Duty, Honor or Death the Corps Sticks

by Ronald Wintrick

  Strange as such things went, the hammering explosions of the Satellite Defensive Systems' energy had jarred operational whatever faulty mechanism had caused the Identification Beacon to malfunction in the first place, and now it began sending out its signal to the simple computer minds of the Satellite Defensive System surrounding Bali, and the satellites attack, which should have continued until Benefactor were completely destroyed, suddenly ceased.

  Baldwin was unaware. He was gripped within welcome unconsciousness. The now nearly lifeless ship slipped slowly into the upper atmosphere and began sinking toward the world below.

  The Captain and most of the crew were dead. A nearby explosion had shattered the nearly indestructible nano-composite framework of the ship, raining five atom thick shards of the material, sharper edged than a shaving razor, throughout the Bridge, with horrendous result; shredding skin, muscle and bone like hamburger in a blender.

  Crowded under the same Console on which, first, the crewmen had cried out his warning, and then on which Baldwin had struck his head, Colonel Collins looked out at the death and destruction with cool, evaluating eye.

  It was clear to her that the attack had for some reason ended, but she had no idea that it would not soon resume, and she and the Senator were as safe as she could think to make them, partially sheltered by the nano-composite bulk of the crewman's Console itself, which had deflected the rain of debris, thus saving their lives.

  The failure of the Bridge lighting system only a moment later left her with even fewer options. She was not completely without options, but needed to review what they were. Time was of the essence.

  The sound of hissing atmosphere somewhere not far off was not welcome. The Bridge's atmospheric integrity was no longer sacrosanct. There were probably huge sections of the hull torn away, if the rain of debris which had washed through the Bridge were any sure indication.

  Long accustomed to spaceflight, Rebecca felt the pull and influence of the planet below as Benefactor slipped inexorably into her gravitational field, falling towards the surface a hundred and fifty kilometers below.

  Benefactor was mangled and ruined. Lives had been lost. All Rebecca could bring herself to think, however, was how utterly and miserably she had failed in her duty.

  Chapter 2

  Lan Carter hated these windowless Troop Transports more than he hated anything else in life. It was true that he hated war in general, with every gram of his being, but yet he hated these windowless Troop Transports even more. A soldier couldn't see what he was being dropped into, was the whole issue. The Brass didn't want the Infantry Soldier to see what he, or she, was being dropped into, of course, because it only gave them time to become terrified. Terror was nonproductive.

  That was fine for the fresh green new-jacks, but he would have liked to be able to see in advance what he was being dumped into, so as to be able to formulate some kind of plan of action.

  This was old business for Lan Carter, nor had he been unduly worried the first time the Space Corps had dropped him into hostile alien territory. This was like a slow Sunday afternoon back home on Calafga, a newly Reunified Prison Planet Colony World, and the place of his birth and youth.

  Any Prison Colony World could petition for Reunification when they proved to the Federation that they had gained and could maintain a free, Democratic and, nearly, crime free society. It had taken Calafga seven hundred and fifty-six years, Standards, to gain that stability, and now, Reunified, she was becoming nearly as modern and civilized as some of her oldest brethren.

  It had been a rocky road for Calafga, with near constant warfare and barbarian warlords the main form of government for most of that time. Communication with the Federation, when communications technology was finally reinvented, brought hope and purpose and the mobilization of the people.

  The Army of Liberation, as they had called themselves in their early years, and of whom Lan Carter had become a member, had slowly marched across the planet, annihilating all who stood before them in their grand purpose of Democracy and Reunification. It was the bloodiest and worst time in all of Calafga's bloody years of existence, but it had ended in Reunification and the restoration of civilization for the beleaguered world.

  So warfare was all Lan Carter knew. Calafga had no need of him once the last of the resistance was crushed. It often happened that way, that those who had been so necessary so recently were now a liability and a danger to the new, evolved society. Service in the Space Corps, who certainly did need men and women with Lan's particular qualities, was his ticket off Calafga.

  A man of Carter's characteristics would have only found troubles in the new society. Under Calafga's new laws, trouble meant a one way ride to a new Prison Planet, one that had not yet been Reunified. That was the last thing Carter wanted, after having fought so hard already on Calafga.

  So Carter signed for a ten year hitch in the Space Corps Infantry Division. Ten was the minimum. He was just beginning his fifth year.

  The war here on Barcene would be no more than a minor skirmish. The indigenous race which called this place home were a space-faring race, or had been before the Navy Division of the Space Corps had annihilated their small armada, but their technology was thousands of years behind man. The fight would be very one-sided.

  One-sided did not mean there would be few or no casualties. It did not mean that at all. The planet would be pacified one alien at a time, until there were no aliens, and then it would become another home for mankind. The Corps did not destroy perfectly viable planets. There would be a lot of casualties. There always were. Always.

  The concussion of antiaircraft batteries, though they were firing at vessels which weren't specifically aircraft, rocked the Troop Transport as they flew in. We were traveling at many times the speed of sound. The AGP, Anti-Gravity Propulsion, of these small ships were capable of pulling them at extraordinary speeds, near Light Speed given the room to accelerate, but they were not equipped with Worm Whole Jump capacity, so you did not want to get stranded in one a long way from home, if for instance all the Jump capable ships were destroyed. The Speed of Light is abysmally slow when real Galactic distances are considered, much less Universal distances, as from one Galaxy to another, but for the purposes at hand, in use against a race that had just barely gotten off the surface of their own planet, it was more than sufficient.

  The Troop Transport was full of fresh green new-jacks, Lan's term for new recruits on their way into their first battles. They would maintain their freshness for many battles, however many of them survived, that is. This particular Troop Transport held forty, but there were various other sized ships. Smaller was better as far as Lan Carter was concerned; it created more confusion for the enemy and kept the losses of each individual Transport to a manageable minimum.

  Despite the speed at which the Transports were flown, or how well they were flown, there was usually the occasional loss, depending on the level of the alien's technology. Larger ships are easier to hit also, and he didn't want to die strapped to a crash seat with no chance to defend himself. Not the way Lan Carter wanted to go.

  There were forever and ever new races to be at war with, and mankind seemed to love war more than anything else; man had subjugated many tens of thousands of races to his rule already, had utterly destroyed so many more that it went beyond count, and seemed bent on Universal Conquest!

  Lan Carter understood human nature and accepted it. He could care less about Universal Conquest; he was only in it for the ten years, and then retirement. Ten years of active duty was all you had to pull for your full benefits. It amused him every time he saw a new Squad full of fresh, patriotic faces, because he had seen many such and planned to see many more.

  They came and they went. They always went. By stretcher or by body-bag. Sometimes there wasn't even enough left of them to fill a sandwich bag. Then more came. More always came. Lured by the idea that in ten years they would be relatively rich, or patriotism, or whatever it was that lured them. Lured them to
their deaths.

  Lan Carter was looking at thirty-nine fresh green new-jacks who would go the same way they all went. It didn't bother him a bit. Not that Lan was hard or callous, it was simply unavoidable. There was absolutely nothing Lan Carter could do about it.

  Several of them were looking at him warily. Even a fresh green new-jack could see that this wasn't his first assignment, just by one look into his hard brown eyes, but the weathered look of his equipment would tell someone who was too blind to see otherwise. It was well used. Broken in. Old! He could have requisitioned new equipment at the beginning of each new campaign, but he liked the broken in equipment he had. It was him. It was comfortable, and he could trust in it.

  "Why are you in this new unit?" One of them asked finally, after they could bear it no longer. This was hardly the first time he had been asked this question, nor was it likely to be last.

  "This ain't a new unit." Carter replied solemnly, looking the man in the eyes. The new-jack Lieutenant, straight out from some ridiculous military school, where they had wasted two years educating him, turned his head to stare at Lan from where he sat in the rear of the Transport.

  "Admiral Sandhar said this was an entirely new Squad! Are you saying he's a liar, soldier?" The Lieutenant demanded.

  Lan looked up and met the man's eyes. The Lieutenant was much like so many Lan had seen come and go, over the years. Arrogant with his new command, but basically concerned with the same things they were all concerned with. Lan felt a momentary pity for the man, but quickly put it aside. There was no place for pity here.

  "Do you see where these stripes used to be?" Lan asked, nodding to the shoulder facing the Lieutenant, where there were no stripes, but it was evident where the old stitching used to be. He'd been promoted and busted many times.

  "Yeah, I most certainly can!" The Lieutenant said scornfully. "It's a disgrace!" The Lieutenant did not yet realize.

  "You see this Squad Emblem?" Lan now asked, pointing to it above where the rank stripes should have been; there was no question except that the emblem was as old as a uniform itself. Both were well-worn. The Lieutenant didn't say a word, it was clear he now understood. To have continued the argument would be to have shown himself an utter fool. Lan looked away and resumed his study of the floor between his two feet; he had no wish for a confrontation with this poor, ignorant tool, because no amount of explaining would change a thing. The man, and the entire Squad beneath him, would survive or die on their own merits. There was nothing Lan could do. It was much too late for all of them. Much.

  "What happened to the rest of the Squad?" A woman, a girl, sitting in the middle of the Transport, asked Lan. She was really too young for this, he decided as he looked at her, but then what was a proper age to die? The girl's wide brown eyes said she already knew the answer to her own question, without needing to be told, but wanted to be told anyway. Lan couldn't meet her look and turned away, back to his study of the floor between his two feet.

  Carter wasn't a heartless bastard, but at the same time, these new-jacks needed a dose of reality, at least once, before they hit the dirt, and their Fates.

  "The last Squad?" Lan said ruthlessly. "Better to ask what's happened to the last thousand Squads!" Then he closed his eyes and began humming a little tune he was fond of, and ignored the heated discussion that spring up amongst the rest of the Squad. Even the Lieutenant was too stunned to restore order.

  But he didn't even get to finish his little tune as the Transport drew up and smashed roughly to the ground. He'd been expecting it any moment and was ready. The harness holding him securely in his seat popped away at the same time as the rear hatch; the hatch fell away from the top and slammed to the ground, still hinged at deck level, to create a ramp to the ground outside.

  Lan was the first out of the hatch, and the first to hit the ground. He hit running. He was many meters distant, running full speed, before the last of the rest even had their asses out of their seats. The enemy poured fire into the back of the Transport and the other Transports already on the ground, cutting down the Troopers as they tried to flee what had now become mobile deathtraps. Many didn't even make it out of the Transports. Their screams and cries of agony followed Lan as he ran. He did not look back. There was nothing he could do but go forward, take the attack to the enemy, and silence the weapons which were silencing his comrades.

  The enemy weapons were flashing ahead like a thousand flashbulbs going off all at once, except for the continuous roar that their combined effect thundered over him in an unending wave of sound. The whine of ricochets sang through the air as the combustion weapon's projectiles rebounded from the skins of the Transports, filling the air with lethal fragments of buzzing, tumbling metal. Humanity had long since given up such outmoded types of weaponry, but their lethal effectiveness could not be denied. He ran for his life.

  They'd been dropped into an open area that might have been some sort of a park or Memorial area that was open and exposed. No trees or shrubbery or cover, just close cut-grass, or its equivalent anyway, and them, right in the middle of it. Lan could not think of a worse place to have been put down, exposed as they were to fire from all four sides of the rectangular area around them.

  The park was surrounded by a residential area that continued on for as far as Lan could see, the dwellings constructed seemingly without overall pattern or symmetry, just at random, each dwelling as close to its neighbor as it could be while still leaving room to move between them, and that not much in most cases. Where the park ended, the residential area began. Nothing separated the two.

  The dwellings themselves were rounded mounds of a concrete like substance that were hardly taller than Lan himself, so it was easy to see how far off into the distance the residential area stretched; seemingly forever, or what seemed to be forever, because nowhere could he see the end of them. Lan guessed they probably lived mostly underground, that the domes were merely the entrances. If that were true, they would have all hell's own time digging them all out! He didn't want to think about that at the moment however, he had plenty else to keep him occupied.

  Other Transports were landing all over the park and Space Corps Troopers were returning the enemy fire. The aliens were firing on them from all along the line of demarcation, from atop and beside their dwellings, from the dark holes that must be the dwelling's entrances, from behind embankments of the rough terrain, and walls, and anywhere else they could find partial concealment to fire on the Troopers. As of yet, the Troopers return fire didn't seem to be having much effect. Only the stray projectile passed Lan as he ran; the enemy was concentrating on the massed Troopers sitting so vulnerably in the middle of the park.

  Carter had yet to fire his own weapon. He just ran. Legs pumping. Arms that held his blast rifle swinging, while he heard and felt the whine and snap of the projectiles buzzing around him, his goal a series of monuments near the edge of the park that appeared to be statues representing notables of the alien race; probably who the park was a memorial for, Lan guessed.

  All Carter knew was that those massive statues were blocking the fire from that direction, so that was the direction he ran. Directly for them. With a last, heroic effort, he dove in amidst the statues, which were a group of aliens standing in a circle, all facing each other, their clawed hands held outstretched in some type of symbolic gesture, and landed rolling, to come up against the base of one of the statues closest to the enemy line, now no more than twenty meters distant.

  Behind, between the statues, was visible the mess that was the mass of Corps Troopers who had been dumped so unceremoniously in the park by the Troop Transports, the last of which were now lifting away and heading back to space, where they would be refilled and sent immediately back with the next load of lucky Troopers. Not one had been lost in this emplacement. These alien's weapons were inadequate to the task. They were cutting the Troopers themselves to bits, however, rather effectively.

  The Brass cared very little about the loss of individual human life
, but was quite careful when it came to valuable equipment, like Troop Transports. More than likely they had concluded that the enemy wouldn't shoot anything really powerful into the heart of its own city, so that had been a deciding factor when choosing this staging area. Of course there were thousands of such staging areas in operation at this point all over the planet. When the Space Corps landed on world, they came deep and they weren't fucking around. Throw enough shit against a wall, and some of it was bound to stick, was their motto, and they were not wrong. The Corps always stuck one way or another. The Space Corps Infantry was the shit.

  Carter gave only a moment’s consideration to the mayhem behind, though it crossed his mind that there'd probably be a whole new Squad again at the next drop, before returning his attention to the enemy ahead.

  Projectiles were pinging and whining angrily around him as the enemy tried to rout him from the protection of the statues, now that he had been noticed, but the circle of aliens provided him cover from every direction now that he was inside them, sheltering and harboring the enemy. If the aliens the statues represented could only see him now! He threw the butt plate of his blast rifle to his shoulder, leaned around the edge of his protective alien patron, and began firing.

  The air sizzled and suddenly smelled of ozone as the white/yellow ball of flame leaped out from the end of his weapon, raced across the intervening distance, and blew a big chunk from the side of a dwelling behind which an enemy was firing. A thunderous clap of light and sound accompanied the blast, and the enemy alien was thrown out into the open between two of the dwellings.