by David Weber
While the Army’s “leg” infantry and few battle armored assault units operate with the same organization and doctrine as the Marines, their armored infantry are organized a little differently at the squad level. An armored infantry squad fights dismounted, with two four-man fireteams (often called “quads”) and a sergeant in overall command, supported by the two- to three-man team in their light skimmer or infantry fighting vehicle.
Armored infantry platoons consist of three squad vehicles plus a command vehicle. A tank platoon likewise consists of four tanks (three plus a command tank). Various support platoons exist at different levels of organization, but the core “three plus command” organization concept remains constant across this level of organization. A company, whether composed of infantry, armored infantry or tanks, consists of three platoons plus a command element. The command element will include a command vehicle for the staff, and often includes support vehicles (medical, engineering, air defense, etc.) depending on the mission.
A typical Army Battalion will consist of a command element, three standard companies, one support company (often a combination of heavy weapons and mission-specific support), and a fifth company that is normally detached for recruiting and depot duties, including vehicular maintenance and rear area security. Three battalions combine to form a regiment, which is the highest permanent organizational unit, similar to the Marines.
Pure function units above regimental size are not used, but when necessary, the Army will form mission-specific Regimental Combat Teams, typically consisting of one armored regiment, two armored infantry regiments, and one aerospace wing for transport and airspace control.
Atmospheric Command operates all of the Army’s aerospace fighters and transports, and is organized into squadrons and wings. The unit organization changes to meet the needs of the mission, ranging anywhere from a cross-attached squadron for close-air support of an armored infantry battalion to a full transport wing to provide airlift for an entire regiment. Under the terms of the East Cay Agreement, Atmospheric Command is prohibited from operating extra-atmospheric vehicles at “interplanetary distances,” which is interpreted to mean more than one light-minute from a planetary body. The East Cay Agreement was intended to prevent the design and procurement of competing assault shuttles, pinnaces, etc., by restricting the Army to stingships and similarly short-ranged extra-atmosphere combat vehicles. The East Cay Agreement had been waived upon occasion, however, and Army stingships are designed to be capable of operating from Navy boat bays and Marine assault ships when necessary. Atmospheric Command personnel routinely train in joint operations with both the RMMC and the RMN.
Equipment
At the level of the individual soldier, the Army has a great deal of commonality of equipment with the Royal Marines, and its infantry regiments are equipped with identical gear across the board, with minor differences only based on mission focus. The Army has far fewer battle-armored assault units than the Marines, however, given the expense in both equipment and training to maintain them.
The primary combat unit of the armored regiment is the M11A2 grav tank. The M11 is a hybrid design, capable of short “sprints” on counter-grav, with conventional treads for stability and long distance travel. The primary weapon is a 120 mm plasma cannon, supported by a remote tribarrel pulser for anti-infantry defense as well as an automated point defense turret designed to rapidly engage and destroy incoming projectiles and missiles. Forward scouting is performed by onboard counter-grav reconnaissance drones, while an active and passive ECM suite works to defeat guided projectiles, as well as target locks from enemy tanks.
The M13 Infantry Fighting Vehicle is a lightweight variant of same hybrid pattern as the M11, but armed with a heavy tribarrel pulser in the turret and capable of carrying a total of twelve soldiers, including a commander, driver, gunner, and full rifle squad. Numerous specialty vehicles (command, engineering, air defense, artillery, etc.) are built on the M11 and M13 base platforms.
In comparison, the M27 Skimmer (often referred to as a “battle taxi”) is a pure counter-grav vehicle that bears a closer resemblance to an armored aircar than a tank. Optimized as a fast reconnaissance vehicle, the M27 is capable of speeds up to nine hundred kilometers per hour at low altitude. Armament consists of a twin light tribarrel pulser turret to provide support fire to the embarked squad when necessary.
Atmospheric Command operates a number of aerospace craft, but the two most common are the M105 “Goliath” transport and the M116 “Viper” stingship. The Goliath is the primary heavy lift platform of the Atmospheric Command, and a Goliath Wing is capable of airlifting an entire regiment from one side of the planet to the other in less than twenty-four hours. The Viper is the standard single-seat stingship operated by the Army, a high-performance impeller-drive hypersonic attack fighter capable of operations from “treetops to low orbit,” as well as limited space capability.
The Army has no interplanetary transport ability and must rely solely on Navy and Marine transport. The Star Empire is running chronically short of their fast attack and heavy assault transports, and the ones in service are worked hard. It is not unusual for Army regiments to find themselves loaded aboard civilian transport to reach their garrisons.
Queen’s Own
The Queen’s Own exists in order to provide physical security to the sovereign and to members of the royal family, and to provide area security for Mount Royal Palace and for other royal residences. More than mere bodyguards, the Queen’s Own also has responsibility for certain support functions, such as intelligence, associated with protection of the Royal Family. While operationally part of the Army, the Queen’s Own dates back to 1489 PD with the Coronation of King Roger I. Recognizing the need for a protective detail for the Monarch, given the influx of new colonists, the Manticore and Sphinx Planetary Guards each “donated” a company and a half of their troops to form the core of a battalion. Gryphon followed suit after its population reached a level to support its own Planetary Guard. The unit has grown in strength since then, and had already reached regimental size by the time it was merged with the Army in 1665 PD.
The Queen’s Own (formally known as the Monarch’s Own Regiment) is generally regarded as the elite of the Army, but its ranks are also open to Marines, and even the occasional naval officer. Before being accepted for service in the Queen’s Own, an individual must first prove himself or herself thoroughly in one of the combat arms.
The Queen’s Own consists of four “battalions,” one for each of the three original planets of the Star Kingdom plus a “training battalion,” which both trains new recruits and provides opposition forces for training at the Army’s premier combat training facilities. The Queen’s Own’s battalions do not normally detach their “recruiting” or depot company. This means that, technically, the Queen’s Own’s official strength is 2,940 troops. In fact, it is usually somewhat understrength because of the high standards its personnel must meet. Like the Army itself, the Queen’s Own contains its own atmospheric component of stingships and heavy transports. Most of its personnel, even on security detail for the Monarch herself, are normally configured as light infantry, but each battalion has its own integral heavy weapons company, and powered armor is available to it.
The Queen’s Own is expected to contribute forces to frontline combat if the Star Kingdom is at war. This usually takes the form of deploying one of its three planet battalions to the active theater, leaving the other two planet battalions to hold down the Regiment’s normal peacetime duties. Those duties include the personal security of the sovereign and members of the royal family, security at Mount Royal Palace and other royal residences, and intelligence functions related to the preceding two duties.
In addition to all of the above, the Queen’s Own is the Army’s premier ceremonial unit, as it has been a part of the Star Kingdom’s military traditions dating back to the founding of the Star Kingdom itself.
The Protectorate of Grayson
My Lords, I do no
t intend to debate with you. It is the Sword’s prerogative in time of war to instruct you, and such is my purpose today. I will entertain no discussion, and I will brook no defiance. Understand me well, and ignore my warning at your peril.
There has been much discussion in this Conclave over months past as to blame and responsibility. There have been countless whispers, and more than a few open arguments, that the time has come for the Protectorate of Grayson to walk away from the Star Kingdom of Manticore. It is not our job, I have heard too many of you say, to guard the back of a star nation which does not worry about guarding our own or consulting us on foreign policy as an ally should. It is not our responsibility to stand at the side of a star nation whose own policies, whose own internal political corruption and partisanship, have brought it to this deadly pass. It is wisdom to stand aside rather than fling ourselves between the Star Kingdom of Manticore and the Republic of Haven in this new and even deadlier war between them. We have paid enough standing there in days past; we will pay no more today.
Yes, My Lord Keys, I have heard you. The Sword has listened, as it is charged to listen. And now, having listened, the Sword will speak, and I will speak to tell you to be silent.
I know as well as any other man in this chamber—indeed, better than any other man in this chamber—how corrupt, how self-serving, how foolish and shortsighted and arrogant the High Ridge Government has been. I know how it has ignored consultation with its allies, how it has built down its own navy, paid no heed to the possibility that Haven might be acquiring equally advanced weapons. I know how it squandered the opportunity for outright victory which lay with in our grasp before the Duke of Cromarty and Lord Chancellor Prestwick were killed—murdered—right here at Yeltsin’s Star by agents of the Committee of Public Safety. I know all of those things, yet they are not all I know, and unlike certain honored members of this conclave, I remember those other things.
I remember the Faithful on Masada. I remember their promises to destroy all we hold dear. I remember their plot, Haven’s assistance to them, the way in which our Navy was destroyed by them. And, My Lords, I remember why they failed. I remember the men and women of a foreign, infidel star nation who never hesitated, never asked “Why?”—never even considered standing aside in a battle which was not theirs. I remember how many of those men and women died for us, when they did not even know us. When too many of our own people had systematically insulted them because of the difference of their beliefs. And I remember how much else we owe to those “strangers” who brought us modern medicine, interstellar trade, prosperity, safety. Who gave us the gift of the sons and daughters this hostile world of ours can now support. Who freed us from the curse which killed so many millions of our babies at birth. Who have fought and bled and died with our sons and our brothers because they are no longer “strangers,” but have also become our brothers—and our sisters—by choice.
I will not hear a voice in this chamber which does not count them as much our own, as much the Tester’s children, as any human being ever born of Grayson. Their government has made mistakes—grievous mistakes—but remember what the Intercessor said. Read our own history, see our mistakes, before you dare to cast that stone in your hand. The policy of the High Ridge Government was just that, my Lords—the policy of the High Ridge Government, not of the people or the Crown of Manticore. And I will assure you on my own honor as Protector of Grayson, that the Republic of Haven has lied about the contents of its diplomatic correspondence with Manticore. I do not pretend to know why, yet I have seen the Manticoran originals, and they do not support Haven’s claims.
In the face of this fresh, undeclared, powerful attack upon the Star Kingdom of Manticore, one justified before the galaxy by lies and distortions, Grayson will stand by our brothers and sisters’ side. We will remember our debt, our shared blood, all we have lost for one another’s sake, and as the Tester is our witness, the sword we have drawn will not be sheathed once more until this time there is true peace and an end to the killing at last.
—Protector Benjamin IX of Grayson, addressing the Conclave of Steadholders, March 13, 1920 PD
Introduction
The Protectorate of Grayson is a feudal aristocracy consisting of a single system with one habitable planet and a significant space-based supporting ecosystem.
Grayson was founded in 988 PD by the Reverend Austin Grayson and his co-religionists of the Church of Humanity Unchained. The Reverend Grayson sought to take his followers away from Old Earth to the New Zion and its technology-free Garden of Eden. Upon arrival, however, the colonists found that their beautiful planet was so rich in heavy elements that survival without technology would be almost impossible.
Since the original intent of the colonization of Grayson was to build a New Zion without the evils of technologies used on Old Earth, the founders quite intentionally left behind a great deal of the knowledge and manufacturing capacity required for a technological base. The necessary reinvention and rebuilding of technologies on Grayson were very badly handicapped by that initial planned technology shortage and the need for much of the planet’s labor resources to be dedicated to survival.
In support of that survival, Reverend Grayson made a radical change to the Church of Humanity Unchained’s doctrine. He called for the rejection not of the machine but of the ungodly lifestyle which machine-age humanity had embraced. In time a religious schism between the technology-embracing Moderates and the technology-rejecting Faithful led to a bloody civil war which ended only when the Faithful were exiled to a new colony on the neighboring Endicott System’s planet of Masada. The rest of space-going humanity rediscovered the Yeltsin and Endicott systems in 1793 PD.
The Protectorate of Grayson fought the descendants of its exiles in the Masadan War of 1843 PD, the Long Crusade (a series of Masadan raids on Grayson) between 1848 and 1868, and the Second Masadan War of 1903. Following the Manticoran defense of Grayson from Masadan attack in the second war, RMN commander Honor Harrington was made the first non-Grayson and the first female steadholder. The war marked the Protectorate of Grayson’s entry into the Manticoran Alliance and ended the Masadan threat but did not bring peace. Grayson fought as a member of the Manticoran Alliance in the next decade of wars with Haven, and the 1913 assassination attempt on the heads of state of both Manticore and Grayson was coordinated by agents with clear Havenite ties. The Protectorate of Grayson remains a strong ally of the Star Empire of Manticore.
Astrography
With a single habitable planet and a population of about three billion, the Protectorate of Grayson is one of many single-system nations in the Verge. Yeltsin’s Star is a young F6 class main sequence star half again as massive as Sol. The system layout is remarkably similar to the Sol System, although the single habitable planet is much farther from the primary.
Grayson (Yeltsin V)
Radius: 6,242 km
Gravity: 1.17 G
Orbital Period: 681.61 T-days
Sidereal Day: 24.21 hours
Hydrosphere: 63%
The planet Grayson is significantly smaller than Old Earth, but is of approximately equal mass because it is a high-density world with unusual concentrations of heavy metals. None of its native plants or animals are safe for human consumption, due to the presence of those heavy metals. Population centers are primarily inland to avoid the toxicity of the planet’s oceans. Early genetic engineering by the initial settlers resulted in a set of enzymes that allow native-born Graysons to sustain and survive degrees of heavy-metal contact that would kill unmodified humans. This genetic engineering has resulted in a live birth rate of females that is roughly triple that of males. Despite these modifications, heavy-metal toxicity remains an ever-present risk, and the population lives in air-filtered homes. Although able to sustain a “shirtsleeve” environment under many conditions, wind speeds which generate significant quantities of atmospheric dust require the use of protective masks, and gloves are frequently required when in contact with the natural environ
ment.
The average temperature on Grayson is on the warm side by Manticoran standards, and limited hydrosphere and axial inclination do not help to moderate it very much. Unlike most planets, Grayson’s orbital infrastructure contains a high percentage of orbital farms where the livestock and soil can remain uncontaminated.
Prior to joining the Manticoran Alliance, Grayson had very few exports or imports. Most products were produced for the domestic market only. While wartime construction has occupied most of the system’s heavy industry, it has begun to export both light warships and merchant hulls to Alliance members. Although military needs have dominated and driven the development of Grayson’s industry since 1905 PD, the infusion of modern technology and Manticoran investment funds have simultaneously provided for a huge leap in civilian manufacture, as well, at least in comparison to pre-Alliance levels. The planetary standard of living has risen quite remarkably over that timeframe as a result of the leaps and bounds by which productivity has increased.
The population as of 1921 PD was about three billion and expanding after a lengthy period of stagnant population curves, and the planet is experiencing a significant boom in space-based industry. Politically, the planet is divided into eighty-two steadings, each under the control of a steadholder. One consequence of the draconian population limitation Graysons were forced to accept due to their planetary environment is that no more than half of the entire planetary surface has actually been developed or organized into official steadings at this time. Harrington Steading, organized in 1906, is one of the youngest, but there remains much room for additional steadings as the Grayson population increases.
