Subject: Staff Sergeant Power

Species: Human

Description: Mammalian humanoid, no tail. 6'2" (1.87 m) avg height. 185 lbs (84 kg) avg weight. 170 year life expectancy.

Ship: USSS Liberty

Location: Alpha Centauri

I woke at around 0400, ready and raring to start my day. I'd gone to sleep at zero balls thirty, which meant that I got to sleep in. Nice. One of the best parts of being a gen-alt is not needing much sleep. I'd heard that the researchers who created the project actually estimated that we would need MORE sleep, and were shocked when the opposite was the case.

Nowadays there are sleep studies that are trying to prove that sleep is only necessary for children, and the only reason that adults sleep is that it's addictive. Very addictive, complete with withdrawal symptoms. I don't know where I stand on this hypothesis, but the Marine corps has taught me that you can end up facing those "withdrawal symptoms" at any moment. So it's best to catch your forty winks whenever you can.

The current record for unassisted wakefulness is 30 days, after researchers realized that the reason that chronic insomniacs were dying was due to their underlying diseases. There still hasn't been a case of someone being awake to death. The lady who went 30 days ended up getting bored and taking a nap. That nap lasted for 48 hours, though. Don't know what that means for the hypothesis.

Honestly, the technical stuff is a bit above my pay grade. Whenever I try to talk about stuff like this to people who actually know about it I get embarrassed by my lack of knowledge. I should stick to 'pull trigger, make dead'. On the other hand, I'm going to have to retire eventually. I've got one more rank and everything after that is deskwork and terribly hard to get. Plus once you get gunny you get a pretty sweet severance package that includes life-time pay.

That plus my gen-alt lifetime pay will make it to where I won't have to worry about income while I plan my next move. The worrying part is which direction to plan in. I'm in the difficult situation of being smart enough to do just about damned near anything I put my mind to. Trying to find something that I'll love doing for an extended period of time is hard.

I could go to college and get a degree and enter some sort of field of science or medicine. I'm interested in those but I don't know if my interest will help me jump through all of the hoops to do so. Or I can enter the trades, take advantage of my genetic alterations to do hard jobs for better pay than most can get. I could even do that for a couple of years until I get enough to buy a ship and license and start doing freight. There's really good money in that, but I wouldn't get to see my family that often unless I brought them with me.

I can even go into finances. When I was in my twenties I had worked at a bank as a teller and they almost immediately promoted me to banker. I liked helping people understand their money, but hated trying to sell them on stuff that they didn't really need. That was the last job I had before I up and joined the Corps, and where I met my wife.

After I finished my morning routine I did my knocking, making sure the rest of my squad was awake. Our official schedule is an 0500 wake-up, formation at 0600, PT at 07, and then gear check at 08. We did our gear check last night, so we could do the briefing at 08 instead.

The only ones I had to actually wake up was PFC Brint and Corpsman Yunk. Everyone else was already awake, either because they were gen-alt like me or because they'd been in so long their internal clocks woke them up naturally.

We formed up, did our head count, and started PT at 0630. Fifteen early to being fifteen early. Some complaints from the PFCs but they were disregarded. We started with stretches, then a brisk jog through the corridors. Then we did pushups, side straddle hops, crunches, and finally we came to weights. Weights are a favorite among most marines, but can be particularly dangerous with gen-alts involved.

Non-alts are not allowed to spot gen-alts under any circumstances. This was made part of the Uniform Code of Military Justice very quickly after the genetics program hit the fleet. Every marine is prideful, and without the out of it being against regs they'll try to lift 800 lbs off of a gen-alts chest and blow out their back. Meanwhile, the gen-alt will be stuck with nearly a ton on their ribcage. That's not healthy to anybody, and had resulted in plenty of non-combat related casualties.

Everyone was paired with someone that could spot them and we began to lift. We were all getting a good workout when suddenly we felt the ship enter warp. A slight lurch and very faint feeling that could almost be called a tingle. If you didn't know what it was then you probably wouldn't pay it any mind. But we all knew what it was. Weights were racked and all eyes went to me.

"You know where we're goin' staffsarnt?" Int asked.

"Not a damned clue. We'll probably get told at our briefing," I said.

"Could put the monitors on," Yunk suggested.

I nodded at Gruff to go ahead as we felt the ship come out of warp. Same sensation but backwards. Hell of a feeling, but it's very fleeting and will only bother you if you focus on it too hard. Gruff got up and tapped one of the mirrors a couple of times, and it changed to an external view of the ship. I always thought this was a better idea than the glass windows you see on bougie shuttles.

"This looks like... Alpha Centauri, I'm pretty sure," CPL Chang chimed in.

"Yeah, there's the shipyards. But... hey sarnt could you activate the highlights?" LCPL Livingstone asked.

"I'm not your fucking remote, marine," SGT Gruff growled as he tapped the screen again.

"Yeah, there we go. We're definitely in Alpha Centauri. All the shipyards, and nowhere else are you gonna see that many... other ships... Wait..." Chang trailed off.

I looked at the screen a bit closer and it took a moment to realize that the ships that were highlighted weren't the typical civilian ships that you'd normally see. There were carriers and battleships, far more than there should be. Even if we had rendezvoused with the rest of Second Fleet there wouldn't be this many. Don't get me wrong, it's not like I could count them. But we were looking at our grouping plus three others, with a fuck ton of ships per grouping.

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"Hey staffsarnt, you ever seen more than one fleet in the same place at the same time?" Gruff asked.

"Nope," I said.

"Yeah, me neither."

"What's going on?" PFC Rogers asked with a bit of fear in his voice.

Time to be a leader.

"Who gives a fuck? It ain't none of our damned business until it's made our business, marine," I said with a knifehand for emphasis and more than a little impatience. "Gruff, turn it back to mirror mode. The rest of you, back to sweating."

The rest of our workout was quiet. Nobody said a word even when we hit the showers. Nervous marines are a bad thing to be around. When someone who has been trained to efficiently end a life without hesitation gets nervous, so does everyone around them. This was evident by the silence from everyone that we passed. Either that or they knew more than we did and were nervous too.

We got to the briefing and I made certain everyone sat in the proper order. Highest to lowest by rank and alphabetical order, with top ranks up front. I glanced around. The entire company was here, all ten squads. Right around 130 marines. There was a low murmur in the room as we waited for the CO to take the podium. You could tell everyone was nervous, because it's normally about twenty decibels louder. Didn't usually get quiet until someone shouted...

"OFFICER ON DECK!"

Everyone shut up, stood up at attention, and saluted as our Battalion CO Colonel Hammerstein and Company CO Captain Michaels entered the room followed by some officers from the Navy. One of which was Captain Young, commander of the Liberty.

The other... If I remember my ranks right, is an admiral. Shit. The officers took the stage and returned our salute. The sound of 130 some-odd hands snapping back down was pretty satisfying.

"At ease, take your seats," Hammerstein began. "The current time is 0759, and we're beginning your mission brief. Good morning, Marines."

"GOOD MORNING, SIR!"

"First, introductions. You all know Captain Michaels. Hopefully," he laughed a little and continued with a gesture to the naval officers. "This is Captain Young of the USSS Liberty, and Admiral Archibald, commander of Second Fleet. They will be observing and assisting with this briefing. Oorah?"

"OORAH."

A screen lit up behind the colonel with images of a grouping of alien ships.

"We'll begin with some context. This is the Republic. Or their ships, rather. Sixteen days ago one of their ships performed a blind warp into Sol after taking heavy damage and began emitting an SOS. That ship is the Republic Space Vessel Lowelana, which means something like 'Fights with Honor'," he began.

The screen changed to show different alien ships, including technical schematics.

"This is the Omni-Union. While the U-triple-S Thanatos and U-triple-S Valor were attempting to rescue the RSV Lowelana, two OU destroyers entered Sol and attacked the Valor. These destroyers were terminated with prejudice. Oorah?"

"OORAH."

"During the, very brief, fight the Valor accepted a hail from one of the vessels, assuming they were surrendering and begging aid. The Valor came under cyberattack and briefly lost control of their systems, nearly firing upon the Lowelana before their crew could be rescued. Thankfully AI Tim was aboard to aid with the rescue and was able to fend off the attack. It was at this point we were able to determine that the Omni Union is a Virtual Intelligence Collective. VIC. A soon to be fitting acronym, oorah?"

"OORAH."

"Soon after the crew of the Lowelana was rescued, a small fleet of twenty OU ships entered Sol and began attacking. The Valor was able to escape the ambush and took out six OU ships before returning to the Thanatos. They would have taken out more, but the Omni Union deployed a warp disruption technology dissimilar to what we've seen before. The Thanatos deployed its other frigates, which cleaned up the rest of this fleet. Ten days ago we made diplomatic contact with the Republic and they pledged a defense fleet for Sol. Seven days ago, the Omni Union attacked Sol again with over 500 ships. Part of tenth fleet had been deployed to Sol for defense and was able to successfully defend the system. Oorah?"

"OORAH."

"Since then Fourth Fleet has taken over the defense of Sol and Republic forces have arrived to fortify that defense. Admiral Archibald will take it from here," Colonel Hammerstein finished.

The colonel and the admiral exchanged salutes as Archibald took the podium.

"Good morning, Marines," the Admiral began with a smile.

"GOOD MORNING, SIR!"

"As some of you may have noticed, we are currently in Alpha Centauri along with Third, Fifth, Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth fleets. Intelligence has identified two things. The first is a target, an enemy stronghold that we plan to take for further intelligence gathering," he paused for a moment and then continued. "The second is damning evidence that the enemy is xenocidal."

The images on the screen changed to pictures of slaughtered aliens with tentacles for mouths and a deep silence fell over the room. Some marines were probably contemplating the stakes. Others were probably remembering the history of the Daluran war. Most were probably thinking of their families, like me. A beautiful wife, son, and daughter were waiting for me back on Elaris station. I felt my face involuntarily scowl at the thought of harm coming to them. I didn't have to look around to know that the faces surrounding me mirrored my own.

"I want to be absolutely clear, marines. We won't know what to expect on the ground until we get in system, and we may not have enough time to share that intel with you before we have to get you on the dirt. This is going to be high stakes. But you've trained for this. You're the tip of the spear. There isn't a single trooper in this universe who can go toe to toe with a United Systems Marine. We don't know if the enemy can fear. We don't know if the enemy can feel pain. But you're sure as SHIT going to find out," Archibald said with a slam of his fist on the podium.

"OORAH!"

"Captain Michaels will outline your part of the mission," he said, and stepped away from the podium.

Captain Michaels stepped up to the podium and said, "I want your complete attention and silence until I finish with this brief. Our company has been tasked with escorting AI Omega planet side."

The screen changed from the dead aliens to an image of a black crate with antennas and such sticking out of it.

"These devices will be Omega's lifeline. The AI will be jumping from box to box as it attacks the Omni-Union inside their own systems. Omega will also be gathering much needed intel as it goes. These boxes MUST survive. Your mission is to escort the box to the surface, protect it, and escort it back to exfil. Omega will be in communication with you and may give further orders as things develop. If it says to move, you move. If it says to bark like a dog, it better be the best impression of a canine you've ever done. To be absolutely crystal clear, Omega outranks everyone in this room."

The screen changed once again to show a view of a solar system.

"There are five Omni-Union planets. OU Alpha, OU Bravo, OU Charlie, OU Delta, and OU Echo," he said as the screen highlighted each planet with their designation. "We'll be going in alphabetical order. Land, dig in, defend, and exfil. To piggyback off of what Admiral Archibald said, we don't have any intel regarding enemy defenses, positions, or even our landing zones. And we won't until we get there. The only thing that we do know is that the Omni Union DO have foot-soldiers that are mechanical and use directed energy weapons. These lasers are expected to be weaker than our own, but you'd be foolish to count on that. Omega will attempt to provide you with intel as we gain it, but remember that Omega has its own mission. Keep your head down and blow off the enemy's, and we'll all go home happy. This operation will commence when our fleets are back up to full strength. We'll let you know before we jump."

The screen shut off and Captain Michaels stepped away from the podium. Colonel Hammerstein stepped back up to the podium.

"MARINES! ATTEN HUH!"

All of us stood to the position of attention, like we'd done so many times before.

"Dismissed."