Tales from the Inbox: The Unexpected Complication

2953-12-31 – Tales from the Inbox: The Unexpected Complication 

[N.T.B] I hope you and yours have enjoyed the holiday week. Duncan is off-ship for a few days, doing some recording for the main vidcast, and he left me an interesting account to edit and put into the ingest. And I absolutely did not do that. 

You see, the day before the Feast, an old friend of mine, who we’ll call Sara Swan, sent me something on the side. Sara used to be in the same sort of business as I was, before the war, or at least, almost. She used to arrange extreme tourism for the rich, famous, and stupid, and usually keep them alive through their ill-thought-out escapades on dangerous worlds. We met on Botched Ravi when I was there in ‘41, and no, she never showed her face for my feed drones. 

Anyway, “Sara” has a different line of work now, and she gave me permission to tell this story, properly anonymized. I think she wanted it published partly as a brag, but really, she’s only demonstrating the fieldcraft of the greenest Confederated Marine. What I find interesting... well, I’ll save it for the next episode’s commentary. It will take two or three weeks to get the story out, but by the time Duncan is back this one will be out to you all and he won’t have a choice except to play along and let me edit the rest for the feed. 

Sara Swan lowered her magnifier and cursed under her breath. What had been intended as a simple job, in and out in two or three hours, was officially turning into anything but. 

It had, in retrospect, probably been an unhealthy excess of wishful thinking that had brought Sara to Harold’s Lawn. The dubiously named world, a place of inland meadows of springy green, lichen-like flora, of coastal crags lashed by violent storms, was theoretically uninhabited, earmarked as it was for a war-postponed colonial mission. That there was anything worth stealing there in the first place suggested that theory and practice were not precisely on speaking terms. 

Still, her contact had spun a plausible story about Survey equipment being abandoned in a rush when the Sagittarius Frontier caved in during the first year of the War. Doubtless such materiel would be written off without comment when Survey finally returned to their mission of preparing the world for its first human inhabitants after the conflict finally wound down. 

It was of course possible that Sara’s employer knew nothing about the cluster of ramshackle shelters built around the weathered Survey team habitat, or the motley handful of guards leaning on their arc rifles. Possible, but unlikely. Failures of intelligence never seemed to work that way, in her experience. 

Fortunately, Sara was no novice. After seeing lights at the target site the previous night from orbit, she’d done her entry burn hundreds of kilometers away, out of sight of the place, then flown atmospheric at low altitude as close as she dared. Her ship’s skiff had gotten her within ten klicks, and then she’d hiked a bit over nine more, keeping off ridge-lines and sticking to the lower meadows between the area’s rolling hills. Now, she was lying flat on a hilltop a bit more than nine hundred meters from her goal, and wondering how she was going to cover that last distance undetected. 

Fortunately, the laid-back demeanor of those guards suggested Sara’s cautious approach had so far paid off. They showed no sign of knowing they were being watched. With a shudder, she realized this was doubly lucky. Their weapons were certainly effective at her current range. If one was skilled enough to make the shot, they could have taken her out while she was surveying the scene with her meta-lens magnifier. 

Sliding back a few meters until she was behind the rise, Sara sat up against a flat-sided boulder to think. The camp looked relatively crude, suggesting the ruffians at the Survey site hadn’t set out from home expecting to set up there. It looked like they’d made do with what a standard shipboard fabricator could spit out after they arrived and saw an opportunity. What that opportunity was, precisely, didn’t take much guessing. They were sitting on the very thing Sara had been hired to retrieve – the military-grade fusion reactor that powered that Survey installation. Even broken, it was worth several hundred thousand credits, and functional, it was easily worth ten million to the right person. 

While cruder than the phased matter reactors that powered starships, fusion powerplants, being simpler and less reliant on complex phased matter condensers and fuel stored in elaborate containment bottles, were the backbone of most planetary power grids. A military-grade system like the one in that installation, functionally identical to the sort used by the Confederated Marines to power field bases, was designed to be durable and somewhat portable, while still providing incredible power. Had there been no war, this one might have provided power for the needs of ten or fifteen thousand settlers before a permanent power plant was needed. Its internal fuel was good for a decade without refueling, and it could be safely refueled in a few days, with the right equipment and expertise. 

In the right hands, that power could be used to power an asteroid mining base, or a private colony habitat for an elite clientele. In the wrong hands, it could be used to power a dark harbor, or an illegal off-charts hideaway for those criminal fugitives who knew how to get there. Sara, as a rule didn’t ask whether her clients were the right hands or the wrong ones. But she had a hunch that those vagabonds with the arc rifles worked for the wrong sort. 

Sara had not seen a starship at the camp, nor anything that looked capable of concealing anything bigger than a runabout. That suggested their ride had left them in place to safeguard the prize, intending to return, perhaps with better tools, or with specialized technicians who knew how to bring a running fusion reactor to idle safely. There was no telling when that would be, and she rather doubted that ship would come unarmed; Sara had to be done with them and out with the reactor before then, or her own ship would be detected and shot to pieces. 

Fortunately, this was far from Sara’s first experience with unanticipated problems of this sort. When part of your business model was suppressing the urge to ask follow up questions, this sort of thing became a kind of routine. Sure, jobs really were simple sometimes – even most of the time, maybe – but she’d long ago surrendered to confirmation bias and decided to expect unpredictable trouble. 

With a grim scowl, she slid several tubular components out of her pack and began to snap them together. There were weapons that could range from her hill to the camp back on the skiff, and even more on the ship, but she didn’t fancy a sniping duel with people who had the home field advantage. All she needed for the moment was something that could kill at a hundred meters, without making too much noise. The best way to get this party started, she thought, was to draw a few of them out to where their deaths wouldn’t be seen, so she’d have a few minutes to examine their bodies and their equipment. 

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Tales from the Service: Abarca’s Feast Day Message

2953-12-24 – Tales from the Service: Abarca’s Feast Day Message 

This week, the feed ingest falls on the day before Emmanuel Feast. Obviously, Nojus and I are celebrating with the officers and crew of Ashkelon according to the old routine of the Spacers’ Chapel. The sight and smell of actual candles burning aboard a vessel of war has, at least for me, been a strange experience every year of this war, but a welcome one, its value in comfort far in excess of the costs of extra load on the atmospherics and small risk of fires aboard. 

Traditions like the candles that glitter throughout the ship on Feast week are fragments of peace that can still be seen in time of war. I pray that peace will return to us soon, but in the interim, may this holiday find you and your family well, be you together or a thousand light-years apart. 

This is a portion of Admiral Abarca’s Feast-day message, which is to be pushed out fleet-wide on the twenty-third but as of time of writing has not yet been released. With his permission and encouragement, we have transcribed a small portion of the recording for the benefit of those in other formations and outside the service. 

It has been nearly three thousand years since the birth of the Christ, the event which we celebrate with the Emmanuel Feast, which some faiths call Christmas. There is no doubt that more perilous times than these have darkened the solemn waning hours of our ancient calendar, but certainly not in the lifetime of any living today. 

This conflict, the bitter shape of whose end which we only now begin to see, has been raging for more than half a decade. With bright spots and dark days, vast heroism and great tragedy, it has marked all our lives and the lives of all of those whose fate hangs in the balance. And it is, without doubt, a conflict for the human soul as much as it is for planets and for stars. Our foes, or at least their leaders, style themselves supermen, beings who will, by combined force of will, wrest control of destiny from the universe and to defeat death. Humanity has seen this idea before. Each time it appears, its victory means a departure from humanity, and each time this departure has been rejected. 

The force that moves through history and defeats this idea is that death does not need to be defeated, because it already has been overcome, and not by any act of the willpower of mere men. This is the message we remember in part on this holiday – that all things mortality and material were invaded by the infinite Divine, and that the very power of death was a casualty of this surprise assault.  

When we go into battle, we do so, at least in the main, certain that favor awaits us, either on the physical beachhead, or on the next shore beyond the last veil. For our foes, the sacrifices of war are in a sense far greater, because they sacrifice body and spirit, where we sacrifice only our flesh. We should respect them in this – they know it better than we do – but we should also pity them in our certainty that what they hope to gain is not worth what they stand to lose. 

I do not doubt that we will win this war. I do not worry that the crews and troops I order into battle will fail to do their duty to the end, if that is required of them. I fear only that in winning it, some of you may lose perspective, may start thinking like our foes, and imagining that a material victory requires spiritual defeat. As we go forward to the end, my comrades, I fear for your souls, and yes, for the reputation of this command. As the Incarnation’s grip fails, it will seek to break us with horrors beyond our current imagination. I am sure of this, not because of any specific intelligence, but because this is what every other adventure into supposed superhumanity has done in its death throes.  

When you see great and small evidence of the horrors of a society that has decided to make gods of its leaders, you will be tempted to become calloused, and to think that the virtue of your own actions matters little. Giving in would not materially affect the progress of the war, but it represents a small moral and spiritual victory for our enemy. 

I would rob them of even this Pyrrhic triumph, however. In such small victories, they plant the seeds of conflicts our children and grandchildren will face. When we defeat the Incarnation, I would, if possible, see the idea of humanity defeating death and controlling fate itself buried for a thousand T-years. 

As you gather with your comrades for the Feast, and listen to your chaplains give the traditional holiday message, hold the truth of this hallowed occasion in your heart. And when the orders come down, and we all go forward toward victory, remember that we only seek small, material triumph. The greater triumph has already been won for us, if we will trust in it and walk in it. 

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Tales from the Service: The Occupiers’ Trap

2953-12-17 – Tales from the Service: The Occupiers’ Trap 

The ten-minute ride across the city was, for Arthur Klimek, surreal an experience as sitting on the administration steps. Most of the places he remembered were intact, albeit most of the businesses looked like they’d been abandoned for years. There was almost no damage to the buildings, and the superficial Incarnation iconography was limited to banners, posters, and painted murals. Homecoming to a ghost town, he decided, had to be the worst form, even if it was also a triumphant return as a liberator. There was nobody to liberate. 

The whole affair gave Arthur the distinct impression that the city, and Metzali as a whole, didn’t really want to be rescued. The Incarnation occupation of the planet had been a worthless diversion of resources better spent elsewhere, and it almost seemed like the planet knew that better than the F.V.D.A. generals who’d planned to retake it. If the empty streets could speak, they might be shouting at the convoy of personnel transports, telling them to go back, to let Metzali swallow its own intruders, until they were so enervated that a few hundred partisans from the hills could liberate their own spaceport. 

That was ridiculous, of course. Metzali, remote as it was, was rich in mineral resources, resources that the Incarnation might be able to extract and use to fuel its war machine on this side of the Gap. Every such world they held represented an opportunity to reduce their dependence on running supply ships across the Gap, and they needed to be deprived of as many of those opportunities as possible. That was, anyway, the official line. No doubt after the war the armchair historians would have the final say. 

When Arthur started seeing smoke up ahead, he knew they were close. Sure enough, the transport ahead of his slewed to the side and nosed into an alley to disgorge its troopers under cover. His own ride did the same with the next alley down, and the doors ground open. F.V.D.A. infantry transports weren’t designed to withstand heavy fire – they were little more than civilian wheeled movers with infantry-carrying boxes where their cargo beds had once been. They were armored against small arms fire, but nothing else. 

Arthur’s squad piled out into the alley, where they found a dust-covered trooper wearing the insignia of the 851st waiting for them in the hollow socket of a vacant doorway. Arthur waved his soldiers into that doorway, and once everyone was inside, he clapped the guide on the shoulder and pulled him in as well. The transport would need to pull back out of the alley and head back for the landing area, and he didn’t want anyone out there if its driver miscalculated the maneuver. 

“Glad to see you lot, Sergeant.” The 851st trooper shouted in Arthur’s ear over the roar of the transport’s engine. “We ran into heavy laser fire three blocks up. There’s a concrete building overlooking the whole area, and they’re holed up there and in all the surrounding buildings.” 

Arthur nodded. “Heavy weapons?” 

“We’ve had two transports knocked outby some sort of heavy emplaced laser, probably set up on the roof.” 

Lasers, of course, were invisible between emitter and target, unless the atmosphere was thick with smoke and dust. They were also quieter than almost any other weapon. Unless someone was looking right at the weapon, and could see its meta-lenses flashing as they tuned the beam, such weapons could be notoriously stealthy. 

“Upstairs wants your company to sidle left and advance along...” The man checked the text on a battered digital screen on his wrist. “Imogen Street.” 

Arthur started. “Eh?” 

“Imogen Street.” The man pointed to the left. “Two streets that way. Most of the signs are still-” 

“Big concrete building?” 

“Yeah, weren’t you listening?” 

“They’re holed up in the Rawlins Agriculture compound?” Arthur put his hand on the man’s arm. “You must be joking, trooper.” 

“Er... yeah, it does say Rawlins on the building. Why-” 

“Tell your captain that place is a trap.” 

“Trap?” The dusty trooper looked at Arthur as if he were mad. 

“Didn’t anyone stop to think of why a farm supply company needs concrete walls more than a meter thick?” 

The dusty trooper shook his head mutely. Behind him, the transport rolled out of the alley and the sound of its engine dwindled into the distance. 

“It’s a fertilizer factory. Synthetic fertilizer is basically just granulated explosives mixed with bad smells. They’re going to draw us in, then blow the place.” 

The other man’s eyes widened, and Arthur belatedly noticed some of his own men were listening in.  

He scowled at them and waved them back in the other direction; they all had work to do, securing the building, establishing contact with any other friendly forces within earshot, and getting their comms gear locally synced with the 851st's tac-net. Most of the squad shrugged and ambled off, at least pretending to take the hint. 

“I’ll, uh.” The dusty 851st trooper stammered. “I’ll pass that intel along, Sarge.” 

“Damned right you will.” Arthur shook his head and stalked away to find a quiet spot to report up to his own superiors as well. They might send his squad in anyway, but they’d damned well better do it only after they knew the score. 

The recapture of Metzali is, in the grand scheme of this conflict, a very minor event, with very small forces contributed by both sides. That being said, I thought it important for the account which will take us up to the Feast to be one that demonstrates the competence and grit of Confederated forces. 

As we go into this holiday week, I wish to assure all of you at home, be it in the Core Worlds or in the still-free systems of the Coreward Frontier, that your safety is in good hands. The Navy, Marines, F.V.D.A., and other services waging this war on two fronts are working tirelessly to end the threat of Incarnation aggression, and in the meantime to keep that threat as far away from as many of you as possible. 

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Tales from the Service: Homecoming on Metzali

2953-12-10 – Tales from the Service: Homecoming on Metzali

Feast season is upon us once again. We are no strangers to celebrating this most hallowed time of year on a war footing, obviously, but this year, this Cosmic Background embed team is celebrating it farther than ever from our homes and our loved ones. While we wouldn’t miss this experience for all the worlds in the Reach, it is still a difficult time of year to be a war correspondent. 

It is no less difficult of course for us than it is for the many hundreds of thousands of military spacers and ground forces personnel here on the Seventh Fleet front. Most of the veterans of the fleet have not been home for five years, and a few were already near the end of a tour when war broke out. These, unfortunately, haven’t been home for longer – some eight to ten years. 

Admiral Abarca wanted us to tell all of you out there that he’s trying to fast-track a wave of personnel rotations before the end of the year, so some who’ve been serving for the longest will be going home soon, some to academy tours, some to rear area duty and postings in the fleet formations not on a war footing, and some, if they choose, are going home, their tours of duty complete. While they won’t be getting home before Emmanuel Feast, most of those who are being rotated should be getting the news by that date. 

Though it was almost unheralded due to the fact that the attack was of small scale and barely opposed, Fifth Fleet and associated FVDA formations retook the minor outpost on Metzali in the closing days of November. Incarnation forces landed on the world without warning or opposition in 2950, and their forces deported all the civilians who didn’t disappear into the hills to their other holdings on the Coreward Frontier. Fortunately, estimates are that more than two thirds of the small population successfully evaded capture, owing to the relative youth of the colony and the small size of the occuation force. We recieved one account from a trooper who participated in this rather uneventful liberation. 

Arthur Klimek sat on the steps of the central colony administration building, his rail carbine across his knees. It was good to be home. 

Arthur had been a clerk in that very building before the war. He’d often sat on those very steps on pleasant days, eating his lunch, chatting with the other low-grade admin personnel and watching the trickle of Metzali colonists going into and out of the building, registering births and deaths, updating land holdings records, recording construction submitting survey data, and so on. Life had been good in those days; his salary was good enough even as a young professional just starting out to pay for a row-house in the spaceport town, an aircar, and a prefab cabin on fifty acres in the hills. Land on a new colony was cheap, especially when it was land that had been found to contain no particularly valuable minerals, and he’d hoped to find someone looking to settle down and have kids in a few years. 

Then the war had come, and FVDA recruiters had set up their booth in front of those very steps, showing holos of what had happened to Adimari Valis and other worlds that had fallen to Incarnation attack. They’d promised recruits a chance to make a difference, and to come home – if they survived – with stories to tell their grandchildren. Arthur, and many of the other young clerks working for central administration, had signed up. 

Metzali had been conquered while Arthur and his unit were still in training. It had been an afterthought on the newsfeeds; the world was small, inconsequential, its population largely taken to the hills or evacuated offworld in the face of a small occupation force. There were bigger crises then, and such tragedies were simply too numerous and too small for the public to worry about. 

That had been three years ago. Now, Arthur was home, albeit still in uniform, now a senior sergeant. He was the only native of Metzali in his battalion, and so had been called upon to help with the pre-drop briefing. They’d expected a sharp but brief fight with the garrison, but none had materialized; the spaceport they captured was a ghost town, its infrastructure partially and shallowly adapted as an Incarnation base. The detritus of a hastily abandoned occupation lay everywhere, but there was no sign of serious fighting. 

“How’s it feel to be home, Sarge?” 

Arthur looked up to see one of his newest squadmates, Private Vandek, picking his way across the littered plaza from the squad’s temporary shelter, an abandoned cafe. 

“It’s like a bad dream, Vandek.” Arthur gestured up to the building behind him. “Can you believe I used to work at a desk in there?” 

“You? At a desk, sir?” Vandek chuckled. “I can’t picture it.” 

Arthur smiled sadly. Three years in uniform and fighting on four different worlds had changed him far more than his world had been changed by the vandalism of its occupiers. “I suppose not. Did new orders come down?” 

“Just a minute ago.” Vandek hooked a thumb back toward the storefront where the rest of the squad was waiting. “There’s a transport on the way to pick us up. Word is there’s a fair bit of shooting down at the southeast end of town. Someone in the eight-five-one finally found where the bastards are holed up.” 

“I figured they hadn’t gone far.” Arthur stood up, hefting his carbine. 851th independent battalion, one of their sister units, was responsible for clearing most of the southern outskirts; if the bulk of the occupiers were concentrated in one area, it could be a real fight. “We'd better not keep them waiting, then.” 

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