Marines (21 page)

I glanced at the organizational chart.  A battalion.  Over 500 troops, all under my command.  We were going in as part of a brigade-sized attack, which would be the largest operation since Achilles.  I was strangely calm, although the prospect of commanding so many troops in battle was daunting.

A look at the top of the org chart made me feel a bit better.  Brigadier General Holm was commanding the operation.  Holm had taken an interest in my career, and I didn't doubt I owed my rapid advancement since the Academy to him, at least in part.  I hadn't served with him since Columbia.  In fact, until a few days before, I hadn't even seen him since that battle had started, though I'm pretty sure I owed my survival to his efforts to find me when anyone else would have given me up for dead.

Although smaller than Achilles, this was still a major operation, and it got me thinking about the evolution in battle tactics over the last 75 years.  Early fighting in space was conducted mostly by local militias, with very small units of regulars attached for stiffening.  Even during the First Frontier War, it was rare for more than a platoon of regulars to be involved in any one battle.  This was true colonial warfare, not unlike what transpired in the early days of the European wars in the New World.  It was just too expensive to move around large bodies of troops in space.  The navies were small, and they simply did not have the capacity to transport major units.  Certainly, all these early battles were fought without tanks, artillery, and other support elements.

The colonies were smaller then, too, and there were a lot fewer of them.  The thin populations were generally spread around wherever there were resources to exploit, and true cities and towns were rare.  Taking a planet usually required no more than attacking a few clusters of settlements. 

The spheres of influence of the Powers were much more in a state of flux, and many worlds changed hands repeatedly.  Hostile colonies were all mixed together, sometimes even in the same system, and there were no real borders or rational lines to defend.  The treaty that ended the First Frontier War started the process of rationalization.  The Powers were each more willing to concede systems they knew they'd have trouble holding anyway, and a natural trend toward consolidation began.  The skirmishes in the years after the First Frontier War accelerated the process, as the Powers grabbed whatever exposed enemy worlds they could when the opportunity presented itself, and scaled back on defensive efforts for poorly located systems.

By the time full scale war broke out again, each belligerent had a more or less defensible cluster of interconnected colony worlds.  The Second Frontier War was a definite progression from the first in scale and intensity.  There were still plenty of small skirmishes over petty colonies, but by this time each side's core worlds had begun to develop into significant populations.  Although the battles were still small, and the militias who fought in them would continue to be important, this war was decided by regular troops fighting over key systems.

Larger populations, stronger planetary defenses, and militias leavened with retired veterans all necessitated a strengthening of attacking forces.  Combined arms returned to warfare as strike forces began to be supported with tanks and field artillery.  The complexity of war in space was increasing, and tactics and training went along in lockstep.  By the end of the Second Frontier War it was not uncommon for strikeforces to consist of an entire battalion supported by a couple tank platoons.  Atmospheric fighters were also deployed in large battles, often launched from orbiting assault craft.  The decisive battle of the war, at Persis, saw over 5,000 troops engaged on each side.

Nevertheless, the typical engagement involved fewer than 500 troops on a side, and heavy support units were still rare.  Things were evolving, but war in space was still hellishly expensive, and resources were always stretched thin.  The years leading up to the Third Frontier War saw a return to very small actions, but when things began to escalate toward outright war, the battles became bigger again.  Our attack on Carson's World involved an entire battalion where 40 years earlier a platoon or two would have sufficed. There was another reason why so much force was deployed to that seemingly insignificant planet, but I wouldn't find out about it until years later.

As the Third Frontier War heated up, the battles continued to increase in size and complexity.  Colonies, especially core worlds, had become large and wealthy enough to build some indigenous industry and upgrade their local defense capabilities.  All of a sudden we were attacking planets that had tanks and artillery as part of their local forces, compelling us to respond in kind.

We were learning this new reality on the job, and paying in blood for our lessons.  One reason that Operation Achilles was such a disaster is that no one had ever mounted so large and complex an assault in space.  In fact, it had been more than a century since a battle this size had been fought on Earth.  No one in the command structure had any experience in coordinating a combined arms assault at that level.  Still, we came fairly close to pulling it off.  Like everyone else who was on the ground, I'd come to regard Achilles as a display of command incompetence.  It was only later, when I studied the whole operation at the Academy, that I realized just how close we had come to success.  If we'd been able to maintain space superiority we probably would have just managed to take the planet, possibly ending the war right then.  Our forces were devastated, but the defenders had been nearly wiped out.

So now I was heading for a briefing on this new campaign.  After we took the station at Gliese 250, my company rejoined the battalion for twin assaults on Dina and Albera, two moons circling a gas giant in orbit around Zeta Leporis II.  Fruits of our victory in Gliese, from which they were a single transit, the twin moons were major mining colonies of crucial importance to the Caliphate's war effort. 

The battalion attacked Dina first, then we regrouped and reinforced before hitting Albera two weeks later.  Without controlling Gliese 250, the enemy had a very circuitous route through CAC territory to reach the Zeta Leporis system, so it would be difficult for them to mount a counterassault any time soon.  Both battles were tough, close quarters affairs fought mostly underground.  The colonies were solely engaged in mining the rare ores that were plentiful in the crust of the two moons, and all of the habitable areas were located well below the surface where they were shielded from the massive radiation produced by Zeta Leporis I.

It wasn't unlike the battle on the station, but there was no single installation we could grab and compel a surrender, so we had to fight it out chamber by chamber.  The moons produced vital war materials, and they were garrisoned by regulars, not second rate security forces like the station.  We had quite a fight on our hands.

Halfway through the battle on Albera, I ended up as acting battalion exec when Major Warrick went down in a firefight.  She wasn't badly wounded, but her armor was scragged, so she was out of the action.  Captain Torrance had been acting executive officer, so he moved up to take command of the operation.  He bumped me up to exec even though half the other captains had more seniority.

The toughest part of the fight was right near the end on Albera.  The enemy had back held a tac-group of Janissaries we didn't even know was there.  Roughly equivalent to a reinforced company of ours, they were completely fresh, and they hit us when we were tired and low on supplies.  Eventually I took the battalion reserve and we found a way through the tunnels around to the other side.  Once we hit them in the front and rear simultaneously their position became untenable, but they still fought on.  Janissaries almost never surrender, and we had to wipe them out.  It cost us.

Despite the serious losses, the victories were complete, and with Gliese and Zeta Leporis we had taken two vital Caliphate systems in less than four months.  They'd have to try to take both of them back, which at least would keep them too busy to attack any more of our worlds for a while.  I suspect that was the major reason we attacked the moons.  I seriously doubted we'd be able to mount a credible defense of both systems, and since our only access to Zeta Leporis was through Gliese, it was an easy choice which one to try to hold.  Our prospects were improving, but we were still playing catch up, and we were short on resources across the board.  When we pulled back to Gliese 250 to refit and regroup it was immediately obvious we were going to make a play to hang onto the system and its massive space station.  The place was swarming with naval units - the biggest fleet I'd seen since Achilles.  The station itself was a beehive of construction work, and it was now surrounded by a ring of defensive satellites and weapon platforms.

When we returned from Zeta Leporis we looped around the orange Gliese primary and decelerated at full power.  It made for an uncomfortable ride, getting slammed into our accel/decel couches the whole time, but it got us docked quickly.  We all needed some rest, and while the station wasn't the ideal place for leave, it was still a chance to rest and recuperate with no one shooting at us.  Unless the enemy attacked while we were there, of course.

The station, renamed Tarawa, was amazingly organized considering it had only been four months since we'd taken it, and we had billets assigned when we arrived.  I dismissed the company and headed to my assigned quarters, planning on an extended period of sleeping without being crushed to death by 6G deceleration.

My quarters were quite large and comfortable; I was really coming up in the world.  Rank does indeed have its privileges, and frankly I was starting to enjoy some of them.  I flopped on the bunk and was just about to order the AI to turn off the lights when the door buzzer sounded.

"Open," I barked at the AI.  I wasn't really in the mood for visitors right now.  All I really wanted to do was sleep.

"So look how far my resourceful sergeant has gone."  The voice was familiar and the voice cheerful.

I jumped up.  Standing there in my doorway was Elias Holm.  No longer Colonel Holm, as evidenced by the single polished platinum star on each collar.  I stood at rigid attention and gave him my best salute.  "General Holm, sir!  I am very glad to see you sir.  I believe I am greatly in your debt...in more ways than one.

He smiled warmly.  "Please, please.  No standing at attention.  You're making me tired just looking at you.  At ease."  He looked the same, more or less.  Maybe a little more gray in his hair or another line on his face.  I realized with a start that between the hospital, the Academy, and my campaigns since, it had been well over three years since I'd last seen him on Columbia.

He motioned for me to take a seat.  "Let's sit and relax.  We can catch up a bit.  I brought us a little refreshment."  He held up a small bottle of caramel-colored liquid.  "Cognac, straight from Earth, imported direct from Europa Federalis.  Got it as a gift."  I guessed that that little bottle would have cost a month's pay.  To be honest, I wasn't much of a drinker, but I wasn't going to turn down the general.  Besides, he brought the good stuff.  If ever there was a time...

I hadn't really checked out my quarters at all, but I asked the AI for glasses, and a small cabinet in the wall opened.  Inside were a dozen glasses of various sizes.  I took two that looked suitable and brought them over to the table.  The general popped open the bottle and poured.

"Erik," he said, "I am very proud of what you have accomplished.  I had a strong feeling about you on Columbia, and your performance there and since has reinforced it.  You've done solid soldiering, my boy."

I found praise hard to handle sometimes, but this was the one person in all of human space I most wanted to please.  Ok, he was probably number two, but I respected the hell out of General Holm, and it meant a lot to hear all of this.  "Thank you, sir.  I've tried to do my best, though I must confess I sometimes feel out of my league and just lucky when things work out."

He snorted.  "Erik, let me tell you a little secret as part of your initiation to the brotherhood of command.  We all feel that way.  If you didn't, you wouldn't be worth a damn as a commander.  But you've dealt with it all, and you've risen to meet every challenge thrown at you."  He raised his glass.  "To the Corps.  And to our brothers and sisters who are no longer here."

I grabbed my glass and clinked it against his.  "To our lost brothers and sisters."  I took a sip and felt the heat of the cognac sliding down my throat.

"I brought you something, Erik.  It's not 100% by the book, but I figured it wouldn't hurt anything for me to bring these."  He slid a small box across the table.  I picked it up and opened it.  Inside there were two small round platinum circlets.  A major's insignia. 

I was speechless for a few seconds, and then I managed to stammer out a few words.  "I'm not ready.  It's too soon."

"Look Erik, you're ready.  I have total confidence in you, and I want you to lead one of the battalions in my new offensive.  I know you've come up quickly.  The fastest in Corps history, in fact.  Though I don't suppose that helps your confidence any."  He let out a little chuckle.  "But you know better than anyone how many losses we've suffered.  We just don't have the extra years to waste.  We're desperately short of capable command personnel, and it's all the more crucial since so many of the troops are green.  So accept your promotion stoically, because we both know that when the time comes you'll do what needs to be done."

He grabbed the bottle and refilled the glasses.  "Have another drink, because the promotion isn't all.  You're being decorated again.  Twice.  Once for taking this station and again for the moons campaign.  And you're getting the platinum star cluster for that stunt you pulled in the corridor here." 

He paused to let that sink in.  I just sat there silent, dumbstruck.  "It reminded me of your adventures on Columbia.  I noticed back then that all your troops were in heavy cover, but you were standing out in the open.  You ate a nuke for that one.  I'm sure you remember.  Those were magnificent displays of valor.  I salute you."  He raised his glass and drained it.  "But that's the end of it.  I don't want to see you pull anything like that under my command.  I need you as a commander, not a fallen hero."