Jethro Goes to War (Wandering Engineer Jethro's tale) (36 page)

He looked around and
then sighed. “I know some of you are in love with the T, that
is hitting someone in the sweet spot here,” he touched his face
from eye to eye down to his mouth. “We call this the T because
if you get the shot right on a human the round will penetrate easily
and sever the spinal column killing the target in a split second. It
is the essence of one shot one kill. However...” he paced for a
moment. “However a head shot is a bitch to pull off right at
range. Your target is moving, bobbing and weaving, and one wrong
variable can mean he's alive, scared, but alive,” he shook his
head. “Which is bad. He can take cover and then return fire or
call in your position.”

“
Another
reason to avoid head shots is that some species do not have the same
structure as a human. Shoot, oh, say a Tarq in the head and the round
would bounce off their slopped skulls. Others do not have the same
centralized weakness of a human so beware.” He waited a moment
while they digested that.

“
Observation,
Attention to detail, Stealth, and Science. It all comes together in a
first rate sniper,” the instructor intoned.

Suddenly his chest
blossomed in red gore. He dropped to the floor like a rag doll. The
class looked around, wide eyes. Some were getting out of their
chairs, others had hit the deck.

Jethro felt the
pulse of information coming from a transceiver near the front quarter
behind the desk. He glanced that way but and then turned, focusing on
the intruder. He ripped his uniform off and cloaked. The velcro
strips went with tearing sounds as he dropped to all fours.

“
Peace.”
He froze and turned to see the Sergeant sit up with a laugh. He
brushed his shoulders off and then looked down to the red smear on
his chest. “Okay, I don't ever want that to happen for real.”

He got to his feet
as the class slowly got to it's own. “Anyone know where the
shot came from?”

A few in the class
pointed to the sensor ghost. Jethro turned, facing the sniper. Most
of the other Neo's were doing the same thing.

“
Some of you
need to brush up on your observation skills,” the Sergeant said
dryly. “I take it you picked him out right off Lance corporal?”

“
She. And yes
we did,” Jethro said eyes locked onto the sniper. He could just
make out her profile under the chameleon gillie suit.

“
Ah,”
the Sergeant nodded to the back. “You can come out Corporal.”
She got up, porting the rifle.

“
How the hell
did you figure it out?” she asked. She sounded more confused
and frustrated than angry. Jethro's nostrils flared.

“
Smell,”
Letanga growled.

“
I don't...”

“
You're in
estrus. We picked it up.” Tungulria the black wolf PFC said
with a snort. “It's hard to miss the smell of blood.”

“
Oh,”
she blinked and then grimaced, blushing.

“
So what was
that signal?” another trainee asked. She held up a fiber optic
wire and tugged. It moved. Jethro's eyes followed it around to the
signal source.

“
Box. See one
of the other give aways is when you call in. So we've got a way
around that. We send a signal out on this fiber optic line to this.”
She looped the cable around one arm as she moved around the perimeter
of the room. She ended at a small finger sized object in the corner.
She held it up. “See? Transceiver. It lets me send and receive
data. If the enemy has a detector they go for that. You can use it as
a decoy like I did too.”

“
But won't
they follow it to you?” Jethro asked, turning to the Sergeant.

“
Only if you
are careless. You set up multiple stand off transceivers in a daisy
chain and if possible booby trap them. Then when you send out a
signal it goes to one once, then to another, or is broken up and sent
in pieces too fast for them to localize.”

“
But that
means you can still be localized,” Jethro said grimacing.

“
How so?”
the corporal asked, looking up from stowing her gear.

“
If they get
two points of contact they can triangulate your general position and
then do an artillery or air strike to flush you out,” he
replied.

“
Very good
Lance corporal,” the Sergeant said with a nod. “Which is
a problem. But war is about risk. Sometimes you have to take them.
You can of course find ways around the problem.” Jethro gave
the sniper a glance and then pulled his BDU back on.

Letanga's eyes went
a little vacant as he sat down. “How long a cable can you run
without loss of signal?” he asked after a moment. The class
looked over to him.

“
Ah. A light
shines through the clouds. Exactly. Run cables at different lengths
and in a field. Or better yet, use a whisker laser. Hit the
transceiver with a laser and it will shoot out the signal to a field
of transceivers. That way you're safe. As long as the enemy can't see
the laser you're good. The transceivers can be kilometers away.”

“
Ah.”
The class sat up straight as the Sergeant took off his shirt and
tossed it onto his chair and then picked up another.

“
We're going
to do some observation exercises. You are going to be given an image
for a brief period. You are not allowed to use your implants to save
this image right now. We will give you a moment to sketch the scene,
then you will be tested on what you saw. We will do this every
morning from now on. This is an important skill you will need to
master. You need to rely on your own natural abilities as much as
your implants. Remember, gear can fail or be spoofed. Trust what you
can see and touch. Use your brain for something more than sitting.”

...*...*...*...*...

“
I am curious,
why didn't Admiral Irons take Firefly out on a raiding mission of her
own? I mean, we've got ships now to cover Pyrax right?”

Valenko tried not to
sigh. It was a pain in the butt being in a mixed class. He was one of
eleven marine candidates in a room filled for the most part with navy
midshipmen. Discussions usually revolved around ship tactics. The
marines cadets had formed their own little study group for their own
tactical studies. They'd been at it three weeks, with three more to
go.

“
Well, to
understand that, you have to understand the nature of Fleet Admiral
Irons,” Firefly said, putting subtle emphasis on the Fleet
rank. “He is an engineering admiral. Someone who thinks of
building or teaching over fighting.”

“
An empire
builder,” a midshipman said with a nod.

“
By no means,”
Firefly said, crossing his virtual arms. “An empire builder is
a political animal. An officer who sets up his or her own fiefdom and
rules it with an iron hand. Some are good, others build empires of
bureaucracy that slows decision making to a crawl and it takes some
major changes to fix it.”

“
Oh.”

“
So why...”

“
Who says he
didn't plan on sending me out?” Firefly asked with a small
smile. They blinked. A few looked at each other. “It was on the
contingency plan list. Still is for that matter. But an engineering
admiral is a thinker and sometimes a plodder. They want to make sure
they have all their ducks in a row before they go off.”

“
They don't
want to go off half cocked sir? What about the ah... enemy sir? That
quote...”

“
You are
perhaps thinking that while he was squandering time building the
weapon the enemy had time to use theirs? That is the problem with
being defensive minded. Which, I admit, Fleet Admiral Irons is.”

“
Oh.”

“
But that
isn't necessarily a bad thing. Let us game this out.” The AI
avatar disappeared and a plot of the system appeared. “Had the
we gone off to attack Horath, either indirectly by trying to hunt
down another raiding squadron, or a direct attack on their home
system we would have had to go here, or here, or here. The quickest
route is through Finagle, taking eight jumps. That would take the
better part of six months to transit even at the max hyper band I can
sustain.”

“
Oh.”

“
Once we were
in the home system we would be one light cruiser against the entire
system. One ship on the end of a very long logistical line, cut off
from support, with minimum intel of the system and its defenses and
with only two jump lines into and out of the system.”

“
What about
like you said? Finding a pirate squadron and tearing them a new one?”
one midshipman asked, eager.

“
To do that we
would have to know where they were going to be and be able to
intercept them. Intelligence we don't have.”

“
Oh,”
the midshipman blinked and then sat back shoulders slumping slightly.

“
A noble idea
midshipman but impractical. Now getting back to this raid, we know
that the enemy has a functional dreadnaught in the system. I am a
light cruiser. Such a ship would tear me apart easily, even if it was
crippled.”

“
Couldn't you
raid the infrastructure then? Hit the yards, staging areas, fuel
dumps, platforms, stuff like that? Hit and run?” Valenko
rumbled, rubbing his chin.

“
A smart idea.
And quite possible. But if we were damaged the ship would be trapped
in the system.”

“
Oh.”

“
Also, if they
came at you concentrated...” a midshipman said rubbing her own
chin, eyes dark.

“
Yes, exactly.
They could pin us against a planet or the dreadnaught in an
englobement, cutting off retreat. They could squat on the jump point
cutting off our only axis of retreat.”

“
So it could
be a one way mission.”

“
In essence
yes. With what we had before. And with what we currently have now.
That was supposed to change.”

“
Oh. I see,”
a midshipman said nodding.

“
Getting back
to the subject of Admiral, excuse me, Fleet Admiral Irons, would he
have gone? Into battle I mean?”

“
Most likely.
Which would have been disastrous in the long term.”

The cadets sat up,
eyes wide staring at the holo. “Why?” Valenko rumbled.

“
Because his
loss wouldn't just be tragic, it would be strategically catastrophic.
Without him we can't build things. You understand our current limits
due to his absence?”

“
I was
wondering about that,” the bear rumbled, looking over to the
other students. Now that he was out of boot he was getting a better
handle on what was going around with the military and the system.
Some of the things he saw he didn't like or didn't understand. This
was one of them. It seemed silly. He looked at his classmates. Some
shrugged in helplessness.

“
An
engineering admiral has the key codes to manufacture anything. Well,
almost anything. And to our knowledge, he is the only one left alive.
If he was out fighting very little would get done here. Fortunately
he had the time to lay some ground work before his premature
departure,” Firefly explained patiently.

“
Oh.... Crap,”
a midshipman said, eyes wide. “Couldn't he have stayed behind?”

“
Would you
stay behind and send a green crew out on your largest most modern
functional ship on a dicey mission?” Valenko asked dryly.

“
Some admirals
would,” the midshipman said stubbornly.

“
But others
like the Fleet Admiral would not. A tactical admiral wouldn't. A
strategic minded admiral might.”

“
Oh.”

“
A tactical
admiral like Fleet admiral T'paul or Tao or Sun li would have
stripped Pyrax down to bedrock then gone after Horath with
everything. An all or nothing gamble, possibly sending in a light
ship in for recon before the main fleet arrived,” a midshipman
said nodding.

“
But even if
they had won, which is a big if, they still would have left an
unknown number of pirates running around. Leaving Pyrax undefended. A
purely offensive mind is not what we need,” a marine retorted.

“
Exactly. And
the tactical admirals have a major drawback. Since most were command
flag officers, having never served in a yard or in engineering they
wouldn't have all the key codes to repair and build infrastructure
like Fleet Admiral Irons can do,” Firefly informed them.

“
Crap. I
forgot that,” a midshipman said shaking his head.