Posted: 2004-05-18 06:56am
TWO
May 10, 2567
Location: USS Iron Fist
Situation: Transit from Daron to undisclosed location
Sgt. Joshua Cruise was seated on a recliner, in front of a holoscreen. His brownish hair was wet; he just came from the bathroom. On the recliner’s cup holder was a cup of steaming coffee. On his lap was a paper-thin, transparent keypad. He was browsing the Net for articles. There were only a handful of people in the rec room, all were groggy and most just came from the showers. It was 0700 hours and there were no training exercises until the later hours of the morning. The ship was in hyperspace, traveling faster than light and traveling in space far away from Daron. The Valiant, one of the two destroyers which were escorting the Iron Fist, was left behind at the Daron system with its modest contingent of marines watching over Daron for the meanwhile. Joshua sipped on his cup of coffee and pondered on what article to look for. He finally made his mind and dragged his finger across a touch pad and pressed some button, accessing a recent news flash from Zigon-5.
The holoscreen came alive with a live news report from the Zigonian News Corporation (ZNC), the reporter was a humanoid with reptilian features, a male lizard man, he was in some sort of disaster site and was trying to speak to the camera but his voice was nearly drowned out by the noise of all kinds of emergency vehicles. The camera man finally adjusted his camera to blot out the background noise, it was much less chaotic, and the reporter spoke: “We’re live here in the city of Beruscula, I am standing here in a scene of carnage where just minutes ago, a car bomb exploded, killing scores of bystanders including the Gazmo Corporation’s CEO.
“Bodies and wreckage litter the parking lot as emergency rescue personnel tend to the injured and as investigators comb the ruins for any evidence which could lead them to the perpetrators of this heinous act. The Gazmo Corporation’s CEO was on his way to an important meeting when a remote controlled bomb detonated right beside his limo. Sources say that as much as 18 people have died, though this number could increase or decrease as time passes by. This is Ra’mund reporting live, from Beruscula.”
The reporter and the scene of carnage were replaced by the ZNC newsroom where the anchorman promised to update the viewers of the situation. Joshua muted the screen and sipped some coffee, he wasn’t really interested in the happenings in Zigon-5, it was hundreds of light years away.
John entered the room. Loosely strapped across his chest was his MBR-40 phased plasma rifle, its muzzle still warm and smelling of ozone, a dead give away that John just came from the shooting range. He walked to the bar and ordered some coffee.
“Sir, your gun’s safety isn’t turned on,” Brent stated as he handed a cup of steaming coffee.
“So?” John asked, raising an eyebrow. He grabbed the coffee and gulped in a large portion of the warm fluid. He turned to the holoscreens and walked towards them, not caring for Brent’s reply. He stopped beside a recliner, standing beside Joshua. “Another bombing?”
“Yeah,” Josh replied. He turned on the volume so John could listen to the news. “Gazmo’s CEO got killed.”
“They’re the ones which made OrGazmo, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Damn fundamental sons of bitches,” Christianity has been on a decline ever since man expanded into space and mingled with other space faring species and the fundamentalists have been steadily growing more extreme in their views. They believed that the other species were inferior to humanity, that they were filth, akin to the attitude the 20th century fundamentalists held towards black people. The extremist attacks against genetics laboratories, alien communities (they attacked the communities by burning crosses) and other things viewed by them as immoral (such as OrGazmo) have been increasing every decade. John didn’t like the fundamentalist, almost nobody did. They were generally despised. Their racist beliefs, policies and pseudoscience were laughable, but somehow they still managed to brainwash innocent bystanders to their twisted cause.
Someone sat on the chair beside Joshua and looked at the holoscreen, staring at the 2d holographic images.
“Good morning, Eric,” Joshua greeted cheerfully as John turned to look at the newcomer. Corporal Eric Ryan was one of the team’s snipers. The guy was an extraordinary man, a math wiz, got straight As in school and collage, physically prime, played basketball, ping pong, badminton, foot ball, he could out jump people who were one foot taller than him! And Eric could tolerate sleeping for only 4 hours. And he looked great; the ship’s female population adored him. His only downside was his near sightedness which was corrected shortly after his high school prom (where he was the prom king). For some reason, Eric went into the Marine Corps and like everything else he tried in his life, Eric excelled in it, becoming one of the best snipers John had ever seen. Eric was even invited to Force Recon, but he turned down the invitation since he had developed a strong bond with his squad mates.
“Morning, Rick.” John greeted.
“Yeah, good morning guys. What’s happening in the screen?” Eric answered, a little uppity but he was more interested in the news article.
“Zigon-5, car bomb, Gazmo’s CEO’s dead, probably the fundies in their self righteous crusade to rid the universe of the evil that is OrGazmo,” Joshua stated simply. Currently, fundies have been blowing everything up. Even without them, everything has been blowing up. The galaxy was going into hell in a hand basket.
“Let’s change the channel, shall we, Josh?” John said. A beautiful morning shouldn’t be wasted by watching explosions, cars and exploding cars. “How about some cartoons?”
“You’re kidding, right?” Joshua asked. No self respecting marine would watch cartoons. And besides, the morning hours were filled with children’s shows like Dinobonoids and the Weenie Rangers. The violent stuff would only be shown in the middle of the night.
Suddenly, their holoscreen, along with every other holoscreen was filled with the image of the captain of the ship, the officer in charge of everything in this interstellar rust bucket. Captain Nathaniel Armstrong. The man was a giant, standing at nearly 7 feet. He was massive and even though he was graying, his features were so intimidating that he looked like he could man handle an entire platoon of marines.
“Well, great, I asked for some toons and we have something which could make grown men cry,” John said, half expecting the captain’s two dimensional image to scream at him so hard that his face would fly off or transform into a three dimensional image and smash him with those ham sized fists. Thankfully, the captain did neither, in fact, the captain couldn’t see him.
The captain looked down at everyone and commanded with a booming voice echoing throughout the ship: “All officers are to join their respective conference rooms for a general briefing of the situation.” With that, the image disappeared and was replaced with the ZNC channel.
“Well, that sucks.” Eric muttered as John walked away from them and made his way to the conference room.
“See you later, guys.” John said as he exited the room.
The marines’ conference room was a spacious room, not nearly as large as the recreation room but large enough. It was dominated by three long metal tables, arranged in a way that they formed an inverted ‘U’. There was one table on the left, one on the right and one on the middle. Behind the middle table was a massive holoscreen, which an unaware observer might mistake for a window as it was currently tuned into one of the ship’s many exterior cameras, giving a look at hyperspace and the innumerable stars flashing by the faster-than-light ship. The leaders of the various marine squads were seated on the left and right tables, all of them were lieutenants, and the high-ranking officers were in the center table. John entered the room and quickly sat on the nearest empty chair. Most of the seats had been filled; there were only a handful of empty seats. On the tables were papers and platters containing glasses filled with water. John grabbed one and took a drink. The briefing would commence only when everyone had arrived, so many of the people present were engaging in conversations.
“So, Simon, where’s Ivan?” John asked the nearest lieutenant. It was Simon Nickerson, squad leader of Nickerson squad. Nickerson and Baylor were the squads which demolished the missile battery at Daron, ensuring safe passage of the dropships. “Ivan’s always early; he’s always in briefings before me. Where’s the guy?”
Simon stared at the table, silent.
“Oh…I’m…sorry,” John said. Ivan was a funny Russian who was from Venus. He was a good man and he would be missed.
A handful of lieutenants arrived in the room and they quickly seated themselves. All but one of the seats was filled. The meeting commenced. The man sitting at the middle of the center table was Colonel Fritz Fowler. He had a shaved head and was nearly as tall as Captain Armstrong, though not as bulky as the captain he was almost every bit as imposing and was the tallest man in the room. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he began. It was his duty to explain the situation to his marines and to give them a general idea of what was going on. “I assume that most of you have seen the bombings at Zigon-5.”
Most of the lieutenants, including John, nodded their heads.
”And I’m sure that most of you believed that it was the work of Christian extremists since they’ve been attacking everything nowadays and since Gazmo’s famous for products ranging from OrGazmo to cloned eyeballs,” Again, heads nodded, “Well, it isn’t. Various sections of the Central Earth Intelligence Department (CEID) have confirmed through multiple sources that this is the doing of the Gamma-Sigma and other militant groups, all of which are being ordered around by the United Federation of Profit-seeking Planets, the UFPP.”
So that’s why there were UFPP liaisons in Daron, John thought as the other lieutenants absorbed what was said and arrived at the same conclusion.
Fowler saw their reaction and decided to press on. “Yes. That’s why there were UFPP liaisons in Daron. Daron is a Sovereign planet but most of the land was being used by MedTech in its studies and research of the local flora and fauna. MedTech is a very large corporation; it has many enemies in the UFPP. And remember last year’s terrorist bombings on Schrom Corp? That was also the work of terrorists being contracted by the UFPP. These companies have ties with the US government, especially Schrom which sells things from gunships to hyperdrive engines to the USE. The USE doesn’t like this, it doesn’t like having its friends harassed by some foreign power, especially if its friends’ stocks are going down. And the attack on Daron, that’s all the reason the USE needs to launch an attack on the UFPP.”
Someone raised a hand. Fritz nodded at the lieutenant’s hand.
“But sir, if we launched a raid, won’t we piss off the ISU?”
“No, the Interstellar Union won’t mind too much because we are on the moral high ground. We can justify our actions. And an all out war against the UFPP isn’t likely; intelligence states that the terrorists and militants are being contracted by a small number of companies. So once we reveal their actions, it’ll cause an outrage in the IPL and UFPP, an outrage directed against the companies who are using the terrorists.”
The Sovereignty gets revenge and turns the tables on the UFPP as the stock market will again favor our companies and the UFPP companies’ stocks decline, John noted.
“We will be launching a raid against the UFPP in the day after tomorrow. We’re going into an uncharted system, we’re going to chart the system and bomb it,” cheers followed the announcement. The holoscreen behind Fowler shifted from viewing the conditions outside the ship into a map of the system that Fowler talking about. “The system is uncharted; it does not have a name and is deep inside a nebula, which is why it was never discovered. Most planets inside nebulas can’t support life because nebulas are filled with gas and are the birth place of stars, but this star system is inside a pocket of vacuum. It is being used as a base of operations, the UFPP maintains a military presence there and according to our sources, there is a small Gamma-Sigma presence as well.”
He pressed a button and the system map transformed into a map of the planet. The map indicated that the planet was mostly tundra. “There is only one habitable planet where the UFPP has constructed a city, a large portion of which is industrial. UFPP ground forces and civilians inhabit the city. We’ll drop from hyperspace in the fringes of the nebula; use a star for cover and rendezvous with several other USE ships. Then we’ll hyperspace into the rim of the solar system and engage the UFPP’s flotilla. I’m not Captain Armstrong, so I do not know what we’ll do.
“But I do know that when we finish off the fleet, we will go down that planet and engage the UFPP’s ground forces in a full invasion. Everything from gunships to artillery will be present and the most important aspect of this will be you, gentlemen. You will go into the cities and be in the line of fire, you will be shot at with lasers, K-bolts, bullets, rockets and it will be you who will shed blood and it will be you who will take over that city and whoop ass. There will be a briefing tomorrow at 0800 hours, before all hell breaks loose. In that briefing, you will receive instructions on what your squads are to do. Now before I dismiss you, men, do you have any last questions?”
There were none.
“Good. Then you are dismissed.”
John left the room and went to his squad’s room, where his men were waiting for him. The room was a bit crammed, with numerous double deck beds and chests for private possessions and a single holoscreen. The men were seated on the bunks.
“So chief, what’s up?” asked Jerry.
“We’re going to war. Again.” John replied.
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“Well, doesn’t that take the biscuit.”
May 10, 2567
Location: USS Iron Fist
Situation: Transit from Daron to undisclosed location
Sgt. Joshua Cruise was seated on a recliner, in front of a holoscreen. His brownish hair was wet; he just came from the bathroom. On the recliner’s cup holder was a cup of steaming coffee. On his lap was a paper-thin, transparent keypad. He was browsing the Net for articles. There were only a handful of people in the rec room, all were groggy and most just came from the showers. It was 0700 hours and there were no training exercises until the later hours of the morning. The ship was in hyperspace, traveling faster than light and traveling in space far away from Daron. The Valiant, one of the two destroyers which were escorting the Iron Fist, was left behind at the Daron system with its modest contingent of marines watching over Daron for the meanwhile. Joshua sipped on his cup of coffee and pondered on what article to look for. He finally made his mind and dragged his finger across a touch pad and pressed some button, accessing a recent news flash from Zigon-5.
The holoscreen came alive with a live news report from the Zigonian News Corporation (ZNC), the reporter was a humanoid with reptilian features, a male lizard man, he was in some sort of disaster site and was trying to speak to the camera but his voice was nearly drowned out by the noise of all kinds of emergency vehicles. The camera man finally adjusted his camera to blot out the background noise, it was much less chaotic, and the reporter spoke: “We’re live here in the city of Beruscula, I am standing here in a scene of carnage where just minutes ago, a car bomb exploded, killing scores of bystanders including the Gazmo Corporation’s CEO.
“Bodies and wreckage litter the parking lot as emergency rescue personnel tend to the injured and as investigators comb the ruins for any evidence which could lead them to the perpetrators of this heinous act. The Gazmo Corporation’s CEO was on his way to an important meeting when a remote controlled bomb detonated right beside his limo. Sources say that as much as 18 people have died, though this number could increase or decrease as time passes by. This is Ra’mund reporting live, from Beruscula.”
The reporter and the scene of carnage were replaced by the ZNC newsroom where the anchorman promised to update the viewers of the situation. Joshua muted the screen and sipped some coffee, he wasn’t really interested in the happenings in Zigon-5, it was hundreds of light years away.
John entered the room. Loosely strapped across his chest was his MBR-40 phased plasma rifle, its muzzle still warm and smelling of ozone, a dead give away that John just came from the shooting range. He walked to the bar and ordered some coffee.
“Sir, your gun’s safety isn’t turned on,” Brent stated as he handed a cup of steaming coffee.
“So?” John asked, raising an eyebrow. He grabbed the coffee and gulped in a large portion of the warm fluid. He turned to the holoscreens and walked towards them, not caring for Brent’s reply. He stopped beside a recliner, standing beside Joshua. “Another bombing?”
“Yeah,” Josh replied. He turned on the volume so John could listen to the news. “Gazmo’s CEO got killed.”
“They’re the ones which made OrGazmo, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Damn fundamental sons of bitches,” Christianity has been on a decline ever since man expanded into space and mingled with other space faring species and the fundamentalists have been steadily growing more extreme in their views. They believed that the other species were inferior to humanity, that they were filth, akin to the attitude the 20th century fundamentalists held towards black people. The extremist attacks against genetics laboratories, alien communities (they attacked the communities by burning crosses) and other things viewed by them as immoral (such as OrGazmo) have been increasing every decade. John didn’t like the fundamentalist, almost nobody did. They were generally despised. Their racist beliefs, policies and pseudoscience were laughable, but somehow they still managed to brainwash innocent bystanders to their twisted cause.
Someone sat on the chair beside Joshua and looked at the holoscreen, staring at the 2d holographic images.
“Good morning, Eric,” Joshua greeted cheerfully as John turned to look at the newcomer. Corporal Eric Ryan was one of the team’s snipers. The guy was an extraordinary man, a math wiz, got straight As in school and collage, physically prime, played basketball, ping pong, badminton, foot ball, he could out jump people who were one foot taller than him! And Eric could tolerate sleeping for only 4 hours. And he looked great; the ship’s female population adored him. His only downside was his near sightedness which was corrected shortly after his high school prom (where he was the prom king). For some reason, Eric went into the Marine Corps and like everything else he tried in his life, Eric excelled in it, becoming one of the best snipers John had ever seen. Eric was even invited to Force Recon, but he turned down the invitation since he had developed a strong bond with his squad mates.
“Morning, Rick.” John greeted.
“Yeah, good morning guys. What’s happening in the screen?” Eric answered, a little uppity but he was more interested in the news article.
“Zigon-5, car bomb, Gazmo’s CEO’s dead, probably the fundies in their self righteous crusade to rid the universe of the evil that is OrGazmo,” Joshua stated simply. Currently, fundies have been blowing everything up. Even without them, everything has been blowing up. The galaxy was going into hell in a hand basket.
“Let’s change the channel, shall we, Josh?” John said. A beautiful morning shouldn’t be wasted by watching explosions, cars and exploding cars. “How about some cartoons?”
“You’re kidding, right?” Joshua asked. No self respecting marine would watch cartoons. And besides, the morning hours were filled with children’s shows like Dinobonoids and the Weenie Rangers. The violent stuff would only be shown in the middle of the night.
Suddenly, their holoscreen, along with every other holoscreen was filled with the image of the captain of the ship, the officer in charge of everything in this interstellar rust bucket. Captain Nathaniel Armstrong. The man was a giant, standing at nearly 7 feet. He was massive and even though he was graying, his features were so intimidating that he looked like he could man handle an entire platoon of marines.
“Well, great, I asked for some toons and we have something which could make grown men cry,” John said, half expecting the captain’s two dimensional image to scream at him so hard that his face would fly off or transform into a three dimensional image and smash him with those ham sized fists. Thankfully, the captain did neither, in fact, the captain couldn’t see him.
The captain looked down at everyone and commanded with a booming voice echoing throughout the ship: “All officers are to join their respective conference rooms for a general briefing of the situation.” With that, the image disappeared and was replaced with the ZNC channel.
“Well, that sucks.” Eric muttered as John walked away from them and made his way to the conference room.
“See you later, guys.” John said as he exited the room.
The marines’ conference room was a spacious room, not nearly as large as the recreation room but large enough. It was dominated by three long metal tables, arranged in a way that they formed an inverted ‘U’. There was one table on the left, one on the right and one on the middle. Behind the middle table was a massive holoscreen, which an unaware observer might mistake for a window as it was currently tuned into one of the ship’s many exterior cameras, giving a look at hyperspace and the innumerable stars flashing by the faster-than-light ship. The leaders of the various marine squads were seated on the left and right tables, all of them were lieutenants, and the high-ranking officers were in the center table. John entered the room and quickly sat on the nearest empty chair. Most of the seats had been filled; there were only a handful of empty seats. On the tables were papers and platters containing glasses filled with water. John grabbed one and took a drink. The briefing would commence only when everyone had arrived, so many of the people present were engaging in conversations.
“So, Simon, where’s Ivan?” John asked the nearest lieutenant. It was Simon Nickerson, squad leader of Nickerson squad. Nickerson and Baylor were the squads which demolished the missile battery at Daron, ensuring safe passage of the dropships. “Ivan’s always early; he’s always in briefings before me. Where’s the guy?”
Simon stared at the table, silent.
“Oh…I’m…sorry,” John said. Ivan was a funny Russian who was from Venus. He was a good man and he would be missed.
A handful of lieutenants arrived in the room and they quickly seated themselves. All but one of the seats was filled. The meeting commenced. The man sitting at the middle of the center table was Colonel Fritz Fowler. He had a shaved head and was nearly as tall as Captain Armstrong, though not as bulky as the captain he was almost every bit as imposing and was the tallest man in the room. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he began. It was his duty to explain the situation to his marines and to give them a general idea of what was going on. “I assume that most of you have seen the bombings at Zigon-5.”
Most of the lieutenants, including John, nodded their heads.
”And I’m sure that most of you believed that it was the work of Christian extremists since they’ve been attacking everything nowadays and since Gazmo’s famous for products ranging from OrGazmo to cloned eyeballs,” Again, heads nodded, “Well, it isn’t. Various sections of the Central Earth Intelligence Department (CEID) have confirmed through multiple sources that this is the doing of the Gamma-Sigma and other militant groups, all of which are being ordered around by the United Federation of Profit-seeking Planets, the UFPP.”
So that’s why there were UFPP liaisons in Daron, John thought as the other lieutenants absorbed what was said and arrived at the same conclusion.
Fowler saw their reaction and decided to press on. “Yes. That’s why there were UFPP liaisons in Daron. Daron is a Sovereign planet but most of the land was being used by MedTech in its studies and research of the local flora and fauna. MedTech is a very large corporation; it has many enemies in the UFPP. And remember last year’s terrorist bombings on Schrom Corp? That was also the work of terrorists being contracted by the UFPP. These companies have ties with the US government, especially Schrom which sells things from gunships to hyperdrive engines to the USE. The USE doesn’t like this, it doesn’t like having its friends harassed by some foreign power, especially if its friends’ stocks are going down. And the attack on Daron, that’s all the reason the USE needs to launch an attack on the UFPP.”
Someone raised a hand. Fritz nodded at the lieutenant’s hand.
“But sir, if we launched a raid, won’t we piss off the ISU?”
“No, the Interstellar Union won’t mind too much because we are on the moral high ground. We can justify our actions. And an all out war against the UFPP isn’t likely; intelligence states that the terrorists and militants are being contracted by a small number of companies. So once we reveal their actions, it’ll cause an outrage in the IPL and UFPP, an outrage directed against the companies who are using the terrorists.”
The Sovereignty gets revenge and turns the tables on the UFPP as the stock market will again favor our companies and the UFPP companies’ stocks decline, John noted.
“We will be launching a raid against the UFPP in the day after tomorrow. We’re going into an uncharted system, we’re going to chart the system and bomb it,” cheers followed the announcement. The holoscreen behind Fowler shifted from viewing the conditions outside the ship into a map of the system that Fowler talking about. “The system is uncharted; it does not have a name and is deep inside a nebula, which is why it was never discovered. Most planets inside nebulas can’t support life because nebulas are filled with gas and are the birth place of stars, but this star system is inside a pocket of vacuum. It is being used as a base of operations, the UFPP maintains a military presence there and according to our sources, there is a small Gamma-Sigma presence as well.”
He pressed a button and the system map transformed into a map of the planet. The map indicated that the planet was mostly tundra. “There is only one habitable planet where the UFPP has constructed a city, a large portion of which is industrial. UFPP ground forces and civilians inhabit the city. We’ll drop from hyperspace in the fringes of the nebula; use a star for cover and rendezvous with several other USE ships. Then we’ll hyperspace into the rim of the solar system and engage the UFPP’s flotilla. I’m not Captain Armstrong, so I do not know what we’ll do.
“But I do know that when we finish off the fleet, we will go down that planet and engage the UFPP’s ground forces in a full invasion. Everything from gunships to artillery will be present and the most important aspect of this will be you, gentlemen. You will go into the cities and be in the line of fire, you will be shot at with lasers, K-bolts, bullets, rockets and it will be you who will shed blood and it will be you who will take over that city and whoop ass. There will be a briefing tomorrow at 0800 hours, before all hell breaks loose. In that briefing, you will receive instructions on what your squads are to do. Now before I dismiss you, men, do you have any last questions?”
There were none.
“Good. Then you are dismissed.”
John left the room and went to his squad’s room, where his men were waiting for him. The room was a bit crammed, with numerous double deck beds and chests for private possessions and a single holoscreen. The men were seated on the bunks.
“So chief, what’s up?” asked Jerry.
“We’re going to war. Again.” John replied.
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“Well, doesn’t that take the biscuit.”
Gah!
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