COMMANDER

“You will be designated Team Zulu. In the ancient days on Earth, the Zulu warriors were some of the most feared and fearsome warriors ever produced. They could run over thirty kilometers across the African veldt and bush and immediately fight a major battle without rest. With only knives, leather shields, and short spears they damn near defeated the British who were armed with projectile rifles and cannon. This team will be better! Be warned. Not all of you will make my cut. When I said I need extraordinary individuals, I meant it.

“Now then, one of the most important things we require, as a team, is good communications. You will all take refreshers for sign language and, in addition, each of you will receive a communications implant right now. If you fail the cut, removal will be swift and painless, and any necessary memory will be wiped. I will go first.”

The procedure was painless and over inside three minutes, just as the doctor had said. When all were done, she spent several minutes with us explaining the operations of the units. We scattered the team over the length and breadth of the huge hangar bay to test the transceivers. When they worked it was as if the voice of the speaker was actually inside your head. It was weird, and took some getting used to. After thirty minutes, all units were confirmed to function correctly in all orientations. Then, I brought the team back together for a final huddle.

“Donner, step forward.”

I yelled at her, “About face!”

After she had spun a perfect 180 and faced the rest of the team, I continued, “This is Trooper Carla Donner, your team leader.”

“Hoo-rah!” they shouted in unison.

I then ordered, “About face!” to her again, to face me.

“Team Zulu, at ease. Donner . . . Ten-hut!” I moved forward until my face was one-half meter from her focused gaze before I continued, “Listen up, Team Leader! Team Zulu is now your team as well as mine. You will personally be held responsible for their actions, for their successes, and for their failures. As of this moment, you are a leader, not an officer. Do you understand?”

I had to give her credit. Her eyes were wide with realization but she never hesitated.

“Aye, sir! The team leader understands!”

“At ease, Donner, and face your team.”

I turned to face the rest of the team. “One at a time, from my right to my left, step forward and introduce yourself to me and your teammates. Begin!”

The big guy on the end stepped forward one step. “Henry Bolton, sir, specialty of heavy weapons.”

“With your size and impressive physique, I am surprised they were able to get you into a suit at all,” I cracked.

“Yes, sir,” he said with a smile, “I am a big ol’ dog!”

“Sir!” interrupted Team Leader Donner. “As I understand it, in the prior days when radio was the primary means of comms, call signs were given to the individual soldiers to disguise their identity to any enemy intercepting comms traffic. I recommend we adopt the same practice.”

“Call signs, eh? Like ‘Maverick’ from the old archive video Top Gun?”

“Aye, sir, just like that.”

“All right . . . good idea! So, Bolton . . .”

“Your pardon, sir!” Donner interrupted again. “Again, as I understand it, teammates assigned calls signs to each other . . . not their commanding officers.”

“Really?” I asked in a little surprise.

Someone had been doing some of their own research on elite trooper history! Just full of surprises, our Donner.

“By all means, then . . . carry on.”

Donner looked at Bolton and said, “Henry, you are a big ol’ dog. Huge and dangerous and always horny. That’s your sign . . . Dog.”

Bolton’s grin was huge and a clear indication Donner was right; the team should do this. After all, they knew each other much better than I knew them on a personal level.

The rest of them were introduced to me and given call signs by each other in a wild, fun session of insults and camaraderie.

Then there was Donner. She stated she was simply a trooper assigned to assault fire in her fire team, which meant she knew both the 10mm and 5mm weapons in both armored and non-armored configurations, explosives, and had a passing familiarity with blades.

“Do you have any preference, Donner, any particular likes or dislikes when it comes to trooper fighting skills?” I asked her.

A devilish grin appeared and her eyes sparkled with intensity as she answered, “What I really want to do is get some payback, sir. I can’t wait for the day I get to kick Flynn’s ass . . . and yours . . . um, sir.”

I laughed out loud. She delighted me, truly. “Yeah, well, good luck with that, Donner. Very well, you will get advanced blade training and be the team bladesmith. Now, about your call sign . . .”

“Hunter!” shouted the tall brunette, a computer and networking expert the team had named Mouse.

“Dagger!” put in a handsome male ABS specialist nicknamed CanMan.

“Naw, the way she’s after Gunny Flynn so hard it’s got to be ‘Ronin,’” stated Dog. “And she is already better at blades than the rest of us put together.”

“Hoo-rah!” shouted the team, and it was done.

“All right,” I continued, speaking to the whole team, “until I get the logistics sorted out, we must consider the team to be undercover. Rule One, never use names on the transceivers, only call signs. Rule Two, train your asses off. If you aren’t on duty on your regular jobs, there will be no such thing as free time. You will be running or doing PT, or seeking advanced training unofficially. Clear?”

I led them on a 10K hard run and then we practiced hand-to-hand for an hour.

I lay in my rack, reviewing the events since the peace conference, since my taking over the clan. I caught myself wondering about several decisions I had made, wondering if I had done the right thing or if there may have been a better way, especially about Gene Timmons and the incident with Jamison. Post-action decision reviews, after enough time had passed to reliably assess results, were a good thing so long as they were approached objectively and with a mindset to learn from mistakes and improve. What I was feeling right now was definitely not objective. I felt responsible, I felt worried, and I felt self-doubt.

I shook my head physically, hard. There was no wondering, no room for self-doubt! Lieutenant Dobson had taught me this five years ago. Crap! Okay, 809 years ago, now.

I was Corporal Rawlings then, aboard the battleship Perseus and leading a fire team under Sergeant Sanchez and Lt. Dobson. Dobson was a good man, a good officer. Of course, I hadn’t always thought so.

Dobson was distant, never one to make friendships and always regulation in everything he did aboard ship. The day came when we caught up to a Shaquaree ship in the process of dragging humans off-planet as slaves. We knew about the Shaquaree, alright. The Fleet had discovered them and their tactics a few years back, and I had experienced the very first battle with them. This was the first contact the Perseus had with the Shaquaree, and my third battle with them. Our Fleet group went into the attack and my full clan was sent dirtside to take on the ground troops while the other clan remained onboard as reserve.

In the course of running and fragmenting firefights, three troops of our wedge had become cut off from the main force, trapped in a section of city ruins. It was a building-to-building fight with the Shaquaree forces, and we were outnumbered at least four to one. Hours later, nearing nightfall on the planet, we gathered in what was left of a multi-level concrete parking garage. We were ragged, running low on ammo, and had several wounded we were carrying.

Dobson called an officer’s briefing to review the situation and re-plan tactics. Shadows were lengthening across the small clear area of concrete roadway where we hunkered amid building debris and broken glass. The main ground battle had been a moving one, and we were now behind enemy lines and separated from our main forces by two full klicks of city ruins. Shaquaree forces had successfully managed to split our clan. For the moment, we were not under direct fire and took advantage for a short breather.

One of the other sergeants, I can’t even recall his name now, was advocating digging in and waiting out the storm until reinforcements could arrive to retrieve us. Dobson would have none of it.

“We owe it to our fellow Marines to get back into this fight! To do whatever we can to force the enemy back and rejoin our main group!” he stated forcefully. “The major who made the mistake of allowing the enemy to split off this group has already paid for his mistake. We must not allow the rest of our clan to pay the same toll. Defensive posturing in an offensive campaign is not going to save lives or get us back to our own. We must take the battle to the enemy.”

“But, sir,” argued the sergeant, “wouldn’t we be better off to dig in here and conserve resources? We can’t just keep throwing ourselves against a superior foe with no hope of gaining ground!”

“Sergeant, belay that kind of talk!” Dobson ordered. “I won’t have fear rule our tactical planning.”

“It’s not fear, sir!” flashed the sergeant. “It’s just stupid to waste men and equipm . . .”

Dobson’s handgun was out and barked, and the sergeant fell back with a hole in his forehead, brain matter and gore splattered behind his sagging body.

“Anybody else wish to be insubordinate on the battlefield?” Dobson asked calmly.

Shocked silence greeted his question. There hadn’t been a battlefield execution like that for a very long time. Technically, all line officers and up knew it could be done, and we had even been shown how to bypass the protections offered by our ABS and suit shields. In this case, Dobson hadn’t needed any of that as the sergeant had removed his helmet for a breath of planetary air.

“Let me teach you all something right now,” Dobson continued, looking at each of us intently. “Even though the regulations say I have the right to do what I just did, regulations is not why I did it. Listen to me! When you lead troops into battle, you cannot . . . ever . . . begin doubting yourself and your decisions. If you do, more will die than if you simply make a decision and move. Even if it’s the wrong decision, fewer will die if you make the call and move. Make the best decision you can with the intel you have and move! LADA is your mantra! Learn—Assess—Decide—Act! It is indecision and sitting still that will get you sent outside faster than any other thing. Right here, right now, we cannot give the enemy time to consolidate and trap us where they can then simply surround us and annihilate us. We must move, and keep moving!”

Later the same evening, we had fought our way to within a half-klick of our forces. Only one enemy stronghold lay between our lines and us. We were down to a Troop and two fire teams.

“Who has the least damaged suit?” Lt. Dobson asked on the suit comms.

We were in cover of broken concrete and ruined, burning ground vehicles once belonging to the citizens of this planet. There was no answer to his question. We were all wounded and in damaged suits.

“I guess it’s me, then,” Dobson said. “Alright, troopers . . . anyone got any grenades or mines left?”

Two HE frag grenades and one anti-personnel mine were passed to him.

“Good. Here’s the plan. Sanchez, you’re the only sergeant left. Take command of these troopers if I don’t make it and get them back to our lines any way you can. Kill as many of the enemy as possible if you can’t. See that chunk of concrete they are using as a shield? It looks like it extends fifty or sixty meters in both directions. They’ve got a perfect firing position with the concrete walls and broken roof over their heads, so no way can our guys lob any explosives in on them.

“Since we’re behind them and they don’t know we’re here, we have an advantage. You spread out the fire teams and give me cover fire and I’ll get as close as I can and pitch the explosives. If I can open up the concrete section they’re using as a barricade, it will give you a place to get through to our side. Other than that, we’re bottled up tight. Trying to go around them is a fool’s bet.”

“Let me go, sir,” I said. “I’m damn fast on my feet and quiet.”

“No, Corporal, but thanks for volunteering. This calls for a full, undamaged suit. Yours is ripped to shreds, and I know a lot of the blood is yours. If they take one shot at you . . . I have a nearly undamaged suit, which means I will get far closer than anyone else could. It is the right decision to make.”

I gritted my teeth and growled, “Yes, sir. It is.” I could not argue with his logic but it didn’t mean I had to like it.

He smiled at me. “Good man! You’re learning!” He turned back to the sergeant. “Thirty seconds, Sergeant, then give me cover fire. I’ll get as close as I can before I toss ’em.”

“Aye, aye, sir. We’re on it!” Sanchez responded.

The seconds clicked by as Sanchez spread out the fire teams and assigned fire lanes while Dobson rigged the mine to blow on contact, and then it was time and Dobson took off without a word or a wave. He had sixty meters to cover before he would be close enough to throw the grenades or the mine. We waited, fingers twitching above our trigger pads. At the thirty-meter point, Sanchez yelled “Now!” over the suit comms and we all opened up with everything we had left.

The Shaquaree were taken completely by surprise and we nailed many of them within the first volleys. Dobson made it to fifty meters and then the Shaquaree were firing at him. We could see his body jerking with the multiple hits, his suit sparking and rippling with the impacts and splashing the beam fire in brilliant refractions, but he kept moving somehow. We kept firing, too.

Dobson went to his knees at fifty-eight meters, and six of our troopers were yelling for ammo, they were bingo. Too bad, there was no more to spread around. I could see Dobson still moving, creeping forward on his knees. He needed three more seconds!

I leaped up and charged forward with a battle roar, and every single one of the troopers leapt from cover with me as I charged the Shaquaree. The enemy shifted aim from Dobson and were firing wildly at the ragged line of troopers racing headlong at them. Several of our troopers went down. I could see them falling and flailing in my peripheral vision. I was running as hard as I could and firing.

Dobson stopped and was hunched over. I thought he was going down until he reared back and threw both grenades at the same time. He must have dislocated his shoulder doing it as he then lobbed the anti-personnel mine left-handed at the Shaquaree line. He was falling over as it left his hand.

“Down!” Sanchez screamed on the comms and we dove for the broken concrete.

The double explosion of the grenades was followed closely by the loud boom of the mine. I lifted my head to see a large, smoking hole in the concrete section they had been using as fire cover. Only a few of the enemy were stirring as I jumped to my feet and charged them.

I was out of ammo. I used the rifle as a club in my left hand and drew my katana with my right and swept up and down the enemy line for twenty meters in both directions. I could see three other suits mimicking my actions further down the lines. We killed at least thirty of them in hand-to-hand, probably more, and then I saw movement in my peripheral vision.

I cut down the last of the enemy near me who was still moving and turned to look. It was our troopers coming toward us as the line we had been separated from surged through the opening blown in the concrete blockade. I ran back to Dobson and knelt to pick up his head and shoulders. His suit was in tatters, the entire front of it covered in his blood. I could barely see his eyes flutter open through the dirty, cracked visor of the helmet.

“Did I get it done?” he asked.

“Yes, sir, you sure did. Your troopers are safely crossing, sir.”

He smiled at me. “You see, Corporal? It was the right decision.”

“There was no other decision to make, sir.”

He didn’t hear me, but the smile remained.

Then, a hand was shaking my shoulder. I looked around and it was a clan commander. I began to stand but his hand pressure on my shoulder kept me down, holding Lt. Dobson.

“What’s your name, trooper?” he asked.

“Corporal Rawlings, sir. This is Lieutenant Dobson.”

All around us masses of troopers were pouring through the breach and spreading out down the line in both directions.

“This lieutenant is a hero, son,” said the commander, “and so are you. We saw it all! Without your team’s action from behind opening up this fortified line, we would have lost a lot more troopers trying to breach it. They had us pinned down solid. Now . . . well, by the Gods, now we’re gonna fuck ’em up! Stand down, Corporal, and take care of your lieutenant.”

I nodded to the commander because I could not speak. It must have been okay because the commander headed off to the battle without chastising me.

I stayed with Dobson until they came to pick up the wounded and the dead. I stood over him with my empty rifle in one hand and my katana in the other, my dripping blood mingling with his. And I stayed with him through transport back to the ship, and until I was forcefully instructed by a major that I was relieved and to get my sorry, busted-up ass to the hospital.

What did I learn from Lt. Dobson? Make the best decision you can with the intel you have, never second-guess yourself, and move!