Star Marine!

by John Bowers

  The name had been derived from the fascinating periscope seals that inhabited the offshore islands.

  Since before the end of the Alpha Centauri campaign, Wade Palmer and scores of other planners had been hard at work on a proposed invasion plan for Beta Centauri. Wade's plan called for a major fleet action to clear the skies around the planet before sending in the troops, as it was well known that enemy carriers lurked in the area. In addition, most of the island chains had been converted into military bases, some of them beach to beach with fighter installations. In a word, Beta Centauri was a hornet's nest of space power, and any successful invasion would require that power to be neutralized, or at the very least equalized, first.

  General Willard presented his own plan, covering it in some detail before the senior staff. He refused to entertain discussion until everyone had studied the plan thoroughly. Wade Palmer spent the afternoon and evening devouring the details, and the plan’s boldness left him numb.

  Willard had worked things out down to a finite level, though clearly the planning staff would have to refine the plan even further. But the skeleton and major organs were there, and even without further detail, Wade saw major problems. He reported back to Kamada the following morning, and found him in conference with Admiral Boucher and a dozen others. Everyone in the room seemed to be in agreement.

  "There's no way this will work!" Wade pointed out. "It's daring, but it's also suicidal. No preliminary space strikes, no fleet engagement, no nothing. Just send the troops in cold and hit Periscope Harbor."

  "We might even capture Periscope Harbor," another planner added, "but how long can we hold it? That planet is an arsenal!"

  "This is crazy!" Wade said. "This thing might work in a holovid, but not in real life."

  "Look," Kamada said, "I understand your feelings here. I think we all see problems with the plan, but let's not get overheated. General Willard is going to take discussion this afternoon, so let's get our ducks lined up and present them to him. I'm sure we aren't the only ones who feel as we do. We'll take things one step at a time."

  Wade had trouble eating lunch; his stomach was too tight. The strategy meeting began at 1300 and he sat beside Kamada and kept his mouth shut, content to let the senior officers have their say. With any luck, the sheer weight of their opposition to the plan might convince Willard that it was suicide. He was too junior to make much of a difference, and didn't feel like exposing himself before the entire staff. He'd already had that pleasure once.

  To his consternation, eleven of the twenty-five senior planners approved Willard's plan in theory, with some reservations as to the details. Willard seemed pleased, and invited comments to the contrary. That was when the fireworks began.

  One after another of those opposed to the plan had their say, but none spoke with the passion Wade believed necessary. Willard ruthlessly overruled their concerns. Finally it was Boucher's turn.

  "Mon general," he began, "I 'ave many concerns about the plan as presented. It is certainly a brave plan, 'owever, I am afraid it will fail."

  Willard glared at him defiantly. Boucher continued.

  "First of all, Periscope 'Arbor is a very small area. We will not be able to land more than one or two divisions, for there is no room for them to maneuver. As planetary 'eadquarters, it will be 'eavily defended. Our intelligence suggests that the mountains around the bay contain many batteries of anti-spacecraft weapons. We will almost certainly lose many of our landers before they can reach the surface, and once they are down, resupply will be very expensive."

  Boucher talked for twenty minutes, pointing out reason upon reason why he believed the invasion could not succeed. When he finally sat down, Willard stood in silence for thirty seconds, glaring at those who'd opposed the plan. Then he spoke.

  "When the going gets tough," he said, "the tough get going. I heard this same kind of shit when we were talking about hitting Altair and Alpha Centauri at the same time. We can't do it, you said. We don't have enough carriers, you said. We don't have enough merchantmen, you said. But you found a way to do it, didn't you? And you're going to find a way to do this, too!

  "Let me remind you, ladies and gentlemen, that we are staging this operation from Alpha Centauri. It's a very short light jump from there to Beta. We're building up our fighter strength on Alpha 2 every day. By the time this operation jumps off, the entire planet will be a supply depot. We can warp fighter squadrons to Beta the same way the Sirians did to Alpha. Plus, we now have eleven operational carriers. Four of those will be used for hit-and-run raids on Vega to distract the Sirians, and while they're trying to figure out whether we're about to hit Vega, we hit Beta before they can catch their breath.

  "Once we have Periscope Harbor in our hands, all we have to do is hold it. We're going to surround that planet with space power like flies on shit, and we will hold that objective. Any attempts by the enemy to airlift troops over those mountains will be met by our fighters, and we're going to strangle that planet into submission. Folks, if this works — and it will — we can take this planet in ninety days. Why tie up millions of troops trying to take a whole continent when we can kill it with a single shot to the head?"

  His eyes seemed to glitter as he scanned their faces again.

  "You people will fill in the details. You're good at that, and it's what we pay you for. But this is the plan, and it's going to work! What I want to hear from you now, is how best to assure victory."

  Wade stood up. Reflexively, without thinking. Before he could come to his senses and sit down, everyone was staring at him, and Willard had pinned him with his iron gaze. Wade felt his face grow hot.

  "You have something to say, Lieutenant?" Willard growled.

  "Sir … " Wade swallowed. "I have to go on record, sir. This plan doesn't have a chance in hell."

  Willard's lips curled away from his teeth in a humorless smile.

  "Seems like I heard those words once before, Lieutenant. Just before you figured out how to make it work."

  "Yes, sir, but this is different —"

  "No, it's not different! You didn't believe in the last plan, either, but you got your ass to work and figured out how to do it! You're going to do the same thing this time."

  "Sir, Alpha Centauri was a friendly system under enemy control. Beta Centauri is an enemy home world. They aren't going to evacuate just because we get a temporary upper hand. We wouldn't do it if the tables were turned, and they won't either. Their civilians will fight us, their women and kids will fight us. We have to go in with more than this plan allows. And we've got to hit them with space power before the troops go in."

  "Have you ever heard of the element of surprise, Lieutenant? People who are surprised don't think very clearly. They can't react at normal speed. We're going to have two divisions on the ground before they know we're coming."

  "It won't work, sir. It's going to get two divisions killed, and it'll set the war back by two years. We'll have to invade them again, and any element of surprise will be completely lost."

  Willard's face flushed slowly as he glared at the junior officer. Wade felt his throat parch as he waited for the reaction he could see building in the general's face.

  "If that's what you truly believe, Lieutenant," Willard said quietly, "then I challenge you to fix the plan to prevent that from happening. Because this is the plan we're going to use!"

  Five minutes after the meeting broke up, Wade was ushered into Willard's private office. He stopped in front of the general's desk and snapped to smartly.

  "Lieutenant Palmer reporting as ordered, sir!"

  "At ease," Willard growled.

  Wade dropped into parade rest and waited.

  "Palmer, you're starting to annoy me," Willard said. "I don't particularly like to be faced down by a junior officer in front of the entire staff."

  "I apolog …"

  "Shut up. Now, I understand your concern and I appreciate your passion. You think the plan will fail as it stands now. Fine. You have five
months to make it work. But don't ever do what you did today. Admiral Boucher is your boss, so you make your concerns known to him and he will present them in the Strat Room. Is that clear?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "You've made a good start here. You've pulled some chestnuts out of the fire, and it's been good for the entire Federation. But don't let that success go to your head. You still don't know everything yet."

  "No, sir."

  "In the future, if you have any concerns that Boucher doesn't voice, then you can request to see me in private. I'll take the time, and I can give you a lot more latitude here than I can out there in front of everyone. I simply can't let you get away with it out there. Are we clear?"

  "Very clear, sir."

  Willard nodded, and seemed to relax a little.

  "All right. Was there anything you wanted to add to what you've already stated?"

  Wade chewed his lip briefly.

  "Basically, sir, I don't think the plan can be fixed. It's bold enough to capture the imagination, but it's all on paper. It will never work in execution."

  "Didn't you feel the same way about Gang-Bang?"

  "No, sir … " Wade faltered a second. "Yes, sir. I guess I did. But …"

  "You fixed that plan, and shaved three years off the war. Fix this one."

  "Sir, I …"

  "Palmer, if you come in here three months from now and tell me you can't do it, I might believe you. But you haven't even tried. Work the problem, then let me know."

  Wade realized he was defeated. Until he'd put in the hours, Willard wasn't going to listen. He just nodded.

  "Just remember, son — if this thing fails, it's my ass, not yours. If you turn out to be right, you get to keep your job. I don't. I'm the only one who's exposed here. I'll be the only loser."

  "With respect, sir … the people who die in this operation will be losers, too."

  Friday, 20 April, 0232 (PCC) - Polygon, Washington City, DC, North America, Terra

  Three days later, Wade was still convinced that the Periscope Harbor plan was doomed to failure. But at the strategy meeting that morning, General Willard offered a thread of hope. A middle-aged Space Force officer sat at his elbow as the meeting opened.

  "Listen up, people," Willard told the planners. "I want all of you to pay close attention to what you're about to hear. The gentleman at my side is Commander Irving Petty. He's going to tell you a story that'll make your hair curl, and when he gets done, ask him any questions you like. Pick his brain, because he understands this stuff far better than I do."

  Willard sat down, and Petty stood up. He smiled nervously, not accustomed to addressing senior staff.

  "For the last couple of weeks I've been studying something that was discovered on Asteroid Base 131, where I'm currently stationed. One of our computer technicians came across a hidden file on one of the storage drives. A hidden file is extremely rare these days, and the Space Force never uses them. So it was a bit of a mystery until we got to digging, and discovered exactly what the file was used for.

  "Long story short, we were able to ascertain several things: the hidden file was actually a program file; it wasn't designed by us; and it had been on that computer drive for several years. We were able to decode it, and without knowing all the details, we determined that it was like a virus. For those of you who aren't familiar, computer viruses are programs that interrupt the normal execution of a data system, sometimes destroying data, sometimes triggering unexpected responses. They were quite a problem until about a century ago; today they're virtually unknown.

  "This program wasn't exactly a virus, but more like a parasite. It was coded to interfere with Ladar reception; as far as we can tell, its purpose was to disable the return image from a passive Ladar contact, meaning that when passive Ladar detected an enemy ship, it wouldn't show up on the screen. The program was tied in to the asteroid base's main Ladar installation, and could also be downloaded into our fighters with their mission profiles, which meant our fighters on patrol would also be blind when using passive Ladar."

  Petty stopped and caught his breath, aware from the looks he was getting that some of his audience weren't following him.

  "Remember," he said, "during the first couple years of the war, the asteroid bases used only passive Ladar. The locations of the bases were secret and they operated under strict SpectraWav silence. Active Ladar would've led the enemy right to them. Patrolling fighters did the same thing, except when in actual combat. But this parasite rendered both fighters and bases completely blind.

  "For several years we'd been puzzled as to how the enemy located so many of our asteroid bases. About two-thirds of them were compromised, and we never knew how that happened. The only one we had much data on was AB-131, which was the only base from which survivors returned. From 131 we knew two things: the enemy crept in and attacked the base without being detected, and several fighter patrols were ambushed the same way. We never knew why, until now.

  "Since we found this parasite, we began checking computer files on other bases that had been compromised, and in nearly all cases we found identical parasites hidden on their drives. Records also showed that patrols from those bases had been ambushed as well. So the enemy had an advantage over us that we never knew about, and used it to capture the majority of those bases and put them out of action.

  "So … what good is this knowledge to us now? First of all, we've written software to detect and destroy any such files that appear on our computers in the future. We believe these files were received into our computer systems through SpectraWav transmissions. They slipped in unnoticed and took up residence inside the computers, where they lay dormant until they were activated.

  "Perhaps more important, we've now written our own virus which we can transmit into the enemy's computers. We believe we can completely shut down an enemy installation simply by destroying its computers' operating systems. If used in concert with, say, an assault force, it might make the difference in winning or losing a battle. And if we win, of course, the enemy would never have time to figure out what had happened."

  Petty talked another ten minutes, then took questions.

  "If passive Ladar was in use, even with the parasite, how did the enemy locate those bases?"

  "We still don't know that. Maybe they followed our fighters home, undetected because of the parasite."

  "Why did our fighters have so much success, if they couldn't detect the enemy at all?"

  "All I can say is that our people were dedicated, well trained, and determined to win. A good example is Onja Kvoorik, the Fighter Queen."

  "How many people know about this new virus you've developed?" Wade Palmer asked.

  "Until today, fewer than a dozen."

  * * *

  Wade spent the rest of the day working over the Periscope Harbor plan again, taking into account the possibility of shutting down enemy Ladar and computers using a transmitted virus. For the first time, he saw some glimmer of hope, thin though it was. If they could disrupt enemy communications it would reduce losses to some degree, but he still wasn't sure that would be enough. The fact remained that, once the troops were on the ground, the entire planet would be mobilized against them.

  He still didn't think it would work.

  Chapter 48

  Monday, 23 April, 0232 (PCC) - Capitol Mall, New Birmingham, Missibama, Sirius 1

  Though a military organization, the Sirian Elite Guards were completely independent of the rest of Sirius's armed forces. Major General Andrew Jackson Davis, therefore, was subordinate to no one but President Adolph himself, and there were those who questioned even that allegiance. Davis was, in a very real sense, the most powerful man on Sirius.

  General Field Marshal Martin Vaughn was also the top man in his profession, though his authority was subject to the Sirian Parliament as well as the President. When Vaughn requested a meeting with Davis, therefore, it was unthinkable that either man would visit the other in his office. By the simple nature of their ra
nks, a neutral meeting ground had to be found. A luncheon was arranged in the Capitol Mall, where security for both men could be easily controlled.

  It annoyed Vaughn that meeting with Davis made him nervous. He'd come a long way in his own career, and had actually fought in the trenches, so to speak. Davis had also been on Vega, but Vaughn suspected the only shots he fired in anger had been into the heads of helpless prisoners. Davis was unquestionably a man to be feared, for the SE controlled far more than just slaves; their jurisdiction included military intelligence, star system security, and foreign espionage. They even controlled the civilian KK, though the latter would never admit it.

  Vaughn put on his best command face as he alighted from the military hovercar that delivered him to the restaurant. His personal aide and two Infantry Police accompanied him as he strode toward the meeting. He left all three at the door and stepped inside, resplendent in his new uniform. The maitre d' bowed and smiled and led him to the table that had been reserved for the luncheon. Everything was in readiness, the surrounding tables empty. It was a splendid setting …

  But Davis wasn't there.

  Vaughn fumed inwardly at being upstaged in front of the establishment personnel. Davis swaggered in ten minutes later, his cold gaze chilling Vaughn to the bone. Both men executed the rituals of salute, exchanged a few aloof pleasantries, and were seated.

  They enjoyed a bottle of chilled wine with the meal, which was Nipponesian bottle crab, a true delicacy served on a bed of spinach greens. Vaughn conducted himself as a true Sirian gentleman, and found himself increasingly annoyed at Davis's poor manners — the man insisted on smoking between courses. They discussed the current military situation, mostly as a formality. Vaughn promised to add extra defenses to SE installations on Beta Centauri if the Feddies invaded, because neither wanted a repeat of Lancalpha on Alpha 2. Davis reiterated his belief that slaves were the lifeblood of Sirius, and Vaughn agreed.