Welcome to the Marines (Corporate Marines Book 2) (19 page)

“The first race that we met is the OOng; everyone knows that they gave us the first early version of the star drive and warned us about the cost of building true starships. They are small and fuzzy. They are bipedal. The assistance that they gave us was not really that helpful, as we were a short time away from having the early star drive at a testing stage.”

As Smith talks, an image forms through the three-dimensional projector. It is a small, fuzzy creature, about half as big as a human and doesn’t look very aggressive at all. The image turns and moves into different positions, showing full range of movement. It could never be mistaken for anything from Earth. Its face is flat, with small eyes, nose and mouth. I can’t see ears. The arms are longer, hanging down past its knees and the paws have seven long fingers coming off that have several more joints than we do. One of those paws clenches and nails show out from the end that look at least an inch in length. The torso is slender like the rest of the creature, and the legs are shorter than a human’s would be in relation to their body. The image “walks” over to the side and freezes. Another image materializes. The same creature in armour is a bit taller and bulkier. The armour is also stylized and very distinctive, with different markings on it. Another suit appears next to the first and the markings and helmet are very different.

“The OOng are not warlike but are very aggressive. We do not know how big their military really is, but we have had the rare opportunity on three separate occasions to see their power-armoured guards. They are individualistic in the extreme, as you can see. This would not be allowed in an Earth military unit. As they are not really warlike, the theory is that some cultural groups in the OOng civilization act as defenders. Their armour is the equivalent of our powered armour but smaller, lighter and, we are guessing, slightly more capable than ours.”

The soldier images fade, replaced by a star chart. Several spots are highlighted and the map zooms in. The highlighted spots grow and sidebar information appears on the wall. We are looking at planets, moons and space stations.

“No one informs any of their other alien neighbours what they are doing or the location of any of their colonies, facilities or what their intentions are. The information that we have here, we have found out through small leaks of information, observation and some AI calculations that sound like computer guessing. We
think
that the OOng have a great deal more in the way of territory and knowledge. But they are very secretive and we have no way of confirming that. We do know that no other aliens’ starships are allowed into their system. They have a small space station on the edge of their system that is a common meeting ground. If we were picking up trade goods, it would be waiting in a cargo container floating in space near the station.”

The image shimmers and changes into spaceships. “They use three types of star ships, like we do. Small courier style with a crew of maybe twelve. Mid-size transport ships that would have a crew of approximately sixty. Large transports similar to the “Mama Pig” with a crew estimated at two hundred. They have three of the large transports. OOng ships may have better range and speed over our ships.

“The OOng are not hostile to us. They were willing to share technology, which did help us and gave us a bit of a push. We think that they have other assets out there, including one or two colony worlds. Why were they helpful to us? They said that they were looking for trading partners, and while trade between races is not that large, it does generate a large profit when physical goods are exchanged and the technology transfers, while they look minor, offer spin-offs that the original race may not have thought up on their own. Finally, there are some that think that the OOng befriended us because they were hoping to use us to counter something else out there.”

The images fade and Smith looks at us. “We know almost nothing about deep space. Only what we have found out so far, and there is a
lot
still untouched. There could be a thousand alien races past the borders of OOng space. We won’t know till we go there one day, and we do not have the range to do that today.

“Right then, we’re done for the day. Off to the lab, and remember what you have been shown. As we review these files, they will be made accessible to you on your personal viewer. Know them.”

We get up and move out. Today we are in full armour for the first time. We completely sealed up and are on low power. It makes a lot of sense, as we would have to do this sooner or later. Even though we have more hours than I want to consider in sim armour, I still am nervous, as I could really hurt people with this.

So we walk and move on minimal power around the room and down the hall and back.

When we are too hesitant, Seven has us punch the wall as hard as we can. I expect to punch a hole in the wall. We don’t hit it much harder than a normal hand would.

That night, we take longer before dinner and everyone is exhausted. We used a lot of muscle moving the armour on such a low power level.

The next morning is like every other morning. Quick physical fitness early followed by food, calisthenics that are even tougher to do, and then back to class.

When we walk in, the loading screen is already on and comes up for just a second and then a three-dimensional picture starts forming. Everyone recognizes this race. They are everywhere.

Smith begins. “The Kah-Choo Empire is a true multi-system empire. It has colonized two worlds outside of its own solar system. They are a military-based society that worships an emperor as the embodiment of their virtues. What that really means is open to interpretation. The same family has ruled for an estimated twelve hundred years. They will sell technology to anyone and it is expensive but basic and functional. They mostly sell military technology.”

An image had formed. There are two images side by side, actually. Both are smaller than a human. The smaller of the two is about half the size of a human male. The other is noticeably larger and bigger. They both sort of look like standing rat-men, with some of the elements of dogs. They are covered in fur and wearing some sort of clothes. The first is small, covered in brown fur, wearing a belt and harness with equipment clipped to it. It is, I would think, runty but it is carrying what looks like a big, heavy tool in one hand. A human would put that tool on their shoulder to carry it. The runty rat man is just carrying it casually at his side.

The other one is scarier-looking. He is inches taller and you can see his muscles. He has blacker fur, also with a belt and harness. He doesn’t have tools on it, though. He is armed with a holstered side arm and what looks like a sword. Some of his fur is also shaved away and I can see what look like tattoos on the uncovered flesh. He is a warrior of some sort.

Smith continues. “They are individually stronger than they look, primarily meat eaters and very aggressive. They also appear to have a pack mentality. The military has had a lot of that worked out of them, but if you were to land in the centre of one of their cities and attack, then their instincts would kick in and you would likely be swarmed under a mass of them and then torn apart. They are very aggressive and it is amazing that they did not destroy themselves before achieving space or star drive. They have armour and powered armour, as well as vehicles that are amazing. Every member of their race is ready to fight. We believe that during mating, the female of the species will give birth to up to eight cubs. They can have multiple litters and their little ones are the equivalent of teenagers within a few years. They breed fast and their emperor wants new breeding grounds for them.”

The image disappears and the star map comes back. The image does not zoom in as much. There were three star systems labelled as in their control, a few other moons, and only a few space stations. “The Kah-Choo do not need to worry about lots of stations in other star systems. They own three. They are terraforming planets in those systems and have found a way to colonize that works for them. They send a relatively small crew to build a covered or underground city. Then they ship in mass quantities of their own people, filling that city. They will expand it while the terraformers are working. They now have a large population on one planet that supports the terraforming of the other planets in that system. When the planet is terraformed, if it is a domed city, the dome is removed and that becomes their capital. They have two fully colonized planets and are definitely working on terraforming another three in those systems. As soon as they develop a system to self-sufficiency, they begin work on the others. We believe that they originally over-stretched themselves and expanded too far, but they have caught up now and are getting ready to find and colonize another star system.”

The map fades and several ships appear. They have two more types than previously listed. “The Kah-Choo have one strike cruiser; we believe its name translates to ‘sudden death.’ We know nothing about it other than it is to deploy a small elite unit armed with their best equipment anywhere that it is needed. Estimates are that it could deploy ninety heavy-armoured troopers with all their support gear. Much scarier than that are the three starships called
Birth Mother
. They are much bigger than the
Mama Pig
and are used as their colony transports. They were made the same way as the
Mama Pig
and transport a
lot
of colonists. We have no estimates on anything regarding that ship class or its capabilities. The question of why the Kah-Choo focus on such aggressive colonization is unknown. It is guessed that population pressure must be significant. But they have not had a civil war in a very long time. The thought would be that the different systems would begin to feel like they should pull away from the emperor and the empire or ask for more rights. That would be what humans would end up doing. There is no sign of that with the Kah-Choo at all.”

Smith stops his briefing and takes a breath. “Why expand so much? Earth was invaded. The theory has been put forward that perhaps, much further back, they came under attack and were much more badly hurt. This may have affected how they view the universe now. If that is correct, then that may pose a long-term problem for the rest of the civilized races out there.”

Smith steps back and looks at the images of the starships as they fade, contemplating a future threat that would have eight or more fully colonized planets. He continues. “They are not hostile to us. No more so than to any other alien race, according to everything we have been able to find out. They appear angry to any race that they meet and view us with a degree of what we consider contempt. They have seen samples of our military might and formed soldiers and they ignored it. We believe that they put the individual over the group for military action. But they also ignored those demonstrations. The experts are stuck and there is a great deal of interaction between our races. So much of their equipment is out there that there are detailed files that you can access to review capabilities. Remember, this is older technology for them and likely not their best gear.”

The screen clears again and while the loading icon comes up, Smith walks over to the podium and takes a drink out of a tumbler that he has sitting there.

As the screen starts to change again, he puts the drink down, unfinished.

“You are off to the lab now. Tomorrow is the last day of the briefings from myself. There are two more alien races to cover, and there is not as much information on them so those are shorter briefings.”

He turns away and collects his paperwork and we stand up and leave again.

Today we go through donning drills twice, walk around the lab, and then head into a large warehouse up top. The elevator is large and takes half of us at a time. I have never seen this one before, and after a short trip, we are up in a huge warehouse. It is mostly empty but for some shelves, which appear to be holding large skids of food.

Our practice for the afternoon is for two of us to lift the skids down and position them so that crews can later load them into the elevator and take them down to the kitchen.

We are not officially domestic help.

We don’t drop any of the shrink-wrapped skids and move several tons of potatoes and other food.

By the time we are done, it is late and I am starving.

We go back down the elevator, remove the armour, and then have to do a quick calisthenics routine for whatever reason. We only do it once and then we are off.

The next morning comes too fast, but everything goes by quickly until we are back in class.

Smith starts in straightaway. “These next two races we do not know as much about. This next species is the ASSA. They are not very friendly and we do not think they have been in deep space for much longer than ourselves. We have only had a few run-ins with them as a species, and they do not want to exchange technology or even material.”

The image forming is of a strange-looking creature almost as big as a human, but it is a reptile on four legs. There is another pair of legs or arms that looks like they are for fine gripping and include an opposable digit. A second image formed of the possibly same lizard. It is standing on its back legs, using its tail for balance and the middle bigger arms for holding what looks like a staff while the smaller hands hold a computer tablet of some kind. Both lizards appear to be naked but wear a hood over their head, looking out from the depths with cold eyes.

“The one thing we know is that they do like to communicate and they are very direct. If the translation programs are correct, they find us hideous and wouldn’t deal with us at all but our simplistic view of philosophy appears to amuse some of them. The little interaction that we have had mostly consists of philosophical debate.”

The star map image comes up but there are only a handful of spots on it. “We know they have a star system and three habitable planets in there. We also know that they have some space stations in the next system over. That is it.”

When the image clears and ships appear, there are only two types: a small scout type and the mid-size freighter or survey ship. “They do not appear to have any interest in colonizing other systems, or doing anything else. Interestingly enough, we don’t think they have a military like we do. Maybe police or smaller militaries on their planets, but none of the ships we have ever encountered or the personnel we have talked to has ever indicated or given anything away about military strength. Given the real difficulty of conducting a war across such large gaps in space, that may make sense. They seem to have no desire to colonize and so would need less military might to hold the initial efforts against any possible threats.