“Alright we’ll table the discussion over the Penetrator 3.5 while we research potential survivability both with and without whatever work around the Chief Engineer discovered while building his own lander,” I said, pausing to take a breath.
“Right,” said Hammer, “that aside, we have still received substantial reinforcements.”
“My people are after having contributed 36 gunboats and operators which are being onboard the Jumble Carriers,” Glue said, popping his lips for emphasis. “Also there are many males eager to fight the Empire, and many brought sisters and wives with them for the battle.”
“They brought their…wives?” Hammer asked, her eyebrows climbing. “The last thing we need are non-combatants flooding into a soon to be war-zone, Mr. Glue.”
The large Sundered chortled, his laughter a booming, bitonal, ‘hoo-hoo-hu’ sound.
“Sundered not like human females standing and screaming—or running away in fear after having an attack. Is what we call ‘cultural difference’ this time, Captain,” he explained, pausing to perform a rapid one-two-three fist beating on his chest. “In our people, only children non-combatants. Our females fight with their males and the males will be more careful fighters because of it. In this time there are one hundred twenty seven males eager for battle, and three is to one. For total of 350 battle ready Sundered people ready to fight Empire forces.”
“Your math’s a little fuzzy, and I resent your characterization of the female civilian population,” Leonora said stiffly.
“Many sorry!” Glue boomed vigorously. “Can only know your people from holo-vid entertainment. Only chance Sundered have of observing humans up close before coming to Omicron and Tracto is when taken to barbeque pits for party food!”
“Party food?” Hammer looked clueless, and her First Officer leaned over to whisper something in her ear. She looked shocked and outraged, “That’s disgusting!” she declared, “and it’s a violation of the sentient acts charter. How can—”
Glue slapped his hand on the table, interrupting her with a broad smile. “Whole Sundered people ready to fight at need. Maybe humans same way, not like on holo-vid, yes? Today 350 uplift volunteers ready to fight and die against Imperials. If human female population not eager to run and scream and hide like on vids, but eager to fight same way Sundered females eager to fight, then we Sundered people vow to stand side by side in battle formation with human female militia and their husbands! Male or female, human or Sundered, today we are one population united against oppressors,” he said, waving his arms grandly.
Leonora Hammer looked as if she’d just take a big bite out of a sandwich filled with rotten eggs. She was completely at a loss how to respond to Glue’s stated desire to learn he was wrong and fight beside the outraged, and just about completely ‘non-existent,’ female militia forces who were eager to fight and die against the Reclamationers instead of staying home where it was safe like on the holo-vid and in the main in real life as well. There were exceptions, but…
“If any of the Valkyrie military units from Valhalla 3.9 or New Freya’s World happen to reach us in time for the battle, we’ll be sure to slot them in beside your forces, Primarch,” I said, nodding and smoothly diverting the conversation before a major cultural misunderstanding could take place. “Now, despite heroic addition of the Sundered reinforcements,” I gave a nod over to Primarch Glue, who leaned back looking well satisfied, “are there any other problems when it comes to our Lancer-slash-Marine forces?”
Glue shook his head while Wainwright cleared his throat.
“Yes, General?” I asked.
“The Carriers didn’t just come with the Sundered. They also came with several thousand of what can only be termed,” he grimaced, “lower class Tracto-ans.”
“Problem?” I prompted.
“Not as such. Oh, sure, there is some discrimination from the current Lancer force against the lower born ‘farmers’ who were only able to practice with weapons one to two days a week and in the evenings. In general they seem to have had a poorer diet than the Tracto-ans we’ve been getting up until now, but it’s nothing we can’t handle,” said the General.
“Messene, Argos, and our allies have encouraged as many warriors to join the MSP as we can afford to without weakening our home polities,” Akantha interjected. “Right now we need to focus on rebuilding our strength, so the only recruits that are available right now come from less skilled and uneducated masses.”
“Being unskilled is not the problem,” Wainwright said turning to Akantha, “in many ways it’s easier. Rather it’s the large number of cripples—several hundred at least—men with one arm or a missing leg who have joined up in exchange for free medical care.”
“What’s the problem?” I asked quirking a brow, “I mean other than retraining time. Just give them a mechanical prosthetic until after this battle is over and we can re-grow them a new flesh and bone replacement for their missing appendage. I mean, I assume they were all fitted with prosthetics before they were shipped out here.”
“They all came with a working replacement for whatever was missing,” Wainwright sighed. “The problem is most of them either want to fight for free, other than room and board, or donate their regular wages to you personally and only take a share of the ‘battle field spoils’ for themselves. I’ve tried to explain to them that technically this is either illegal, fighting for free, or borderline illegal both as it regards donating their wages and plundering the enemy. But getting it through their thick skulls is a real challenge,” he said sourly, “As a Marine I’ve had lots of reasons to reject recruits. But in this case I’m stumped. Here I’ve got a bunch of what are essentially hardened planetary militia veterans who are able to meet the physical standards, have no problems fighting, and after retraining are generally able to take orders. Yet because they view getting back a missing arm or leg or eye as a miraculous event, they’re threatening to disqualify themselves from the Fleet because they refuse to be paid. Normally the Equal Employment and Fair Wages Laws aren’t even something I have to consider as a Marine, but…” he trailed off, shaking his head.
I rubbed my jaw, feeling surprised although I knew that in retrospect I should have expected some kind of problems like this to crop up.
“I think—” I started.
“I will speak with them,” Akantha cut in, assuring the Marine General, “I’m sure that after I explain the situation to them that they will not cause you any further troubles.”
“I’d appreciate that,” General Wainwright said with relief, “however, I really have to emphasize that they really cannot work for free. I mean, personally I couldn’t care less what a Marine does with his money after he’s paid. But as their commanding officer, I have responsibilities—and no desire to go to jail because of some cultural tick.”
“I said I will handle it. You can rest assured,” Akantha reiterated.
“Good,” said Wainwright leaning back.
“Good,” I echoed him, “now if there aren’t any other problems, moving on…”
Wainwright coughed, leaning forward again.
“Yes, General?” I asked, suppressing the urge to sigh.
“Two thousand reinforcements are all well and good, even if they are decidedly green,” said the Marine General. “However, I would be remiss in my duties if I didn’t point out that when it comes to power armor we are decidedly behind anything the Imperials choose to throw at us. My Marines and I are using suits at least a generation out of date back on Capria. The rest of our forces are using a hodgepodge of fifty year old Caprian battle suits or power armor picked up anywhere from Omicron to Elysium. First we need to standardize, if only to save our armorers from having a conniption fit and nervous breakdown. And second, nothing we have can stand up toe to toe with what we already know the Imperial has—to say nothing of anything they’ve hidden up their sleeves, Sir.”
“I see,” I pursed my lips. Then, reaching for my data slate and pulling up the manifests of the var
ious freighters that had accompanied the Carriers and Sundered reinforcements, I smiled, “I had been saving this for later in the meeting, but I think I can reveal it now since we’re currently on the issue anyway.”
“Yes?” asked Wainwright. I handed him the slate, at which he took a look and whistled.
“Anyone care to share with the rest of the class?” asked Lieutenant-Commander Wave Grinder.
“New battlesuits,” I said with a broad smile, “the Commander comes through again. Or, in this case, Yard Manager Baldwin who has turned his design from a one-off reality into a mass production model.”
“Excellent!” exclaimed General Wainwright, sounding like a teen who just found an illegal turbo-charger for his hover car. “We have 2200 units of the new Devastator armor.”
“We’ve got several freighters stocked full of the new armor,” I said with a grin.
“Are these really as effective as they would appear from the General’s reaction?” Wave Grinder asked with surprise.
“This is the first mass production run of new battlesuits made with the new Duralloy II,” I explained.
“My only complaint is that we don’t have more,” interjected Wainwright before looking back down at the slate, “this is excellent.”
“They’re still having issues because of the high strength and relative rigidity of the new metal. They can make flat sheets, but bending the stuff almost has to be done by hand for many of the smaller pieces. Anyway, most of smaller pieces had to custom-built and fitted by a man with a lathe and grinder. At some point they’ll have a production line for each of the smaller pieces, but for now we’re still at something of a bottleneck.”
“I see that they’re still using the old power assist system using basic duralloy for most of the fine pieces,” mused Wainwright.
“They’ve increased the power so as to be able to handle the increased weight of extra metal. But, yes, the internal structures are still mostly duralloy one,” I agreed.
“Can’t wait to get my hands on the Devastator 2.0 version once they’ve got the entire thing built out of Duralloy II, but I’ll gladly take what I can get,” said the General.
“Right,” I said then pointed to the slate, “and in addition to the Devastator, we have a number of Duralloy II shields that our current suits are rated to be able to carry.”
“Great. We have new suits,” said Wave Grinder, “which, if we can board, might help us. We still need to find a way to get them onto that Command Carrier.”
“Not just ‘might’,” retorted Wainwright, “you haven’t seen these suits in action. I’d put one of them up against a squad of traditional Caprian armor in tight quarters. Spread out on an open battlefield and it might be different, but so long as the corridors are wide and tall enough to move then these things are a terror.”
“It still remains to be seen how effective they’ll be against Imperial armor, but yes: these things are monsters,” I said, remembering my battle against Nikomedes and Co. with the alpha version of this armor personally designed for me by Spalding. “Alright, I think we’ve gone over as much as we can usefully cover for the moment. So I’ll just go over our current force and fixed defenses deployment and then we’ll break. Just make sure those of you assigned to the Penetrator 3.5 Lander project inform me immediately if there is any word on the ‘green goo’ situation. Now, moving on: the Metal Titan arrived with Jumble Carriers but is still in need of some work…”
Chapter Fifteen: A Private Meeting
I was happily bouncing a baby on my right knee while tapping away on a data slate set off to my left.
“That should work,” I muttered, tapping my electronic approval of the plan. Next was—
The door to our personal quarters swooshed open. I looked up to see my beloved wife come storming in like a whirlwind. With a sigh, I set aside the slate.
“Great to see you. How was your day?” I asked.
While I was distracted, the baby managed to grab a hold of the data slate and shove it in her mouth.
“You mean other than that long and boring meeting in the morning?” Akantha asked and, sitting down beside me, she deftly pulled the data slate out of mouth eager to chew and gum it for all she was worth. “You can’t let the babies just put anything they like into their mouths, Jason,” she scolded.
“How soon before they start eating solids?” I asked. “I seem to have heard something about a food trial recently?”
“Don’t you even think about it,” she warned me, “you can’t be feeding them anything before they’re ready. You need to wait until they’re old enough.”
“What’s with the false accusations?” I demanded irritably.
“Says the man giving them shoulder rides before their backs are strong enough and secretly feeding them when you think no one is looking!” she exclaimed.
“What are you talking about? The most I gave them was some water and a little juice. I mean, they looked like they were starving and they sure liked the iced tea,” I said.
“I told you that iced tea is bad for their kidneys, you idiot!” she hit me with a pillow. “Don’t do it again.”
“And they call me the Tyrant,” I said plaintively.
“Irritating man,” Akantha spat, snatching the baby off my leg and then holding her close. The baby giggled.
“Traitor,” I glowered at the baby.
The baby laughed again, grabbing onto her mother’s hair and pulling.
“Ow,” Akantha grimaced, breaking into dialect as she detached the baby’s hands from her hair and scolded her in Tracto-an language.
She switched the baby to the leg nearest me as she turned her head away from the baby and started straightening her mussed hair.
Surreptitiously, I picked up the data slate and slipped it over to the baby girl, helping her get a good grip and then move it into her mouth—where she immediately and happily started chewing on it.
Done with her hair, Akantha turned back.
“Jason!” she cried, slipping the baby’s hands off the slate. “Feeding her anything,” she scolded, tossing the slate onto the bed where it bounced to a stop well out of range of both dad and baby. “You know that slate is dirty. You can’t just shove anything you like into their mouths,” Akantha repeated, switching the baby to the side furthest from me so I couldn’t reach her and then she gestured over the Tracto-an maid. “Here, it’s time for her nap.”
“But she’s still full of energy and ready to play,” I protested, whereupon Akantha switched back into dialect and ignored me as she handed the baby over to the nanny. Forlornly I watched as baby and nanny disappeared out of the room. “I wasn’t done playing,” I said glumly.
“You’re done,” she informed me without an ounce of give and then switched the subject, “I went over to see the new Devastator suits,” she said excitedly.
“Oh joy,” I grumped, still determined to let her know how I wasn’t pleased with her high handed baby stealing tactics. The evening was one of the few times when I was free to play with the babies. Well, I decided there were still five of the little ones onboard the ship; I’d just sneak out and grab one later. Then we’d head down to the mess hall and grab come juice and maybe a little bit of pudding or jiggle-o. Just try and stop me from playing with my own kids, I gloated as I silently planned my next mom-avoiding excursion. Feeding them anything was it? Well I’d show her. Safely, of course. But I’d still show her. I’d been watching baby development and training videos, as well as talking with my mom, after all.
It was time to take a stand!
“I’ve seen you in your suit, but actually being in one myself is a totally different experience. The fine control suffers compared to the old suits, but the power!” she chattered happily about the new power armor battle suits the way some women would about a new set of clothes they’d picked up on sale at the mall.
I heaved a small, hidden sigh. I was in here playing with the baby, and now here we were back to the tools of death and warfare. It’
s not that I didn’t appreciate such tools or thought that my wife…well, it would just be nice if she wasn’t always the first one intent on diving into a battle and getting herself killed.
“I really like the new holo-vision built into the visor. The night-vision capability is much better than with the old suits, as is the interface. Being able to switch it into Tracto-an with just a simple command, and having an automatic translation feature pop up on the visor is also a big improvement,” she continued.
“That’s great,” I said, doing my best to chime in at all the right places. Dang it, we had been chewing the data slate. Now that was fun. This…well, it would be fun if I had been the one in the armor knocking everyone else around—or, better yet, going head-to-head with another Devastator suit.
Before I knew it, I was starting to get pumped up as I visualized shooting another Devastator suit with my built-in ion cannon and then stepping on its head.
“And did you know about the built-in combat heal and anti-pain and anti-sleep injections? With this sort of armor we can fight them until we bleed out if necessary!” she exclaimed.
“Um…bleed out? I think we should definitely avoid something like that,” I said, trying to put a break on this sort of excessive enthusiasm—especially since I had every intention of keeping her tucked away safe and snug on the flagship.
“We’ll win this war. For the prize!” she shouted, pumping her fist and I knew there wasn’t any point in further attempts at reason.
Resigned, I sat back and listened as she started to tell me about her day practicing with the Devastator armor and working as the temporary leader of a Tracto-an company during the war games with the Marines.
She’d taken over command of the company from its usual Captain? Why, of course she had. How else was she going to learn how to command in the field if she didn’t do the same practices as everyone else?
I heaved another long-suffering sigh.
Chapter Sixteen: New Arrivals Admiral
Admiral's War Part Two (A Spineward Sectors Novel: Book 10) Page 9
