Into the Green
Page 1
Rimworld
-Into the Green-
JL Curtis
Books by JL Curtis
The Grey Man- Vignettes
The Grey Man- Payback
The Grey Man- Changes
The Grey Man- Partners
Short Stories by JL Curtis
Rimworld- Stranded
(Kindle only)
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, contact the author, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below:
Oldnfo@gmail.com
Author’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.
Published by JLC&A. Available from Amazon.com in Kindle format or soft cover book, printed by CreateSpace.
Rimworld- Into the Green/ JL Curtis. -- 1st ed.
ISBN-13:978-1545474211
ISBN-10: 1545474214
DEDICATION
Blame this one on Peter and Ian!
Dedicated to those that toil in the dungeons in the R&D/S&T worlds, and the aliens in the basement. They make the impossible possible. Medicine, communications, space travel, lasers, science and technology advances…
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to the usual suspects.
Special thanks to my editor Stephanie Martin, and to Holly Chism.
Cover art by Tina Garceau.
Table of Contents
Prologue
Planeting
Alive
Duty Calls
Paying the Piper
Going Home
Revelation
Transit
First Sight
Home
Back to Work
Investigation
Green Sweet Green
Tick Tock
Nicole
Help Wanted
Hunter or Hunted
Road Trip
Moments of Terror
Star Center
Puzzle Pieces
Traders in the System
Joining Up
The Enclave
Gearing Up
A Little Help
Train, Train, Train
First Inspection
Operations
Sightings
Site and Situation
GalPat Arriving
Old Friends
Raid Time
After Action
Stolen Time
Epilog
Prologue
The Hundred Years War was supposedly over, or at so said the powers that be. The Dragons or Dragoons, as they had come to be called, came out of the Coma Berenices Nebula and contacted the expanding Galactic Empire and the Galactic Patrol three hundred years ago, either in 2550, or 2560 depending on who one believed. There was always some question since the Consolidated Union War had finally wound down, and no one was really sure whether the Dragoons first contacted the disparate CU entities, or the Galactic Empire.
***
GalPat Colonel Nan Randall wanted to scream, or alternatively, drag a few politicians out here without armor, and let them negotiate with the Dragoons. She saw Captain McNeil go down and his telltale go red on her HUD meaning this negotiation had taken another one of her soldiers. Cursing, she keyed her comm, saying calmly, “Garibaldi, swing your company left, get that ridgeline between you and the Goon’s line. Culverhouse, you’re no longer reserve. Right flank is all yours.”
Randall thought, Damn, what I wouldn’t give to have some bots to send forward, but the freakin’ stores ship lost her starboard drive before the last transition and she’s still at least two days out. We don’t have two days to wait. Need to put this one to bed now…
Quickly scanning her armor status, she cued her AI, “Okay Ethan, let’s go to war. Combat retention now.” Feeling the suit’s gel tighten, she squirmed into a more comfortable position and keyed her comm, “Charlie, on me. We’re going up the gut. Bounding advance by platoon, use the boulder field to your advantage. Let’s go dig those bastards out and blow their asses away.”
She started forward and commanded the AI, “Ethan, auto evade around bearing two-niner-three.” The AI immediately started jinking both the altitude and heading of the bounding run until she and the company got to the first line of rocks. Chief McQuerry and his platoon bounded forward under Charlie platoon’s covering fire, and Randall winced as she saw two red personnel telltales pop up, indicating two more troops had been killed.
Lieutenant Moore’s platoon was next, as the two platoons laid down covering fire. Randall got a carat on one of the Dragoons that thought it was not visible and put a Stinger missile on it, smiling to herself as the Goon and part of a boulder disappeared. Moore’s platoon made it with no losses, but a couple of telltales were yellow and she heard the call, “Medic up.”
Carating another rock pile, she pushed it to Charlie Company and keyed up, “Okay Charlie, one more time, now!” She jumped and started firing as she moved forward. First one, then a second red suit status telltales popped up as she slid to a stop behind the rock pile. Ammo was yellow, down to sixty percent, but she blinked that alert away.
Sergeant Obergon keyed up. “Lost Pop and Guest on that one. Mac, you’ve got first squad .now.” She heard a “Roger” and nodded to herself that Mac was stepping up.
Just as she went to call Chief McQuerry forward, Captain Garibaldi keyed up, “Got the ridgeline. Good IR sight line into their camp, and I think we’ve got the fusion plant located. We’re not taking any fire. Don’t think they know we’re here.”
Captain Culverhouse keyed in, “Got them occupied on this side. Take ‘em Bob.”
Colonel Randall said, “Take the fusion plant with everything you have on my count.” Keying company wide, she continued, “Listen up, going to take the fusion plant on my count. At three, everyone go to ground and eat dirt. Garibaldi take it in one, two, three…”
The sky lit with actinic fire, and the blast bounced the armor around like marbles on a table top. Randall rolled over with a groan, shook her head, and finally got her camera clear of dust. Looking toward the Dragoon’s line, all she saw was a glassine surface. Even the rock pile she’d been behind was melted over halfway down. She quickly took inventory of the company and saw Culverhouse with a yellow telltale. Keying the command channel, she asked, “Culverhouse, what happened?”
An abashed Culverhouse, obviously in pain, replied, “I forgot to duck. Took a pretty good sized boulder upside the head.”
Randall snickered to herself, and keyed the uplink to the strike group in orbit, “Colonel Randall here, we’re ready for pickup. Dragoon outpost is gone, another mud ball has been saved for the empire.”
***
In the first twenty years of the possibly ended Hundred Years War, the Galactic Patrol had pushed the Dragoons back to the forty light year range, but the Goons’ cooperation with the Traders, who were inside Galactic space, had given them better ships and weapons, allowing them to regain ground and planets through their all-out attacks. The next eighty years were a constant back and forth conflict across space, with the Dragoons getting within ten light years of Earth at one point, and actually getting one strike through that made landfall. After years of battle grinding on and pulve
rizing both ships and personnel, with over one million troops and spacers dead, and an estimated fifty million colonists lost on various planets, there was the infamous meeting at Vega that set the cease fire in 2606.
From one of the countless briefs: Dragons, (common usage term Dragoons or Goons)- Patriarchal society. Air breathers. Six to seven feet tall. Two to three hundred pounds. Bipedal, opposable thumbs, three fingered clawed forelegs, three toed clawed feet. Vestigial tails, vestigial wings. Prominent fangs. Multiple colorations, do not tie to specific clans or patriarchal lines. Rudimentary space activity, warrior ruling class. Expansionist, using slave labor, cultural values include capture of worlds, minerals, battle to advance within society.
Subnote 23- Carnivorous, eat prisoners and dead, including their own.
Subnote 31- Males start training as warriors at three years or age. Females mainly breeders, administrators. Can live to four hundred years of age.
Subnote 56- Partnered with or subsumed humans and Consolidated Unions worlds (hereafter known as ‘Traders’) in the outlying star clusters before/during the Hundred Years War. Gained access to then-current galactic space technology and weapons through CU shipyards and manufactories.
Subnote 133- Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) established after Galactic Patrol cease fire in 2606 at the 28 light year demarcation line when three separate battles (See Hundred Year War, Appendix 48) stopped the incursions. Numerous smaller incursions continue to this day, with Dragoons claiming worlds based on establishment of outposts: establishment of patriarchal Dragoon enclaves include minimum of ten Dragoons including 5 male and 5 female (Reference GALPAT REPORT 8745 (Cluster Skirmish 2790-2793) Section 3-A-35-c) .
Subnote 204- Cooperation between CU Traders and Dragoons continues. Traders used to move material/Dragoons between various locations within Dragoon Sphere of Influence (SOI).
GALPAT TACNOTE 601- ‘Traders’ move freely between Dragoon SOI and Galactic Empire as couriers moving Dragoons between embassies. Unconfirmed reports Traders are acting as raiders to steal new tech in raids against soft targets/engineering complexes/limited incursions into shipyards.
BOLO: Any suspicious traffic as reported by GalPat controllers. Be advised, basic ship data similar to generic galactic ship set. If vectored for intercept, assume defense posture 3Delta. Check transponder beacon and data plate against current GalPat library. No definitive differences in physical appearance, primary language is Spanglish, but also speak Galactic with no noticeable accent; run standard datachip citizen checks against current GalPat database.
Confirmed reports (See GalPat Incident Report subset 281) Traders also conducting pirate operations throughout known space. Primary prey includes- Unescorted Military transports, liners, and colony ships (outside 20 light year range gate). Kidnapping/ransom primarily pointed at high value targets. Shipset used includes Consolidated Union Destroyer (CUDDS) class vessels, Cruiser (CUCRU) class vessels from Hundred Year War. If encountered, authorized weapons Red/Tight unless fired on. If fired on, weapons Green.
Incursions continue in Rimworld clusters: Dragoons/Traders continue to attempt to claim additional worlds within the 28 light year boundary, including worlds currently settled by Galactic Empire settlers. All GalPat patrols are encouraged to make full planetary scans when making contact with colony worlds, or when transiting any empty quadrant containing potentially habitable worlds (See GALPAT INTEL NOTE 321 for scan procedures).
***
The Galactic Scout teams didn’t really worry about the big picture. One new system or planet at a time was their mission. Between the space telescopes, the Scout research ships that located and plotted various spatial phenomena including wormholes, jump points and black holes, and their core mission of certifying worlds as habitable for settlers, they were busy enough.
Sergeant Ethan Fargo, eighty-four and in his prime, Earth native and team lead, was outwardly unremarkable in every way. He had medium brown hair, brown eyes and a smooth expression that belied the sense of inner strength you only see if you looked him in the eye. He’d been genied for athletics and hand/eye coordination as a child, and it continued to serve him well. His additional duties as empath and intel kept him hopping, along with herding the ‘cats’ of his team.
Pop, resembling nothing less than a five foot tall bipedal weasel, showing a little gray around :the muzzle, hailing from Kepler 62E, scout and primary security, seemingly lazy, he was anything but sloth-like in the field. Hardt: thickset, blond haired, blue eyed and taciturn, born of German Earth stock from Waldron-Antares 4, science lead and primary pilot for the small drop shuttle they had been using. DenAfr, the huge Taurasian symbiote pair that looked like a :headless elephant, sifter and primary medic, checking the air, water and soil for composition. DenAfr was always playing tricks with his ability to extrude pseudopods, tapping people, moving things behind one’s back and other little annoyances. In addition, it was the back up security with Pop. Diez: stout with black hair and dark brown eyes, of Hispanic descent with a carefully cultured little moustache, also Earth native, linguist, backup medic, and a level five psi. Diez also maintained their armored suits and comm software and hardware that they used in the field.
Fargo called the team meeting to order, “Okay, we’re the go team. Lynx Galaxy this time.” Slewing the holovid, he brought up the location of planet X423W. Glancing at Hardt, he continued, “Standard routing takes us through jump points Charlie, Echo Six and Bravo Three. I talked to the colonel earlier and he promised they’d get us within a seventy-two div track to the planet.”
Hardt rolled his eyes, “Sure, sure. I’ll believe that when I see the planet. After that last cluster…”
Fargo held up his hand, “Over and done. Moving on,” he flipped the holo to the specifications from the first-in scans, “Looks like some potential here. They only got three probes back, but looks like good O2, and from the pictures it’s got some good atmosphere. Unknowns are the plant life, other life forms, and composition.”
DenAfr’s GalTrans squeaked, “So we know nothing of the actual composition of the planet?”
Fargo sighed, “No, we don’t know anything…”
DenAfr squealed, “So it is possible I will get a discovery, so excited.” It extruded multiple pseudopods which waved like grass before the wind.
Pop asked, “Weaps?”
“As always, White/Tight unless we get hit. We’ll be in field armor until we finish the base survey and make the follow-on determination from there.” Pop nodded and slumped back down.
Fargo turned to Diez, who said, “I know. Check all armor, check that the medical telltales on the soft suits are working and are actually talking to the armor this time. And yes, I’ve already checked that the tissue cans are correctly auto-arming whenever we are in the field. That last cluster was a software error when they pushed an update to us while we were in the field.”
Fargo nodded, “And deity forbid, if one of us had gone down, there wouldn’t have been a self-destruct and tissue retrieval for burial.”
Hardt asked, “Why didn’t it work? Just curious.”
Diez took control of the holo, popping up a display of the grey tissue can, 1 ½ inches by 3 inches with a flashing code string on the end. “See this code string? That’s your numbers. When you put the skinsuit on, it’s supposed to automatically read your chip and pull those numbers. Without that, no French fried Hardt, since it can’t activate without those numbers.”
Hardt shivered, “Never did like a system that’s going to automatically fry me if I die, but…”
Everyone else chorused, “It beats getting eaten by a Goon!”
Fargo finished the standard brief, everyone gave their positional briefs and planned actions, and they lined up the landing spots for the two months long planeting.
Chief Sergeant Williamson came in and started the Dragoon briefing, much to the dismay of Pop and Diaz. Pop asked, “Is this really necessary Chief? It’s the same brief as…”
Williamson interrupt
ed, “You know it is. There is always a slim chance of encounters anywhere in space.”
Diez chimed in, “If it’s in space, we’re useless…”
Fargo finally said, “Alright, enough. Just shut up and listen. The sooner you do, the sooner we’re out of here.”
Planeting
It was supposed to be easy. They’d done this twenty-four times before… This one would get them a silver star for their insignia.
The scout team had been landed on X423W two days earlier to perform the second-in scouting of the T-2.C class planet. As a team, they’d been together for twenty-five years, and settled into their roles like an old, comfortable, polygamous marriage.
What they hadn’t expected was encountering Traders or a Dragoon, even after the briefing…
Pop was the first one down, just after he yelled the warning and fired the first rounds from the top of the karst ridge. Hardt had recovered Pop’s can after he’d fallen down the ridge. Hardt was hit just as he made it to the cover of a stand of something resembling trees, dying before anyone could get to him. Fargo had finally managed to dodge through the field of boulders to get to Hardt, confirmed the red tattletale, and keyed the destruct code.
Fargo picked up Hardt’s can, then Pop’s as Diez came over common saying the Traders were targeting them remotely. Gotta remember to report that, I wonder if that targeting works on battle armor too, Fargo thought.
Diez said, “Dump armor”, and carated a location a half mile away. Fargo, Diez and DenAfr made runs for it from their locations and jumped into a ravine a hundred or so feet deep on anti-grav, giving them momentary cover. They’d climbed quickly from their suits, with DenAfr, having a few problems extracting itself from the armor, but that wasn’t unusual for it.