Battle On The Marathon

by John Thornton

  “Major Adams, as he should be addressed,” she gave me a quick wink that I might have imagined, “is on the bridge in the needle ship. Major Adams is our connection to combat operations. Our liaison to the flight crew. Colonel Hayyon will be on the shuttle. He is our pilot. The two Senior Lieutenants will also be onboard with the rest of the Bilokos. Your suit will have the entire roster. As a sergeant, you will be placed into the chain of command, but so far down, it is nothing for you to worry about.”

  The hanger bay inspired me to ask, “I thought the shuttles were all lost in Operation Barnacle, was I wrong?”

  “Your gear has arrived,” she pointed to a gravity conduit which was at the end of the observation platform. “As to shuttles, well, indeed far too many were lost. Operation Barnacle was bad, that is for sure. Not the entire fleet lost, but nearly. I know of five shuttles that are still in function, but there may be a few more scattered about the Marathon. A junior officer only hears so much.” Again, there was a wink. I got the impression she was not flirting but was trying to convey more than just the meaning of her words.

  I walked over to the gravity conduit, but kept looking at the shuttle. It was a Class PS2 shuttle, and was supposed to be in storage until we reached the destination world. This one had obviously seems some action. A strange pinkish scar—for lack of a better word—was etched on one side of the shuttle. It marred the creamy white color of the craft. My mind was humming with the facts Mister Fisher had made us memorize, but knowing its length, height, and width did not comparing to seeing it parked there in that hanger bay. It was oozing power as if it wanted to leap off and fly. It reminded me of a hawk I had watched one lazy afternoon years ago in Kansas. That hawk had been perched on the limbs of a willow tree in early spring. Its muscles were tensed and ready. That shuttle had the same eager look of imminent flight. Its large delta wings, were painted with a blue color over their front sections, and that matched the angular twin rudders at the stern of the shuttle. The side hatch was open, as was the one at the rear. Soldiers were streaming into the shuttle hauling equipment and other supplies.

  “Are you going to watch all day, or gather your gear?” Lieutenant Gonzales yelled at me. “Double check the fit on your suit, then inspect your weapons, and the ammunition supplied. Hustle!” She clapped her hands together. “If you are shy, the lavatory is off to the side, but remember your reactive armor will recycle whatever you expel.”

  I retrieved the various parcels from the gravity conduit and stepped into the lavatory. The reactive armor suit was a perfect fit. Its supple movements felt too gentle and soft to be protective. I guess I expected rough steel like an ancient knight, or the heavy iron-like metal diving apparatus from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. The suit fit snuggly, and its ear covers came up from the neck, instead of being connected into the helmet. That allowed me to make subtle interfaces with my chin and with nods of my head. The helmet slipped on over that and had no faceplate to lift. In fact, the helmet only had optics. Outside, where eyes would be were oblong dark gray sensors. On the inside, were displays which showed me what the view would be like, but automatically protected my eyes from anything too excessive or dangerous. When activated, the visual apparatus was wonderful as it showed me what I would have seen with my naked eyes, but also gave me information and graphics of my condition, my suit’s status, and a range of factors about whatever I was seeing. It was truly an enhanced situational awareness.

  The reactive armor suit was smaller, less bulky, and more flexible than I expected, and I liked it a lot. I checked all the seals, systems, power-plant, batteries, and recyclers, and even turned on the vibration saw which was on each glove. The camouflage pattern was the grays, with splotchy blacks and whites. I fit the weapon’s belt onto the suit, and adjusted the straps and clamps. Grenades had their own places. These were handy and accessible and made for both the basic grenades and amvex grenades. There were places to store magazines for the bullpup, and even a spot specifically made for a gimp. One holster, which was on the thigh, was new to me.

  I opened the weapons containers and found a standard bullpup with underslung grenade launcher, and a gimp. I put those into their respective places. Then I opened a separate box which was marked, MDF-A1.

  That energy weapon was gray and blue colored, and only slight larger than the gimp. It was a similar weight, and there the similarities ended. The gimp was an antique compared to what I held in my hand. Just like the shuttle had oozed power, so too this small device in my hand just radiated strength and lethal ability. The weapon’s indicator lights were easily read. They were on the back side, just a glance away from the targeting sight picture. Red and green indicators were just beneath the charge bar. On the side were the adjustable settings which allowed variation of energy intensity level, spread of the diameter of the energy beam, and length of time for each report. I set it for medium on all three variables. At that setting the weapon showed me it had one hundred twenty discharges possible before recharging. The other setting had less or more depending on energy usage.

  Strapping that energy pistol into its holster, I returned to the hanger bay and the shuttle.

  “Everyone get into launch positions,” said a voice, which I thought was Colonel Hayyon, the Biloko’s commander, and shuttle pilot. “We are departing in five minutes. Take your seats ladies and gentlemen.”

  I followed the others into the shuttle and saw that it was heavily modified from the design specifications I had learned. The rear hatch was open, and was flanked by the main thruster engines. As I stepped up to that big shuttle, I noted how the wings looks too short for its wide-bodied fuselage. Then I got inside, and saw the seats for the troops. Running some quick calculations in my mind, I estimated that the shuttle could carry about four hundred soldiers, and all their gear. A storage compartment was slung beneath the passenger section, and above was a cargo bay. As the doors to them were sealed shut, I caught a glimpse of engineering automacubes which were stored in both of those areas.

  Flipping my chin, a very nice display appeared before my eyes, and gave we a rundown of the personnel roster for Lieutenant Gonzales’ unit. I always think of it as her unit, even though back then, she was the junior officer. The information shown told me that at full strength the Biloko Brigade would consist of four hundred soldiers, which included the five officers, as well as ten sergeants, and forty corporals. We were roughly at about eighty percent of full strength, but did have a complete compliment of officers. I tried to cross reference those strength numbers with other Marathon Defense Force units, but I got a red flashing response that said, “Classified Information.” Thus, I could not compare how that unit compared to the others in the MDF. I saw I was assigned to a specific seat, and walked over to it. All the sergeants were on aisle rows, near the seating assignments for their teams. The seats were nearly all facing backward. The chair was equipped to hold my body in my reactive armor, with all my weapons in place. As I sat down, the cushions around me molded and shifted to accommodate my exact shape. Even though I knew the shuttle possessed its own inertia suppression systems, and some limited abilities in gravity manipulation, I was surprised at the sophistication of the seat.

  “Sergeant Kalju! You are not a tourist here. Secure your soldiers, each member of your team, and only then lock yourself in. Your role is to make sure your team is secured and safe, not to gawk at this shuttle,” Senior Lieutenant Sharma’s voice cut into my ears. His voice was cultured, relaxed, and strong. I knew it was his voice because my display showed his name in small letters at the bottom of my field of vision. That had been activated when I had opened he roster.

  Glancing around, I thought all the other soldiers had hear his rebuke of me, but none seemed to have paid any attention. I still was unsure where he was located, and turned and tried to find his position.

  “Sergeant Kalju, if you are looking for me, I am in the officer section, which is toward the nose of the shuttle. I am monitoring all the activity and am addressing you in p
rivate. Use your roster to identify your squad, they are marked in yellow, then get them packed into their seats. Lastly, secure yourself. Do not worry son, you will get the hang of it. I am sending you a training tutorial which you can run while we are in transit. Now, get your people secured.”

  “Yes, sir. Thank you.”

  I looked and saw the soldiers who were in yellow on my display were seated. Nearly all of them had already restrained themselves in place. I looked over at them, and as I did, their names were displayed on by visuals. None of the names were familiar, but I still looked for Tudeng, Matkaja, Radha, and Carol. I walked from soldier to soldier and spoke a few words over the common channel. I basically introduced myself, until one soldier interrupted me.

  “Sergeant Kalju, excuse me, but Lieutenant Gonzales already told us about you,” a soldier named Pinnate said. “Pardon me, if I am out of line, but I believe you should get restrained yourself.”

  “Thanks,” I went to my seat, and strapped myself in.

  “Now that everyone is secured,” Colonel Hayyon said, “we will be launching. Check your tutorials, instructions, and links are on your personal displays. Our ETA to Bread is forty-five minutes.”

  As I sat in that seat, I imagined all that was happening in the hanger bay. The depressurization, then the shutting down of gravity manipulation, the external doors would open, and we would fly out. It then hit me that I was part of an engineering company. Sure, it was combat engineers, but I was getting my wish to be an engineer. That made me smile. I sure wish what I had imagined as a job of being an engineer would have worked out. The combat part of combat engineers was where the emphasis was to be. But for a moment, sitting there in that huge shuttle as we left Chicago, I fantasized about engineering. Then I cried as I thought of Kulm and how gifted he was in that area.

  The inside display, what I thought of as my sight, had a flashing red light. I clicked on that and heard, “This is your tutorial on the reactive armor. Care and use as a sergeant. Congratulations. You are now in a command position as a sergeant. Your new reactive armor will provide you with…”

  The tutorial droned on, and while it was pretty dry and felt a bit condescending, it was certainly informative. By the end of the tutorial I knew how everything on the reactive armor suit operated. It was fairly intuitive and well designed. The mission itself was simple, we were to dock at a hanger bay on the habitat called Bread, and proceed to a suspended animation repository designated B102. There we would use the automacubes to sever the entire repository, and make it portable. It was immense, but by carefully segmenting and sectioning out the specific corridors and hallways, it could be self-contained. It was designed to do that once planet-fall happened, and it was just a matter of making some alterations and overrides to allow that to happen while in flight. Then, the shuttle would connect to it and move it to the Chicago habitat. The biggest wrinkle I could see was in shifting the energy flow which powered the artificial intelligence. The repository had an AI system which oversaw all 10,000 of the cocoons and their human occupants. My team was not on that particular aspect of the mission, but it had been done with Q-93, so I figured they knew what they were doing. So, I was ready for both combat and for engineering. And none too soon.

  The shuttle flight took much longer than I expected. Sitting backward in a large passenger compartment without viewports or anything else to see outside, I did not feel like I was moving from one habitat to another. The excitement I once felt for seeing a new biome had been lost somewhere. I pondered why we were moving the repository, but that was not included in the mission briefing. I was not the pilot, nor the commanding officer. I just did not feel like asking more questions. From what I knew of the biome of Bread it consisted of lovely rolling plains with wheat, corn, rice, barley, quinoa, other grains, and additional food crops. It had two towns, which was typical of Marathon habitats, and in a way, it did remind me a bit of Kansas by description.

  There were a few bumps and jolts, and then Colonel Hayyon announced, “Landing complete. The hanger bay is pressurized. Go get me a repository. Build tenaciously for function!”

  We unloaded, and the soldiers streamed out into the hanger bay. The cargo and storage compartments were opened, and our crew of engineering automacubes rolled out and headed toward the repository.

  Clearing the bulkhead doors to the hanger bay was the last positive thing that happened on that mission. The Bilokos were split by platoons. So, each of the five platoons got out into the corridors, and headed toward the repository, B102.

  EEERRRRiiicccckkkkkEE!

  An ear-piercing noise sounded through my helmet. I shut down the audio links, but the ringing in my head continued. I was not near the front, where the engineering automacubes were rolling along, but I saw a flash of white light which was tinged by purple. My mind waited to hear the explosions, which my eyes identified as a Jellie icy detonation, but the audio of my suit was off.

  In the narrow confines of that corridor, several soldiers were blown backward as the explosion took place. I saw their reactive armor attempting to compensate for the huge influx of energy, and their bodies shivered with the dissipating kinetic energy. Still, they flew through the air toward me, and their bodies were tumbling out of control. Broken automacube parts followed them, streaking fluids, and fractured metal chunks behind them. The soldiers’ bodies, the shattered automacubes, all bowled into the troops behind, knocking them down as well.

  Several loud clicks came through my helmet’s audio system and then I heard someone scream, “Jellies!”

  My visual display identified that voice as coming on the command network from Senior Lieutenant Begay. She was in a different corridor, but was also under attack. I tried to tune into the command channel for audio. Some other voices came on, but the words were jumbled and garbled. My suit could not identify who had spoken. Audio systems were flashing damage reports on my display.

  Activating the strobe light on my helmet, I gestured to the soldiers around me, and they moved into rooms and corridors nearby, all drawing out their bullpup weapons. Looking down the corridor I saw that those injured and knocked down soldiers faced another series of icy detonations. One blast took out a section of wall, and shrapnel flew in all directions. One of the soldiers, who was trying to get up, was struck square on by the Jellie’s white globe projectile. The explosion was devastating. The reactive armor—good as it was—could not take such a direct hit in those tight confines. Its seals ripped, and seams came apart. Blood gushed from several of those spots as the reactive armor failed. That was the first of many soldiers to die there.

  “Find cover!” I sent out on the command channel, hoping someone would hear. “Return fire as targets become visible!”

  My external audio was returning to some level of functioning, and I heard the rapid crack of several bullpups firing. Using that rifle was my initial instinct as well, but I stopped myself, and drew out the MDF-A1 energy weapon. I knew the bullpup was ineffective, but that energy weapon might be better. I was hunkered down in a doorway, protected somewhat by the wall next to me. A few injured soldiers crawled into the side passage near me, but I saw others lying still amidst the wreckage of our engineering automacubes. More reactive armor had failed.

  A soldier stepped next to me, ready to heave an amvex down that corridor. I grabbed the soldier’s arm, and yelled, “Not inside here! Too close!”

  “…ion. Use en… y p…ols. No gren…s i… is concuss…,” Lieutenant Gonzales’ voice came through the command channel.

  I squeezed hard on that other soldier’s arm, and Gonzales’s words, or my actions, or my words got through. That soldier stepped back, put away the amvex, and then pulled out the energy pistol.

  “Use only the enpols!” I commanded and waved the MDF-A1 at them. I guess that was where the nickname, enpol, originated.

  I could see a blur of purple down the corridor. There was no eye irritation, but the purple color was still otherworldly, even though my visual optics were protect
ing my eyes. The display showed a retile targeting site—shown in a contrasting color—over the purple glow. I knew that indicated the suit had recognized a Jellie. I fired the enpol.

  Zing!

  The flash and blast of energy cut through the dusty, particulate-heavy air. I am not sure if I hit the Jellie, but the purple glow suddenly faded away

  Gesturing to those behind me, so that some would assess their fallen comrades, I rushed forward seeking to see if the MDF-A1, my enpol, had ripped open a hole in the Jellie’s carapace. I looked at the enpol as I ran, and just doubled checked that it was set on medium on its three variables. A few of the soldiers behind me were checking the wounded, but more were following my lead by aiming their energy pistols down the corridor. The tightness allowed only about five of us at a time to move ahead.

  “To any officers!” I yelled on the command channel. “I am engaging Jellies with MDF-A1 fire. Effectiveness to be reported soon! My unit has causalities.”

  Zing! Zing!

  I fired several more times, even though I did not see any evidence of the Jellies. Dust, smoke, motes, and other junk was floating in the air, obscuring even my suit’s enhanced vision. I just knew we needed to get through that narrow bottleneck to get to a place where we could spread out. The deck plans came up on my display and a large storage area was not far ahead.