The Dotari Salvation (Terran Strike Marines Book 1)

by Richard Fox

  King thought he could feel Max seize up.

  “We are now tasked to join a highly sensitive mission on the Breitenfeld, under command of Admiral Valdar. More details will be released when we are on board and under commo lockdown.”

  “This is just some kind of Saturn run, right, sir? Do a drop on Titan for some civvie bigwigs, then we’re home in another week?” Max said.

  King locked his jaw as Lieutenant Hoffman cleared his throat. “The assignment is of indefinite duration.”

  King looked at the wall and swallowed a mouthful of hot profanity. He’d just lit a fire under Max’s ass about family time. The only married member of the team was going to have a rough time when his wife found out about this.

  “Given our recent off-planet assignment, I was able to secure a forty-eight-hour pass for you all starting tomorrow morning. Your forms are signed and with the company admin section. Gunnery Sergeant King has release authority. I don’t have any other information to share. Gunney?”

  King snapped his hand up in a salute and Hoffman returned the gesture, then left the VR range. Opal remained behind.

  “Hold it together a moment longer, team,” King said as he counted to nine and a half.

  “This is some bullshit!” Max said.

  “At ease yourself, Corporal.”

  “We were dark for three months. I missed my son’s second birthday and now I’m gonna miss the twins’ birthday if we’re gone more than six weeks. You know what the old lady’s gonna do when she hears this?” Max snapped his knees together.

  King leveled a knife hand at Max’s sternum, then lost the words he needed. He wanted to swear but didn’t trust his mouth, so he clenched his jaw until his eye started twitching.

  Max resumed the parade-rest position, chest rising and falling angrily but eyes straight ahead.

  Booker broke the tension, moving closer to King. “You seem just as surprised as the rest of us, Gunney.”

  King resisted the urge to confirm her suspicion with profanity and declarations of innocence. There was almost nothing worse than getting blindsided with something like this.

  “The only thing that matters are the orders our lieutenant just gave us. Let me tell you jarheads something right now. Not a damn one of you will see anything but the faded paint of these walls until you’ve qualified expert on your assigned weapon and every piece of equipment we drew is cleaned and returned to the armory.”

  Booker, Max, and Adams turned around and walked toward their downed weapons, shaking heads and muttering but not loud enough to be heard. Duke and the others stared at him.

  “Wait. I will say this one time only. Any of you show up back from pass with a mosquito fart of alcohol in your system, you can kiss your block leave—when we finally get it—goodbye,” King said.

  All eyes turned toward Duke, who looked at the clock, then at his watch, and pulled a small plastic bottle from near his shooting mat. He unscrewed the lid and spit into it. “Challenge accepted. Anyone know if the titty bar on Black Canyon Highway is still off-limits?”

  Garrison stretched his back and rotated his shoulders. “Another place opened on East Washington.”

  Duke put forward a fist and Garrison bumped it with his.

  “You want to keep jaw-jacking or you want to finish this range?” King asked.

  Silence.

  “Back to your weapons,” King said. “Opal, come here.”

  The doughboy presented himself with alacrity—best damn Marine in the Strike Marines if the ability to snap to attention could win wars.

  “Unit Opal 6-1-9, report status,” King said. The infantryman loomed large. King marveled at how easy it was to forget not only the mass of the doughboy, but the aura of raw strength.

  Opal’s eyes focused on something far away, or on nothing. King could never decide which it was. He knew, however, the unit was shifting into base programming. “Unit operating at suboptimal condition. Residual pain from damage will degrade focus and mobility for nineteen hours.”

  A shiver wormed up King’s spine. Talking to the biological computer within Opal’s brain never felt right. He didn’t go in for weirdness or new-age spiritual stuff. Just when he grew accustomed to the doughboy’s steady, dependable mental plodding, this clinical analysis came from his mouth.

  “Synapse function?”

  “Unit’s function is aberrant.”

  King wasn’t sure what to make of that. These bio diagnostics usually reported normal or degraded if Opal was recovering from a serious injury. He kicked some ideas around with less-than-scientific reasoning and wondered if “aberrant” could be a by-product of some new treatment.

  Maybe the doughboy was degrading permanently. King wasn’t sure how to feel about that possibility. “Exit diagnostics.”

  Opal’s face softened and he looked around like he wasn’t sure where he was.

  “Opal, how is the lieutenant?”

  “Sir is quiet and sad.”

  King shook his head. This day was feeling long, and tension gripped the back of his neck like a vise. Hoffman was hiding something, he knew it. How far should he press the doughboy to find out? Popping his neck with a short twist, he addressed Opal. “Go to firing point three and qualify on your assigned weapons.”

  “Yes, Gunney.”

  King watched Opal run to comply. “Garrison, watch out. You’ve got incoming.”

  Garrison snatched the rifle from the shooting bench out of reflex.

  “Opal qualify.”

  “Okay, buddy. Not with this one. I’m using it,” Garrison said.

  “I told him to go to firing point three. You’re on four. Why is your rifle sitting on three?”

  Garrison shrugged, possibly feeling chastised but more likely embarrassed for being caught in the middle of a lazy, sloppy habit. “Sorry, Gunney.”

  “You’re on my list, Garrison. Get it together. What do I have to do to keep you sharp, toss you into a firefight?”

  “Pretty much,” Garrison said. He handed the doughboy the correct training weapon and stepped back.

  “Opal qualify,” Opal said as he aimed his first shot.

  “Do your worst, big guy,” Garrison said.

  “Don’t tell him things like that,” Booker said.

  King faced away from the banter, fists clenched as he stared at the door where Hoffman made his exit.

  ****

  Hoffman walked through the ship in a kind of daze he hadn’t felt since his first days in command of a doughboy platoon. He’d been on other ships of the same class and seen videos on his Ubi…but this was the Breitenfeld. Every step toward the conference room felt important.

  Gunney King walked beside him, silent as the walls. More so, perhaps.

  “This way, gentlemen.” A sailor standing against the bulkhead pointed down a passageway where the mingling of military civilian parties had already cause a bottleneck. The lieutenant and his team sergeant shuffled inside.

  The conference room felt small when he stepped through the doorway and looked around. Navy and Marine officers gathered near their seats speaking in low voices. A Dotari delegation clustered around one of their own wearing a sash bedecked with medals.

  “I never thought I’d be here,” Hoffman said. “You know who’s been in this room? What was set in motion here?” On the upper walls were armor unit patches carved in wood. Iron Hearts. Templars. Hussars. Each bore a black cloth tied around the middle. He’d gone to Memorial Square in Phoenix and seen the marble statues of the armor’s last stand. That was one thing. Standing in the room where those same martyrs had once been was another.

  Hoffman looked over the seats, wondering where legends like Hale and Carius would’ve sat.

  A moment of silence radiated ahead of Gunney King’s words. “I lived through the Ember War. The Breit was the first ship to return to Earth after the…event. She found herself in every major battle during the war and took the fight to the Xaros Masters. Won the war. Some say she’s blessed, unless you were aboar
d her. Then it might’ve felt more like a curse.”

  “Plenty who’d say it’s blessed. Especially those that keep to Saint Kallen,” Hoffman said.

  King didn’t respond. He seemed to be in his poker-face mood today.

  “Let’s get out of the way,” Hoffman said, pointing to lower rows near the stage. Although the Breitenfeld was a carrier, he didn’t see any pilots with fighter wings, but he did note plenty of engineers and Dotari.

  “There’s Captain Bradford,” King said.

  Hoffman looked across the room, not liking King’s tone but not blaming him for his resentment. Things had been rough since the New Bastion incident. He wondered how much the gunnery sergeant knew about their situation…just how close the captain was to cannibalizing the unit for his pet projects elsewhere.

  Bradford stood near the presentation screen talking to Lieutenant Fallon and the other company officers. That they all must have accompanied the commander and Hoffman had arrived by himself was not a good sign to the lieutenant.

  “This ship’s been off the line since the end of the war,” King said. “Hasn’t left the solar system except for that time it went for Ambassador Pa’lon’s funeral. Wonder why we’re aboard now.”

  “I heard rumors they wanted to turn the ship into a museum, but Valdar wouldn’t allow it. Guess war heroes have veto power where it counts,” Hoffman said. The lights flickered and a hush fell over the room as people made their way to vacant seats. Hoffman stood in front of a seat near the captain.

  The room snapped to attention as Admiral Valdar walked onto the stage, looking older than Hoffman expected. He knew the admiral’s face from the media frenzy at the end of the Ember War—some years ago—and the movie Last Stand of Takeni, which was of dubious historical value.

  “Seats,” Valdar said.

  A holo wall appeared in the middle of the stage, but the main light stayed on Valdar.

  “This briefing is classified,” Valdar said. “The ship will remain in a commo blackout until the mission is complete and all personnel have been debriefed.”

  Tension rippled silently through the room. A few civilians murmured softly enough they probably didn’t realize they might as well be shouting. Hoffman resisted the urge to dress them down for their lack of respect and discipline and looked instead at the Dotari delegation. A classified human-alien mission was a rarity in his experience.

  He thought he could hear King’s teeth grinding.

  “As you may or may not know, the Dotari are suffering from a plague of concerning proportions. Think of the way the North and South American indigenous peoples died off after Europeans brought a whole host of diseases that those populations had never been exposed to. The Dotari’s home world is toxic to them. The best doctors and scientists in our multi-race alliance have been hard at work on a cure, work that’s yielded little progress. In the meantime, a probable cure has been found,” Valdar said.

  Hoffman wondered if the Dotari plague could pass on to humans.

  Valdar continued. “We’ve recently discovered a lost Dotari fleet in deep space, part of the diaspora that left their home world prior to the arrival of the Xaros. In that fleet will be Dotari with immunities and antibodies that our allies need to survive on their home world. While we could reach the lost Dotari fleet via a wormhole jump, coming back would be nearly impossible. Any ship we send to rendezvous will be stuck on the same journey as the Dotari colony fleet for…about 350 years.”

  As the audience rumbled, Hoffman forgot to be annoyed and stared at Admiral Valdar, hanging on every word.

  King leaned toward Hoffman and spoke quietly. “Is this what they mean by an ‘indefinite duration’ mission?”

  “The Breitenfeld will jump to the fleet’s location through the Crucible gate, wake up the crew, and return the Dotari to their home world with the cure to the phage. There isn’t a Crucible in deep space, so we will bring our own—the Grinder,” Valdar said. “Think of it as a mini-Crucible we will build on-site when we rendezvous with the Dotari ships. The Breitenfeld already has the component parts stored on the flight deck. Because of this, our fighter wing and most of our support ships will stay behind. We have one corvette—the Barca—lampreyed to the hull for ship-to-ship duties. It will take some time to assemble and power up the Grinder. As of now, the entire operation should take eight weeks.”

  Hoffman didn’t need to see their faces; he could feel the audience’s incredulity.

  Valdar continued in his rough, no-nonsense voice. “The Grinder is a leap forward in gate technology. It’s the product of years of work and intelligence gathered by our Pathfinder teams on artifact worlds. This is the reason this mission is classified.” Valdar paused to make eye contact with several people in the room. “Once the technology is perfected, it will give the Terran fleet a significant operational and strategic advantage. You all know as well as I do that it skirts the authorized use of Crucible gates laid out in the Hale Treaty. Relations are bad enough with the Vishrakath and the fight we’ve got going on Cygnus II.”

  King flinched at the mention of the Vishrakath and Hoffman saw him tighten up. No one hated the Vish more than King.

  “The Dotari ships will reawaken their crews once the codes are transmitted to them. Should that fail or function below standards set forth by the science team, we will use Strike Marines and Dotari advisors to board the ships and reboot key systems. Walk in the park. Flip some switches and try again with the codes. No problem.” Valdar paused. “The Dotari need us. They are dying. This ship and her crew saved them once before, and they repaid that debt by fighting and dying beside us during the Ember War. They’ve remained our closest allies ever since. They have given us their all.” He looked up at the Iron Heart crest, and Hoffman remembered that two Dotari armor soldiers were lost in the final confrontation with the Xaros.

  “This sounds like fun,” King said dryly.

  Hoffman had kept his mouth shut as long as he could. “We’re a side show on this one, Gunney. We won’t do much but keep our gear clean and qualify at the holo range between briefings.”

  King nodded, still staring at the admiral. “I thought this was a chance to prove ourselves, get back on top. Now it looks like more punishment duty,” King said. “The team won’t be happy.”

  Hoffman shook his head and forced a smile. “Don’t jump to conclusions. Bradford and his golden child, Fallon, are here. He wouldn’t have volunteered the company unless there was a real chance to do something.”

  Valdar continued. “The Dotari know they have no better friend than Earth. Every hour we spend here is another hour for the phage to claim Dotari lives. Failure is not an option. Not for the Breitenfeld. Not for her crew. We will make the jump through the Crucible to the rendezvous location in twelve hours. We remain on commo blackout until the mission is complete, and will remain on blackout after we return until the ship’s intelligence officers have nondisclosure agreements signed by every crewmember, sailor and otherwise. Questions?”

  Hoffman felt the moment like it was a physical thing. His mission might be a backup plan or, at best, a side show, but the moment felt historic.

  No one said a word as Valdar looked around the room, then nodded slightly to himself. “Got Mitt Uns.”

  Everyone stood as the admiral left.

  Hoffman looked at King, who was staring back at him. “What do you think, sir?” King asked.

  “Never a dull moment on the Breitenfeld.”

  Other members of the briefing consulted with one another and began to file out.

  “When was the last time our Marines got certified on boarding operations?” Hoffman asked.

  “The team’s individual certifications are up-to-date, but we’ve never trained this together,” King said as Hoffman watched the wheels turn in the senior NCO’s head.

  “Anyone on the team trained in Dotari tech?” Hoffman asked.

  “Negative, sir.”

  “We’ve got eleven hours before we have to secure for the jump…lo
t to do,” Hoffman said. “Heads up, Gunney.”

  Captain Bradford strode forward with Lo’thar in tow. “Lieutenant Hoffman. Gunney.”

  “Sir.”

  “Meet your new technical specialist.” Bradford jerked a thumb at Lo’thar. “Don’t embarrass me by asking for his autograph.”

  Hoffman and Gunney gave the Dotari veteran a respectful but noncommittal nod.

  “How long have you been a technology specialist?” Hoffman asked, squirming as the Dotari stood close enough to smell his breath.

  “I am Lo’thar, pilot by trade and your technology specialist by recent good fortune. I fought in a squadron commanded by Lieutenant Durand during the days of hay of the Breitenfeld.” He reached his arms around Hoffman, hugging him and gripping his hands together, burying his face in Hoffman’s shoulder.

  “Uhh…” Hoffman gave him a quick pat on the back.

  Lo’thar stepped back. “That is how it is done? Correct?”

  “Sure,” Hoffman said.

  “I’ll leave you gentlemen to it, then,” Bradford said and walked away.

  “Why does he insist on calling us that? What is the meaning of men gentle?” Lo’thar asked. “Lieutenant Durand preferred a wide variety of expletives from several human languages.”

  King stared at Lo’thar. “Lost in translation, I guess.”

  “Are you angry with me, Gunney?”

  King shook his head about a millimeter and a half in each direction.

  “My experience with gunnery sergeants is that they are always angry. Forget I asked.”

  Hoffman put his hand on Lo’thar’s shoulder and guided him a step back from King. “Do you have much EVA experience, Lo’thar?”

  “EVA?”

  “Extra vehicle activity…space walking…ship boarding,” Hoffman said.

  “I trained to eject from my fighter and survive in the void,” Lo’thar said. “How much more is there?”

  King muttered under his breath.

  Chapter 6

  Admiral Valdar felt the deck move ever so slightly as he looked into the holo tank on the Breitenfeld’s bridge and watched as his ship stopped in the center of the giant gate. He cleared his throat to get the attention of Ensign James Lancer, his navigation officer.