“You have one fire team, and if I recall a group of airmen and some lab techs. How the hell did you turn the swarm when an entire battalion of marines couldn’t do it?”
41
Forward Operating Base, Port Gantry
Neo Terra, Tau Ceti System
The battle lasted less than an hour, the clean-up and retrieval of alien corpses was still ongoing the following day. Angel and the rest of her platoon had been air lifted to Port Gantry a few hours after the battle ended. Each of the platoon members had been debriefed separately, and after spending most of the night answering questions, Angel had been allowed to sleep for a few hours, before being called to a video conference. Colonel Hale was there in person, with Lieutenant Commander Mercer on the EAS, Commander Beauregard on the Ramses, and Admiral Lance Kirkland from the Apollo connected via satellite feed.
“First of all, let me say excellent work, Lieutenant,” Hale said. “Your platoon is to be congratulated on stopping the alien advance.”
“I say she did more than stop it,” Mercer said. “The swarm has gone to ground.”
“You said in your briefing that you thought the queen lived,” Hale said. “Is that correct?”
“Yes sir,” Angel said. “We were able to target the queen, but there were no indications that she was wounded or killed.”
“Except for the complete rout of the swarm,” Mercer said.
“Your report and the video we witnessed from our surveillance aircraft showed the swarm dispersing,” Commander Beauregard said. “Isn’t that proof that the queen was killed?”
“The queen was well insulated,” Angel said. “And we saw the swarm around her flee intact. My opinion is that she survived.”
“But it is possible she was killed and the drones merely carried her body away,” Admiral Kirkland said.
“Yes, I suppose it is possible,” Angel said.
“Do you have a different theory?” Hale asked.
“I’m not a scientist, or even a tactician,” Angel said.
“Some would beg to differ on that latter assumption,” Mercer declared.
“But the ARC suit was designed to disrupt the hive mind. The idea being that if it has to focus on marines in assisted robotic combat suits that it would lose the ability to control the drones. I think that’s what we saw. Not just the disruption caused by our attack, but essentially when the queen got scared she gave up the larger hive mind and focused just on the drones protecting her.”
“That’s an interesting insight,” Kirkland said.
“But not one that bodes well for the future of the Neo Terra colony,” Hale added. “If the queen lives, she’ll most likely raise another swarm and begin her attacks all over again.”
“But we have learned some valuable information,” Kirkland insisted. “Foremost being that large scale assaults are not the most effective way to combat these creatures.”
“I would argue that point but now is not the time,” Hale said. “The battle of Port Gantry was an essential part of this operation. Our forces arrayed around the port not only protected a valuable asset, but also weakened the swarm.”
“There are a lot of factors to take into consideration,” Beauregard said. “The swarm was on the run, in a confined space, and surprised by new technology, but none of that diminishes Second Lieutenant Murphy’s achievements yesterday.”
The briefing went on for an hour. Angel mostly listened, answering questions when asked directly. They went over the tactics of her battle, as well as the weapons utilized. Most of all they asked questions about the ARC suit. How did it move? Was it armored? How did it affect the way she and her fire team were able to combat the swarm?
When it was over, and the big screens were shut down, Colonel Hale looked down at Angel with what was clearly resentment.
“We lost nearly two hundred marines yesterday,” Hale said. “Their sacrifice has already been forgotten in favor of your new celebrity.”
“They haven’t been forgotten by me, nor by the members of my platoon, sir,” Angel replied.
“They will be a footnote in the history of this battle. A sideline on the report read by the brass back in Sol. They won’t care about the lives that were lost, just the sliver of hope that perhaps the monkey suits will give us an edge in fighting this new enemy.”
“Sir, I think the ARC suits are more than—”
“Lieutenant, your opinion on the matter is not important,” Hale said. “What is important, what is vitally important and what everyone seems to be overlooking, is the fact that you allowed the queen to live. Your victory is nothing more than a minor setback to our enemy.”
“I’m sorry you see things that way sir,” Angel said. “Perhaps if my platoon hadn’t been sidelined in the battle plans things might have turned out differently for everyone.”
“Major Dixon made the decision not to utilize your platoon and the new technology. You yourself said your platoon wasn’t ready for combat.”
“And I stand by that assessment,” Angel said. “Yet it was their fighting skill, and the ingenuity of Staff Sergeant Cashman, not the suits, that turned the tide yesterday.”
“I’m so glad we see eye to eye on that, lieutenant. Here are your orders,” he said, tapping the screen of his flex pad and sending the electronic message to her own data pad. “You’ll be catching a ride back home on the Minerva. The brass will want to debrief you, I’m sure. Don’t worry, we’ll stay here and clean up after you. Dismissed, lieutenant.”
Angel wanted to say more. She wanted to tell the smug colonel how wrong he was, but she held her tongue. She had known coaches just like Hale, and nothing could ever persuade them to see their faults. Standing to attention, she saluted her superior according to regulations. He waved his hand in a sloppy dismissal and she turned on her heel and left the makeshift office on the bottom floor of the flight tower.
When she got outside, she pulled the flex pad from the pocket of her fatigue pants and saw that she was scheduled to leave from launch pad four in just under three hours. That was enough time to do what she needed to do. The walk across the landing pads to the row of hangars allowed Angel to cool down from her conversation with Hale. She knew the colonel was jealous, and once the brass learned that he had sent the transports racing after the swarm, they might even relieve him of command. A man afraid of losing his job was a dangerous man, Angel knew that from experience. She had seen her father fired more than once, and the anger it stoked in him was frightening.
The infirmary was set up in one of the empty hangars. Half of the space had been set aside as a morgue. Angel knew she would find Cashman there, and wasn’t surprised to see that Bolton, Hays, Vancini, and Jones were with him.
“Officer on deck!” Gunnery Sergeant Bolton said when he caught sight of Angel approaching.
The marines all snapped to attention. She returned their salute with gusto, thinking of how disrespectful Hale had been returning hers.
“As you were,” Angel said.
They all turned back to the black body bag with the tag Cpl. Ruiz, W. attached to it. She knew the marine who had given his life to try and stop the swarm queen. Angel wished he had lived, or at least that his sacrifice had resulted in the queen’s death.
“It’s a miracle, really,” Cash said. “I still can’t believe he’s the only person we lost.”
“We were lucky,” Angel said.
“We had good leadership,” Bolton argued.
“And we were lucky,” Cash added. “You saved the day, lieutenant. We’d have lost the fight without you.”
“Damn straight,” Hays said. “You were something else. I mean, we all seen how you could run the obstacle course back home, but what you did in that valley was something else entirely.”
“I think that was what the ARC suits were made for,” Cash said. “Unfortunately, I also think no matter how much we train, we’ll never have the skills you have, lieutenant. What you did was on a level that few people could achieve.”
“We fought together,” Angel said. “We accomplished something because we worked together, trusted the plan, and had the advantages of a battlefield that we picked.”
“I hear they’re sending you home,” Vancini said. “That’s too bad.”
“Someone has to do it, I suppose,” Angel said. “Did you all get the same orders?”
“No ma’am, we’re staying on station,” Hays said.
“They need someone to give an eyewitness account of the battle,” Cash said. “Who better than the finest officer I’ve ever served with.”
“Oorah,” said the rest of the fire team quietly, but in perfect unison.
“I wish we could stay together,” Angel said.
“That’s not the way the military works,” Cash said. “Don’t get too attached. Personnel get shifted around all the time.”
“Well, I’ll be back,” Angel said. “That’s a promise.”
“One we look forward to, lieutenant,” Bolton said.
“Thank you all for helping me,” Angel said. “I won’t forget what you’ve done.”
Cash stepped aside and handed her a hand written letter.
“What’s this?” Angel asked.
“A letter,” Cash replied.
“I didn’t know anyone still wrote by hand anymore.”
“This kind of letter has to be hand written. It’s a letter to Ruiz’s family.”
“Oh,” Angel said. “I see.”
“Will you see that they get it? They live on Mars.”
“Yes of course,” Angel said.
“Good luck, Lieutenant. Until we meet again,” he said, holding out his hand.
Angel felt her eyes sting with tears, but she didn’t want to make a fool of herself, or embarrass Staff Sergeant Cashman. She shook his hand.
“Thank you,” was all she could manage to say.
42
C.S.F. Minerva En Route to Sol System
The trip up to the Minerva had been on the same type of drop ship Angel and her platoon had come down to the planet on. The same type of metal bench and five-point harness, but instead of the reassuring presence of her platoon, Angel was surrounded by wounded personnel on gurneys. The only other person who had been ordered back with Angel was her personal technician Petty Officer Rhonda Daniels. Her job was to look after the ARC suit, which was stowed in a small case that seemed oddly out of place among the rows of injured warriors.
Most of the marines wounded in the battle had severe fractures that would require extensive surgery to repair, and take weeks of rest before they were ready for months of physical therapy. Many would never wear the uniform again, but they were the lucky ones. Over three-quarters of the personnel involved in the wrecks pursuing the alien swarm were killed on impact, or died shortly thereafter from catastrophic injuries sustained in the crashes.
The trip into outer space had taken much longer than the trip down to the planet’s surface. The small shuttle had to fight Neo Terra’s gravitational pull, but eventually it managed to break free and was picked up the Minerva’s docking arm. Once the ship was safely on board, Angel waited while the injured marines were unloaded and carried to the sick bay. When she finally descended, the ship’s first officer, Lieutenant Commander Natalie Ebson, was there waiting for her.
“Lieutenant,” Ebson said, as Angel came to attention and saluted the senior officer. “Good to have a bona fide hero on board. Let me show you to your quarters.”
Angel was taken to a small room that was similar to her quarters on the Apollo. The room was tiny, but it had a bed which was all Angel cared about. The battle in the mountains was exhausting, but the almost constant debriefings were even more tiring. All she wanted to do was to get in bed and sleep all the way back to the sol system.
“Commander Gray was hoping you’d join us for dinner in the ward room,” Ebson said. “I can escort you there in about an hour.”
Angel nodded, trying to keep the disappointment from her face. She wasn’t hungry, she was tired, but she couldn’t refuse a request from the ship’s commander. Once she was alone she took a long shower, which was more of a steam bath, with light therapy and dry soap. Life on board a military ship took some getting used to, and the showers were a prime example, but Angel still felt more relaxed and refreshed after getting cleaned up. She brushed her teeth and worked the wrinkles out of her uniform before putting it on. Sitting on her bunk and waiting for the lieutenant commander to come back for her was the hardest part. Angel fought the desire to close her eyes, and instead focused on what she could say to the question she knew the officers of the Minerva would have.
The ward room was small, just a single long table set with fine china. The senior officers were all present, as Angel was shown in. She was given a seat next to Commander Lucas Gray as soup was served in small bowls.
“So,” Commander Gray said. “Tell us all about the battle.”
Angel gave a quick account of the fighting in the mountain pass. She knew the officers had all seen the surveillance footage, but much of the video from the aircraft circling above them had been obscured by the dust kicked up by the swarm and from the explosions her platoon had used in the fight. She had known the commander would ask that question, along with a dozen more about the ARC suits. Angel kept her answers as minimal as possible. It was impossible to deny the almost supernatural abilities the suits gave her, but she didn’t talk about the technical side, which she didn’t fully understand at any rate. When she was pressed, Angel chalked her actions up to the years of gymnastics training.
“It’s surprising that Colonel Hale lost contact with your platoon,” Commander Gray proclaimed almost gleefully.
“I’m sorry,” Angel said.
“Far be it from me to judge a marine colonel, but he failed to stop the swarm and summarily ignored the one platoon who succeeded in fulfilling the mission.”
“There were communication problems,” Angel said. “Petty Officer Daniels was trying to reestablish contact with command. I’m sure Colonel Hale simply had too much on his mind to realize that the swarm was heading straight for us.”
“A good commander always knows where the people under her command are,” Ebson said.
“In the confusion of battle, with so many people injured,” Angel said, “I’m certain he just assumed we would remove ourselves from harm’s way.”
“You really haven’t heard, have you?” Commander Gray asked.
“Heard what?” Angel replied.
“Major Dixon warned Colonel Hale that the swarm was headed straight for your platoon. You could have had reinforcements, should have at least had air support. The colonel chose not to help you, Lieutenant. He failed in his mission and it appears he expected you to fail.”
“But there’s no proof that he knew what we were trying to do,” Angel said.
“Perhaps,” Gray said. “But I don’t think Petty Officer Daniels was recalled just to carry your luggage. She was tasked with contacting command during your battle, you said so yourself. And she was unable to make contact? Or perhaps unable to get anyone to listen, despite the fact that your platoon was facing the swarm without assistance? I can’t say for certain that Colonel Hale ignored you, or what his motivation was, but his lack of action constitutes a command failure.”
Angel realized that Commander Gray was enjoying the fact that a marine officer had failed. He wanted to see Hale brought low, either demoted or stripped of his command. It was a juicy bit of gossip and obviously at least equal in the eyes of the Minerva’s crew as Angel’s success against the swarm.
The dinner was jovial, but Angel said as little as possible. She should have known that the world of officer politics would be cutthroat, but it had surprised her. Perhaps she was just exhausted, but she made a mental note to keep her guard up. Not everyone would be happy about her success, and she would be foolish to forget that as she was taken back to give a firsthand report of the battle.
After dinner she slept. When she woke up twelve hours la
ter, they were in hyperspace, with more than a full day’s travel before they would reach the sol system. Angel had nothing to do but wait. She composed a report, as much for herself as for anything else. She needed to remember everything she could, so she took her time, reliving as much of the mission as she could in her mind, before dictating the events into a document.
The Minerva was a small ship, with only one marine platoon on board. The fitness area was small, with a few cardio machines and universal weight lifting stations. Angel found an empty corner and a yoga mat where she could do stretches. It was a lonely voyage, but it gave her time to think. She knew the swarm was still a threat, and it didn’t take a brilliant strategist to know she would be essential to whatever plans would be formulated to stop the alien invaders.
When they dropped out of hyperspace, Angel was informed that she would be flown from the Minerva to the command station in orbit around Mars. The war ship would focus on ferrying the injured down to the medical facilities in Bezos City. Angel gathered her things, including the ARC suit and Petty Officer Daniels, before returning to the hangar. There was no official send off, just a small passenger shuttle. It was much more comfortable than the drop ship, which Angel was extremely grateful for. They were launched from the Minerva while she was still a hundred thousand kilometers from Mars.
For nearly an hour Angel floated in zero gravity, reveling in the sensation of being weightless. Daniels seemed bored, and spent her time reading messages on the CSF network that had accumulated during the deployment to the Tau Ceti system. For Angel it was a time to prepare herself mentally for the meetings she knew she would be expected to have with the senior officers on the command station. There were two things Angel knew for certain, she was an essential part of the war effort against the alien swarm, and she needed friends.
Epilogue
Fleet Operations Command Station
ARC Angel (ARC Angel Series Book 1) Page 23