by A. L Butcher
“Did you ever meet Captain Sanders, ma’am?” Rowyn asked.
“Of course I met him...” LeClair trailed off. “My fault, Major. I didn’t think of the difference in size.”
“We’ll adapt. Thank you, Captain,” Rowyn said and closed the link. It shouldn’t have been LeClair’s job to take care of infantry business. Cosgrove was the commander of the assault forces and should have been proactive in stocking spare suits.
“Well, then I guess we’ll have to fit one of Lieutenant Cosgrove’s suits to me, and you can modify two regular mediums with the comm equipment from Sanders’ suits for our backups,” she said.
Sergeant Koskanin stared at her. “Do you know how much modification it would take to turn a regular suit into a command suit? Ma’am.”
“I was told you’re a master armorer. Have you ever salvaged a suit after it was hit in the chest with an explosive projectile?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Then you can probably create a command suit. Sergeant, I don’t care if it’s pretty. It can have lumps and bumps and stuff welded on the outside. I’m not planning on entering any beauty contests with it. But if I need a backup suit, I’ll be very glad I have it.”
“Well, I guess I can cobble something together.”
“Good. Now where is Lieutenant Cosgrove’s backup?”
The other soldier pulled a suit out of the first locker on the wall and dragged it over to where she stood with Koskanin.
“Do you and your assistant maintain all the suits? Or is each soldier responsible for keeping his or her own equipment clean and maintained?” she asked, looking over the battle armor.
“Each person maintains their own equipment,” Koskanin said. “I’m not their mother.”
She set the suit on its feet and walked over to the lockers, opening several at random and checking the suits inside. She turned back to Cosgrove’s suit.
“Corporal, if you would please get me some rags, lubricant and shining polish, I’ll clean this one up after we get it fitted.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the corporal replied, dashing off to a cabinet on the other side of the room.
“Everybody will be inspected, Sergeant. Every single person. You and I will inspect the troops, I will inspect you and Cosgrove, and you will inspect me. A suit that is not properly maintained has a higher chance of failure at an inconvenient moment.” She pursed her lips and shook her head. “With my luck, that soldier would be the one covering my back.” She raised her eyes to Koskanin’s and saw a nod of approval.
A suit of battle armor was three inches of beryllium with a one-inch coating of a super-slick projectile-proof polymer over the body and head. One inch of steel and an inch of polymer covered the limbs. A soldier hung suspended inside in a knit Kevlar body stocking that was one large sensor. Once someone was trained to wear it, the suit moved as if it were a second skin, but with quicker reactions.
The soldier could leap thirty feet straight up, broad jump seventy feet, and with a jet assist, fly for short distances. Communications and vision from the ultraviolet to the infrared were built in, as were the weapons. It was sealed against vacuum and radiation. A single soldier could take on a company of unarmored troops and win without breaking a sweat.
The standard weapons depended on the mission. For boarding, they deployed stun guns, officially called neural disruptors, and boarding guns, essentially shotguns. In battlefield situations, the weapon of choice would be an armor-piercing explosive projectile weapon, an APEP, along with flame throwers and mortars launched from a device carried on the back.
It took two hours to refit Cosgrove’s suit to Rowyn. When they were finished and she had tested it out by bouncing off the ceiling and walls a few times, she dismissed Koskanin and the corporal, and called Cosgrove.
When he entered the armory, she gestured to the cleaning and polishing supplies in front of her.
“Lieutenant, I’ve appropriated one of your suits. I must say that I was very disappointed in its condition. I believe we have a couple of hours before we’re expected for dinner. Let’s take this opportunity to clean up our suits and get to know each other a little better.”
He stared at her, shot a look toward his open locker, then back at her.
“Lieutenant, I don’t know how Captain Sanders commanded this unit. You’re under my command now. I guarantee that if you don’t get your act together and pay attention to what’s really important, I’ll have you assigned to a listening post on the frontier until you retire. And I don’t care who your family is. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said crisply, gave her a sloppy salute and turned to his locker.
“Cosgrove?”
He turned around.
“Fix your attitude. Immediately. I won’t stand for it. If you want to be a soldier, I’ll make sure you’re a good one. If you just want to wear a uniform and look pretty, then we’ll find you another assignment. Have you ever been in combat?”
“No, ma’am.”
“I have. Right now, no one in this unit respects you. That lack of respect will get them killed and get you killed. I can be the best friend you’ve ever had, if you listen to me. Now go get that suit and clean it up.”
After dinner that night, Captain LeClair asked Rowyn to stay after all the other officers had left. They went to LeClair’s quarters, which were three times the size of Rowyn’s, and the captain poured brandy.
“So, what’s your initial impression of your command?” LeClair asked.
“I think there’s a minor discipline problem, and I’ve talked to them about that. If not for Koskanin, I think it would be a mess. I’ve also had a talk with Cosgrove. At the moment, they all hate me. By the end of the week, they’ll hate me more. But by the time we arrive at our patrol area, they’ll be ready to do their jobs.”
LeClair chuckled. “Do you think you’re coming on a little too strong too soon?”
“No, ma’am, I don’t. This isn’t my first command, Captain. I’ve run intel operations with much stronger personalities than I have here. These are combat soldiers. They understand discipline. They simply need to be reminded of proper discipline. And after I set the proper tone, Koskanin will ensure it’s maintained. The first problem is getting Cosgrove to act like a soldier instead of a pretty boy. He’ll be spending a lot more time with his troops and less with the ladies on your staff. I hope they aren’t too disappointed.”
Rowyn took a sip of her drink, leaned back, and gave Captain LeClair a long look.
“Captain, throughout my career I’ve been accused of being too lax, undisciplined, borderline insubordinate, a maverick who skates just inside the line of military discipline and protocol. Those who think so have never been in a dangerous situation. They’re just peacetime, safe-assignment officers who don’t understand why discipline is important. It’s not to make officers feel important or powerful. The purpose is to ensure proper responses in combat situations. Once I feel confident that they understand team combat and they demonstrate the correct actions and reactions, I’ll relax a bit.”
The next morning, Rowyn led her company through vigorous calisthenics, noting those who seemed to be out of shape. Cosgrove definitely needed to be fitter. Then she sparred in hand-to-hand combat with several soldiers for five minutes each.
Over the next week, Rowyn worked her soldiers hard, running them around the ship and sparring with them every day. The sparring sessions inevitably ended with her opponent bruised and battered.
The one soldier who surprised her was Corporal Simmons, the tall blonde woman who had teased Silva on Rowyn’s first day. Rowyn stood just short of six feet, but Simmons had a couple of inches on her. The woman knew her strengths, using her long legs to advantage with a canny mix of kicks. Rowyn finally worked up a sweat before being able to close with Simmons and throw her.
Eating lunch in the mess room afterward, Simmons ventured to ask, “Where are you from, Major Krasnova?”
“Cisperine.”<
br />
Simmons shook her head. “Sorry, not familiar with it.”
The way Koskanin’s head snapped around when Rowyn named her home planet told her that he was familiar with it.
“It’s mostly a mining colony,” Rowyn said, “though we have enough agriculture to feed ourselves. G2 star and a bit over one AU from the primary, so it’s quite a bit cooler than Earth.”
“A little larger than Earth, isn’t it?” Koskanin said.
“A little bit,” she answered, giving him a quick grin.
“What’s the gravity?” Simmons asked.
“One point two five.”
Everyone at their table stopped whatever they were doing and stared at her. An Earth native on Cisperine would feel as though they were carrying a burden of an extra quarter of their body weight just getting out of bed in the morning.
“I believe the original colonists there had several genetic modifications due to the gravity, the climate and the background radiation,” Koskanin said. “Isn’t that right, Major?”
“You’ve been sandbagging us,” Simmons whined. “No wonder you’re not even breathing hard when we run or spar. That’s not fair.”
Rowyn smiled. “I thought you learned in basic training that ‘fair’ is an excuse for losers.”
Koskanin burst out laughing. Everyone’s attention shifted from Rowyn to him.
“I didn’t know he knew how to laugh,” Simmons muttered. “I didn’t even know he knew how to smile.”
“Where are you from, Simmons?” Rowyn asked.
“A station called Crossroads Four. It orbits a major transition point about fifty light years from Deneb. I’d never set foot on a planet until I arrived on Altrix for basic training.” She shook her head. “I was sure I was going to wash out. I spent all six weeks in an agoraphobic-induced panic attack. Then they called me in and told me I had eight hours to get my butt on a transport to Balvenie for advanced infantry training. I was so grateful that I showed up four hours early and talked the guards into letting me on the shuttle. I sat there surrounded by metal and felt like I’d come home.”
“Do you still fear open spaces?” Rowyn asked.
“No, ma’am. I worked that out years ago. I even took an R and R, and went hiking and camping on Olympus a couple of years ago. Slept under the stars and climbed mountains. Really enjoyed it.”
The Culloden cut over into hyperspace that night. The ship would run for six weeks to the area on the Federation’s border they would patrol for the next three years. Rowyn sat down with Cosgrove and Koskanin, and set up a training plan to get her troops prepared.
In addition to fitness training and hand-to-hand combat work, she set up armored and unarmored holographic simulations of boarding hostile ships and planetary assault drops. She worked them hard, emphasizing team work and combat awareness. These were elite soldiers, and they fell into the training as though it was natural. Even the normal level of complaining fell off as they took on increasingly difficult simulated combat situations.
The sector Culloden was assigned to patrol with its partner, the Ticonderoga, covered six hundred cubic light years of space. It contained more than three hundred stars and thirty inhabited planets, moons and space stations. The two ships would crisscross the area according to a prearranged top-secret plan. Each of them would touch each of their thirty stops at least once a year. Any deviations would be coded into jump-point buoys for the other to read the next time it came through. Any major concerns, deviations from plans, or news would be sent using an unmanned hyperspatial message drone aimed at a point the other ship was scheduled to be according to the plan.
The elaborate secret plan was designed to keep those who might prey on poorly defended planets from knowing when or where the patrol ships would appear.
Their first stop was at an established colony on the planet Unserhaus, which had three major cities and five smaller ones on three of the five continents. The colony had its own manufacturing facilities and in-system space defense force. Regular visits from trading ships and occasional passenger ships kept the locals in touch with the inner Federation.
The Culloden spent three days in orbit, and a third of the crew was granted two days of ground leave. Rowyn selected the twenty soldiers who graded out the highest and gave them leave passes.
As the ship’s intelligence officer, she would be part of the landing party at each of the ship’s stops. Together with the ship’s quartermaster, she met with local authorities and then spent some time sightseeing and generally nosing around. She decided it was a pleasant planet, but not an exciting one.
The next two stops, one at a space station orbiting a metal-rich but uninhabitable planet, the other at a small scientific facility studying a three-primary system, were similarly routine. But when they entered the next system on their itinerary, the buoy orbiting the jump point screamed a warning and a call for assistance.
Neuesgrünesland was a pre-colonial planet, recently discovered. About a thousand scientists and technicians and their families were studying the planet, preparing a report on its suitability for colonization and its possible commercial value.
Rowyn was on the bridge when the ship emerged from hyperspace, and immediately ordered long-range scans of the system. It took two hours before they came in range of ground-based communications.
“Neuesgrünesland ground control calling, Major,” one of the communications techs said. Rowyn keyed her terminal.
“Federation cruiser Culloden,” Rowyn said to the man on her screen. “What is the nature of your emergency?”
She chafed at the delay as her message traveled to the planet and any response traveled back to her.
Finally the man on the screen responded, “We’ve been attacked. A ship came in two weeks ago, the free trader Victoria Allen. When they landed, they robbed us of most of our food. They also took a hundred of our young people and then boosted. Twenty people were killed and forty injured.”
Rowyn keyed the computer and found the registry for the Victoria Allen. She flashed a picture of the ship and its captain back to the planet. “Is this the ship and the leader of your attackers?”
Another wait for the transmission lag time, and then, “No. The ship was smaller and more streamlined. And the captain was younger and thinner. But the ship’s transponder said it was the Victoria Allen.”
Rowyn turned to Captain LeClair, who was standing behind her listening.
“A pirate probably took the Victoria Allen and used its transponder to get past the guardian satellites,” LeClair said. “The real Victoria Allen is probably floating in space somewhere, or towed to an illegal shipyard where it would be scrapped or refitted and sold. It happens all too often.”
When the Culloden reached the planet, Rowyn took thirty of her force down to the surface, ten in battle armor. Meanwhile, LeClair sent a hyperspatial drone to Unserhaus asking that an emergency food shipment be sent to Neuesgrünesland.
“We don’t get many ships stopping by,” Konrad Geisler, the colony’s head, told Rowyn. “Federation patrol ships and a yearly supply ship from the university. We’ve identified enough safe food here on planet to survive, but we mostly ate imported foods. That’s all gone. The pirates took all of our food that would travel well.”
“You also said they took young people?” Rowyn asked.
“Yes. One hundred children, teenagers and young adults. The youngest ones were twelve and the oldest was twenty-five. Seventy girls and thirty boys. The only children left are those who are very young.”
Rowyn’s team inspected the damage the raiders had caused. Other than evidence of some fighting, which Geisler said happened during the first few hours after the raiders landed, the only damage seemed to be vandalism. Several laboratories had equipment smashed, and Rowyn couldn’t understand any real reason for the destruction.
After less than a day on planet, Captain LeClair pulled Krasnova and her team back to the ship. No sooner had the shuttles docked than klaxons sounded, warning t
hat the ship was preparing to get underway. Halfway to the bridge, Rowyn felt the ship start to move.
Walking onto the bridge, she looked to Captain LeClair, who pointed to the Communications section and Lieutenant Fitzpatrick. Fitzpatrick pointed at a picture of a tear-drop-shaped ship on her screen.
“We’re pretty sure we know what the raider ship is,” Fitzpatrick said. “At various times, it’s been called the Retribution, the Restitution, the Joker’s Wild, the Caribbean Duchess, and half a dozen other names. It’s also been accused of using illegal transponders several times. We think the captain is a man named Georges Lafell, and he fits the description you were given on planet. The ship’s been implicated in piracy, onplanet raids, smuggling, slaving, pretty much anything that will earn an illegal credit.”
“Okay. So why are we boosting out of here like our tail’s on fire?”
“The captain thinks she knows where the pirate ship is going,” Fitzgerald replied.
“I think it’s obvious where it’s going,” Rowyn said, turning toward the captain. “Tandalaroo is the only place in this part of the galaxy that can easily handle that many slaves. But we’re at least three days behind them. We’ll never catch them.”
LeClair nodded. “The problem, Major, is that they have to go through a nexus jump point at N362. There’s a passenger liner, the Queen Sophia, scheduled to come through N362 within a day of when we project the raider will get there. If they’re planning on selling slaves at Tandalaroo, they could pick up two thousand more on that cruise ship.”
The Tand were a vaguely humanoid species who had steadfastly refused to join the Federation. Sandwiched between the Federation and several other civilizations further in toward the galaxy’s core, they did a brisk business in human slaves. The Tand didn’t think any more of trading in humans than humans would of trading in cattle. All attempts to negotiate an end to the slave trade had come up empty. There was just too much money in it.
“What is a cruise ship doing all the way out here?” Rowyn asked.