A Learning Experience 2: Hard Lessons

by Christopher G. Nuttall

“We should take the offensive right into their territory,” Gordon said. “Hit their vast fleet of ships in the reserve before they even have a chance to power up the drives, let alone assign crewmen and commanders. We could win the war in an afternoon.”

  “It was considered,” Admiral Stuart said. “But it would be too far to send a task force, I think. They would know we were coming and take precautions – or simply hurl the rest of their forces in this sector at Earth. We’d be in deep trouble.”

  “Yes, sir,” Gordon said.

  “Besides, this way, they have to spread out their manpower to activate the ships,” Admiral Stuart added. “Smashing unmanned ships in the reserve will force them to commit all of their manpower to active ships, which might help them to overcome their problems.”

  “We shall see,” Gordon said. “Do you want a tour of Freedom before we depart?”

  “I don’t think the crew would appreciate having to stop their work just to honour me,” Admiral Stuart said. “I always hated inspections when I was in the infantry.

  Gordon smiled. The Admiral hadn't forgotten what it was like to be a junior officer – or to be on the sharp end of modern war. On the other hand, much of his experience was essentially worthless in space combat ... he sighed, then pushed the thought aside. The Admiral had built the Solar Navy up from literally nothing, first by obtaining alien starships and then by spearheading humanity’s own shipbuilding efforts. He deserved respect for his work.

  “I understand,” he said. He made a show of glancing at his watch. “We will depart within the hour, sir.”

  “Good,” Admiral Stuart said. “Don’t screw up, Gordon. Victory will give us a chance of survival, but defeat means near-complete extinction.”

  “We won’t fuck up,” Gordon assured him. He held out a hand for the Admiral to shake. “We’ll be back before you know it.”

  It wouldn’t be that simple, he knew, as the Admiral shook his hand and then departed the compartment, heading for the teleport chamber. There was a minimum of two weeks to Hades, even using the most advanced stardrives in the galaxy, then another minimum of two weeks back to Earth ... which meant, if the Tokomak decided to change their plan and launch a direct assault on Earth, his task force would be out of place. If only they’d been able to launch the operation sooner ... but there had been too much to do. No one had called a full mobilisation of the Solar Navy, let alone the Naval Reserve, ever since the Solar Union had been founded. Unsurprisingly, there had been no shortage of glitches in the system.

  And complaints from people who stand to lose money, he thought, as he glanced back at the ultimatum. They’ll lose a great deal more once they surrender to the Tokomak.

  Shaking his head, he turned back to his work. There was simply too much paperwork to do before the squadron left Earth ... and fired the first shot in the war.

  ***

  “Very well done, Ensign,” Commander Gregory said.

  “Thank you, Commander,” Yolanda said. The tactical section wasn't her favourite, but she could handle it. “I hope the real enemy are as easy to shoot as those pirates.”

  “We are about to find out,” Commander Gregory reminded her. “You’ll be going back to the helm for the operation, Ensign, but I want you to keep working on your tactical simulations. You won't get promoted without it.”

  Yolanda nodded, silently, as the Commander turned and strode out of the compartment, then allowed herself a moment to relax. After the decision to go to war, the Solar Union had turned into a demon, as far as she could tell. Every fabricator and production plant had been converted to support the war effort, while almost every starship in the fleet had been turned into a warship. Some of the news reports she’d been following, in her few moments of spare time, claimed that the Solar Union was even providing advanced weapons to Earth, although she doubted the reports were true. Earth’s governments would sooner turn advanced weaponry on each other – or the Solar Union – rather than the aliens.

  You’d think they'd know better, she thought. It wasn't that long since the Horde bombarded Earth.

  She shook her head, then checked her schedule. There were quite a few other tasks to complete before the squadron departed, some of which had been assigned to her. It was the responsibility she’d always wanted and dreaded, even though she was no longer on Earth, where few people dared to take a decision for fear of punishment. Her stepmother had certainly believed in not allowing Yolanda any latitude, no matter how insane it had been ...

  And Commander Gregory isn't your stepmother, she told herself firmly, as she walked out of the compartment. She may disagree with what you’ve done, when she inspects it, or she may chew you out, but she won’t make you feel worthless.

  She ducked to one side as a team of Marines ran past, chanting as they jogged through the compartment. The Marines onboard, according to Martin, had been reinforced for the operation, which meant that half of them had to sleep in the hold rather than Marine Country. He had asked, only partly in jest, if he could share her cabin, which might have been easier than sharing with the rest of his platoon. Yolanda had laughed, then pointed out his CO would probably have been upset. Martin had, reluctantly, agreed.

  And it would have been harder for us to go our separate ways in the morning, she thought, tartly. And one of us might not survive the coming mission.

  ***

  Martin barely noticed the moment Freedom and her consorts slipped into FTL. His gaze was firmly fixed on the holographic chart of Hades, the coming battleground, as the intelligence officer went through what little the human race knew about the alien complex. It was strikingly similar to some of the bases Martin had seen on Mars, in many ways, but in others it just looked inefficient. Wouldn't it be easier, he asked himself, to keep the supplies in orbit?

  It would definitely make sense, he thought. A single antimatter missile detonating in space would be bad, but not unmanageable. If it detonated on a planet’s surface instead, even a worthless piece of rock like Hades, the devastation would be terrifying. The bombardment of Earth would be nothing compared to the destruction of an entire naval base. Hell, if there was enough antimatter on the planet's surface, the blast would crack the planet in two.

  “You will notice that most of their supplies are stored in the dumps here, here and here,” the intelligence weenie said, tapping the chart. “We believe they actually land their freighters here” – he tapped another location on the chart – “then transport the supplies into the dumps and hold them for further deployment. Quite why they do it this way is a mystery.”

  He paused for effect. “The base is defended by a number of automated weapons platforms, in orbit, and a handful of small PDCs, positioned around the complex,” he added. “Taking out the former, along with the defending squadron, will be the Navy’s task, but the latter will be our problem. Stealth missiles will do what they can, but we may have to storm the PDCs and suppress them before the freighters can land.

  “We don’t know how many troops the enemy have positioned on the ground, but we find it hard to believe the dump doesn't have at least a small security force assigned to it. There are several buildings that might well be barracks ...”

  Martin sighed as the intelligence officer droned on. One thing they had learned about the Tokomak – he assumed from the captured starship – was that they were having manpower problems. It was hard, nearly impossible, to get volunteers for the space fleet, let alone the Tokomak groundpounders. They were probably far too used to a life of luxury, Martin speculated; on Earth, the military had been largely manned by the poor and downtrodden, rather than the ultra-wealthy. But two-thirds of the Solar Marines came from the Solar Union, where – with a little bit of effort – they could have earned themselves lives of peaceful luxury. Their lives could be extended indefinitely.

  And they chose to give it up and fight beside the rest of us, he thought. Why didn't they stay where they were?

  He thought he understood, even though it was an alien concept.
They were patriots, loyal to a society that was loyal to them; indeed, they were truly part of their society in a way he’d never been part of the United States of America. No one had ever asked him, back on Earth, if he’d wanted American troops sent to Cuba, South Africa or even Iran. Hell, no one had ever asked his opinion on anything. But the Solar Union had wanted him to vote.

  “I trust you were all paying attention,” Major Lockland said, once the intelligence officer had finished talking. Martin, who knew there would be copies of the briefing available online, made a mental note to go over it in cynical detail later. “The operation will be carried out as follows.”

  His gaze swept the room. Martin thought he knew what he was thinking. There was no deadweight here, not in the Solar Marines. Everyone, even the intelligence weenie, was armed and ready to go to war. Martin had once been told, during training, that there had been militaries where 90% of the manpower was nothing more than support staff for the 10% who did the actual fighting. It had proven a deadly mistake, if only because the tail had begun to wag the dog. The Solar Marines were determined not to make the same mistake. Even their logistics officers were expected to drop with the rest of the company.

  “We will be launching missiles at the PDCs,” Major Lockland said. “After that, we will drop from orbit. Our particular responsibility will be Dump #2. The other units will be tasked with taking and holding the other dumps; naturally, I expect us to have our dump secured first.”

  He smiled, then went on. “1st and 2nd Platoons will be responsible for crushing the remains of the PDCs, assuming they survive the missile strikes. 3rd and 4th Platoons will be charged with securing the dumps; 5th and 6th Platoons will secure the spaceport and capture as many grounded freighters as possible. Our designated reserve, 3rd Platoon, 4th Company, will provide fire support and a reserve on the ground, if necessary. We will hopefully be able to call on firepower from orbit, but it depends on how the battle goes.

  “We believe” – he nodded towards the intelligence officer – “that most of their manpower on the ground is actually composed of client races, slaves in all but name. Try to take as many of them alive as possible, but remember that some of them will be loyal to their masters, even if they are treated worse than shit. If they want to come with us, and we have the lift to take them, we will give them a chance to settle in the Solar Union. The remainder will be given life support packs and told to wait for the Tokomak.”

  “They’ll come with us, surely,” Private Abdul said. “The Tokomak will blame them for the disaster.”

  “They might not,” Martin said, before he could stop himself. “People sometimes prefer to remain in misery rather than take a chance on finding something better.”

  Abdul turned to stare at him. He wasn't the only one. “Why?”

  Martin hesitated, struggling to put it into words. It wasn't something the Solar Union’s citizens would understand, not really. Their society allowed someone to vote with their feet; if someone didn't like their Canton, they could simply go elsewhere. This fundamental right was part of their society, a society that had more than enough room for everyone. Hell, if someone really hated the rest of the Solar Union, they could even set up an asteroid home of their own. But on Earth ...

  “It's a very human attitude,” he said. “Someone becomes downtrodden enough, they stop thinking that life can become better. They stay with abusive partners, maybe because they’ve been twisted to the point they actually think their partners love them. Or they stay and wallow in shit because they don’t think there's anything better. It takes drive and determination to escape on Earth ...”

  He hesitated, again. “Because even being abused and enslaved is a kind of safety,” he added, although he wasn’t sure if he was right. “They know their place and they will stick to it, because they feel safe there.”

  “That’s absurd,” Abdul said.

  “But very human,” Major Lockland said. He cleared his throat. “We will, of course, be running simulations over the next two weeks. However, each of those simulations will be different, because we cannot afford to become complacent. Hades is going to become an important naval base, as far as the Tokomak are concerned, and they may have moved other unpleasant surprises to the targeted world. We must assume the worst.”

  Martin nodded. He’d done live combat drops over Mars, as part of the later stage of his training, and he knew – all too well – just how easy it was to fuck up, even if someone did everything right. A single ground-based weapon, even a cutting laser, could slice a Marine in half, while plasma cannons or heavy phase cannons could vaporise their targets. No matter their best efforts to remove random chance from the deployment, it might easily prove their nemesis. They would have to plan and practice on the assumption that half the company wouldn’t make it to the surface.

  And we might lose our commanders too, Martin thought. They’d run simulations where the Major and his Lieutenants were knocked out of commission and they’d always been near-disasters, even if the senior Marine took command at once. This time, we won’t be facing holographic weapons. We’ll be facing real foes.

  “A question,” Private Atkinson said. “Are they preparing for war?”

  “They haven’t been attacked in thousands of years,” the intelligence officer said. “We believe they honestly won’t consider that we might take the offensive. However, they may be taking standard precautions anyway.”

  “So we might catch them with their pants down or they might greet us with a hail of fire,” Private Atkinson said. “They would see us coming, wouldn't they?”

  “Yes,” the intelligence officer said. “There’s no way we can obscure our FTL signature. Unless they were literally asleep at the switch, Private, they’d know we were on our way.”

  Martin sucked in his breath. Depending on just how good their sensor gear was, the Tokomak would have at least an hour’s warning before the fleet arrived. Time enough, he was sure, to send a courier for help and prepare defences ... and then to prepare to blow up their own dumps, if necessary. It was what he would have done.

  And we’re going down there, he thought, morbidly. They’d simulated raids on terrorist bases and half of them had ended with the base blown up and everyone dead. It won’t be fun at all.

  He rose as the Major dismissed his men, with strict orders to review the data and prepare themselves for simulations. There was just time, he fancied, to find Yolanda and talk to her, before he had to get some sleep. Tomorrow was going to be a very busy day.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Protest marches in almost every western capital took place today, protesting against the Solar Union’s decision to declare war on the Galactics. Protest leaders denounced the Solar Union as galactic-sized warmongers and demanded that Earth be specifically excluded from any declaration of war. There were incidents in several cities where protestors attempted to storm Solar Union Embassies, only to be stunned or killed by armed guards. In a statement issued shortly after the first protest, President Ross of the Solar Union reminded Earth that the Solar Union would defend its territory, even against rioting crowds.

  -Solar News Network, Year 53

  “Ten minutes to emergence,” Yolanda said.

  “Hold us steady,” Captain Singh ordered, calmly. There was no hint of tension in his voice. “Take us out at the designated emergence point.”

  “Yes, sir,” Yolanda said. She didn't have much to do – the planned emergence point was programmed into the computers – but she knew she might have to override them, if something went wrong. Or if the Commodore decided to alter their destination, for some reason known only to himself. “We’re holding steady.”

  The timer slowly ticked down to zero. The Tokomak would know they were coming, her thoughts yammered at her, even if they wouldn't know the exact emergence point. If they had, the humans would have blundered right into an ambush, assuming the Tokomak officers had enough initiative to set up a trap without waiting for orders from Varnar first. But it
didn't change the fact that they would know the fleet was inbound. They had had plenty of time to call their crews to battlestations, charge their weapons and devise a handful of contingency plans.

  “Emergence in thirty seconds,” she said. The final seconds ticked down. “Five seconds ... emergence.”

  Freedom shivered, slightly, as she slid back into normal space. Yolanda plunged her mind into the sensors and saw the stars reappear, while the dirty brown world of Hades lay ahead of them, surrounded by enemy starships. Most of them were freighters, she noted, although twelve of them were definitely heavy cruisers. The warships were assembling themselves into formation, but slowly, far too slowly. It was strange to see how pitifully slow the Tokomak were at adapting to the unexpected. How the hell had they managed to conquer an unimaginably-large empire in the first place?

  “Enemy ships are signalling us, telling us to break off,” Commander Gregory said. A dull rustle of amusement echoed round the bridge. “This is Tokomak territory.”

  “Demand their surrender,” Commodore Travis ordered, through the datanet. “And then prepare to attack.”