The Spartan Chronicles

[Rynn]

Tape 17/14.spa.hiv.2225 © MorganLink 3DVision

Good evening.

"I'm Paula Forbes bringing you this evening's headline news.

"Our top story is the resumption of hostilities between troops of The Spartan Federation and The Hive. Spartan reconnoitering forces encountered Hive units which opened fire, destroying some Spartan vehicles and causing their troops to take cover. An air strike was called in which resulted in the total destruction of two Hive missile units that were involved in the altercation.

"We are going live to our correspondent in Fort Superiority, SF, Justin Holmes, who has just finished speaking with one of the Spartan needlejet commanders.

"Justin, what was the nature of the threat the Spartans were facing?

"Well, Paula, as you can imagine the Commander was pretty tight lipped. Apparently one of their reconnaissance teams came under fire from Hive batteries and had to take cover. The Air Force was called in and the threat was neutralized. The Spartan units are, however, without transportation as their rovers were destroyed, and currently the Air Force is flying patrols to allow the evacuation team to get the troops out of their location.

"Justin, did he say if there were any other Hive units in the vicinity?

"No, Paula, he didn't say. He did say that all leave had been cancelled and that all Spartan forces were increasing their readiness.

"So was this skirmish localized, or did the pilot offer any insights into how widespread it might be?

"No, Paula, as I said he was pretty tight lipped. I had the impression that he could have bitten off his tongue after he revealed their heightened state of readiness.

"Thank you, Justin.

"As The Hive is a loyal ally of the Morgan Corporation, we will be bringing you a report from our correspondent in Workers Nest on our late night news. Let us hope that this skirmish does not represent the reopening of hostilites on a grander scale that might drag us into conflict.

Now for our other news………………………….

[Googlie]

Wing Commander Scott "Googlie" Allardyce sat behind his desk at Air Force HQ in Sparta Command, and reflected with pleasure that his lads - and lassies - had done the job again. Operation Buzzard a success. But he would need to relieve young Lisa Mayberry - with her older needlejet she couldn't hang around for very long.

Who was on standby?

He reached over to the console and flicked it on, selecting 'Crews'

The Spartan Air Force was small, but efficient. As newer aircraft appeared on bases from the production lines, older ones were recycled for other military operations. The original prototypes were given over to the expeditionary forces for their inevitable modifications to support special operations, and the older fission powered needlejets were being modified as ground support craft for the Rolling Thunder Brigade as newer fusion powered units became available.

Only three fission jets remained in service with SAF, the one allocated to Lisa, one flown by Julia Santiago - a niece of the CinC - and one that was used for training. All five penetrators were now fusion powered, as were the remaining six tactical interceptors.

He scanned the list of crew, looking at the Interceptor crews, as one of them would be the most logical to spell Lisa. His assets were somewhat dispersed, as each of the larger bases warranted an interceptor on alert, and the governors of the smaller bases were screaming for coverage as well. ('Let them build them, then,' Googlie had snorted, when their requests had filtered through to his desk.)

Squadron Leader Ben 'Slats' Miller, although the ranking Interceptor commander, was too far away, at War Outpost to be of much use. He had the most experience of any of the pilots, and had teamed with Wilma Statham for almost all his flights. Googlie considered them his Elite crew, and they were granted the callsign Indigo One, with the I - series denoting the new Interceptor designation. But, too far away.

Indigo Two was his own brainwave, a team of two lassies, as unlike each other as chalk and cheese. Jill Hughes, a Captain, was the Flying Officer, and she was flamboyant, extrovert, charismatic, and exuded sexuality. Sandra Keen, her Ops Officer, was the reverse. Shy, withdrawn, introvert, somewhat mousy, but absolutely brilliant in all three roles that were demanded of an Ops Officer - navigator, engineer and weapons officer. Googlie saw them as a commando team, long on experience and very inventive when tackling solo assignments. But they were stood down at present while their Gattling Lasers were being replaced by the new Chaos weaponry being fitted to their Interceptor.

Indigo Three and Four were again too far away to be of use. Three was crewed by Rudi Gertz, the Flying Officer and Luigi Cerintola as his Ops officer, while Four had Pedro Martinez flying and Paul Sturgeon as Ops Officer.

That left only two. There was no Indigo Five, as that slot was taken by Thrasher Five, one of the older fission needlejets, and as was the custom had been given to one of the recruits from the Academy as her first command. This was Julia Santiago craft, and her Ops Officer was an older vet, Alan Watt. Julia was currently at Fort Superiority as she and Lisa had flown down from Sparta Command after their induction. She was a possibility, although Googlie saw from the screen that Alan, her Ops Officer, had been given two days off to attend to some family business as this was his home base.

Indigo Six was the other possibility. It was commanded by Dexter Patterson, the third of this years crop of rookies. And while his scores had not been as high as Lisa's or Julia's, Googlie had decided to give Dexter the new fusion Interceptor as his command rather than either of the others. Dexter had exhibited an unusual gift, as had Tricia van Impe, his Ops Officer, a veteran who had flow with Googlie himself. These two rarely communicated via commlink in their needlejet - they seemed to have an empathy bond that each knew instinctively what the other was thinking. Such talent would be wasted on a soon to be obsolete machine, so he had allocated one of the new Interceptors that came off the production line. His old Thrasher still sat on the Apron at Sparta Command's aerospace center, not yet transferred over to another unit of the military.

With their increased range, Dexter was a viable option. But Googlie had a mind to send him to the southern coast to Admiralty Base to see if there was anything behind these sightings of naval activity that had been reported from the expeditionary force's Captain Patel.

That left only Julia, but with no Ops Officer. 'Well,' thought Googlie, 'it's time I got a few more hours logged. I'll crew for her. Give me something to talk to Corazon about at the next officers reception'.

He grabbed his flying gear and commlinked Julia.


[This message has been edited by Googlie (edited July 12, 1999).]

[Rynn]

MY2225
Confidential Memorandum

To: Corazon Santiago, CinC, Spartan Federation
From: Ann Rynn, Empath Squad Commander

Subject: Empath Attack Strategies


Interrogation of Believer fanatics has shown that they strongly believe that they have superior morale when attacking based on their fundamentalist belief system.

They attribute this to two initiatives:

1) During the attack they reinforce this belief system with aggressive militaristic music (of which the ancient old-earth crusades, and more recent “Onward Christian Soldiers” are poor examples).

2) They undergo sleep conditioning with implanted dream sequences that generate feelings of invincibility and heroic strength and endurance (they talk about some research their scientists want to do into a project code named “The Dream Twister”)

I request the allocation of research funding to this line of research and appointment of one or two of our up and coming scientists to develop our version of “The Dream Twister”


Filed # 771-ES-2225

[korn469]

The Arzamas Forest
7.11.2225
04:15 hours Spartan Military Time (SMT)

Captain Jake Norris impatiently gazed out into the misty, predawn depths of the forest. There were no signs of the enemy, but he knew they were out there, he knew their objective, and he had orders to stop them. Finally, he looked away; the sensor array would detect them long before he could see them. If there was one thing he hated about being a soldier it was times like this. Times when the only thing you could do was hurry up and wait. For the hundredth time, he went through the mental checklist and for the hundredth time, everything checked out. He climbed down from his perch and started looking over his men. His gaze slowly traveled over his Company, and they looked just as eager to fight as he was. Corporal Moss had a smile on his face and looked like he was ready to leave the security of the bunker and go hunt for them. Obviously, he hadn’t ever seen combat before. Sargent Rucker on the other hand was an old veteran and he wouldn’t leave the bunker unless ordered to and even then only grudgingly.

“How ya feeling today boys? Do you feel mean?”
“HUWAH!” Echoed through the bunker.
“Who’s the best?”
“We are, Sir!” The chant was loud and in perfect unison.
“Who’s the best?”
“We are, Sir!” Even louder.
“Who’s the best?”
“We are, Sir! Alpha! Alpha! Alpha! HUWAHHHHH!” They had even started banging the butts of their rifles on the floor. There wasn’t any need to check things again; all he needed was the enemy.

Deep inside Captain Norris knew that part of the reason he was so ready to fight was to wipe the smirk off Colonel Lockhart’s face. At the briefing, Brevet General Lockhart boasted that his newly formed 469th could take the Spartan Field Training Urban Assault Center (SFTUAC) without any support at all. In last year’s war games, it had taken three representative armored divisions with heavy support to break into SFTUAC. One measly division wasn’t going to crack these defenses. The 469th would have to get through two divisions firmly entrenched in bunkers. Then General Tucker had an armored division stationed at the SFTUAC that could provide mobile support if needed. Alpha Company was the best company in the Second Infantry Division, and Captain Norris was going to prove that General Tucker made a wise choice when he picked them as a representative unit for the 2nd Infantry. They were going to prove they were better than the braggarts in the 469th. The pride he had in his unit was on the line and he would make sure that egomaniac Lockhart would look like a fool.

04:40 hours SMT

Alpha Proxima was just beginning to rise above the horizon outside of SFTUAC. A low rumble echoed across the flat arid expanses. The rumble grew louder and then drop pods slowed the rapid decent of the 469th. It looked like an early morning meteor shower, and it was the dawn of a new era of warfare. In a matter of minutes, troops covered the ground and they were rapidly organizing. Before the defenders in the SFTUAC even realized they were under attack, the streets were teaming with troops from the 469th. General Tucker’s men were completely caught off guard, very few at all made it to their rovers. The defenders never had a chance, and in a rare occurrence (especially considering it was a training exercise), many dazed Spartan troops surrendered. With such light resistance, Lieutenant Erik “Da Lizard” DeLyle led his platoon in a near sprint to the command Villa, where General Tucker had his headquarters set up. A few of his men got hit by the training rifles and they immediately dropped as all the joints in their combat simulator suits froze up. However they didn’t fire back and just kept on sprinting to the command villa.


SFTUAC Command Post
05:05 hours SMT

General Tucker like usual was having his after breakfast tea. He was looking forward to how the day would unfold. Brevet General Lockhart had side that by the end of the day, he would be in control of SFTUAC. This was obviously quite nonsense, but Lockhart had always managed to produce results in the past. There was still no report of contact with the 469th, and the Second Infantry Division would give them hell. The training area was a small corridor, with a string of bunkers positioned right in the center. If General Lockhart and his men tried to sneak through the dense forest, the fortifications had a sophisticated sensor array that would surely detect them. There was no way they could bypass the bunkers, and blasting through them would be a time consuming and deadly operation. Such foolishness boasting would probably damage his career. Suddenly shots pierced the quite morning and the sound of a small skirmish interrupted the General’s tea.

“Major what the hell is going on here?” Furious and confused, Tucker felt a deepening sense of dread. This was impossible. Before the Major could even respond the door-busted open and troops from the 469th rushed in.

“How did you get in here?!” The general didn’t even make a move to defend himself, but Major Willis jumped and hit the alarm. Suddenly a klaxon deafened the entire base with its wail. Nearly every single soldier in the room opened fire and dropped him.

“General Tucker, by order of General Lockhart, I demand your forces to surrender.” Commanded Lieutenant DeLyle. Two soldiers moved to the dumbfounded general and put him in restraints. Moments later the klaxon stopped, and a horn sounded the end of the exercise. A few proud soldiers taken down the Spartan Field Training Urban Assault Area Defense Force HQ sign outside of the villa and put up their own sign that read.


UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT:
Courtesy of the 469th Airborne Division

Colonel Thomilson, the XO of the 469th saw the sign and smiled to himself. Training was over. They were ready. Each and every single one of them were ready, but as Thomilson reflected, not every single attack would be this successful. Most of them wouldn’t make it back from the front alive, and Thomilson smiled to himself. Disipline, Sacrifice, Victory. That was the spirit of the Spartan soldier.

05:20 SMT

Back in the plasmacrete walls of the bunker the Objective Alert alarm sounded. It pronounced that SFTUAC itself was under attack.

Captain Norris looked at the screen wondering what could be happening.
“Huh? Corporal get me a fix on the location of that signal.” Captain Norris wondered if the commlink frequency was compromised. Then suddenly the alarm stopped, obviously it was a malfunction, but the adrenaline rush had already started kicking in. As Captain Norris turned away from the commlink, another loud noise pierced the early morning calm. This noise pronounced defeat for Captain Norris and the rest of Alpha Company.
[This message has been edited by korn469 (edited October 23, 1999).]

[Rynn]

Miles Diary: MY2225

This looks like it will be the begiining of a new chapter in my life, so I will record my impressions (and maybe someday write a book - who knows?)

**************************************

I watched with morbid fascination as the trooper held his forearm over the flame of the candle.

He was humming softly to himself, continuously, in a drone monotone, just below middle C. His eyes had a glazed look, and the beginnings of a tear welled up in each.

The smell of burning flesh pervaded the room. This was the third exhibit to us rookies. Oh, we knew that the flesh would be regenerated and the skin would heal, but at this point in time the pain must be incredible.

The scorched flesh on the arm continued to singe, revealing some bone beginning to appear.

The two minutes passed.

Rynn blew a piercing whistle, and the trooper jerked his arm away from the flame. "Holy Chiron", he exclaimed, gazing in unbelief at his charred forearm. "That hurts."

"Medic", said Rynn.

The bored orderly who was standing by sprayed antiseptic over the burnt flesh from a canister, then slapped a bio medpack on the arm. He finished by spraying from another canister, which congealed and hardened to form a thin silksteel cast over the arm. The hand would still be operational during regeneration - Rynn was careful not to let tendons get severed. Singed, maybe, but not decommissioned.

"Show's over", she said. "Let's move it."

I hustled out with the other four recruits wondering just what I had gotten myself into.

************************************

My name is Miles Cavenagh, and I am 19 Chiron years old - about 21 of the old Earth years. I have just joined the newly formed Spartan Psi Corps, headed up by Lieutenant Ann Rynn. Our mission is to garrison our bases with elite troops who will be largely immune to the attacks of the local mindworms, and we are experimenting with various ways of keeping our sanity during the mindworm attacks.

Spartan scientists have deduced, from their work into the secrets of the human brain, that certain types of induced hypnosis could provide a credible defense against psi attacks, and we are testing these theories.

I was selected for the Psi Corps, or Empath squad as it is loosely referred to, because I survived a mindworm attack as a boy outside my home base, going so far as to severly cripple the mindworm which was captured by a special units operative shortly afterwards. The scientists thought me some sort of prodigy, and interrogated me for hours on what I did, thought, felt said, during the encounter.

If truth be known, I don't remember much of it.

It was about two years ago, and I had finished a shift in the forest we were cultivating just a couple of clicks to the north of Assassin's Redoubt, my home base. The area I was working abutted an untamed field of fungus, but was beautiful, on a slight incline with a view over the ocean.

I was daydreaming, thinking about Lisa, a girl I'd met at the intercollege games that summer. She was from Janissary Rock, and was utterly beautiful. She wanted to be a pilot in the emerging airforce, and I was envious of her combination of beauty, brains and athletic prowess. (Her dream did come true.)

Anyway, I was lying propped up against a trunk, daydreaming of what it would be like to have Lisa in my arms, when the mindworm struck.

I had heard the rustling among the fungus, but hadn't paid much attention. It coiled, and sprang for my head. I could sense its power, trying to induce me to panic, but in my lazy dreamy state, with my mind filled with images of Lisa, I swatted at it to knock it off, tearing a few of its tentacles from my skin. It flopped to the ground, and seemed to be marshalling its energy for another mind attack or physical attack.

All the workers who were at the forest edge had been supplied with small shredder pistols for this very event, so I drew mine, and dreamily flamed off several of the larger tendrils, and shortened considerably most of the others. It shriveled into a tight ball, and rolled itself into the fungus.

I had snapped out of my reverie by this time, so I ran into the base, and returned with one of the garrison troopers. He carried with him a burlap sack, and bundled the mindworm into it to return to the scientists at the base.

So I became a sort of local celebrity, and got sent to Sparta Command for questioning by the research scientists. (And also met up again with Lisa who had just commenced her pilot's training, but that's another story.)

Convinced that it was my daydreaming that had presented me with some defense, the scientists began their line of research into hypnotic trances, and formed the Psi Corps to see if this line of reasoning would bear fruit.

It seemed to work reasonably well. Ann Rynn, a lieutenant in the 47th was transferred to command this embryonic unit, and naturally I was thought to be a worthwhile recruit.

Which is how I came to be watching the gruesome exhibition of how hypnotic trance can block out physical pain. But is it effective against psi attacks?

That's what I was going to be a guinea pig for.

Miles Cavenagh


[This message has been edited by Rynn (edited July 10, 1999).]

[Googlie]

"Scramble, Scramble. Pinwheel Four and Thrasher Seven, I say again, Scramble. Will brief you when airborne. Head due South 14 clicks. Go, Go, Go. Pinwheel Four and Thrasher Seven. Go."

Flight Lieutenant Alex "Dusty" Rhodes snapped to attention as the intercom blared over the messhall at the Fort Superiority airbase. He was playing cards with his buddies, and had just been dealt a pair of Kings and a pair of tens. Blast. This would have to happen when he had an almost certain winning hand. He was Pinwheel Four's pilot, and crew commander. As he rose and grabbed his jacket and helmet, he saw Katy Springer, his Munitions Officer running from the canteen area, with her gear in hand. "Let's go, D", she yelled at him. "Where's Morris?"

"Dunno", Dusty replied hurrying to keep up with Katy. Morris was their Ops 0fficer, responsible for navigation and radar ops.

As they exited the mess building, they saw Pete Morris jogging over to their penetrator needlejet, where the mechanic had already fired up the auxiliary engines to get the systems on stream. They caught up with him.

*******************************************

Over in the rec commons Lisa cursed under her breath. She had just worked out what was a promising combination to capture Octavio's third upper remaining bishop and top level single knight as well as putting incredible pressure on the level 5 queen when the scramble alert intruded.

"Let's get going", she said to her opponent, Octavio Rodriguez, who was her Ops officer in the tactical needlejet she commanded. She deactivated the 3Dholo chess game they were playing. No point in saving that. She'd never remember the move when she returned.

"Sir, yes Sir", the vet replied. They were a good team, Lisa and Octavio. Lisa Mayberry, newly promoted to Flying Officer, this her first command, having come through the flight school with the highest marks ever recorded for Interceptor trainees. And Octavio, who had been a rookie Ops officer in the very first aerial engagement fought by the Spartans when they sent their prototype needlejet into action. Octavio was old enough to be her father, and so took a great delight in playing the 'loyal subordinate' role.

They grabbed their gear from the pegs by the rec room door, and just shook their heads to the enquiring looks they got from the other denizens of the commons. "Don't know anymore than you", she said " you heard the same message we did."

'Sparky' Thompson, their mechanic, had the canopy open and the starter unit connected. It was one of the older tacticals, with missile weaponry. The newer machines with their chaos armaments were just coming on stream, but the vets were getting these.

Lisa looked across the dispersal ground to see if she could pick up Pinwheel Four - she assumed she'd be flying cover for the Penetrator. She picked it out at the end of the line, and saw that their crew was just boarding. A faint tinge of jealousy crept over her as she saw that Pinwheel Four was itself one of the newer needlejets, with fusion powered engines. Her relic was still fission powered, as the need to upgrade and replace had not been severe.

"Maybe this scare, whatever it is, will get us upgraded to fusion power", said Octavio, as if reading her mind. He was good at that, Lisa thought. Often he anticipated her command or manoeuver before she verbalized it. 'Probably comes with being a vet', she thought, 'He's probably seen nothing new for a few years.'

********************************************

The two planes fired up their engines and taxied to the runway, wheeling from the taxi strip and accelerating into the take-off run in one co-ordinated fluid motion.

"Come in Thrasher" squawked her headset as Lisa strained to match the rising speed of the larger penetrator.

"Acknowledged, Pinwheel, Thrasher here", she replied.

"Let's see what they have for us", Dusty said.

Command came on line.

Fourteen clicks south, units under fire. Reconnaissance patrol strayed too close to a Hive location and they opened fire on us. Lost a rover, and have some assets trapped there. See what you can do to take out the threat or lay down some fire for them to effect a getaway. Codename is 'Buzzard'. Take care, missiles reported. Use counters as needed. Out"

"Got that, Thrasher?" asked Dusty.

"Roger that", said Lisa.

"Take up position one click above and 300 meters behind at 5 o'clock", said Dusty. Although the Chiron clock bore no resemblance to that of old earth, Dusty chuckled to think how nomenclature in the military kept to the old Terran traditions.

Lisa engaged the afterburners for a spell as the tactical needlejet rose above the penetrator, and dropped slightly astern. She was aware from the readouts that Octavio had armed the primary missiles and readied the weapons array for instant deployment. She also knew that he was commlinking with Pete Morris directly on how to deal with any threat that might materialize.

*******************************************

Morris scanned his consoles, looking for information that could help them. He activated the deep tracking radar, and watched its simulated sweep across her screen. He didn't expect any Hive aircraft activity this far from any of their bases, but one never knew.

"Reaching target location." Dusty said. "Going on a flypast for a looksee. Stay high," he told Lisa.

"Muzzle flashes, one o'clock," said Pete. "Not ours"

Dusty swiveled his head, and picked them out.

"I see two units. How close to our guys." He asked. "Can you tell. Can you raise them?"

"Don't know", said Pete. "I've been trying from about four clicks back. We should be in range now. Hive must be using comm jammers on our guys".

"Broadcast to ours, secure channel, that we're going in. If they pick us up, they'll take cover. If not, then they'll hear or see us anyway", said Dusty.

Just then Lisa chimed in. "Dusty, let me do a fast low flyby that'll alert our guys that we're here. You come in fast on my tail maybe 30 seconds later and take out their arty. 30 seconds will be enough time for our guys to duck."

"Roger that, Go" said Dusty. 'This kid has balls', he thought. First mission and wants to tempt missiles, small arms fire, AAA and goodness knows what.'

He felt the penetrator flutter as the fringe of the shockwave caressed it, and gaped slack-jawed as the little tactical needlejet went through the sound barrier on its plunge to the engagement area.

"Sweet Chiron" he exclaimed, "these old buckets aren't meant for FTS. She'll get herself killed. But we need to follow."

He banked and dove, picking up speed, as Katy readied the munitions pods.

******************************************

Lisa wrestled with the stick, trying to maintain control as she flattened out of the dive about 100 meters above the ground. Octavio was grim beside her. He knew the service record of this needlejet, and didn't fancy prolonged faster than sound flight.

They roared over the positions of the Spartan units, and came to the Hive battery. They noted grimly that there were two units who seemed to be pinning "Gung Ho's" men down.

Lisa was pulling the nose up to lose speed, and as the speed abated, suddenly stood the needlejet on its tail, bleeding momentum. Ahead, the arc of a missile's path could clearly be seen probing the sky where the Flasher would have been had it continued on it earlier path.

"Paint 'em" she said, but again was amazed at how Octavio anticipated her. The laser beams from two needlejet ancillary electronics weapons pods shot out, wavering slightly as Octavio fought the shudder and compensated for the sudden loss of speed.

"Locked on", he shouted, "let's go".

Lisa engaged the afterburners as the needlejet rose vertically, fighting gravity, maintaining the laser locks on the targets.

Katy huddled over her console as Dusty brought the Penetrator in a straight line.

"Steady", she said, then triumphantly "Target acquired two of them". She did a hasty recalculation, fingers flying over the keyboard, then sank back triumphantly.

"Gone", she said simply.

The twin Stinger missiles leapt from the pods, their target acquisition system unerringly locking on to the laser paint on each of the batteries superstructures.

Twin detonations rocked the ground as the missiles took out the artillery batteries.

Dusty commlinked the command center. "Buzzard successful. Threat removed," he said. "Orders?"

"Pinwheel Four return to base. Flasher Seven, CAP until the evac unit gets in to get Wells and his men out, then return. Deal with any threat as appropriate."

"Roger that", both Dusty and Lisa said in unison.

Dusty laid the wing over to return to base.

Lisa pulled out of her climb at ten thousand meters, and began a lazy figure of eight over the engagement area while she waited for the choppers to arrive and evacuate the stranded troops.



[This message has been edited by Googlie (edited August 14, 1999).]

[Kinjiru]

The Spartan Chronicles

*Chhthd chhthd* came the horrid chittering sound of a mindworm boil on the move. Or at least that was what the sound was meant to represent. To petty officer Kardon however, it meant to proceed with extreme caution. The idea of using the native sounds of Chiron as a relatively secure field communications protocol had been his afterall. His objectives was only a few hundred yards away, the glittering reflection of the bunker was clearly visible, now he just had to get there unmolested.

Kardon scanned the immediate area and noted no obvious threats so he proceeded to hug the outcropping and slink along to his next waypoint. This close to the principal objective his impact rifle would be useless, simply serving to bring down more heat than to get him out of a tight spot, so he strapped it to his back and pulled out his synthiron combat knife. There was a lone guardpost immediately to his left and if he could make it past without being detected, the remaining distance could be covered quickly.

‘Here goes nothing,’ thought Kardon as he stole up on the post. There appeared to be no one home, just a couple of proximity sensors and probably a pressure pad. ‘No problem there, I’ll just send an EM pulse form my com pact and zip on by,’ he thought to himself. He unhooked the pack and reversed the power couplings with the groundings to that the receiving pack would broadcast the electromagnetic radiation, rather that gather it. Kardon barely had time to recognize the sound of a rifle whistling toward his head before he took an extended, and forced, nap on the ground. “Heh, heh,” laughed the training sergeant, “guess he wasn’t quite ready for the recon course afterall!”

*****************************************

Captain Haradim Mizuno knew that their current mission assignment was important, he just could not bring himself to look forward to it. The men under his nominal command were all excellent troops, one had to be to qualify for the Expeditionary Forces, not to mention to stay alive in the field, and he did not want to lose them. Reports from the recon pilots indicated that the Hive had managed to break through the Great Fungal Wall to the north of Assassin’s Redoubt. If that were true then they would likely try to expand south quickly and gain a foothold on the Emerald Isle as this rather isolated and small continent had been named. His men had to reconiter the area and determine if the massive spread of fungus had indeed been breached and if so to survey any Hive presence. Facing the prospect of a laborious search of the fungal barrier was daunting enough but with the added prospect of some advance troops of ‘The Crackpot Chairman’ around, well it was enough to make a man ill! Captain Mizuno knew his duty however. If the other three commanders of the XForce could explore and map the other compass points away from Sparta Command, then he would certainly not fail to do the same in the North.

******************************************

*Whhrrrrr, whrrrrrrrr, whrrrrrrrr* “I’m sorry sir, but we are just plain stuck. This sand doesn’t allow our Recon Rover to get good traction and the rocks just jamb in the maneuvering joints. I’m afraid we’re going to have to push.... again.”

“Very well. Let’s get on with it,” replied Captain ‘Paco’ Elyias. ‘When will we leave these blasted Dunes!’ he cursed to himself. His command had left Janissary Rock over three weeks ago and since they entered the Dunes two weeks ago they had only covered 40 clicks. Santiago herself had planned this expedition and he had leapt at the chance to impress her. Though the XForce was a team, each commander wanted to outdo the other three, naturally enough, and this was a superb chance to do just that. After the debacle with Commissioner Lal’s attaché, he certainly needed to shine!

*****************************************

“Come to heading 2-4-2, all ahead flank,” said Captain Shetal Patel. “Heading 2-4-2, Aye Captain,” repeated the helmsman. “Nothing on the scanner, Ma’am,” stated the radar operator. “XO, you have the conn, I’ll be in my quarters,” spoke the Captain.
88888888888888888888888
“Captain’s Log, new entry,” spoke Captain Patel, as the databank began to record her speech. “Today we have reached the Chiron equivalent of the equator, or at least a point at which the geomagnetic stresses are equalized. We are approximately 400 kilometers from the southernmost Spartan holding, Admiralty Base”

“Over the past month we have extended the known world by several thousand nautical square miles. The prototype hydrofoil has exceeded all performance expectations. We have uncovered several small islands, one of which has an extremely large, extremely active volcano, dubbed ‘Mount Planet’ by First Mate Hidalgo. Additionally we found one medium sized continent with a thick jungle and highly active native lifeforms. There appeared to be signs of human habitation, but we found no living inhabitants. My current working theory is that the area was overrun by mindworms, given no obvious sign of military attack.”

“Unfortunately, it appears that at least some of the other human groups on Planet have developed a sea-going capability. One week ago we picked up a transient contact at the edge of our radar. We were unable to obtain a lock however. In the future, our operations crew may be able to uniquely identify another vessel if we can acquire a sonic signature of the ship. As such this has become a secondary objective of this voyage. Captain Shetal Patel, Log Entry End.”

**************************************

“Private,” yelled Captain Wells, “find a viable transmission spot and get this message back to Sparta Command. “We are under heavy artillery attack 14 clicks south-southwest of Fort Superiority. The Hive has unveiled some new type of long-range tactical missile. Position untenable, pulling back due south to lead the enemy away from Fort Superiority. Requesting immediate air cover.”

As the private left to send the message ‘Gung-Ho’ Wells evaluated his options. They were not that many. He had a single functioning Recon Rover, two squads of impact troops – only half of which were unharmed and a couple of elite marines. Fortunately his marines carried the Mark V Gatling Cannons. Unfortunately they were a bit short on ammunition.

His forces had been on a routine patrol when they had found a new river and decided to follow it and perhaps scout a new base location. As they topped climbed out of the gulley, they had been broadsided by a massive explosion. At first the Captain thought the rover’s batteries exploded, just as his other rover had several weeks ago. Then he saw the exhaust of a rocket coming towards their location. He had given the scatter order to avoid any more casualties, but now his troops were isolated and sitting ducks.

He tapped his commlink twice in rapid succession to indicate fallback and then spoke, “to the twin hills south of here.” As he watched his men slowly begin to make their way to the regroup point indicated he noticed one of the Marines slog through the river bed to the north. He opened a private channel, “Son, you having a bit of directional trouble?”

“No sir! The safety of the unit is more important than one man Sir!,” came the reply.

“Soldier, I appreciate your effort but I gave an order.”

“Sir yes Sir!” and the Marine continued northward.

Wells thought to himself, ‘Dammit, that kid is gonna get his head blown off, but you gotta admire his spirit.’ The Hive missile battery tracked the lone soldier but couldn’t seem to get a lock on him, probably since the Marine was keeping low and half-swimming, half-running through the river. ‘He just might do it, and it will definitely buy the rest of us some time to take cover.’

Just then a second unit appeared over the rise to the north. The blood drained from his face as Wells saw the blue pennant of the Hive flying from it’s standard. ‘If some air support doesn’t get here soon, XForce may just have lost one-fourth of its team,’ he thought gravely.