Gunnery Sergeant Pappas and the other NCOs encouraged this attitude; keeping the trainees in line was becoming more and more difficult. Not only was it necessary to learn radically new technologies, but the threat bearing down on Earth was causing ripples of disruption at every level. Although the prestige of being Strike Troopers was high, the stress of not knowing your eventual duty assignment, not knowing, as the Guard troops did, that you would be directly defending home and family, was causing a rise in desertions among the Strike training companies.
Desertions were a problem that the United States military had not had to deal with in years. Pappas had heard rumor that it was even worse among the formed units. Soldiers there would desert, taking their weapons and equipment, and return home to defend their families. The families would in turn hide them and their stolen equipment from the authorities. What the long-term solution would be no one knew.
Thus, creating a solemn figurehead out of this amiable cretin became a necessity. Sometimes, as a miracle of that strange art called leadership, a simple pat on the back or stern look from the briefly-glimpsed company commander would keep a recruit from bolting. Once they graduated they became somebody else’s responsibility.
“Gunny,” the lieutenant continued as the gigantic Pappas settled carefully into the rickety swivel chair, “there’s been another change in midstream. Now all the units, as they complete basic training, are to be shipped as units to their permanent posting. They will complete individual training and unit training there. And that is where the suits will be going.”
“Okay, sir. I’ll tell the troops.” Pappas waited patiently. Sometimes the commander would have to think for some time to remember what the next item was. This time he seemed to have made notes.
“Yes, well, further,” the lieutenant continued, looking at his notes with a sniff, “we are being levied to provide cadre. You are, personally, being levied as a first sergeant to a former Airborne unit that is to be converted to an Armored Combat Suit unit.
“You will be taking your platoon to Indiantown Gap to ramp up to readiness. That will be your permanent post, of course. I guess you’ll be joined by other troops there.”
Shit. This platoon? thought Pappas, mentally categorizing the characters he had just become “Top” to. “Yes, sir. Are you continuing as CO?” No, no, no, no, no, no!
“No, I’ve been designated as critical here, dammit. God knows when I’ll get a combat command,” said the portly officer, tugging at his uniform nervously.
Never if the battalion commander has his way. “Will that be all?”
“Not quite. Ground Forces training command has decided to cut short the training cycle, so the cycle will be ending in two weeks instead of four and final testing has been canceled. The unit will start clearing post next week and you will join them. Transportation is being arranged but they don’t know when you’ll receive the rest of your NCO cadre. Of course, your officers should be waiting for you.”
“Yes, sir, I understand,” Pappas said, thinking ominously of the phrases “should” and “of course.” “Will there be movement orders soon?”
“Well, right now I’m passing on verbal orders to prepare your platoon and the company as a whole to ship out. Get with the first sergeant to arrange the details.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Dismissed.”
22
Orbit, Diess IV
2233 GMT April 23rd, 2002 ad
Diess was a hot dry world, proof to Lieutenant O’Neal that the Galactics had an overpopulation problem. It had three extremely large continents; about sixty percent of its surface was land, with coastlines that received a limited amount of rain, about as much as the Sahara, and vast mountainous inlands drier than Death Valley.
Although the ecology of the seas was extremely complex, the dominant family was vaguely polychaetan with a complex structurally resilient polymer replacing chitin. There was virtually no terrestrial ecology. Instead the shores were packed with Indowy and Darhel megalopoli, their fingers jutting inland from the life-giving sea. Galactic technology easily extracted pure water and edible food from the plankton-rich seawater. It was obvious that a little food, a little water and raw materials were all the Indowy needed for life.
Worlds like this were the factories of the peaceful, loving Galactic Federation. Billions of Indowy slaving away day in and out with the fraction of Darhel skimming the cream. The peaceful worlds of the democratic Galactic Federation filled with peaceful little boggles whose only need was to serve. Dem dakkies a singin’ in the field and the Darhel masters they’s a lubbin’ evy one of ’em. Galactic politics made Mike want to puke; but not as hard as what the Posleen were doing.
Galactic technology, high reproductive rates and the minuscule wants of the Indowy had permitted a population of twelve billion and booming before the Posleen arrived. The population was now five billion and dropping. One continent was wholly lost; one continent was still unscathed. The third had been lost except for a pie-piece shaped wedge in the northwest corner; the Posleen were as uninterested in the interior as the Galactics.
Mike stood on a virtual ridge inland of that pie-piece watching the floor of the valley hump and ripple like wind-wracked canvas. The Posleen were coming and 2nd Battalion 325th Mobile Infantry Regiment was preparing to meet them.
The first unit to engage was the battalion scout platoon, popping up from a conveniently perpendicular gully and opening fire with grav rifles. As lines of silver lightning connected them with the Posleen mass the front ranks began to explode. The teardrops burned through the air followed by lines of silver plasma. When they impacted they began to impart their kinetic energy to the flesh and liquid of the Posleen. The impact caused the bodies of the Posleen front rank to become their own bombs as blood flashed to steam and hydrostatic shock flashed the surroundings to ions. The fractional c depleted-uranium rounds impacted like hypervelocity grenades.
The scouts were difficult for Mike to see. By order of the battalion commander the armor had been spray painted a mottled brown to match the landscape. However, when Mike dialed his sensors to wavelengths visible to the Posleen, the chemicals in the off-the-shelf paint caused it to fluoresce under the energetic output of Diess’ F-2 primary. He slugged this sensor adjustment to some of the other observers just as the Posleen returned fire.
Since the scouts had waited until the Posleen were under five hundred meters to engage, since they stood out like light bulbs in a dark room under UV-C, since they bounded completely into the open instead of firing from cover and since there were four thousand Posleen in the front rank firing at thirty targets it was a miracle of armor design that only nine scouts were killed in the first volley. The rest were thrown bodily backwards by the sheer mass of hypervelocity flechettes and flipped head over heels into the gully.
The fire thus suppressed, the Posleen rushed forward, as fast as lions for that short sprint, and were within two hundred meters before unconcerted fire resumed. At that range, despite full output from the few remaining functional scouts, the fire was beaten down and the position overrun in seconds.
Farther up the valley, Charlie company began long rifle and machine gun fire from over a thousand meters. Suit grenades and company 100mm mortars started to fall on the Posleen mass. The grenades and mortars would open wide holes like rainfall in a pond then the press of other Posleen would close over the fallen and the whole mass would press on. The lines of silver fire would drive two or three deep into the mass, but the pressure of the whole horde drove the horde forward against the fans of fire and spread it out to flank the extended company line. As the fire was redirected to engage the flankers it reduced the overall fire pressure and the horde drove forward at a swifter pace over windrows of its own dead. But the Posleen firmly believed in “waste not want not”; these bodies disappeared as the following ranks dismembered and processed them, rations for today and days to come.