The Codex
Codex Entry No. 10, “The Titan Academy School of Warfare (TSW)”
The first, oldest, and largest of Titan’s three schools was the School of Warfare, an institution that trained pilots, ship crews, soldiers, and marines for service as officers in the Martian Military. While not considered by Martian society to be as prestigious as the First Colony Military Academy on Mars, the TSW produced thousands of fine officers as well as some of the most famous who would serve during my own tenure.
The school, like the rest of the Academy, had been founded after the Intelligence War. It’s growth was unprecedented as there were an unending number of Martian students who wanted to be educated in the style of the Maine family. Of course, they wouldn’t be put through nearly as much as the actual Maines, but many of the core elements were still there. These core elements include extreme mental and physical conditioning througha mixture of V.R. simulations and live-fire exercises during the first two years to eliminate hesitancy and uncertainty in cadets. The next four years would then be dedicated to a cadet’s specialty branch: Defense Corps, Star Corps, or Marine Corps.
Problematic students who didn’t fit any of these specialties would either be sent home or transferred to the School of Intelligence (TSI), which is typically how all members of my own school arrived there.
The TSW would be reactivated around the time when the Marauder program went live, and while it would never be the same as it was during my time there, Titan’s School of Warfare proves almsot every day they are second to none when it counts.
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Chapter 11: “We Three Kings”
“You don't lead by hitting people over the head - that's assault, not leadership.”-- Dwight D. Eisenhower.
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The room was quiet as I rubbed my temples, a headache starting to form. For almost two hours I’d been trapped in a room, talking my lips off and letting my face go blue, yet for my troubles I wasn’t getting anywhere.
“Let’s try this a different way,” I said with a sigh, “Why don’t you tell me what you both have been up to and we can figure out from there how to deal with this mess?”
“Respectfully, Lt. Maine, I don’t think we should do that,” Sarah said with a bit of a sniff.
Sarah was a slight woman with a look of superiority that spoke of high education and even higher self worth. It wasn’t undeserved, as she was a brilliant individual in three different fields, but for the last two hours her attitude had been getting on my nerves.
Feeling the corners of my mouth turn downward, I asked, “And why is that?”
Rolling his eyes Davis looked over at Sarah and with a shrug said, “If you won’t say it, I will. I’m not sitting with this guy as he stumbles around in the park like my dad trying to find the damned jon at night.”
Davis was a stoutly-built guy with big arms, big shoulders, and hands that could likely double as badminton racquets in a pinch. His dark hair and skin suggested a lot of african ancestry, and he’d looked as though he’d wanted to take a shit since he’d arrived. Apparently, whatever it was on his mind was about to come out.
Switching his gaze to me, Davis turned his chair, folded his hands neatly and proclaimed, “We don’t trust you, Lt. Maine. The Dean had us checking up on you, though why he gave you the rank he did is beyond me. I was looking into your activities, and she was looking at your… Upgrades.”
My eyes flicked over to Sarah, and I asked, “Really? And what is it that you found, Lt. Wainwright?”
Sarah gave me a questioning look for a moment before the realization dawned on her that I suspected her of something as well, and with a brief flash of gold in her eyes she confirmed it before saying, “I learned that you are sturdier than most, and have an unmatched regenerative capacity. Aside from that, there are signs that your body was broken down and rebuilt at a molecular level. The process must’ve been… Painful.”
Recalling the sound of my own bones snapping and my screams of pain from the process when she said that, I only answered,
“Quite.”
Taking a breath to steady myself and push aside that memory, I asked, “Did you find anything to indicate I was a spy? I mean, a spy for Earth?”
Sarah shook her head and answered, “I did not.”
Nodding, I looked over at Davis and asked, “And do you think that if I was a spy I would’ve been dicking around in vSports matches and trying to figure out how to use all these new “upgrades”, as you put them? Because, and this is just me thinking out loud, it strikes me that if a spy wanted to ruin this place I would’ve just taken a lift back up and had a bunch of Earthers cut through the false wall in the sewers, repel down the elevator shaft, and then fill this place with enough gas to make you sing the Founder’s song.”
Davis blinked, rubbed his chin, and then just said, “Huh.”
I see why your family had such a low regard for this institution. The students are morons, Zeus grumbled.
They mean well, and neither of them are in their field of expertise here, I defended, then asking the pair, “Are we done keeping things from each other now, or do I need to get on one knee, cut my wrists, and swear a blood oath to you both?”
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“If you cut your wrists, I don’t think much blood would come out,” Sarah blurted before snapping her jaw shut and tightening her lips, then saying, “I think we are clear on everything now, Lt. Maine. Right, Davis?”
Davis was still rubbing his chin and asked me, “What sort of gas would you use?”
Rolling my eyes I said, “Good, then we are all clear that nobody is a spy and we all want to get out of here alive. Let’s start with you two. It’s common knowledge around the Vault that you both have been the Dean’s left and right hands. What did he have you working on, besides checking up on me?”
“The Dean had me heading up security,” Davis answered, leaning forward in his chair, “and handling information we pulled from the comms channels outside. We’ve only been able to send people up to check on the status of things intermittently due to the frequency of Earth patrols. When we have, we’ve noticed that the “all-clear” beacon is still active. At first we thought this was an error in our comms equipment, but we were able to confirm it a few days ago. With that beacon on, nobody has any way of knowing we are in trouble.”
Sarah then added, “We did confirm though that based on the last sets of flight plans, the nearest aid for us should be the Norris Group with Bad Company out of the Sixth Fleet. They have a Galipoli-Class Destroyer, a Saum-Class Frigate, and a Type-II Ebony-class Dagger ship. The Galipoli-class alone could blow all three Earth ships to Hell and back, especially since they are supposed to be armed with the new hardlight shields your friend Robert created.”
Thinking on that for a moment, I asked, “Are you both proposing that we find a way to turn off that beacon then?”
“That would be the sensible thing to do,” Davis said, “once we turn it off we are looking at a wait time of three days to a week. All other options are closed to us. We don’t have the manpower or the resources to assault and take a ship. We don’t even have the manpower to push Earthers off of the Academy grounds. If we did, they'd just bombard the place again.”
“Could we reactivate the orbital defense grid?” I asked.
Titan’s grid was supposedly one of the most advanced ever designed, which is why Mars pulled the battlegroup that was formerly stationed there. The grid was a series of two-hundred and then some satellites with massive capabilities for destruction thanks to the various magnetically accelerated rounds it could fire, the largest of which could put a crater the size of FIrst Colony in the surface of a moon.
“The satellites are unknown for now. We can’t establish any kind of link with them. There is a popular theory that the bombardment of the academy came from the satellites and not the ship, but we don’t know what weapons the ships in orbit have,” Davis explained.
The ships in orbit do not have the strike capabilities to puncture the Titan Academy dome. Lt. Biggs is likely correct about the satellite involvement. Taking back control of at least part of the grid, or removing it from Earth control should be a priority, Zeus proposed.
“Can we destroy the whole grid to keep on the safe side?” I asked, trying not to given into the urge to look up at the ceiling which suddenly seemed more dangerous than it had before I’d become aware of the state of things.
“How?” Sarah asked, “We don’t even have access to shuttles!”
Davis sighed and admitted, “There may be a way, Sarah, though it wouldn’t be easy.”
Looking over at me, Davis informed me, “I’ll look into the satellite issue. Honestly, I hadn’t considered it too deeply. If those things are active and in enemy hands then they will prove an issue even for our ships.”
Despite his bluntness, it was nice to have someone like Davis who answered me straight and clearly, though I’ll admit that I didn’t much care for his seemingly laid back attitude.
“I’ll take it,” I affirmed to him before looking over at Sarah, “If I can get the beacon off can you get all of the Lab Coats working on getting some of the useful tech down here online and ready to fight?”
“I could, but- No, I will,” Sarah said, her tone troubled as she thought through something before asking, “What exactly would you like us to bring up?”
“Arms and armor first,” Davis recommended, “then whatever we can get our hands on.”
I nodded in agreement, and rose to my feet, “I’ll head out in a few hours. First I need to get some sleep.”
After a solid eight hours of sleep, a disappointing meal of soy-based fake breakfast sausage and powdered eggs, and a rummage around the arms room I stepped out of the vault for the first time in several weeks.
I
t smells worse than I remember, I thought as Zeus laughed at me through our link. The little bastard had filtered the link between my senses and him so that he couldn’t smell what I was smelling. WHile that was great for him, I am a big believer in spreading misery around the whole team. Sadly, there was nothing I could do at the time, so I had to live with it.
Do you even know where you are going? Zeus asked.
Of course. The beacon is located in the administration building, in the president's office. The button is disguised to look like a mermaid. You just have to twist the tail, I explained.
Should I ask why you know that? Zeus wondered aloud with a heavy sigh.
With an internal chuckle, I admitted, It’s the worst kept secret in my school. We all thought it would be fun to turn the beacon off and have the fleet show up at some point, but decided against it.
As I passed through the tunnels, I stopped as I came to a four-way split and noticed yellow arrows drawn in cheap paint on the walls.
Anything from Davis on these arrows? I asked.
Zeus wasted no time explaining, They are to help the invaders keep from getting lost. The arrows guide patrols back towards the entrance they came in.
Nodding, I quickly darted my eyes around, using several different visual filters to assess my surroundings before determining, No surveillance… Odd. The sensible thing is to place traps all through here and let us blow ourselves sky high.
Taking a left, Zeus eventually cut in, Per Davis’ notes, it would seem Earth would like to take as many Martian subjects as possible alive. The research being done on board the lead ship requires more test subjects.
I felt my blood boil at that, and I wondered, Why would Hannah do this? She had an amazing future ahead of her!
Zeus didn’t reply, but I didn’t need him to. Only Hannah had the answers, and I would have to ask her if I really wanted them.
Coming to the ladder I was looking for, I quickly climbed up and pushed the manhole cover open just enough to see out of.
The street around me was empty, and directly in front was the massive administrative building that once had been home to the Academy president and all of the Deans, plus their staffs. Now the victorian-style manor was half rubble, though the main hall doors appeared to be intact. The same could not be said for the East-wing of the building which looked like it had been flattened by a giant's foot, and was now just a pile of rocks, wood, and steel.
Taking one last look around I bolted from the hole and ran inside. When I did I saw four people standing there, one of them with silver-gray pieces of metal all over her body. She looked at me, and though she couldn’t see through my faceplate I could feel some recognition from her as I felt the same. My heart sank as she shouted, “You!”
I groaned, and drew my weapon. I can only remember thinking, I guess I’ll have to shoot her in the face a second time, as I came face to face with the very same woman who I'd interrogated and killed at the start of the invasion.