Shelby Logan 10 Snippet 5

 

Chapter 5

 

New Tau Metropolis, Tau sector

 

Shelby felt like the pieces were beginning to fall into place, but they could easily come apart at any moment.

Obadiah had his yard dogs humming with the rebuild project. Admiral Irons’ idea to draw in the support of the worlds around the naval base had proven enormously helpful. The representatives and senators had gone to bat on the hill in support of the base… naturally of course since they saw it as an opportunity for their businesses and trade to thrive.

That had sold the project on the hill despite opposition from Bek.

They had also pushed for the base to the north. That was an ongoing project she knew. She hated that the communication lines were so fragmented there at the moment. Hopefully Cynthia was okay. She wouldn’t feel comfortable until there was an ansible in place and Rick was up there.

She was still on the fence about bringing the Taurens in. On the one hand, they may need all hands on deck. But on the other… they’d been shooting at each other not so long ago, and the Taurens had a loyalty issue still with their aborted civil war.

“Penny for your thoughts ma’am?” Boni, her AI asked whimsically.

“Just… thinking that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. And some things make for strange bed fellows,” Shelby replied.

Boni smiled on her HUD.

“How are we with the troops?”

“Another saying for you, a body in motion…?” Boni replied. “So far so good. They are marching to the sound of the guns, which is the important thing at the moment.”

“Are there guns sounding off on T-15?” Shelby asked.

“A recent artillery strike on refugee vehicles. No other shots fired at the moment. They are contained.”

“I doubt that,” Shelby murmured. “Somehow, I doubt that very much.”

<<(O)>>

Purple Nights

 

Secretary of State Moira Sema was cautiously pleased with the long hours of work with her Tauren counterpart and their respective staffs on the new treaty. The new agreement with the Taurens was for mutual defense against the Xeno-Necron alliance to the north.

The Confederation was still getting their house in order but Admiral Irons and the Tauren President’s broadcast about the threat had ended a lot of insurrection overnight. No one wanted to rock the boat. In fact, many personnel who had resigned in protest over the surrender or had refused to fight their own people were asking to be let back in.

She shook her head. That was not her problem of course. The Taurens had to figure it out on their own. Clearly trust would be a long term issue. What was her problem was to make it all work somehow. Give them a framework to shape protocol to keep everyone in line and on their best behavior.

They were about to test the waters with the agreement for Ninth Fleet to transit through Confederation space. Transiting through Confederation space would cut the transit time to the north by months. It also would allow the fleet to show the flag, which would hopefully put any further thoughts of rebellion to rest in the restive territory.

Picking up some Confederation ships to ally with them would be nice. They were still working on that. They did agree to have guides to escort the fleet, however the navy was concerned about the Tauren ships being able to keep up.

From what her people were reporting, the Taurens had similar concerns.

<<(O)>>

Minox IV

 

“So… what gives skipper?” Sergeant Bolt asked with a frown as he came up to the lieutenant. He flick his long ears at his boss.

“We’ve been reassigned,” the lieutenant said. She looked a little nonplussed but then interested.

The Serval blinked. “Okay…?” he drawled.

The LT eyed him. “You heard about the mess in T-15?”

The Neocat nodded. His long ears flicked again and then went back as the implications sunk in. It was going to mean a long transit in stasis as a popsicle and then possible combat.

“They are giving an ollie ollie in free call to all troops in the area. So, we’re going.”

Bolt blinked. “So, the contact and inspection mission?”

“On hold. Clearly the Taurens here are behaving themselves. We’ve recruited some of their alien population to do the job for us.”

Bolt nodded. They had established that much. There had been some strides in integrating the various species too. Not great ones, but some strides.

“We move out in two hours, so get your people squared away and to the LZ. Oh, and we’re not going alone.”

“Ma’am?”

“We’re taking a couple squads of Taurens with us.”

The Serval blinked in surprise at that news and then his eyes narrowed.

“It is going to get crowded in Marine country, at least until we get into stasis. I want everyone on their best behavior. We need to be one big happy family.”

“Aye aye ma’am,” the cat said with a wary nod. This is going to be… interesting, he thought with a slight shake of his head as she dismissed him.

<<(O)>>

President Scar Chin studied the reports and then sat back and rubbed his brow. It was a lot to take in.

His peripheral vision caught movement. He turned and noted a distant ship was moving under power. He puzzled over it and why it was triggering something in his mind before he realized it was most likely the Feds.

The Fed cruiser was moving their Marines out to T-15 as quickly as possible. They were even taking a squad of Taurens with them.

He wished them luck. They were definitely going to need it.

<<(O)>>

Sergeant Bolt nodded to his troops.  They'd left one fire team behind to man the embassy, such as it was. Hopefully, the brass would send in additional people soon.

The serval's eyes moved to the Taurens. He flicked his long ears. They seemed uncomfortable, but it wasn't because of the enclosed space. None had been on a Federation ship, and they had been shooting at each other not so long ago.

There were two squads of them. Some were young, only two were older. Only one was a noncom. He had yet to get together with the bull. He hoped that they'd get along; he didn't need a pissing match.

He glanced at the Marines across from the Taurens. Come to think of it, some of his people weren't too comfortable with them on board either.

"Okay, listen up. We've got a ride to the combat zone. We're going to spend it in stasis. We're going to go into stasis in two days."

The troops looked concerned.

"I'm taking that time to get aquainted. We need to get up to speed on each other and tech. I know it isn't enough. I've asked the captain to wake us one week out from our destination so we squeeze in any additional training. Any questions?"

A few people looked ready to say something but he rolled right over them. Most likely they were protests.

"Good. Remember, one big happy family at the moment. I don't know what our assignments are when we get there but I want us working smoothly when we do. That way we can hit the ground running. Right?"

That last word came out as a command growl. Instinctively, the troops all stiffened and nodded.

"Good," he said with a slight ear flick of amusement. "Kit check-in ten then inspection, then we get to the nitty gritty on the range to zero in and get aquainted. Then we'll break into fire teams to hit the dojo and simulation time. One third on, one third racked out, one third doing our usual duties and rotate. I'm going to see the XO on that. You've got until I'm done to get squared away. Help each other," he said.

He knew there was going to be resentment and even an instinctive desire to let the Taurens hang, also competition. Well, he would deal with each as it came up. He could handle competition. A little healthy competition was good.

"Get on it, people," he growled as he about-faced and left the compartment.

<<(O)>>

"Sergeant Bolt?" the Tauren who came up behind Bolt said.

"Yes … ah ...?" he frowned. He'd instinctively tried to ping the Tauren with his implants but hadn't gotten a response.

"Sergeant Gros. My people are having trouble accessing some facilities."

"I'm noticing that and the why now. I'm sorry we haven't gotten together for a pow wow before," the serval said.

The Tauren nodded. "We were thrown together. I was a corporal up until a few hours ago."

"Well, that solves the question of who ranks who."

"Oh, you do, Sergeant."

"Nice that we've got the pecking order established, the smaller being stated. He felt a bit ludicrious next to the bigger alien. "Do you have a counterpart in the other squad?"

"Sergeant Toa. He's also new. You'll find that we are … green."

"How green?" the serval asked as he crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes.

"As in most of us are straight out of boot?" the Tauren replied.

"Oh, lovely," the serval replied. "Well, at least you haven't picked up any bad habits," he said.

The Tauren nodded. "Toa and I were top of our class. I just finished advanced training and they, well, dumped us in this mission."

"I see. Well, the good news is that we've got time to sort things out."

"Yeah, like access to things? Even the head is locked. It is called a head, right?"

"Yes," the serval said. His mental evaluation of the Tauren went up a point. "Okay, we need to get you ID tags or get your tags integrated with ours." He saw the Tauren's ears droop and then perk up. "Do you have tags?"

"No. We have basic ID tags but not internal like you do."

"Ah. Well, good news is, they are easy. Just go to medical, they program the ID, it is a big pill or two, swallow, and in the morning you wake up with a basic ID and HUD."

"No pain?"

"Nope. It gives us a link to you so the AI knows who you are and will let you into areas of the ship you are authorized to be in. And it IDs you on the battlefield to us and to each other."

The Tauren nodded. "Good to know."

"If you have advanced implants, it gets better. But let's go see what the brass has in mind for you."

"Ah … yeah."

"I know, don't poke the bear or in this case the brass. In this case, it is a decision above our pay grade so we gotta," the serval said with an ear flick. "Let me take the lead."

"Ah, yes, Sergeant." The Tauren nodded.

Bolt nodded and motioned for the Tauren to follow him.

<<(O)>>

Shelby Logan 10 Snippet 4

 

Chapter 4

 

TauR14G6-15 Blue Waters and Gentle Mist

 

Captain Hierl nodded and signed off on the latest report. So far so good, though they had problems.

Wasn’t it always the case she thought and then grimaced.

She had a single platoon of troops on each planet. They’d set up a very wide perimeter and were slowly beginning to tighten it. The navy was beginning to make headway with identifying where Sedu and Shrapnel had gone to ground.

Ninth Fleet was supposedly going to leave in the next six weeks. When it happened, she was going to be on her own for a while. They were going to leave half of the Marines with her and two squadrons of cruisers. They were going to head out to catch up with Ninth Fleet as fresh ships came in to replace them over time.

She had half of the Marines from Ninth Fleet but too many duties for all of them. Six hundred Marines didn’t amount to a lot. Sure, she had half of the drop shuttles from Ninth Fleet but that again was an issue.

She had two squads of powered armor. Again, split between the two planets. They were in reserve at the moment. She had a single squad of Recon troops on the planet. She had hopes that they could identify the HQ of General Sedu and Colonel Shrapnel so they could knock them out. So far the answer was a wait and see.

The problem was that the rest of her troops were infantry and most were green. They were outfitted for security and for boarding actions, not for planetary invasion. The navy had given her some support, but she needed a lot more than what Ninth Fleet had provided before their departure.

Recently they had started to deploy drones to scout and monitor the perimeter. That took a squad of troops to monitor the feeds of twenty-four drones. They were broken into three personnel per shift and two shifts per planet.

She was going to have to cut another squad loose to support them soon. When she did that, they could theoretically each watch over eight drone feeds. That would allow her to double up on her drones.

The industry thing was an issue though. The brass had promised her all the industrial support that she wanted. For the moment, she had raw material and not much else.

The Feds had dispatched an engineering team from the cruisers to look into the Tauren side of that equation.

While she did that, a couple of naval spooks and the one Marine ensign who had minored in intelligence gathering were trying to process the mountains of data from the commercial satellites, communication logs, and so on. The ship AI were lending their support but it was a lot of data to process. Lieutenant Adel was the lead AI.

Supposedly, the Tauren Admiral Ree was inbound. When he arrived, she would theoretically hand over some of the duties to him and his troops and then could focus more on the ground problem.

It couldn’t come soon enough.

<<(O)>>

Ensign Tish was assigned to work with the Tauren industry on the stations and in the star system to build what the jarheads needed for the eventual invasion.

Up until they’d been given the go-ahead, the naval engineers had been working strictly in house from the replicators in Ninth Fleet. Now that Ninth Fleet was gone, they had only the two squadrons of cruisers to draw on initially.

Captain Hierl and the joint army-navy-marine task force that was in the process of building up wanted more than what the ship’s replicators could handle.

This was therefore the only fix short of getting someone to ship in what they needed, which wasn’t possible in the time frame that they had.

She made the rounds, met some people, and inspected their hardware. She was not impressed. Their nanites were poorly designed, and there were few in the replicators. Their computer support was pathetic. Their CAD and tooling paths were horrible. In short, they needed a lot of work.

She got them on producing generic material for the moment while she shot an urgent request outlining the problem and her possible solution to the brass.

She wasn’t surprised when the chief shot her an email back that it’d have to go further up the chain and to wait.

What she was proposing probably broke a lot of rules and would make some people gnash their teeth, wring their hands, and probably pretend they had them around her neck at the time. Well, so be it. If they wanted her to get the job done, than they needed to damn well give her the tools to get it done.

They could use the shells and support tech but the Tauren industrial replicators needed a turnkey upgrade to get them up to Federation military standards. It would be hard to do and once done they couldn’t easily undo it without a full flush and reboot.

While the powers that be debated what they wanted, she drew up a list of what needed to be done. When she did get the authorization, she wanted to hit the ground running.

<<(O)>>

The Federation ships took note of the arrival of the Tauren warships from the south. They and their crews were a welcome sight and were greeted.

Admiral Ree was pleased by the greeting and a bit amused by it. He immediately announced that he was there to take custody of the star system. Captain Z’n’ll didn’t even quibble; he immediately began the transfer of authority, much to the admiral’s relief.

He found out as he entered the star system and his people communicated with the newly-operational ansible station that the brass had been coordinating the handover through the ansible. That amused him.

Admiral Lobo, his officers, and senior enlisted were to remain in joint custody. They were still working out how to handle that trial.

His people would have to take over many of the duties in the star system while working with the Feds. They also had to interview all of the former rebels. He wasn’t looking forward to that task but it had to be done. They needed people that they could trust to get things back to normal.

<<(O)>>

Admiral Hunter smiled as he shook hands with Admiral Ree. The Tauren was a bit reserved but that was fine.

"Thank you for coming," Admiral Hunter stated.

"Thank you for taking back our star system," the Tauren replied, putting slight emphasis on the posessive pronoun.

"As soon as you can get your people on board, the better we'll feel, Admiral," Rick said with a nod.

Admiral Ree nodded back. "Let's look into that, shall we?"

"Yes, lets," Admiral Hunter stated.

<<(O)>>

Luna talked to her brother at the usual time. She had five minutes instead of two; she appreciated that.

He told her a tissue of lies about the farm and harvest season wrapping up.

She mentioned the arrival of Admiral Ree. “I don’t know if you saw it on the news, but he’s here and taking over.”

“Ah. I had heard something. I think it was on last night's news or on the net. Huh. Ree, huh?”

“Yeah, the Feds are handing over everything to him.”

“And here people thought that they were here to stay,” he scoffed.

“No way,” she shook her head and then realized he couldn’t see her. “They have a deal with the Confederation. They just want their people.”

“Ah.” He paused for a few seconds. “Huh. Well, they sure don’t act like it.”

“Really?” she asked in disbelief. They are handing everything back over to the Confederation. Their fleet has left.”

“Yeah, but didn’t they leave a bunch of ships in orbit? And take over the stations?”

“And the yard and the ships, yeah. And they stuffed everyone in transit stations until the Confederation got here. Now they are handing everything off to Admiral’s Ree’s herd.”

“Huh.”

“Bro, you haven’t heard about any illegal acts, right?” she reminded him.

“Well, we’re in the back of beyond. We’d probably be the last to know.”

“Oh. True.”

“And they control the media.”

“No, actually they’ve been hands-off there. They just don’t tell them everything that is going on.”

“Huh.” He didn’t quite sound like he believed her.

“Believe it, bro. They have gone out of their way to not antagonize anyone. I’ve met a few of the aliens; I never thought they’d be just normal people.”

“Huh.”

“I mean, not all uppity and judgy.”

“Huh.”

“You say that a lot. That is your default. Oh wait, no, the default is duhh …,” she mocked.

“Funny, sis. You are so lucky you aren’t in arm’s reach at the moment,” he mock growled.

She couldn’t help herself, she giggled. It came out naturally.

He snorted.

“So, when do we expect the carpet baggers to arrive?” he asked.

“Carpet what’s?” she asked in confusion as her brows knit.

“A term I heard in the pub.”

“What does it even mean?”

“I’m not sure. Something about Feds moving in to take over our businesses and then government.”

“Bro, I just told you that they aren’t doing that,” she said patiently. “They’ve got some navy people here on the station and a bunch of those Marine types. I think there are like, six or seven hundred all told of the ones in camo, but don’t quote me on that. Hardly what you’d send as an invasion force, right?”

“True,” he said thoughtfully.

She felt a thrill of fear but took the plunge. “At the moment, there is I think a hundred or so on each planet. I could be wrong.”

“We haven’t seen any,” he said doubtfully.

“Well, it is a big planet,” she responded with a characteristic exasperated response. She felt a little nettled over that reply. He was drawing attention to something she had rehearsed to give to him casually.

“True.”

“And you are on the farm, bro,” she teased she said as she felt more natural about the responses she was giving.

“Also true.”

“So, what are they doing?”

“Waiting for more of the Confederation to show up at a guess. I haven’t heard anything.”

“Well, mom always said you went up there to make friends. Maybe you should.”

“I’m still getting used to seeing aliens every day,” she temporized. “I’m not all chummy and all that. I’m supposed to work with a few starting next week.”

“Well, make friends. You’ve got some right? Girlfriends I mean. Boy friends are not allowed. sis,” he growled.

She chuckled and smiled. “Wouldn’t you like to know,” she teased.

“Me, mom, dad, and the whole herd,” he growled.

“Well, it’s for me to know and you not to find out,” she said wickedly.

“You’ve got to come down for a holiday sometime, sis. Mom will guilt trip you into it, wait and see. And when you do …," his voice turned mock menacing, "I’ll get it out of you.”

She grinned. “As if. I’m faster and smarter than you. You are just a big farm clod. Big and yeah, strong, but I can run circles around you.”

“You’d be surprised,” he growled back.

“Funny.” she saw the countdown switch to red. “My timer is about up. Stay safe. Don’t drink and drive,” she scolded.

“Yes, mom,” he mocked.

She made a kissing sound and then cut the circuit.

After the conversation, she sat back thoughtfully. Friends? Okay, she could look into that …

<<(O)>>