Tauren Invasion Snippet 2

 

Chapter 2

 

Lebynthos

 

Major Letterman nodded to himself as he watched the shuttle lift off. The shuttle was carrying a squad of Army Corps of Engineer students. They were headed out to a site in the north to work on their wood cutting and managing skills.

He turned his attention to the school and college campus. It was coming along, though they still had some issues to deal with. Basic courses were still a problem. Eventually the level of education in the recruits should remedy that. Until then they had to educate their recruits. Sometimes the education went down to the very basics of reading and writing, let along the advanced math needed by engineers.

He shook his head.

He had just dispatched three scouting teams to scout for new army bases in the sector. They each had a list of four worlds to explore. They had to approach it apolitically, though he knew some were favored over others. He had to get the processing started now even though he knew the decision might be made before the teams even arrived on the planet to do the actual survey. Things were moving in that direction in the Federation Senate at the moment.

Focus in the sector was on the navy and plague relief. He knew that it was shifting though and with good reason. Certain parties had always considered Tau to be a bastion of army recruits. Taurens preferred ground operations over ships, and for centuries their sector had been where to find good Tauren engineers and army grunts.

They had been flooded by refugees however, so the population had shifted over the past seven centuries or so. He was seeing a mixed bag of recruits. Initially, they had been human since most humans had been immune to the plagues. That was slowly changing however.

He tucked his hands behind his back. He knew that the brass had anticipated a lot of recruiting initially before the plagues had been revealed. Those numbers would come in time; it was just going to take longer than anticipated.

He had little call for line troops so he was focused on the engineers, MASH, and supports. The engineers were turning into the premier army unit at the moment now that the calls for MASH units had slowly begun to dry up. He was certain that their skills would be put to good use on the many agricultural worlds across the sector and eventually, hopefully, in the galaxy at large.

He smiled ever so slightly to himself. To think that one of his students in the future may become a general on some far away world halfway across the galaxy … yeah, that was cool.

~~{}~~

Captain Senior Grade Straus Hamilton strode across the tarmac and to the hangar nearby. He thought of it as his basic stride though he'd been teasingly told it was more of a liquid role, almost a stalking motion. The black Neopanther flicked his ears in passing to people going about their business. He didn't want or need them to come to attention for him; he had places to be and didn't want to delay.

So far so good, the scouts were off, the engineer recruits were off under Lieutenant Scarback's eyes, and he didn't have an inbox of paperwork to do battle with. Life was good.

Now, if he could wrap up the class he had to teach, he could maybe cut out early and find a nice hammock to take a nap in during the heat of the island day. Until then he'd have to adjust to the air-conditioning in the school and the less humid conditions therein.

~~{}~~

Captain Junior Grade Mya Halice saw Captain Hamilton striding across the tarmac and nodded to herself. She'd wanted to see the recruits off but she'd been delayed. Technically, she was the senior Army Corps of Engineers officer in the sector. Like Straus she was from Nuevo. They had known each other on their homeworld peripherally and had caught up a little when they had time out of stasis. She was grateful to see a familiar face.

Her mind turned to the upcoming mission. It would be Lieutenant Scarback's first solo mission with recruits. She hoped he got it right.