How it started

[FBH]

I spent about a week writing all this so I'm going to do an IX and put the first two chapters up here. This will (hopefully and with a lot of polish) become the genesis of a novel. Hope you all like it. I'm afraid I'm not putting anything else up cause eventually I want to publish it.

Part One: how it started

This is how it started according to the history books.

The troop bay of the Sigrún class light lifter was pretty cramped and ill lit at the best of times. Crowded with an entire platoon it was far worse. I had no idea why the decision had been made to send my platoon down in light lifters, perhaps the bigger forces had grabbed all the larger stuff. Either way it was just my platoon and I. Despite the lack of windows I could see out of the rapidly descending space plane, my third eye linking me to the shuttle’s external sensors. The ground rushed up and then I felt the thump as the wheels touched and we were down. The ramp lowered after a moment, flooding the troop bay with light.

The first thing that hit me when I step out onto Ramki’s World space port was the noise. It was even worse than normal with an army is debarking. Drop shuttles, space planes and heavy lift vehicles ripped the air with the vast sound of their engines. I paused for a moment at the top of the ramp, looking around at those already down and was struck suddenly by the sheer number the people in the expeditionary force around me. There were hundreds of cargo carriers already landed, hundreds more overhead, arranged in a vast stack overhead.

My overlay updates with new orders: 3rd platoon 2nd company to report to assembly area AD91. The software helpfully updated my mini-map with a flashing icon showing where we were supposed to go. Looking around I saw it on my field of vision, with a helpful line of march that traffic management software had computers to lead us through the mess of vehicles and troops moving across this base. I moved off the ramp, my platoon following behind me onto the virally bonded stone of the landing pad. It was very hot, so hot I could feel the heat radiating up through my boots. Isis, the AI familiar implanted near my brainstem bought up the released figures for the landing. This was one of five landing zones, each with over almost a million UN troops pouring into it. Chinese, Indian, Korean, Japanese, European, American, Martian, Jovian… but actually the major powers were a distinct minority here; most units were from second string powers.

Isis had also found data on the potential opposition, a table of known insurgent strengths, and more worryingly the Rim Federation army waiting beyond the boarder. It was about the same size as the UN force.

“Sergeant, form the platoon into column” of course all of them knew where they were supposed to reporting too as well, the overlay message had been general. That didn’t mean we weren’t going to march in the proper formation though.

“Yes sir!” My sergeant, a big synthetic by the name of Erna Rubric, turned and began yelling orders, getting the platoon into the formation I wanted. I stepped to one side so I could watch them. They were mostly draftees; all managing to make their comfortable and well designed Martian Central Republic Army BDUs look uncomfortable as hell. To me they seemed very young.

What do you reckon Erna? I asked over the sergeant’s private link. The platoon was formed now, and we began to march, duffels hoisted behind us. Our combat gear was being transported separately.

Erna’s imagine on my overlay frowned. Good kids, all fresh and eager from training. I wish we’d had them longer though. It was true. The regiment was probably the best equipped in the MRCA but to a veteran of the all volunteer self defence force like me or Erna they seemed painfully green. At least, as airborne, we’d have them for five years total. They might be conscripts but they’d volunteered to serve with us. They were a pretty diverse lot, classic humans, synths, anthropomorphics and several varieties of more modern, harder to categorise person. On the inside they were perhaps a bit more standardised, as they had all been upgraded to military specification.

We reached the edge of the pad, automatic doors hissing open to let us inside a wash of cool air sweeping over us as we moved in. Numerous other people and robots moved through the great warehouse like interior of the space port; harried looking MPs moving around sorting out the inevitable tangles and pile ups.

We went further into the building, walking down the gleaming line that was our root of march, the standard length platoon column managing, through the magic of software to keep from running into, or even cueing behind anyone else. Erna looked at me as we approached our assembly area I got a bad feeling about this one Sir. A really bad feeling.

I looked out, my overlay letting me see through layers of stone and metal to the outside. Gazed at the busy spaceport, the heavy lift vehicles unloading tanks and armoured carriers, the snaking lines of troops and the massive bundles of supplies and munitions. This didn’t look like preparations for a peace keeping mission. It looked like we were readying for war. I took a deep breath of the cool, air-conditioned and slightly alien air of the space port and let it out yeah. Me too.

Here’s how it started according to the Media.

It was dusk and a light rain was getting heavier. The regiment was dug in along the military crest of a rocky ridge, covered in thin vegetation, an occasional imported poplar tree sticking up through it. Behind us was our armoured support, a battalion of British air cushion hover tanks. The British blowers are big beasts, each weighing a hundred tons, with comically small unmanned turrets perched atop their flattened hulls. Fast and armed with quick, high powered guns, they were still fifty years old.

My conditioning prickled at me, and I eyed my deployment, trying to think if there was anything I’d missed. No, it all looked fine and in order. Neither I nor any of the numerous off-board sensors feeding into my combat-skeleton could spot any infiltrators. Isis didn’t notice anything either.

Even without my conditioning though I had every reason to be nervous. Moving down the road two kilometres ahead was what seemed to be most of a Rim Federation armoured brigade. Big gravity tanks and slightly smaller infantry fighting vehicles, their decks packed with spider like infantry robots, were advancing down the road, forming into line opposite us. The robots dropped free and I could see more humanoid metal figures deploying out of the backs of several IFVs, hunkering moving rapidly to take cover. The expert system dedicated to it still seemed to have no problem cracking their camouflage, which either meant that Rim-Fed camouflage wasn’t all it was cracked up to be… or they were letting us see them. The entire exercise of deploying like this in full view seemed to me to be for intimidation. I could only imagine the messages buzzing between commanders above my head.

My radio speaks, Captain Graham’s voice sounds stressed, on the verge of cracking despite the conditioning “Monk Six to all Monk elements, be prepared for engagement at any time”

Isis spoke up: “Warning: emission pattern suggests preparations for attack.” The enemy line suddenly blurs, stabilising then blurring again. They have countermeasures on now.

“Thanks Isis.” I switched to the platoon channel “All Monk-Two Elements expect possible engagement but do not shoot unless they do.” I could feel their shock, but knew their conditioning would get them through. None of them had really thought it’d come to this. My conditioning was prickling again now, looking for deception in the enemy alignment. I should really say something.

But then I see the barrel on a tank swing up onto the ridge and conditioning switches from prepare for contact to contact. The world is clear and bright and very, very simple. The energy bolt is beautiful as it ever so briefly connects tank and hill crest. Along the line, another beam comes in two from second platoon become the second first casualties of war. There are only three words I need to say now: “Fire at Will.”

Here’s how it started for me.

At this point you’re probably expecting me to start talking about basic training. I’m not going to. The fact is that basic wasn’t really that interesting. It’s not like the Rim Federation or most of the yokel colonies where you get a drill sergeant balling you out and you come out with a bunch of affectionate stories of how young and soft you were as a civilian.

The idea of basic training of course is to prepare you physically, but also psychologically for combat. Not only do you need to have physical fitness and soldiering skills but you need to be psychologically prepared to do a host of unnatural things like killing your fellow humans and charging anti personal lasers.

My basic training involved a lot of hypnosis, and having my psychology and physiology upgraded by various extremely complex mechanical processes, followed by a rigorous course of exercises to check if it all worked.

For me, the journey that led me to that ridge on just before monsoon season on Ramki’s World begun on another, very different ridge four years before hand. This ridge was cold and crisp, every angle defined, fixed by frost. Its outlines still hard even through the falling snow. This was Ymir, and it was well named.

I’d been in the army two years then, joining up to escape the boredom of suburban life in Olympus city and had recently been promoted to sergeant. We were moving in column through the snow, UAV hovering high over head almost blinded by the driving snow, a small UGV (That’s unmanned ground vehicle) running along ahead. It was a peacekeeping mission which had turned more into war fighting.

“You ever see weather like this before Sarge?” my point was a slim country girl named Jessica Lime (everyone called her Jess) was moving at the front with me somewhat behind as the slack. We were talking by link communicator, making conversation completely undetectable.

“No, weather wasn’t even this bad on Procyon during the relief effort when their terraforming broke down.” Snow slid off my combat skeleton “This is fucking horrible”

“So why the fuck are we even out here?” the leader of my squad’s second fire team asked. Talking was a good way to relieve the near panic reaction that came along with the extreme watchfulness of combat conditioning.

“People have died, and if the insurgents can travel around in weather like this, so can we.” Indeed, our enemy, the insurgents who called themselves the Mountain Men had only a few days ago hit an aid station, murdering a pair of Chinese troops guarding it and stealing food badly needed by the local population.

It had been more than a century since any commander in Sol had lost someone to hostile action. There blood was up. So we were out here in the snow. “People around here must have antifreeze for blood.” The corporal muttered.

And then I heard the click of a gauss rifle’s safety being taken off, my combat skeleton’s microphone rending the sound as clear as a shout. Several things happened at once. My conditioning switched from patrol to contact, fear vanished, adrenalin pumped. Everything was sharp and clear. An expert targeting program booted even as my skeleton radar swept the area I’d heard the sound. There were men there, concealed in holes, leaning over long barrelled electromagnetic rifles. The program assessed and locked the targets and gave me shoot/no shoot. Mentally selected shoot and a flight of micro-missiles flashed out of my skeleton’s shoulder pod. They crossed the distance all but instantly, penetrate flesh then explode. There were five splashes of red and five men died.

Then my mouth caught up and I (rather pedantically) yelled “Contact low right!” Firing started from ahead and to the right, a pretty good L shaped infantry ambush. It barely had time to occur to me I killed some people before we initiated ambush drill. Blackout gas grenades pop from their launchers and we dodged backwards out of the kill zone on our antigravity and thrusters.

Electromagnetic rounds tour through the sensor blinding fog, spraying it into weird, hanging shapes. I popped a drone up above the smoke, its imaging radar sweeping the line of foxholes and targets shimmered into existence on the squads heads up displays. Our micro-missiles and particle beams lashed out through the smoke and enemies died. They could see us but we could see them just fine through the drone’s eyes. “Beta! Flanking!” I yelled.

“Gamma! Cover!” responded my corporal, laying down more fire. Despite the fact they couldn’t see us the mountain men were still shooting into the smoke, trying to pin us down with volume of fire. There were thirty of them, eight of us. Up to this point they’d never really seen what a combat skeleton can do.

We moved fast, running and gliding on thrusters and landed to one side of their line, taking some fire which didn’t achieve anything except to ding my helmet with a ricochet. Our particle beams lashed down their line in return, burning them out of their holes and cooking off power cells. They began to disengage, pulling back into the woods, moving hastily, panicked. A second element was pulling back from behind them probably having meant to catch us again if we assaulted through the first ambush. I decided then that I didn’t want these people to get away. “Brass-Six this is Pilum-One-One, requesting airstrike, accept target squeak” I sent a quick burst of code that gave the location and composition of the running insurgents.

“Copy Pilum-One-One on the way” high over head one of the UAVs opened its bay and dropped a pair of bombs. The bombs hit a second later, the forest lighting up with a sudden actinic strobe of their high-energy reaction. Trees caught fire and most of the fleeing enemy fighters simply vanished, a few stumbling from the inferno, burning. Those not caught slammed to a halt then hurled their weapons down, babbling pleas for surrender.

“Pilum-One-One: ordinance on target.” I switched to my squad link “get these monkeys secure” they moved up past the dwindling wall of black out to grab and cuff the prisoners. The fire began to gutter in the snow storm.

Hesitantly, mindful of the cold and the possibility of enemy snipers I opened my helmet visor. Smells my skeleton thought too unimportant to alert me of flooded my nose: burning pine, death, the metallic reek of blackout. I strolled forward, the heat of the fire keeping my face from freezing. I felt strange, even with the growing alertness of conditioning returning to patrol mode. I realised after a moment what I was feeling: happiness. I’d enjoy that. I’d enjoyed killing those people. It was a terrible thing to admit to ones self but somehow at that moment it didn’t seem so bad. I took one last breath of the sweet smell of burning pine then closed my visor again. I had prisoners to load up; there was no more time for epiphany.

They say the peace ended in 2212… but for me it was three years over by then.

Of course, none of these three things are how it really started. It really started with the church.

My name is Alexandra Dyre. I’m twenty six years old and my rank is First Lieutenant. I’ve been in the army five years and killed upwards of twenty times personally. I joined as a volunteer before the draft. I’m not the hero of this story though.

I first got to know Corporal Ralph Sherman during the encounter that led to all this. We’d been on Ramki’s World for five weeks, patrolling both with the local military and alone, handing out humanitarian rations, and getting into a few fire-fights with insurgents. That day we were heading into a small town of first phase colonists, the community who’d been causing all of the trouble around here (at least, that was our side’s official line.) We’d been briefed on the situation on Ramki’s World before we got here, though most of us had also seen it on the news.

“The problem on Ramki’s World is really ideology, land’s just the excuse. The first phase colonists came pretty early and pretty far. Lot of types looking to get away from change on earth and to set up a simpler kind of life” the briefing officer had told us. “The second phase was a much more forward looking, technology embracing group, even with all the land of a planet that leads to tension.”

The Town of Black Creek, which we were entering on that fateful day in early September, was a perfect example of why rich old Sol and the dynamic, militant Rim were so interested in this little planet. It was built on a river, red brick houses with slate roves and tall chimneys. Near the centre stood a tall stone build church that looked just like a church should.

On a hill near by, towering over the town was a building. It was dark, shiny material, the same colour as a combat skeleton’s base state but vastly stronger than any human made substance. It was in fact, according to many experiments undertaken on alien structures of a similar style, invincible. Nothing humans had ever been able to do to them had damaged them in the least bit, not even spraying them with antimatter (or the resulting antimatter detonation for that matter). There were entire cities like this on Ramki’s World, and that made what might have been a small conflict not so small at all.

It had been over a hundred years since the alien link probe entered Sol and we still hadn’t met its builders or any other civilisation. Instead we’d just found ruins, empty invincible buildings in a dozen different styles, megastructures. The grandeur of a civilisation (or civilisations) long vanished. It was disconcerting to think about, but useful for humanity not to have to compete with hyper advanced alien space gods. We’d also found we could steal a fair amount of technology from them. That made ruins valuable.

We moved into Black Creek in two platoons. One was mine, second platoon of my company (third) of the first battalion of the third Martian airborne regiment. The second was a platoon of mechanised infantry from the Sanders Republic, a state in Procyon’s southern hemisphere.

The Sanderites were less well equipped and less heavily augmented than we were but they seemed sharp enough. Most were classic model humans in appearance, their bodies clad in heavy composite plates and electro muscle, the weapons mounted on their shoulders turning with their eyes.

Best of all they had three APCs and their automated follower vehicles which would mean we wouldn’t be loaded down with too many humanitarian rations. The APCs were odd looking beasts, tracked rather than even being aircushion, with slim automated point defence turrets, each with a pair of Gatling guns, mounted on the backs. The guns swung back and forth, automatic engagement systems making them twitch like insect’s antenna.

We walked down the road into town quiet openly, the pedestrians on the street looking at us like we were space aliens. We had our helmets open, not expecting trouble. The UAV hovering invisible overhead hadn’t seen anything to suggest a hostile presence here. Traffic analysis and the like said nothing but a normal day. We smiled and greeted people as we walked down the street, got some blank expressions and some friendly greetings.

We’d planned to give out the food we were carrying in the town square. As we approached, I saw a deputation of what were obviously town elders heading for us. The mayor, at the front was a well muscled guy older man with the sun-tanned face of a farmer. After the number of primitive colony worlds I’ve worked on seeing old people doesn’t surprise me the way it used too. “What are you soldiers doing here?” the mayor asked “We don’t have any fighters here, we’re a peaceful town!”

The Sanderite lieutenant stepped forward with a smile, we’d previously decided he’d do the talking; he was less threatening than I was. “We’re not here to make arrests; this is just a routine patrol. We’re here to make sure everyone in this town has all the food and medicine they need.”

The mayor looked somewhat mollified. “We could use some more supplies…” he looked at us suspiciously.

The Sanderite smiled “That’s fine, now, if you could just give us some basic information so our next food shipment can be better tailored too your needs.” As the discussion continued I began looking around the square. The troops head spread out, some chatting with the locals, others just watching.

I saw a young fox anthropmorph talking to a small girl, fairly well turned out looking girl. Despite her clothes she looked thin, obviously she’d not been eating enough “Are you a fox?” she asked looking up at him. My overlay named him Corporal Ralph Sherman.

“Some of my ancestors were.” He smiled down at her. She looked back, wide eyed.

“How’d you become a man?” she asked after a while, still looking at him.

“Magic.” He smiled and handed her a pack of humanitarian rations. She blinked, opened the bag and looked at the contents then extracted a candy bar.

“Thank you mister fox!” she said and turned to run off and then, as the unit diary would say, the incident occurred.

The boy in the clock tower was nineteen. His name, we later found out was Jake Mills. After the war, when I was researching this book I was able to find a photograph of him in his school’s yearbook. He was a handsome enough guy, dark haired and intense.

According to the town’s folk Jake was a pretty normal lad, though given sometimes to heavier drinking than the local pastor approved of. He was a keen hunter and a passionate believer in the first phase way of life. Because of this passionate belief he’d taken the biggest gun he had, a 16mm rifle with a telescopic scope designed to hunt the local megafauna up into the church tower. Nobody had seen him, and our UAVs had classified it as a hunting weapon and not bothered to inform anyone. As the little girl cleared his target, Mills laid the crosshairs over Ralph’s face and pulled the trigger.

Ralph’s suit identified the bullet coming at it and reflexively closed his visor (it was half closed by the time the bullet would have arrived) decided against engaging with point defence and activated his force shield instead. The round pancaked against the energy field and slid off. Jake’s eyes watered as he found himself looking at empty space, empty space that somehow tore at his vision like a migraine.

My visor was closed and my conditioning had switched to contact, the world becoming hyper real around me. “Sniper! LTL!” That would have been the signal to fire a non-lethal gas bomb into the spire to clear the guy out.

Instead the automatic systems on the leading Sanderite APC caught up and it cut the top off the tower with its Gatling guns. Something had gone wrong with the first APCs automatics. Actually several things, for one thing, its target selection program had decided the huge blast of heat produced by the dinosaur rifle was the launch of a particular type of anti tank missile. Obviously this was a high threat target, or so said the gun’s programming.

It also refused to classify the church as a church. We never quiet found out why but I think it was probably because it was built of red brick rather than the usual white stone. Faced with missile attack the programming led inevitably to the conclusion that according to the ROE it should engage. Both guns spun up and spat out streams of plasma/fragmentation shells into the tower. Jake’s body was burned and torn apart by the explosions, and the church’s brick and wood construction fared no better.

By the time its operator managed to shut it down it had torn the top off the tower and sent it crashing down into the church’s roof. The windows blew out and dust poured into the street. I could see flame where the plasma shells had exploded.

The mayor looked on speechlessly. The Sanderite lieutenant was screaming at the vehicle operator. The town’s people were running inside or just running. I felt a curious calm settle over me, more than conditioning. “Lieutenant” I called to the Sanderite “This mission’s a bust but these people still need the food.”

He stopped, and then nodded. We left it piled up in the town square and fled. Outside the town we paused to regroup and I saw Ralph stand up on the hill and stare down at the town bellow, dust and smoke still rising from the church. His visor is open again, he’s breathing in the smell of what happened.

“This wasn’t your fault corporal.” I step up beside him, looking at his face.

“Sir…” he looked agitated, his fur standing up slightly, the anthropmorph equivalent of being pale “If I’d been paying more attention… or if I hadn’t.” he trailed off, staring down the valley.

“Corporal, when a guy takes a rifle up into a church tower he’s looking for someone to cap.” I shook my head “There’s nothing any of us could have done to prevent this from happening.”

He nodded, looking somewhat better but still kind of sick “Thank you sir.”

“Don’t sweat it. Now get back with your squad. We’re moving out in five mikes.” I turned away, my skeleton’s rear sensors showing my Ralph take one final look at the ruined church before following me.

There’s one more character in this drama I want to mention. It started for her too.

Jillian had not planned to join the military really. For all the generally militant Rim-Fed culture, there were those who saw the military as a waste of money. It was also noted for being dull, often difficult work involving punishing physical exercise and long hours of boredom while you put combat machines through their paces. ‘bot pusher’ was what many in the Rim-Fed called the military.

It all changed for Jillian when she read book for a political science class she was taking. It talked about how the United Nations and those tied to it didn’t believe in national sovereignty. To them, said the book, there were many universal values which could be imposed regardless of boarders.

Jillian was deeply disturbed by this book and being a good daughter of the Federation and deeply ingrained with its values decided she had to do something about this. That in turn meant the military, and then politics. One was inseparable from the other of course, as only veterans could serve in public office.

Jillian’s basic training was hard for her. The Rim Federation still employs the traditional boot camp method of basic, but worse was the fact that they took away her familiar to be upgraded to military spec. To someone from Sol a familiar might be a tool, a companion, an accessory. In the Rim Federation it’s more like an extension of your soul.

The trauma prepared her for the trauma she might face in combat, and also left her more vulnerable to the subtle and not so subtle moulding process of the Rim Federation’s military establishment. Since then however she always kept a backup of her familiar in her duffle bag, no matter where she went. Jillian ended her training with a strong sense of discipline and an even stronger sense of military exceptionalism which the Rim Fed works so hard to put into its officers and men.

Following basic she went into armour, learning and eventually ended up driving gravity effect battle tanks. Some time after that she was a sergeant and commanding one. She was eventually posted to Ramki’s World, backing up the first phase government that ran the western half of one of its continents. The base was hot and far rainier than

She still didn’t want to fight though, until one day her familiar gave her a story about the brutal attack on a small village church. Damn, she’d known the UN were scum but killing some kid with a pop gun and destroying a church? Nobody had even been charged with it. Jillian didn’t believe for a moment it had been an accident as UN sources claimed.

Thinking of that story made Jillian very happy when she moved up to the boarder.

Interlude: the general staff.

The hall housing the general staff was huge and black, lights glued to the ceiling providing the illumination, bundles of cabling leading out some doors. The staff were buried in an underground facility some eighty meters bellow the ground. Even better it was alien constructed, immune to damage. Even a direct nuclear hit wouldn’t take it out.

It was hard for the officers and NCOs of the lower atmosphere staff not to feel their job had been done. Only the section in charge of drones and cruise missiles was still working hard, preparing to intercept any low level nuclear attacks the Rim Federation forces might launch. They’d got their forces successfully deployed and now the war everyone had feared had begun in earnest there job was over.

The real drama though was taking place in the purview of the Orbital and Upper Atmospheric staffs. Interceptors, bombers, missiles and drones were zooming around on each side, great formations of ships and attack satellites blasting away at one another in orbit.

General Vijay Sinha, commander of the UN force’s lower atmospheric contingent frowned at the massive central plot in the centre of the command centre. “This doesn’t seem to be going exactly as planned does it?” he remarked to his aid.

The aid, a colonel shook his head. Hardly any of the nuclear and antimatter warheads each side was launching were getting through. Neither forces in the field or facilities were being successfully destroyed. It seemed those theorists who claimed that modern sensors made nuclear and anti-matter weapons too visible for long range use had been right.

“It’ll be a stalemate then.” the colonel said “At least until one side can fabricate enough warheads or win space superiority.” At this point, doctrine held that mobile forces were far too vulnerable to infantry portable anti-tank weapons to make serious headway in an attack. Infantry, moved rapidly around by air or fast APC was the arm of decision on the modern battlefield and intelligence said the Rim-Federation didn’t have nearly enough of it.

“Or until diplomacy makes headway.” Sinha shook his head “”We’d better get a report on local fissionables and production facilities. We’ll have to guard them from enemy air and commandos.”

At this point, a breathless captain ran up to the general. The man had run from his station, too panicked to simply send the data. He had to give it in person “General! The enemy has broken through our defensive line.”

Sinha was momentarily speechless.

Part Two: Battle of the Boarders

There was an extremely bright flash on the horizon and several assets dropped off my fire support menu. I saw the clouds pulse as the shockwave slammed across them, a mushroom of flame rising into the storm. My skeleton read the blast as about 250 kilotons of explosive yield.

It was raining in earnest now, massive fat drops turning the scarred ridge line into a morass and hissing viciously whenever an energy bolt passed. I was huddled behind the corpse of a private named Hank Rodriguez, his chest neatly eaten out by a stream of charged particles, his protected brain case yanked out by a medic.

My composite sensors showed the terrain in front day clear, beautiful countryside ruthlessly blasted apart by artillery from both sides. Gunfire and energy beams passed over head or slammed into the ground, some striking Private Rodriguez’s corpse, making it jerk spasmodically. There were still man-sized enemy combat machines at the bottom of the slope shooting up at us.

Occasionally one of the British tanks would shoot, blasting a position low down on the ridge to fragments with a massive pulse of its main gun. The enemy armour seemed to have pulled back, which probably meant a break through elsewhere.
“All Call signs, be advised: hostile attack imminent” the voice of command’s AI sounded crisp and calm. Then again, so did I, my conditioning banished fear and doubt, leaving only cool intellect. My emergency response system had been completely re-engineered.

The enemy had laid a screen of black out gas a kilometre out. They were definitely massing for an attack “Monk-Two-Six: they’re coming, good hunting everyone.” Artillery suddenly began to fall as heavily as the rain, the small drones that carried most of our point defence opening up, lasers slashing the sky open as munitions fell towards us.

At longer range behind the ridge, other, larger systems were working as well, thinning the barrage. Artillery shells spun wildly on random evasive causes, radar and thermal decoys filling the sky with electronic ghosts, escorting UAVs and falling shells swinging to target the point defence systems. The ridge rang like an anvil as the avalanche of metal slammed into it.

I looked down at my display… no causalities, not in my platoon at least. It was good to know the assessment of our point defence and armour verses artillery at least had been good. “Monk Elements: be advised brigade strength enemy armour approaching; enemy contacts include furies, cataphracts and chariots” the operation’s officer was several hundred miles behind the front but his voice was still filled with stress.

I winced, chariots meant lots of mechanised infantry. “Target enemy carriers and UGVs first” The blackout parted and tanks pushed through, preceded by a line of unmanned scout vehicles. If those weren’t destroyed they’d reveal every infantry position on the ridge to the following tanks “Fire!”

We fired, hypervelocity missiles blasting away from our launchers in a coordinated volley. Our ATGMs were supposed to be too fast for any point defence to attack them, but we’d found out earlier that wasn’t the case; only by firing in a massive swarm could we get missiles to their targets. Even so it was a dicey business to get kills. Still, we got half a dozen drones, the rest of the battalion fire wiping out most of the remainder, survivors moving quickly to cover, only their sensor booms extended.

The enemy was firing too, aiming at the friendly armour hull down on the crest. One blew, and then another, the enemy cannons leaving scars of burning cerulean on the air as they fired. They sprinted forward on their thrusters, moving from one cover to another. Return fire splashed off their armour and force fields, setting the ground afire but doing little damage.

I picked out a target, a chariot IFV moving forward rapidly towards the base of the ridge, its ATGM launcher sending an occasional missile speeding skywards. “Monk-Two-One, fire on my designator” and zapped it. My launcher cycled automatically, firing along with everyone else in squad one and I saw the Chariot get hit, four HVMs making it through, striking into the carrier’s side. It fell and skidded, burning. I saw crew bail out and sent micro-missiles to kill them.

The British tank unit began to die, even their hull down position not protecting them from the coordinated barrage rolling across the ridge line. Tracers tore everywhere. At least we could see the enemy though. We seemed to be winning the battle in the electromagnetic spectrum… but the physical one looked hopeless. I cursed as the first wave of Chariots dropping their troops at the base of the slope and looked for a new target amid the mass of tanks bounding up the ridge.

“Action left!” I heard Erna yell. I looked left and realised I’d lost some of my situational awareness. Even with my conditioning this battle wasn’t like anything I’d seen before. Furies, the heaviest AG vehicles the Rim Federation possessed were pushing through what had been our front line. Infantry popped blackout gas and displaced, rounds chasing them as they went. First battalion’s forward company was collapsing, dying.

We poured covering fire down slope. I saw ATGMs bounce harmlessly off a fury’s glacis as it rolled forward, swinging around two hundred meters from me. My suit targeted it for my shorter range anti tank assault weapon and the expert system running my marksmanship emptied the entire ten round clip into it in under a second. The fury kill half of the munitions before they arrived by the rest slammed into its side armour, the tight cluster penetrating its thick armour. The tank brewed up, fire belching out of its hatches.

“All Monk elements, this is Monk-Six: pull fall back to phase line Emerald” I jerked slightly, that was on the reverse slope. We were retreating… I felt a flash of anger, we hadn’t lost yet. Then I looked at the slope and realised we had. Enemy tanks were swarming up the ridge, dropping infantry to clear abandoned positions, blasting us out of our holes with savage, coordinated fire. Sol’s armies had become light infantry forces to be more effective in the kind of anti-insurgency engagements we normally fought. Then we’d become confident in the virtue of our necessity.

“Monk-two, this is Monk-Two-Six, pull back up the slope, bounding overwatch by squads. We ran and scrambled up the ridge, explosions following us. Behind us, tracer fire gunned down those from the forward units, main gun fire sending armoured bodies flying in all directions.

I saw Ralph Sherman running beside me, and then he jerked, knocked down by a rail gun hit. I grabbed him and half pulled half carried him onwards. There was a crater in the back of his armour but it didn’t seem to have penetrated. We reached the top of the slope and scrambled around it, trying not to skyline ourselves as fire exploded all around us. Our armour support had been shattered, with only a reinforced company remaining.

“Monk-Two, this is Monk-Two-Six, get into defensive positions and entrench!” We hit the phase line and dropped, firing our entrenching charges to make new foxholes.

“Monk-Six to all Monk Elements, evacuation and skyfire is coming, watch your heads.” On my minimap I could see the entire forward slope of the ridge was glowing red, it was soon to become the beaten zone of an artillery strike.

In orbit high above, a thor satellite, carefully disguised until now as a floating piece of junk fired it’s thrusters and orientated towards the ground. Its entire payload fired at once, hundreds of three meter long high mass harpoons dropping away from it and speeding earthward on their thrusters.

The enemy armoured brigade we were facing saw the danger and snapped into reverse, pulling back off the slope, it’s weapons already blazing skyward in point defence mode. The harpoons followed them, catching for forward company, pillars of earth spraying skyward where the rods struck. Each rod sprayed the area around it with a wave of proximity mines as it fell, to delay the enemy advance.

Our transports zoomed in fast, their sonic booms hammering us as they accelerated. The carryalls and their escorting gunships were flying low, almost as low as the anti-gravity tanks. They dropped, not exactly landed by hovering and we streamed aboard. I’ve never seen a force our size load up so fast. The British tankers abandoned their vehicles and climbed aboard, one of the gunships blasting the tanks as we lifted.

I saw enemy vehicles climbing up the ridge again, dwindling into the distance as we shot away. For me, the first battle of the war was over.

Further to the east in the low-lands near the town of Sincar, the war was kicking off for Jillian as well. She was sitting in the fighting compartment of her tank, a Fury which she nicknamed Hector, and reviewing the munitions selection it had made for the mission. She, along with the rest of the Rim-Federation’s two hundred and third armoured division were massed in the lowlands, ready to attack a Second Phase mechanised division occupying the area around Sincar across from them.

“No Hector, you won’t need Sabots or mini-nukes for the enemy tanks” Jillian told the tanks AI “set for no shell against enemy armour less than thirty tons.” She looked down the targeting priority list, that all looked good.

“Affirmative” said the tank. Jillian smiled and patted its console. Forward of her, Private Laurence Gray, her driver listened to his commander with a smile; even for someone from the Rim-Federation Jillian had a rather close relationship with her computers. Really, driver and commander were only formal titles. The tank drove itself; the tank tracked and engaged targets itself. The Rim-Federation refused to accept the necessary changes to the human condition that would be required to fire as quickly or accurately as a trooper from Sol, they had computers to do their fighting for them.

“All call signs this is Wendigo-Actual, Chris, repeat, Chris”

“That’s it.” Jillian said “we’re moving up to the staging area” Laurence took a deep breath and watched his board as the tank lifted off the ground and moved forward rapidly. There were hundreds of other armoured vehicles moving with them, hovering half a meter or so up on their anti-gravity lifters, turrets swung to cover all directions.

A few minutes later they landed in the assembly area, ready to form up and push over the boarder. The first part of the plan was just going into operation, a platoon sized element of strike robots and elite assault troops moved up to the hill overlooking the boarder, took careful aim and destroyed three local tanks covering the sector ahead of them with ATGMs. Then the artillery preparation began, a ten minute whirlwind of rockets and shells that savaged the enemy covering troops.

And then it was time to move, forming line as they advanced. The horizon was lit brightly on the infra-red, pulverised by artillery. It seemed to Jillian that nothing could possibly have survived the intense bombardment, but obviously something had because she distinctly felt Hector’s main gun discharge. A report of hitting an enemy infantry position appeared on her screen. The gun fired again and a second report flashed… they were in contact. Jillian felt a surge of shock and adrenaline at the realization.

There was a line of enemy light infantry positions that had survived the bombardment, firing rocket propelled grenades and ATGMs towards her. The tanks defensive systems shot most of them down, one banging off the Glacis with a terrible clang that made the screen image shake. Infantry positions blew apart under a concentrated mass of computer guided rounds, lighter anti-infantry weapons adding their fire to the thunder of the main guns. The few survivors of the infantry line tried to pull back but were unable to get away from the rapidly approaching gravity tanks.

Enemy armour was approaching from Sincar, meant as reinforcement for the now destroyed front line. They were small, compact tanks with carbon and ceramic armour that weighed around thirty tons, armed with heavy rail guns. Each one would have been more than a match for even the heaviest armoured vehicle of the great wars of the twentieth century. Against the Rim-Federation armour they were battlefield coffins.
Jillian felt curiously removed from what was happening, watching the turret swing back and forth, racking up kills, occasionally giving an authorisation to change ammo type or firing priority. So far the war seemed cruelly easy.

And then her wingman to the left exploded. One moment Corporal Hobs’ Fury was moving forward then the next an ionized trail in the air linked it to a spot in a distant hamlet and the tank was crashing, burning. The UGV hadn’t picked up anything “Warning, enemy anti tank gun team detected” Hector observed belatedly as he launched a spread of blackout. The fury accelerated moving rapidly into cover. Another tank was hit, the Lieutenants vehicle. That left Jillian in charge.

“Get us hull down!” Laurence instructed unnecessarily. The advance halted, as Hector and the other remaining tank in Jillian’s platoon pulled back behind a small ridge. More rail gun rounds tore into the area, raising fountains of earth as they tried to find a target in the blackout. A UAV streaked over the cloud to try to pick out targets in the village but was shot out of the sky.

“Reaper three, this is Reaper actual. Take out that assault gun team at any cost. It’s holding up the entire divisional advance.” Jillian stiffened, realising that was her now and took a deep breath. There were probably still civilians in the hamlet but she’d been given an order.

“Reaper three solid copy, request omega authorisation” she replied voice quiet and surprisingly calm.

There was a pause “omega is authorised. Give them hell Sergeant.” The company commander seemed concerned too, but Jillian was now feeling more exited. She’d liked Lieutenant Quinn.

Jillian pressed a key and then spoke “Mini-nuke release, target Milborne hamlet, four kilometres away. Three rounds dial to yield 4 and fuse for airburst”

“Target found, weapons yield and fusing as ordered” the tank replied.

“Fire for effect” Hector’s turret rotated and discharged, once, then twice more at intervals. Enemy point defence must have got the first shell but the second turned the night bright white, then the third detonated near it. Milborne hamlet and the mobile anti tank guns inside it vanished under the twin fireballs.

“Reaper actual this is Reaper Three. Target destroyed.”

“Roger Reaper Three, continue advance” they began to move again, pushing deeper and deeper into hostile territory.

[Nik]

Great fun !

But I'll have to come back and read it again as very hard to tell where paras switched POVs etc.

Uh, could you give your spiel-chequer a kick ??
Borders/boarders, courses/causes etc etc...