3 - 1
INTERLUDE I
“Because War is defined as a clash between opposing human wills, the human element will always be central to its conduct. Humans infuse War with its intangible moral factors and subsequently make it subject to the same peculiarities, inconsistencies, and complexities. War will always be counted among the most extreme tests of strength and stamina, both mental and physical, a Human can endure. Any study of War without consideration of the effects of fear, danger, exhaustion, and privation is incomplete. However, people will react differently to these same stressors; an act that may break one, may only strengthen the resolve of another. Human Will, instilled and maintained through Leadership, is the driving and central factor in War. Any methodology which neglects this and reduces itself to the level of simple calculation of force ratios and material should be considered flawed.” - Colonel-General Sergei Petrova, CADP-1 ‘Warfighting’ Ch.1
She awoke several hours later, cotton mouthed and starving. The scent of battle had begun to fade from perception but it was still there, barely detectable. That wasn’t really what caught her attention at the moment. There was an esbit stove burning and warming food somewhere. She could smell it. Blinking through the sleep, Doc was nowhere to be found. He must’ve been making his rounds. He had been kind enough to throw his poncho liner over her before he left.
Trying to bend her leg was painful, but she managed to clamber up to her feet and hobble over to the rest of her gear, which she donned about as fast as she could manage while leaning on the table for support. Her hydration bladder was dry. Closer inspection revealed it had three splinters sticking through it and probably wouldn’t be holding water again any time soon. Her throat was bone dry and that wasn’t a problem that would be solved down here.
She had to take a few seconds to think about how she was going to tackle the stairs. It took a couple attempts to figure out how to climb with the minimum of right leg bending, but once she had it down it wasn’t an issue.
Tapping on the cracked face of her chrono brought it back to life. It was around two thirty in the morning, but the battle still rumbled on in the distance. Mercifully quiet for the time being here though. A few Pioneers and members of weapons shifted in the sleeping systems as she made her way past below the conference room.
The running water had finally given out in the building so a few ‘latrine pales’ had been identified and set up in a corner of the building far away from everything else. One of the Pioneers was hard at work outside burning their contents in a scavenged trash container with a mixture of dirty lubricant, cooking oil and esbit tablets.
In the conference area a few Riflemen were on watch, manning the crew serveds and scanning the killzone with snoopers. Dygalo, Lachenski and Rand were huddled in the next room around a tiny esbit stove both warming their hands and reheating a few soft pack cans. All three of them had their helmets off looking about as relaxed as the conditions allowed. Dygalo had his sleeves cuffed around his elbows revealing the patchwork of traditional style tattoos around his thick forearms. They reportedly covered his entire body from the neck down. His traps and shoulders were so big his square head seemed to jut out of his torso. There wasn’t really much neck to speak of. He was the quintessential machine gunner and handled the weapons like toys. By comparison Rand just looked small, and Lachenski’s gangly frame looked likely to be carried off by a stiff breeze.
Karoff was asleep on the other side of the room facing the wall.
They gave her a quiet greeting as she entered and grabbed the ration that Restrepo had handed her the day prior safely stowed in her main pack.
“Water?” She asked. Dygalo motioned to newly acquired case bottles with a flick of his cigarette. She hobbled over and cracked one open immediately downing most of it. She took a moment to examine the ration on her way to the table.
Bouf with buckwheat, warfighter tested and approved, at least according to the label. Dygalo relinquished what was now most definitely ‘her’ chair and she sat down dumping the contents of the ration onto the table. Regen was stoking her metabolism and she seized the first thing that was immediately edible: crispbread and shickan pâté. While the artificial nature might have turned the nose of a monied Earther, she had been victim to a craving for the stuff. The oily paste was quickly applied to a flat of maize crispbread and then shoved into her mouth about as gracefully as a macaque.
She forced herself to slow down after the first one. Humans eat; animals gobble. Resupply had evidently come while she was asleep, as fresh packs of ammunition as well as the refuse from recently disassembled ones was scattered around. New cases of rations and water were stacked against an interior wall. Rand had just taken a moment to savor the smell of his bubbling can of stew when work once again came to the front of her mind.
“Anything come over the net while I was out?” She asked in between bites. Rand set his food aside for the moment with a defeated sigh and scrolled through message logs to jog his memory.
“1/1’s through the breech and completely circled Smokehouse-3, Sovereign committed all of 3rd Bat. RCT-5’s got full control of Smokehouse-2. Cydonians are still slugging it out at Government hill but are making headway. 2nd Rifle Div. has most of the canal district on lock, they’re supposed to start pushing the palace compound tomorrow. Nothing new enemy wise in our sector. Claymore-1 went back to the LSA to re-arm but they’ll be back come sunrise.” He relayed while skimming.
The developments piqued her interest and she set her food aside for the moment and flipped down her map box. The screen blinked on but the Tri-D projection was malfunctioning and the LED flickering. She gave it a swift smack and it flared to life.
Rand sort of shook his head.“That’s not really supposed to work.”
“Ah, but it does when it needs to.” She cracked a rare smile while wagging a finger.
“Damn shame we’re stuck here while 1st and 3rd are pushing. Rest of the Reg’s eatin up all the glory while we sit on our hands and wait for the Fed’s and No-aks to bash their heads into us,” Dygalo commented.
“Everyone has their part to play, Corporal, and ours is to hold this cross-roads. Based on BDA’s everyone else is sending up we’re seeing at least as much action as they are. Fed’s aren’t too keen to commit,” she replied while scrolling across the front. “Remember, we operate on a tactical level, our defense is a means to an end. Our concept of operations determines where we use tactical means to achieve strategic ends. It weighs focus and our own commitment of forces.”
The map gave a better view of the situation. She panned out and a sea of icons came into view. It was much as Rand had described, but he had neglected to mention that their Amazonian allies had completed their pivot along with 3rd Lancer Division and cut off the dome from the east by seizing Havergue Port.
Greendome was completely isolated now and slowly cracking under the pressure of the western coalition's relentless assault. It wasn’t like anyone was coming to save them anyways: the other half of their army was locked down further east and north in Mariner Valley and Xanthe. A bunch of barely cohesive second line arcology territorials and reservists from a diverse collective of member states to the federation, she didn’t rate them as much of a threat anyways. The bulk of their first line units were here. They’d thrown their lot in with the Earthers after the imperial system collapsed and their reckoning was finally coming. Regime change was the order of the day, but the ‘ Federal Republic’ was kicking and screaming on the way down. Money had put the Noachian 3rd Army Corps on their side and was probably the only reason the Fed’s hadn’t yet been reduced to a red smudge under Tharsis’s heel, but not for much longer.
“Think we’re in for much longer ma’am?” Dygalo asked while doing his best to make sense of the map display.
“Noose is getting tight. They either try something desperate or we choke them out. Few days at the least, few weeks at the most. Sort of depends on when the No-aks default on their contract” She replied while panning the map with a wave of her hand.
“So you think this one’s in the bag ma’am?” Dygalo further questioned.
She fiddled with her stylus in thought, this time resisting the urge to chew on it for appearance’s sake. “It’s not over, certainly not for us, but everything’s weighing against them at this point materially. Unless they pull out a miracle breakout, which isn’t unheard of, it’s a choice between losing slowly or quickly. Their capital city’s encircled, they’re fighting hard but are hemorrhaging combat power while our reserves come into play. Once Smokehouse-3 and Hydroponics is under our control, that's all the city's infrastructure. We could just turn off the air and water then wait them out.”
She paused, sensing a teachable moment. “But that’s more of an ‘attritional’ view of the present situation. Our goal is always to win by the most expedient means, and that rarely means beating our enemy in until they can’t continue. It’s better to think of their Army, just the same as ours, as a machine. Better yet, an interconnected series of machines. If you want to stop something like a groundcar from operating the easiest way usually isn’t smashing it to bits; taking out a few key parts is enough.” She paused for a moment to make sure the three of them were actually grocking what she was saying before continuing.
“Instead of looking at this as sort of a numerical problem, we look for ways to attack the enemy’s system so as to use our combat power most efficiently. That’s what they mean when they say ‘maneuver warfare’. These aren’t completely separate things, attrition and maneuver, it’s on a spectrum. We use maneuver to isolate specific, vulnerable, components of their system and attrit or destroy them.
We as hypothetical Generals for the moment, ask: ‘What’s important to the Enemy?’; ‘Which can the enemy not do without?’; and ‘which if eliminated, will most quickly bend them to our will’. From Cydonian the closest translation for the term that describes this a ‘center of gravity’.
Sometimes these are intangible things like ‘morale’ or ‘resolve’. They’re also more solid, like co-operation between combat arms or alliances. Other times they’re real physical things, like a position that anchors a whole defensive line, or a formation of armor.
Pavol’s house is a good example of one of our centers of gravity. It's a source from which a combatant draws strength. We protect friendly ones and try to neutralize the enemy’s.” Lachenski and Dygalo looked thoughtful as she explained. As NCO’s this wasn’t their first lesson on the subject, but how much they’d managed to pick up from a slide deck class remained to be seen. Rand was following as best he could, but would no doubt have some questions. Whether or not he actually would be forward enough to ask them though. She’d save time for questions at the end and continued.
“Our goal is to neutralize the enemy’s centers-of-gravity, but we rarely want to attack directly into one of their sources of strength. So instead we look for vulnerabilities in the system which we can exploit. Going back to our previous example, a groundcar’s center of gravity might be its engine, but smashing a motor is hard work. So we look for other ways to disable that same strength, like cutting its battery lines. We’re specifically looking for vulnerabilities, and out of all of them we want the one that if we attack, will do the most to damage to a center of gravity. A critical vulnerability to use doctrinal terminology.”
Rand raised his hand pausing her lecture. “Uh, ma’am this is all well and good but, relevance?”
She shoo’d his hand down. “I was just getting there. More often than not, an enemy's core center of gravity is their combat power, not terrain or infrastructure. The Fed’s most obvious one is the Noachians. Without the No-aks they’ve got about the same chance as Tranquility Station does to win the Ceres Cup. While we maneuver on local vulnerabilities we force the Feds to expose the weaknesses of their most important center-of-gravity to oppose our move. We make like we want critical infrastructure, and we do. But the real goal has always been and will always be the Presidential Palace. By holding these places we know they need, we draw attention from the real focus. No political leadership, no bond-guaranteed contract for the Noak’s. Boom, half their combat-power evaporates in an instant. Even if their Army still wants to fight to the last, we most definitely hold the upper hand.”
“Even if a wolf’s head is cut off, it still has the power to bite.” Lanchenski spoke up. She and Dygalo nodded in agreement. “My old man used to say that.” Lachenski mentioned, sort of surprised at its specific pertinence.
“He was right, at least in the sense that we should still be cautious. As the situation gets more precarious for the enemy the more likely they are to do something unexpected and desperate. War is more of an animate thing than a mechanical instrument.” She agreed, banishing the map and returning to bending her esbit stove to shape.
“Say Rand, anything come over the net about the Phobos-Deimos game?” Dygalo looked over, clearly trying to shift the conversation towards something other than work.
Rand shook his head. “Ain’t got the bandwidth for that ‘sides Corporal, everyone with half a brain knows Deimos is done this season. Malakov’s out on contract dispute. That whole team plays for their center. Who’re they gonna get to replace him, Tlbitsie? He’s the most over-hyped player in the Outworld league. Hell, having seen his kicking first hand, I’m pretty sure Lieutenant Petrova here could show up that bum,” he mused while picking up his neglected stew.
Dygalo shook his head in disbelief, flicking some ash off his smoke. “Tlbitsie’s got three Ceres Cups to his name. Phobos hasn’t won that many championships in the past twenty years.”
Rand quickly swallowed his bite. “Yeah, three Cup wins where he got carried by his team. Bridgerton was the winningest team in the history of the game, loaded with all time greats. It ain’t hard to stack up a few championship wins when you’re on a line up with Pichianno, Zhang Gualong, and Nkunda for the better part of a decade. Just watch him play: dude can’t even pass correctly,” he retorted while waving his spoon.
“Hey, Tlbitsie’s no Malakov, but he’s not bad either. Certainly got a leg up on Norman or Heidelberg, whomever Phobos decides to field. Maybe they do play a strong-center team but it ain’t like Deimos’ flanks aren’t good or that Phobos doesn't have similar problems. Like uh, who just went free agent from them, Park Chang-Sol?” Lachenski added.
“Chang-Sol and Balency both just decided not to renew their contracts on account of better offers from the Vesta Belters for the play-offs. Phobos had weak spin-side defense before and now it’s doubly bad,” Lt. Petrova cut into discussion, having distracted from whatever passed as work while she waited for her food to warm.
“Come on really, all three of you?” Rand bellyached while finishing off the last of his stew.
“I’m just calling it like I see it, I think Demios tries to play their same old game with Tlbitsie instead of Malakov, they lose. But, if they have half a mind and use him to play toward a spin-side offense, there’s no way they don’t 3-0 Phobos,” she declared. Dygalo seemed satisfied giving, an affirmative nod while he flicked his deathstick butt out an open window. He certainly had some problems with the specifics of her assessment, but generally agreed with the conclusion.
“Tell ya what Rand, 35 Shil that Deimos beats Phobos,” Lachenski offered.
“You’re on and I’ll tell ya what: that’s a fool's wager, Corporal, so I’ll enjoy taking your money,” Rand declared setting his empty can aside to shake on it.
“Didn’t know you followed gravball, ma’am.” Dygalo commented while glancing into his pack, mulling if this was a one or two smoke discussion.
She nodded “Played striker in the Academy too”
“Wait, come to think of it, I think I might’ve actually watched some of your games.” Lachenski commented while rubbing his temple. “You were on the line up for the Army-Navy game, what like… four years ago right?” He snapped his fingers. “No, it was 3 years ago. I remember because you were next in line up to that huge chick playing center, the one with Rift Guards tattoos… man what the fuck was her name.”
“Tiamen, Dalia Tiamen, we're still friends. She’s a platoon commander in 1/1 Delta now you know.” She replied.
“Shit, with skills like that she shoulda resigned her commission and gone pro. I actually remember feeling kinda bad for that dude she was squared up with. He got demolished play after play in front of all of Ridge City.”
“We kinda beat the bricks off of all of them that year position for position. They were outclassed” She replied, taking a moment. “That stuff all kinda feels like ancient times now.”
Dygalo fished around in his ration container for a dessert packet. “Different times at least.”
“Any word on Michaelson or Formosa?” she asked, glancing to Rand.
Rand shook his head again, this was something much closer to the front of his mind. Senior had asked him for updates nearly every thirty minutes when he was awake. Senior was always hard-faced, but he had a soft-spot for his boys, maybe even a bit too much.
“Last status update was 2137, Formosa was at Reg shock-trauma getting surgery on his arm. They flash-froze Michaelson and Cpl. Muchen, even shock-trauma didn’t want to try anything with either of them. There’s a meatwagon flight from Camp Talnawakee to Fort Fortune in the morning. Supposed to be getting thawed at Ridge City Central sometime tomorrow,” Rand explained while refreshing his memory off logged messages.
“What about Nikolaev?” she asked further.
“Uh…” Rand scrolled upwards for more information. “Convalescent leave. They gotta grow him a new eye, but there’s a wait right now. He’s supposed to head back home when they got open seats since he ain’t too fucked up.”
She nodded. There was an awkward bout of silence while everyone reflected on how fragile the human form was. What they had done to the enemy could be done to them as easily if the circumstances were different.
“Muchen and Nikolaev are lucky they bailed when they did.” Dygalo paused, crumpling a wrapper and tossing it out the window. “I seen a Lioness get hit in Japala. Wasn’t much more left than metal and charred bits.” Dygalo shook his head and stood up, turning away from them suddenly agitated. Rand and Lachenski looked at each other puzzled, but she knew the story.
Back then Lt. Petrova was just ‘Ensign Petrova’ fresh out the academy filling some lowly staff billet at Battalion like every other officer who hadn’t yet earned their rate. It was miserable. The whole Regiment had just come back from a rotation to the ‘Blue Wet One’ with 1 Tharsis Expeditionary Brigade. She was the only one in the Operations shop who didn’t have Rifles pinned on their collar let alone the gold ones for combat action. It was a fact they constantly reminded her of at every opportunity. Even their clerk, a lowly Private on account of discipline issues, sort of looked down his nose at her.
Though he did ‘grace’ the butterbar with a few war stories. One in particular about a ‘village stability operation’ where Huerta Guerillas hit one of their Lionesses with a literal truck load of ammonium nitrate and fossil fuel. The only one from the whole squad to survive was the ‘new guy’ they kicked out to walk and make room for equipment: PFC Dygalo.
Dygalo paced for another few moments anxiously before he spoke. “Ma’am, Senior made me Corporal of the Guard. I’m gonna go tour. I’ll be back b‘for long.” He explained while quickly snatching up his rifle and helmet and hurrying out the door.
She let him go. If he needed some time, he needed some time. Though, it seemed a bit more likely to her he was out to seek the comfort of his old comrade Gustav Kreiger rather than inspect positions.
Her ‘Bouf with Buckwheat’ was now softly bubbling on top of the esbit stove and the smell had finally started to drift out. Doing her best not to burn her fingers, she carefully lifted it off the tiny stove letting the fuel tablet burn for a tiny bit of extra warmth in the room. The can opened the rest of the way with a quick twist of the tab and she set about stirring up the contents to even out the heat. Waiting for it to cool down was tantamount to torture. Gambling, she spooned some into her mouth. It was practically lava, but she was hungry enough that she choked it down anyways. Salty with what would’ve been a pleasant stewy mouthfeel, if it hadn’t been so damn hot. She teased out a cube of processed animal protein with her spoon. There was enough regen running through her system that a scalded mouth wouldn’t be a problem in a few hours let alone tomorrow.
“What’re you doing up anyways?” she questioned after savoring the unnaturally uniform texture of the cube.
“I’m just waiting for Reg. to finish this stupid-ass FSCM scrub so I can go to sleep. Didn’t Doc put you on rest cycle?” Lachenski replied while fiddling with his Fires terminal.
“Leg’s not too too bad, and to be honest, I was fucking starving down there.” She gestured towards her bandage. Truth was it still hurt like hell and walking around like this was anything but advisable, but she’d be damned if she didn’t do her best to at least look the part of an unfazed invincible leader. “Say where is Doc anyways?”
“Last I saw him, he was on his way to 2nd with go-pills, maybe half an hour ago?” Rand responded while consolidating his trash.
“Probably tryinna rizz up Sarn’t Weiss,” Lachenski commented.
She waved him off with a hand motion and a stern look while her mouth was full. She really didn’t want to hear about that. It’d never been an issue in the platoon and she wasn’t looking to make it one now by sticking her nose in unintentionally or otherwise. As an officer there were certain things she was required to do something about if made explicitly aware. She felt better just not knowing, the enlisted could take care of that kind of business on their own.
That and she really wasn’t one to talk, images of a certain Cannonier Lieutenant working at Regiment came to the front of her mind. He must be thinking about her right?
She tried to disperse the thought. She couldn’t really afford to be thinking about that at a time like this. There was still plenty of fighting to be done.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
But he was thinking about her wasn’t he?
She scoffed at her own impropriety unintentionally aloud. The whole thing was starting to irritate her. Lachenski raised an eyebrow, but she just shook her head and he didn’t feel courageous enough to press.
She immediately tried to think of some kind of work to do, something to keep herself occupied. Unfortunately, it was plainly obvious that in their present situation there wasn’t much for anyone to do but wait. The enemy had a vote in this congress and currently they were running one hell of a filibuster.
She stood up with a grunt and threw her trash into an empty ration case. The least she could do was pull watch while her troops got some rest. She sent Rand to bed down and took over monitoring the comms. She could handle that even with a bum leg. Lachenski finished what he was working on after Reg Fires finally remembered to send him an updated overlay, leaving her alone in the makeshift TOC.
She scanned channels for a while, but even with digging through the message logs there wasn’t much going on and her mind naturally started to wander. She tested her right leg and was met with a dull wave of pain. It was already better than before, but most definitely wouldn’t be back to normal for a while.
She replayed the day's events in her head. She could’ve been easily pasted multiple times, but luck had been on her side. It still didn’t feel real. Her father had written about how he had this great air of invincibility when first going to battle, one that disappeared when he was gravely wounded for the first time. His great awakening was that death could come for anyone.
Sure, she understood it as a sort of abstract concept, but it still lacked that immediacy. Death was something that happened to other people, to the unlucky and unskilled. While in academy, she’d been forced to take a course on the ‘psychology and philosophy of combat’.
She’d read that the Mongols, despite their legacy of conquest, were forbidden to speak of death, injury or defeat. Just to think of it might make it happen. To even mention the name of a fallen comrade was taboo. Every Mongol warrior lived his life as though he was invincible, that nothing could defeat him or harm him. It was only in their final moments, when no hope remained, that he looked upwards and beckoned his fate by calling out ‘Tengri’, the eternal blue sky, as his final words.
An artificial breeze slipped through the smashed windows, bringing with it the stench of death from outside. It would be impossible to ignore it at this point: they'd have to do something about the corpses outside before long. Operational demands had prevented them from doing anything to date, but the enemy were still soldiers, worthy of all rights assigned to their station. It felt wrong to leave them out to be scavenged on by feral house pets. On a more pragmatic note, people were bound to become sick if they were left to continue rotting where they fell. She made a mental note to discuss it with SSgt. Karoff at the next opportunity.
Dismissing all thoughts of her own mortality for the time being she tried to focus on something else, idly scrolling through comms traffic that in no way pertained to her. It wasn’t a productive train of thought. Sure she had some agency, but an obsession with the details and preoccupation with avoidance seemed counter-productive. There were things she could control and things she couldn’t and everything that was out of her hands was best not to concern herself with. This was her assigned station and she would execute her duty to the best of her ability. It's what he would’ve wanted.
A thought wormed its way in from the back of her mind. How many of these virtues were learned and how many were baked into her genes? She was never really made privy to the genesculpting that had been performed on her, and it was always something that bothered her. It was something fundamentally unknown about herself. It wasn’t uncommon, most Martians, most outworlders even, were subject to some kind, at least gamete selection. Prospective parents were assisted in choosing ‘the best of themselves’. At least half of the population of Mars was fully artificially gestated, built from gene stocks maintained by various local governments. Nearly everyone who wasn’t had a “tube” in their immediate family. As one of the heirs to house of ‘The Great’ Sergei Petrova she was undoubtedly subject to a special regimen that extended beyond the obvious extreme predisposition for physical prowess.
‘The Great’, she scoffed. Most people, Cydonians especially, still wouldn’t speak his name without that epithet. What he had done that was so great except die precisely at the moment when everyone needed him? ‘The Hero of Cydonia’ and leader of the Western Independence Army laid low by backroom civil-war politicking. It seemed positively ironic. What do you do against an enemy that can’t be defeated on the battlefield? Simply choose not to contest him there. More Machiavelli, less Sun Tzu.
All his sons ever did was follow in his footsteps, straight into the grave. She was all that was left, a political hostage never reclaimed, reduced to a propaganda piece for the ‘Regent Protector of Tharsis’ Ibrham Kane. President for life would’ve been a more accurate term, but at least there was still some semblance of a separation of powers in Tharsis.
The same couldn’t be said for the rest of the planet. Even if Martians had spent generations fighting for independence and ‘freedom’ from the Earther yoke, they more than tolerated authoritarian power. It seemed a natural consequence of being born into a multi-generational project to turn the red sands into fertile soil. It was literally impossible to survive here without organization, without careful planning and division of labor. The collectives ruled the commons of air, water and food no matter what they chose to be called. Things that were just lying around on the blue wet one and could be taken for granted had to be managed, produced, and rationed. They were nearly halfway to that promised age of abundance and life here had dramatically improved, though not meaningfully in her lifetime, despite the wars setting the clocks back now and again. It was part of their shared culture as Martians to always be working in some way to further the great project. Fidelity until death to a higher cause, part and parcel of life here.
What people had resented was doing it for someone else and their posterity being cut out of the eventual bounty. That was the seed the independence movement sprouted. It all started as ‘Earth 2.0’. A place for people to escape from the malthusian pressures of a rapidly changing home planet, and it’d be ready in just a few hundred years. What labor couldn’t be recruited with false promises was spawned into existence on the spot.
They owned nothing. The land under their feet for which they sweat and bled was held in “trusts” and “futures” for interested parties “back home”. The basic necessities were considered payment for their efforts. It wasn’t hard to imagine how resentment would begin to simmer. What they hadn’t counted on was the people they’d sent to manage and secure their investment finding much more in common with those they were meant to control than their far flung masters.
When it boiled over the first time the Earthers managed to put the lid back onto the pot, but it was already too late. It simply confirmed that they were a truly separate people, who were deserving of different languages, different cultures, and identities. Some of it developed organically, a lot was constructed. Every great movement generates its own history. ‘Artificial’ never had the same sting to their ears, nothing here was natural except rocks.
The planet then turned from a government sponsored construction project into a colony with all the slights that colonialism entailed. Martians fought the Earthers wars, surrendered its bounty of resources and the cream of its intellect while the same resentment continued to grow as the world developed. When the second war was fought, Mars established itself not just as independent, but a peer, a near equal in industry, in culture and science. One that could no longer be shackled by force.
Mars forges a new destiny, leading all of the outer worlds towards a new future for mankind. People really believed that, earnestly and sincerely. She sort of believed it. Internal doubts were outweighed by the truth spoken in her actions. She had a part to play, one assigned to her.
Resenting her station was pointless even if it did frustrate her endlessly. How one plays the hand fate deals them is the important part. Another borrowed line, she frowned.
Fate, what an archaic concept. Designed would’ve been a more accurate word. Someone’s scheme or ‘well crafted bargain made on her behalf’ was responsible for her present standing. Even if this life, this trade, suited her she couldn’t help but feel like something had been stolen from her. Sourceless frustration always smoldered in her heart and occasionally flared up. Anger always kept her pressing forward even through the most grueling of mental and physical trials even if she could never pinpoint its source. She felt at times a being animated by spite alone.
She turned her pistol over in her hands. A familial talisman of metal and micarta laminate, it was the one heirloom that’d made its way to her. Well worn from carry, the phosphate coating was nearly rubbed clean from every edge. The monogrammed ‘Kelter K’ and “COMBAT MASTERPIECE” rollmarked on its slide in Cydonian Cyrillic however was still clearly legible. She turned it upwards to look at the rose emblem of her house stamped in front of the rear sight, pausing to rub away some carbon fouling from near the ejection port. It was old technology, but still effective. She pulled the slide back a centimeter and a half to view the brass case in the chamber and then let it slip forward again with a clunk, brushing her index finger over the slightly protruding extractor nub to confirm it was in battery and loaded. This, I understand this.
Karoff stirred, his chrono buzzing silently. He looked slightly confused upon seeing her but seemed to understand a moment later. His age was showing more tonight than normal from exhaustion. She had to remind herself that he wasn’t that much older than her, six or seven years at most, but those were the roughest kind of Soldiering years. His dark brown nearly black hair was streaked with gray near his ears. Although his eyes never lost their falcon-like piercing intensity, the lines at their corners seemed bolder in the dim light. She always had the impression he never let his face show what he was thinking unless he intended it to. Her one window into his motivations was the only unnatural mark on his skin, the first verse of ‘Over the Hills and Far Away’ tattooed somewhat sloppily on his arm, like he or a fellow Rifleman had done it themselves in an age past. He was more the type that became ‘away-sick’ rather than ever pined for home.
“Send Rand and Lachenski away?” He asked. She nodded while sliding her pistol back into its holster. He grumbled as he rose. His wide shoulders and slightly forward slumping posture drawing an even more exaggerated inverted triangle in shadow. Weiss had once commented that he ‘rambled like Saskwaj’, that forest spirit of Amerogan legend. The resemblance was especially evident tonight. “Anything else happening?” he asked further.
She shook her head, “not a fucking thing.”
“Figures.” he sighed. They sat together in silence for another few moments.
“How’s the leg?” Karoff questioned while glancing at her bandage.
“Eh, I’m walking.” she shrugged.
Karoff rubbed his eyes,“Hm, good…” he took pause to examine her expression before continuing in a harsher tone. “Hopefully serves as a reminder not to do anything that fuckin’ stupid again,” he sighed.“Ya got off light. Easily could've pasted you. I and everyone else here needs you to keep your head: literally and figuratively”
She nodded trying to wrap her mind around it from his perspective. It didn’t help she couldn’t read anything from his face. He wasn’t telling her anything that wasn’t true or didn’t already know herself, but it was different hearing it from someone else. She felt a tinge of something in her heart, maybe it was shame. Was he really disappointed in her?
“I know you got that hot blood in you, no one’s doubting your courage. Hell most of them are in awe. That’s powerful by itself, combat is always a test of will as much as skill. That anchors people.” He relayed with a softer tone then switched back to a more serious directive. “Temper that aggression with a healthy amount of caution. Ain’t of use to anyone dead…” He folded his arms. “‘S all I have to say about that.”
They sat in solemn silence for another few moments while she mulled over his counsel in her mind.
Karoff motioned for the comm umbilical a while later after he’d apparently decided she’d stewed on it enough. Although somewhat confused by his intention she gave it up anyways. He linked and sent a message to someone all the way up at Division G2.
“Following the Outworld league this season ma’am?” he asked while patiently waiting for a reply.
“Of course.” She replied. “What kind of ring-knocker would I be if I wasn’t? Especially in this Regiment,” she added, rapping her knuckles on the table for effect with a grin. Though the wood was fake and she’d sooner be tried for conduct unbecoming than be caught wearing an academy class ring some stereotypes still held true.
“Well I’ve got a treat for you then,” he announced to the ping of a reply message. He flicked it open. ‘D 3 - P 0’.
“Rand’s gonna be pissed… though I’m not gonna tell him, on account of this being a gross misappropriation of bandwidth,” she mused.
“Eh, what’s the harm? Not shit going through these channels right now anyways,” Karoff dismissed. “Phobos never fails to disappoint though. Fuckin’ chokers.” he scribbled down the results in a hand drawn bracket in a pocket notebook.
The breeze picked up again and the stench of decay reminded her.
“Senior, there was one other thing I wanted to discuss.” She shifted back to work.
“Hm?” Karoff glanced up from his notebook.
“The dead fucks outside, we should probably do something about them,” she suggested while jerking her thumb towards a window.
Karoff thought for a moment, spinning his analogue pen around his fingers and then nodded. “I’ll get a detail together come sun-up to police ‘em up. Krieger can lead it, he’s on my shit list after yesterday anyways.”
“What’d he do?” she inquired with a raised eyebrow.
“Eh, nothing big, just bein’ fuckin mouthy while you were racked out. I’d make him a corporal again if wasn’t so good at his job, cocky bastard.”
“I trust you’ll handle it.” She let it go. It didn’t feel necessary to press further. If Senior was handling it she could consider the matter closed.
After the morning’s stimulation, the quiet of the night was welcome, but also an agonizing test of will to not succumb to complacency, or worse yet, sleep. Reports filtered in from across the front. It seemed like everyone was in need of a tactical pause, they and the enemy both. War was like that: long periods of boredom punctuated by short bursts of the extreme. Feds were no doubt taking the time to rally for their breakout, and that eventuality was at the front of her mind when setting goals for the day.
Just as promised, once the sun came up, Krieger and a handful of others were out collecting bodies. She pitched in as much as she could. Her leg hurt less and could bend more as the hours wore on. She was out there partially for want of work and partially due to obligation. MLAC regulations required a commissioned officer to sign off on death notices for bonded combatants. It was gruesome and backbreaking work, collecting pieces of what were once human beings and putting them into decomp bags. They were supposed to send them off to a neutral collection point run by third country observers. Some Cavaliers from Elysium ran the closest one. They were supposed to repatriate the already identified remains when conditions allowed.
Things were going relatively smoothly until they were trying to track down the last Noachian casualty. The BDA Karoff ran the day prior had him listed and well, they’d accounted for most of him. At least if it really was him.
It was sort of hard to tell since his upper torso had been reduced to a lump of charcoal. His face was useless, withered and scorched black. His lips were completely burned off and eyes fused shut in an expression of permanent agony.
Karoff had gotten his name off an issued ID stuffed into his left front pocket which was mostly untouched save for a bit of warping, but the primary bond chip in his collar bone was literal toast. His left arm where the alternate was supposed to be embedded was just gone from the shoulder down. She was about to check the ‘unknown’ and ‘disfigured beyond recognition’ boxes just to be done with it when Corporal Verac came running from across the Park.
“Sergeant! I think I found that arm!” he called out to Kreiger while cupping his hands. Verac signaled rally with his arm when he saw their gaze turn his way.
Kreiger sort of shrugged and started walking over grumbling under his breath. She snatched the chip-reader out of the back of Red-3, then tagged along at a moderate limp, sort of curious as to why he hadn’t just brought it over. They walked across a few temporarily collapsed mem-wire barriers and down a cobblestone path, only straying into the grass to avoid a two meter deep shell crater, and then into a side alley.
Rifleman Nelson and Balachenko were crouched down sort of scratching their heads. Nelson had his rifle at the low ready.
“Arm’s right over there, ma’am.” Corporal Verac pointed down the alley. A cornered dog clutched a charred limb with a half melted No-ak patch still stuck to it. The dog was growling and snarling, but holding its ground and its prize tightly. Obviously, the animal was none-too-keen on its present situation. “Kinda at a loss on how, uh… how to get it though.” Verac relayed. Krieger rubbed his temples after surveying the situation.
“Sarn’t, can’t I just shoot the mutt?” Rifleman Nelson asked, looking to Krieger for approval. His peer, Balachenko, looked towards both her and Sgt. Krieger worriedly, begging with his eyes for reassurance that wasn’t going to happen.
“Relax psycho, you ain’t pastin’ a dog for no reason,” Krieger responded gruffly.
“Why not? It’s a fuckin’ Fed mutt, innit?” he rebuffed. Krieger glanced over to Lt. Petrova and she just folded her arms, waiting patiently for him to handle it.
“Put that weapon on safe, Nelson.” Krieger instructed more forcefully, ready to fire off a cocked knife-hand if the Rifleman protested anymore. Nelson looked almost disappointed as he complied, and flicked his weapon on safe while his expression soured.
Lt. Petrova felt a tinge of anger, but didn’t let it show. She was just here to observe for the moment. Balachenko on the other hand looked relieved. With the situation still unresolved, Verac and Balachenko both looked back to her and Krieger for guidance, unsure of what to do next.
Krieger sighed again and looked towards her. “Not to worry ma’am… not to worry. I got this,” he feigned confidence. Krieger slung his rifle onto his back and crouched down low, approaching the snarling dog slowly. It backed up another step and its growling intensified while its body contracted and tensed, the arm still firmly gripped in its jaws.
“Hey, easy boy…” Kreiger said in a low voice he approached. He took another step and the dog dropped the arm to lunge at him with a snap of its jaws. “Shit!” He hopped backwards safely out of reach. The dog lifted its head, barking and snarling at him relentlessly. It was wearing a collar. A thought crossed her mind. It was worth a shot.
She took off one of her gloves and whistled with her fingers. The dog’s ears perked up.
“Here boy. Bring it!” she called in her best Anglish command voice. The dog’s whole demeanor changed upon hearing a familiar tongue. It stood up straighter, ears perked, and cocked its head. “C’mon, bring it,” she repeated in a friendly voice, patting her thighs with both hands in a half-squat for added emphasis.
The dog bent down and grabbed the arm, then trotted over to her and sat on its haunches at her feet.
“Drop it,” she commanded, snapping and pointing downwards. The dog dropped the arm and looked towards her, head cocked again, its tail twitching slightly while it awaited its reward and approval. She knelt down and petted the dog. Its tail began wagging as it circled around her and licked her hand while whining for approval. She examined the dog's collar with her free hand while fluffing its matted and dirtied hair. ‘Bruno’.
“Jeez, ma’am, why didn’t you just do that sooner?” Kreiger asked. The dog tucked itself between her legs and eyed him with what could best be described as suspicion when he spoke.
“Well, I wasn’t really sure it’d work, first of all. Second, I didn’t see the collar until it nipped at you.” She picked the arm up off the ground while the dog looked up at her quizzically. She held it up and ran the chip reader over the wrist and it chirped as it populated with information.
“Junior Sergeant Thomas N. Xavier. A Company, 232nd Tank Battalion, 3rd Brigade, 11th Armored Division ‘William Wallace’, 3rd Noachian Army Corps. Bond Number ANR-663769511,” she read aloud and passed the off arm to Cpl. Verac, who unceremoniously dumped it onto a de-comp bag.
She tapped away, filling in her portion of the report. Confirmed KIA, check, by Rifle Lieutenant Lyssa O. Petrova. Platoon Commander, 2nd Platoon, G Company, 2nd Battalion, 1st Rifle Regiment, 1st Tharsis Rifle Division, IV Rifle Corps, Western Coalition Army. She ran the scanner over the bond chip in her own wrist to confirm her identity. It chirped again as the digital signature confirmed and her bond number populated, ATR-007563999. She filed the report and felt a pain in her leg as something prodded it. She looked down.
The dog was sniffing and licking at her bandage. Her skin crawled. What was once a simple dog suddenly transmogrified into the ultimate object of her disgust. She barely restrained her physical revulsion with a combination of shock and the knowledge her troops were watching her.
“Come, dog!” Balachensky called out in sloppy Anglish, holding out a meat strip from his ration. The dog ceased its nosing without a second thought and sauntered over to Balachenko eating from his hand and tail wagging without a care. She stood frozen for a moment, trying to process what happened.
The sound of Krieger clearing his throat snapped her back to reality, and he gave her an uneasy look. Neither of them were sure how to process what just happened. Krieger couldn’t even muster a joke to cut the air. They left Balachenko with clear instructions not to feed the dog anything else or it might come back around. Normally, she’d always harbored some kind of sympathy for animals. They were supposed to be innocents. But its taste for human carrion deeply disturbed her. Could she really fault it? It was simply trying to survive.
With the work complete and mid day approaching she returned to Pavlov’s house while Krieger and his troops returned to 3rd Squad’s battle position. Boredom returned in force as the days wore on. The conception of how long they’d been here was beginning to slip. The gridlock spread to the battle at large. The Feds were unwilling to commit to any serious attacks and Army Central must’ve felt confident in simply consolidating their forces with no need to commit too hastily as their grip around Smoke House 3 and Greendome at large tightened.
Lt. Petrova busied herself by studying her map display for the n-th time. Carefully taking stock of the minute movement of adjacent unit icons. Their own position, marked by a friendly red diamond tagged ‘2PLT-G-2/1RFL’, fused with its adjacent icons into ‘RCT-1/1RD’ as the whole city came into view with a pan outwards. Red diamonds marked ‘RCT-5/1RD’, ‘RCT-2/2RD’, and ‘RCT-4/2RD’ popped into existence as the display updated. RCT-5 hadn’t moved at all from their positions east of them, near Smoke House 2. Regimental Combat Teams 2 and 4 meanwhile loomed on the Government district’s north-western flank while the orange diamond of ‘KnG 4MIB’ hung directly south of the meager but broad rise of ‘Government Hill’ and the Federation Counsel Building which stood at its apex serving as the district’s semi-official southern boundary. Another orange diamond further west, marked ‘PTLCB’, was moving from a reserve position to join the front supporting the Cydonian advance. A quick zoom inwards saw Regimental Combat Teams 2 and 4 decompose into their core regiment and supporting battalions, then further down into companies and platoons until individual soldiers became visible as tracks on her map.
The real time management and tracking of units down to the individual soldier had been a boon for command and control. Though as higher echelons gained greater knowledge of what their soldiers were actually doing it tested the ability of the human mind, even added by machine algorithms, to process all of the information.
It also led to a great tug-of-war between centralized and decentralized methodologies of control. The West: Tharsis, Cydonia, Amazonia and to a more limited extent its less populous cultural outliers of Aonia and Sirenum had always favored empowering the junior leaders to act upon their own initiative. Commanders drew outlines of their intent, junior leaders acted out that intent as they saw fit. The East preferred a more directive and formulaic style. If their generals could move their soldiers around like chess pieces, they would.
The Rift Republic and Noachia fell somewhere in the middle, both geographically and philosophically. Though the Noachian’s in particular favored erring to the judgment of brigade level leadership, seeing them as the intersection of all three realms: tactical, operational, and strategic. Though they placed much more emphasis on the tactical and operation level of conflict, reflecting their army’s focus toward smaller conflicts. Smaller wars were more numerous, and thus more profitable to engage in for hire. Their commitment of an entire Corps represented both a large portion of the entire Noachian Army and a king’s ransom in bonding fees alone.
She flicked outwards and away from ‘The Rock of Lampland’ and ‘The People’s Regiment’, monikers 2nd and 4th Rifles earned in ages past. She moved her attention south towards the 4th Knight’s Guard Mechanized Infantry Brigade and Princeps Theseus’s Light Combined-Arms Brigade, the Cydonian and Amazonian contribution to this operation respectively. Her countrymen had more than carried their own weight, but had paused their advance as well. They seemed to be waiting for the reinforcing Amazonians to catch up and assemble for battle before pressing the attack any further.
The whole Western Coalition Army was halted for the moment, replenishing and generating combat power for the next phase. Now that a foothold inside the city had been established, and several pieces of key terrain seized, the strategic initiative was firmly in their grip. So long as 3rd Lancer Division continued to block any Federal reinforcement from moving in from further down the Mariner Valley, they could take their time.
For its part 1st Rifles, the storied ‘Brave Sons of Mars’, as well as their sister regiment and bitter rival the 5th ‘Tharsis Grenadiers’, would hold their ground so long as the Enemy kept attacking. Only when they tried to withdraw would 1st Rifle Division collectively launch the counter and tie them down. The ultimate goal was to divert as much of the enemy away from the main effort against the Government District as possible.
She switched her attention to the enemy situation. Studying ISR reports had made it clear the Feds and No-ak’s weren’t sitting on their hands either. They were moving troops around staging equipment. Most worrying to her was something buried in the footnote of an Areographic Intelligence report next to a few highlighted sat-images.
The Federal Army had mobilized its artillery. There was some conjecture about it being used in a direct fire role in the final defense of the Presidential Palace, but to her there was a more obvious answer: they were planning on using it to its full effect inside the dome. It was a blatant violation of the Martian Law of Armed Conflict and frankly irresponsible, but not out of the realm of possibility. That, or they’d break the dome before they willingly surrendered it. The air pressure and temperature at both this altitude and latitude weren’t dangerous, but the dome was also the only thing separating the mostly nitrogen and CO2 outside from the human friendly mixture inside. Civilian casualties could break into the tens of thousands. Such a scorched ground tactic would likely do little to prevent their eventual demise.
Every Soldier was ready to fight without the dome: their vehicles and Combat Environment Suits had been designed with that specifically in mind. They would simply don rebreathers and keep fighting. Civilians weren’t so well prepared. Whatever cruel calculus was driving their decisions, it had the Federals engaging with every potential course of action.