself.”
Wolf was speechless and nearly fuming. Commander Mattox half smiled. “Well said. I’ll reserve a seat for you on the first pod out the door.”
The colonel shook his head, throwing off some obviously built up anger. “Fine. If that’s what you believe we need to do, I’ll support it. I don’t see another way.”
“Excellent, then we’re in agreement. Moving on . . .” I let the issue slide off and we continued planning. “What is the max payload on the gunboats? How many heavy vehicles can they take?”
Stine considered the environment. “I’d say no more than ten tanks and artillery pieces plus a few APCs. They’d also have a few hundred soldiers each, but with the weather I don’t want to risk them getting grounded. Where are we going to land?”
I pointed to a site equidistant from multiple other colonies, but still relatively isolated, in the middle of what looked to be a massive plain. “I’d say here. They’d draw defenders from all the surrounding sites, and it’ll probably be an easy drive for you guys to follow.”
“That works.” Stine nodded slightly in agreement. He looked across the surrounding targets on the map. “Mattox, how many gunboats can we launch for this? Can we hit all the sites?”
“We can hit twelve if we want to carry all the gunboats internally to the frigate, which I’d recommend. If we want some to escort along the way, we could take more, but I’d rather not risk us losing ships before we even get there.”
“Twelve closest,” I murmured and began circling targets on the map, but stopped short. “We’ve only got ten in the vicinity. I’d say we keep two back on the missile frigate just in case things don’t go as planned.”
“Good thinking,” Stine answered.
“One more issue,” I asked to the group in general, “How are we arming the soldiers on the ground?”
“Heavy armor for you and my men,” Wolf stated. “Standard assault rifles with breaching equipment to get into the domes. We’ll put heavier weapons into the drop pods for defending the perimeter.”
As he finished, he glanced over at the major. “Do you have anything to add?”
“Similar for the backup. We’ll go in heavy with explosives and anti-armor weapons.”
“Do we have any access to mechanical rifles?” I asked, the disaster on Ash playing itself over and over in my mind.
“Well, everyone launches with a mechanical pistol – you know that – but . . .” Stine’s voice trailed off. “Actually, we do have some older weapons too. We keep a battalion’s worth of mechanical cartridge-based rifles on the carrier. They were loaded up before the maiden voyage as a worst-case-scenario-preparation kind of thing. I don’t really understand why; our current arms are far superior to them.”
“Find those guns. I’m taking them as backup.” I waited for him to question me, or maybe protest, but neither came.
“If you want them, you can have them,” he proclaimed, making a note to himself. “I’ll have the entire stock of guns and ammunition delivered to the commander’s frigate.”
We continued working out various other details and ran through the scenario in its entirety, trying to find areas for improvement. After several iterations, the colonel was satisfied, we were all in agreement, and we called for Admiral Heddings to review the plan. He listened intently as we walked him through it and asked several of the same questions we had asked of ourselves. He only directed a few “what ifs” at me, and I did my best to not answer them all with “shoot my way out.”
The admiral was obviously shaken by the multitude of dangers involved, but he understood that we didn’t have much of a choice but to pull it off. By the end, Heddings gave us his stamp of approval and we were cleared to launch with Mattox’s ships and Colonel Wolf’s remaining forces.
Before we had even finished planning, the majority of our equipment had already made its way to the battleship. The five thousand and some soldiers had nothing more to do than don their armor and grab their gear, while the tanks and other pieces took less than an hour to acquire.
I gathered up my equipment as well before taking a shuttle over to our assault ship. Stepping down the ramp into the massive cargo bay was a strange experience. Lining the bay on either side were rows of gunboats, large in their own right, being loaded with the various tanks and cannons we had requisitioned. Many bore deep scars, dents, and tears from prior engagements, as did the soldiers loading them up.
We passed what seemed to be hundreds of them before nearing the end. At the end, standing out from the polished steel cases all around, were several dozen large wooden crates. They looked to be at least twenty years old. Major Stine was already there opening one of them with a crowbar. He saw me approach.
“Care to give me a hand with these?” Stine asked, gesturing to a hammer on the deck beside him.
I obliged and began working on the opposite side. “Is this what I think it is?” I asked, nearly rhetorically.
“You tell me,” he answered, pulling back the newly-freed lid of the first box. Tightly packed beneath sat a twisted mass of metal and wood. Stine reached in and pulled one out. “Will this work for you? I don’t think they’ve aged a single day,” he said, tossing the rifle to me.
“Unbelievable,” I murmured. It was an M1A battle rifle. The barrel was blued and flawless. The stock was a dense wood with no chips, scratches, or marks of any kind. I turned it about in my hands and cycled the action. It was as smooth as any rifle I had ever used.
“Why do you have these?”
“Like I said, for a worst-case scenario. They’re very powerful, accurate, and reliable. They’ve been on board for years. We’ve got plenty of ammunition for them packed in 50 round drums.”
I brought the rifle to my shoulder and peered down through the modern laser sight mounted to the top, all the way to the end of the hangar. The magnification was very low, but the optics were crystal clear and the crosshair was razor sharp.
“How many of these do we have?”
“According to the manifest, we have eight hundred,” he replied, and checked a document attached to the side of the crate. “Yes, eight hundred rifles, one hundred replacement parts kits, and ten thousand fully loaded magazines.”
“This is outstanding.” I handed the rifle back to him. “I want to issue them to Wolf’s forces. They need to think that their EMP or whatever they had before is now powerless. We’ll force them to switch their tactics before the rest of your battalion arrives.”
Stine nodded in agreement. “Excellent. I’ll inform the colonel and get his men down here quickly before we get under way.”
The entire special ops battalion was soon present in the bay and tearing through the cases of weapons and ammunition. Before they were done, we left our port and blasted into space.
I took a full load of weapons and ammunition back to my quarters. With my armor laid out on the floor, I attached magazines and explosives to every available belt and clasp. After securing no fewer than several dozen packs of equipment, I did a final check of my weapons and set them out beside me.
It took us less than a day to complete the jumps across the solar system. I had felt the ship change directions only a handful of times before the pilot began his two hour countdown. When we hit ninety minutes, I hefted up my suit of armor, squeezed inside, and slung my rifles across my shoulders. When I was certain that I had everything I needed, I lumbered back to the infantry’s launching bay. The weight of all the ammunition that I carried had added up to more than I expected, but I didn’t let the
burden phase me.
I took the forward stairs down to the infantry’s bay, which overlooked the massive upper landing hangar along the way. Where hundreds of tanks, trucks and command vehicles had been parked hours earlier, there was not a single sign of their existence; they were all packed away into their respective gunboats, awaiting their day of judgment. I continued down through the floor to the next level.
10
The scene that awaited me could have been a carbon copy of the previous assault. An identical bay was filled with identical landing pods, as hundreds of identical, nameless soldiers marched in and secured themselves. Again, as before, I was in immediate command of a squad, as well as the entire first wave as a whole. I checked on the other men once they were in place and took my seat in turn.
My hatch descended and locked in place, sealing me into the small, steel coffin. The familiar porthole, almost a foot thick, gave me a small bit of light. I tucked my weapons between my knees and strapped everything down. I attached my radio headset to the command channel via a plug in the wall to my left. According to what I was hearing, there were only minutes to go.
With everything taken care of for the moment, I had nothing to occupy my mind. It took only seconds for my brain to steer my thoughts to those I lost, and it was then that the savage need for revenge poured into my soul like a cauldron of burning oil. I gripped the handle of my rifle with all my might, trying to regain control of my thoughts and bring my heart down to a manageable pace.
From the radio, I heard Colonel Wolf issue his final confirmation to the battalion. I slid my helmet’s reinforced visor down on my face just as the ship entered real space. I looked out through my window and saw a few loose objects tumble about in the shift of acceleration. I realized I could see down the entire line of pods as they launched, disappearing in a fraction of a second through the floor. As if I was on a roller coaster from hell, I watched as the wave came closer before tossing me out into the abyss.
MissionSRX: Confessions of the First War Page 7
