THE PRIZE: BOOK TWO - RETRIBUTION (5 page)

Captain John Cassidy looked around the landing field with a sour expression, not liking what he saw one bit. Other than one odd looking stone building at the edge of the LZ, there was nothing much to see, just endless hilly jungle stretching away to the horizon in all directions. The moment he stepped off the shuttle, the wet, steamy air hit him like a wet blanket, while the AO class blue-white star beat mercilessly down on his head. Other than the concrete pad the shuttles had landed on, the rest of the landing field was nothing but a cracked mosaic of baked ocher colored dirt. It was a sure bet the moment it rained this place would turn into a sea of mud.

The steady thump of combat boots on the exit ramp of the last heavy drop shuttle slowly diminished as the last troops disembarked and tramped towards the lone building in a cloud of red dust. The fact they were all human bothered him, as normally they were all part of a mixed group, with troopers from all over the Empire. His sealed orders said nothing about that, just to embark on the first shuttle with all available humans, weapons, and supplies. Even the pilot couldn’t, or wouldn’t tell him where they were going. Just that he had orders to transport them to some undisclosed destination. As usual, there was no explanation. He did note the movement order was signed by none other than the Emperor, and counter signed by Director of imperial security himself. That was unusual, but no one, from the Tellurian commanding general of his unit, right down to the shuttle pilot dared question those orders under the penalty of death, or worse. The question was why was he here? Just then, Sergeant Striker marched up and cut him a smart salute, breaking into his thoughts.

“That’s the last of them, sir. Your orders?”

“Cut the crap Bill, I’m not impressed,” Cassidy snapped, eyeing the salute. Sergeant Bill Striker’s mouth pulled into a tight smile, and he nodded.

“So what’s this cluster fuck all about, Cap?”

“Beats the shit out of me,” he sighed, “all I know is that we were ordered here for some god only knows reason at the behest of the Emperor and the asshole in chief, Director Markoff of IMPSEC himself no less.” He spat on the ground as he said the names, feeling as if he had something dirty in his mouth.

“This can’t be good.” Striker frowned.

“You’ve got that right, and why only humans?”

“The word on the tac frequency is that all the troopers inside that building are human. Nary a Tellurian or Esterian in sight.”

“How many are inside?” Cassidy asked in surprise.

“Right now about ten thousand, sir.”

“Good god! And all human?”

“Yes, sir.”

“That makes no sense at all.”

“True. When has imperial high command ever let us get together in such numbers, and without a bunch of toffee nosed, pencil dick Tellurian officers looking down their long bony noses at us?”

“Never as far as I know.” Cassidy rubbed his chin, then removed his helmet and wiped the sweat off his brow. “Let’s get out of the damned sun before I start cooking.”

William 'Bull' Striker fell in step beside Cassidy as they moved rapidly across the landing field to the door of the building. Both breathed a sigh of contentment as cool air hit them as they walked in, finding themselves in a stone lined passageway. Strange, colorful red and gold hieroglyphics covered the walls, but other than noticing them in passing, neither thought much of it at the time. They only made the connection later. Passing through a second door, they stepped onto a catwalk above a vast chamber, packed with troops, and as Striker said, all human. Cassidy whistled silently in wonder, and for a moment saw a vision of his old unit back on Earth before the uprising. He glanced at his command Sergeant, seeing the man stand up a little straighter, his eyes full of pride. This is how it should be, human troops commanded by human officers and NCO’s, not a bunch of toffee nosed Var, who thought they were better than everyone else.

“What now, sir?”

“Hell if I know. Stand by and wait for orders I suppose.”

They didn’t have to wait long, and as if on command, the door behind them opened, and in stepped a woman. Cassidy did a double take, wondering where this young woman had come from. His was the last shuttle, and she hadn’t been on it. The moment they both saw the shoulder tabs they came to attention and saluted, the question fading away. The young woman returned it smartly, unlike the usual off-handed wave the Tellurian Officers gave. A quick look was all Cassidy needed to tell him she was no ‘REMF’. The ribbons on her chest spoke volumes.

“Captain Cassidy, and Sergeant Striker reporting as ordered, sir… Ma'am!”

“At ease, and take that broom handle out of your ass, you won’t need it here.” She said. That brought a smile to both Cassidy and Striker’s faces, and they relaxed into the at ease position.

“My name is Ellis, Colonel Ellis.” Ellis dispensed with the Tellurian Sub prefix. She was now just Colonel Ellis of Earth.

“Pleased to meet you, Colonel.” Striker and Cassidy were familiar with the name, as Ellis had become something of a legend among human troops, but neither of them had ever met her.

“Same here, sir.”

“You are probably wondering what this is all about.”

“We were sort of wondering.” Cassidy answered, also wondering how someone so young had so much combat experience, and had achieved the rank of Colonel. Tellurian’s hated promoting humans, especially females. To their way of thinking, females, especially human females were only good for one thing.

“In a nutshell, here it is. Imperial intelligence, if you can call it that, discovered that the Thrakee have landed a significant number of troops on this mud ball with the intention of grabbing it away from the Empire. It’s our job to kick their asses back off.”

“Yes, sir. Do we know why they want this place?”

“Haven’t got a clue, and wasn’t told, just to get here and get rid of them.” So what else was new Cassidy thought? This wasn’t the first time, and probably not that last time imperial high command had dropped them completely in the shit.

“Support?” He asked, expecting the worst.

“Some, mostly artillery, MRL and some air, but not a lot of that.” Bull Striker pulled a face hearing that, but said nothing. It wasn’t his place. Cassidy looked over his shoulder at the men and women milling about.

“Why only humans?” he asked, looking at Colonel Ellis’ face. It remained blank, unreadable.

“That I can’t answer, Captain. Like you, I just follow orders.”

“I do know that you won’t see many Tellurian officers here, if any, so you can run this show any way you want.”

“That’s a bit of a surprise, how come?”

“The brown noses have their hands full trying to maintain order. Apparently there was an attempt on the Emperor’s life, and that has every swinging dick Tellurian running around in a dither with their panties in a knot.” Ellis saw the look on Cassidy and Striker’s face, seeing the slight smile on each of them, but gave no indication as to her feelings.

“Did… I mean was the Emperor hurt?” Bull Striker almost sounded pleased.

“No, thank goodness. His nibs is well and healthy, but, as you can imagine, IMPSEC is running around looking for someone to execute.”

“Yeah, and I’m betting they don’t care if he’s innocent or guilty, just as long as they have someone to…”

“Bull! Put a sock in it!” Cassidy growled softly, eyeing Ellis as he did. Striker pulled himself to attention.

“Sorry, sir. Won’t happen again.”

“We are loyal soldiers of the Empire, Sergeant Major.” Ellis took a careful look around before leaning in.

“I’m with Sergeant Striker on that, Captain, and other than a few ringers, I doubt very much if IMPSEC has had a chance to put anyone on the ground yet.”

“Won’t that be a change.” Striker added.

“So, what are my orders, Colonel?” Cassidy asked.

“As of this moment, as you are senior officer. Get this lot sorted out, and into some semblance of a fighting force. Then go kick ass.”

“Amen to that.” Striker added.

“What about supplies and ammo?” Cassidy asked, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

“I have it on good authority that supply shuttles will bring in all the necessary supplies, power packs. Ground transport and robo-mules to keep you supplied while on the march. They will also act as air ambulances to ferry out the wounded.”

“That will help. I’d hate to get stuck with a lot of wounded men on my hands during a long push. Treating them out in the bush would be a bitch, especially in the jungle even with a MASH unit.”

“I’m told they're setting up a large M.A.S.H unit to the rear as we speak, so don’t worry about that. I’ll check on it personally, and make sure they have it ready.”

“Thank you Colonel much appreciated. That’s one load off my mind.”

“Plug this into your helmet, Major.” Ellis handed Cassidy a wafer thin chip, seeing the surprised look on his face. Cassidy took his helmet off and switched the chip. The moment it went active, most of the troops wearing helmets looked up at the gallery. Their HUD indicating the change in command. Ellis handed another to Bull Striker.

“You too, Striker. You are now RSM.”

“Me?” He asked in surprise.

“Yes, you. As senior NCO here with the longest service. That makes you the Regimental Sergeant Major.”

“But…”

“Suck it up soldier, and congratulations.” Cassidy laughed. Bull Striker clamped his jaw shut and just glowered. Ellis reached into her breast pocket and pulled out two data chips, handing one to each.

“Yours contains the 201 file on all the officers, while yours RSM has all the NCOs and other noncoms. How you organize this collection of misfits is up to you. I’d suggest you throw the book out the window and start from scratch with what you know works.” Cassidy looked at her a moment as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing.

“The brown noses aren’t going to like that.”

“I dare say they won’t, but I suspect you won’t be seeing any of them around here for a long time… maybe ever.” She added cryptically. “Carry on.”

“Thank you Colonel.” They exchanged salutes as Cassidy hit the all-hands frequency.

“Listen up people!” Ellis faded back and slipped out the door. Had they followed they would have seen Colonel Ellis enter a side room and close the door behind her. The moment the lock snapped shut Colonel Ellis disintegrated into a pile of dust and mingled with the dirt on the floor.

* * * * * *

After moving out of the underground chamber and into open training ground, Cassidy sat in his makeshift field office and looked over his TOE, but he couldn’t quite keep his mind on working out his chain of command. If what Colonel Ellis said was true about not seeing any Tellurians around here for a very long time. He suspected there was something else going on, and this went a lot deeper than just pulling all the human troops together in one place. Ever suspicious of Tellurian high command, he wondered for a moment if they just wanted all humans in one place so they could drop a KEW on them. A kinetic energy weapon from space or a big fragging rock would put a half-mile deep crater in this place and eliminate all the humans in one strike. Somehow, he didn’t think that was the case, but if not, what was the plan? In the end he brushed the question aside, concentrated on getting his command sorted out, and getting them all moving in the right direction at the same time. In all, it took three days to get the mess sorted out, and a normal, Earth type chain of command in place.

From Cassidy’s point of view, with no Tellurian officers running around to bugger things up, they might just as well run things the way everyone knew things worked, rather than the mish-mash of competing units the Tellurians seemed to love. It was no surprise to discover he had a lot of over aged second lieutenants wandering around, but that was typical with the Tellurians. They hated promoting humans to senior ranks, so the first thing he did was promote half of them to the temporary rank of Captain, and the rest to first lieutenants. That solved the problem of company commanders and second in command. He left it up to Bull Striker to promote the NCO's up to senior noncoms.

A lot of unanswered questions still bugged him, but he didn’t have time to worry about them right now. His main concern was getting a bunch of individual units into a cohesive fighting force. No small task considering that only a few of them came from the same regiment. Taking Colonel Ellis at her word, he immediately promoted people as needed for his command staff, starting with Second Lieutenant Partridge. He promoted him to Captain and made him his Adjutant. That halved his administration load and permitted him to concentrate on an improvised training schedule, and order of battle. As promised, supply shuttles arrived at regular intervals, bringing with them much needed new weapons, ammo packs, and sundry food supplies. The shuttles came in, dumped their load, and took off again without anyone seeing or speaking to the shuttle crew. Whoever orchestrated this, and Cassidy was betting the Colonel, made sure they got the best of everything, right down to new uniforms, boots, and combat gear. Few if any had a problem with dumping the worn out, hand-me-down, second-rate equipment they’d been issued with by the Tellurians. Even with all the rush, it still took a month before Cassidy felt ready to push off. What surprised him was that he wasn’t getting a constant stream of screaming messages from some brown-nosed Var officer for him to get a move on. Starting at the bottom, he and the RSM organized troopers into a five-man fire teams with a Lance Corporal in charge. Two fire teams had a Corporal in charge, and a Sergeant had four fire teams under him, or 50 troopers each. Building on that, he put a Second Lieutenant in command of two complete fire teams, or 100 troopers each. The Lieutenants had two Second Lieutenants reporting to him, and the two Lieutenants reported to a Captain and designated Squadron Commander. In all, he had sufficient troopers to make up four squadrons, with enough left over to make up two scout squadrons, a HQ company, a mortar and a light artillery company. With no mech equipment he didn’t have to worry about a large maintenance unit. The small, lightweight tracked robo units would carry their extra ammo, mortar and artillery rounds, food and medical supplies. It did worry him that he didn’t have any satellite coverage, but he did have sufficient stealth anti-grav drones to give him reliable ‘eyes in the sky’. Colonel Ellis only turned up twice to check on his progress and give him the latest Intel updates on the Thrakee deployment. The day after her last visit, Cassidy issued the order to saddle up and move out to start the march up country. They met their first resistance three days out, and all hell broke loose.