Reason For Vengeance (Dark Vengeance Book 1) (3 page)

“We have people doing just that, but it is a massive organisation and it will take a lot to get enough on board to make a difference.”

The woman nodded in acknowledgement and Billy continued.  “Don’t hate those men and women who have joined the police.”  He spoke directly to the woman while knowing the rest were listening.  “They are little different from us.  All they wanted was a better life for themselves and their families.  Unless we work for the gangs, we cannot hope to earn what the police and Legion are offering.  Yes they hurt us, their own people, and so do the Legion.  Do not forget, it is only rare they are called in here on Olympus.  On other worlds, the Legion is just as much hated as the police, for exactly the same reasons.

“If you think, when it finally comes down to it, there will not be Manual blood spilled by us, then you are fooling yourself.  Like those who have turned their backs on us, we will be killing to better our lives.  We will fight them as we must, but do not hate them.”

“When then?” the woman demanded.  “When will we be actually able to make a difference and bring down the Privileged?” 

“I don’t know.”  Billy shook his head.  “We need a catalyst, something or someone to bring the Legion together and lead them in revolt.  Without that, all we can do is keep chipping away at their powerbase.” 

The door hissed open on the Legion Space Station Furioso, in orbit around Olympus’s primary moon, and Major Valerie Carter came through into the briefing room.  One hundred and seventy centimetres tall with a slim build, dark hair cut to her shoulder and pale skin emphasised by the black uniform she wore.  She walked with a clear purposeful stride.  To ninety-nine percent of the human population she would look like a very attractive woman in her late twenties, though she was actually one hundred and eight years old.

“Shadow Company!  Attention!”  Sergeant Major Bickerstaff commanded and the one hundred and twenty-eight soldiers, Officers, Non-Coms and Privates all came smoothly to their feet.

“At ease, Company.”  Valerie said with a smile.

She walked over to the screen at the front of the room, along with the two other officers who followed her in, and the Company seated themselves.  Valerie indicated the two officers to her troops.

“This is Major Wilson and Colonel Lieberman.  They’ll be giving us the brief on our latest assignment.  The short version is we have a target in the middle of a jungle, one hundred and fifty to two hundred hostiles by current intelligence.  They have a semi-fortified position, but mostly rely upon staying hidden from the locals as their main protection.  They have basic skills and have shown some effectiveness against those locals in the field, with quite a high kill ratio.

“Our mission is to go in, clear them out and be off planet before the locals know we are there.  This is a straight sanitisation.”  She saw the Colonel and Major stir out of the corner of her eye but continued.  “You all know the drill.  These guys have gotten too big for the locals to handle and the Foreign Office has asked us to sort it out.  Removing any high tech equipment they may have obtained in the process.”

Valerie turned to the two officers.  “Colonel Lieberman, the floor is yours.”

“Thank you, Major.”  The Colonel replied, with emphasis on her rank.  “Shadow Company, you will be leaving tomorrow morning.  The Large Cargo Freighter, Eric Blair is already loaded with a Forward Operating Base Module.  You will take the Legion Navy Heavy Cruiser, PLN Wishart to Concordia and meet the Blair out at Benson Station, where she will be taking on heavy ores.  This will give you the cover to board the FOB Module using your Helos, without being seen and without the knowledge of the crew.

“It will be a fifty-six day round trip to your destination.  The Module is fully equipped for the Company’s thirty-seven day stay.”  There were no groans or comments at the news they would all be shut up in such a small environment, but the soldiers of Shadow Company were still human.  Valerie knew each and every one of them and she could feel them stir at this news.  They’d done it before for even longer periods and they would do it again.  It didn’t mean they had to like it though.

Valerie could see the Colonel was slightly surprised.  Neither Lieberman nor Major Wilson had briefed Shadow Company before.  They were Legion Intelligence and this was their Operation, they saw the need for it, proposed it and written it.  They would have worked with other Special Ops groups or they wouldn’t be here, no matter how powerful their backing.

Shadow Company were the very elite, the best soldiers the Pantheon had at its disposal.  The Legion, the military arm of the Pantheon, was split into various distinct services.  The biggest were the Navy, Army and Commandos.

The Legion Navy ran the ships, from the massive state of the art battleships, to the tiny courier vessels zipping between systems and acting as the lifeline of interstellar communication.  The Legion Army with its big regiments was the hammer on the ground for peace keeping, disaster recovery and occupation.  It was also the iron fist keeping the Manuals in check.

The Commandos were the scalpel; they trained soldiers to a higher level to be specialists.  Either Marine’s stationed on Navy ships for boarding actions, or Rangers working with the Army to hit covert targets behind enemy lines.  Within the Commandos there was another level; made up of the best of both Marines and Rangers.  These were the Devils and within that close knit community of special action teams, Shadow Company sat at the very pinnacle.

The job was not really that high a priority, but even the sharpest sword needed to be kept honed and this is what this op was.  It was still necessary and if Shadow Company wasn’t available another team would be sent.  For them it would be a mission.  For Shadow Company it was a training exercise.  Her soldiers knew this and Valerie was confident it would not make any difference.  They would approach this operation as they would their most dangerous, because they were true professionals. 

Valerie and Shadow Company did the most important thing possible in any bureaucracy.  They were successful, every time, without fail.  Valerie was very aware this could be fleeting and she worked hard to keep Shadow Company’s edge.  All it would take would be one failure and in forty-two years that had never happened.  Valerie was determined to keep it that way.

The Colonel was continuing with his briefing.  “The freighter will be going via its normal route with stops at Persia and Concordia, before heading to your target in Gomez.”  Valerie raised her eyebrows.  She almost expected the Colonel not to give the Company the target planet.  Maybe he had heard how she ran her team.

“As per our normal Modus Operandi, the crew will be unaware of the FOB Module.  All they will know is it contains machine parts to be transhipped at Valhalla.  The Wishart will be on hand in the system to bring you back to Olympus.”

The Colonel activated the screen and an image of Gomez appeared.  Valerie could tell he was moving on to the actual assault, so thought it best to interject with a clarification.

“There will be two spooks on the Eric Blair’s crew, to ensure we make it to the target on time and they don’t go wandering off during the assault.”  She could sense the Colonel bristle when she gave away the location of two of their undercover operatives.  It was more important her people knew they could rely on their ride home, so he would have to live with it.

Valerie sat back and Major Wilson took over to run through the assault itself.  This was just an initial brief to give Shadow Company an overview, to allow them to make sure they had the most appropriate equipment when they headed out on the Helos the next day.  It was a relatively simple operation and did not take long to go through.  The Company asked questions, which the Major and Colonel answered without Valerie having to intervene.

The briefing soon ran through to its conclusion and all the questions were answered.  Valerie took to the floor again.

“OK, Shadow Company, we reassemble at nine am tomorrow morning in bay fourteen.  Have all your kit and be ready to go.”  No matter how good they were, this was still the Legion.  Like every military organisation in human history, they learned assumptions led to mistakes, and mistakes led to people dying.

“The time is your own.”  She smiled and nodded to them.  “I’ll see you all in the morning.  Dismissed.”

As Shadow Company filed out, the three captains making up her command team came over to join her, Colonel Lieberman and Major Wilson.  Joss Gibson was her second in command and currently ran the Command and Control unit.  While Valerie was in the field, Captain Gibson would co-ordinate the five platoons and keep her updated on the tactical situation.  It was not the way most units were run, the commanding officer would normally be in the C&C.  Valerie found she was far more effective on the ground, leading Shadow Company from the front. 

Captain Shannon Forlani got admiring glances from Lieberman and Wilson as she walked over, this was perfectly normal for the rather busty blonde.  While they might be admiring the view, they were very aware Captain Forlani was Shadow Company’s number two on the ground and earned her place the hard way.  Lastly there was Hans Benz, the short and slender leader of the Company’s air assets.  He flew First Platoons Helo as well as commanding the other pilots and air crews. 

“Shall we run through the last details before you depart?”  Lieberman asked Valerie.

“I’m afraid you’ll have to excuse me, Colonel.  My Captains have my full confidence and should be able to handle any last minute details.”

“That is most irregular,” he said carefully.

“I appreciate that, Colonel, but I haven’t seen my children for three days and they won’t see me now for another two months.  I’m going to put in a very long vid call to them.”  She turned to her command team.  “Captains, I will see you on deck tomorrow for embarkation to the Wishart.” 

Her three officers saluted her, and Shannon smiled as she added.  “Give them my love.”  Valerie smiled back as she returned their salutes smartly, and nodded to the Major and Colonel, before leaving the briefing room.

She headed to one of the station personnel lifts that would take her to her quarters.  It was early evening at her home on Olympus, she knew she would be able to spend some decent time talking to her husband and children.  The lift arrived quickly and she got in next to the only other occupant, a Research and Development engineer Valerie was working with, Emily Valletta. 

“Major,” the tall blonde woman greeted her.  “I’m glad I ran into you.  We’ve got the updated results from the Spectre’s last test run.”

Valletta tended to be very focused on her work.  Valerie considered reminding her a lift was not an appropriate place to discuss a highly classified prototype, but decided, as they were alone and the Rosso section of Furioso was the Legion’s most secure facility, it wouldn’t do any harm.  It also saved Valerie having to get an update before she departed the next day.

“How did it go?”

“Better even than we expected, the new super matt armour and the focused Electron Shielding worked marvellously.”  Emily said in a rather dry tone.  “The Spectre moved to within two kilometres of the Dante without detection.  We’ve analysed the Dante’s sensor data a dozen times and we managed to find only a hint she was there.  That hint was on the last two, after we entered the Spectre’s full specifications into the program.”

Valerie was impressed, the PNS Dante was one of the most advanced battleships in the Legion Navy and that meant, in the entirety of known space.  She couldn’t help tease the other woman a bit.

“I see, so she is detectable.”

“Only if we wide broadcast the designs.”  Valletta replied, as usual not realising Valerie hadn’t seriously meant it.

“True, but like any advantage in war, it’s only as good while your enemy doesn’t know about it.”  Valerie warned a little more seriously.  “Once a few ships have been lost they’ll want to know why and how.  They’ll do everything they can to find it.  You’d be surprised how much death motivates people.”

“That’s the beauty of the shielding.  It can be adapted as time goes on.  If they find a way to detect the original spec’s, we can adjust the energy signature so it won’t do them any good.”

“OK, Emily, please send me the full report to my secure Link tonight.  Shadow Company is shipping out tomorrow.  I’ll review it and give you my input when we return.”

“Thank you, Major.”  She hesitated for a moment.  “I have to admit, I was not overly pleased to hear you would be assigned to oversee this project.”  Valerie raised an eyebrow and Valletta hurriedly continued.

“I mean, as a ground combat specialist, I didn’t expect you to be able to contribute effectively to a Stealth Space Fighter, but your insight and recommendations have been extremely helpful.  The comments from your last flight in particular, clarified several points for us.  Your feedback was actually better than our main Test Pilots.”

“I’m glad I could be of assistance,” Valerie said with a smile.  “The Spectre could well make a difference to combat.  If we can use a few fighter bombers to take out enemy ships, rather than pounding them from a distance with our own, it will save a lot of lives.  If the other Nations know that we can hit them anywhere without warning they’ll be even more wary of getting in the way of the Pantheons interests.”  The lift came to a halt at Valerie’s stop and the door opened. 

Valerie paused as she stepped out and turned back to the engineer.  “I didn’t start my career in the Legion Army, I flew Vectors for ten years.  Including tours on Tau Ceti and Mars, among others.”

Valletta’s eye’s widened.  “Mars?  You fought in the Dictator Wars?”

Valerie frowned slightly.  “I’m not sure if fight is the right word but yes.”  Before the engineer could say anything more Valerie stepped back and let the lift doors close.  She headed down the corridor to her quarters, her mind looking back to over eighty years before.

The Dictator Wars.  A mess those three words did not come close to explaining.  Earth and its oldest colonies became heavily over populated with ever more scarce resources.  Space travel gave the human race a vast wealth in chemical and mineral means, but it could not supply one of the most fundamental necessities, food.  To manufacture food you needed land, but that land was being used for people to live on.

People got more desperate, governments collapsed and despotic dictators stepped into the vacuum.  Up until this point, the human tragedy of Earth and the surrounding space was of little concern to the Pantheon and the other newer human Nations.  There was little they could do about the food shortage, it would be impossible to ship the massive volume required.  What they could do is make huge profits selling what they could get there, even if they gave twenty percent of it as ‘aid’.