by Jay Allan
I walked quietly to the edge of the field, gazing over at the hills in the distance, my mind lost in thought. There were ghosts here, ghosts of friends I'd left behind. Friends I'd sent to their deaths. "I'm back, brothers," I whispered somberly. My introspection was short-lived. An orderly came over and told me the general wanted to see me immediately. God, he must have been about twelve. And why was he looking at me with that crazy stare. There are real heroes around here, kid. If you're dazzled by me you need to get out more.
The Columbians had been busy. We'd left their world in pretty rough shape, but they'd somehow managed to get it looking almost the way it did before the battle. In fact, many of the new buildings were larger and nicer than the ones they'd replaced. There were some red zones, of course, the unavoidable result of a battle where sixteen nuclear warheads had been used. But they had all been tactical nukes, and the biggest was roughly 12kt, so a complete cleanup was possible and, in fact, was well underway.
The defenses had been dramatically improved as well. Two large orbital fortresses protected the planet, and each commanded a huge array of firing platforms and combat satellites. Any enemy fleet approaching Columbia was going to have its hands full. The militia had been upgraded too, and the planet now had a regular army of sorts, with 1,100 fulltime professional soldiers under arms. With the enhanced militia, Columbia could field over 3,500 reasonably well-equipped and trained troops for its own defense.
The orderly had brought a transport to take me to the general. I jumped in, and we headed over to the main HQ. The open plains around Weston had become a massive military camp. There were temporary shelters, rows of parked vehicles, and thousands of troops marching, drilling, and conducting exercises. I wanted to get a look around, so I had the orderly pull up a little short of the general's pavilion so I could go the rest of the way on foot.
I'd left Columbia a sergeant, but I came back a major. As I walked through the bustling camp I couldn't get used to the deference, the constant salutes from everyone I passed. Of course, I was scared to death of majors too when I was a young puppy solider. But it was still an odd feeling.
Headquarters was a portable modular structure at least 50 meters long. The general was standing just outside his door, rapidly firing out orders to three different officers. I laughed quietly to myself as I walked up. The three of them were having trouble keeping up with him. It had been a year since I'd seen the general, but one look and I could see he was his old self. When he saw me walking up I thought I could see a little smile on his face. He quickly finished up and dismissed the officers. I stopped a couple feet away and snapped him my very best salute. "Major Cain, reporting as ordered, sir!"
His return salute was no less sharp, but his greeting was warm and friendly. "Welcome to Columbia, Major. I believe you are somewhat familiar with the place." He pointed to the door. "Let's go into my office and catch up."
I followed him into the building and past a dozen desks with officers and non-coms sitting at workstations. He opened a large white door that had three stars engraved on it and motioned for me to enter. Once the door was closed we shook hands and he clapped his hand on my shoulder. "Erik, my boy, it's good to see you. It's been a long time."
"It's good to see you too, sir. Of course it's only been a long time because you sent me back to that political slime pit instead of taking me with you on the Outer Rim Campaign."
He laughed and scolded me a bit. "If you didn't insist on making yourself such a conspicuous hero all the time, I wouldn't have to send you back from the front to collect your medals." He noticed the small package I was carrying. "What is that?"
I'd almost forgotten. I handed it over to him. "Just a little gift from Earthside. With Europa Federalis and the CEL at war again, it might be the last you see for a while.”
He opened the box and pulled out the small crystal bottle. I had been right that night we shared that first bottle. It did cost a month's pay.
I could tell he was touched when his voice cracked ever so slightly. "Thank-you, Erik. Damn, it's good to have you back."
He walked behind the desk and motioned to one of the guest chairs as he sat down. He put the bottle on his desk and leaned back in his chair.
I sat down, and after a brief silence I asked what had been on my mind since I had gotten there. "So how is my battalion, sir? I know they were on the campaign, but I couldn't get any decent reports."
"Jax took good care of your people, Erik. After the fighting they did in the Tail, I assigned them to the reserve for the Outer Rim battles. They plugged a few gaps, but they made it through the whole thing with less than 20 percent losses. Not bad for four battles."
I was relieved and let out a breath. "Jax is a tremendous officer. There's no one I would rather have taking care of my troops."
He gave me a wicked little smile. "He did such a good job with the battalion I thought I'd let him keep them. I put through his promotion already." He reached into a drawer and pulled out a small box. "I've got his major's circlets here. He doesn't know yet; I thought you might like to tell him."
His words were still sinking in. Jax deserved the promotion, no question, and I was happy for him. But I never even considered not getting my battalion back. I felt a little sick.
The general was sitting there grinning. He must have read my mind. "Relax, Erik, they're still yours. I'm not taking your battalion away; I'm giving you another one too. You're going to command the regiment."
He watched me with an amused stare. I was too stunned to speak, so I just listened. "I've got your eagles in my desk already. You've earned them, but if it's OK with you I'm going to wait to make it official. Your rise through the ranks has been indecently quick already, a record in fact, as you know. So I'd like to wait a couple months instead of bumping you up again immediately."
I finally managed to stammer out a response. "General Holm, I don't know what to say. Of course. Whatever you think is best, sir. We can forget the whole thing. I'm happy to stay as a major."
I really meant it. I could barely imagine myself at my current rank, much less dealing with another promotion. But the general shook his head. "It is well-deserved, Erik, and you should be getting it right now. Effective immediately, you are the commander of third regiment. You've got a colonel's posting, and you'll be wearing those eagles before we hit dirt in an assault. My word as an officer."
He looked at his desk for a minute and then up at me, the friendly smile back on his face. "I'll bet the trip wasn't all bad. So how is your beautiful doctor?"
I smiled to myself for a few seconds. "She's amazing. She was the only thing that made wallowing in that mudhole tolerable. How in the world did you even know about us, general?"
He gave me a sly glance. "I have to know what my troopers need, Erik, or I wouldn't be much of a commander now, would I?"
We both laughed, but then I looked at him very seriously. "I am very grateful, sir. Until this trip we'd never had more than a few days together, when I wasn't her patient. I hadn't seen her in a very long time. You will never know how much it meant to me to have some time together with her."
His smile got wider. "Then I have another surprise for you. She's on her way here right now. As it turns out, I've got another little box with major's insignia in my desk with her name on it. She's going to be executive officer of medical support services for the campaign."
I tried to hide my excitement, but he saw right through it and almost started to laugh. "Don't get too worked up, Erik. You'll be on different ships. She's going to be busy; you're going to be even busier. This will be no protracted lover's rendezvous as I suspect the trip to Earth was. But on the bright side, if you manage to get half your body shot off again, she'll be here to help you grow it back. Again."
We caught up personally for a few more minutes, but then we started to talk about the campaign. Neither one of us was very good at not discussing business. The general went through his basic strategy with me, and when he was done he got to the thing
s that were really troubling him. "Your surprise attack taking the station at Gliese 250 was a massive victory for us. It enabled the Tail and Outer Rim campaigns, and let us hurt the enemy like they had hurt us. In addition to the strategic implications, the effect on morale was incalculable.
"But I'm afraid there's one downside we might have to face on this campaign, and it's the result of those successes. The enemy can't get to the Tail at all without going through Gliese, and while they do have other approaches to the Outer Rim, it's still a long way, and they need time to get their logistics set up. Since Gliese is so strongly held, the enemy haven't even made a second attempt to get in there. Which means they have a lot of uncommitted troops.
"They've controlled some of our systems for eight or nine years. Look what we did at Gliese in the first six months. Can you imagine what fortifications they've built in that time? Our intel is very weak for this campaign. Are the troops not being thrown at us in Gliese or the rim waiting for us, entrenched on our captured worlds?"
He paused for a few moments, as if he was searching for the right words to express his thoughts. "Erik, I'm afraid we're going to have much more of a fight than anyone expects on this campaign. I'm going to need my most dependable, gifted officers to be at their best. I'm counting on you, and I want you to tell me immediately if you have any concerns or misgivings. I need your instincts on this one. If you have a bad dream about the enemy, I want you to tell me about it."
I hesitated, not sure I should really speak my mind. But this man deserved my honesty. "I agree with your misgivings, sir. I think we're going into a hornet's nest, and I'm afraid the scope of the campaign is far too broad. I don't see us taking all the objectives, not without massive reinforcements. And I don't see where those will come from."
I stopped for a minute again, really not sure I wanted to say everything that was on my mind. "General, I keep thinking what I would have done with those worlds if I was in command for the enemy, with all those years to ship in heavy weapons and build fortifications. All that time to put to use the lessons we've learned in this war. I wondered for a while why you accepted the scope of this operation. I couldn't believe you were bullied into it, and it took me some time, but I think I figured it out."
He looked up at me and gazed right into my eyes. "And what did you come up with?"
"That as difficult as this campaign will be, not doing it would be morally indefensible. Those are our people out there. We couldn't defend them the first time, and to leave them there when we can credibly try to free them is not an option you could live with. Or one I could."
We were both silent a few seconds, then I added, "Of course, if the enemy was just occupying Washbalt instead, I'd be fine with it."
He tried to hold the laugh in, but it burst its way out anyway. "Now, now, major, you are expressing less than appropriate respect for our honest, hardworking politicians."
The laughing broke the tension for a minute, but there was something else on the general's mind too, and I knew what it was.
"You're also worried about the South Americans, aren't you?" I'd been thinking about it too.
"You bet I am, he replied. "My gut tells me they're going to jump into this storm. Think about it. They're not blind. This war has been a huge escalation of the action in space. How long can they sit there with no open warp gates and let the rest of us grow? They've got to do something, and the cold hard fact is the systems they can steal from us are worth a lot more to them than anything they can snatch from the Caliphate or CAC. And if they come in, I'm willing to bet it will be a surprise, and our vaunted diplomats and intelligence services will be caught flat-footed."
"And with Sherman and the Gliese 250 defense force draining all our resources," I said, "we're weak everywhere else."
"Bingo. You are right on target. Even if I knew for a fact they were going to attack, I'm still not sure what I would do to meet it. We just can't let our occupied systems languish under enemy control any longer without trying to liberate them, and we don't have any strength to spare. We're mobilized to the max already, and the navy is stretched thinner than we are. Even if Sherman is a success, it may bleed us badly and leave us weak and unable to meet a new threat. It could be the beginning of the war all over again."
He was right. But there was nothing we could do differently than we were doing anyway. Honestly, he was a man who shouldered every burden himself, and I think he just needed to talk about this. I thought after all he'd done the least he deserved was a little reassurance.
"General, there's no sense going around in circles. Sherman has to go forward, and there's nothing else we can do that we haven't done. So let's focus on making this a successful op and also keep our eyes open. If we have to change plans or redeploy to meet another threat, we'll do whatever is necessary. We always do."
He smiled appreciatively, and threw be an informal salute. "Welcome to I Corps, major. Operation Sherman will be commencing in nine days, so I'll let you go get settled into your billet. I'm sure you'll want all that time to work with your regiment. Rearrange things however you see fit. Any promotions, transfers - whatever - just let me know and I'll approve them."
He stood up and snapped me a much sharper salute, which I returned just as crisply. Then he extended his hand and we shook before he walked me out. He ordered one of the aides in the outer room to show me to my quarters. The lieutenant jumped to attention and asked me to follow him. We walked outside and got into a waiting transport, and he drove me across the camp to the 3rd regiment's section. The regimental camp was divided into two wings, one for each battalion, with a central area for regimental assets and the command section. We drove up to a large shelter in the center of the command area.
"These are your quarters, Major Cain," said the aide, whose name I hadn't even thought to read off of the plate on his chest. God, I really was getting used to the thinner air at this pay grade, wasn't I?. "I will have your kit delivered here immediately, and I will see that your command staff is aware that you have arrived. Is there anything else I can do for you, sir?"
"Uh, no. That will be all." I was still getting used to the obsequious servitude from junior officers. I rallied, though, and gave him my best major's attitude. "Dismissed."
I walked inside and took a look around. I had a suite with sleeping and living areas, and an adjoining office with conference room. I was just about to see how hot I could get the shower when the AI announced that my orderly officer was at the door requesting to see me.
I was just about to tell the AI to ask him…her? - I didn't even know yet - to come back in an hour, but I decided to make time. I walked over to the desk and said, "Open."
The door slid open and a tall, dark-haired woman in a meticulous uniform walked into the room and gave me a very respectable salute. "Lieutenant Anne Delacorte reporting, sir. I have been assigned as your orderly."
I returned the salute - this was getting tedious - and motioned for her to take a seat. "Thank-you, Lieutenant. I am pleased to meet you."
We exchanged a few minutes of respectful pleasantries, very respectful on her part, and then got right into 45 minutes of deep discussion of how I wanted things run, what kind of schedule I kept, even what I liked for breakfast. She seemed like an intelligent and earnest young officer, eager to do her job well.
Finally, I cut things off and said we'd get through the rest of it later. I told her to round up my executive officer, Jax, and the other battalion commander, and have them report to me. In an hour. I was going to get that hot shower first.
On the way out I started to ask her to round up a couple sandwiches, but then I said, "Lieutenant, I'll want dinner for myself and the other officers. Ninety minutes from now."
She acknowledged and raced off to tend to it all, while I used up half of Columbia's hot water. Forty minutes later I was sitting behind my desk in a fresh uniform feeling a little more human. I browsed some of the dossiers on my workstation screen. Lieutenant Delacorte had uploaded the files o
f all of the personnel in the regiment. I didn't need to read Jax's file, I'd probably written half of it. There wasn't an officer I trusted more to get up to speed quickly.
My exec was Major Lis Cherzny, who actually had ten years longer service than I did. She'd been stuck in garrison duty for most of the war, so she never got the chance to show what she could do. After uneventful years as a lieutenant and more as a captain, she led a company in the Tail campaign and a battalion on the Outer Rim, winning the rapid advancement that had eluded her before.
My second battalion head was Major Jackson Cantor, who'd been promoted to his position after commanding a company through the Outer Rim, fighting in every battle of the campaign, and ending up as acting battalion-exec.
They all looked good to me on paper, and a few minutes later I got to reinforce that opinion. I'd been thinking a tray of sandwiches for us to eat while we got acquainted, but Lieutenant Delacorte somehow managed to gather up a spread that included a platter of Columbian seafood, a choice of soups, and rare steaks that tasted to me like they were imported from Earth. It seemed my new orderly was a gifted scrounger. That could be very useful.
We ate and discussed the regiment, and by the time the meeting broke up we had begun the transition from a group of officers to a team. The chemistry was good, and I was confident we'd work well as a unit. My only reservation was that Jax was the only one who'd ever taken the field at his current position – the rest had all moved up a notch. Except me; I'd moved up two. And even Jax had been filling in for me as acting CO – this was his first mission as official battalion commander. It wasn’t just at the top. Eight of the regiment's ten captains were newly promoted as well. But ten years of war and long casualty lists had a way of making that the norm.
That first meeting lasted four hours, far longer than I had initially intended, and once they were all gone I found my sleeping platform and just about passed out. It'd been almost 40 hours since I'd slept, and I was out the instant I hit the bed.