First Deployment (Corporate Marines Book 3) Page 29

  I could see that what Jane was saying was correct, and the rest of the section was getting that point as well. We had spent so much time trying to come up with reasons why the Kah-Choo had come and then left when they hadn’t taken casualties and after we had made what looked like such progress toward communicating, that we had forgotten the one most basic factor: They were aliens.

  Every race was too stuck in its own mindset. We couldn’t think differently enough to understand one another. We were all just too alien. Our computers couldn’t understand one another, at least not well or effectively, probably because as their creators we had given them our perceptions. Even simple math didn’t work as different races used different base values.

  I felt like everything we had done over the last few days was useless.

  I slumped back in the chair. Everyone was silent.

  Then Two spoke. “So Jane, in your opinion, you are saying that everything we have done here is worthless? We’ve been wasting our time? Do you have a better use of our time to offer, or maybe something different we could be doing?”

  Jane shook her digital head no. “You are doing exactly what you need to be doing. Humans have a tendency to lose sight of the real focus. You have lost your focus. If you can instead work through these different options and realize that at the base of it every single concept drawn out here is likely wrong, then you will start making headway.”

  Three sat up and leaned forward. “So you are telling us to keep on with useless activities, then? What’s the point?”

  Jane looked at Two, who was staring off into space thinking.

  Two focussed in on Jane. “Go ahead and tell them.”

  Jane nodded and looked me right in the eye. “You need to get the focus of rationale thought. To put your ideas and fears down and be recorded. That should help you begin the process of acceptance. Yet while we go through this, you need to be aware that in fact everything we are coming up with is likely incorrect, at least partially. By getting past this ‘irrational issue’—and so you know, that is Steven’s term, not mine—you can accept that what happened and how everything worked out is not your fault. The section did everything by the book, and after my review, I’ve determined you all worked well together. I can see the section coming together. Yet you may not accept this. So the best thing that you can do, according to myself and, more importantly, Steven, is to work through all the possible scenarios on why the aliens did what they did. Also consider what you think they will do next.”

  Jane stopped talking and just smiled at me.

  So the AIs had let us work on this for days so that we would eventually come to the realization that what we were doing was worthless. No, not worthless. There was no effective meaning that we could get out of anything that had happened. But now I could see that we should let it go.

  I thought back over the last few days. We had gone through all our post op drills. Sort of. We were spending the bare minimum on everything except for these debrief sessions. Most of us had even dodged Steven and while I knew my armour was good I had not spent the extra hours I always did on it.

  I looked over at Two. “Excuse me, Two? If we’re done here for now, I’d like to go work on my armour. I don’t think I’ve put enough time in on it recently.”

  She looked over at me and nodded. She stood. “These meetings are over. Take your thoughts and record them. Our next debrief will be tomorrow for a max of half an hour. Let’s get back to routine.”

  Two stopped talking to us and looked at Jane. “Thanks for putting things in perspective Jane.”

  Jane smiled and then her avatar was gone. I could hear her voice, though. “You’re welcome, Two. All part of my job.”

  We moved back into our shipboard routine.

  Cleanup

  We stayed close by, slowly circling the small planet in a geosynchronous orbit. We were up and down regularly in small groups and whenever we deployed, we went fully armed. Just in case.

  The time we spent on the planet was all in or around the base cleaning up. All the domes were fixed up and most of the equipment was working again. Not all of it, though. The automated miners were doing all right, but there was no way to process the ore. After almost a week of trying to jury-rig parts, the processor was fired up for a test run. Seconds later they had to shut it off as two smaller parts hit their max stress point and shattered, causing even more damage. The machinery needed a full overhaul and too many spare parts that would take time to manufacture, and then they would need to be installed inside this huge machine. Once that happened, everything would need constant testing.

  Whoever had fired that one grenade had done a great job of causing massive damage. The processor would be out of use for at least another month while every part was scanned for stress points. After almost a month, everything was up to just over 80 percent repaired. We were confident that the outpost could now survive on its own. Even if something did break down—and there were several items that we were not sure about—there were enough functional backups and redundant systems that it would not cause the destruction of the site. It would be inconvenient, but it could be fixed.

  We spent another three weeks working on advancing what the outpost was involved with. We assisted with surveying and laying out new dig sites. The first of the truly long-term shafts was sighted in as well.

  There were only two smaller robotic miners available to begin, but they were well into the project by the time we were done.

  They would dig down and then out, excavating a chamber further down under the surface. It was far enough down that minor tremors or impacts on the surface should not be a threat. The next ship coming out this way would be a small freighter. They should have the prefabricated dome that would go over the shaft. Then a special spray-on material would arrive the trip after that. Within a year, there would be a large chamber with several smaller ones off of it for living accommodations. The outpost members wouldn’t move in until the entire thing was finished, but that day would come eventually.

  On one of the last days I was down on the surface, I looked around. The Kah-Choo had come in and done some serious damage, yet they had not completely destroyed anything by the time we had arrived. I really believed that they had not wanted to destroy the site. In fact, aside from blowing up one slag heap when we landed, all the damage had come from their initial assault on the outpost. None had occurred later. They even left a well sited and camouflaged bunker.

  When I communicated with the commander of the enemy forces and we showed each other the attacks on our outposts, they looked similar. I hoped that the Kah-Choo realized that we would never attack anyone like that. But in the end, I was just glad it had worked out and that they left.

  It only came up once that the aliens had come in differently than the last attack. This attack was much less efficient than just dropping some large rocks from far orbit would have been.

  Maybe some other race was attacking us both . . . but why?

  The only option I saw was that new alien race that was so aggressive. Yet they were so primitive that they wouldn’t be able to field the weapons that we had seen used . . . weren’t they.

  I gave up on thinking about that. We were getting ready to head back on a return circuit to human space. We had spent seven weeks here when we should have spent no more than two weeks.

  We were just saying our goodbyes to those staying behind. We had loaded the bodies of the dead the previous day. They were in bags in storage on the ship. I tried not to think of them.

  We were in the middle of saying farewell to the site’s governor when Two’s helmet slid shut. We were planet-side in full armour, but with no threat on the planet, we had opened up our helmets when we entered the main dome.

  Two’s helmet sliding shut like that when she was talking to someone meant a command override. I hadn’t known that was possible, but I was guessing that the captain had th
e ability to do that if necessary.

  The governor, Andrew Kogin, stopped talking when Two’s helmet closed like that. He looked at the rest of us and looked relieved. If our helmets hadn’t slid shut, it wasn’t an override because of bad atmosphere or imminent combat.

  One smiled at him and made polite small talk. I ignored it but the governor and his assistant seemed to be calmed down by it.

  I was never able to talk to any governor of any of the outposts or bases without seeing floating quotes around the title. Some governors are in charge of twelve people. In my mind they should be administrators or something like that. At least the one planet that we have taken possession of outside of our solar system has over four hundred personnel. There are plans to terraform that nuked wasteland into something useful for humanity. I can see why that should have a governor. Everywhere else? No way. It was like Corporate HQ was building up a bunch of people and stroking their egos.

  It didn’t make sense to me. But it didn’t have to, either.

  After a few more seconds Two’s helmet slid open again and she smiled at the governor. “I’m sorry, governor. The ship was just hailed by a courier vessel and we have orders to ship out immediately.” Before his face could even go white as he thought about what that may mean on the frontier, Two continued. “No worries, we simply need to head back for rest, refit, and debrief. Another section will be along on schedule soon enough. We’ll take back the lists of parts that are required to get the processor back up and running, as well as push for you to get more spares of some of the other items.”

  The governor smiled back. “Thank you. We never thought anything like this would happen or we would have brought more.” He sighed but for once didn’t seem to collapse inward when he talked about the next bit. “As well as replacements for the dead. When the spare parts get here, we’ll cache some of them around the site far enough out that they’re not easy to find, just in case we have visitors in future.”

  There was a bit more small talk and then we boarded our shuttle.

  The trip back to the ship was uneventful and as soon as we had docked, we could feel the ship powering up and moving out of orbit.

  We unloaded and moved to the armour room, where we stripped down. We didn’t even grab any food; Two directed us straight into the briefing room. There was coffee, juice, and sandwiches in the centre of the table, which was appreciated.

  We all moved in and sat down. Two began talking immediately.

  “I’ll answer all your questions now. This is the little I have until I go over the full order set that came out. So Corporate received notice of the attack a while ago. A courier ship was immediately dispatched to check on the site. HQ knew that we would be along shortly and there was no way to get more Marines here. The decision was made that if we couldn’t handle it, then another section likely couldn’t either. Instead, the plan was that if things had gone bad, the courier would leave and warn the other sites. We have been ordered to go back and fully debrief higher in person. That is all that I have now. Given that the ship is already moving and no one is here to greet us, I would say that the captain has already read his orders and has his hands full getting us going. I’ll read the orders over and brief you all later. Back to routine for now. Questions?”

  Everyone was too busy stuffing their faces with sandwiches to ask anything, and really there wasn’t anything else for Two to tell us until she had read her orders.

  She nodded. “Good, then. Off to work. We need to get back into training tomorrow.” That elicited a groan from around the table. Two grabbed a sandwich and started eating.

  We were heading back to Earth already, at least a year before we should be heading back for refit. I was going to have to answer some questions, I was sure. I had stopped fighting in the middle of combat and traded strategic information with the enemy. He had traded back as well, but I didn’t think that would have much of an impact. The only thing that I could see working in my favour was that Two had ordered us to cooperate and none of us had really been fighting.

  I couldn’t help feeling that if anyone was going to get in trouble, it would be me. The Corporation knew my history. It couldn’t be a positive factor, I was sure.

  I knew military history. Headquarters never really looked at situations like that well. I wondered if they would lock me up or execute me after conveniently overlooking the fact that there had been two attacks and both had been made to look like it was done by a race that we already knew and were not on good terms with. Diversion was the oldest tactic out there, and I felt that someone was trying to play our two races against each other.

  I grabbed another sandwich and gobbled it down too fast before getting up and heading for the armour bay. I didn’t really drink coffee, and I had a lot of work to do.

  End Notes

  Book Three And Four

  So some of you are going to be wondering why this is called book three when book three came out already. Sometimes changes happen. The ‘previous’ book 3 was meant as back story and more information on how the CM Universe works. I had a question from a reader on when book four was going to come out and if Sam Slate would be in it again.

  That clinched it for me. If I want to have these other books that do not really fall into the story arc then they have to go into another series. Otherwise it becomes too confusing. THREE entire books on the Kah-Choo?

  So to stay focused on the actual main character (Sam) I have released this as book three as it should be. The spin off series which are a number of stand alone books that explain elements of the universe and what has or will happen will start being released in 2017. Right now I have about eight planned. Star Traders will be re-released in that series. So you have no reason to buy it again.

  NOW. Book four. No spoilers if you have had a chance to read this book (and if you are reading this part then you likely have).

  The Marines are ALL called back to the Solar system because they have been sabotaged. The reality of what a soldier can go through sometimes with ‘hurry up and wait’ along with some of the higher commands ‘good ideas on what should happen now’ are there.

  After the damage is fixed the Marines are going to have to train back up in new tactics and prepare. Something is coming. They have to be ready, because war clouds can be seen on the horizon. Everyone knows when this new war breaks out it will be bad.

  Authors Notes

  I tend to be one of those honest guys. This series is actually reflecting my own experiences within the military. Like I have said before Hurry up and Wait is one of the main lines used by the military. Every military.

  Book 1 was the prequel building the backstory directly tied to the story arc. Book 2 introduces Sam Slate (Eight) the Main Character. Book 3 covers the issues that have just come to light within the whole program. Book 4 is the redevelopment and then shortly after that. War. Not some cute war with red coats and firing lines and honour. Worse than the Eastern Front in World War 2. This is aiming for some genocide and is coming from a different angle.

  I like this series because this is world building early on. No gleaming star ships and intergalactic federations that are well established. No easy answers and technology fixes everything. Poverty still exists as do bad people.

  It may not be obvious yet but humanity is starting to get the gleam back in its eye when it looks up at the night sky. I hope we can see more of that in the coming books.

  Writing this book and working on the others has been difficult. Work, family, (two boys in school and homework) all tend to slow the process down. The youngest is slowly getting sicker but that is another fight. I have the entire series loosely templated out and the new series will likely be called Stories From The CM Universe.

  We’ll see.

  You take care and I hope to have book 4 out at the end of spring next year, 2017.

  Look up to the stars and feel that sense of awe but keep an
eye out for the crap on the ground so you don’t step in it when you are out walking.

  Tom

  If you would like to check out what Tom is working on in novels and series check here:

  www.tgermann-sf-guy.com

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