There was more substantive discontent too. No one expected to Corps to remain at wartime strength after the peace was signed. But it seemed to many – the ones who had fought and won the war – that the cuts were too deep, too reckless. They seemed poorly targeted, almost as if they were designed to sap morale and degrade combat effectiveness. They worried what would happen when war inevitably came again, wondered how many would die needlessly before the Corps could build itself back to its old readiness.
There was sympathy for the rebellion too. Many of the officers felt the Corps should intervene and force a cessation of hostilities on the rebelling worlds, or even declare outright for the separatists. But cooler heads had prevailed. The Commandant had ordered that there be no interference in the fighting on the rebelling worlds. The orders were resented by some, but they were obeyed.
The transport arrived late, but the gate guards followed procedure to the letter. They were undermanned that night, the work of two officers who modified the scheduling manifest before slipping quietly off base. The guards on duty were Marines, but they weren’t expecting the four heavily armed agents hidden in the cargo bay. It was over in an instant of muffled gunfire. The bodies of the three ambushed Marines were hidden inside the bay of the transport as it made its way to a secluded spot on the Academy grounds.
The device was a small one, and even though it had been built in the cutting edge labs at Alliance Intelligence, it was a crude design, the apparent work of amateurs. It was a fission bomb salted with cobalt…a terrorist’s weapon, perhaps 30 kilotons in yield, and very dirty.
The agents buried it. Not deeply…it didn’t have to stay hidden for long. Just long enough for them to put 10 or 12 kilometers between them and the Academy. The transport turned and headed back, reaching the gate just as the alarm was sounding. The murdered guards had been missed.
It was too late. The transport blew through the gate and away from the campus. It raced down the road at 120 kph. Ten minutes later it pulled over behind a rocky outcropping, and the team leader flipped a switch.
The light reached them first, but they were ready, looking in the other direction and wearing goggles. They were far enough away that the effects of the detonation were minor. The transport shook as the shockwave hit, but again, this far out there was no real damage. The sound was loud, but not deafening, and a minute after the blast they were on their way to the rendezvous point.
They were halfway there when the capsules hidden in the transport split open and released their deadly contents. The gas was quick, almost instantaneous. In a second, perhaps two, everyone in the truck was dead. Half a minute later, the power core exploded, leaving nothing left of the vehicle larger than a few molecules.
Gavin Stark did not like loose ends.
They’d been digging in for three days. Will Thompson was everywhere, inspecting every inch of trench line, monitoring the dwindling supply of weapons and ammo, giving the troops rousing pep talks. He was the beating heart of the army, and he kept their morale high, even as his own was sagging. Things had been going very well, but he knew that was about to change. That it had already changed.
The rebel forces ran wild for several months, liberating areas previously occupied by the federals, and recruiting heavily. After their defeat at Sander’s Dale, the federal forces retired to Arcadia, licking their wounds. They had to rest and resupply before were able to take the field in force again, and Will used the time to great effect.
Gregory Sanders had been notably absent during those operations. He’d gone missing at the battle and hadn’t been seen in the six months since. Thompson had every inch of the battlefield searched and searched again. They hadn’t found a body, but they hadn’t found Sanders alive either. Will hoped the old man was a prisoner. This federal general, Merrick…he seemed to treat prisoners humanely.
Will felt the loss of Sanders keenly, both as an officer and a friend…and he felt it for Kara too. She’d been raised by her doting grandfather ever since she’d lost her parents to a transport accident. She loved the old man fiercely, and his loss had been hard. She, too, clung to the hope that he was alive in some federal prison camp in Arcadia, but it was a tenuous faith. Some days she believed it; others she didn’t.
She and Will had only grown closer, though their moments together were few and rushed. His job consumed him, the army taking all he had to give and more. The responsibility, the burden…it was overwhelming. Thousands of men and women at his command, depending on his judgment and skill for their very survival. The troops loved him, and they would do whatever he commanded. It was gratifying, but it only added to the crushing stress. It was a pressure that was constant and unceasing…day, night, always.
Kara was just as busy. Production at the arms factory had slowed to a crawl. Starved for raw materials, the facility would have shut down entirely if it hadn’t been for her tireless efforts. She organized teams to strip usable materials from every building and all non-essential equipment throughout the district. Her people scoured the battlefield at Sander’s Dale, scavenging every broken piece of weaponry they could find. It was a varied patchwork of weapons and ammunition that flowed from her factory, but it kept the army supplied…more or less.
Kara Sanders was a patriot, completely devoted to the cause of Arcadian independence, but something else was driving her this hard. Will was out in the field with the army, risking his life every day. She felt that every gun, every round of ammunition she squeezed off that production line was something she could do to help protect him. It drove back the feelings of helpless fear that otherwise consumed her.
The disaster at the Academy had hit Will hard. He felt it as a Marine, the anger, the loss. But it was more than that. He had friends there, good friends, and they were all dead now. Almost no one on the campus had survived the horrific blast, and the few who had were badly stricken by radiation sickness. The entire area was uninhabitable, and would be for years. It had been an appalling atrocity, and no one seemed to know who had done it.
He was worried, terrified that some radical rebel group was responsible for the attack. None of his people would be involved; he was sure of that. The Marines were virtually worshipped in the colonies, which they had defended time and time again. But every cause attracted a lunatic fringe. It was a nightmare scenario, one that chilled him to his bones. But he couldn’t ignore the possibility. If a rebel group had destroyed the Academy, what would the Corps do?
Thompson had seen them with his own eyes…Gordons. His heart sank as he saw the sleek craft landing in the fields around Arcadia City. The fleet of small landing sleds meant only one thing – powered infantry. For one terrifying instant he thought they were Marines. He knew the Corps would respond to the destruction of the Academy, but this was fast, too fast. Word couldn’t have even reached Marine HQ yet. No, these troops were something different.
They were sloppier than Marines, their landing patterns looser, more disorganized. Whoever they were, their training wasn’t up to the standards of the Corps. But he wasn’t sure it mattered. There were a couple thousand of them landing, and Will had no idea how he could counter them once they moved against his forces.
Powered infantry was a danger to any non-powered force, but they were a grave threat to Thompson’s raggedly equipped rebels. He needed heavy ordnance to face these new forces…artillery and assault weapons, equipment his army sorely lacked.