2953-07-02 - Tales from the Service: The Commandant’s Agent
Due to how far the battlespace is from the Core Worlds, and some rather visible capability gaps between certain kinds of Incarnation and Confederated equipment, most of the service personnel fighting this conflict have some sense that the people giving the orders and sending the equipment have a rather incomplete understanding of the situation in front of them. It turns out this isn’t really true, but it is excusable that the people actually risking their lives every day would come to this conclusion.
Of all the services, the Confederated Marines are probably the most sensitive to this concern, both because it is the smallest service by personnel roster, and because it is the service most reliant on the morale of the rank and file to be effective. Marine troops that believe themselves to be sacrificial trigger pullers handed inferior equipment and sent to die by an aloof, incompetent command structure would not be capable of the defensive and offensive feats the Marines are known for.
Obviously Commandant Calligaris, being the liaison between his service and the civilian government, must stay at Centauri, but his deputies regularly roam the battle area. Some of them do so openly, but others, like our submitter here who I am certain is not using his real name, prefer to operate more covertly, hoping to prevent the field units from curating what they see.
When Garth Raimundo got off the transport, nobody was waiting to meet him. That in itself wasn’t too odd; his arrival on Montani was known only to a few, but it did earn him a few strange looks when the other various officers and specialists he’d ridden down with all had escorts waiting for them.
Garth outranked all of them, but he didn’t like to show that. As a direct subordinate of the Commandant of the Confederated Marines, he held a nominal rank of brigadier general, but he wore, as usual, the tunic of a Marine junior officer with its name-plate and rank insignia disabled. His rank usually got in the way of his mission, and in any case, he hardly thought himself worthy of even a single general’s star.
As the other passengers vanished into the dusty spaceport town, Garth spied an unattended groundcar with a Marine insignia on it parked near the landing pad. It had a second insignia – that of one of the battalions of 71st Brigade, which he knew from his briefing was in the process of re-embarking from the planet. They wouldn’t miss the vehicle; most likely they intended to leave it for the permanent FVDA garrison anyway.
With a few commands and a high level access code broadcast from his wristcuff, Garth commandeered the vehicle. It started warming up as he crossed to it, glancing around to see if anyone else had noticed what he’d done. His codes would silence any questions, of course, but it was better if they weren’t asked at all. Fortunately, the only other people in view were a group of technicians struggling to replace a lighter’s turbofan; none of them were paying him any mind.
The groundcar was of a sturdy but spartan model, like much equipment issued to the Marines anywhere near a front line. The suspension on its four large wheels proved rather rough, even for the dusty streets of Montani’s spaceport, and Garth worried for the survival of his teeth within minutes of leaving the pad behind. Fortunately, he didn’t have very far to go. The encampment of the 114th Special Regiment, one of the Kodiak equipped formations that had participated in the battle of Montani, was just outside the town.
The abandoned industrial complex that had become the 114th's base of operations was surrounded by an impressive razorwire fence backed up by numerous sensor pylons. Marine outfits were hardly known for their field fortifications, since they tended not to stay on any one field particularly long, but armored and Kodiak units tended to be the exception, owing to the massive repair and refit needs of their equipment. These regiments tended to move around with three or four times the noncombatant personnel as a standard Marine heavy infantry unit, and thus were not nearly as capable of repositioning their bivouac.
A guard at the checkpoint frowned as he scanned Garth’s identity badge, probably looking for the rank identifier that was not present. “Are you expected, sir?”
“The Old Man knows I’m coming.” Garth shrugged. The regimental commander did not in fact know he was coming today, but he’d certainly been told to expect the arrival of a representative from the commandant.
The guard sighed, scanned the badge one more time for good measure, scrutinized his screen, then shrugged. “I’ve never seen that authorization code, but the system says you’re clear to proceed.” He pressed a button, and two swaths of razorwire slid apart in front of the groundcar. “Headquarters is in the main building, level three.”
Garth didn’t go to the main building. The moment he was out of sight from the gate, he turned the groundcar into a narrow alley between two concrete structures and got out, heading toward a line of collapsible three-story cages which encased powered-down Kodiak suits. He hadn’t seen any of the machines in person since the live-fire exercises on Cactus back in ‘48. It wasn’t his main job on Montani, but it would be interesting to the Commandant to know about any unreported field modifications to these expensive titans. The regiments rarely if ever reported their gear modifications through proper channels, fearing that higher officers would order them to reverse the changes.
This wasn’t an unfounded fear; too much added weight on a suit, or an armored vehicle, could burn out its power and motive systems in only a few days of combat. Garth, however, could raise the modifications with the original manufacturer; Kodiaks were still bespoke machines, with minor changes being made to production every few dozen units completed. Perhaps something of the Marines’ under-the-table alterations could be included in production, reducing the chance of field units damaging their equipment with too many changes.
Garth was pulling open his wristcuff screen in front of the first of the Kodiak refit cradles when a click and whine of capacitors behind him made him freeze.
“Stop right there.” A nervous voice commanded. “What are you doing here?”
Garth held his hands out away from his body and turned around slowly. The guard wasn’t a line Marine; he was one of the secondary troopers assigned to the regiment to guard its sprawling base. “Easy there. I have authorization.”
“Sure you do.” The man waved his rail carbine. “Come with me.”