Though the Stars Fall (United Humanity Marine Corps Book 1)

by Bill Roberts

  She continues: “The Deuce will be ready to brief at fifteen hundred with the latest intelligence. The Four says all of the equipment looks to be in order and will be fully prepared for embarkation tomorrow afternoon. I have talked to all of the company XO’s and they are reporting that final preparations are well under way at the companies.” Svetlana looks down at her tablet and then back up. “That is all I have to report for now, Sir.”

  I cock my head at Bennie and ask: “Does 2nd Marines know our request was denied?”

  Bennie replies: “I haven’t confirmed one way or the other yet, Sir. But it will be no drama. 2nd Marines never expected the Division embark officer to agree either. Everything is still on schedule for loading to commence at zero six hundred the day after tomorrow. So it doesn’t matter any way.” He pauses and checks his tablet: “I did talk to 2nd Marines this morning about other things and the operations officer also told me that Colonel Rainer wants to conduct a commander’s call at eighteen hundred tonight.” He looks up. “Nothing else significant to report, Sir.”

  “Thank you,” I reply to them both. “Will we be fully prepared by fifteen hundred tomorrow?” I want to get everyone out early on Tuesday so they can have a full evening with their families. Zero five hundred is going to show up painfully on Wednesday morning. I was hoping to back it off to a zero six hundred show time so my Marines could spend a real evening with their families, or for those who did not have families, get a full evening to carouse properly. Fucking Division. I can guarantee, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that we will sit aboard the Stern for hours before she will take off. My Marines both need and deserve one last good night. Come Wednesday morning we will all be either aboard the Stern or on some God forsaken rock fighting, for the next six months.

  Bennie and Svetlana share a quick look then turn back to me. Svetlana goes first. “Yes, Sir,” she says.

  Bennie responds next with a: “Cheers, easy.”

  “Excellent.” I mean it as I say it. “Well I have a couple more documents to go through, and then I am going to make my rounds.” Responding to the implied dismissal Bennie and Svetlana get up and leave my office.

  I fire up my display and continue going through the interminable reports that have taken up my morning. I page through and sign a few more documents. And just when I think they are never going to end, I place a signature on a disbursing authorization and realize my electronic inbox is now empty. Oh rapturous joy. I really do loathe paperwork. Of course everyone loathes paperwork. Well almost everyone. There are, I hear, some rare species of creature that enjoys it. I hope I never have to meet one of these mythical creatures. I might have to kill them out of sheer decency.

  The clock on my wall, old fashioned analog of course, shows ten thirty. I have plenty of time to make some rounds before lunch. I get up and stretch. Because we are packing up the battalion today we are technically doing field work. This means I can get away with wearing Kodiak pilot’s coveralls instead of the normal khaki and green uniform. They look a lot like the old flight suit. They are just made of much better material and have a different collection of pockets. Marine coveralls are the same color green as our regular uniform. On the left breast I wear a leather patch with my Kodiak wings, my name, and my drop device. The drop device signifies that I have dropped onto a hostile planet. Depending on how many drops you made the device looks different. For one drop you wore a black bursting bomb. For completing twenty-five drops you wore a silver bursting bomb, with curled silver wings around it. I have completed over a hundred hostile drops so my device is a gold bursting bomb with strait wings, also in gold, coming off of it. On the right breast I wore the 2nd Heavy Armor unit patch. It is an oval in red with an armored horse’s head in black and white on it. There is yellow writing scrolled on the top of the oval that said ‘2nd Heavy Armor Battalion.’ On the left shoulder is the United Humanity flag and on the right shoulder is the red and blue 2nd Marine Division patch. Finally, I wear some soft shoulder boards with my rank on it, the phoenix and diamond of a Lieutenant Colonel. I really enjoy wearing the coveralls as they are incredibly comfortable. And well … they look cool too.

  I step out of my office into the ‘Command Deck’ of the Battalion Headquarters building. The large room has several desks for the adjutant and personnel management staff of the battalion. It is known as the S-1 section of the staff. The XO’s and Sergeant Major’s office also connect to this room. I exchange pleasantries with the admin staff as I head through the room to the hallway on the far side. Everyone looks busy and intense. However, nobody looks frazzled. One of the advantages of commanding 2nd Heavy Armored for so long is that I have been able to steadily replace those without ability with those who have.

  Once in the hall I turn left and head down to the company offices. The whole ground floor of 2nd Heavy Armored’s headquarters building is filled with the offices of the various components of the battalion; the companies, the staff sections, medical, legal, etc. etc. As I walk down the hall I greet the various Marines bustling about. Again everyone looks busy, but nobody looks stressed. While this is expected it is still good to see. I look out the windows lining the hall into one of the courtyards. The building is shaped like a giant capital E facing north. In South Africa it is late winter and the sun is just starting to warm things back up. I can see everything growing greener by the day. I stop and savor it for just a moment. In less than forty-eight hours it will be a long time before I will see scenes like this again.

  I reach the end of the hallway and turn left into the company wing of the building. The first set of offices belongs to Alpha Company. The company clerk stands up as I enter and says: “Good morning, Sir. How may I help you?”

  “Carry on,” I reply brightly. The Marine sits back down and watches me warily as I head for the company commander’s office. I knock on the open door and poke my head in. As Captain William Martin looks up at me I ask pleasantly: “How are things Bill?”

  Martin comes to his feet and replies crisply: “Excellent, Sir. Is there anything I can help you with?” His voice, rich and deep, matches his appearance perfectly. He is tall and imposing, with dark hair and eyes, set in a harshly carved face.

  I wave him back to his seat and sit across from him. I fold one leg over the other and reply: “I am just making my rounds. How was your leave?”

  “Good, Sir. Greg and I spent a week backpacking in Yosemite.” Greg is Captain Martin’s spouse. A lifetime ago, this would have been very un-Marine. But times change. Honestly, I cannot care less. Captain Martin is a fine officer and an excellent commander. That is all I really give a shit about.

  “Nice. I’ve never been there. Did you run into any bears?” That would have been bad … for the bears.

  “No, Sir,” Martin replies. “But we did see just about everything else. It was pretty cool.”

  “I went to San Diego,” I respond. “It seems I am truly awful at surfing. Who would’ve thought that?”

  Martin laughs with genuine humor. He says: “I can just see you flailing into the water, Sir.”

  I am pretty sure Captain Martin had a lot of crap to do. On one hand it could be argued that I had already wasted some of his valuable time. I, however, felt that a quick moment being human with your Marines is always time well spent. Warfighting always has been, is, and always will be a people business. Still time is a luxury Martin does not have a lot of, so I get down to business: “I understand you are on schedule for wrapping up at fifteen hundred tomorrow.”

  “Absolutely, Sir.” Martin cocks his head and continues: “We’re going to have to work late tonight, but even then we should be out of here by nineteen hundred.”

  “Perfect,” I reply. I get up and continue: “I won’t waste any more of your time, see you at fifteen hundred for the intel brief.”

  “Aye Aye, Sir.” Captain Martin stands up as he says this.

  I wave him back down and say: “Carry on,” as
I leave his office. I continue down the wing talking to each company commander in turn. The conversations are all similar. In fact they are largely unnecessary, from a work point of view. The real purpose is to see my company commanders after a long vacation. It allows me to remind them that their commander cares, and to give them an opportunity to bring any problems to my attention. Headquarters Company has the last office in the wing. After consulting, briefly, with the company commander I leave the building through an exit at the end of the wing.

  My watch and nanite driven hunger tell me that it is time to eat. A street and sidewalk run east-west just to the north of 2nd Heavy Armored headquarters. I follow the sidewalk east and soak up the sun as I head to the area chow hall. I pass a couple of Marines and we exchange salutes. I start whistling. Despite what I am heading for I am in a good mood. The Battalion is well prepared. I have great Marines working with me. I had a fantastic vacation with Svetlana. The sun shines down warmly, and as I approach the chow hall the pleasant aroma of something good to eat fills the air. Soon I will be fighting for my life and the lives of my Marines on some God-forsaken dirtball. But right now everything is right with the universe.

  The briefing room at 2nd Heavy Armored fills up quickly. Captain Anita Sunari stands at the front of the room going over some notes in final preparation for the intelligence briefing. I am already sitting in the Commanding Officer’s chair at the front of the room. Normal custom dictates that the CO should arrive last and that briefings would commence once he or she arrived. Somewhere in the past I had begun violating this custom. I like to spend the last few minutes before a meeting talking with my Marines about various things. Right now I am discussing the logistics preparations with the Four.

  Captain Richard Hiller continues: “So, it looks like we’ll be workin’ late tonight, but, I don’t think we’re gonna have any trouble bein’ ready for a short day tomorrow.”

  “That’s great Four. I appreciate all the hard work,” I reply.

  “Thank ya much, Sir.” Hiller smiles as he says this.

  I smile back and wave a hand dismissively. “You do good work, it gets appreciated. No thanks necessary.”

  Svetlana and Bennie come in arguing good naturedly. They head to the front of the room. As they approach I hear Svetlana say: “I am telling you, Benedict, the Constitutionalists are going to win a majority in the November elections. The Republicans have failed to deliver on any of their promises.”

  “That is the fault of the Labour Party, not the Republicans,” Bennie replies seriously.

  Before Svetlana can respond Hiller’s gravelly voice interrupts with: “I agree with Major Jones-Fairly. Those Labour idiots have been nothin’ but a pain in the ass since they grabbed all those seats.”

  Ahh politics. This conversation will go nowhere fast. However, thankfully, the meeting is supposed to start in about a minute so I can interject with the voice of sweet reason. I interrupt all of them with: “As much as I love watching you all argue pointlessly, I do believe the meeting starts soon. So zip it and grab a seat.”

  The three of them shoot me some pointed looks. But they all sit down. Bennie and Svetlana sit down on either side of me. As they do so I swear I hear them muttering things like ‘oppressor’ and ‘tyrant.’ I smile broadly at their lese majesty. Captain Sunari looks over at me and raises her eyebrow questioningly. I take a quick look around the room and see that all the principal staff and Kodiak pilots are present. I nod at Sunari.

  She begins: “As you all know, we are heading to the Elowynn border with unclaimed space. As before this border remains under continual assault by pirates working out of these lawless regions.” The display shows a three dimensional image of our galaxy. Elowynn space shows up as a green blob coreward from Earth. The unclaimed region of space that the pirates operate out of shows up in red. It is a much larger blob that spreads ‘up’ and ‘north’ from the Elowynn area. “Over the past six months attacks along the border have steadily increased.” Sunari hits a button on the remote she is holding and the image zooms into the border. Several of the planets pulse red, indicating that they had been targets of attacks. “In fact the current rate of attacks are the highest we have seen since we began supporting the Elowynn eight years ago.”

  Everyone in the room pays close attention to the briefing. Soon it will be our Kodiaks battling against those attacks. Sunari hits a button on the remote and several images fill the display. She continues her briefing: “During our last tour supporting the Elowynn we generally fought Grotokai. However, lately we have seen attacks conducted by pirates from all five of the non-aligned races.” Another tap on the remote and a vaguely bearlike face comes to the front of the display. Behind the face the map of the Galaxy remains in the background and a new section of space glows, this time in gold. The gold is highlighting the small area of Deeken space on the far side of the glowing red ‘badlands’ from the Elowynn. “The Deeken have become the primary race involved. You all may know this, but just as a reminder, the Deeken are a fiercely independent species. Their planets are only vaguely connected with culture and trade. They have a long tradition of piracy and mercenary work. Their weapons and tactics are much better than the Grotokai. They generally fight as infantry, like we do, but they do use a lot of high speed wheeled vehicles that carry very heavy weapons. I have built a more in-depth brief on the Deeken and sent it out to the staff and companies.” I had not tasked her to do so. She simply had seen something that needed to be done and she did it. I so like working with professionals.

  Sunari hits another button and the images disappear leaving only the galactic map. A very large portion of the galaxy ‘north’ of the Deeken now glows a deep sullen purple. She resumes speaking: “As we are all aware, these pirates are being funded by the Tangul Empire. While we have not found any ‘smoking guns’ we do have a great deal of signals, and sentient derived intelligence indicating this. From an intelligence point of view, one of our primary tasks while supporting the Elowynn remains the acquisition of any people or information that can directly tie the Tangul Security Apparatus to the actions of these pirates.”

  The image changes again in response to Sunari’s remote. The galaxy map fills out in other colors. Our allies, the Elowynn and the Ssahar, glow in different shades of green. When combined with the space claimed by humanity (glowing a friendly blue) these colors fill the ‘southern’ half of the galaxy. Dotted about the middle in various shades of yellow are the smaller ‘countries’ of the non-aligned races, along with the large swath of unclaimed space. And to the ‘north’ the massive Tangul Empire festers like an ugly purple bruise. Sunari’s voice and manner become grim. “While we can’t be certain, the actions of the Tangul fleet in Elowynn space last month as well as the increased tempo of pirate attacks appear to be a prelude to something much bigger. It is not clear when or how the game will change, but we must be prepared for it. It is virtually certain that if these pirate attacks fail to achieve any destabilization of the Elowynn the Tangul will simply resort to all-out war.” The room has fallen completely silent as we absorb this. “Largely, we have always expected eventual war with the Tangul. However, we have never had a good appreciation of when the Tangul would declare war. The increased tempo of the attacks using the much more expensive Deeken mercenaries and the Elowynn incursion are troubling indicators. The strength and certainty of our response to their “accidental” incursion coupled to the lack of success their pirate campaign is having have likely led the Tangul to conclude they have little more to gain by postponing war. If the latest round of attacks do not measurably weaken Elowynn or Southern Alliance resolve war should be quick to follow.” Sunari pauses and looks me square in the face before resuming: “I personally expect that the declaration of war will come in the next six months.”

  I feel a familiar chill settle into me. We have all thought something like this. But Sunari is the first to come out and tie it to a timeline. Humanity has grown by leaps
and bounds over the last thirty years. We have colonized over a hundred planets and settled into a steady growth in both wealth and standard of living. But, we are still recovering from the Synti invasion. Our population has barely grown beyond pre-invasion numbers. Worse than that, humanity as a race is still psychologically recovering from the Synti War. In short, we are not really ready for a war as devastating as one with the Tangul will be. We knew it was coming, but it always felt like something for the more distant future. Now it is apparently right around the corner. Before I can recover from these thoughts a voice shouts out from the back: “Let the stupid bastards declare war. We’re Marines and by God we’re gonna kick the shit out of them.” The room bursts out in cheers and oohrahs.

  I enter 2nd Marines headquarters. Their headquarters looks a lot like 2nd Heavy Armored. Consequently, I know exactly where to head. I had enjoyed the half-mile walk here from my office. The setting sun had filled the sky with a riot of color. I spent the walk thinking of random meaningless things. It had been very relaxing after the busy day. It is hard to really worry about Sunari’s warning on a pleasant evening such as this. When war does come, I will just have to do what I can and hope for the best.

  I exchange greetings with Marines as I walk the halls heading to 2nd Marines’ commander’s conference room. When I enter I see that I am not the first to arrive. The three infantry battalion commanders and the artillery battalion commander sit around the faux wood conference table chatting amicably. I sit down next to them in one of the mismatched office chairs that serve as seating. I snort quietly. The Marine Corps has changed a lot since I joined her fifty years ago. But in some ways it is just the same. We will spend billions on top of the line weapons without a second thought, but the idea of a thousand dollar furniture bill terrified us. Oh well, at least the technological improvements of the last fifty years mean that the chairs are not broken, which at least half of them would have been fifty years ago.