He looked over Tanner’s service jacket, scanning the military schools he’d attended, the continuing education the sergeant had pursued, and the awards and recommendations he’d received over his time. Like many pre-war soldiers, Tanner didn’t have a lot of medals—mostly achievement and commendation medals—awards you got when you transitioned from one assignment to another or did something above and beyond your regular duties. This deployment was Tanner’s first combat deployment. Up until today, he’d been lucky—he hadn’t gotten injured during any of their previous assaults. Today a Zodark blaster had hit him, but so far, he was doing OK. He was resting a few beds down from Royce.
Sergeant Tanner had fought exceptionally well on New Eden and Pishon. Royce wrote a decoration for a Bronze Star with V device for the assault to capture New Eden. He then wrote up a separate award for the same medal for this recent assault on Pishon as well as a Purple Heart. Joe had earned those awards, and Royce was glad to be in a position to provide his men with the medals and commendations they deserved. He hated when he saw other officers award medals more on interpersonal politicking than actual performance. He vowed not to be like those fake brownnosers.
Three hours into his administrative duties, a figure appeared at the foot of his bed. Royce put his tablet down and smiled as he looked up. “It’s good to see you… Major? They promoted you again?”
A broad smile spread across Major Jayden Hopper’s face as he shrugged. “It’s not by choice if that makes you feel any better. I’d much rather still be down at the company level. At least as a company commander, I could still be involved in the actual fighting. How’s the shoulder doing? I heard you had a pretty bad break.”
“It’ll heal. I’m glad we have these nanites,” Royce replied. “The doctor told me if we were still using the same medical technology and procedures from the last Great War, this might have been a career-ending injury. As it is, I’m only going to be down for a couple of weeks. It’s pretty amazing how far battlefield medicine has come. I think half my injured guys are going to make it and keep serving because of these nanite injectors in our first aid pouches.”
Royce knew the newly promoted major was busy. “I appreciate the visit, sir, but I get the sense that you’re here for more than a welfare check,” he said with a chuckle. “What can I do for you from the medbay?”
Hopper smiled. “Always direct and to the point, Brian. In private, you can call me Jayden. No ‘major’ stuff when it’s just us officers, OK? So, here’s the deal, Brian. Our battalion’s been on this deployment for five months. In that time, we’ve sustained a forty-two percent KIA ratio. Add in that nearly everyone in the battalion has been injured at least once, and we’ve sustained a lot of casualties. We’ve seen so much action during this deployment, and I can’t say that it’s going to slow down anytime soon.”
Royce furrowed his brow. “I heard we finished wiping out the Zodarks on Pishon and the RAS and Delta company had cleaned up New Eden. Has another group of Zodarks entered the system?”
Hopper shook his head. “No, no more Zodarks. The brass is cooking up a plan to liberate the Sumerian home world, Sumer. Our battalion is splitting to form a new Delta battalion. I’ve been selected to lead this new unit, hence the promotion. We’re officially forming up the new 1st Battalion, 3rd Deltas. This new Delta group is going to be based out of New Eden. We’re going to be the first battalion of the new group…I’d like to know if you’d like to be one of my new company commanders.”
Royce laid his head back on the pillow for a second. A company commander…I’ve barely had time to get used to being an officer in charge of a platoon.
Seeing the conflicted look on his lieutenant’s face, Hopper interjected, “I know this is a lot, Brian, asking you to take over a company. We’ve sustained a lot of losses, but we need good officers in charge who have combat experience and know how to lead. We don’t have a lot of officers or enlisted that have the skills you and I have.
“Collectively, our original company that left for New Eden six years ago has more combat experience than all of Space Command Special Forces. We, meaning the command, need to get our combat veterans spread out in leadership positions with these new units. We need to build a new nucleus from which to grow these units. I need you, Brian. Will join my battalion and help me turn it into the best Delta battalion in the new group?”
Looking his friend in the eye, Royce asked, “Do we even have enough Deltas to constitute a company, let alone a new battalion?”
Hopper’s hand stroked the twelve-hour stubble on his chin as he thought about that for a moment. “To be honest, Brian, no. However, the C100s have proven to be pretty adept at fighting as part of a human team. Heck, your own battle on the moon was a great case study on how to integrate the new combat Synths into human units. Based on how well things worked out, command wants to incorporate the C100s.”
“Actually, Jayden, we tend to call them toasters or terminators, not C100s or combat Synths,” Royce corrected with a chuckle. “Except for Adam, their leader, of course.”
Hopper snickered at the derogatory nicknames the soldiers had given the C100s. “Ah, yes. The toasters have proven they can work and operate with a human squad. As I was saying, Command has decided that until our training program back on Earth can fill our vacant slots, we’re filling them with C100s.” Hopper held a hand up to forestall any comments from Royce. “Look, Brian. I know the troops all have nicknames for them, and yes, I know that crotchety old Delta colonel calls them toasters and terminators too, but we need to call them by their actual names. So, please, if you can, around the brass or anyone in authority, call them C100s if you don’t want to use the term combat Synths. OK?”
Royce nodded, his cheeks reddening a bit. He knew Hopper was right. This was one of the differences between an officer and an NCO. An officer had to be professional at all times; an NCO, well, they could get away with things an officer couldn’t.
“By the way, Colonel Hackworth is our new group commander,” Hopper remarked. “Your new company will consist of twenty-five percent human soldiers and the rest C100s. This percentage will change as new replacements arrive, but until they do, we will be heavy with combat Synths. Of course, you’ll need to figure out how you want to integrate your C100s with your human soldiers and how you’ll want to operate your platoons. I’m sure you’ll come up with some unique tactics using the simulators. So, Brian, may I offer you these and have you cross over to join my battalion?” Hopper asked as he held out a small box with two sets of captain’s bars in it.
Royce shook his head as he smiled; he couldn’t let his friend down. They’d been together since they’d left Sol more than six years ago. Of course he was going to accept the promotion. Officers like Jayden Hopper didn’t come along very often. If the brass was seeing fit to promote him through the ranks, then Royce would do his best to ride his coattails and see where he ended up.
“I’ll do it, sir, but you need to let me spend a couple weeks working with the Synths and my human soldiers to figure out some new tactics to make this work better,” Royce replied. “Our battle down on the moon was some seriously thrown-together crap that just so happened to work. I wouldn’t want to wing it like that with future battles. If this is how we’re going to fight going forward, we need to develop particular tactics and plans to utilize the unique set of skills the C100s bring to augment our human shortcomings. Fair?”
Hopper extended his hand to shake Royce’s. “Sounds good, Brian. I can’t tell you how relieved I am to have you on my team. Oh, before I officially leave our company, get me your award packages and all your other platoon paperwork. I’m still the company CO for another twenty-four hours—I want to close out my company duties before the next guy takes over.”
“Jayden, before you leave, if you don’t mind me asking, how are we going to fill all these officer and NCO positions?” Royce asked.
Hopper smiled. “Pretty simple, actually. We keep promoting those who outlived everyone a
bove or parallel to them. If this war drags on for a while longer, you and I will probably be colonels. It’s just the way things work, Brian. When an army grows rapidly and the officer and NCO ranks get devastated by combat losses, a lot of people find themselves getting promoted very swiftly.”
With that, the newly minted major left the box with the captain’s bars on Brian’s bed and made his way over to talk with a few other wounded soldiers in the medbay. Reaching down to grab the box, Brian looked at the captain’s bars. Never in a million years had he thought he’d be an officer, let alone a company commander. Before the war, his goal had been to make sergeant major.
Who knows? At the rate this war is chewing through soldiers, I could end up being a general.
Chapter Fifteen
Shipbuilding
John Glenn Orbital Station
RNS George Washington
Rear Admiral Miles Hunt let out a deep sigh once his ship had finally connected to the massive station. The GW was going to be in port for twenty-four days. Then they’d ship out to the Rhea system to lead a new expedition, an invasion of Zodark-controlled space. That meant he had twenty-four days to get his ship repaired and his crew some modicum of R&R before the next major campaign started.
Hunt turned to his XO. “Captain McKee, please release the nonessential crew for two weeks of R&R. Make sure the remaining crew cycles through at least ten days of leave either on the station or Earth. It’s time we let our people have some downtime and take a short break.”
“Aye-aye, Admiral,” McKee replied excitedly. She had the first ten days of leave in port. Then she’d swap out with the admiral while he took ten days himself.
The maiden voyage for the GW had been a brutal five months, during which they’d sustained an enormous amount of damage to the flagship of the RNS fleet and lost a lot of friends along the way. This wasn’t how a maiden voyage was supposed to start, but they were at war, after all.
Following the climactic battle at the stargate, the GW had returned to New Eden. While they were able to get a lot of their damage repaired in orbit, some things required a more advanced shipyard to repair. It was risky having the GW leave Rhea, but this was the only way to get their superweapon fixed for the coming battle.
Before the GW had left the Rhea system, one of the engineers at BlueOrigin came up with the brilliant idea of weaponizing the stargates, which was how they’d been able to make this trip home. While they couldn’t control the stargates or even understand how they worked, they sure could fortify the hell out of them.
After seeing how the limited gun batteries they had placed at the gate worked, they had gone full bore, creating a host of weapon platforms to surround the gate at Rhea. They had built a series of plasma torpedo launcher pods and more magrail turrets. These were fixed platforms anchored around the gate. They were also heavily armored with roughly forty meters of armor. If an unknown ship jumped through, they’d be blasted. It would also alert the Earther forces in the system that an intruder had entered the system.
*******
An hour after the ship had docked, the shipyard workers came aboard to start their repairs. The lead engineer for BlueOrigin, Adrian Rogers, walked onto the bridge and spotted Admiral Hunt right away, sitting at his captain’s chair with a tablet in hand.
Hunt looked up, saw the familiar face and smiled. He got up and made his way over to his friend. “Hey, look what the cat dragged in. How are you doing, Adrian?” The two men shook hands.
“Ah, Miles—I mean, Admiral. It’s good to see you as well,” Rogers said.
Hunt brushed off the comment about his rank. “Call me Miles, Adrian. We’ve known each other too long for titles or ranks. You know, it’s too bad you weren’t able to come out with us on our maiden voyage. What happened that caused you to have to leave at the last minute? I never did get a good answer.”
“It was a personal matter,” Rogers replied, his voice becoming sad. “My mother had a massive heart attack and passed away the day before you left. I hated ducking out on the deployment, but I couldn’t leave my dad like that. Did Eric handle everything in my absence?”
Hunt nodded. “He did fine, Adrian. I just wanted to make sure things were OK on your end. How is the family doing now?”
“My dad is still struggling with it. You know, despite all the medical wonders we can do these days, we still can’t predict when a massive heart attack that’ll kill you will happen. My parents were married for eighty-two years, if you can believe that. It was really hard on my dad, losing Mom like that, but I’m glad I was able to be there for him when he needed me.”
Hunt thought about that for a moment. Eighty-two years of marriage. It warmed his heart that medical technology had advanced to such a level that people could live into their early to mid-hundreds, and people could stay married that long. He and Lilly had just passed the thirty-seven-year mark themselves.
How time flies…
Rogers continued, “My wife is doing well, though. The kids…they’re all grown. Actually, we’re empty nesters now.”
Rogers looked like he wanted to say something but hesitated.
“Hey, what’s wrong, Adrian?” Hunt prodded. “Something else going on I should know about?”
Rogers looked a little embarrassed. “Uh, since you brought it up, my daughter, Tina, got drafted six months ago.”
A few months before Hunt and his fleet had shipped out, President Luca had announced a massive conscription effort across the Republic. The TPA was likewise raising a large military force.
“Huh, I didn’t know that, Adrian. Do you know where she’s being assigned or what her job is going to be?” Hunt asked. He motioned for the two of them to take a seat near his captain’s chair. A small army of contractors was filing onto the bridge to run some diagnostics and figure out what were priority repairs versus things that could wait.
Rogers blushed. “Actually, she’s been assigned to your ship, the George Washington. She said she’s supposed to report to the weapons department. She was assigned to be a gunner’s mate.”
Rogers looked concerned. He would have known from the damage report the GW had sent ahead of their arrival that the ship had sustained a lot of damage to its magrail turrets—a group of weapons where the junior GMs would typically serve.
Hunt felt for the man. He’d worked with Rogers on the designs for the GW and had gotten to know him pretty well over the years.
“I thought Tina was going to college,” Hunt said. “Didn’t they offer deferments for those going to university?” He’d been deployed so long, he was clueless as to what had been going on back on Earth.
Rogers just shook his head. “No, they aren’t offering deferments to anyone. If your number comes up, you have to report. I couldn’t try to pull any strings and get her out of her service—that wouldn’t be right. While the father in me wanted to do that, my daughter was having none of it.”
Hunt nodded in approval. “Tell you what, Adrian—I’ll see if I can get her assigned to one of the CIWS systems. They didn’t see a lot of action, and they weren’t heavily attacked during the battles. It’s about the best I can do for her.”
Rogers seemed at ease with his answer. He smiled and thanked him. “I appreciate it, Miles. Well, I suppose we should talk about the critical repairs. I saw the list you sent over, but what do you believe are the most important things to get fixed?”
Reaching over to grab his tablet, Hunt highlighted a couple of items and then handed the tablet over to Rogers. “I’ve outlined what I think are the most critical repairs. Aside from the plasma cannon, our most crucial item to get repaired is our 3-D printers. The starboard-side primary and secondary magrail turrets took a beating. A few laser shots burned through our armor and managed to hit our fabricator section. That was one area we couldn’t fix on our own. Without those fabricators, there’s a lot we can’t do.
“Also, the armor. We used a lot of that nanite paste to patch things up, but I’m not confident it’ll hold u
p against those Zodark pulse beams. We encountered a new, larger battleship, and those carriers hit hard, much harder than the previous ships we’ve encountered,” Hunt explained.
“Yeah, I read about that in the AAR you sent forward with Admiral Bailey. I’m frankly surprised, but glad that you were able to hold up against them. I still can’t believe they tore through our new battleships as they did. It was a herculean effort to get those six battleships built for your last campaign. Losing three of them in a single battle and the damage the remaining three took, I mean, wow.” He leaned forward and practically whispered, “If they can keep throwing ships like that at us, Miles, how are we going to win this war?”
Hunt also leaned in so no one else heard him. “We beat them, Adrian, by outsmarting them,” he countered. “We beat them by being able to adapt to the changing situations and integrating this new alien technology as quickly as we can.”
Then Admiral Hunt sat back up and spoke in a normal voice again. “Now, I’ve been gone for five months—tell me you all have made some improvements to our tech since the last time our ship was in port?”
Rogers smiled devilishly. “Well, now that you mention it, our R&D team worked with our Sumerian allies and did a thorough examination of the Zodark carrier’s armor—you know, that ship you captured a few years back? We believe we’ve identified how they’re able to modulate their armor so effectively, thus negating the effectiveness of our lasers. We’re going to integrate that same technology into the new generation of warships we’re building. We’re taking our existing ship designs and just adding it to them. I think this is going to increase your survivability in future battles immensely.”
Hunt patted Rogers on the shoulder. “See, that’s what I’m talking about, Adrian,” he said excitedly. “It’s that kind of ingenuity that’s going to lead us to victory.”
Into the Battle Page 25