Okay, I just got the manuscript back from Rea this morning, and after a couple of hours I've gone over it, added the TOC and appendix, then uploaded it to Goodlifeguide.com for final formatting. We should be seeing it back in 10-14 days. If not sooner. :)
In the meantime, here is a snippet to wet your appetite. There are 11 short stories in the book, 4 of them are from the Federation universe. 1 was supposed to be the short story at the end of Ghosts from the Past but I ran long on that book so I pulled it. Here is a piece of it...
Lewis and Clarke
On
the trip out to Hidoshi's World, Second Lieutenant Craig Lewis and
his people were too busy to get nervous. Every waking moment they
were busy training, running sims in VR and in holds set up as shoot
houses. The few officers and noncoms had created various contingency
battle plans based on their limited intel and what the book had to
offer. They did their best to simulate them, then critique the end
results. “Get it right, people!” was a favored rant from acting
E-5 Sergeant Padre Rutledge.
Padre
was a father figure to the troops, but he could be a hard ass when
required. Craig was fairly certain the admiral and Lieutenant Gustov
would sign off on his bumping Rutledge from E-4. He needed an
experienced noncom badly. He had three, one per ten-man squad; he had
bumped Race Bannon from PFC to Lance Corporal and Hadji also to Lance
Corporal to help fill the last voids in his command chain. Hadji's
buddy John Quest would serve as a good PFC, though the young blond
man had a bad habit of getting into mischief. Lewis shook his head.
Race was right. Idle hands were at play there, though their training
did keep everyone pretty damn busy.
He
was still limited to himself and Ensign Sing Xe as officers, but he'd
work with what he had available. It bothered him that if something
happened to them the platoon would be up a creek. He had to remind
himself he had a duty to everyone including the people on the planet
to stay out of combat as much as possible and direct the various
battles from afar. That was going to be a bitch. It would let him and
Sing pilot the mechs and drones though, which was a small consolation
prize.
Besides
he mused, he was fairly certain both senior officers considered their
mission a long shot. There would be a lot of people who wouldn't be
coming back from it. Hopefully, not as many as he feared, he closed
his eyes. One would be too many, too damn many. But he also knew that
any one of his people would gladly give their lives to save the
people on the world they were about to assault, to save people they
had never met. And if they killed some of the bastards along the way,
well, that was just gravy. His lips twitched in a small grim smile.
All
of the marines and the liberated civilians they had along for the
ride were crammed into Collier 2, formally known by the
Horathians as Tender T12783, the Clydesdale freighter turned
liberated collier. Lieutenant Herschel was a good captain though; he
ran a tight ship. For him this wasn't just retribution and payback,
it was coming home to liberate his homeworld. He kept everyone busy,
too busy to worry about what they were up against. The other two
ships were the tanker and Deinara. Deinara was
outfitted with most of their support equipment as well as their rail
guns. She was a medium-sized freighter though, far smaller than
Collier 2 or Lassie.
Apparently
the battalion had squeezed into the medium freighter and escorts by
placing all of their shuttles and a good part of their cargo on the
hull of the ships. To have that many bodies in such a confined space
was still mindboggling however.
They
had thirty marines including the two officers in a short platoon.
Sergeant Bannon's squad was outfitted with powered armor. All the
other marines were outfitted in standard armor. There were four heavy
weapons teams and the rest of the marines were shooters.
To
supplement their numbers, they had thirty mechs, android troopers
that they were uncomfortable with using. There were also forty drones
of various makes and models including four of Bounty's
security dog drones. They had tons of gear, nearly a hundred tons of
gear from Admiral Irons, not just for their use but to help rebuild
the colony. They had to recapture it first. Lewis had also borrowed a
half a dozen squids to act as corpsman and field medics for his short
platoon and three techs to keep the machines in line.
They
worked themselves twenty-hour days into exhaustion, then underwent
sleep teaching at least three nights a week for six hours each time
to supplement their training further. They kept training until they
responded like veterans using muscle memory, the training to follow
orders, and relying on their training instinctively to get the job
done and stay alive. One half day a week they had off to get caught
up on laundry, inventory, and other chores. Many did them as quickly
as possible and then racked out to get what sleep they could.
They
could only simulate explosives and weapons fire in both VR and in the
shoot houses. Likewise the initial drop was to be made by their
Skyhawk and three civilian cargo shuttles. Keeping one shuttle in
reserve was prudent, but Xe expressed his doubts repeatedly. His
theory was for them to hit hard with all six shuttles and then pull
one back for the reserve later. They weren't even counting the two
cutters Deinara had. They could land four people in a drop and
needed a long runway to do it.
Those
were worrisome holes in the plan; a lot could go wrong right from the
beginning screwing the entire op up. Another problem was that they
could also only simulate the usage of mechs and drones virtually.
That was a major point of contention with the leadership, along with
how to use them effectively. Ensign Xe wanted to keep them in
reserve or have them fight on their own while Hadji wanted to use
them as cannon fodder, to soak up the enemy's fire until the real
troops landed and dug in at a different location.
Lewis
on the other hand knew they had finite resources and knew he couldn't
waste them. But he also knew they would be expended; that was a part
of any operation. People as well, they were going to take losses; it
was inevitable. He made himself face it. Just about every simulation
confirmed that fear as well. They were using opposition forces that
were as tough as they were now; his people were winning but taking
loses. He tried to explain to them that it may be a game now, but
they couldn't soak up that fire and win. They could win the
individual battles yet still lose the war if they were cut to pieces
by attrition. It was just one thing among a hundred that sometimes
kept him up at night.
It
had taken them seven and a half weeks to transit the 4.9 light years
from B100 omega to the outskirts of Hidoshi's World star system. What
a name, he thought, shaking his head. What a mouthful! Did the
natives call it that he wondered? He snorted, finishing off his
coffee. Training was over; they were now feverishly working on final
preparations for the performance of their lives.
And
now it came to this, Lewis thought as he stood watching the screen in
his tiny cabin. They had just exited hyper two days ago and were
cautiously entering the inner system, passing through the Oort cloud
on their way in. Deinara was lagging behind with the tanker,
but by design both ship's crews would be picking up a choice
selection of rocks to be used later on. They would catch up soon
enough.
It
bothered him that they had so little intelligence. A Horathian
battalion had been sent in led by a Colonel Wizenbek as the invasion
commander with a Lieutenant Colonel Zin as his political advisor and
battalion commander. A battalion could mean anything from nine
hundred to twelve hundred soldiers. They had equipment; he knew that.
How much was another question and in what quantity of each category
and quality. Also, what they had captured on the planet.
He
ran a frustrated hand through his short cropped hair. High and tight,
just like the regs said. He'd come to realize it was the best haircut
he'd ever had, easy to maintain, and hell, he looked good in it. He
frowned as he looked at Zin's profile.
Commander
Sprite and Lieutenant Defender had dumped a profile for him from the
captured ship's computers. How Zin had tucked away an entire
battalion in two colliers and a couple of corvettes … he shook his
head. His intel specialist, Race, was going over the raw dump and
assembling a better picture in his free time. Which wasn't much,
Craig thought with a pang. Race had to be with his squad to train and
oversee them since he was their noncom, but he was doing double duty
like just about everyone else. He so wished the AI could have coded a
dedicated intel AI for him. Some support, any support in that
field would be nice right about now, he judged.
“If
wishes were fishes,” Craig murmured, going back to the briefing. He
studied Colonel Wizenbek; the stocky man was a by-the-book officer.
He wasn't very flexible. But his XO and advisor was a different
story. He looked at the cold eyes and the Asian male's overall look:
blue burning eyes, high cheekbones, bald with liver spots, and thin
almost skeletal hands. The colonel looked intimidating in his sharp
black uniform.
He
was fairly certain Wizenbek would be in the HQ, so he was confident
they would decapitate his leadership in the initial strike. That left
Zin to deal with, the greater of the two evils. He was tempted to
hold off on hitting the HQ. Wizenbek might tie Zin's hands and bumble
his way right into the marine's hands. But he couldn't count on that.
He exhaled slowly, trying to cleanse his frustration. They'd just
have to deal with it when the situation arose he thought.
Zin
was some sort of zealot, also according to the short bio they had on
him, some sort of doctor. He was a diehard believer, which meant he
was most likely going to fight to the bitter end. There was no point
giving him a heads up and a chance to surrender; that would just give
him time to disperse his forces or do something drastic to the
population.
Zin's
second-in-command was a Major Alercon. There was little on him, not
even an image of him. Nor of his any of his other officers, though
one or two had names mentioned in the files. Apparently Race hadn't
gotten that far yet.
He
sighed and set the tablet down, then rubbed at his jaw, and then
scrubbed his tired eyes with his hands. Probes had been sent out
through the solar system and all three ships maintained a vigilant
watch with their long-range sensors. The sensors were almost useless,
however, since most of them were civilian grade. They just confirmed
the basic information about the star system that they already knew.
It was a G class star system, a couple of Jupiter class gas giants
and the three planets, one of which was Hidoshi's World. The planet
was an Earth class, 1.03 atmosphere, 21 degree axial tilt; she'd been
terraformed at some point to be habitable. That might explain her
orbit. She was in a wide orbit, in for a short brutal summer, long
cooling-off autumn, then an even longer brutal winter according to
the Galactic Encyclopedia entry. He shook his head. Well, this was
the time to mount a campaign. He hoped it was short.
The
probing did turn up a few minor treasures; the squids found a couple
derelict ships and debris floating about the system. Apparently they
were happy about that, though there was some doubt that any of the
ships were salvageable.
“Sir,
we're getting a signal from the planet,” a rating said over the
intercom.
“Oh?”
He looked up in surprise. “How did they know we were here?”
“I
don't know, sir; we're still three AU out. Captain Herschel
implemented op plan Trojan horse under his authority.”
Craig
nodded. Trojan horse was simple; they would come in pretending to be
more Horathians with additional troops and supplies for the garrison.
That would make Zin's people relax and eager to meet and greet them.
Every commander wanted more troops and equipment; there was never
enough. And to pacify a planet? With a population in the low
millions? With millions of places for people to hide? That took a lot
of boots on the ground and a lot of work.
Most
likely Zin's people had taken casualties as well, at least he hoped
so. The population might have rolled over initially, but hopefully
someone somewhere had put up a fight, even if it was brief one. A
guerrilla campaign would also be nice. A nice sniper, maybe an IED.
Hell,
technically he should be wishing Zin was complacent. It would make
his job initially easier. In a way he was in the same role Zin was in
less than six months ago. Hoping the planet was ignorant of his true
intentions. What was that saying about surprise? He shook his head.
He didn't have the time to look it up.
“Is
the captain sticking to the plan?”
The
rating cleared his throat in surprise. He had been about to cut the
link, thinking the marine had forgotten about him. “Yes, sir, he
is,” the rating replied.
“Good.
We don't want them to recognize one of our own people, now do we?
It's too early to give the game away.”
“Aye,
sir. The skipper is sticking to audio only. He's using a scrubber to
garble up the voice a little, and a healthy dose or two of static to
cut the chatter down to a minimum.”
“Which
will make Zin's people want to get more information once we're closer
or in orbit. Tell them they can wait for news,” Craig said, then a
thought hit him. “You know what, see if you can slip in there
something about special orders for Colonel Zin on a flash chip. They
are to be turned over to him specifically. That should put him neatly
in the cross hairs.”
“Do
you want us to get his location, sir?”
“Don't
be too obvious about it. If he insists on a hand off to a subordinate
at the spaceport, just say it's his choice to countermand orders or
something to that effect. Don't get too cute or piss him off.”
“Aye,
sir.” The rating paused. “Sir, we've backtracked the signal to
its source. Sensors have found a ship in polar orbit of the planet.”
“Can
you dump it to my screen?” the marine asked, now concerned. There
had been nothing in the debrief about a ship left behind. If it was
really a ship, they could be in trouble. The ship could run and
possibly even slip past the admiral. Hell, most likely could slip
past him if he'd already jumped! They could even radio a warning to
Zin. That was a problem.
“It's
odd, sir. Here is the image,” the rating said, sending the link to
the marine's tablet. Lewis looked down at it, then picked it up as he
frowned. The image was a spec but definitely a ship of some sort. It
glittered; apparently, it had wings of solar panels. As he studied
it, the sensor officer refined the image, putting up data in brief
flashes of information around the ship. “According to this, no life
signs have been detected within the ship? What's with the panels?”
“That
is correct, sir. According to the spectrograph she's a cold ship. No
outgassing, no signs of life. Her thermal signature is also too low
to support life.”
“That
is … odd.”
“It
is too early to speculate, but the captain believes it is a derelict
that has been turned into a space station by the natives,” the
rating stated.
“But
we don't know that for sure,” Lewis murmured.
“No,
sir. Um, the captain asked if you wanted to dispatch a boarding party
when we get into orbit.”
“Definitely.
I'll alert my people. They've got six days to prep,” Lewis said
grimly. “Ask the skipper if he or your communication's people can
work out some sort of way to jam the ship's transmission without
being obvious,” he said.
“Simulating
a solar flare might work, sir. I'm not sure. I'm the acting
communication's officer, sir. I'll look into it and get back to you.”
“Good
man,” Lewis murmured, getting to his feet. He had orders to pass
on. “You do that. In the meantime, I'll be with Ensign Xe.”
“Aye
aye, sir.”
>*…*<>*…*<
