Tauren Invasion 5

 Sitrep:

First off, this was cool:

 I've seen them 3 times in person and countless times from my house. I still get a kick out of them flying over and rattling the windows. :)

I wish some of the other photos had come out. Oh well, next time!

Second: Goodlifeguide got Tauren Invasion back to me this morning. I will work on publishing it tomorrow.

On to the last snippet!

Chapter 5

 

Lebynthos

 

Lieutenant O'Hara scowled as she read the latest report. The army and marine intelligence officers and staff, what little they had of them in the sector had been tapped along with army and marine squads to help Federation law enforcement to track down Tauren spies. FIS and FBI and other agencies were of course involved. They were also tapped to track the enemy's lines of communication to their hidden ansible platforms in some of the star systems.

Easier said than done she thought as she scanned the files. A big part of the problem was that she was one person on one planet. There had been a handful of students who had studied intelligence with the Marines but none had her level of training. To her chagrin she was the senior military intelligence officer in the entire sector. Well, the ground forces one, the spook in charge of the navy side was busy trying to get a handle on the Confederation space tech and industry.

The idea that she was the head of Marine and army intelligence in an entire sector was both a heady and scary prospect for her career. It meant everything was coming down to her. Luckily, she was just one cog in a greater machine; law enforcement and the civilian spook agencies were taking the lead in the hunts.

That was fine with her; she was trained to find spies but only during a combat or occupation situation. Finding embedded spies was a different sort of animal. They still leaned in her direction though, primarily because many were learning on the job and it was a daunting task to find so many spy cells scattered across the sector.

Fortunately, they had a starting point, something she'd pointed out to every spook and law enforcement she'd spoken with in conferences. Getting them over the idea of it being impossible had taken time.

Many of the planets lacked any sort of tracking on their immigration and definitely not going back generations. That meant they had to get creative. Where others had wrung their hands in frustration, she had taken the second half of their mission and put it first.

The embedded spies had to be communicating somehow after all. They either had drops to a channel out of the star system to one that had an ansible, or they had an ansible in the star system to communicate with. They were useless if they couldn't get their intel out in a timely manner.

Finding those lines of communication were therefore key to finding the spies. Which meant looking for the communication systems.

She'd worked with the communication techs over the course of a week to get a general idea on what they should be looking for.

They had started with a system that could find a spot in space and transmit a signal to it. The signal had to be strong enough to punch through an atmosphere on a planet. Most likely the transmissions were short, pulse laser or narrow band burst transmissions. Encrypted obviously.

In a star system that had no space presence, the spies had to be on the ground obviously. Which meant they had to transmit the signal through the atmosphere to a specific spot in the night sky as the planet rotated, and rotated around its parent star. The ansible platform was orbiting somewhere too but passively, and it had to be in space that was clear of anything that might hit and hurt it.

Back to the ground side part of the equation, all of the communication equipment and the sensor equipment to find the ansible had to have computer support and all of that meant power. Hydro, solar, wind, whatever—it meant a power fingerprint.

Those things gave them an initial list of things to look for. They took it a step further in looking at what it would take to transmit a signal and where that signal could go. That was when someone brought in a navy spook briefly.

The ONI spook had pointed out that the ansible platform was most likely well off the established jump points since if they were close they might be spotted by a ship. Unless they were completely solar powered, they had to have some sort of nuclear power, either fission or fusion. They could supplement their power with solar, but that would give away a reflective presence.

Nuclear meant neutrino spoor for the navy to find. It also meant onboard computers and most likely a self-destruct package. But it also meant at some point the platform had to be maintained by a visiting ship.

That had led to speculation about the maintenance ship. The navy was looking into that and trying to pull records of ships was a fun thing she was gratefully not involved in. They had a database to compare it to though, one compiled to get a handle on interstellar traffic and identify pirate activity. Hopefully, something nice would come out of that, though she had her doubts.

There was a hit though recently, several and one solid lead. The picket in the Platte Cluster had found a platform. The navy and spooks were handling the platform. There wasn't much said about that side. They had intercepted a series of signals to the platform and were busy decoding the signals. Better still, federal law enforcement was en route from the Trajan cluster.

The navy had pinpointed a series of targets on the planet. A recon drone had been deployed in orbit, and they had identified a mountain home with a larger than normal energy signature that was transmitting signals to the platform.

At the moment, they were hands off. The orders from on high were to monitor the coming and going from the cabin and get IDs on everyone involved.

There had been no hits in Delos and Samos but a promising lead in Mykonos. That led to a bit of frustration; it was one jump away from her and only two jumps from the capital. It was also one jump from Tortuga. The navy wanted that source cocooned quickly, no doubt because whoever was there might be passing on intel about convoys to and from Tortuga.

The biggest problem was that they didn't have enough agents and teams to go around. There were federal agents on some of the larger populace star systems, but not many agents, and those that were there were involved in their own spy hunts, not to mention other cases.

She had a sneaking suspicion that the powers that be were scratching their heads on how to do something about this situation. They couldn't just ship people from Rho in either, which meant in-house. So, in a couple of months she expected that she might get tapped to travel again.

Until then she would do the best she could, which meant watching from afar and giving advice and looking for needles in very big piles of hay scattered across the sector.

~~{}~~

Captain JG Mya Halice read the latest report and nodded. From the look of the exit polling, Sparkling Seas was taking itself out of the running for the Pele refugees. That was fine. She had a backup plan in place. As soon as the vote was official, she'd execute it and redirect the platoon and team to 77. If they timed their arrival right, they would get there a week to a month prior to the arrival of the refugee ships.

That was, if the ships were loaded in a timely manner. They were still en route to Pele and wouldn't be there for weeks, and knowing civilians they'd want to pack everything up to and including the kitchen sink for sentimental reasons or tradition or an heirloom or whatever.

She didn't care. Honestly, there were enough ships to hopefully handle the load. They had a set weight and size limit on cargo though, and the community leaders had agreed to it in advance.

She felt for those people, but hopefully, once they were landed in a new home, the spirits would be kinder to them.

In the meantime, she still had the preparations for war to contend with. The Army Corps of Engineers had dispatched teams to work on evacuation centers and plans. The official reason was to help with natural disasters and they were going to stick doggedly to that cover story for as long as possible.

It didn't hurt that it was true. The primary purpose of those places would be to be used in case of a natural disaster such as a hurricane, wildfire, flood, or whatever. The threat of war was still just that, a threat.

Best to be prepared, she reminded herself before digging through the reports. Getting her people into position to make something of a difference was a big issue at the moment. Getting people to take the plan seriously was second.

The evacuation centers were supposed to be a funding match program. So far the governors had yet to come up with their side of the funding. She had a sneaking suspicion they were going to play fast and loose and then expect the Federation to take up the slack. When the shit hit the fan, if, she reminded herself, they'd whine and boo-hoo and the Feds would have to fund the rest.

She shook her head. Sometimes she really hated politics.

~~{}~~

Tauren Invasion Snippet 4

 

Chapter 4

 

TauG9-77

 

“My such a fuss!” Admiral Richards said in a mock dismay voice as the black bear cub continued to squall. “What's all the hubbub about, bub?” she asked in a teasing voice.

She winced when the bear cub squalled again and then looked about him blearily. Bear cubs could be extremely loud like this little fellow. He was complaining at being handled and probably the parlous state of his stomach.

He was clearly dehydrated and would not take to a bottle. According to the report his mother had been found dead in her home. He was half the normal weight for a cub his age. According to the report his stool had splinters of wood, cloth, and bits of carpet in it. Not much there to eat in his room apparently.

She watched a Neodog nurse cuddle with the bear cub, walking him around and trying to sooth him as she checked the contents of his stomach and intestinal track with an X-ray scan. She sighed in relief after a moment; it was clean of debris and obstructions. “Well, that's a relief.”

She turned back to see that the nurse had even gotten the little guy to suckle. She smiled at the glow of pleasure from the dog. The cub seemed to take to the bottle urgently.

“How did you manage that?”

“I dabbed a little honey on the tip and warmed the bottle. He liked the sweet flavor apparently,” the nurse murmured. She looked around. “We need a rocker,” she said.

Helen nodded. “Pediatrics, where this little guy belongs, at least as long as we're here,” she said.

“Yes, ma’am. Will he be going down to the planet?”

“As soon as they find someone to take care of him,” Helen replied as she finished writing up her report. “Weight daily. Keep an eye on how much he eats. Stool cultures daily, especially if there are any signs of infection.”

“Yes doctor.”

“Watch for gas,” the admiral said as she went on to the next patient.

That was the nice thing about visiting worlds; she was getting plenty of practice with different species. There were three groundside medical sites set up. They were shifted every ten days. The public was continuously informed about the sites. So far everything was looking good though, no signs of the plagues.

That was a relief.

She left the led lined X-ray suite and moved past the isolation room and then on to the next bay.

The planet was agricultural in nature, but they'd recently suffered a series of mining accidents. Apparently with contact with the Federation, the planet's industry had re-opened some of the mines. They had run into problems though.

A rash of accidents had been a major concern and a reason to invest in safety measures and training. The crude air compressed chisels in the mines were known as widow-makers for a reason. And explosives were dangerous, black powder even more so when not handled properly.

Silica dust was another big problem and not just for the miners. It got on their clothes and not only caused respiratory issues with them but also their family.

Half of Site B was dealing with the respiratory issues while also dealing with injuries and losses in hearing. She made a note to look into finding a way for the natives to use hearing protection.

“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” she muttered.

“So, what do we have here?” she asked, stopping at a bay where a man was sitting on the edge of the bed. Only the worst cases were sent up to the ship.

“Pineapple bit me,” the guy said a little too loudly. “You really feel it in your chest,” he said and then began to cough.

She eased him back into his seat. He was missing some fingers on one hand and had a badly mangled arm. The wounds were months old. Someone hadn't set the bones right.

“I can't lift the gear,” he said over and over.

She shook her head. She'd seen a picture of the air chisels after she'd asked how some of the injuries had been done. They were fifty kilogram monsters that frequently broke down. It was very gritty dangerous work.

“We'll fix you up,” she said, patting him on the shoulder. She looked to the ward nurse and then went over to consult with Doctor Bently. He quietly pointed out that they were going to surgically repair the bone and brace it. His hearing could be repaired but what was the point if he was going to go back in and destroy it again?

“No cloned tissue,” he said with a frown. “We don't have the time to do the fingers, mores' the pity.”

“Straighten what's left, fix the eyes and hearing and ribs,” Helen said. “Do what you can. Triage,” she murmured.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said with a nod.

“Do the hearing. When he recovers, make sure someone gives him information about hearing protection.”

“I doubt he can read. But we'll give it a go, ma'am.”

“Good,” she said, patting him on the arm before moving on.

It was like that all over the ship and at the ground stations. Fortunately, they didn't have to deal with the plagues this time, so work like this was a welcome change.

She made a swing through two more wards and then checked out the cloning tanks.

The cloning tanks were reserved for critical organs since their time was limited. That meant hearts, lungs, livers and so on. One cloning bank was for making blood and blood components. Another for skin and muscle grafts. It still amused her that they had to explain that they needed to take blood and other samples in order to make it. The people were ignorant but settled down once you patiently gave them knowledge.

She looked up to a line and frowned as she read it. The lettering was a bit flaky. LOX, Liquid Oxygen. The LOX and liquid nitrogen were being fed into the equipment in the ICU and surgery suite where they would be converted into usable forms for the patients. She made a mental note to ask about the painting.

LOX was not something to be played around with. It was stored and run through an evaporator to be turned back into a gas. But it was very flammable and explosive. Every piece of equipment was marked and the machinery sealed to prevent a spark reaching the materials within. If a compartment had a fire, it went into lockdown and vented to space to kill the fire.

“Ma'am, we have an issue with the water filtration at site C. The mayor in the town is giving our people a hard time about it,” Florence reported.

“They don't want it anymore?”

“No, they do. They are replacing pipe that had scale and crap. The water is not potable. The problem is that they want the shuttle to remain past the scheduled lift-off time.”

She frowned. “How much of a delay are we talking about?”

“Indefinite,” the A.I. replied. “And yes, I told them that isn't going to work. They said they'd appeal to the governor.”

“Go ahead. Those are navy shuttles.”

“There is talk of a sit-in. I believe they want us to offload the equipment.”

“Not going to happen,” She replied with a shake of her head. “We need that gear.”

Some of the shuttles could filter water and even provide power to a given area. But it was a temporary fix.

“They are also giving us flack about material.”

Helen sighed. “Of course they are.”

Due to ignorance, most people just didn't understand how the replicators worked. They were tantamount to magic. They didn't care how they worked; they just expected results. They didn't understand that you need material to use as a substrate in order to turn it into the object you wanted to replicate.

“Call the mayor,” she said as she strode into her office.

“Done. He's online now, ma'am.”

“Mayor … Garceti is it? This is Admiral Richards.”

“Finally! Someone who knows what they are doing! I've been telling your people I need that equipment to stay in place!”

“I understand that. You have to understand our time on your world is limited. Our time in your region is limited. Other areas need help and support too.”

“Not as badly as we do!”

“Sir, two locations on this world have been hit by hurricanes. Thousands lost their homes and have no access to fresh water or power.”

“That is their problem.”

“No, it is everyone's problem; otherwise, people start dying,” Helen said with a frown. She wished she could see him. Then again, maybe not, at the moment she wanted to ring his neck. “Now, have you put an order in for a new filtration plant?”

“We have. But there is a delay.”

She inhaled and exhaled. “Okay? So, are you looking at alternatives?”

“Your people said their engineers can whip some parts up with a replicator or a small filter plant.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, but they need material they said. I don't have it!” he said peevishly.

She shook her head. “Mister Mayor, it doesn't all come from the press of a magic button. We still have to adhere to physics.”

“And that means?”

“Simply put, energy can't be created or destroyed, just transformed. The same for matter. We don't create it from thin air. We take matter and convert it into what is needed.”

“I still don't understand.”

“Okay, simple example, a chair. You want the chair made out of, oh, wood.”

“Okay.”

“You feed the replicator power for the machinery and nanites and wood. The machinery takes the wood, and the nanites turn it into the chair according to the design you chose.”

“Oh.”

There was a long pause. Her lips pursed as she hoped he was finally catching on.

“The same if it was made out of metal or other things.”

“You said it takes energy,” he said.

“The machinery takes energy to run to process the material. Energy is needed to power the machinery to grind the material up. Energy is needed to power the nanites and the containment fields.”

“Oh. I think that's good,” Mayor Garceti said.

“I do too.”

“So, when can you do it? You can have your shuttle back when we get it.”

Her eyes narrowed. “I hope you didn't just threaten to hold a naval shuttle and crew hostage, sir,” she said sternly. “We take a very dim view of such things. I can and will take action,” she warned.

“Ah, no, not what I meant,” the mayor said hastily.

“You provide the material to our people. We'll get you a basic filter system. We have blueprints for simple bush filter systems. You'll need to change the filters often but that should get you through this crisis until your new system is back online.”

“Okay, yeah, I guess that works.”

“Find the material and get back to my engineers with it. They have a list.”

“Okay, okay. Fine. Geesh,” the guy said and then hung up.

Helen shook her head.

“Some people,” Florence sniffed. Helen snorted and then went back to work.

~~{}~~

Tauren Invasion Snippet 3

 

Chapter 3

 

Lebynthos

 

“Knowing is half the battle,” Lieutenant Shana O'Hara said. The lieutenant was from Nuevo and one of the newest to arrive. She had red shoulder-length hair and the nickname “Scarlet” to go with it.

She was also in army intelligence and had taught the class on Nuevo at the academy and then taught it remotely in Antigua before accepting a transfer. She'd expected a transfer to the front, possibly even Pi. Instead, she had been sent to Tau.

Now she had to make the most of what she saw as a bad situation career wise.

She kept up to date on the pirates but her new focus was on the Confederation. She had already researched the biology and psychology of the Tauren species as well as their history. What was surprising was the lack of material on the current Confederation. They did not let anyone in. It was a police state in all but name.

The report that they had implants made her curious. She began to compare what they knew to what the Federation did with implants in Taurens. There was a lot of variety possible.

She surveyed her class. There was a half dozen in the class; army intelligence wasn't a big thing at the moment. Everyone was into the other specialties apparently. That might change in the future though.

“A good battle plan means you need good intelligence. That means doing your homework—know the history, know the terrain, know the players, and know yourself. To paraphrase Sun Tzu's The Art of War, 'If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know the enemy but not yourself, for every victory you achieve you will suffer a defeat. If you know not yourself or the enemy, you will be beaten in every battle,” she said.

She surveyed the class. “That's my version of it. Learn the original source material. Study it. He's right; intelligence can be the key to winning or losing a battle. Questions?”

“Sun Tzu?” a bull terrier asked.

“Yes. What about him?”

“Terran?”

“Yes. Chinese. Ancient. You'll find a lot of ancient battle strategists are still relevant even in this day and age.” She saw his look of disbelief. “The concepts remain the same even if the battlefield and tech changes. Figure it out,” she said as she turned to the rest of the class.

~~{}~~

Major Letterman frowned as he scanned Lieutenant O'Hara's report on the Tauren Confed tech. She had more questions than answers in it, which he unfortunately agreed with.

They might learn more after studying the Tauren guards a bit more. Their nail guns looked normal, nothing new there. They had standard light body armor, nothing powered. Pity they couldn't get a detailed look.

He copied her memo into a condensed form and sent it off to the capital and forwarded it to Ensign Virginia with a request for the raw feeds of the guards. That would of course have to come by courier, but that was fine.

Her baseline comparison to what the Federation put into Taurens was good, possibly spot-on. But they didn't know the standards of Confed implants or their tech level. She erred on the side of caution, basing her comparison straight across the board. She was right; it was better to be surprised that they weren't up to Federation standard than to get bitten in the ass for being overconfident.

He was curious if they had come up with anything new though. He knew the Taurens had a soft spot for powered combat armor and ground combat. What had they come up with in their isolation?

He wasn't sure if he was willing to find out the hard way.

~~{}~~

Captain JG Mya Halice watched the work party being put through their paces. They had to work on the equipment and get it right. They were fortunate to be in the maintenance bay with proper equipment. They even had grav lifts along with standard push-pulls.

The grav lifts were an item she was still leery about using. You had to be wary around them; if you stuck your hand under them when the presser was on, it would slam you down. The same for a foot or something else. She'd seen a few people get injured; a couple even had a leg ripped off when they got careless. There was a reason for the lights, sirens, and warning tape.

But they were incredibly useful too. A forklift or push-pull outfitted with a grav lift could move very large cargoes in a hurry. You set it up under the cargo, made sure it was balanced and secured to the platform or frame and then turned it on. The system self-balanced as it lifted off until it was floating a centimeter or so off the deck or ground.

Nuevo had toyed with the idea of making lifting devices with air, but they had proven to be noisy and not nearly as effective as they'd hoped. The hover craft had come in useful in other ways later though.

She watched as the team put the lift around the troop transport and then link them together. The grav lift itself was locked down to the bay by a robotic arm. The modules linked up and then the glow came on and the vehicle lifted off.

On a ship, the system would be connected to the ship's computer to negate the gravity under the object. On the ground, it allowed the robotic arm to easily swing the vehicle around and then lift it into a cradle. Once it was secured there, the emitters were shut off, and the mechanics moved in to work on the underside.

She shook her head. A better setup would have been a mechanical pit or a hydraulic lift under each corner. But oh no, they had to get hyper technical about the thing. Over complicated, easy to break down, no wonder the old Federation collapsed.

Her lips pursed in annoyance. This latest foul-up was courtesy of the people in Rho. They wanted the army to have the best tech toys and money. She shook her head.

“Okay, what's wrong with this picture?” she asked, stopping the work. All eyes turned to her. “Toys,” she said, indicating the arm and lift. “Toys break. Toys are here, not in the field. So, if you were in the field, how would you deal with this problem?”

“Call a wrecker?”

“You are the wrecker and maintenance team,” she stated caustically. “Try again.”

“Ah …?”

“I want answers, people! Think old school,” she said, pacing.

A Tauren lifted his hand. She pointed to him. “Speak.”

“Dig a trench. Roll the vehicle over the trench and do the work. In this case dropping the transmission.”

“Got it in one! Easy, simple, and cheap. Remember that, people, when you are out in the field and the toys break or are unavailable! It could save your ass,” she growled.

She surveyed the group and then nodded once. “Carry on,” she said as she took herself off.

~~{}~~