Somewhere on Chandra - Republic of Humanity Territory
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Manny Gonzales had always hated flying.
Dropping? That was…fine. The drop pod did exactly what it was supposed to: drop, catch, and set him down. It was simple, and he could feel everything that happened to it—every turbulent jostling, every pulse of the retrojets. The visceral, primal fear of falling was something he’d come to terms with.
The Champ and the other ships he’d been stationed on were fine, too. They stayed in orbit or occasionally dipped into the upper atmosphere, but outside of the exceedingly rare space-to-space battle, corvettes and heavy transports stayed still. They followed the rules.
A Pericles, or—Republic forbid—a Kingfisher? Not so much.
As the dropship weaved and shuddered through a hail of ground-to-air bullets, Manny squeezed his grenade launcher’s barrel. He’d safed the damn thing, of course; he’d blown himself up, but that wasn’t a big deal even here. The scientists, though? They had value to the Republic, and they weren’t hooked into the MRC clone bays. If his grenade misfired and knocked them out of the sky, that’d be on him.
It wasn’t falling. And it wasn’t dying. He’d done plenty of that, even if it shook him up every time. The heavy armor he’d dropped in was bullet-marked, one of the elbow joints wouldn’t extend all the way, and his visor had a crack down the middle, but it had saved his life.
It was the lack of control in a Pericles.
There was nothing he could do. If the ship dropped, he couldn’t bail out, and he couldn’t save anyone else’s life, either. He had no control.
I should have stayed on New Venus. The ranches would have been better than this. Hell, rebuilding them after a worm outbreak would have been better than this.
A hand dropped on his shoulder as he rocked back and forth, his chin resting on the grenade launcher’s butt. He flinched, straightened, and glared at Lieutenant Commander Cameron through his opaque visor. “What?”
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Close Chandra Orbit - Republic of Humanity Territory
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Kaya’s hand was on Gonzales’s shoulder before she realized it was there. His armored head stared at her; he’d felt it through steel and under-armor bodysuit, and almost instantly reacted. Her eyes drifted to the grenade launcher, and the steel fingers wrapped around its barrel hard enough to dent it. Well, fuck.
“Just checking in, Gonzales. You did a great job on that mine.”
That was true. She could still see the mine burning, even through the first layers of clouds that encircled Chandra.
[The mine will likely continue burning for the next week, and by the time it stops, the vatanium left inside will only be worth mining if new, niche applications are discovered :). Private Gonzales’s actions caused an estimated seventeen trillion slips worth of economic damage; whether that damage is to the Republic or the Bonravans remains to be seen]
“Thanks,” she said dryly, letting go of the soldier’s shoulder.
“No problem, I guess.”
[You’re welcome!!! uwu]
The Champ was already burning for the safety of the two escort dreadnoughts, and by the time the Pericles slid into its cramped hold, Kaya wanted nothing more than to get out of her armor and hit the ship’s mess hall. The on-board clock—tuned faithfully to Canaveral Time, of course—read 1610. She had twenty minutes. That’d be enough time. “System, let General Gorsuch know I’ll have his package to him at 1745. I need to take care of my equipment.”
[I’ll tell him, but he won’t like it (╥﹏╥)]
“That’s fine. He’ll understand, even if he hates it. Daily Debriefing is more important.” She retreated to her room, dumped her armor into the reconditioner, and turned on the shower. It’d be quick this time, but that was better than nothing. She had to get the rotten mud stench off of her.
Three minutes later, Clean Kaya was already suiting up in her regulation whites. “System, alarm for eight minutes.”
[Alarm set for seven minutes, fifty-nine, fifty-eight…]
She didn’t see ‘fifty-seven;’ her eyes were closed before her head hit the pillow, and she was out before the ship’s system got to ‘thirty.’
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[ALARM! ALARM! ALARM!]
“Wha—!” Kaya leaped out of bed, looking for her sidearm as adrenaline dumped into her body. Something had gone wrong! Was the Champ being boarded? After a moment—before her fingers could wrap around the gun’s grip—she started relaxing.
[Oh good! You’re up, uwu]
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
[The mandatory EAF Daily Debriefing starts in five minutes thirty-one seconds. Since you’re not deployed or on essential ship-related duties, show your love of Liberty by tuning in in the mess hall]
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world, system,” Kaya said. As she pulled herself off the perfect, comfortable bed and stepped into the hall, she found her ears under assault from the evening rush.
The EAF Daily Debriefing wasn’t just mandatory viewing. No, the thirty-minute news report also served as the biggest source of conversation in the mess hall during dinner, which Kaya knew from the last ten days wasn’t served until after Lanny Dayton signed off and the credits finished rolling. The crew had a betting pool on where they’d be deployed next. Right now, from what she’d heard, an Engineer’s Assistant who only left the engine rooms to sleep, eat, and watch the Debriefing had over three million slips. He’d guessed Chandra every night for three months.
It had finally paid off for him.
Kaya couldn’t join in the betting. It wouldn’t be seemly for the ship’s LC to gamble with its coordinates, and she had to be every inch the hero to fill the boots General Gorsuch had laid out for—
Marching music swelled from the speakers around the room, the giant TV screen on the entry wall flickered on, and the words ‘EAF Nightly News’ appeared, with the Sword of Earth and Judging Woman behind them. Below, the words ‘Daily Debrief’ appeared to a massive explosion sound.
“Welcome to the Daily Debrief! I’m your host, Lanny Dayton!”
The mess hall went wild as Lanny appeared on the screen.
Kaya could see it. Even she had to admit that the news anchor was beautiful. Her blonde hair reached her shoulders, her hourglass shape was always accentuated by the dresses she chose, and her perfect smile was always there. No wonder the crew loves her.
Lanny flashed her snow-white teeth at the camera, waited five seconds for the hooting and catcalls to die down, and began talking. “Today, a major victory in the robot wars, as Droppers land on Micah Prime’s dusty plains to take the fight to the bots; setbacks in the Galactic South, with a war hero and convicted war crimes perpetrator called out of retirement to repel the Bonravan threat; and, far to the west, the Orion front still in a stalemate as competing landings on Saiph IV and Meissa A Prime stall out.
“But first, the Home Front Round-Up.” Lanny adjusted her notes, and the screen changed. A scene on Mars appeared, with hundreds of troops, hovertanks, and mechs parading under a domed sky. “Today marked the fifty-fourth anniversary of the Pleiades blitz, and the Republic’s First Representatives memorialized the occasion with a parade through Dome One. EAF Nightly News was on hand to record the event, report on it, and, of course, send it across the galaxy. May Lost Earth’s enemies tremble at the sight of the Republic’s weapons of freedom!”
“Bet we’re in the Pleiades next week. Fifty slips sound good,” someone whispered behind Kaya. She stiffened, but ignored it. According to her training manuals, light gambling wasn’t a problem on board corvettes. It should be ignored as long as there wasn’t violence, and as long as people didn’t bet their entire weekly slip allotments every night.
Another voice cut in. “Make it three hundred. Didn’t you hear Lanny? This campaign’s not a quick defense. It’s a setback. That means weeks here in the South.”
The screen changed, and Lanny’s honey-smooth voice continued. “The League of Generals is asking all civilians whose safety depends on the EAF’s strong shield to donate what they can to the war effort. Whether it’s excess silverware, outdated firearms, or spare vehicles, every contribution helps during the Pleiades Blitz Liberty Drive. If you can’t donate, speak to your Bureau of Information representative about alternative arrangements. The war effort depends on you. Our troops on far-off planets depend on you. And most importantly, your children’s safety depends…on you.”
The screen changed, this time showing the massive worldship over Chandra.
“And now, to our main story. In the aftermath of Operation Pitfall, the Galactic West was considered secure, and the EAF turned its attention to the East and the robot wars. However, a fragile cease-fire was broken this afternoon when Bonravan forces cowardly attacked the long-held Republic research world of Chandra. The surprise attack includes a worldship, which the Republic declared an illegal weapon of war.
“Naturally, this underhanded maneuver has sent our offensive in the east scrambling as units under the command of General Cade Gorsuch jumped south to counter the sudden aggression with all of the Republic’s available forces. As always, the EAF refuses to give up a single planet to the monarchist cow aliens, and with Gorsuch’s reputation for brutality and lethal first strikes, we can only hope the war will end soon.”
Lanny adjusted her notes again, chest jiggling slightly, and Kaya rolled her eyes. Inflated for our viewing pleasure.
“The flow of heavy weapons and battlecruisers capable of fighting Bonravan worldships is in progress. Until then, we ask that the brave Droppers on that front give it their all. The Republic needs heroes, and every dropper must step up.” The screen flickered behind Lanny, and she kept talking smoothly. “In other news, faster-than-light travel within the Republic is currently suspended for all citizens without a C-10-03 expedited travel license.
“This news is in response to crippling terrorist activity across the galaxy, striking at faster-than-light engine production. EAF forces have clamped down and returned the affected factories to production. However, it will take weeks to…”
Kaya drifted off. Lanny hadn’t mentioned the vatanium mine at all. Come to think of it, she’d never heard of vatanium before today, and she’d studied faster-than-light travel at Ceres Command. Then again, she’d studied the effects on equipment, how ships moved through space, and the lanes between worlds as part of strategy.
In fact, Operation: Pitfall had been a perfect example of that part of her schooling. It had started almost a year before she enlisted in drop school, with the goal of taking a single planet on the bug front. The Pit sat at a massive intersection of space lanes; from it, the insect threat could attack a dozen systems, each deep inside Republic territory.
So, High Admiral Shohei had devised an audacious plan to take The Pit.
It took years. Every day, Ceres Command sent ships to the front, and they returned scarred and damaged. Droppers were taking casualties—not losing clones, but losing ships. She started studying the front, and a pattern emerged. Every time the bugs lost a planet, they launched a strike against another one from The Pit.
EAF war planners noticed it, too, and started countering the bugs when they swarmed out. It took another six months to end Operation Pitfall, and half the Republic’s battlecruisers were trapped in close-Pit orbit to provide fire against oncoming bug invasions. But it was over, and now the Republic controlled the space lanes in and out of the bug front.
“And that’s our Daily Debrief. Up next, orders.” Lanny’s face disappeared, and a man’s mustached face replaced it. He peered at the assembled soldiers from behind his glasses, then began speaking.
“All Dropper units are ordered to continue their current activities in the name of the Republic, Liberty, and the Sword of Earth.”
Kaya nodded. The orders were the same almost daily; AEF High Command rarely interfered with its generals unless there was an emergency or inter-fleet coordination was needed. She turned, saluting High Admiral Shohei, and joined the mess line at the very back. Rank conferred benefits, but cutting the mess line on a drop corvette would never be one of them.