Solfleet: The Call of Duty
Read Solfleet: The Call of Duty Online
Authors: Glenn Smith
by Glenn E.
Smith
Copyright
© 2014, Glenn E. Smith
All Rights
Reserved
DEDICATION
To all those
who refused to stop believeing in this work, I thank you.
Rosha’Kana Star System
Earth Standard Date: Wednesday, 14
July 2190
Amidst the steady chatter that always seemed to accompany
long stretches of ‘hurry up and wait,’ the Marines filed onboard their assigned
assault shuttle, took their seats on the twin troop benches, one squad facing the
other, and strapped themselves in. The new, lighter weight combat suits known
within the fleet supply system as ‘Combat Armor, Semi-Ablative’, or CASA armor—the
Marines naturally referred to their individual suits as their houses—made simple
tasks such as walking, stowing gear, sitting down, and strapping into a seat much
easier to perform than they had been before, so the decrease in bulk and weight
was a welcome change in the short term, but the Marines couldn’t help but
wonder if it was really such a good thing. None of them dared say anything
aloud for fear of making the worst come true, but to a person they questioned in
silence how much protection the new suits were going to give them in the thick
of battle. They seemed almost
too
lightweight to be of much use, except
for the TAC helmets that went with them. Those were still plenty heavy.
As soon as Gunnery Sergeant Harrison saw that all his
troops and their gear were secure, he sent word forward to the pilot. The standard
high-G combat launch followed seconds later, and as the shuttle raced across
the perilous open space between the assault carrier
Tripoli
and the
Marines’ objective, one of the Veshtonn armada’s enormous command cruisers,
each man and woman fell silent and turned inward to the depths of his or her
own thoughts. For those twenty-four Marines, and for the hundreds of others who
waited as they did while their own shuttles made the same dangerous crossing,
the long hoped for chance to do their small part, to join the epic battle to
defend the Tor’Kana people’s home star system from the Veshtonn invaders, had
finally arrived.
All so young, Gunny Harrison thought, shaking his head ever
so slightly as he gazed at their smooth-skinned faces. Why did they always have
to be so young? Even the squad leaders were what, all of about twenty-two or
twenty-three years old? The lower enlisted were of course even younger than
that. Hell, most of the privates and lance-corporals weren’t even out of their
teens yet. They had their whole lives ahead of them.
So what the hell were they doing riding into combat with
the Solfleet Marines?
He knew the two-fold answer to that question of course.
First, it was only logical that the lower enlisted ranks would be filled with
younger people. Such had been the case throughout all of history and would
continue to be so. Second, because lately fewer than a third of all Marines who
charged into battle against the Veshtonn came out of it in one piece. That fact
often made an old-school roughneck Marine like him wonder why the young
continued to volunteer, but as he gazed once more at the youthful, tight-jawed
faces before him, he realized that he needn’t wonder about that. The answer,
though multifaceted, was all too simple. Patriotism. A sense of honor and a self-imposed
requirement to answer the call of duty.
Much of the older generation, including many who’d spent
their entire adult lives in the public eye, barked and whined a lot about how
much softer, more selfish, and less disciplined the younger generation was, and
tended to blame the young for society’s continued moral decline when in many
cases it was their own actions in the pursuit of their own selfish agendas that
were to blame. But from where he sat, Harrison couldn’t have disagreed more. As
far as he was concerned, those of the younger generation whom he’d had the
opportunity to meet and the honor to serve with were to be commended.
The Marines all leaned sharply toward the bow as the
shuttle suddenly slowed, then practically fell into each others’ laps as it
came to an abrupt halt with a resounding thud that reverberated through the
deck plates.
“
We have contact,
” the copilot practically shouted
over the intercom.
Case in point, Harrison thought as he slapped his harness
release and stood up. Their own copilot was a twenty-three year old baby-faced
ensign who didn’t even have to shave every day yet. A newlywed fresh out of
flight school and on his very first active duty assignment, he’d volunteered
for this mission—volunteered to fly straight into hell. Volunteered! His wife
would kill him if she ever found out.
“Holy shit, we actually made it,” one of the Marines
commented.
“You stow that bullshit right now, Marine!” Harrison
shouted at him. More than anything, he hated pessimism. It was a morale killer
of the worst kind, and as such could seriously curtail a combat unit’s
efficiency and effectiveness. Factually of course, the young Marine was right.
They’d made it across wide open space despite incredible odds against them. A
barrage of enemy weapons fire had rained down on them all along the way—a veteran
of dozens of battles, Harrison had barely noticed it—but the shuttle’s armor
plating had held.
God willing, their new CASA armor would hold up just as
well.
“
Grapplers deployed,
” the copilot announced. “
Positive
lock established.
”
“
Transfer tunnel secure and pressurized,
” the pilot
added. “
Good hunting, Gunnery Sergeant.
”
“Thanks, L.T.,” Harrison responded. “Be back as soon as we
can.” He pulled off his headset and hung it up, then marched toward the
airlock. He intended to lead the way into the enemy vessel. He always led the
way. Modern military doctrine dictated he do otherwise, but as far as he was
concerned a leader was supposed to lead from the front, not bring up the rear.
“All right, Marines!” he called out. “Prepare to assault!”
Like a well rehearsed dance company beginning its first
live performance, the Marines released their safety harnesses and rose to their
feet as one, locked and loaded and charged their weapons, slid their visors
down over their eyes and ran checks on their Heads-Up Displays, and then
double-checked each others’ armor and equipment. Then they turned and faced the
airlock, ready to follow their fearless leader—if they only knew—into the enemy
vessel as soon as the doors opened in front of them.
Thunder rolled through the shuttle, vibrating the deck
plates beneath their boots. An explosion outside. The alien vessel’s hull had
just been breached. A second, more distant blast shook them, and a third
immediately followed. At least two other shuttles had made it safely across,
Harrison concluded. But the fourth apparently hadn’t. Twelve more had headed
for more distant parts of the ship, probably too far away for him and his
platoon to feel or hear their breach blasts, and still dozens more had set out
across the gauntlet of open space toward other ships. He offered up a quick
prayer for them, especially for those souls who hadn’t made it, then drew a
deep breath and set his mind to the task at hand.
The airlock doors parted fast and he and his Marines
charged forward, into the belly of the beast.
The first thing Harrison noticed as he turned and faced the
Marines behind him, before his eyes had even begun to adjust to the dim, almost
dusk-like and slightly red-tinted lighting, was how strange the deck felt
beneath his feet. Soft, even a little squishy, it felt more like a shallow
mudflat at low tide than it did the hard deck of a space vessel, and it smelled
a lot like a stagnant swamp. The second thing he noticed was the heat and what
had to be nearly a hundred percent humidity. So thick with moisture that he
could actually see it, the heavy atmosphere made breathing a chore. It
collected on his visor, forcing him to wipe it away every few seconds. It
condensed on his skin and ran down inside his uniform like rivulets of warm
sweat. They hadn’t been aboard for thirty seconds yet and already the back of
his collar was damp and chaffing against his neck.
The Marine closest to him looked up from his own feet and
asked, “How the fuck are we supposed to fight in this shit, Gunny?”
Harrison slapped him across the top of his helmet and
glared at him. The younger man’s wide eyes met his in silent protest, but
quickly fell away. He knew without having to be told what he’d done wrong of
course. Without the advantage of total surprise, their mission, not to mention
their lives, depended on stealth.
Their objective was the main computer core, located less
than a hundred meters down the left corridor, then right at the first cross
corridor for fifty meters, assuming of course the sketchy schematics Intel had
provided them with were correct. Their mission was to copy every scrap of
information they could access onto their handheld data compressor—disposition
of combat and support forces, advanced tactics and combat doctrines, mission
objectives, navigational charts, communications records, cultural information,
and whatever else they could find—while at the same time transmitting it back
to the
Tripoli
for immediate backup. Then they were to introduce a
high-speed data-wiping virus into the source system. Fleet Command’s hope was
that the loss of all data would plunge the vessel into chaos and immediately
render it combat ineffective.
Harrison held up one finger and then pointed to his right—a
silent command deploying first squad in that direction. Then he held up two
fingers, covered his fist with an open hand, and made a karate chop motion
toward the deck to his immediate left. Second squad, take up rear guard
positions, beginning right here.
First squad assembled into its fire teams and Harrison
accompanied them as they moved out, wiping the moisture from his visor once
more. Staying close to the warped, uneven walls while being careful not to
scrape against them, each Marine crouched as low as he or she could in order to
present the smallest possible target. Second squad, meanwhile, headed a
relatively short distance in the opposite direction, then deployed to numerous
positions along the gently curving and downward sloping corridor.
One apparent advantage they had over the enemy likely
crossed the minds of those few among them who had previous combat experience,
Harrison realized as they advanced, and perhaps even provided them with a
little extra ray of hope. The corridor was indeed sloping downward at a
substantial angle in both directions from their point of entry. They held the
high ground—always an advantage in any battle, aboard vessel or otherwise.
First squad reached the intersecting corridor without
incident. So far, so good.
Harrison glanced at the name stenciled in black across the
back of the helmet in front of him as Private Valentino, the squad’s point man
this time around, dropped to one knee against the bulkhead and raised his left
fist to ear level, signaling the rest of the squad to stop and drop as well.
The kid was barely eighteen years old and the closest thing to real combat he’d
ever seen was last month’s battalion paintball tournament, and now here he was
at the front of the line in the middle of a damned suicide mission.