Tales from the Service: Canyon Warfare on Causey Plana

2948-09-15 – Tales from the Service: Canyon Warfare on Causey Plana

While the Fifth Fleet regroups for another crack at the Incarnation fleet in orbit around Margaux, that world is not lost. A massive FDI and Marine garrison, entrenched heavily in a series of positions prepared in the craggy Causey Plana over the last few months. Outpost Judicael is one of these installations – one of the most important, as it sits astride the main surface road from the spaceport into the fortified area. The terrain ensures that few roads of any kind have been built; most local traffic in the inner Causey Plana is via aircraft and light all-terrain vehicles. 

The dangers of the Causey Plana, a massive biologically and economically valuable plateau on Margaux, have featured in this series before (Tales From the Inbox: Reckoning of the Reckless), and the toxic biosphere of the region is covered extensively in other media productions, so I will spare you all an unnecessary summary. Many have learned to live and even prosper in these conditions with no ill effects, but now, many tens of thousands of men and women are learning it in a hurry, while being shot at by Incarnation air-attack Siroccos and ground forces. While the Marines go into battle in their environmentally-sealed armor-suits, the majority of the personnel defending Margaux are Frontier Defense Army volunteer soldiers who are far more lightly equipped.

As this week's entry demonstrates, infantry warfare in the canyons poses a number of challenges - fortunately for the FDA, the enemy force is apparently not much better equipped to handle them than our own light infantry.

"Incoming!” 

Private Ralf Fairburn dove for the pebbly dirt before the word had even finished echoing off the rocks. He didn’t see who shouted the warning, nor did he know how they had known the Sirocco ground-attack craft was coming. The whispering drives of the flying-wing aircraft made almost no sound, and before the instant it flashed over the canyon, it had been hidden by the towering rock-spires all around. 

That instant had been enough for the Sirocco to shower the canyon floor with dozens of pellet bombs. One silent second after it vanished once more behind the opposite lip of the defile, the bombs pattered into the dirt and vegetation, and one half-second after they touched down, the tiny bombs exploded. Shrapnel and rock fragments tore the air over Ralf’s head, and he felt clods of dirt and bits of shredded vegetation fall on his back. 

It was the displaced vegetation which Ralf jumped up to quickly scatter, before any of the plants’ toxic juices could seep into the smart-fabric lining of his uniform. The Sirocco might be back, but it would be almost a minute before it could wing over and come around for another pass. 

Ahead of Ralf, Lieutenant Kocsis rolled over and shook off a hillock of displaced dirt. “Everyone okay?” 

The squad got to their feet one by one. Garbo was bleeding from a minor shrapnel cut to the forearm, but everyone else had avoided injury. As Chvatal tossed the scratched man a small bandage, the lieutenant checked his wrist-unit, probably surveying the tactical map. “We’re almost there.” 

Garbo spat to clear his mouth of dust. “After that, they sure as all hells know we’re here, Lieutenant.” 

 Ralf became conscious of the metallic-tasting dust in his own mouth and nostrils. They had been given many injections before leaving Outpost Judicael to minimize the danger of exposure to local toxins, but he didn’t want to take any chances. Extending the drinking-nozzle from his pack, he sipped water, washed out his mouth, and spat out the gritty dust. The medical nanites from the injections would neutralize any arsenic or heavy metals he’d already absorbed – at least, that was what he’d been told. 

“Half these canyons have people sneaking through them.” Lieutenant Kocsis gestured along the canyon. “Besides, that’s why they gave us guns. Come on.” 

Ralf fell into line behind Iolana Chvatal, craning his neck up into the air every few steps to see if the Sirocco would return. Either it had bigger game to hunt than a single light infantry squad, or more likely, it had lost them as quickly as it had found them in the maze of canyons. From above, the massive plateau’s rocky outcrops and shadowed canyons presented a uniform appearance, and short of using a signal beacon to track the location, even flight computers struggled to re-locate a place briefly overflown. 

Around a sudden bend, the canyon narrowed to less than two meters across, and the trickling brook which ran down the middle vanished into a hedge of shiny, spade-shaped leaves. Ralf had snoozed, as he had later learned unwisely, through most of the groundside biological conditions briefings, but the gist of their material was that most every plant and nearly every animal in the Causey contained enough toxins to kill a human who tried to clamber through them by hand. 

Fortunately, the squad had been outfitted for such obstacles. Lieutenant Kocsis waved Caito forward. The big man’s wide shoulders carried a double load – his usual light infantry battle-pack, and the toroidal energy bank for a portable plasma lance. Fastening the leads from the energy bank to the emitter slung under his rifle, Caito waved everyone back, then unleashed a ten-meter-long stream of crackling plasma into the thicket. The plants burned instantly, and Caito retreated to avoid inhaling the acrid black smoke. 

“Helmets.” The Lieutenant barked, and as one everyone engaged the bubble-helmets and deployable gloves installed into their uniforms to ward off the toxic fumes. These devices, identical to those fitted to the collars of spacers’ jumpsuits, were flimsy and would burst if punctured, and the atmo canisters in each person’s pack were small, but more durable equipment was in short supply at Judicael and too heavy for the trek they had been assigned in any case. 

As soon as the fire had died down somewhat, Kocsis led the way into the scorched area, the blackened remains of the verdant plants crackling underfoot. Despite the helmet, Ralf held his breath as he passed through, not breathing until he made it through to the other side, where the canyon widened once more. The smart-fabric on his uniform was caked with ashen particulate which was probably lethally toxic, but he had enough atmosphere left in his pack’s canister to keep the helmet up until most of the ash shook off. 

With a hissing noise, rising in pitch over its quarter-second duration, Nisi crumpled to the ground just as he stepped out of the scorched choke-point. A thin curl of smoke rose from the freshly burnt hole in his chest. Nobody needed to shout a warning – they all dove for the meager cover afforded in the canyon. The briefing hadn’t suggested Nate ground forces had approached so close to Judicael, and so they had incautiously blundered into a sniper’s killing field. 

Lieutenant Kocsis gestured to Chvatal, then popped up from behind his boulder and sent a full magazine of railgun slugs rattling down the canyon. As his carbine chattered, the medic darted out and dragged Nisi into the cover of a sturdy pillar of rock. 

Kocsis ducked back down as soon as his weapon clicked empty. Another rising hiss and a glowing red spot appearing on a rock behind his chosen cover suggested he’d ducked none too soon. “Anyone see him?” 

Ralf, huddling behind a mound of dirt and rocks, risked a quick peek. The winding canyon was full of places for a marksman to lie in wait, watching the choke point. The squad had been sent to set up just such a roadblock farther down, just ahead of a wider area where the canyon broadened enough to permit small aircraft to land. He was the squad’s marksman, and in addition to the carbine in his hands, the FDA had issued him a collapsible phasebeam rifle. If he were the enemy marksman, where would he be? Where would he position his spotter? 

“He’s got to be up high.” Garbo suggested, reflexively pointing up toward the precipice. “If-” 

Another hiss of the enemy marksman’s laser interrupted Garbo by slicing through his forearm just above the wrist. He stared at his gloved hand, still pointing, when it fell into the gravel beside his knees, and only belatedly began screaming. 

Chvatal looked up from her furious attempts to save Nisi’s life, but only for a moment. The Incarnation laser weapon had cauterized Garbo’s stump, and there was no saving the hand – there was nothing she could do for him except give him a painkiller. Joossens, who had taken cover behind the same rock formation as Garbo, grabbed the screaming infantryman and held him down as he thrashed and cried, to prevent any more limbs from protruding into the sniper’s view. 

Ralf glanced out again, and this time he thought he spied a glint as if from a laser’s focusing lens. It wasn’t high, as Garbo had suggested – it was low, only a few meters over the canyon floor. That would be a wise place to set up, if a position was available – high enough to have higher ground than the target area, low enough to be at minimal risk from the air. Flipping open his wrist unit, he checked the high-resolution terrian maps of the area which they’d been given. Even these were too grainy for anything definitive, but something that might have been a steeply-canted rock spur projected out of the canyon wall about two hundred meters ahead. “Who's got missiles?” 

“I do.” Chvatal replied, still furiously working on Nisi. “Two of mine, plus Nisi’s four.” 

Lieutenant Kocsis glanced to the medic, then dove to her position. The hissing laser lashed out, but only painted a glowing spot on the rock nearby as he scrambled to Chvatal’s side and pulled one of the cigar-sized missles from her bandolier. “What’s your plan, Fairburn?” 

“Slave it to my guidance, then get ready to throw.” 

The Lieutenant overrode the device’s ownership settings and configured it as suggested. He didn’t need to throw it toward the enemy – he just needed to get it airborne for a second so it could safely engage its small warhead and rocket, then it would navigate to the target on its own. “Ready. Everyone mark cover ahead, and run forward when you see the flash.” 

Ralf hoped he was right about where the enemy marksman was. It was an educated guess, nothing more – but it was the best option they had. “Ready, Lieutenant.” 

Kocsis hurled the missile vertically, the only direction he could send it without exposing himself as Garbo had. The shiny metal tube glittered in the air for a moment before its tiny motor lit, driving it into an arcing trajectory over the canyon lip and back down to the marked position. As the explosion rattled the canyon, Ralf leapt over his rubble-pile cover and dove behind a protruding shelf a few meters ahead. The others did the same, and none of them fell with a fresh laser-blasted hole in their vitals. Only Chvatal, still ministering to Nisi, and whimpering Garbo, clutching his burnt stump of an arm, stayed back. 

Only when they had all leapfrogged a second time without return fire did Ralf allow himself to hope he had guessed right. He didn’t need to necessarily hit the enemy marksman to force the Nate soldiers back. If the enemy’s tactics were anything like the FDA’s, they would have retreated in the face of infantry missiles if they lacked the firepower to respond in kind. The Incarnation didn’t entrust self-guiding missiles, even small ones, to most of its infantry – they kept their equivalent equipment in the hands of specialized weaponeers. 

Lieutenant Kocsis peeked over his new cover for a long second before warily standing up. Since no laser shots felled him, it became obvious the enemy had left only a light picket in the canyon, and that force had retreated. 

“Chvatal, pull Garbo and Nisi back through the choke. I’ll call in an evac.” Kocsis gestured to the others, pointing forward to the scorched area where the missile had detonated. "Everyone else, start digging in there. It’s as far forward as we’re going to get.” 

Details

Tales from the Service: Siblings in Arms

2948-09-08 – Tales from the Service: Siblings in Arms

I hoped last week to bring news of a second engagement over Margaux, but as any of you following the war situation through Cosmic Background’s daily coverage (or through any other media outlet) already know, this proved not to be the case.  

In the days following the Battle of Margaux (which I hope is to be only the first), Admiral Zahariev contented himself with probing the enemy fleet with fast cruiser-led formations before (presumably after consulting with his staff and Captain Kirke-Moore) ordering a withdrawal back to Maribel, which is where we sit at the time of this feed item’s completion. Though the Fifth Fleet suffered no heavy cruiser or battleship losses at the battle, and reports put enemy losses (destroyed and long-term disabled) at six of their big heavy cruisers and many hundreds of Coronachs, the admiral believes the ground-side Margaux defenses give him plenty of time to repair the damage to his vessels and return, while the enemy’s losses won’t be made good in the same time-frame. 

Perhaps he is right, but neither Nojus or myself like his decision. We are of course not military professionals – Captain Liao suggests the admiral had good reasons for making his decision. Saint-Lô is currently being swarmed by yard techs once more, examining the damage, and though the battering seemed (from our perspective in CIC) far less severe this time than at Berkant, the officers are not optimistic about getting things repaired quickly. Apparently this old battleship had its primary phased matter condenser blown away in the middle of the engagement, and the reserve unit’s power hookups were also badly damaged. According to the skipper, we limped back to port on the ship’s reserves.  

The phased matter fuel situation aboard Saint-Lô certainly contributed to Admiral Zahariev’s decision, though I did the math on my own and believe the ship had several more days’ worth of phased matter in its reserves, plenty for one more run at the enemy fleet before pulling back.  

More likely to have made his decision is the situation aboard Argonne, which suffered far worse than Saint-Lô and currently occupies a berth in the yards just across from our own. There are dozens of stories of the heroism that saved that ship from almost certain loss; it seems that nearly every damage control tech aboard Argonne performed their duties to a level worthy of merit, and Fifth Fleet brass has evidently been distributing the Centaur Cross and lesser medals liberally among its enlisted crew for their efforts. Sadly, many of these awards will be sent directly to their families, along with the Carmine Bloom, which is awarded posthumously to all Navy personnel killed in the course of duty. 

This week’s entry comes from one of the Centaur Cross recipients who did not also receive a Carmine Bloom. Though he refused to give an account of the actions which earned him the Navy’s highest award for gallantry in action, Renat Dreher did sit down and help us compose an account of his experience and personal loss just prior to those actions. 

Technician Renat Dreher woke to a violent shaking sensation and the distant warbling screech of multiple overlapping alarms. Dizzily, he tried to clamber out of his bunk and toward the locker where his damage-control over-suit was kept. The heavy garment was all but fire-proof and carried a hard helmet and internal oxygen supply vastly better than the flimsy bubble-helmet and tiny emergency atmospherics cartridge in his smart-fabric uniform’s stiff collar. 

Renat’s hand came down not on the yielding foam of his bunk-rack, but on a hot metal surface with the unifomly rough texture of standard Navy deck-plating. The panel’s heat was such that he should have noticed it through his back, and this told him before he even opened his eyes that he had already put on the over-suit. Grasping hold of this detail, he recalled in a moment the previous shift’s events – the general alarm, the announcement of imminent battle, and the thunder of enemy plasma-cannon fire breaking in rolling waves against Argonne’s armored hull as the screen projectors failed one by one, the alarms shrieking in an ever more chaotic and meaningless tangle of sound. It was, he had thought as he worked to rescue a handful of crew trapped by damage in a local gunnery control station, the agonized cry of a dying behemoth.  

Once more, Renat scrambled to get up, but something was holding him down. He didn’t know what had become of the trapped personnel – he had been working to cut open a stuck blast door, and remembered nothing after that. Had the ship degraded so badly that the corridor had collapsed? Was he buried? 

The shaking started again, and he realized that it was coming from a gloved hand gripping his shoulder, and another firmly pressing down on his chest.  

“Dreher!” A voice – Morello's – was shouting, though the other tech sounded tinny and far away. The atmosphere in the compartment had apparently grown thin since he had blacked out. “You okay? Please be okay.” 

Renat slapped the other tech’s hands away and got to his knees. “Hells no I’m not okay.” He looked around for the first time, and saw that the corridor was mostly intact, though several bulkhead panels had blown inward and the stuck blast door, glowing cherry-red with heat from the other side, was now veiled behind a thick web of torn wires and ducts. Feeling his lungs burning from the weak atmosphere, he deployed the oversuit’s heavy helmet and pressure gloves. “What happened?” 

“Compartment on the other side took a direct hit while you were cutting. Blew you clean over here.” Morello helped Renat to his feet and put an arm around his chest. “Atmo’s leaking out through the hole you were cutting.” 

“The gunners-” 

“Stars around, Dreher, they’re all dead. There’s open space on the other side of that blast door.” 

Renat shook his head. There was something about the group of personnel trapped in that gunnery control center that had been important, but whatever it was fled maddeningly from his attention. “Wait.” 

Morello, already dragging Renat toward the sealed door into the less-perforated parts of the battleship's habitatation complex, did not stop. “Wait for Nate to shoot again? Couldn’t make me for all the credits in the Reach, Dreher.” 

“There’s something...” 

Another rumble of plasma-thunder shook Argonne, this time accompanied by the shriek of distressed structural elements and the rattle of bent bulkhead panels falling to the deck around the two techs. The ship seemed about to fall apart under the punishment of enemy gunfire. 

As the enemy salvo ended, Renat wondered whether Alonya was all right. This thought seemed useless given the situation – his half-sister, a lieutenant aboard the same vessel, was certainly somewhere important, either helping direct the fight against the enemy cruisers doing their best to pick Argonne apart, or overseeing the crippled vessel’s abandonment. The ship sounded like a dying beast, but from a corridor outside the portside aft gunnery control station, there was no way of knowing how bad the damage really was. 

A moment after he had that fleeting thought, Renat remembered what it was that was so important. “Alonya!” He wrestled himself free of Morello’s grasp and tried to run back toward the glowing blast-door, but instead he fell to his knees, unable to rise. Nevertheless, he began to crawl. He remembered the comms identifier on the damage report – Alonya had been inside that gunnery control station. 

Crawling as he was, Morello had no trouble wrestling Renat to a halt. “Hold it! Everyone past that door is gone. You hear me? They’re gone.” 

Renat struggled against his compatriot’s grip, using his helmet comms to request the location of Lieutenant Alonya Dreher. Ordinarily, a crew tech would be unable to request the location of an officer they weren’t reporting to, but since he was registered as family, the query was accepted and immediately completed. Alonya Dreher, the computer system reported, was not currently aboard the vessel. 

“No!” Renat managed to push forward another meter along the debris-littered deck before Morello dragged him backwards. Witty, brilliant Alonya couldn’t be gone. She was everyone’s favorite in school, and when father had only been able to afford for one of them to go to the officers’ academy, Renat knew she was the better choice. Everyone knew even before war broke out that she stood an even chance of being the first Confederated Navy officer in almost fifteen years to be fleet captain before the age of thirty.  

Though he struggled, Morello, bigger and stronger even before Renat had been blasted ten meters down a corridor, eventually managed to get them both to the closed pressure door at the far end of the corridor. It was sealed, but as damage control techs, they both had the codes to force it open for exactly two seconds. This proved plenty of time for Morello to haul Renat across the threshold through the buffeting wind of escaping atmosphere. As the door closed once more, Renat made one more feeble attempt to scramble back through – an attempt Morello easily foiled. 

“Get ahold of yourself, Dreher!” Morello shook Renat again. “Every moment you waste on the dead, others are dying. Hells, the whole ship might be dying. You’re concussed and you might have a cracked skull but you’re the only help I’ve got down here. Are you with me?” 

Renat turned to look at the other tech, tears blurring his vision. Alonya was dead because he hadn’t worked fast enough to cut the blast door open. His father would never forgive that – but that paled in comparison to his inability to forgive himself. Still, the small part of his mind still thinking clearly could see Morello’s point. There would be dozens or hundreds of others like Alonya who could still be saved. 

With a shuddering sigh, Renat put out a hand, and Morello took It. 

“Good.” The bigger man hauled Renat to his feet. “Let’s get going.” 

Details

Tales from the Service: The Deadly Decision

2948-09-01 – Tales from the Service: The Deadly Decision 

Firstly, Nojus and I are alive, and Saint-Lô survived the first engagement at Margaux, though once again we have come through with some significant damage. At the moment, Captain Liao does not think the damage excessive, and we remain in the theater of battle. 

While the results of the first part of the action at Margaux, which took place three days before this feed item is set to go live, are being allowed through to the datasphere in the clear by Naval Intelligence, this week it seems rather a waste of this space to provide an after-action report. Instead, given the results, I thought it more interesting to bring you the reader into the conference where the battle-plan was decided, as the “unimaginative” nature of this plan has been roundly criticized throughout the datasphere in the days since. 

Though Admiral Zahariev’s plan was admittedly conservative, I do not personally believe this caused the failure to achieve victory. Indeed, a bolder plan may have met with additional disasters, and after Nojus and I talked with Captain Liao, it is clear that his conservative planning probably minimized the damage. 

Despite the sensationalist reporting, the Fifth Fleet gave as good as it got in the skies over Margaux – several enemy ships have limped out of the battle-area since the two fleets separated, and reports indicate at least a few were destroyed outright. We had losses as well, mainly among light cruisers and escorting destroyers. The Incarnation still holds dominance in Margaux orbit, but it looks like the battle is far from over. Hopefully next week I will be the bearer of brighter news. 

[N.T.B - I am not so optimistic. Can't really put a finger on why.] 

Admiral Reneer Zahariev steepled his fingers and stared into the glowing display that dominated his flagship’s command center. His increasingly lengthy pauses were beginning to cause unease among his eight dreadnought captains and the swarm of staff officers who surrounded them, but if he noticed their fidgeting, he didn’t acknowledge it. 

Captain Jayendra Liao of Saint-Lô glared at anyone in his retinue he caught muttering or shuffling nervously, remaining otherwise silent and still. He didn’t like the atmosphere of uncertainty any more than the next officer, but making that known could only put more pressure on an admiral already facing the greatest challenge of his generation. The Incarnation fleet and the Fifth Fleet were now circling each other around Margaux’s mottled blue limb, and Zahariev alone could decide the next steps of the deadly orbital dance. 

The tall, somewhat stooped figure standing at the admiral’s right elbow silently guided the attention of the Fifth Fleet commander to the handful of newly-emptied Marine assault transports loitering in high orbit. A thin chain of lesser vessels wound down from their bellies to the surface and back as dropships and logistics launches ferried equipment down to Margaux and casualties back up. The cluster was keeping its distance from the twin formations of Tyrant heavy cruisers, but also from the concentrated battle-line of the Fifth Fleet. 

Both sides knew the transports had spent their bolt and were of little real value – their battalions were groundside, establishing the first perimeter in the Causey Plana. Outpost Judicael, the hinge-point of this defense. The ground-pounders could hold their own long enough – hopefully – to let the Fifth Fleet’s battle-line choose the terms of the engagement over Margaux, and the transports’ high orbits allowed them to retreat easily from any large Incarnation move to intercept them. 

“Admiral?” Captain Zan Corti, the captain of the flagship Triasta Asteria, wagered it safe to prompt his commander. 

“Mr. Kirke-Moore is suggesting the use of those transports as bait.” Zahariev replied slowly. “If they commit to an escape vector, the enemy might dispatch ships to run them down.” 

Several officers in the compartment gasped or looked around, horrified. The Incarnation fleet was already split two ways, but in a mutually reinforcing manner. Whittling away two or three of the more than thirty enemy ships in planetary orbit would help, but not enough to make the odds safe, especially given the mauling the fleet’s heavy elements had encountered at Berkant and Bodrogi. Sacrificing the crews and wounded aboard the transports to remove a few enemy ships from the equation was a horrific suggestion of the sort only a semi-retired pirate like Kirke-Moore would suggest. 

“If I may, Admiral.” Captain Jayendra Liao of Saint-Lô stepped forward. “Why rush the engagement? The Marine ships have done their part. The enemy can't win on the ground without a lot more troops, and the Fish have the system periphery locked down. They’ll have to split their forces to-” 

Battles are not won by surrendering the initiative, Captain.” Bozsi Kirke-Moore didn’t turn around. “They will sense the trap and work their way out of it in time, so the Fifth Fleet shall not give them time.” Kirke-Moore famously didn’t take the Fish – the stealth assault cutters, which earned their nickname for being named after aquatic ichthyoids of Earth – very seriously. He thought the vessels’ expensive stealth features irrelevant, and perhaps he was right; any old armed cutter could chase down and carve up an unescorted logistics convoy, and the steath boats didn’t have the acceleration potential to outrun a Tyrant any more than the standard models. 

“What can they do?” Captain Corti replied, his dislike of the pirate who occupied his ship evident in every syllable. “Whether they know it yet or not, their army is trapped on the ground.” 

“They can leave the ground troops and save their cruisers.” Kirke-Moore seemed to think this option was obvious. “And I if they see the trap too soon, they will.” 

How the man could possibly know this wasn’t clear, but nobody present seemed interested in challenging him. The Incarnation, human though its people were, did not operate like any human force. Nobody could be certain they wouldn’t sacrifice their entire force of infantry, including armor, close-air support assets, and thousands upon thousands of elite Immortals, to save the comparably lesser crews of their battle fleet. If the fleet did depart, the victory at Margaux would be incomplete, and the enemy could doubtless draft more troops in a few months, training them as the Incarnation did by implantation and dataload. 

“We should not sacrifice the Marines unless absolutely necessary.” Admiral Zahariev at length concluded. “There is another way.” 

Captain Liao knew this decision to be political as much as practical. Relations between the Confederated Marines and their Navy counterparts had been strained since the loss of Adimari Valis, when the Marines had been prevented from landing to reinforce the extensive mercenary and FDA garrison there by the Navy’s failure to plow through the Incarnation fleet to reach the planet. The Marines had fought delaying actions on worlds like Mereena and counterattacked to raid several small supply outposts along the Coreward Frontier, but the Marines' inability to get stuck into a proper slugging match seemed to be hurting morale among the Marines and FDA alike. The plan had been – and still was – for Margaux to change all that. 

After a long delay, the admiral took a deep breath and continued. “The ground-side batteries can engage one element of the enemy fleet while we attack the other.” 

This idea, though simple, had the major disadvantage of revealing what lay behind the multiple lines of defense on the ground. If the attack failed, the two fleets would be on even information footing, and the enemy would begin to pick off the groundside batteries one by one as soon as they revealed themselves. Orbital fire would not do the trick – the Incarnation ground-side air-breathing assets would have to do it, but the Incarnation force on Margaux was far larger than the defending force and could probably get at the batteries if it did so one at a time.  

Corti shook his head. “Shoot our bolt before they’re fully engaged?” 

Kirke-Moore watched Admiral Zahariev for a long moment, then shrugged his acquiescence. “It is not as bold as our approach should be, but it is better than ceding the initiative.” Whatever the retired pirate saw in the admiral’s face, it was something none of the other captains – who had far less history with their commander than his unofficial adviser did – could not detect. 

Zahariev finally turned around, his narrow jaw set firmly. The plan was obviously one he didn’t like, Liao guessed – it was one he thought he could get everyone to commit to. If the enemy fleet threw one or two cruisers to the wolves on rearguard and fled for the edge of the system, it would be a much-needed victory, and Zahariev, who Liao knew by reputation to play a conservative hand, didn’t want to risk a defeat to gain a greater victory when a lesser win seemed certain. “We will make our move, then the batteries will fire when the second group begins to move to support.” 

Captain Corti nodded, mollified, and at his cue many of the other captains seemed to decide the plan was good enough as well. 

Captain Liao stared past Zahariev at the plot for several seconds. He couldn’t shake the idea that there was a better solution, one which put the enemy in a position of extreme peril, but Margaux was shaping up to be the biggest fleet action in a century; there were simply too many moving pieces for him to see a solution, if it existed. At last, he too nodded his acceptance. 

Zahariev, seeing there were no objections, turned back to the display, suddenly animated as he began to move glowing ship-icons into formations and plan out his line of battle. The hard decision was made – the admiral was quite capable of putting the details in place. “Hercules and Triasta Asteria will hold the middle of the line.” He seemed almost to be talking to himself. “Marseille, Tours, and Tolouse will be in the van.” 

Liao took note that this left his own ship and its two remaining sisters in formation behind the flagship, still unable to shake the sense that something had been missed. There were many details still to iron out, but the tension had ebbed from the room – the assembled officers of the Confederated Fifth Fleet had made their choice, and soon they would find out whether it was a fatal one. 

Details

Tales from the Service: A Conference at Dawn

2948-08-18 – Tales from the Service: A Conference at Dawn

Azure Kulmala graced this feed last week in her thrilling account of flying a dropship down to Margaux following the Incarnation attack on the system (Tales from the Service: The Bumpy Ride to Margaux). This week, we pick up her account the following morning local-time. The Battle of Margaux is developing in the mean time, but this embed team is being forced to withhold all details for the moment.

It seems that Margaux’s garrison – a mix of Marines and FDA – has something to hide, and it honestly surprises me that Naval Intelligence has cleared this story for publication. Perhaps the vagueness of what Azure knows up to this point is sufficiently unhelpful to the enemy (it contains nothing they can’t learn from orbital imagery) that it is deemed harmless, or perhaps not.

[N.T.B. – Naval Intelligence is so tightfisted most of the time that I wonder if someone over there fell asleep with this one. Still, it’s their call. Maybe they are cleverly releasing this to overturn an overly information-restrictive local commander’s decision – but if so, this would be a unique situation: Naval Intelligence advocating more openness with the media than the on-scene officers, rather than less. Maybe they just don't care about this because it refers to ground-side skulduggery. I suppose we'll find out.]

Azure Kulmala woke to a thumping so loud she rolled out of her bunk and leapt up, sure it was a collision alarm or that Gerard Lovell was under attack.

In shipboard gravity, this reaction would have had her standing in an instant, but in the roughly point-nine gee Margaux gravity well, her legs failed her and she flopped down on her knees beside the bed. The dusty fabcrete under her hands and knees brought back into focus where she was, and why she was there. Gerard Lovell was somewhere in orbit, and she was still stuck on a poisonous rock for which a great many men and women were dying. A quick look out the window – a real window, though sealed airtight to minimize invasion by several species of poisonous seasonal pollen – revealed the dim gray of pre-dawn.

The thumping repeated, and Azure recognized that it was not a collision or weapons fire, but the pounding of a Marine’s meat-haunch-sized hand on the metal-cored synthplast door of the lodgings she had been given. “Just a minute.” Azure called groggily, shaking her head as she stood slowly. Point nine gees felt like a lot to a spacer used to point-five or point-six, but she was at least current enough on her exercise regimen that the difference would be no more than a nuisance.

Shedding the skivvies she’d slept in, the pilot quickly threw on the new set of smart-clothes left for her by the Outpost Judicael staff. The at first loose and baggy material quickly adjusted to Azure’s preferred fit, so that when she opened the door, she looked almost composed. “What is it?”

“The Colonel sent for you, Lieutenant Kulmala.” The towering Marine outside the door – a specimen very nearly two full meters tall and almost broad enough at the shoulders to completely block the door – pointed down the hall.

Azure glanced back at the pre-dawn gloom outside her window. Outpost Judicael was awash with light, and though the local primary had not yet peeked its way over the distant eastern horizon, she could hear the murmur of activity as Marines, FVA conscripts, and supporting personnel hurried to their morning duties. “What for?”

The big man shrugged. Reasons were, apparently, above his pay grade. “This way, when you are ready.”

Azure sighed and hurried back into the room to collect her wrist computer and boots. The rest of her possessions which she had unloaded from the damaged dropship would have to wait until she was ready to leave. The mechanics had assured her it would be at least two days before they finished prying all the pieces of Coronach out of her vessel’s dorsal hull and port-side engine cowling, and a full precautionary inspection and nanotech sweep would probably take longer.

Returning promptly to the Marine at the door, Azure nodded her readiness. The man tromped off down the hall, and she trotted behind him to keep up. There was no attempt at conversation during the brief walk – the Marines, for fear of infiltrators and informants, refused to hold even the most routine conversations in the corridors of Outpost Judicael. The Lovell Marines had picked up this habit from the unit already on garrison seamlessly.

Fortunately, this silent walk ended quickly. The big man gestured to a door – an outer door, near which a rack of air filtration masks sat waiting for poison-pollen season – and stood aside, indicating that Azure should continue alone. As she approached the door, it opened automatically, and a gust of air billowing out from the positive-pressure air filtration system swept her sleep-mussed hair over her face as she crossed the threshold.

“Lieutenant Kulmala.” The smooth baritone of Colonel Monoghan greeted her. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dim outside light enough to pick out the gray-haired Marine officer leaning against the thick fabcrete guardrail around a wide balcony. Beyond him, the eastern horizon was beginning to pale with the beginnings of dawn. “How are you feeling?”

“Well as can be expected, Colonel.” Azure walked out onto the balcony toward him. At both extreme corners of the balcony, rapid-tracking turrets for close air defense had been bolted to the artificial stone, though the rotary-barreled autocannons pointed blankly off into the horizon with nothing to shoot at. Outpost Judicael was not large, but she had seen enough weapons to prevent anything short of an orbital bombardment from overthrowing it. Perhaps they had anti-orbital weapons too, but if they did, those wouldn’t be left anywhere a stranded Navy pilot could see them. “Did you need something?”

Monoghan turned around to face her, and though the usual mask of confidence affected by the commander of Lovell’s Nineteenth Marine Regiment remained solidly in place, she thought it seemed more strained than usual. “Answers, mainly. I think you can help me get them.” The colonel held up his left hand, revealing a surveillance scrambler swallowed up by his huge palm. “Colonel Keo still hasn’t given me a briefing of the situation. He isn’t patrolling the perimeter, and he’s got no local air assets. A site like this one should have at least one full squadron.”

Azure frowned. “I noticed that. A landing field, full staff of flight mechanics, and underground hangars, but no assets?” The sophistication of the base’s landing pad had surprised Azure and the other pilots, most of whom had disgorged their Marines and thundered back into the sky as quickly as they could get clearance. Only Azure herself had remained to puzzle over the question of why the FDA had deployed enough ground crew for three squadrons of space-capable strike launches or four squadrons of combat aircraft such as the Siroccos Colonel Monoghan was expecting.

“It’s more than that. There are at least five incomplete structures on this outpost, but no staff was working on any of them when we landed. The construction crew is preparing to pour a new foundation southeast of the second perimeter this morning.”

Azure was no expert in groundside logistics, but the idea of building new structures outside the main and secondary lines of defense during an ongoing invasion of the planet seemed so foolish as to border on the farcical. “What’s to the southeast?”

The colonel shrugged. “Nothing, as far as anyone knows. That way goes into the most rugged part of the whole Causey. The local datasphere says nobody but a few hermits live out there.”

Azure had seen enough of the Causey Plana on her way down to want nothing of a hypothetical more rugged portion of it. The plateau, cut through as it was with jagged, zigzag canyons, each of which harbored a panoply of toxic and/or predatory life-forms, was as forbidding as any terrain she had ever seen. “You want me to go have a look.”

Colonel Monoghan nodded. “I served with Keo in the Fifth when we were both lieutenants. If he’s not telling me something, it’s because he’s under orders not to.”

Azure approached the railing, resting her elbows on it. Her gaze wandered over to the shadowed southeast horizon, and she picked out the blue-white radiance of work-lights reflecting off a steep crag. That, she decided, must be Keo’s new construction project. Beyond this, the increasingly pale horizon had taken on a slight orange color. “I suppose I can ask for a test flight…”

“And if you should happen to take your test flight in that direction at random…”

Technically, she mused, Monoghan was not her commanding officer. Lovell was a Marine ship, not a proper Navy warship, but its flyers and spacers still answered to its skipper, a Navy officer. She could technically even waive some of the diagnostics and boost for orbit as soon as they’d repaired the critical plating. Blundering into a clandestine project seemed like a good way to take unnecessary fire – hopefully metaphorical, but possibly literal as well.

“Sounds like fun, Colonel.” Azure didn’t turn back to look at the old Marine; she kept her eyes on the work-lights on the horizon, increasingly lost against the light of imminent dawn. “Is there anything else?”

There was no immediate answer. The limb of Margaux’s yellow-white primary crept over the craggy horizon, casting rivers of light down the valleys and creeping down canyon walls toward the toxic abundance below. Forbidding as the world was, Azure grudgingly admitted it knew how to be pretty when it wanted to.

Only after watching the sunrise for a minute did Azure realize that Monoghan still hadn’t replied. She turned, only to find him gone as if he had never been, vanished back into the compound.

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