by M. D. Cooper
Rika had heard of General Lloyd. Everyone in the Marauders had always spoken of him with respect, though he was not senior. There was a Major General named Julia in the Marauders, though she was stationed in the former Politica, and probably still unaware of the events at Pyra.
Rika said as much to Tanis, and the admiral winked at her before saying,
Tanis had moved on to outlining some of her initial targets. She thought it best to hit the Nietzscheans around the edges of the Empire, to weaken their perimeter before moving in to strike harder targets, deeper in enemy space. It would also make Nietzschea less of a threat to Septhia and the former Thebans if they were focused on defense rather than offense.
“Unless they just decide to strike out again,” Alice said, appearing to be giving Tanis’s words honest consideration. “If they think Septhia is hitting them, they’ll just mount a force to crush it once and for all.”
Tanis’s brow lowered. “Perhaps. But they just mounted their biggest offensive in two decades and suffered near-complete losses. Are they the sort to swing that hammer again?”
Alice ran a hand down the side of her face. “Stars, Admiral Richards, I have no idea. Back in the Genevian war, yes, they would have. They would beat themselves against a target until they’d taken it out. Stars, this is their second strike on Pyra in as many years. They don’t like to lose. But then, they’ve never suffered a loss like this—not that I know of. They’re going to try to cover it up, sweep it under the rug, but will they risk another…?”
“I say they will,” Tim said, shaking his head. “You don’t know the Niets like we do.”
Colonel Borden snorted. “Having just lost nearly seventy thousand ships, do you really think they’d immediately send another fleet into the same system where they’ve suffered two major defeats? It would be one thing if we’d been decimated as well, but we only lost six hundred ships. They won’t even know how to understand that, let alone counter it.”
“Maybe,” Jeremey allowed. “Or maybe they’ll hit us all across the Septhian Alliance at once. Can you protect four hundred systems simultaneously?”
“Now you’re just getting far-fetched,” a voice said from the doorway, and everyone turned to see a tall woman entering the room. Her once-black hair was streaked with grey, and she walked with a slight limp. She walked to the foot of the table, and her amber eyes surveyed the room, highlighting a sharp intelligence behind them.
“General Julia!” Colonel Jeremey exclaimed as the Marauders all rose.
“At ease,” Julia waved her hand before anyone had managed a salute. “Sit. We’ve wasted enough time with your conjecture.”
Everyone sat, and Julia nodded to Tanis. “Thank you for sending a ship to bring me here. Given that I am in command of the Marauders, it seems fitting that I attend these negotiations.”
“But General Lloyd—” Colonel Jeremey began, only to be cut off by Julia.
“Will be informed of my decision on this matter when I return to the Ontario System to meet with him.” Julia looked at the Marauders, her gaze ultimately settling on Rika. “None of you remember this from the beginning of the war, but the Niets behave very differently when they think a cause is lost. They have no compunctions when it comes to cutting and running. We had some early victories in the war, where we were able to rout them from entire sectors.”
“I read about those battles, General,” Jeremey interjected. “Ultimately, the Niets took those systems.”
Julia nodded. “Because we were complacent. We failed to press our advantage, and they regrouped faster than we expected. That is why we must press it now. Never again will we have such an opportunity to strike against them.”
Rika felt immense relief to hear the conviction in General Julia’s voice. She’d feared that with Mill’s death, the likes of Jeremey and Tim would be in control of the Marauders, pulling them away from any meaningful work—from the Old Man’s vision.
Tanis nodded. “Well said, General Julia. Tell me, what sort of forces will the Marauders be able to make available for this mission?”
Julia’s gaze still hadn’t left Rika, the General’s unblinking eyes beginning to make her feel uncomfortable. “Well, I suspect that Rika’s company will go. I imagine I’d have to fire her to keep that from happening—and even that probably wouldn’t work. I also have four ships filled with mechs inbound from our camps in the Politica. I believe we can form an entire battalion of mechs—should they all sign on for this fight.”
“And ships?” Tanis asked.
“Current Marauder fleet strength sits at one thousand, four hundred and seventy-two warships, along with two hundred and thirteen repair and supply vessels. Of that number, only five hundred and ninety are capital ships. When it comes to the Allies’ space force, we’re a drop in the bucket.”
“And Marauder ships may not be ideal for all the ops facing the strike force—at least not initially,” Tanis added. “However, the Allies have recently come into possession of a large number of Nietzschean spacecraft. We could bolster the vessels Rika already secured, and that could be the primary strike force.”
Julia turned back to Rika, her unblinking amber eyes resuming their penetrating stare. “I read about that in the brief I received. I feel like we set our sights too low for you, Rika. Mind you, a captain cannot command a battalion.”
The general’s wording was unclear to Rika, but she feared the worst. My promotions in the Marauders have already been meteoric; I doubt that the General would—
Her musing was interrupted when Julia said, “But a lieutenant colonel may be something I can swing.”
Rika had been in the midst of drawing a breath to respond when Julia dropped that bomb, and she nearly coughed with disbelief. “Excuse me?”
A genuine smile made its way onto Julia’s face. “Captain Rika, who did you think we were going to put in charge of the rest of the mechs once they completed their evaluations? They only want to report up to you. Stars, your ‘company’ is already overstuffed with five platoons. Your battalion will suffer from the same condition.”
Rika opened and closed her mouth, uncertain how to respond.
Tim, on the other hand, had that covered. “General Julia, no offense meant, but is that wise? Rika does not have the operational experience necessary to manage a battalion. She’ll be in over her head.”
As much as Rika would have preferred to pull her own teeth than agree with Tim, she was thinking the same thing. Managing a company only worked because she had smart people filling out her staff. For all intents and purposes, Barne managed half the day-to-day issues. Heather and Scarcliff had a lot to do with the smooth operation, as well—something that was clearly evidenced by her week-long absence, during which nothing untoward had occurred.
“No offense taken,” Julia replied, though the smile on her lips turned somewhat predatory, and Rika suspected that the opposite was true. “Are you volunteering to be Rika’s XO? She’s going to need someone with operational experience. Someone who knows how to manage all of the details that come along with a force this size.”
Other than a few glances at General Julia, Alice had been staring at Rika unblinkingly for the last few minutes. Something changed in her eyes, and she suddenly blurted out, “I’ll do it.”
Julia’s brow lifted halfway up her forehead. “Colonel?”
Alice’s expression of pure certainty was undiminished as she looked at Julia. “I’ll be Rika’s XO. I have the experience she needs and, frankly, I’m sick of flying a desk. This is the fight of a lifetime, and I want to be in on it.”
“That’ll be a first,” Tanis said with a slight smile. “A lieutenant colonel reporting to a lieutenant colonel.”
“She’s right,” Julia agreed. “That won’t work. We can’t mess up the chain of command like that. From what I’ve seen, Rika’s company will not look kindly on such an arrangement.”
Alice shrugged. “Then demote me. Call it an operational field demotion or something.”
“What’s gotten into you?” Jeremey asked, nearly coughing out the question. “A demotion?”
Alice turned from Julia to Jeremey. “What the fuck do I care about rank, about the insignia on my collar? The whole point behind the Marauders was to form a resistance against the Nietzscheans—something many of us, myself included, have forgotten. But my parents are still in there, my brother, his kids. They all live in the Nietzschean Empire. What about your dad, Jeremey? He’s still stuck there, too. They won’t give him travel authorization because they think he has ties with the resistance. Don’t you want to help him? Free him?”
Jeremey looked down at the table and muttered, “I won’t throw my life away on a fool’s errand.”
“I’d rethink that attitude,” Julia’s voice lowered, and a dangerous edge found its way into her words. “Mill’s Marauders has no room for cowards.”
Jeremey’s jaw set, but when he looked up at Julia and saw the cold steel in her eyes, he gave a curt nod. “Understood, ma’am.”
General Julia nodded before looking back at Rika. “You know, Rika…you put in quite a few years in the GAF. In fact, your ‘enlistment’ date—for lack of a better word—is earlier than Alice’s.”
“It is?” Rika asked.
Julia nodded. “If we count the day of your sentencing, where you took on military service as your start day, you have three days on her…”
“That doesn’t cover time in grade,” Colonel Borden said. “I assume that would be an issue in the Marauders as well?”
“Yes, it would absolutely cause issues,” Tim replied, but closed his mouth as Julia shot him a cold look.
“We’ll figure something out,” the general said.
“So, you have your mech battalion,” Tanis spoke for the first time in several minutes. “We don’t have funds in your local currencies, but—as I was trying to explain earlier—our technology is worth more than most star systems. I suspect it will work in place of credit?”
“It will,” Julia said with a laugh. “In addition, we’ll exercise salvage rights on systems we capture. We can work out specifics later. However, there is something else that I want for the Marauders, if we undertake this mission.”
Rika saw Tanis’s eyes narrow as she leant back in her chair, regarding the Marauder general. “Name it.”
“I understand that you have a colony world, far from here. One defended by a massive fleet of your indestructible ships.”
Tanis nodded. “You’ve heard correctly.”
“Then I want the option for any Marauder to send their families to your colony.”
All eyes turned to Tanis as she regarded General Julia.
“I’ll consider it,” the admiral replied. “But if they want to be citizens, loyalties may become complex. We’ll need to think about this.”
“That’s good enough for now,” Julia replied, a resolute expression on her face. “It’s settled. The Marauders are at the Allies’ disposal.”
From there, the conversation turned to force deployments and possible strategies. Colonel Borden was assigned as liaison for the Marauders, tasked with venturing out with Rika’s battalion on their mission.
Julia’s mental communication held a tone that Rika hoped meant it was a joke.
Julia’s words sounded like a form of torture to Rika, but she supposed that was a long way off—after they took out Nietzschea. For all she knew, Tanis’s little mission could take years.
For a moment, Julia seemed like she was going to say something more, holding the Link connection open, but then she closed it as Tanis began to speak about the location of the first strike.
* * * * *
Two hours later, they exited the conference room, having discussed what felt like a hundred strategies for taking the fight to Nietzschea, and ultimately toppling the empire.
While Tanis wanted the Marauders to be the tip of the spear, she had understood that more forces would be necessary to pull off a mission of that magnitude. She alluded to a large Septhian force being available at some point—though Rika wasn’t sure how Tanis would pull that off.
The Septhians had not proven to be the most reliable of allies.
No, that’s unfair, Rika corrected herself. General Adam in the Hercules System acquitted himself well.
She rubbed the back of her hand against her cheek as she stepped out into the corridor, taking care not to tangle her finger joints in her hair, and let out a long sigh.
Tim and Jeremey had been the first out, and Rachel only paused briefly to wish Rika well before turning left, toward the bridge.
“I look forward to working with you more,” Colonel Borden said as he stepped out into the passageway, stopping to stretch out his arms at Rika’s side. “Would you object if I selected a squad of ISF Marines to accompany you?”
Rika had seen ISF Marines kick ass back in Hudson. They were a force to be reckoned with. “Bring as many as you can, Colonel. I won’t say no to their help.”
Borden chuckled. “Well, I’ll keep it to a small team, folks familiar with spec-ops infiltration actions. We don’t have a lot of field experience with that, but there are a few of us.”
“I’m surprised by that,” Alice said to the colonel from Rika’s other side as she exited the conference room. “I thought you guys were serious badasses.”
“We may be, but most of our fights have been pitched battles. Do or die stuff. I’m looking forward to learning from you.”
Niki commented.
“I do, however, need to chat with Rachel about this,” he said. “Given that I’m in her fleet, and all.”
“Wait…Captain Rachel?” Alice asked.
Borden nodded. “Recently Colonel Rachel, now General Rachel.”
Alice shook her head. “I don’t get it.”
Rika shared a knowing look with Borden before replying. “The honor of serving as the captain of the I2 is considered the highest in the ISF,” she explained. “Everyone calls Rachel ‘Captain’ out of respect.”
“I guess that makes sense,” Alice replied, the expression on her face clearly indicating otherwise.
“If you’ll excuse me,” Borden nodded to the two women. “I must go speak with Captain General Rachel before she gets assaulted by a thousand different crises.”
“I’ll see you soon,” Rika replied as the man turned and walked toward the bridge.
“So, Colonel Rika, what are your orders?” Alice asked, her tone conciliatory.
Hopefully in apology for her initial greeting.
“You bring any gear?” Rika asked, not sure what she was supposed to do with Alice.
“Still in my cabin on the courier ship,” the lieutenant colonel replied.
“Well, we’ll swing by there on our way to the Fury Lance. Also, I’m not a colonel yet. I took you for a rules stickler, what, with how you took me to task when I arrived.”
Alice shrugged. “Blood sugar was low, and I was tired of Tim pestering me over the Link.”
Rika said as she glanced at Alice. ame is.>
CHALLENGE
STELLAR DATE: 09.09.8949 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Marauder dropship
REGION: Pyra, Albany System, Thebes, Septhian Alliance
Rika could all but feel Chase’s confusion coming across the Link.
Chase didn’t reply for a second, and Rika stared out the dropship’s forward screen, wondering how he’d feel about the news.
Rika snorted at the visual.
Rika nodded, though he couldn’t see it.
Rika felt bad that she’d snapped at Chase; his reaction was an honest one. But he believed she could do it, and that counted for a lot.
Granted, he’s biased.
She swallowed while watching the shuttle fly past a massive ISF repair ship. The thing was nearly the size of the I2, though narrower so it could fit through smaller jump gates.