“If you’re here, they must be scraping the barrel,” Rachel Donark said over the net upon seeing him. She’d joined the Gtrul Army as soon as they began accepting women as applicants. She’d raced up the ladder the proper way, no matter what anyone said, attaining the rank of captain. Evan had been training with her unit before the Maraukians landed, becoming fast friends. There would have been potential if both of them weren’t dedicated to their jobs and the rules that bound them. Both of them were blonde with blue eyes, though Rachel’s had the aqua glow that the Crisidiums seemed to all have.
Evan was an orphan from Ophvera. His father was a centurion at the time he’d adopted him but retired that same year to the green towers of Ageia to be a farmer. He brought his newborn adopted son back to his wife, three sons, and two daughters, who accepted him and raised him in the green towers as they produced food for Roma and her legionnaires. Evan had done his mandatory service and opted to continue. Crisidium was his second planet; he’d fought Maraukians for a year, learning how to stand behind a defense and make them pay to come close.
Everyone in the room had an ingrained hatred for Maraukians. They accepted they were by the large mindless drones but the more mindless drones they killed, the more of the men and women who stood on either side of them could survive. If this program let them kill more Maraukians, they were all for it.
“Look who’s talking here, Captain Donark,” Evan commed back, picking her out as he grinned. He looked down at her small stature compared to his massive height, making them an odd pair: an over-average height legionnaire and an under-average sized army captain.
“So what’ve you been told, you big lummox?” She gave him a friendly tap on the arm, not without surprising strength that her short statue belied.
“Just there’s a program and if we complete it, we’ll be taking the fight to Maraukians, not sitting on our asses waiting for them to come to us. That we also have to undergo a complete body modification and get an upgraded suit. You?”
“Pretty much the same deal.”
“Seems we’re about to find out more.” Evan gestured to the front of the room, where five people entered.
From the way they walked and stood, Evan knew they had positioned themselves to protect one another. It was ingrained habit, no more thought in it than breathing. Though none of them captured his attention like the giant in the middle of the stage.
While Evan was big, standing at around seven foot tall, he was wider than a tree, with muscle filling his fatigues, and stood at a dominating eight and a half foot.
He looked to the others on the stage. They, too, were muscle bound and he had no doubt probably looked like statues of gods he’d seen. Each of them also stood at eight foot or thereabouts. Evan’s eyes snapped to the man in charge as he spoke; his voice commanded attention, even as he didn’t raise it.
“Hello, my name is Centurion Mark. It will be my job to make you drop out of this program. First I will tell you what you must be willing to do to even think about continuing and please think about it.” He looked at everyone in the room to make sure they understood the seriousness of the matter.
“If you wish to continue this program, you must be willing to—like me and the rest of your training staff—go through a body modification. You will never be able to reverse it and become human. You will be faster and stronger than any human, yes, but you will have your NIAI imbedded into your brain. You will be fighting with nothing but artillery to help for months on end, with no walls or other units for support. Those of you who even have the slightest doubts, please leave the room.”
About half of the room wandered out.
“Any more?” No one said anything as he shook his head. “I thank them for having the balls to admit they won’t be able to do this. The rest of you are the dumbest mother fuckers I have ever seen. Till you quit, we’re in charge of your sorry assess. This is first contubernium commander Reckhi, second Chyna, third Klint, fourth Desialias. They and I will be your instructors. Follow us to the simulation room and we’ll begin.”
“I have a feeling he wasn’t lying,” Rachel said as the mass moved to follow Mark and their new instructors.
“About what?”
“The making us fail part.”
“Yes, I think so too. Hopefully we can show him we don’t give up that easily.”
“These are simulation tanks. Get inside and we’ll continue this on the other side. There’s no need to remove clothing as the nanites will destroy them and reform them when we come out.” Mark gestured to floating bubbles of nanites. Without giving them a second glance, he and the instructors stepped into the bubbles, lifted by anti-gravity into the air as others replaced them.
Evan nodded to Rachel. “Good luck.”
“Same to you.”
They walked into the bubbles. The nanites silver disappeared, transforming into a desert landscape; an armorite dome appeared behind the instructors.
“This testing won’t be push-ups, running, and regimen. We will push you through battles as real as anything you’ve ever fought. Learn from them and you will proceed; try and you’ll proceed. You will fail yourself only because you think you can fail. It is up to you to succeed. Now we’ll begin.”
The world evaporated and Evan felt himself inside the familiar Jupiter armor, holding his M19. He looked around, stunned and unsure what was going on. He’d just started this course ten minutes ago!
“Multiple contacts along the bank!” a soldier commed as Maraukian symbols popped up on Evan’s HUD. The first thing he saw was he didn’t belong to a contubernium; he wasn’t even part of a contubernium. He looked around. There were people of higher ranks, much higher ranks seeing as some had given up their commission to try out for this new unit.
Objectives listed on his screen. He sighed in relief as he realized it wasn’t anything too new.
“All right, shield wall formation; we need to hold that bridge for Bellona tanks to cross.”
Training kicked in as the group around Evan formed into a shield wall and supporting lines. Evan picked out two people to lead the shield and then the supporting lines as they advanced on the five-kilometer-long bridge where the Maraukians fired wildly. The amount of fire meant even if the majority of them missed a few million rounds, there were still a few hundred thousand rounds pinging off the shields.
The Maraukian herd commanders and kings gave their normals better targets to hit as they only had to follow the wake of a plasma bolt or the gray line from their heavy coilguns.
The legionnaires were horribly outnumbered but their integrated optics on their M19s meant they could easily zoom in on the Maraukians, letting their suits compensate for the recoil as they fired across the front of the Maraukians to take down ten or twenty in a single pass of their rifle. Evan’s shield line was made out of a hundred legionnaires. Each held a shield a meter and a half wide, covering a third of the four-hundred-and-fifty-meter bridge. His firing line was made out of fifty legionnaires. Just less than two centuries’ worth of legionnaires killed close to four thousand Maraukians. It was a staggering number, Evan thought, as he looked up again at the advancing Maraukians. They were losing three herds every minute and still charging on. They were backed by more than three full assault barges, each holding ten complete herds, a total of forty-two thousand Maraukians.
Lovely, FUBAR situ. “Keep steady. You’ve all done this before. Watch for those on either side.” He raised his rifle over the shield in front of him as they connected with the Maraukian frontlines attempting to cross the largest bridge. Evan gathered more troops by mostly yelling down their necks to join him on either side as stunned decani failed to get their shit together in time.
“Evan, heavy gun right and left covering fire and two minutes!” Rachel commed.
“Show of force! I want everyone firing!” He broke his troops into two sections, picking them to keep a continuous line of fire or best he could.
“Relay one, fire!”
“Covering
. Get those guns up, Rach!”
“Relay two, fire. One, reload!”
“I’ve got stragglers, FC Miles. Where do you want them?” a harsh voice yelled, his information already sent to Evan.
“Fucking love you, Polwell,” Evan said, his NIAI spitting out a name. “Split it into three. You command one to blow bridges, another reserve, another reinforce my line. On either side.”
“On it.”
Fucking competent soldiers were worth their weight in platinum. “Relay one, fire. Two, reload. Rach, guns?”
“Up, making gap and…firing.” She switched channels to her gunners laying fire down beside the edge of the shield line, creating a wall of rounds. Evan watched Polwell’s plotted track change to the farther-out bridges.
“Emplacing other guns on flanks.” Rach came back to his channel, creating fire support channels as she had the guns cycle fire between them.
“Understood.”
“This is Freusht. We’ve got charges placed along the bridges on your left flank. Blow them?”
“Read my mind.”
“They’re focusing on the bridges closer to you. Need some support?”
“You have heavies?” Rachel asked over him, getting a green light back. “Send them to me. I’ve got a fire base set up here and I can turn them to fire on the bridges you’re attacking.” Again she got a green light as symbols for heavies split off from Freusht’s formation, hauling ass toward Rachel’s firing line.
“Reserve half contubernium, distribute your ammunition to relay one and two. They’re running low. Keep half your ammunition,” Evan barked as he saw the ammunition levels of the firing line. “Rachel?”
“Support up, Evan.”
“Freusht’s support should be tearing up the bridges. Guide fire.” On his HUD, he saw fire arc from his left support gunners, firing along the front of Maraukians kilometers away pausing their advance as Freusht and his group blew bridges as fast as they could lay the charges.
“Polwell, status?”
“Taking out bridges. Need some support.”
“Giving link up to gunner.”
Evan looked at his suit counter. Over half of the candidates had already died; the rest were either finally getting their shit together or running around to the beat of someone in the half makeshift chain of command.
***
“Not too bad,” Mark commented, half paying attention to the battle as Sarah transcribed it and to the channel between the instructors spread out through the surviving groups running about.
“They pulled together decently,” Jarek said.
“Not fast enough,” Dodger said.
“No one’s fast enough for you or us,” Mark rebutted.
Dodger’s emotional feedback was one of acquiescence and the emotional pings for him grinning.
“Plus the casualty rate. I’m scared they’ll become desensitized to accept the deaths of those in the ranks,” Ava said.
“Need to add in some free time to work together on plans to help create cohesion. They don’t know one another in much or any capacity like we did,” Chyna added.
“Agreed with all of the above, but this is a good way to weed out the slow and those with the right mindset. Be better on the second one when they at least have a bit of coordination and we give them a chain of command.”
“Plus we can sort out which ones are really ready for command,” Ava said thoughtfully.
“So, for now, push them like damned hell hounds,” Chyna said.
“Exactly. Good training value.” Mark felt the others shiver after they had been under his training so recently; he knew how hard he was going to push the new recruits.
Chapter 26
Camp Epsilon
Tricticus, Emarl system
4/3352
Polwell’s people seemed to be sorted out as they fanned down the bridges, people breaking off to blow bridges and calling in fire against Maraukians. Once they blew the bridge, there was another team already planting the next so they had to sprint to catch up with Polwell by the time the third team was laying charges.
“Fuck,” Polwell said, cutting Evan into the channel. “Team one, take the fourth bridge. I’ll take the fifth. Sharpshooters on me.”
“Bridges complete, left flank. Joining with main force.”
“Understood. Freusht, take over the reserves position. Rachel, send up the reserves. Cross load them ammo to pass on.” Evan checked the suits on the line, all in the yellow.
“All right, we’re going to have to hit these,” Polwell said.
Evan cut to the view Polwell saw through his HUD.
He was staring at the last and final bridge. The Maraukians were four hundred meters from the end. There was no way Polwell could place the charges and know the bridge would actually blow up, but he and his team would be dead by that point.
Polwell looked up; carets appeared on the high-tension nano weave lines that held the bridge together. He raised his rifle, accessing information on the wind, humidity, and distance. He fired a burst. Both of them held their breath as it hit the line. It twanged, the bridge not moving an inch as the two-foot-thick line whipped back and forth on the bridge and killed hundreds of Maraukians.
The other shooters joined in, systematically cutting the lines of the suspension bridge. The Maraukians were unable to advance the last hundred meters as the bridge bent and twisted as if Jupiter himself shook the bridge in a fit of anger. With enough lines cut, the rest gave away like an angry swarm of wasps. The bridge buckled, coming upward—for a second seemingly pausing in the air before gravity took over, bringing the entire bridge crashing back down into the raging river below.
Polwell slowly brought his forces back to Evan’s main defensive line still hiding behind the main bridge.
When the survivors linked back together, less than half of their original number, the simulation stopped and returned them again to the base in the middle of the desert, with their instructors looking over them again.
“All right, you will now be sorted out into centuries and contuberniums.” Relevant information appeared on everyone’s HUD. Evan was now a second, underneath Mark himself. He was proud at the accomplishment but felt dread at having the responsibility.
“Now, let’s get on with the actual training.”
The feeling of accomplishment left, leaving only dread as they appeared in a jungle made of sickly green and yellow hues with geysers, which his NIAI told him were sulphuric gases. Joy. Seconds later, Maraukians appeared and Evan received orders from Mark, making sure his contubernium carried them out as Mark focused on the legions’ worth of trainees.
“All right.” He selected the three people with the highest battlefield experience. “You three are decani. You fuck up, you don’t have a job. Move your people according to this.” He shot them the plans as he changed channels. “Qui, Welland, you’re my decani. Get your people moving to me.” He changed back to the decanus channel as his contubernium moved to the position.
“You have exactly five seconds to get your people moving to position or you’re fired!” One who couldn’t make the timing would lose his command and be replaced by one of his decanus, who got them moving as fast as he took command.
Chapter 27
Legionnaire Tower
Roma, Hellenic system
5/3352
Captain Chen and his crew finally laid down on some beds set up in one of the super towers that reached twenty kilometers into Roma’s sky. They had been separated from everything and everyone; even their communications were shut out except to their caretaker contubernium of senate guards placed to protect them and make sure no one except the senate and VIP’s could talk to them.
They’d been asked the same questions over and over again: what did you see, are you sure you saw what you saw, has anyone played with the data feed, who was on duty, blah blah blah. Captain Chen didn’t know why they couldn’t just look at the raw data—it was there in all its glory, with all of the information they
could want.
“When can we go back to our ship?” Taelyon asked, playing a fighter sim as per normal, reflecting what everyone else was thinking as they looked at Chen picking himself up from his bed.
“They’ve commandeered the Shadow; currently we don’t have a ship to go back to.”
Liviana fell back against her bed. “After all of those upgrades Charles and his team installed too!”
“I wanted to test out the new engine converter,” Taelyon said. “Should’ve given us twenty-five more percent output. Ugh.”
“Plus the new weapons—did you see the specs on the rail gun armament?” Travestki practically moaned.
“I know, I know.” Chen waved his hands, placating his crew. “I promise to ask Charles to look at whatever ship we get next.”
That got a few smiles, Chen saw as he lay down again. “Get as much rest as you can.” As if he’d ordered it, the door opened. Chen barely contained his grin as he looked at the door, and immediately snapped to attention. “Admiral and Ninth Legate on deck!”
The crew snapped to attention.
“There’s no need for that. Grab a seat, Captain Chen—the rest of you too.”
They did, if slowly, as two of the highest ranking officers in the Roma’s legions and the Ninth’s space navy waited. The Romans hadn’t ever had a very large navy and thus the rank structure wasn’t the best, especially when it expanded hugely due to the need for it in space. So they’d stolen what worked from Earth.
“First and only question: is what you recorded real?” Admiral Nessa looked Chen right in the eyes.
“Yes, sir, it is.”
“Well, shit, I’d like to thank you all here for putting up with all of the—excuse me, bullshit—you’ve had to deal with. The senate does like to have concrete information before they move on anything.” He and the commander of Roma’s legions shared a look before he turned back.
The Tenth Awakens (Maraukian War Book 1) Page 18
