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.

~~{}~~