Stars & Empire: 10 Galactic Tales

by Jay Allan

  Fighting with low-power training lasers and simulated blast radii was like a picnic by the lake in comparison, and I accumulated a 6-0 record as pretend commander. I also managed to keep simulated casualties to a minimum, which was gratifying, but it also poked at my guilt. My non-simulated casualties hadn’t been nearly so low, and a lot of the troops I’d commanded for real never came back … except as ghosts tugging at my conscience in the dark.

  The games were useful training exercises, I guess, but I couldn’t decide how much. No question, a hit with a training laser would have been a hit with a mag-rifle, and the battle computer could accurately simulate a blast radius for a fake grenade. But there was just no way to simulate the tension, fear, and stress of the battlefield. I was scared to death when I got blasted out of the Guadalcanal for my first assault, and I was only worried about myself. It was almost overpowering. Oddly, I also think it was quite useful. While I was fighting off panic the whole time I was in battle, I felt the fear focused me too, made me a better soldier.

  When I had troops under my command the stress was a hundred times worse. It’s crucial to be decisive and clear minded when you’re in charge of other Marines, but inside I doubted each decision and second-guessed every order. How does an officer handle that when he has 49 other men and women in a platoon, all depending on his judgment? Our troops were all well-trained. If an enemy popped up in front of them they knew what to do. But when things got out of control, and the battle plan started to unravel, they looked to the officers and expected them to have all the answers. I know, because that’s what I had done. My officers had been ready with those answers, and they had pulled me through my battles. I wasn’t so confident I’d be able to fill their shoes when the time came.

  I had served under some outstanding officers, and I was always reassured when they seemed so in control no matter what was happening around us. Now I started to wonder, were as wracked with doubt as I was? Of course they were, I started to realize. I was scared when I made that first drop, but I did my job because I was trained to do it. I’m sure my officers were plagued by their own fears and doubts too, but just as I did when I was a private, they did their jobs. Because it is what they were trained to do. It’s what I was being trained to do.

  We were also fitted for our new fighting suits, and we started a rigorous training program in how to use them. Yes, we’d all been fighting in armor for years, but officer rigs are different. The sheer amount of data streaming into and out of the suit is staggering, and it takes a lot of training and experience to learn to handle it effectively.

  We learned how to prioritize the data and interact with the command AIs in the suits, which were vastly more sophisticated than the ones in our non-com armor. We spent hours, days, weeks going through command net protocols and how to organize communication so the orders and data that had to get through did get through. Interaction with ship-based combat computers, procedures for requesting orbital bombardments, evacuation procedures, nuclear battlefield management, disciplinary codes … we studied it all.

  And we did it all on a highly condensed schedule. We were at war, and worse, we were losing that war, or at least we were hard-pressed and suffering heavy casualties. The Corps needed officers, and it needed them now, so we completed the three-year training program in sixteen exhausting months, with the commandant riding us every step of the way.

  The commandant when I was at the Academy was General Oliver Carstairs, and he was a veteran of the First Frontier War. Carstairs must have been over 110 when I was at the Academy, and he had forgotten more about battle tactics then any of us ever knew. The Commandant was old, but he was a Marine, and between rejuvenation treatments and sheer tough-as-nails stubbornness he could still put in a respectable performance on the obstacle course. He might not have been able to keep up with a group of battle-hardened 20-something cadets, but he’d have run most civilians into the ground. And he’d seen at least 75 years of service in every war man had fought in space.

  I spent a lot of time at the Academy pondering how the Corps had so many men and women of such quality. There was stupidity and foolishness in the military; Operation Achilles proved that, if it accomplished nothing else. There was laziness, corruption, and cowardice too, no doubt. But not much.

  Before I went through the Academy it always amazed me that the Corps could be as confident and capable as it was when the nation itself was jaded, corrupt and withering. We were, of course, the military of a dying superpower which had so long outlived its prime. But we were also the warriors of a dynamic new nation, based among the stars, and one with which most of us came to feel far more affinity than we did for the husk of a nation back on Earth.

  When I got back from my first assault I realized I had found my home. That was when I learned how to fight for my brothers and sisters in arms. But it was at the Academy that I found my pride … and learned how to fight for myself.

  The months I spent in officer training did wonders for me, and I felt more confident and capable than I ever had. It was also a good time for our war effort. Despite the fact that we’d managed to hold Columbia—virtually destroying it in the process—the war had been pretty much a disaster right up until I put on my cadet grays.

  We’d been standing alone against the Caliphate and the CAC, except for some fairly minor Russian-Indian support, and we were outnumbered and slowly being overwhelmed. But a few months after I left the hospital and got to the Academy, the navy won a crushing victory at the Vega-Algol warp gate. Two-thirds of the CAC battleline was destroyed, and the remainder was forced back on the defensive. The victory must have been enough ammo for our ambassadors in Tokyo, because the PRC came in on our side just a few weeks later, and our battered forces joyfully welcomed fresh allies to the fight.

  The enemy had obliged us by making the same mistakes we had, and they expended their momentum on costly offensives against worlds like Columbia. Eventually the cumulative attrition caused operations on both sides to slow to a crawl, giving the PRC time to mobilize and reinforce our battered forces.

  By the time I put on my dress blues for graduation we were ready to start some limited offensives. The ranks had been replenished, and the officer corps was about to be reinforced by the 180 new lieutenants in my class, with another cadre going through accelerated training six months behind us.

  Losses had been heavy in five years of war, and most of us would command units consisting primarily of new recruits. This was a major change from my first assault, when I was the only newb in my squad, and my fire team leader could spare a veteran private to assign as my babysitter. I’d be lucky if the squads in my platoon had one or two seasoned privates each. The squad leaders, while combat veterans all, would probably be making their first drop as SLs, and they’d need to keep a close eye on all the rookies filling their ranks.

  I gave a lot of thought to how I would handle my platoon given these realities. My troops had performed well during Achilles and also on Columbia, but I would have to command raw troops differently. Having veterans like Jax was a huge help in executing any strategy, but I’d be very unlikely to have anyone like him in my new platoon.

  Jax himself was otherwise occupied. He’d survived Columbia more or less intact, and started at the Academy while I was still growing new legs. He graduated six months before me and, as I was polishing my gear for commencement, he was already off somewhere leading his own platoon.

  So, through no fault of my own, Jax had leapfrogged me and gotten his commission before I got mine. There are few talents more uesful to a soldier than one for getting missed by the enemy. It was one I’d had for a long time, but it failed me on Columbia.

  I didn’t realize that I was about to make a jump of my own, and a totally unexpected one at that. I was surprised enough when the commandant invited me to dinner, and I almost spit out my brandy when he gave me the news. I was graduating first in my class and being decorated twice—for Achilles and Columbia.

  That wasn’t all. I wa
sn’t going to get my lieutenancy after all. Based on my performance at the Academy and my experience commanding troops in the field, they were graduating me as a captain. My first platoon wasn’t going to be a platoon at all. I was going back to command my old company. There weren’t going to be too many familiar faces, but nevertheless, I was going home.

  CHAPTER 8

  AS Bearclaw

  Task Force Delta-Omega

  Gliese 250 system

  “Quiet, Hector … I’m trying to think.”

  I’m not sure what possessed me to give my suit’s AI a name, but that’s what everyone suggested, so I just did it. I have to admit it was a bit more intuitive than calling it PNOV3168, which was the designation it had when I got it. As to why I chose the name of a doomed Trojan hero killed by Achilles under the walls of Troy, when I myself had survived our own Achilles, your guess is as good as mine.

  “I am simply trying to provide you with the information flow required to make informed decisions” The reply was predictable. Hector had a very calm and slightly hushed tone of voice, sort of what you’d expect from a therapist. It was hard to get used to; the trooper AIs had a very unemotional, robotic sounding voice, and they didn’t have all that much to say anyway.

  The new officer AIs were the state of the art in quasi-sentient computers, and the designers had decided that giving them a soothing, human-sounding voice and an active personality would reduce stress on officers in the field. I can’t speak to the psychology of the officer corps in general, but the damned thing creeped me out. And it talked too much.

  “Hector, shut up! If I need something I’ll ask for it!” Can you feel a machine sulking or was it just my imagination?

  Graduation had been amazing, not just because I was first in my class and was decorated twice, but also because of one extra surprise. Doctor Sarah somehow managed to be there. I don’t know how she did it. We’d stayed in touch while I was at the Academy, but war in space is not conducive to scheduling personal get-togethers.

  Even better, she had three extra days, and I had two weeks of leave, so we got to spend some time together, time where she wasn’t my doctor and I wasn’t her patient. It was amazing, but three days went all too quickly, and the parting was hard. The war was still not going all that well, and I was heading back into the meat grinder. It was a real possibility we’d never see each other again, and we were both all too aware of that fact. But duty called for both of us, and we had to answer.

  Now I was back in the fray, and I had my hands full. Commanding a company was overwhelming. I’d led a couple dozen troops before in some very desperate circumstances. But the force under my command now was almost incomprehensible. I had 140 troops, including a heavy weapons detachment and a cache of nuclear warheads. I had more firepower at my beck and call than an army commander in the Unification Wars. I had four other officers under me, each of them as fresh out of the Academy as I was.

  Over 100 of the men and women of my company were on either their first or second mission. I managed to fill most of the squad leader slots with experienced sergeants, but there was no question about it; we were a green company. My Marines were well trained, all of them. But training and experience are two different things. When things start to deviate from the plan it’s the veterans who hold a unit together. During Achilles, and later on Columbia, I’d seen it happen. This time I wasn’t at all sure we had enough seasoned troopers to pull us through if things got really sticky.

  The mission had me worried. I would have preferred a straight out planetary assault, but that’s not what we’d drawn. We were in the Gliese 250 system, and we’d snuck in through a newly discovered warp gate on the far side of the primary star. Gliese 250 was a binary system with a couple of gas giants and nothing much of value except its location and its collection of gravitational anomalies, otherwise known as warp gates. The system was a major choke point for the Caliphate, with six (now seven) warp gates, four leading to Caliphate systems and two out to barely explored areas on the Rim. The seventh, the one we’d found, connected the Gliese system with 12 Ophiuchi, which was our main outer base.

  With no decent real estate in the system for a colony, the Caliphate had constructed a massive space station to serve as a refueling depot and transit facility. I can’t even imagine what it cost them to build something this size with no in-system population or even a rocky planet for ores, but Gliese was a hugely important nexus for them, and they needed something that could handle the traffic coming through.

  The system was buried well within their territory, or so they thought, and the station was only lightly armed. Our deep survey of the 12 Ophiuchi system redrew the strategic map in an instant, and it gave us a highway right into the heart of a major Caliphate sector. Once they became aware of the new warp gate, Gliese 250 was also potential launch point for a Caliphate invasion of 12 Ophiuchi and our systems beyond. But for now it was our secret, a dagger thrust right into a previously secure enemy sector.

  The war had slowed to a stalemate, as both sides licked their wounds and struggled to replace lost ships and soldiers. But now we had a chance to launch a major surprise attack and throw them back on the defensive. Step one—take that station.

  We wanted it intact, so the idea of just sending in a battlegroup to blast it to rubble wasn’t an option. Instead, the plan was to knock out its defensive array with a pinpoint bombardment and then board the thing. My company was supporting two teams of SEALs, who were going to do a deep space entry and secure a docking portal. After that, my men and women would swarm onto the station and take it deck by deck.

  Intelligence had provided us with a fairly detailed analysis on the specifications and capabilities of the station. It was a white metal cylinder about ten kilometers long and two wide, and it slowly rotated along its central axis, producing artificial gravity for the outward sections. Its otherwise smooth surface was dotted with long, slender protrusions—umbilicals for docking spaceships. The station could handle at least twenty large vessels docked at one time, but when we hit it there were only three freighters and no warships.

  It orbited the outer gas giant, a massive world twice the size of Jupiter, and we were able to mask our approach by coming in from the far side of the planet. Our entry point was clear across the system from any of the known warp gates, so there was no sensor grid to detect our arrival. Shielded by the magnetic field of the enormous planet, our squadron whipped around in orbit and got off the first shot, knocking out the station’s sensors and main batteries.

  We had four ships—two heavy cruisers and two fast assault ships. After they blinded the station and knocked out its weapons, the cruisers, Washington and Chicago, took up a defensive position in case any inbound enemy ships turned up. Then it was up to us.

  The Bearclaw launched two assault shuttles carrying the SEAL teams while half my people buttoned up in the other two. The rest of the company was on the Wolverine, suited up and loaded onto two of her four shuttles. There was another company of reserve troops on Wolverine, scheduled to board after my people had taken control. The would garrison the station after we captured it.

  I was bolted in place in my assault shuttle, but my suit was powered up, and my AI was locked into the ship’s battle computers, so I was able to follow the SEALs as they began the assault. Their shuttles stopped and hovered just a few hundred meters from the target, and the bays opened and released the SEALs into space. These guys were trained for insertions from space, and they were some of the craziest sons of bitches I’ve ever met.

  The SEAL armor was bigger and bulkier than ours, with propulsion systems to allow them to maneuver in space. I had Hector project an image of the teams approaching the station, and I watched as the first of them manipulated their thrusters to make contact with the station without slamming into it. I was impressed by the fine control these guys had, as SEAL after SEAL impacted gently and went right to work.

  The first team’s mission was to blow a precision hole in the station’s
hull and get inside to defend that position. The second team would be fitting a portable docking collar that would allow our shuttles to connect and offload my people, so we could begin to take the place deck by deck.

  The SEALs worked quickly and confidently, and within five minutes they’d set their charges and pulled back to what the computers insisted (but I doubted) was a safe location on the hull. Thirty seconds later the Bearclaw’s computer triggered the series of charges, ripping a neat, nearly circular four meter hole in the station’s hull. A few seconds later the SEALs were climbing over the lip and disappearing inside.

  The second team was approaching the station, almost in position. Six of them had hold of the docking collar, and they skillfully guided it into position around the gash in the hull. Setting the collar took a little more time than placing the charges, but not much. It was about fifteen minutes before our shuttles got the go-ahead to begin the approach.

  The SEALs inside didn’t run into any resistance at first. The area beyond the insertion hole was now vacuum, so any security personnel on the station would have to suit up before they could try to respond. By the time they got organized and attacked the foothold, our first shuttle was inbound, and the SEALs only had to hold out for ten minutes or so.

  Although outnumbered, the team was well-trained and equipped, and they were able to beat back two assaults with relative ease and minor losses. Before the third attack came my people were swarming aboard and launching our own assault that wiped out the entire security force threatening the landing area.