COMMANDER

“Right there! See?” Lt. Cmdr. Dotes was pointing at the holo-vid where a blip of light purple color had appeared briefly. “We caught the T-jump wave and reviewed all sensor readings immediately.”

The import was not lost on me. Something in the Transition-jump processes created a photonic release as excess energies were bled away. At both the exit point and entry point a burst of light occurred, shifted by the speed of energy release into the purple reflecting portion of the visible spectrum. The hard science folks could tell you exactly what caused the photonic release. I just knew it happened, and they had assured us time and again that this was the only known phenomenon, natural or otherwise, known to cause this specific color release.

“So, Transition-jumping does exist in this time. Do we know who or what jumped in?”

“Energy signatures from the vessel indicate it could be this time reality’s version of the Shaquaree,” replied Dotes. “Cmdr. Hampstead feels this assessment is eighty percent reliable. The captain immediately ordered a minimal power change of position to keep us in shadow and keep our energy emissions low. The bogey appeared on the far side of the system on the ecliptic plane, and we are trying to keep the system star between us and them. Since their appearance, they have been maneuvering. Projected trajectory puts them in orbit of the second planet in about six days.”

The captain spoke. “Based on this new development, Commander, I have re-assessed your earlier recommendations. I have two fighter training simulators, one each for light fighter and heavy fighter. With hypno-training, we can have pilots ready for basic flight in one day, combat in five. How many troopers can you assign?”

The Rontar housed twenty heavy fighters, fifty light fighters, and a hundred Wasps.

“I can provide full complement for heavy and light training, Captain. Half for active duty, and half for backup.”

Lewellyn nodded. “Very good, Commander. We will train the active duty personnel first, the backups afterward.”

“If I may, Captain,” I continued.

He looked at me piercingly, then nodded again. “Proceed.”

“I would recommend we take the Rontar to a closer position to the planet, for two reasons. First, to get closer to real-time monitoring of planetary transmissions, and second, to provide us with quicker potential response time.”

The planetary EM emissions were radio and television at normal speed of light. Our subspace carrier of sensor readings could not pick up such transmissions for real-time transfer. Therefore, closer would be better.

“As it happens, Commander, our AI recommended those actions, as well. Our own T-jump capability should be restored within two days. Until then, we will maneuver covertly with gravity manipulation to get up close enough to sling past the gas giant. With it between us and them, the small gravity well we create by moving will be hidden completely. As we pass by the well of the giant, we’ll cut all grav power. We can then coast to the third planet and take up a static orbit opposite the second planet. It will be slower but we’ll have almost zero emissions detectable at our current separation.”

“Very good, Captain. I will have troopers on the way for training within the hour.”

On the way back to my office I keyed the transceiver.

“Ronin.”

“Here,” her voice spoke in my head.

“We are sending troopers forward for fighter pilot training. I will explain in a few minutes. Make sure Zulu has someone with pilot aptitude in the first group for active duty, then you get yourself into the backup group.”

“Aye, aye!” she responded.

I stuck my head into the office and spoke to Harlan.

“Lieutenant, gather the clan for a briefing right now. Bring a list of names from the roster with pilot training or aptitudes fifty percent above threshold and up.”

I told the gathered clan all I knew.

“The one thing we cannot do is make any assumptions about these new arrivals. In this time reality we cannot know what to expect. They may even be benign and friendly. However, we shall prepare for full combat. We will not be taken advantage of like the last encounter. We believe we have a minimum of forty-eight hours for preparation, so that is the parameter.

“Sergeants! Re-form your Troops according to the Wedge plans I and Lt. Jenkins will provide thirty minutes after this briefing.

“Corporals! Re-form your Fire Teams per your Sergeant’s orders.

“Combat pilot volunteers! Report to Hold 12-10-020 for hypno-training and follow the schedule provided by your Navy instructors.

“Backup pilot volunteers! Report to your normal duties until called upon.

“Clan! Forty-five hours for full battle readiness. Are we clear?”

“HOO-RAH!” The unison roar of two hundred fifty-three hard-ass troopers ready and primed for some payback echoed around the big hold.

“Dismissed!”

Back in the office, I called out, “Jenkins! Join me in here!”

He stepped in, slate in hand, “Sir!”

“Feed the names of the active and backup volunteers into the AI and instruct for . . . Aw, hell, Harlan, you know what to do.”

“Yes, sir, I do. Question, sir.”

“Go on.”

“Shall I include the name of Lt. Timmons in the redesign, sir?”

“Of course. Just factor in the time of restriction. And, one more thing. LT. I have eleven more names you will need to feed into the AI for re-assignment. They will need new billeting as a group, and separate from the rest of the clan. No rank changes at present.”

“Yes, sir.”

I keyed my desktop and shared the list with his slate.

Team Zulu

Name

Specialization

Call-sign

Rank

Carla Donner

Team Leader

Ronin

Trooper

Robert Franko

Comms

Buzz

Trooper

Jeff Denby

Suits

CanMan

Trooper

Henry Bolton

Heavy Weps

Dog

Trooper

Jon Gold

Medical

Stitch

Trooper

Linda Vickers

Light Weps

Spear

Trooper

Louise “Lou” Carson

Demolition

Boomer

Trooper

Judy Bulo

Computers

Mouse

Trooper

Bernard LaSalle

Sniper

Star

Trooper

MaryAnn Dubois

Driver

Wheels

Trooper

Steve Reinhardt

Pilot

Flyboy

Trooper

“And LT . . . no one is to see this list but you and me. Have the AI lock it to our voiceprints only. I don’t care about the names because everyone will see them with their own eyes, anyway, but the rest of the data associated with the names is Eyes Only.”

Jenkins nodded. “Aye, aye, sir.”

Two hours later I entered the new quarters of Team Zulu. The team was in the process of “negotiating” for bunks and stowing their gear. The laughter and catcalls was good to hear. It meant the team was gelling into a unit.

“Ten-hut!” was called as I entered.

“As you were, team. Ronin, report!”

“Team Zulu ready for ops, sir. On my initiative we have all had the most advanced hand-to-hand, blade, and weapons training available and are now the equal of our instructors, sir.”

“So I heard, so I heard. Gunny Flynn reported to me that you are his equal in every way except blade creation.”

Donner nodded ruefully and grinned. “Yes, sir. I haven’t kicked his ass yet but, Gods Above, I get my licks in! As far as making a new blade, well, for Gunny Flynn that goes to the level of art, sir. I’ve got a lot to learn from him if I’m going to be a bladesmith.”

“Report accepted.” I smiled at them, a real smile with shiny, new teeth. “Alright, to work. CanMan, see Lt. Jenkins about getting our ABS stowed separately and begin your recommended modifications on them immediately. Buzz, work with CanMan and ensure our suit comms are perfect. Stitch, go see Doctor Annsbury and request a mobile trauma bot with AI link, and fill out a full field trauma kit for an AV. Wheels, go see the AV Master and requisition a unit for team use, then go over it with a fine-tooth comb. Lt. Jenkins will have the paperwork you need. Mouse, network all of our slates with the Combat AI and with each other onto our own encrypted network. Boomer, make a list of what the team needs in explosives and get it to Lt. Jenkins. He’ll clear it for you. Then, get with Wheels to have it stowed safely. Clear?”

Nods and ayes answered me.

“Go do your jobs, troopers.”

Forty-four hours later every sergeant had reported one hundred percent combat readiness, and I sat in my office rubbing my eyes in weariness. I needed some sleep. The ship was safely on a coasting trajectory toward the third planet and was monitoring all emissions on every band known for any comms traffic from either the new arrivals or the planet.

Dotes and his team had fed the planetary transmissions into the AI and now had a very good linguistics package operational. We watched some of their television and listened to their music. Amazingly, it was all very familiar, very similar to our own historical archives. Even the language was easily understandable other than some colloquialisms.

The beings were human looking; sizes, shapes, five fingers and toes, two sexes, all of it. They were primarily herbivorous due to their nearly planet-wide religion which worshiped a goddess of balanced nature they call Hatavia. Their last war had been several hundred years previous, and their culture was essentially planet-wide. There were pockets of differences, it seemed, where subtle cultural references caused some confusion. We would have to learn their history in detail to be able to make full sense of it.

Some dinosaur-type critters still roamed areas of the planet and lived in conjunction with mammals. The primary government had mandated huge tracts of land of several biosphere types set aside in protected reserves. Primary tourism seemed to be to and from these great parks, and was somehow linked with their religion. Their television documentaries covering these great parks were quite informative.

Cities were generally small, with most of the populace settled in what appeared to be communes which controlled similar numbers of hectares of farmland. Irrigation was common, machinery operated, they used petroleum distillates for powering internal combustion engines. They had electricity and even first-generation computers. Their communications network was surprisingly advanced for their apparent technological level.

As for the new arrivals, they were indeed the Shaquaree. At least, this timeline’s version.

The aliens were taller than the average human with very thin bodies. Bipedal like us, they had two arms and two legs, each ending in four digits rather than five, one digit on the hands being opposable. Unlike humans, each had a second set of arms which were essentially a smaller version of the first set. The second set emerged from under the first set at what would be the mid-rib area. The larger, upper pair of arms were used for gross, heavy work, while the smaller and very much weaker, lower set were used for fine manipulation and for feeding.

Shaquaree skin was bluish in color, somewhat thicker than human, and scaly. They breathed oxygen like us, but through a set of what appeared to be gills as six slashes set into both sides of their elongated necks where the slits fluttered regularly. Their eyes were black and somewhat shiny, with iridescent red irises and two sets of lids which closed vertically rather than horizontally. They had a slight protrusion with three slits for a nose, and a virtually lipless slash for a mouth. Their teeth were reminiscent of what we commonly saw in fish.

The males had two large, bulbous mounds on their foreheads, which were the only external signs of being a male. There were, we think, two types of females, a leader caste and a serving caste. They were a matriarchal society, highly intelligent, and more technologically advanced than humans. At least, 800 years ago this was all accurate.

There was little else we knew about them except what experience had taught us. They were warlike, they had ships, they had weapons, and they were duplicitous. They knew how to lie and set traps, and they would do so under a flag of truce and a pretense of peace negotiations.

Oh, yeah, and they raided human systems for refined metals and slaves. They took what they wanted or needed and destroyed the rest. When they were finished with their looting of a planet, their ships would back away and pound it with highly irradiating nuclear missiles. When they were done, the planet would die. Every living organism, right down to the bacteria and viruses, would be exterminated by radiation and decades-long nuclear winter.

The only way we discovered they took slaves was by catching them in the act of raiding a planet several years before the peace conference. I had experienced our first human contact with the Shaquaree, and the first battle with the aliens. Prior, we only found the dead, wasted balls of irradiated rock and the fading energy signatures of a Transition Jump. When we did catch them, there was no warning whatsoever. Our Fleet ships T-jumped into the system and the Shaquaree attacked instantly.

Our Fleet group was taken completely by surprise. We were expecting to arrive on a gentle run to a nice planet to enjoy some R&R along with resupply and some repairs. Instead, we found chaos in the form of a gigantic alien ship completely dwarfing any ship we had ever seen with many gigantic shuttles buzzing between the ship and the planet. There were several other alien ships, as well, somewhere between battleship and frigate class.

The Fleet group to which I was assigned consisted of two dreadnoughts, five battleships, five frigates, eight corvettes, and some attendant tender vessels carrying stores and munitions. I am told there was no warning at all. The alien vessels simply attacked as soon as we appeared. Within minutes I was in an AV heading for the surface at full acceleration. It was a bumpy ride down, fitted into an older version suit and strapped to the bench seats of the AV with cargo webbing.

Our full billet hit the ground in a group in the middle of a large grassland meadow area and we began to unload, along with billets from other ships. The Shaquaree must have found this entertaining because they dropped some sort of bomb into the middle of us and many AVs blew up . . . well, blew in . . . um . . . kind of hard to describe but the result was catastrophic for those AVs and troopers. My AV was on the outskirts of the group and we survived to face hordes of the space-suited aliens coming at us in groups of fifty, all in rows and columns in perfect order.

Out of several thousand troopers, maybe three hundred survived the initial landing and these were scattered irregularly around the large, open plain of several square kilometers. Compacted to the size of travel crates, the once heavily armored and armed AVs were now burning fiercely from the heat of compaction, and exploding wreckage lay strewn through the middle of the plain. My troop sergeant and lieutenant were cut down immediately by some sort of beam energy weapon the aliens fired.

Our major was shouting orders over the suit comms for us to line up and begin advancing. There were thousands of them and only hundreds of us. The fear, the shock of what had happened, and the sight of the aliens advancing in such precision was nearly overwhelming. I mean, Gods Above! Real, true aliens!

Some part of my mind realized I had rarely been actually afraid in my whole life. Cautious and careful at times, mindful I could be injured, yes, I had experienced those feelings aplenty. But, nothing ever like this! Stark fear, bordering on terror, this I had never experienced.

Endorphins and adrenaline spiking, I was shaking uncontrollably and needed to vomit. But I could not, not inside the suit. I would not. It seemed a little silly now, knowing my saving action was something so simple, so human, as to defy the humiliation of puking inside my ABS. Anger rose within me, and my training took over as memories of drill instructors raged at me to move, to fight.

Shut up and do your job, trooper!

We charged into the middle of them and they never broke formation until they died.

Battle rampaged, and troopers around me fell to their beam fire. It was like a focused microwave because troopers seemed to cook inside their suits, screaming and thrashing as they died. I learned quickly the alien suits were only space suits. They weren’t armored but they had some sort of shielding similar to ours. I had to use the 10mm with the power on max with the rounds set to sabot penetration and hit them directly in the center to get the heavy slug to penetrate the shield. Otherwise, the slug was deflected. Explosive, incendiary, or frangible settings on the ammo had no effect. If I hit them dead center with AP sabot, though, the results were very satisfying. I broadcast my findings to the other troopers left fighting and we began to make a difference.

Naturally, they changed tactics. By this time, they were pressing us back into the wreckage of the AVs. I found a still functional AV, at least it was showing power, and ducked inside to light up the plasma cannon and the lasers if I could. I set them on automatic with AI control and dashed out the airlock hatch to a delightful sight. The plasma cannon were taking large numbers of the enemy out with every shot. The lasers swept like unbelievably long swords through the ranks of the enemy aliens, and over the tops of the heads of the relatively few troopers left fighting. Anti-personnel grenades were being launched in spray patterns out to a thousand meters. Huge numbers of aliens were being wiped out with each AV weapons strike.

We still were outnumbered ten to one, though, and now they were nearly on top of us. I put away my 10mm and pulled out my power lance and hit the power button in the handle. We are trained with this in the same manner of the quarterstaff of the medieval warriors on Earth. One end was a club, the other a power blade with its razor-edge blade now powered and vibrating at molecular speeds. With this vibration, the blade would cut through concrete and metal like butter. I climbed quickly to the top of the AV and ran to the forward edge, gaining speed, and leaped as high as I could, as far as I could, to land in a large group of the aliens. I figured this was it. I would go out like a Marine should, and I was ready for it. I would die fighting these alien bastards and take as many of them with me as possible!

The club end simply bounced off the shielded space suits like they were made of thick rubber, but the blade end . . . Gods Above! It worked exactly as it was meant to work and cut through the shielding and suits like they were water. There was some resistance but not much. They were trying to block my strikes with their weapons to no avail. I was sweeping through their ranks like the Grim Reaper himself as alien guns exploded and sparked, covered in clear to slightly yellow or amber alien blood and gore as arteries opened and bodies fell in half and organs and ichor spewed.

It seemed to go on for hours, until I could barely lift the power blade by the time I cut down the last of the enemy I could see standing. There were a handful of other troopers still alive and moving. Like me, they had gone to their power blades. At one point in the battle, groups of the enemy had turned on me with all their weapons regardless of the fact I was in the middle of them. They killed each other vainly in the attempt to kill me.

I was too quick for most of them. My suit shielding worked great as long as I moved fast and they could only score indirect hits which were deflected. Despite my size, I have always been very quick on my feet, fast with my hands and reflexes.

During our training we learn katas. A kata is a memorized series of movements of a martial art form which simulates the blocks, strikes, and kicks, the ducks and sweeps and spins and swirls which avoid being struck, all against unseen, imaginary enemies. The purpose of the kata is two-fold. First, it helps to focus all thought and all attention on the forms and the movements. Second, it teaches muscle memory, so when a real fight comes along the movements will all be second-nature and normal as breathing so you can perform them without thought.

What will get you killed is the thought process of “what do I do next, and how should I do it?” It is the normal decision process, and it takes time. Maybe milliseconds, maybe full seconds, but time which will get you outside. The naturalized movements of the kata, when allowed to be processed by the subconscious in what we Marines call the “subconscious battle tactics” which every person has inside them, eliminate the need for decision-making on a conscious level—combat becomes art. This is what the ancient Oriental martial art masters knew, this is the great secret they held. Most people never find this place of SBT, this level of performance. Some troopers never find it, either, and they are the first to die.

I had pushed myself in training until I found it, became familiar with it, and I used it that day. The thing which almost got me killed was my conditioning. I thought I was in great shape. I suppose it might be true depending on who you used for comparison. But the battle felt like it went on for hours and the eight of us left could barely stand at the end, much less wield the lance effectively.

The battle in space had been won by the Fleet, yet it took them time to get sorted out and to send reinforcements to the ground battles after the monstrous Shaquaree ship fled by T-jumping away. By the time the reinforcements landed where I was, myself and seven other troopers were left alive. We would have died too, had it not been for those reinforcements dropping in to kill the few remaining aliens. I determined then and there I would never again be caught in a situation where fatigue was my greatest enemy. Where I had run 10Ks before, I would now run marathons. I would turn my body into an un-crushable object which would never tire, never give out.

Later, we found the many great shuttles full of human bodies. The aliens had deliberately opened the air valves and depressurized them rather than give up their prizes. Millions of dead from the planet. Thousands of dead troopers, three ships lost from our Fleet group, unbelievable carnage due to these blue-skinned bastards! Is it any wonder we hated them?

There were many more battles with them over the course of several years.

We dissected the alien bodies we recovered, and attempted to reverse engineer the broken, dead ships we recovered but with little success. The bodies we came to understand. Their technology was something else again. We simply could not relate to the way their computers worked. The one really valuable thing we learned of their culture was the basic structure of their language. With this, we were able to begin communicating with them.

A truce was arranged by the pacifists, a temporary cease-fire intended to be a time for each species to learn more of the other, and to determine if there was a basis for peace or cooperation. Shortly after, a peace conference was negotiated.

The Rontar, to which I had been reassigned as a lieutenant, was one of three frigates to accompany two battleships and one dreadnought—the flagship of the Fleet—to the meeting place agreed upon. Our admirals and marshals and diplomatic envoys would meet with their Shaquaree counterparts on a dead, frozen planet circling a distant star, the only planet circling that particular star. The only body orbiting the star outside of a belt of asteroids. Prefab buildings had been constructed and inspected by both sides over a period of several months until both agreed all was well and matched agreed parameters.

Our contingent T-jumped in and took up position. Their side did the same. We all waited the equivalent of two and a half days, then began shuttling the dignitaries to the meeting site. Another twenty-seven hours would pass before the first meeting would begin. More watching and monitoring time.

I was the one, the sole human, who first noticed the deceit. Maybe history will blame me for what happened next, maybe not. But I am a Marine and I did my job.