“It’s all a gigantic cluster out there,” Col. Rola told Mark whenever they reached the governor’s mansion. The ride over had been uneventful, if a bit rough going through the jungle patches.

She wasted no time fixing herself a four finger whiskey shot, which she downed with gusto. Now they were in the governor’s office, with her retinue in the main lobby area. Rebuilding the mansion had been Mark’s first act as an appeasement to the many factions that looked for government handouts.

“Can you be more specific?” Mark asked. “We’re outside the major networks and any news that gets delivered is going to be woefully outdated. We only have traders and merchants to ask for the galactic news, but they’re more concerned with prices than politics.”

“Pirates,” she replied. “They’ve been coming out of the wood works in the past few months. The universe is a large place and it appeared random at first, but now it looks like it’s all part of a larger organization that’s probing our weaknesses, testing out their vehicles, and inflicting wounds on us.”

Mark thought about that assessment. “When you hear hooves, think horses, not zebras.” The logistics and size needed to coordinate attacks across lightyears of space would require immense resources, not to mention an in-depth knowledge of how the government and military worked.

“That seems…” Mark paused, thinking of the most inoffensive way to phrase it, “logistically difficult,” he said, very diplomatically. She snorted. “You studied Earth’s military history?” Of course, it was part of Mark’s implanted memories from being at the Academy.

“Yes, which battles in particular?” he replied.

“The Afghan and Iraqi wars, America.”

“Yes, I know of them.”

“Well, the invaded country in that war, they became more lethal over time. They would scout out soldiers locations and setup ambushes in areas they knew the other side, the Americans, would cross. They’d also take out vehicles and other equipment.

That’s your first test that you’re dealing with a coordinated enemy. They get more deadly because they share notes, study your weak spots, make targeted strikes, take their losses and learn from them.

Now the second test is a little better. The US found for certain its suspicions when they went into the mountains and found what they called ‘e-jihad’, a network that shared information about how to make the most effective improvised explosive devices and where to use them for maximum casualties.”

“I see,” Mark said. Mark knew that the NPCs didn’t understand there was an outside real-World apart from the game. That meant that something that would be almost impossible, coordinating over light years, could be achieved very trivially in the real World. Since he’d sound like a loon if he explained this, he kept his mouth shut. “And these attacks have also been closer to the Sol System?”

“You got it,” she replied, “And we have no idea where they’re coming from. We’d expect an attack in a place this far out, but within the 75 lightyear perimeter it seems impossible. That’s why we were delayed. Our ship is really a pleasure cruise ship compared to most of the other ones in the fleet, but she’s also a battle axe that can take out damn near anything. Hell, it can take out most planets. So we had to discourage pirates from making any further attacks. Most fled off when we arrived on the scene, but a few brave and misguided souls made an attempt on our ship.

Which brings us to you. You’re the toast of the town at the moment. These have all been space battles and most of those battles destroyed the ship and all evidence onboard. The few we managed to capture alive haven’t given us anything useful.”

Mark decided not to mention his interrogation technique of cutting off a head, regrowing it partially to sustain life, then sticking it in a jar. Even though Mark was personally not adverse to making the sacrifices that come from extreme measures, he didn’t want them to become routine. They should be relegated to extreme, desperate measures.

She continued, “You’ve gotten a real treasure trove of documents, co-conspirators, and more. As I’m sure you’re guessing, they’re outfitting you for a field officer position. But you’ll need more than some intel to move that along.”

“Well,” Mark said, “I have one major lead left that I haven’t been able to chase down. I thought about going after it on my own, but the situation on this planet hasn’t been resolved, so I’ve been waiting for relief. I have an informant who might be able to help, but it’s a long shot.” Calling his head in a jar an informant was technically correct.

“Yes, which is why my orders are to relieve you of command ASAP. IDF wants you to investigate the sources for the attacks, not play regional governor. We’ll have a change of command ceremony and then get you back to investigating. We’ll have a change of command ceremony tomorrow at noon.” Standard time used Unix time, but when on local planets, many people reverted back to the old standards. Dusk, dawn, noon, all reflecting the position of the sun in the sky.

“Uh ma’am,” Mark said, “There won’t be a noon time for a couple of weeks with the way this planet wobbles and turns. Might I suggest T00:00:00+00:00 as a suitable replacement?”

She gave him a nod. “As for location,” he continued, “I’d say the city’s main square should work. It’s an open location that will show the civilian population that control is being effectively maintained. You can either stay here or we’ll escort you back to your transport ship. This is a transient planet, so there’s a lot of places to stay the night that are always looking for new customers. But given the size of your ship and its accommodations, I’m sure most will want to stay in their own bay.”

“Just bring me back to the ship”, she replied, “The sensitive portion of this meeting is concluded, you know the situation in the Sol System. Get us a target so we can nail these bastards to the wall.”

“Yes ma’am,” he responded, then walked with her out of the mansion. The ride back to her ship was uneventful. After dropping her off at her ship, he looked over the exit report Arabella had prepared. As expected, she did excellent work summarizing, bullet-pointing, and organizing his scattered and half-written notes into a coherent framework for effective civil leadership. He wished he had realized this a month ago. Assigning her control of the bureaucratic duty would have saved him some heartache, but by rank, he was the one who had to do it. The military could be unforgiving about who had responsibility for a situation.

He gathered the crew together to discuss the upcoming change of command ceremony. 1SG Vidal Roger did not seem pleased with the news. When Mark asked if there were any questions, Vidal immediately responded with, “Permission to speak freely, sir?” This was always a sign that good news was not about to be delivered. “Proceed 1SG.”

“Sir, you aren’t thinking this through like a Marine, because, no offense, you aren’t one. We have not prepared an adequate threat assessment for the location. How many possible sniper perches are there? How can we best obstruct the view of those areas, making a sniper position more difficult? How many exit paths are there from the area? Is anyone allowed to view the ceremony? How do we ID people who are coming in and out? How well will the police be able to see the area? Are there blind spots, obstructed locations, dimly lit areas, etc. The planet is in its dark phase, so we’ll have to setup our own power.

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What about deterrents? Are there any natural or artificial barriers we can erect that will funnel traffic, use of dogs or robotic equivalents, surveillance equipment, and other visible deterrents from trying anything? Are there any layered defense strategies in place?

We’re defending on the local police here to respond to the situation, we’ll be in the change of command ceremony. The police here aren’t trained combatants, they’re bouncers that keep the peace.”

“I see,” Mark said, “What is your recommendation?”

“Sir, we scout the area up and down, document every angle of approach and attack, feed it into the simulation computer, then run a red team/blue team attack and response scenario. Find the most likely points of attack. Go over the tactics and training with local police, check their response time and threat assessment capabilities,” Vidal concluded.

“And how long do you imagine that will take?”

“Well sir,” Vidal was a bit more subdued on this response, “technically we spend a month prepping vital operations like this. But we could probably shorten that time down to two weeks, focus more on getting the police ready for a generalized response rather than war scenario planning out all of the possibilities.”

Mark shook his head. “For reasons I can’t disclose, there’s a time sensitive component on this operation. Any sort of delay will get shot down. For your next question, no, we can’t avoid the ceremony. If the outer perimeter federation planets are involved in staging a civil coup, then we are going to need military outposts. This area now has strategic and logistic importance. A smooth change of command and hopefully some reforms can turn this into a major base of operations, that’s why Col. Rola has such a large crew here. So we’re doing it. Any other questions?”

“Just one more sir,” Vidal spoke out, “I’d like to note my objection to this. All of the planet’s command personnel are going to be in one location. A strike during the ceremony would leave the planet rudderless. A public CoC is not advisable, it should be done in a secure location like the Colonel’s ship. Additionally, this planet is porous. We couldn’t contain a threat if it broke out.”

“Objection noted,” Mark replied, “Anything else?”

No one else had anything else to say. The crew didn’t look happy, change of command ceremonies were pompous displays meant to gratify the egos of the incoming commander, and Vidal’s warning put a damper on the mood. Still, they were all professionals and knew how to soldier on.

The next day they were waiting ready for the ceremony. Captain Thomas sat next to Captain Smith. She was sitting at attention, a sort of ready pose to show solidarity with the people out in the field. The ceremony consisted of a couple of discreet steps, each carried out with precision. The formation of troops, the presentation of command and honors, inspection, honors to the IDF, remarks from incoming and outgoing commander, march in review, and conclusion.

The personnel on the podium stage included himself, Captain Luciana, the Colonel, and a half dozen important local political appointments like the Department of Sanitation and Department of Transportation.

A change of command normally meant that the officers would be of equivalent ranks and the personnel would remain the same. This case was much different. During the list of honors, Mark’s list of commendations and medals was impressive for his rank, but absolutely dwarfed by Col. Rola’s accolades. He felt a small twinge of jealousy rearing its head.

The place was too open for his liking, as Vidal had warned. Cars flowed through the area, not in the center, but traffic could still be seen and heard in the area. Police kept onlookers back with metal barricades, but they were close enough that someone with enough determination could get through.

More worrying, there were protest groups formed up who weren’t happy with being under martial law. They’d started getting louder the longer the process dragged on. Sneaking in attackers amidst protest groups was a common strategy employed in asymmetric warfare. Everything made Mark twitchy.

He was in the middle of giving his remarks praising the cooperation between the civil and military sectors when he started staring at a SUV parked close to the ceremony. It wasn’t just that it was parked close, but that it was off kilter in its parking. The trunk was facing towards the podium at an odd angle. Further, the windows were tinted super dark, very rare for a place that was known for long periods without sunlight. It was also close to where he was, only 25 meters away.

If he were in charge of the police, he’d send someone to investigate the vehicle and try to locate the owner. But the local police were busy with the crowds and protest groups.

The car was only 25 meters away from the podium he was giving his speech on when the trunk lid popped up. His hyper-speed cognition kicked in without him having to manually trigger it. Inside, he saw several suspicious containers aimed at the podium. His encyclopedic knowledge of military protocol told him the minimum safe distance for a SUV rigged with explosives was four hundred feet. They were less than a hundred away.

He turned, ran, and shouted, “GET DOWN!” at the top of his lungs. He had a choice of whether he should tackle and jump on top of Captain Smith or Colonel Rola. Protocol dictated that he should try to save the highest ranking officer, but he had a connection with Luciana that made the decision to save her inevitable.

As he landed on top of her and shielded her body, the explosion detonated. Fire swept through the area and the concussive blast smashed windows and sent alarms blaring throughout the area. He wasn’t badly injured, but the podium they had been standing on didn’t look good. Large chunks of wooden debris filled the area, smoke and fire made it difficult to see.

He rolled off of Luciana and tried to run towards the podium to look for Col. Rola. Unfortunately, the concussive blast had damaged his equilibrium, so he drunkenly walked/stumbled to where she was. He found her amidst the debris. A large portion of her hair was sheered off and she was bleeding profusely from her head. Mark started stripping off pieces of his shirt to create field bandages.

“Dumb bastards,” Col. Rola said, cackling a bit as he applied pressure to her head. “Someone my size, an explosion is the worst way to try to take them out. I’m too low to the ground to get caught in the blast.” The fact that she was talking was good, she wasn’t dead or suffering from an obstructed airway. He felt her pulse. Weak, but stable.

“Hang on, you probably have a concussion and are in shock. I’ll get you stabilized.” He started probing underneath her, looking for blood spots or signs that her spine had been damaged. So far as he could tell, her assessment was correct. She was so short the blast only caught part of her head. If she were taller, it probably would have sheered her head off. Still, he checked that no vital areas were leaking blood outside from the one he had one hand applying pressure to.

“Can you move your toes and fingers?” he asked. She wiggled them. He couldn’t see her toes, but he could see her foot moving.

“Yeah, I can still feel them. Be a good sport and roll me over onto the side of me that isn’t burnt up?” He complied with her request and kept pressure on her head wound. Emergency services arrived and started prepping the Colonel for transportation. Mark allowed them to do their job and went to go check on Luciana.

She was perfectly fine outside from grass stains. The rest of his crew ran over to join them. They did a quick roll call and found all of their personnel was accounted for. Vidal nodded to indicate that he wanted to talk to Mark in private.

“You ok sir?” he started off, a look of concern in his eyes. Mark had blood on him, but it wasn’t his own. “I’m fine, don’t worry about me,” Mark responded. “What did you want to talk to me about?”

“Just to watch your ass,” Vidal said in a low voice. “This is the second time the police have been publicly embarrassed. We’ve all seen your freaky reflexes in combat, but the way you dived off the podium before the explosion and saved Luciana first is bad. My guess is they’re going to try to pin the attack down on you, saying you did it to take control of the planet. It’s a way to divert attention away from their own failures.”

“Your advice is noted,” Mark said. “Get everyone suited up, secure the perimeter, and let’s start bagging and collecting evidence. If you’re right, we’ll need to conduct our own parallel investigation into what happened.”