by James Rosone
“Get on the line! The Zodarks are charging!” Pauli yelled to be heard over the chaos happening all around them.
Pauli grabbed a wounded soldier who was moaning on the ground and practically dragged him up to a tree stump. Grabbing the soldier by his chest rig, Pauli pulled him close to his face. “I know you’re hurt. We’re all hurt. But those Zodarks are charging right for us. If they get in our lines, we’re all dead. Keep firing, and don’t stop!”
The wounded soldier just grunted and nodded. He brought his rifle to bear and fired single shots at the enemy.
By the time Pauli got back to his old firing position, he realized he was probably the only one left alive on the far-left side of the flank. His HUD identified more than twenty targets charging toward him.
Flicking the selector switch from blaster to 20mm grenade gun, Pauli fired round after round at the line of enemy soldiers until he’d expended the six-round magazine. Dropping the empty mag, he reached down, grabbed for a fresh one and slapped it in place. Pauli aimed and fired off the next six rounds at the charging horde, letting the smart AI determine when to detonate the charge to kill the most enemy soldiers possible.
Small pops of black smoke and shrapnel appeared in front of and intermixed within the Zodark lines. Many of the vicious blue aliens dropped to the ground while many more just shrugged off their injuries and continued to charge forward.
Crap, they’re going to overrun my position! Pauli realized in horror.
“Amy, I need some help on this side!” Pauli shouted in hopes she might hear him.
Pauli kept squeezing the trigger, firing at the enemy. He saw several blaster bolts hit a Zodark, who went down, only to be replaced by another one. It was maddening.
When he realized their lone SAW hadn’t pivoted in his direction, Pauli turned to see why. He saw Amy’s body slumped over the weapon, her head missing from her corpse. He wasn’t sure when she’d been dusted, but she was gone.
The enemy is now one hundred meters from your position, called out the AI in his HUD.
Pauli broke from his position and ran to the SAW. Brushing Amy’s dead body aside, he grabbed the weapon and aimed it at the charging Zodarks on the left flank.
The SAW fired hundreds of shots a minute at the alien soldiers rushing toward him, cutting many of them down. A handful of the Zodarks ducked behind cover as they returned fire.
Pauli ducked and rolled to the left behind the stump of a burning tree as several blaster bolts slammed into the position he’d just abandoned. Raising the SAW to his shoulder, he sent long strings of fire at the remaining Zodarks. He hit two of them as they bounded forward to his position. A third Zodark dove out of his line of fire and behind a boulder. Several of Pauli’s blaster shots ricocheted off the rock into the air.
Sensing he should duck, Pauli rolled to his right this time and came up behind another boulder just in time to see an object land near the tree stump he had just been hiding behind. He ducked back down just as an explosion went off. The concussion blast blew right over him.
At that moment, Pauli just wanted to close his eyes. He knew if he did that, he’d probably pass out. If that happened, he likely wouldn’t wake up. The Zodarks hadn’t exactly been known to take prisoners.
Shaking off the effects of the blast, Pauli grabbed the M90 and pulled himself up above the boulder that had saved his life. He saw six Zodarks, less than twenty meters away. Leveling the SAW at them, he cut loose a string of shots at the group, cutting all six of them down before they had a chance to react.
“Hang in there, Pauli!” came a shout from behind him as half a dozen soldiers from another squad ran past him. They charged right at the remaining Zodarks, plugging the hole in the line.
A few minutes later, the blaster fire died down. Either the Zodarks had been killed, or they’d opted to fall back and find another way around the human soldiers. In either case, Pauli half-collapsed against the nearby rock. With the enemy threat gone, he could finally stop for a moment and catch his breath.
Slumping over on his side, Pauli reached for the straw on his CamelBak. He placed it in his mouth and took a couple of long pulls of water. His body slumped further until he was practically lying on the ground. Thank God this thing still works.
“Hey, I need a medic over here!” came the voice of someone standing near Pauli. He looked up and found Lieutenant Atkins staring down at him with a look of concern on his face.
“You look like hell, Pauli,” Atkins remarked. “Good job plugging that hole and holding the line. Damn good job. Now hang in there while we get a medic over here.”
Pauli just smiled a stupid grin. His body hurt too much to do much of anything else than just lie there and do nothing.
A medic trotted up and dropped down next to him. “Hey, Pauli. Roll over and let me see your backside, will you?”
Pauli obliged and practically passed out from the pain. Strange, I didn’t feel that bad just a few minutes ago, he thought.
“I’m going to apply some bandages on your back and give you a nanite injection,” the medic said as he went to work.
“Just give me something for the pain, will you?” Pauli begged, barely audible.
A second later, Pauli felt a couple of autoinjectors poke him. He suddenly didn’t feel so terrible anymore, but he was physically spent.
I’m just going to close my eyes for a few minutes…
Chapter Six
Task Force 92
Above Planet Intus
RNS George Washington
Captain McKee rubbed her temples; she knew she needed to get more sleep. She was having a hard time staying focused and sharp. There was too much work and too little time to do it.
All these status reports from her various department chiefs had her shaking her head in frustration. The GW had taken a lot of hits during the battle to secure the planet. Her people were doing their best to get it all repaired, but what they really needed was a couple of weeks in a shipyard.
Her computer terminal flashed, alerting her to an incoming transmission. She opened the channel and was greeted by Admiral Abigail Halsey.
“Admiral, what can I do for you?” asked McKee.
“Captain, I reviewed your damage report. You still have a lot of systems down. The Prims are sending a squadron of ships to Intus, along with three battleships. They’ve said we can send some of our damaged ships over to one of their repair yards in the Kita system. It’s three days’ travel by FTL, which is considerably closer than going back to Rhea or Sol for repairs. When their squadron arrives in the system, I’m ordering you, the London, the New York, and the Midway to make repairs in Kita.
“Since this is the first time a human ship will be making a port call in a Prim core system, our people must stay on their best behavior. Any questions, Captain?”
A smile crept across McKee’s face at the chance to see a developed planet in a core Prim system. “When do we leave, Admiral?” she asked.
Admiral Halsey returned the smile. “The Prim ships are scheduled to arrive in twenty-four hours. Before you leave, we’re moving as many of our wounded as we can from the surface to the ships heading to Kita. The Prims have a more advanced medical capability than we do. Their ground commander offered their facilities on Kita to our wounded, and I’m not about to look a gift horse in the mouth.
“Oh, and Captain, I’m sending you an encrypted file. Open it after our call, and you’ll receive your other set of orders.”
McKee’s left eyebrow rose at that last comment, which sparked her curiosity. When she saw the file, she grinned. A secret mission…
*******
As the Special Forces officer stood in front of her, Captain McKee realized she was more than a little intimidated. Damn near everyone in the Republic knew who Brian Royce was. He was a legend in the Republic—hands-down the most dangerous Special Forces operator in the Deltas. Awarded the Medal of Honor, two Distinguished Service Crosses, three Silver Stars, three Bronze Stars with V device, an
d five Purple Hearts: Captain Brian Royce was a real-life war hero who just didn’t know when to quit.
“At ease, Captain. Take a seat. We have a lot to talk about,” McKee finally said. I hope I didn’t leave him standing there too long, she thought, trying to conceal the flushing she felt in her cheeks. Royce was a very attractive man.
The Delta captain smiled and took a seat opposite her desk. “Captain McKee, permission to speak freely?” Royce asked.
“Granted. But call me Fran when in private.”
“OK, Fran. Two days ago, my company was in the thick of rooting out a Zodark command bunker dug into the side of a mountain,” Royce began. “Then I receive a cryptic message from Third Group, telling me I need to pick my ten best soldiers and report to the GW for some secret squirrel stuff. So, here I am. What was so important that ten of my best soldiers and I were told to leave the battle and report here?”
I like this guy, McKee thought. Direct and to the point. No BS.
She leaned forward in her chair. “Brian, the GW, along with a few other ships in the task force, took some bad damage during the assault to capture the planet and the system. As such, the Prims offered us the opportunity to repair our ships at a large shipyard at one of their core worlds, Kita. They also have a more advanced healthcare system than our own. They’ve offered to treat many of our wounded from Intus. That’s why we evacuated most of our wounded to the ships leaving for Kita—”
“Sorry for interrupting, Fran, but where do we fit into this?” asked Royce. “My men and I aren’t injured.”
“Brian, this is our first time going to a Prim world. Not just any Prim world, but a core world. Kita is one of their main military worlds. It has one of their largest shipyards. In light of all of this, Admiral Halsey wants your team to conduct a covert FID mission.”
Brian raised an eyebrow at the idea of conducting a foreign internal defense mission on the Prim world. The Deltas specialized in FID missions—at least they had before the war with the Zodarks. However, they hadn’t completed one in years, especially since the governments of Earth had consolidated into one. The closest thing to an FID they’d done in the last seven years was examining the Zodark forts and encampments to better understand their military operations.
After thinking about it for a moment, Brian remarked, “Fran, we’re guests of the Prims; we’re also allies. I get the need for an FID, but maybe a better approach that would allow us more access would be to just ask them. They might be completely open to giving us a tour of their facilities. If they’ll allow us to tour their shipyards, training bases, and military facilities, it would give us far better access than carrying out a covert FID on a foreign planet of a society that is far more advanced than our own.”
Fran almost laughed at the idea, but she just shook her head. “Brian, I think I’m going to like working with you. When we arrive in Kita in a few days, I’ll approach my counterpart there and I’ll do what I can to arrange that. Maybe we’ll get lucky and the direct approach just might work. If it doesn’t, then I’ll need you to prepare your men as best you can to carry out the mission. Any questions?”
Brian smiled and shook his head.
“All right. Well, enjoy the short break. We arrive in Kita in three days once we leave the system.”
Fran finished the interaction by leading him out of her office.
Chapter Seven
Changes at Home
Earth, Sol
Lackland Training Facility
US Space Command
“As you can see, we created a complete replica of the engineering rooms, along with a representation of the frigate, cruiser, and battleship for the recruits to train on,” the commander explained.
Admiral Chester Bailey nodded in approval. This clever idea was helping solve the training problem they were suddenly experiencing. When the Altairians helped the Earthers build three new classes of starships to serve in the Galactic Empire, humans soon realized they had a major obstacle. They knew how to man and operate their existing warships and had a training program in place to keep them running—these new warships with integrated advanced alien technology were so entirely new and different, they needed to develop a new set of skills. The new training program needed to be targeted, effective, efficient and scalable because training time could make or break their ability to man the ships as they came off the line.
Bailey turned to the woman in charge of developing the training program. “How many students or crews are we able to effectively train on each of these replicas at a time?” he asked.
Commander Alisha Lopez guided them onto the replica of the battleship’s engineering room. Then she explained, “We have five training classes simultaneously training on each replica of our frigate, cruiser, and battleship. With two replicas of each class of ship, we’re able to push a total of thirty classes simultaneously.”
Bailey whistled softly as he shook his head in amazement. “That’s incredible, Commander. How many students or crewmen to a class?”
“For engineering, usually a typical class or crew complement is twenty,” she explained. “Each class goes through six weeks of classroom training that’s also intermixed with two weeks of training on each class of ship before we consider them ready for an assignment on one of the new starships.”
Doing some math in his head, Bailey commented, “So roughly twelve weeks to get an engineering crewman through training?”
Lopez nodded. “Yes, sir. Exactly. It means we’re pushing through six hundred Altairian-certified engineering crewmen every three months. However, I’d say it’ll probably take them closer to a year on an actual ship to really become proficient in everything. There will be a lot of on-the-job training that’ll take place for sure. Starting next quarter, once the other facilities open, we’ll be able to triple the number of recruits we’re able to train. Ideally, I’d like to have a couple of our new ships held back from fleet service to act as real-life training ships so we can run the trainees through some additional training before they are sent to the fleet and assigned a ship.”
As they exited the battleship training facility, Bailey commented, “I’d love to assign some ships for your command to train on, but I think we may need to wait a few years before we’re ready for that. The demands of the fleet are enormous with the optempo we’re being given by our allies.
“By the way, this is a great setup for training on the engineering side of the ship. Have you established the same arrangement for other sections and departments?”
Commander Lopez looked a little disappointed that she wouldn’t be able to squeeze a frigate or two out of him for her training program, but she responded, “That’s a good question, Admiral, and, yes, we have. It took us some time to get them all fabricated and built, but they are all ready to go. I honestly don’t think any of this would have been possible without a lot of help from the Altairians. Their trainers, training aids and tools are incredible.”
Bailey just nodded as she talked and showed him more of the training rooms and simulators. He found it all very interesting. He was glad he had flown down to see the facility in person, even though he had a lot of other issues on his mind. The shipyards were still eight months away from completing their new frigates, which was a good thing, considering how unprepared they were to crew these new ships. Given the training numbers and the time to get a person ready to operate one of these new warships, they were only going to have the crews to operate twenty of the new frigates when they came out of the shipyard. The cruisers were another six months behind the frigates, and the battleships a year behind them.
Just stay calm, Bailey thought. Remember, this is going to take some time to retool our navy to meet the Empire’s new standards. The Altairians had given them time to prepare; now they just had to stick to the plan.
Bailey found himself practicing various calming techniques more and more often. There was so much work to be done with the integration of the Empire and the Earth’s previous governments. Then
they had a new layer of changes being imposed by their Altairian benefactors that were causing some subtle unrest among the people and within the military. It was just a lot to handle, and most of it fell on his shoulders.
Chester turned to Commander Lopez as the tour ended. “You’ve done a good job getting this place up and running. Now I need you to replicate this process at six other Space Command bases. Find two more in North America, one in Africa, one in Europe, and two in Asia. We need to increase the number of trained crews for this new navy we’re building. Once these ships come online, we’ll phase out our training programs for our existing ships. They’ll be moved to the reserves or placed in mothball status once our new ships are fully operational.
“Your focus will need to be on preparing our new recruits and crews for the ships the Altairians are helping us build. I also need you to align the training schedule with the shipbuilding delivery schedule. First, we need enough crews trained to man the frigates that come online in eight months, then six months later, the cruisers are the focus, then a year after that, we need to man the battleships.
“Oh, and before I forget, Commander—I’m promoting you to captain. It’s a well-earned promotion, and you’ll need it as you take charge of more and more of our fleet’s training program.”
Commander Lopez beamed at the news. She was clearly excited to lead this training program. Bailey knew it was something she excelled at, and it certainly was critical to the future success of Space Command.
*******
Jacksonville, Arkansas
Space Command HQ
General Rob Pilsner read the casualty report from the Intus campaign and cringed. The invasion was sixteen days old, and losses were still mounting. General Ross McGinnis was requesting two hundred thousand C100s and another two corps in addition to the four he already had. That was another one hundred and thirty thousand soldiers.