by JR Handley
Captain Gaarjar of the 428th MER cut him off using her uncle’s regimental override code. Lance turned to face the female Jotun to address the interruption.
“I’m sorry to break the dictates of professional protocol and general manners, but I felt it was important to stress the competency many Auxies showed when fighting. With the recently created Marine Technicians, we saw non-combatant personnel service Marine equipment in places Spacers feared to go. I believe that these Auxies have earned the right to more. Expand the Mar-Tech program, and create a militia with those Aux who lack the discipline for the front line Marine Corps units. Without the fighting spirit of Aux Ashanti Okoro, I would’ve been killed by those traitorous bastards in the 781st TAC. These Aux earned their day in the sun, and I won’t stand for it being taken away.”
After Captain Gaarjar said her piece and unmuted him, Lance continued.
“Yes, Captain, I’ve seen the value of Auxies on many occasions. In fact, their use as technicians was rather common in my birth place of Kalino, the city on Cardamine Island. I will defer to Colonel Marchewka as to future of the Aux personnel,” said Lance.
Taking a moment to look at Marchewka’s holo-projection, the Jotun colonel simply crossed his four arms and stared back. Not wanting to incite his commander, Lance dove back into the briefing.
“Now, back to the status of Beta City. My AI, and the Marine Engineers I contacted prior to this briefing, believe the city can’t be saved. I agree. The city is flooded up through Level 4, the Hardits own the top three levels. We could easily take those monkeys and take Levels 1 through 3, but that might invite even more Hardits to investigate. I advise draining everything under Level 5 and leaving Level 4 flooded to hide our heat signature from the casual observer.”
Taking a breath, Lance grabbed a silver cylinder of tarngrip tea. One of his cadets had prepped it for him. Taking a drink, he felt a surge of energy. Tea made from the tarngrip plant was extremely nutritious and provided a calming energy boost. Lance put the container back down and heard the gravelly voice of Carr sound to his right.
“Why haven’t I ever heard of this base on Cardamine Island?”
Lance turned to Marchewka for permission to reveal the classified information. Marchewka uncrossed a single arm and opened a fist into a palm. Lance took that as confirmation.
“As this information is highly classified, I don’t want to discuss it openly. Instead, I will send the information to your Aimees and Digi-Sheets to provide the intelligence you need to know.”
Lance cued Xena to share the following information: He was born and raised in the city of Kalino on Cardamine Island, but that the base was shut down for reasons he wasn’t aware of. He was the only survivor of a battle onboard an enemy space station, after which he was given a battlefield promotion to sergeant. He was then iced and brought back to revive lost battle tactics.
Lance watched Carr and the other Marines read the information. He could see as they looked back up that they understood the timeline. Before he could continue, Marchewka sent him a private message praising his discretion in only providing the basic facts to his peers and conforming to regulations. Once Lance had replied to his regimental commander, he resumed the main thrust of his prepared notes.
“During the time it took to organize, Technical-Corporal Terloar and Cadet Sergeant Mason designed and built a submersible drone capable of investigating the flooded passageways. The schematics have already been forwarded to the engineers, and I will have my AI display it for you to observe.”
Lance walked from the podium to the center of the room as a green holo-display showed the schematic of the drone slowly rotating to his right side. Looking from it to Hayley and Basil, he gave them both an appreciative grin. The two elbowed each other and smiled.
“If we decide to turn off the repeating signal, we can utilize the drone to investigate it before we send Marines to the master switch to cut it off. Secondly, since the city can’t be saved, I had my technician and AI go over the base schematics. We found some good news,” Lance explained.
The holo-display to his right shifted to show a large piece of equipment and building blueprints which began rotating.
“We discovered an abandoned FCB-316 City Boring Drone. It was abandoned because it was missing parts, which we discovered can be fabricated. This will allow us to bore a new city. We can build this new home under Old Akoni City by using the preexisting tunnels. We’d have it disguise our base as added security for our sally ports. Anything that’s lasted above ground as long as Akoni City is solid enough for our purposes.”
Walking back to the podium to take another drink, Lance scanned the faces of everyone in the room. He could see their enthusiasm for the project. In truth, any plan beat inaction and stagnation.
“Once we have a habitable dwelling established, we can salvage Beta City and get at least two, possibly three, more Fortified City Builders operational. It would be a massive project. We could have a city comparable to Beta City, but stronger. It will be capable of housing millions. Give our engineers and technicians a few million able bodies and we could rebuild in a few months. However, we could have the first City Phase Unit built in a matter of weeks, getting everyone currently awake over to the new structure,” Lance explained.
The holo-display floating in the center of the room shifted to show a new, impressive city and the many sub-structures comprising it. Lance looked from the glowing blue lines of the holo-display to the table surrounding him. Everyone in attendance marveled at the prospective structure. Riding the momentum, Lance continued.
“When we are done, Beta City will be a desiccated husk, but our new home would put the broken city to shame. The existing habdisks could be repaired and moved, with extra safeguards to prevent the sorts of shenanigans that occurred during the mutiny. At that point, you could even rename the city if you so choose. Though, that’s echelons above my area of responsibility.”
Satisfied they understood his vision, he paused to catch his breath. The energizing tarngrip tea was hitting his system and making his body tingle. Feeling the warmth of energy, and hearing no questions, he moved to the last item on the outline.
“Closing, we have three issues needing to be addressed. First, how to reorganize our TO&E. I believe since we have officers present that will be addressed forthwith. Secondly, what to do about this repeating signal? Do we go through the effort to shut it off? If so, we lose the chance for competent authorities to respond. This could be considered desertion, as we would be skirting our duties to our overlords. Do we leave the signal going, bringing unwanted attention to ourselves? That option runs the risk of the code being hacked and us reporting to the wrong commanders,” Lance explained.
He could see Marchewka and some other attendees typing information into their Aimees and Digi-Sheets as he spoke.
“Finally, where will we source our food? A passive scan of the area shows a food processing factory still stands. We also might be able to scrounge food from the farms to the northwest. The only way to know is to send a scouting party to explore. That mission would be arranged by Colonel Marchewka.”
Before Lance could lay out any more of their options on how to proceed, Xena broke the signal feed. Only Marchewka and those physically in the room with him could now see what was going on. Lance saw brilliant red lettering appear under the attendees’ holograms. With this lettering, Xena wrote that the repeating signal from Beta City had been responded to with the appropriate signal.
“Colonel Marchewka, I believe you are about to receive contact from the outside world. I will remain in the background, as the system chief, for as long as you wish,” Lance said as he looked to his commander.
The Jotun colonel stared down at Lance for a few moments. Even as a holograph, the Jotun was imposing. Marchewka’s trumpeted ears raised, and he began speaking without the use of his voice box.
“You set the ball in motion and rolled it downhill, young sergeant. I’d say you earned seeing it through t
o its final resting place. Stay, but speak only when addressed. Now, let’s see what we shall see and find out where this ball ends up.”
Lance turned his eyes from Marchewka to his Aimee and accepted the code providing the correct signal to Beta City. This was it, contact with the mysterious Human Legion.
— Chapter 08 —
Late Afternoon, Post-Revival Day 1
Command & Control Bunker, New Detroit City, Baylshore
Headquarters, New Detroit Regional Army
“We did it, we did it!” shouted the normally unflappable Captain Ivar Voleikov. He’d successfully entered one of the secure protocol codes in response to the repeating signal coming out of Beta City. As soon as the digital key was accepted, the orbiting satellites that had deployed when the Legion task force first arrived linked together the communication networks. With the ability to communicate established, Captain Voleikov sent his assistant, Corporal Lemmy Sokolov, to bring Field Marshal Nhlappo to him. Voleikov knew this was too important to trust to an open comm signal.
While he waited, Ivar began probing the computer network to gather information about Beta City. Every time he made inroads, the pesky security AI kicked him out, and he was stuck starting again. There appeared to be living Beta City Marines. For whatever reason, they had sat out the mutiny which decimated Tranquility-4. Ivar determined that approximately 3,000 Marines had survived.
Before he could go any further into the network, Field Marshal Nhlappo strutted into the room. She grunted out what might pass as social greeting, then demanded to know what he had found. After telling her that there were approximately 3,000 Marines in Beta City, he gleefully informed her they had found the correct coded response to the signal the supposedly abandoned city was emitting.
“Field Marshal, our comms networks are linked together and we are waiting for you to send our official message to these potential reinforcements. The code packet we got from the Reserve Captain had the correct one for Beta City. However, after successfully making contact and linking our communications networks they stopped us in our tracks. We can’t do anything more. I suggest that you make official contact so we can move forward. The more archaic voice-only line will work, and the holographs might work if they accept our signal.”
Nhlappo ran a calloused hand over her bald head as her eyes narrowed. It only took her a few seconds to dictate action.
“It’s obvious these Marines are part of the pre-mutiny base compliment. To determine if these souls will live or die, we need to establish if these Marines were Free Corps or Loyalists. We obviously missed their presence when we raided Beta City during the last Tranquility Campaign and again last year. The odds are high that we missed even more resources while we were there.”
Nhlappo straightened her body and put her hands behind her back. This simple action increased her presence and made her appear more dominate. She snapped her head to Voleikov and bored through him with her eyes.
“Captain, contact whoever commands those Marines.”
— Chapter 09 —
Early Evening, Post-Revival Day 1
Whiskey Co. Ready Room, Beta City, Serendine
Beta City Integrated Command
Moments after Colonel Marchewka ordered Lance to make first contact with the so-called “Human Legion” Marines, the group had cut into the Beta City network requesting to speak with the senior surviving Marine. Lance stood at attention in front of the holographic monitor as he waited for Marchewka to acknowledge the request.
Before the request could be acknowledged, a human female stepped up to the monitor and was holographically projected into the center of the room. Xena pinged Lance’s Aimee to indicate the signal which had allowed the Human Legion Marines to make contact also gave this woman override authority.
“Field Marshal Nhlappo here, whom do I have the privilege of addressing?” demanded the Marine.
She acted as if she owned Beta City, and her request was a mere formality. This human woman, full of enough moxie to award herself rank echelons above anything humanity could aspire to, cut an imposing figure. Physically, Nhlappo was nothing special. She was slightly above average height with an average build. A shaven head made her ears look ridiculously large. What Lance noticed was the intensity of her gaze. Her grey eyes created a sense of ferociousness that was off-putting. What she lacked in stature, the Field Marshal made up for in the scars, which told of her years of combat experience.
Lance was glad that he’d instructed Xena to take the unusual tact of receiving full video and audio but only projecting audio back to the Human Legion Marines. When Colonel Marchewka indicated, Xena enabled video to transmit back to the Human Legion Marines. Lance smirked as Marchewka growled his presence onto the communication waves. This caused Field Marshal Nhlappo to step back in surprise. In an instant, Nhlappo realized a Jotun Marine officer still controlled the city. Nhlappo straightened her body and addressed the giant Jotun in the room.
“I see that contrary to the intentions of the Free Corps mutineers, the dual plague didn’t kill off all the Jotuns in this system. Excellent, we could use good officers in the Legion. I want to move this along, so I’ll start off by letting you know that the Legion was founded under the guidance of the Reserve Captain, your personal mentor, after the White Knight Empire abandoned us,” said Nhlappo.
Lance watched Nhlappo cross her arms in front of her chest. It appeared the woman believed mention of the Reserve Captain would influence Marchewka. His Jotun commander revealed no emotion.
“The time is ripe to free ourselves from the yoke of White Knight oppression,” said Nhlappo. “They’re busy fighting a multi-front, internal civil war. When it ends, we’ll be able to negotiate from a position of strength. They abandoned us and hundreds of other systems. We aren’t physically fighting them, we can simply tell the Council for the Trans-Species Union that we’re waiting to see who our proper masters are. But if we’re successful, think of it, a free prosperous Jotun and human society.”
After her impassioned plea, the self-proclaimed Field Marshal took a step back and let her words sink in. Marchewka ignored the woman and ordered Lance to clear the room. He wanted only the two of them in the loop with this Human Legion Field Marshal. After clearing the room and having Xena disconnect all the holographic feeds, Lance let Marchewka know they were ready to continue.
Marchewka waited to respond as he considered this Nhlappo’s words. The pause seemed to continue for hours. Breaking the silence, Marchewka began speaking through his voice box in a slow and orderly tone.
“Those are some bold claims, human. Very bold claims, indeed. By what authority and virtue have you assumed the mantle of Field Marshal? It’s a very long way from the stripes you likely wore not long ago,” said Marchewka.
Likely to prove her equal standing with the Jotun colonel, Nhlappo also took her time responding. Lance just wished they would hurry up already.
“I have my rank by virtue of the six army groups I lead, and the millions of Marines under my command. I am a Marine leading Marines. That has a value all its own, wouldn’t you say, Colonel?”
“Tell me this, human. Why should the most experienced officer in the star system subjugate himself to the authority of a self-promoted human?” Marchewka responded.
While this should have been an expected question, Nhlappo seemed taken aback by his bluntness. Her arms unfolded and came to her sides as she prepared to speak.
“Colonel, I’m not asking you to subjugate yourself to my authority. I recently de-iced more Marines than I know what to do with. You would lead your own regional army as their Field Marshal, and be tasked with conquering Serendine. If negotiations are favorable, we could begin transferring units to you immediately. The continents must be held, especially yours. It contains the last orbital elevator. More so, some of my Marines are from an era where a Jotun officer might be preferable. After we hold Tranquility-4, we can wrap up the rest of this system and–”
“We’ve scanned the syste
m, and there is no naval fleet waiting for us. In fact, the forces we’ve detected seem to be abandoning the system. We will be doing well to survive on Tranquility-4, but to expand into orbit? Doubtful. Not without more personnel and equipment. These millions of Marines you speak of, where are they? You certainly don’t have that number with you, and Beta City appears to have been drained of its icer reserves to feed General Toma’s meat grinder. I’d wager you can’t feed what you do have or you wouldn’t be offering them to me. You’re not offering me your excess to be kind. You need to shed your excess to survive.”
Marchewka and Nhlappo both silently stared at each other. Lance realized the conversation had hit an impasse. Neither one was willing to show their hands, but both needed to know whether to trust the other player in this game. Deciding to risk it all, he spoke up.
“Field Marshal, Sergeant Scipio here. I know this is unorthodox, but we can’t have you two sniffing each other’s butts like a couple of wild animals forever. I will release enough information to you, in good faith, for everyone to lay their cards on the table. Decisions must be made. I too was born and bred on Tranquility, but I wasn’t trained in Beta or Detroit City.”
Lance paused to let the statement sink in and purposefully avoided making eye contact with Marchewka while he spoke. Speaking out of turn was a gamble, and he didn’t want to seem impudent.
“I know where caches of equipment and supplies are throughout this system. Further, if you can’t tell by these tattoos on my arms” –he took off his blouse to expose his bare skin– “I wasn’t trained during your era.”