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

by Bill Roberts

  “Excellent, Devil Dog,” I reply. I start waving my students towards the back of the truck. The gate, with its built in ladder, is down in the back. The students climb up and sit down on the benches running along the walls of the open cargo area. I follow suit and once I am seated on the bench the driver closes the gate and locks it down. He gives me a thumbs up and heads back to the cab. The truck has been retrofitted with a noiseless Watcher engine but within a few moments I can feel the truck start up. The driver puts the truck into gear and silently the truck moves forward beginning our trek towards the bowels of Wonderland.

  We pass various buildings and equipment lots for the first kilometer or so then they cease abruptly. After that the freestanding lights that light the inside of Wonderland become further and further apart until they stop altogether. Soon it feels like we are driving in a tunnel. The truck is not moving particularly fast, maybe forty kilometers per hour. It is enough to make the open cargo area windy, but not enough to hide the oppressive silence of this empty quarter of the cavern. Though you cannot see it you can sense that the walls and ceiling lie impossibly far away. Nothing makes a noise besides the tires of the 7-ton as they roll across the smooth rocky floor. Despite my close proximity to the rest of the people in the back of the truck I feel a sinking loneliness settle into me.

  Stanton breaks the silence: “Well if this isn’t the creepiest place I have ever been.”

  Breckenridge quickly chimes in: “I know, right? The only thing missing is some sort of eerie light that we mindlessly head towards.

  Stanton snorts and says: “You mean like the one we have been heading to for the last five minutes.”

  Breckenridge leans backwards over the truckbed wall and looks forward. He pops back forward and says: “Yep. That’ll do it.” The light reflecting off the ground from the truck’s headlights is enough to show Breckenridge’s face break out in a huge smile. He continues: “This is awesome.”

  This time I do not bother to fight down my smile and light laughter bubbles up inside of me. Lieutenant Colonel Arthur Smalls from the 2nd Royal Tank Regiment sits across from me. He laughs lightly as well and leans over towards me and beckons me closer. I lean in and he says quietly: “How in the world those two ever got selected for this is a mystery for the ages.”

  I reply: “Just remember which two officers cleaned house in the last simulator competition.”

  Smalls holds up his hands with a placating gesture and says: “Don’t get me wrong, they know how to fight. But, the idea of them leading toms is ridiculous.”

  Smalls is a very proper sort. He has been courteous and professional without fail the last few weeks. However, he has the sense of humor of a brick. He also thinks in very strait lines. I imagine he would be decent enough to work for, but I am glad I do not have to. I am not going to change him while riding in the back of a 7-ton in the middle of a vast empty void. So I just wave my hand non-committally and lean back into the bench. The humor is just Stanton and Breckenridge’s way of not going insane with the Mickey Mouse bullshit of standard military life. I have worked with officers of this type before. The humor almost always comes with intelligence and charisma. I imagine Stanton and Breckenridge had been the most popular and creative officers in their respective units. Do not get me wrong, they probably caused their commanders to pull out a few hairs from time to time. But, for sure and certain, whatever they got assigned got done, quickly and well, with their troops loving every minute of it, no matter how painful the task. In my opinion they are diamonds in the rough. Something Smalls will probably never grasp.

  The light we have been heading towards begins to grow into a glow that suffuses the area around us with light. The long gone freestanding lights begin to reappear. They come closer and closer together until we start passing buildings and equipment lots on either side of us. The buildings look different then the H-shaped office buildings back on the other side of wonderland. Here they are massive. They have an industrial feel to them. The 7-ton heads for a particularly large one off to the left.

  The truck comes to a halt and soon enough the driver comes around. He unlatches and lowers the gate. I climb down first and stretch mightily as the rest of my group unloads. We gather in a small group around the back of the truck. While the Marine closes and latches the truck’s gate my old friend Art Murray comes walking up. He holds out his hand and says pleasantly: “Good to see you Shawn. How are things?”

  “Great Art,” I reply while shaking his hand. “Have you been exiled here permanently or are you just here to show us around?”

  He laughs lightly and replies: “I wouldn’t call this place exile. It’s actually fascinating out here. There are so many new things to try every day. But, no I’m not here permanently. I just got tasked to show you around today.”

  I face my students and raise my voice: “Gentlemen, this is Art Murray. He is an engineer with Heavy Combat Systems. He is going to be our guide today. Even though he is not fat and balding,” the nanites had been introduced into the civilian workforce as well over the last few months, “I assure you he is a bona fide engineer.” Art arches an eyebrow as my group starts laughing. Stanton actually looks embarrassed. Ha. I turn to Art, gesture grandly and say: “Mr. Murray please lead the way.”

  Art speaks loudly: “Gentlemen, you are outside the Kodiak manufacturing plant. It covers approximately fifty acres, stands about one hundred feet tall and requires the same amount of electricity as a pair of Nimitz class aircraft carriers.” He turns towards a door in the massive wall next to us and gestures for us to follow.

  I let the group file after him and pick up the rear. I have been here a few times before and do not really need the tour. On top of that I really want to afford my students the best opportunity to learn. So I will try my best to stay out of the way and keep my mouth shut. We reach a small lonely door in the side of the building. The door is a simple metal affair with a cypher lock. There are no windows in view anywhere on the massive wall to our front. We tend not to us windows on buildings here in Wonderland. What good is it to stare out at a view that will never change?

  Art punches a code in the door and opens it. He holds it open and lets us all file past. From previous tours I know we are entering the Engineer’s work area. We file into a large foyer with a door leading to some stairs on our right and another door to our front. After we have filled up the room Art enters and works his way through us towards the door to our front. Once he gets there he stops and faces the group and says: “We are entering the design studio. There are twenty engineers that work in here. It is their job to work on continually refining the Kodiak design. We will pass through this area to our meeting room on the far side. There I have a presentation all set up for you.”

  He opens the door and we follow him into a large brilliantly illuminated room. There are no cubicles here. Instead the engineers’ work area is full of interactive 3D displays, drafting boards, comfortable chairs, and massive flat panel displays on the walls that show various views. One of them shows Times Square as if you are looking at it outside a window. In short it is perfectly designed to encourage creativity and collaboration. The various engineers look up from whatever they are working on as we weave our way through. We exchange greetings with them and continue on our way. One of them, Monica DeSanto, stops me as I walk through and asks: “Hey Shawn, what did you think of the changes I made to feedback resistors in the control sticks?”

  I like DeSanto. She is probably the smartest person I have ever met, but she still manages to be completely approachable. With her hair perpetually in a ponytail and a huge grin on her face she looks more like she is playing a game than working on an insanely complex weapon system. We had worked via teleconference and e-mail for a couple of weeks a few months ago trying to make them smoother and more intuitive. They had worked fabulously out in Twentynine Palms. “Great,” I reply. “Art could probably give you the numbers, but anecdotally they were ex
cellent.”

  She beams at me with genuine satisfaction and says: “Excellent. It was quite the little challenge.” Finding joy in the minutiae of design is beyond me, but I thank God we had found engineers who truly did.

  I hold out my fist and she stares at it with confusion for a moment. Realization dawns on her and she awkwardly bumps my fist with hers. “Great work. Thanks,” I say.

  “You’re welcome,” she replies.

  I have fallen behind the rest of the group with this little exchange. That being said it is completely worth it. We so rarely get to thank the engineers for all of the incredible work that they do. I politely excuse myself and head rapidly to the conference room. I arrive just in time to catch the beginning of Art’s brief.

  He hits a button on the remote in his hand and the 3D display fills with numbers and diagrams. He starts speaking: “As you all know just about six years ago we received a great deal of information from an alien race who call themselves Watchers. This information came in many different ways. Some things they showed us formed building blocks we could use to find our own advancements. An example of this would be how they elegantly showed the various ways you can combine what we call applied and theoretical physics. In other ways they showed us how to practically accomplish things. They showed us how to join various molecules and atoms in new and exciting ways. This made it possible to work with matter in new and exciting ways. An example of how we practically applied this would be the composition we came up with for the armor that protects your Kodiaks. Finally, they showed us some fascinating ways to program computers. Things that made our old AI equations look like cave paintings. The best example of how we used this is how the nanites in your body work.” He pauses and looks around the room apparently inviting questions.

  Major Clark, United States Marines, takes up the invitation and asks: “So they didn’t give us the design of the Kodiak? How the heck did you design it so fast?”

  Art replies: “They did not give us the design of anything. From design beginning to first prototype we created our first Kodiak in a little under a year.”

  “That’s impossible,” Smalls interjects.

  Art gives Smalls a level look and says: “The P-51 Mustang went from inception to maiden flight in six months. And that was back in the old days when all computations were done by hand. Never underestimate what motivated engineers can accomplish when they are not blinkered by agenda or profit margin. The Watchers, I believe, knew exactly what they were doing. They did not want to spoon feed us anything. What they gave us was a whole host of tools that allowed us to put into practical application the next level of ideas we had already matured to the limits of our technology. Machines that walk, electromagnetic guns, nanites, these had already all existed in laboratories. We have just moved from laboratory to field far faster and skipped three or four generations of them along the way. In my opinion the Watchers have a great deal of faith in human ingenuity and creativity. You should too.”

  I pile on: “Gentlemen, remember what I said about the future of mankind being on the line. It is up to us to save ourselves. Everything you have seen since you arrived is the product of good ol’ fashioned human ingenuity. The Watchers have just given us a helpful little push in the right direction. But when the Synti arrive it will be down to us to defeat them.”

  Art picks up from there: “The exciting thing is, we haven’t reached the limits of what the Watchers gave us. We have just limited ourselves because of the timeline. After we stop the Synti invasion I predict a twenty percent improvement to overall Kodiak performance within five years.” He pauses and continues solemnly: “We also have already figured out some things that they did not tell us.”

  “What do you mean by that?” Clark asks.

  “Haven’t you all wondered how the hell the Synti are going to get here? Or for that matter how the Watchers have come and apparently gone? Einstein had pretty clear guidance on the whole speed of light thing.” Art pauses after that last statement. He lets it hang like a worm on a hook.

  Breckenridge speaks up: “Fine, I’ll play the dummy. Yeah I thought about it and have come up with zero ideas how that whole things work. What? Is there some sort of warp drive or something?”

  Art smiles at Breckenridge and says: “Actually the hypothetical physics that provide the basis for the fictional warp drive is not too far from what we figured out. Look I am not going to bore you with complicated Watcher physics and how we figured out where they led. But the bottom line is we have used them to figure out how to practically fold space.”

  “When did the boys and girls over at Faster Than Light finally crack that nut, Art?” I ask. “The last I heard they were still banging their heads against the wall.”

  Because I know Art so well I can tell he is barely keeping a lid on his excitement. I get a brief mental image of him capering around the room shouting ‘We did it! We did it!’ I fight the image off as Art answers: “Three days ago. The people over at Starship Design have already started designing ships around it.”

  “Wait, wait, wait,” interrupts Breckenrigde. “You mean you started planning for fighting on other planets before you even knew we could get there or not? Jesus, I thought I was ballsy.”

  Art’s excitement finally bubbles over as he responds: “Don’t you see?!? We have been arguing forever over the possibility of travelling to distant stars. The simple fact that the Watchers came and went meant it was absolutely possible. Once you know that something can be done it makes everything different! We knew it could be done. And with Watcher Physics we knew we had the tools to figure it out. So we buckled down, threw doubt out with the trash and got to work! And the best part is: We invented it. All on our own.”

  Art’s excitement has failed to find a home in the hearts of his audience. He looks around at first confused and then disappointed. He then looks at me. I smile broadly at him. I say: “Some people just lack perspective Art.” I address the rest of the students: “Fellas, remember when we all were learning gunnery on our tanks?” I get some confused nods. “You learn everything about how to use the sight system on your tank. But do you learn how the system on the tank actually works?”

  Breckenridge: “Nope, the only guy that knows how that thing works is the Master Gunner.”

  God, I love Breckenridge. He has teed it up perfectly. I continue: “Right. You’re basically a well-trained monkey. If you can’t hit the target you know how to fiddle with the system to fix the problem, but you really have no idea how it works. Now imagine you knew everything about ballistics and used that information to invent a sight system. You’d be a hell of a lot more valuable than a trained monkey.”

  My example has its intended effect. I see the light bulb go off in peoples’ expressions. They still do not get terribly excited. So I ask: “What’s the problem here?”

  Smalls says: “Fine, fine. We figured out how to travel faster than light. Splendid, we’re not just Watcher trained monkeys. But, the Synti already know how to go faster than light, that’s how they’re getting here. We could still be a good deal behind them. We also have no idea how powerful the Synti are. I just don’t understand why we should be so excited.”

  “That’s a fair point Smalls,” I reply. “But I would ask you: Do you think the Watchers know what they are doing?”

  “How the hell should I know?” He replies shortly.

  “The Watchers are not stupid. In my opinion they know exactly what they are doing. Why did they pick us? Why did they only give us tools, but no solutions?” I point at Art and say: “I believe it is because they did not want to limit us. Because, they knew, better than some of you all, what humanity is capable of devising and learning. Because, they knew we would take the technology they gave us in our own direction, and be all the more powerful because of it.” I point at myself and then I extend my hand in a sweeping motion and continue: “They also knew that humanity had people like us, pe
ople who are not only willing to fight, but are really frigging good at it. When the Synti come it is going to be the worst mistake they have ever made. Because, they are going to find a planet full of well-armed, intelligent people who, deep down, love to fight. I know what Marines and Soldiers are like. And, I know, for sure and certain, when the time comes to fight we will do it as well as anyone, anywhere could possibly do.”

  Breckenridge says quietly: “Those Synti bastards are fucked. Pandora’s box has been opened and it’s full of pissed off, smart as fuck people who are seriously eager to kick some ass.”

  I smile broadly and say: “That is exactly what I am trying to say. I will admit that I have no data to back this up, but my gut tells me I am right. I believe we are going to not only win, but ultimately crush the Synti.” Smalls looks like he wants to argue with me, but what can he say? If we do not believe we can win then we sure as shit would not. In the end all we can do is all we can do. Better to do it with a belief that it is all going to work out than to go about our lives without hope. “But we still have a lot of work to do to be ready. So, Art, if you would continue.”

  “Of course,” he replies. “Like I said earlier, we use the tools the Watchers gave us to design and develop all sorts of things. Here, in this building, we work specifically on the Kodiak. We are constantly taking feedback from the test pilots to refine and improve it.” He hits a button on the remote and the display shows the massive factory floor. “Since we are located at the factory, we can rapidly produce new Kodiaks with the changes, or simply make new parts the mechanics can retrofit the Kodiaks at heavy combat systems with.”

  Stanton asks: “What about tooling? How long does it take you to make changes to the line?”

  Art smiles and answers: “Those are great questions. The short answer is: it doesn’t. We can make changes to the production line in virtually no time at all.”

  Stanton whistles appreciatively and says: “How the heck do you do that?”