by Rod Carstens
“I know, so I’m going to give you a little special cocktail that I’ve cooked up over the years. So it helps that you have an old medic taking care of you. This is most certainly not official. You ready?”
Jakob looked up at the tough face that had softened so much as she cared for him.
“As ready as I’ll ever be.”
“Good. First the good stuff.”
She injected the drugs directly into a vein and immediately Jakob felt that warm, relaxed, painkiller-drug feeling. All his pain disappeared and he felt like he had been partying all night and had reached that perfect balance of drugs and alcohol that left you wonderfully high and yet clearheaded. He took a deep breath and smiled up at the woman working on him.
“You know, I don’t know your name,” Jakob said, his wording slurring.
“It’s Marga. Now just relax and let me take care of you,” she said as she watched the monitors that were hooked up to Jakob closely.
Jakob felt as if he were floating higher and higher on that wonderful buzz.
“You know, I don’t think I need those nanos. I feel really good. I could probably get up and get back to my station.”
Marga looked down and smiled. “Not quite, buster. You’re almost there,” she said as she watched the readings on the various monitors spread out around her.
Jakob reached out and put his hand inside her open utilities. His hand touched her wonderfully soft skin with those ironlike muscles underneath.
Marga didn’t push his hand away. She just smiled down at him and said, “I’m going to need to adjust my formula. This reaction is a new one.”
“Did anyone ever tell you that you’re a very attractive woman? I mean to younger men.”
Marga laughed and arched an eyebrow. “No, they haven’t, and I think it’s time we fixed you up before you get out of control.”
Marga took his hand and put it down, then slowly began injecting the nanos. “Now hold on, baby. This is going to hurt,” she said.
Jakob felt the familiar tingling then the pain. It was bad at first, then it continued to get worse until he didn’t think he could stand it. He could feel the nanos working in his shoulder the most. It felt like they were pulling it apart instead of repairing the break. He arched his back and gritted his teeth.
“Fuck, I forgot how much it hurts,” he groaned.
“Almost there, baby. Hang in there,” Marga said gently as she watched her screens closely. “We’re almost there. That was your shoulder. That always hurts the most.”
The pain reached its peak then quickly subsided until he felt no more pain—only the aftereffects of the painkillers Marga had given him. Jakob opened his eyes and saw Marga packing up her gear. She looked down at him and smiled.
“You want to try and sit up now?”
“Yeah,” Jakob said. He slowly sat up and still felt good. It was amazing how quickly and effectively the nanos could have you up and able to return to your duties. He also knew that how good he felt and how quickly he could get back on his feet depended on the medic administering the treatment. Marga was damned good.
She knelt next to him, making sure he was steady until he was ready to stand. He stood and she held him until he got his feet under him. “I think you’re good to go there, Chief. I got more people to take care of I need to get.”
Marga reached down and grabbed her pack and equipment.
“Marga, about what I said when you gave me that stuff. Well, I hope...”
She smirked and said, “Don’t worry about it, Chief. I’ll figure out something you can do to make it up to me when all this is over. I think you’ll enjoy it. Now get back to killing those fucking Xotoli so we can have a little fun later.”
Jakob watched her disappear through the hatch. Jacob moved his shoulder. It was sore, but the real pain was gone. Then he looked out over the CIC. It was a mess of fallen ceiling tiles and a partial ceiling collapse, but the station operators were moving quickly, removing debris and clearing out damaged equipment. Technicians were working on the various stations damaged by the attack to get them back online. They were still under attack, but there were no more explosions. Everything was eerily quiet. No alarms.
“Glad to see you up, Chief.”
Commander Tepuruan was standing beside him. He had nano bandages on his face repairing a large laceration.
“What happened, sir? Why aren’t the Xotoli following up? They had us.”
“Best we could tell the three missiles had a check-with-me feature. They coordinated their time on target and exact placement. They followed each other, each striking exactly where the missile in front of it did. So they used three missiles to dig a deep hole. That last one was close. No nukes, just really good conventional explosives. But we weren’t specifically targeted. They fired blindly and got lucky. When we lost power and went dark, they lost us in the confusion. We also stopped firing, so if I was the Xotoli commander I would be confused. Did they get us or are we still hiding? He can’t quite figure it all out and his sensors are not giving him an answer. So we are going to live to fight another day.”
A technician was under Jakob’s station working frantically to get it back online. It flickered, then came on. She slid out from under it and said, “You’re good to go, Chief, and between the primary systems and backups you got everything.”
“Thanks,” Jakob said, immediately sitting down and beginning to work his systems to find out what was happening. Tepuruan stood behind him. He had to put a hand on the back of Jakob’s chair to steady himself.
The technician took off at a run for the next repair. Jakob’s display flickered on, and after some rebooting of several systems, he was back up and running. When the display came online, Jakob could see the Xotoli fleet was still there and still headed directly at them, but their speed was down. Just like Tepuruan had said, the Xotoli commander was feeling his way forward.
There were only four of the destroyers left; the one they had blown up was nothing but a floating mass of debris. Two of the destroyers were not under power and seemed to be drifting on a course to intersect the asteroid belt. The other two were forming up with cruisers, taking up stations in a new combat formation. The two remaining “troop transports” were in the middle of the sphere formation with the battleship trailing.
“Why aren’t they attacking?” Jakob asked as he worked his display.
“It’s his job to clear the way, and he’s not sure if they destroyed all of the defenses.”
“So while we got hit by three missiles, it was just blind luck?”
“Yeah. Remember there are 750,000 asteroids that are three-fifths of a kilometer in diameter in the belt. We could be on any one of them or the larger ones like Vesta. So our guy is still trying to figure out what’s going on.”
“They have slowed down too. They don’t want to come charging in here without knowing what they’re getting into,” Jakob said.
Jakob switched to visuals and he could see that the cruisers had been damaged. One was venting liquids into space. The other had a large mount completely destroyed. He saw several lifeboats leaving two of the destroyers and heading back to the nearest cruiser.
“I should have figured out those troopships weren’t troopships by their position in the formation,” Jakob said.
“Me too, Chief. But now we know.”
“Why haven’t they fired another salvo?”
“They want to make sure of their targets this time. I don’t think he thought he would meet as much resistance as he did, and he doesn’t know what’s left. Can you give me a status on our systems?”
Jakob ran through a systems check. They had lost almost all of the scrams and rails that had fired and some of the sensors, but they had only used half of the weapons available, so that left them with more than fifty percent of their weapons left. Designing the laser-communication control systems like the original Internet had proven to be a stroke of genius. You could lose nodes, but there were always ways around those losses
through the surviving facilities. All were low power, difficult to detect, and hard to destroy. Jakob could still control all of the surviving weapons systems and sensors.
“Commander, we are good to go. We’ve lost most of the weapons that fired, but we were expecting that, so that leaves us with the secondary systems up and ready along with the needed sensors.”
Tepuruan smiled and said, “That was a hell of an idea of yours to fire and hide.”
“Well, sir, it just seemed to me that with millions of asteroids we could hide in plain sight the way the systems had been set up. Once we go live we let them know where we are, so I like hiding and—for lack of a better word—sniping at them.”
“As long as they don’t find us it will work.”
“I don’t think they will. Our signals get lost in all of the other traffic, and by decentralizing the ability to fire we can hide in plain sight.”
“Chief, I think we’ve got one more good round in before they say ‘fuck it’ and just charge through us.”
“We could try using twenty-five percent and leave twenty-five for a last stand.”
“No, they know we’re here now and will be using every sensor they’ve got to find us. I think they will this time. So let’s prepare to fire everything we’ve got.”
“Aye, sir.”
Jakob got busy coordinating with his systems operators for the final battle. “Sir, they are about fifteen thousand miles out. Do you have a trigger line you want to use?”
“Give me a minute, Chief,” Tepuruan said, then hit the all-hands comm.
He put a hand on Jakob’s shoulder and said, “After we fire this salvo, continue firing as you get solutions. We’re in knife-fighting range now, and we don’t have time for my orders. Advise all weapons-system operators. This will be it. We either stop them here or...we just might get a chance to meet these Xotoli face-to-face.”
“Aye, sir.”
Jakob sent a message to all of his weapons- and sensor-systems operators. It would be close but Tepuruan’s plan just might work. Once all the weapons and sensor systems were in the green, Jakob said, “We’re ready anytime you want to fire, sir.”
“Make sure your operators set the rail-canister rounds to deploy sooner than last time.”
“Already have, sir.”
Jakob watched as the Xotoli fleet carefully moved forward, all of its sensors probing to find the asteroids holding weapons or sensors. They were getting close to the ten-thousand-mile line. Jakob glanced up at Tepuruan. He smiled down at Jakob.
“It’s about to get festive around here,” he said with a smile.
“Sir, festive is not how I would describe it, but I guess it will have to do.”
“Prepare to fire. In five, four, three, two, one. Fire, fire, fire.”
Jakob watched the display as the scrams and rails fired. Here we go, he thought.
Chapter 10
Landing Ship Dock Tarawa
General Dasan Sand’s Quarters
Fenes, Minga, Ardan, and Striker all stood outside of General Sand’s quarters.
“Does anybody know why we’re here?” Fenes asked. “Striker, you should know, you were in charge in the old unit.”
“You just said it. That was the old unit. I’m as much in the dark as you are. Ready?”
Fenes and the others nodded. Striker knocked on the hatch and waited until Sand said, “Come.”
The four marched into his quarters and stood at attention in front of his desk. He was staring at a large display with numbers and words scrolling quickly across the screen. He looked up and smiled.
“At ease,” Sand said. “Take a seat, lady and gentlemen. This is going to take a while.”
Fenes could not imagine what Sand had to say to them. They had been working on their armor fitting all day before they were summoned. Now he was saying there was a lot to say. What in the world was going on?
“As you know we have just entered the outer edge of the Sol system. We’ve got a few days before we reach Earth, and there is a lot that you need to be briefed on.”
All four were glancing at one another when Sand began to speak again.
“There has been a concerted effort to root out the embedded hybrids on Earth and throughout the system. I’m sure you remember the little scuffle we had before we left for Chika, when Netis saved my life and revealed that she was a hybrid. Well, with her help, the security types were able to run down the hybrid in charge of all the hybrids in the Sol system. She was the wife of the Von Fleet senator.”
Fenes was stunned. The wife of a senator! My God, if they can get someone into that position, where can’t they put someone?
Sand continued. “Apparently this all started before Rift. Von Fleet had been doing business with the Xotoli through embedded hybrids for years. They were passing on intelligence from Von Fleet’s organization. You can imagine what kinds of secrets they were able to pass on to the aliens. Netis killed the top hybrid on Earth and now the senator is cooperating with the Confederation in finding the hybrids.
“Because the leak went so high in the organization, the secretary general had no choice but to nationalize Von Fleet. Von Fleet as an organization no longer exists. The Confederation has taken over its operations and is in the process of stripping it of its weapons and ships. Since there is no way to identify the hybrids, the Confederation has to impound all of the military and security assets of the old corporation. Everything will remain impounded until they can find a way to identify and arrest or kill all the hybrids. Now where does that leave you four?”
Fenes was trying to get his head around all that he had heard in the last couple of minutes. It was as if his whole world was turned upside-down. He’d worked for Von Fleet, he’d lived in a Von Fleet company town, and he’d bought Von Fleet goods with Von Fleet script instead of Confederation money. He had been conscripted into a Von Fleet penal battalion. Now none of that existed. He had just enlisted in the Marine Corps after Chika, but what would that mean when he was essentially a product of Von Fleet? He felt free and scared all at the same time.
“Well, as you know we’ve left most of the 1st Marine Division back on Chika and we need every combat veteran we can find to defend Earth. So Admiral Raurk, with the secretary general’s approval, has begun forming the 1st Conscript Battalion with more in the pipeline as soon as they can be formed. It is not a penal battalion run by a corporation but a battalion of the Confederation. So we need combat veterans to lead this new battalion. Through you and other platoons in the Confederation we know that Legionnaires have been training as many of the conscripts as they could. What we didn’t know was how extensive the unofficial program was until Chika. As an old Legionnaire it does my heart good to know my old comrades, with no prompting or money, stepped up and were doing what they could do to help during these times.”
Fenes remembered Ura, Chucha, and Mati, and how hard they had pushed him. He knew now they had saved his life with the training they had put him through.
“Well, these battalions will be made up of only conscripts trained by the former Legionnaires. We know that a hybrid would not be able to hide during the kind of training that the Legionnaires used. So the secretary general has ordered the organization of as many of these battalions as we can scrape up. That is where you four and the others still in sick bay come in. You are being transferred to one of the new battalions as senior enlisted men and women. Each of you will be a staff sergeant. You have proven yourselves in combat and deserve the promotion. You will provide the enlisted leadership needed for these new units. I’m sorry to say, Striker, you didn’t make the cut.”
“But, sir, I led them in combat...”
Sand held up his hand for silence with a smile.
“I’m sorry, Striker, but you are being promoted to lieutenant. You are no longer an NCO. We need you as an officer. This promotion comes with all the pain-in-the-ass duties that you have been avoiding by staying an NCO all these years.”
Striker opened his m
outh to say something but nothing came out. Sand reached into a drawer on his desk and handed three sets of staff-sergeant stripes to Fenes, Minga, and Ardan. He tossed a set of first-lieutenant bars to Striker.
“Now put those on or you will be out of uniform.”
Fenes put the new stripes on his utilities. He kept staring at them; he couldn’t believe he was a staff sergeant.
“Next I want you to put these on. They’re the Raider patches you earned. They go on your right sleeve.”
He handed a Raider patch to everyone. Again Fenes pushed it onto his shoulder. He stood a little straighter. Few were allowed to wear the patch of a Raider.
“Finally, I have your new unit’s patch. The secretary general wanted to make sure that you would be proud of your unit even if you were originally conscripted into service. So he wanted a unit patch that you could be proud of.”
Sand held up a black, circular patch. It had a snarling mangy dog with its teeth bared, crouched and ready to attack. Above the emblem was written The Junkyard Dogs.
“In ancient times there were dogs that had to scramble in the junk of society to survive. They were mean and nasty. Nobody wanted to take them on, which is why they were used to guard compounds. You had to scramble to survive and now you have been asked to be the start of something that you can take pride in. You four are the beginning of a new unit’s history. The Junkyard Dogs. Now, I expect each of you to live up to the Raider tradition and to help build an equally fierce reputation for this new unit. Live up to your emblem. When we reach Earth, you will be transferred to your new unit, but you will always be Raiders. So act like one in your new unit. I expect nothing but the best from all of you.”
Sand took a step forward and shook hands with each of them. He had a strong, firm grip. Fenes was filled with the pride that comes from being recognized by a true leader and one who has the respect of those who serve under them.
“Now get out of here. I’ve got work to do. And you have one more ceremony to go through before things are official.”
Sand laughed when he said it, and Fenes couldn’t understand what was so funny. Fenes was the first out of the hatch, and what he found surprised him. The passageway was filled with all of the NCOs in the unit. They lined both sides of the passageway. Fenes smiled and said, “What’s all this about?”