TRANSMISSION 04: A Rock And A Hard Place

RECORDS/ANNALS – H.I.D.F. COUNCIL AND ADVISORY BOARD
Q12/18 – D:4-56-81

ELDER JACOBI: And so it is written, on this, the fifty-sixth day of the fourth lunar cycle of the one-hundred-and-eighty-first year of settlement, that the council combine on hallowed ground to decide the course of action in this most terrible war that we must fight for our freedom.

PREMIER LUÇA: Hear hear.

ALL PRESENT: Hear hear!

MERITOR DORTMUND (whispered): Hallowed ground? We’re on a pliffing space station?

VENATOR ALASTAIR (whispered): Oh, anything can be hallowed ground now. Trust me, we could have this meeting in a septic tank and it would still be considered law.

(both snicker)

PREMIER LUÇA: Now. I think it has become evident to all that the battle we fight on Stiersen Cvil and the Burond Lagoon is the battle for all of Haven, and, most likely, the battle for the entire Torosus System. Our home is one of only two consistently habitable worlds in the entire system –

MERITOR WURSTENHOLME: But it won’t be for much longer if the good Marshall over there keeps burning down our forests and killing every flish in our oceans! I was led to believe that this ‘naval assault’ business would be a relatively fast affair…

MARSHALL YORICK: Premier, if I may?

PREMIER LUÇA: Go ahead, Marshall.

MARSHALL YORICK: Thank you. Meritor, have you ever seen a naval assault?

MERITOR WURSTENHOLME: No…

MARSHALL YORICK: Well, you might want to come down to the surface someday soon and see one. It’s an unforgettable sight. Massive ships fire cannons as wide as you’re tall into enemy emplacements kilometers away. The shells they fire leave impact craters as wide as this room and can displace several metric tons of earth when they explode. Regrettably, this can result in the occasional tree burning down, and yes, enemy counter-fire does tend to kill a marine reptile or two, but trust me, the end result is why we’re doing it. Freedom, namely, and independence.

PREMIER LUÇA: But what of these… amphibious assaults? The hovercraft you sent in to assault the RAMI Directorate base across the lagoon?

MARSHALL YORICK: The result of this council’s call for immediate action to be taken against the Directorate as well as Murasaki. We took note of the Murasaks’ extensive use of hovercraft to defend their base, as well as harry our naval emplacements in the northwest lagoon, so we began the construction of four battalions of hover-assault vehicles. Unfortunately, they turned out to be too lightly armored for a frontal assault on what proved to be a very heavily guarded Directorate installation.

VENATOR ALASTAIR: And these hovercraft proved unsuccessful?

MARSHALL YORICK: Yes they did, Venator. They’re Murasaki designs, sold to all the rimworld militaries. I confess to relative inexperience regarding their deployment, but I doubt they will suffice.

MERITOR DORTMUND: And what would suffice?

MARSHALL YORICK: I’ve… considered several options.

MERITOR DORTMUND: Such as?

MARSHALL YORICK: Well… to be honest, there is only one real option.

VENATOR ALASTAIR (whispered): Here it comes. The ‘N-word.’

PREMIER LUÇA: What?

MARSHALL YORICK: Nuclear weapons.

MERITOR WURSTENHOLME: You cannot be serious.

MARSHALL YORICK: I’m afraid I am. A nuclear bombardment from one of our Retaliator-type silos would weaken the Directorate defenses substantially, and enable a lightning assault from our forward base in the Growzin Forest.

PREMIER LUÇA: Utilizing more hovercraft?

MARSHALL YORICK: …yes. Unfortunately, we currently lack the production capacity and deployment options necessary to launch a full-scale Kbot or vehicle attack, but as I said, the primary weakness of the hovercraft is their lack of heavy armor. If we focussed our nuclear bombardment on the Directorate base’s defensive installations – Sentinel-type lasers and Defender-type plasma cannons, all of which we could accurately place by use of aerial scouting – I am confident the hovercraft will make short and swift work of any defensive forces the Directorate will muster.

MERITOR DORTMUND: This is insane. We’re talking about nuking our own pliffing planet here. Isn’t there a massive fleet of warships prowling the lagoon for just this purpose?

MARSHALL YORICK: Well, technically, no; they were constructed so we could maintain sea power inside the lagoon, but your point is well seen. General Werner, General Appleton, Admiral Regenschirm and I discussed this option, and indeed Admiral Regenschirm has been conducting hit-and-run sorties against the Directorate base with his fleet ever since the Winnock radar station located it, but…

PREMIER LUÇA: But?

MARSHALL YORICK: …but the raids were met with unanticipated resistance. Three of our Enforcer-class cruisers were taken out by an unknown configuration of shore emplacements, and Admiral Regenschirm was forced back into the outer lagoon. He’s currently under orders to utilize only Ranger- and Millennium-class ships; anything with a smaller range than that puts ships and men in danger.

MERITOR WURSTENHOLME: And what is the problem with this?

MARSHALL YORICK: Reconnaissance, or lack thereof. We have yet to have a clear look at the Directorate’s emplacements, and at the moment, Regenschirm is basically just firing blind. Usually, we would use our submarines as spotters for the long-range bombardments, but the Directorate run too tight a ship for that. We have swept the entire coastline of the Güreckt highlands, but have found no defensive batteries or emplacements within scanning range of the subs.

VENATOR ALASTAIR: None?

MARSHALL YORICK: None. Their engineers have evidently been drilled to avoid placing their defensive guns directly on the shoreline. We are not dealing with amateurs, here, nor are we dealing with professionals, like Murasaki. We are dealing with people who do nothing but train and soldier all their life to defend ideals that are their only truth in life from the day they are born. To them, there is only strength in unity.

MERITOR DORTMUND: You sound as if you would like to be one of them.

MARSHALL YORICK: Perhaps, but if this were possible, we would not be fighting this war, Meritor.

PREMIER LUÇA: Explain.

MARSHALL YORICK: We may share certain ideals with the Directorate, independence from the CoRe, unregulated space travel and exploration, et cetera, but as long as we crave an individual voice, they will not permit us our liberty. So great is their love of unity and so strong is their passion for the destruction of the CoRe that they could not bear the idea of a military force in the galaxy that they do not directly control. Even if we would fight the same enemy for the same reasons and on the same battlefields, they would still fight us.

VENATOR ALASTAIR: That would put an alliance out of the question, then.

MARSHALL YORICK: In my opinion? Quite.

PREMIER LUÇA: Thank you for your candor, Marshall. If you wish, you can remain while we deliberate, although you must remain silent, as you know.

MARSHALL YORICK: Thank you, Premier, but if it’s all the same to you, I believe I shall requisition one of the station Valkyries to transport me back to Haven. I will leave a message drone with a bounceback receptor by Hatch 18, so that you can communicate your conclusions to me post-haste.

PREMIER LUÇA: Very well.

MERITOR DORTMUND: Quite the philosopher, isn’t he?

VENATOR ALASTAIR: Indeed. I feel like I’ve just had the Art Of War physically hurled at me by a strikeball player.

PREMIER LUÇA: Nevertheless, we must regard his knowledge of the tactical situation on Haven as scripture. We will consider the political ramifications of our victory when we have achieved it.

MERITOR WURSTENHOLME: Scripture, my foot! Nuclear weapons? Is he out of his mind?

PREMIER LUÇA: Calm yourself, Meritor. He will not take any drastic action without Council approval. Now, if both Meritors and the Venator are in agreement, we will ask the good Marshall to continue his naval bombardment until the Directorate retreat or surrender, and if they won’t, then maybe we shall authorize a single, tactical precision nuclear strike, to be followed by a conventional assault, possibly with fully amphibious units.

VENATOR ALASTAIR: It could take months to build up the kind of firepower needed for a ‘conventional’ assault.

PREMIER LUÇA: Then we will wait months, during which Admiral Regenschirm, if that really is his name, will pound the Directorate base with his ship, and hopefully force them to give up.

MERITOR WURSTENHOLME: And what about the Murasaks?

VENATOR ALASTAIR: Christ, Karl, have you seen the satellite photos? (sound of cigarette being lit) Their base is in ruins. We may have killed a lot of our own people doing it, but trust me, they’re pretty much toast.

MERITOR DORTMUND: My God. That it’s come to this.

VENATOR ALASTAIR: I guess that’ll teach us to think we can share a solar system with an interstellar corporation and militarized left-wing radicals.

PREMIER LUÇA: But we are in agreement? Nukes as a last resort, naval and amphibious assaults until then?

VENATOR ALASTAIR: Aye.

MERITOR WURSTENHOLME: Aye.

MERITOR DORTUMND: …aye.

PREMIER LUÇA: Very well. If you’ll close the session please, Elder.

ELDER JACOBI: And so it is written, on this, the fifty-sixth day of the fourth lunar cycle of the one-hundred-and-eighty-first year of settlement, that the council combined on hallowed ground, and made difficult decisions regarding the future of our people. Let their words be heard, reflected on and obeyed.

S13 – CLASSIFIED. RECORDING SEALED AND ARCHIVED.

TRANSMISSION 03: Another Spoke Off the Wheel

Transcript of recording labeled TOP SECRET by ***NAME_OMMITED***_designate 18/12-5370-1174h280 – all marked identities verified – unmarked identities unprocessed or unconfirmed (monikers attached for reference) - coding secure – TAMPERING WITH THIS DATA IS IN DIRECT VIOLATION OF APPLICABLE MILITARY CODES - PROCEED WITH CAUTION

YOUNG FEMALE: This is the secure room. Record says they built this in ’84 in case there was a general riot.

ADMIRAL ENGELUND: Seems they weren’t far off

ENSIGN MATHESON: Watch your head, sir. We’ll be starting the broad-spectrum masking in a few minutes, so try not to say anything too loud.

AML. ENGELUND: Right.

BERG:-coming off right in between the… well, I’ll be. Kevin Engelund, in the flesh.

AML. ENGELUND: James Berg. How are you, you fat bastard?

BERG: (LAUGHTER) I’m not fat, I’m just trying to look like your wife to make you more comfortable.

AML. ENGELUND: Still not married, Jimmy, still not married.

BERG: You always were the ugly brat at the back of the class.

CPN. VILNIUS: Captain Merrick Vilnius, at your service.

AML. ENGELUND: Admiral Ugly Brat, pleasure to meet you.

CPN. VILNIUS: (LAUGHTER)

YOUNG FEMALE: I hate to break this up, gentlemen, but shall we sit down?

BERG: Yeah, yeah. So, how you doing, Kevin?

AML. ENGELUND: How’d you do it, Jimmy? I mean really, how’d you take Io?

BERG: Like I said, the stupid bastards killed each other over it.

AML. ENGELUND: Really.


BERG: I mean it, I’m not fucking kidding! I landed in the big, uh, big whatchamacallit, the Em-See-See, next thing I know, I’ve got blips on my com-tac telling me there’s a fight going on, I set up a radar tower, then boom! Something goes up, nuclear by the vibes, and I’ve got a clear board! The whole fucking station, wiped out! Amazing!

ENSIGN MATHESON: Gentlemen, I hate to say this, but could you keep it down a little? We are not one hundred per cent secure here.

BERG: Right, right, sorry, sorry. Exciting times, huh Kevin?

AML. ENGELUND: Exciting times.

BERG: So… you gonna tell me about this plan of yours, or what?

AML. ENGELUND: Simple. We catch ARM with their pants down and take out the Makemake installation with a quick smash-and-grab, make it a free mining colony like you just did with Io, and then we sit and watch as Armand and Blake lose control of the Kuiper.

CPN. VILNIUS: You’re talking about breaking the armistice.

AML. ENGELUND: It’s a bit too late for considerations like that, don’t you think, Captain? Jim’s move on Io is aggression to them. Think about it: if they were willing to send a SpecOps team to take down the Murasaks, they have to have had ambitions for that place, and Tcheky Armand is not a man who likes his ambitions thwarted.

YOUNG FEMALE: But I-

AML. ENGELUND: Certainly not by us. By you.

ENSIGN MATHESON: Gentlemen, we are secure. Intra-spec SIE scanning in place, third-level masking protocols in the green. Countermeasures active… standing by for DCS confirm.

CPN. VILNIUS: But what about the trade agreements? The free mining rights for oceanic territories on Earth? We make an aggressive move out here in the System, Armand is going to crack down on us at home.

AML. ENGELUND: First, Armand doesn’t have the manpower to do that. His SpecOps team just botched a minor offensive in Northern Europe, turning it into a bloodbath for all sides, not to mention losing whatever command officer was in the Em-See-See that went up on Io. There’s not enough troops lying around for an amphib assault. Second, it was only a matter of time before those outposts came under fire, from Armand or someone else. This will just be a pre-emptive strike… trust me, conflict with the ARM… is inevitable at this point.

CPN. VILNIUS: There is also the small matter of the armed locals.

BERG: Independent miners who set up shop there weeks ago. Armed to the teeth with black market ‘bots and tanks… probably sold their mothers for a share in that rock.

AML. ENGELUND: Well, they’ll have to pick a side. When we come for the ARM base, we can present them with an ultimatum-

BERG: We?

AML. ENGELUND: I’ll be right in there with you, Jim. I’ve got a Mobile Command Centre revved up and ready to go in… one-eight minutes?

ENSIGN MATHESON: Confirm, one-eight, sir.

BERG: Now? We’re leaving now?

AML. ENGELUND: No time like the present. What do you say, Mr. Vilnius? Can we close a pincer on the outpost fast enough to overwhelm them.

CPN. VILNIUS: Well… that’s… difficult to say, sir. We have an approximate location for the base in the large-scale mines south of Midridge, but the depth of the trenches… well, it’s pretty much impossible to get anything other than broadband com-tac. The area’s just too big and the trenches too deep.

AML. ENGELUND: So we go in seat-of-the-pants. We’ll do imaging with acoustics and res-packages as we go along.

YOUNG FEMALE: We go in hot like that, there’s not going to be much room to maneuver when we find them.

AML. ENGELUND: So we go in in full force, Samsons, Lugers and Merls with light Kbot support.

BERG: Well?

CPN. VILNIUS: No. There’s no room to maneuver anything larger than a Kbot in there, much less an M-One-Nineteen. This is gonna be hard, fast guerilla tactics if we do this, with small, dedicated teams of Kbots and not much else. The resources we have in there wouldn’t let you ‘lathe the victors anyway.

AML. ENGELUND: It’s a mine, isn’t it?

CPN. VILNIUS: Well, yes and no, sir. It’s a depleted mine… sure, there’s some raw material lying around, but we’re not talking Io here, sir. This place was mined pretty much because it was there and the ARM were desperate. Used to be, that anything big enough for hydrostat was mining fodder in the Kuiper; now, they’ve pretty much pulled out of everything except the big plutoids.

AML. ENGELUND: Fair enough; guerilla tactics it is. Small dedicated teams to clear the canyons so we can establish a cordoned perimeter, and I’ll lead the recon myself.

YOUNG FEMALE: Can I just say… one thing?

AML. ENGELUND: Yes.

YOUNG FEMALE: Well… these local miners, they’re not ARM sponsored, are they?

BERG: Nah. Local yokels, prospies out of Pluto, Charon and Titania. City boys.

CPN. VILNIUS: And you aren’t?

BERG: (CHUCKLES)

YOUNG FEMALE: Well… couldn’t we bypass the fight entirely and have these prospectors do our fighting for us?

AML. ENGELUND: Explain.

YOUNG FEMALE: You said we won’t have anything but broadband com-tac going in. Neither will they, right?

CPN. VILNIUS: Right.

YOUNG FEMALE: So, all we have to do is set up shop out of range of the ARM network, blow up a Kbot or two and wait for them to pick up the vibrations. They’ll send out a team to the only other armed force on the planet-

ENSIGN MATHESON: The locals-

YOUNG FEMALE: Right, and knowing the ARM home guard they’ll shoot first-

AML. ENGELUND: …and ask their questions with more shooting. Inspired.

BERG: You really think this Spy Vs Spy crap is gonna work?

CPN. VILNIUS: Why shouldn’t it? It worked for us on Io.

BERG: That was pretty much blind luck, Ricky. And we can’t bank on being that lucky twice.

YOUNG FEMALE: You won’t have to be.

BERG: What?

YOUNG FEMALE: Well, there’s really no impediment to setting up a base there anyway. We could implement my plan and prepare for the guerilla fight Captain Vilnius just described; they’re not mutually exclusive. Worst-case scenario, we’ll have a stand-up fight against armed miners and ARM Civil Guard irregulars.

BERG: And best-case?

AML. ENGELUND: Your people will have gained two world in two weeks without firing a shot.

BERG: Alright, I’m sold. Rick?

CPN. VILNIUS: I’m in.

AML. ENGELUND: Good. I propose we transfer to Captain Vilnius’s em-see-see to discuss the specifics, and end-mark our IFF frequencies for com-tac. Agreed?

BERG: Yeah.

CPN. VILNIUS: Aye.

AML. ENGELUND: Excellent. Ensign?

ENSIGN MATHESON: Copy that. Prepare for blackout volumes, masking is going off-line.


END TRANSCRIPT – CODING SOURCED AT DESIGNATE: 128465087638-#h22.44/84. File crop under code designate “ABLE” “JESSOP” “ATOLL” “SINGAPORE” All cross-referencing disabled.

TRANSMISSION 02: When in Doubt...

Public Address, recorded live on synthevision 7-8-29, 04:18 SET


“Citizens of the Solar System.

“My name is James Berg, and I represent the people of the Privateers’ Alliance. For eight years, we have offered a save haven for those wishing to be free of the oppressive yoke of the System’s multi-planetary governments and their rules and regulations. We have found tolerance and respect within the ranks of the Allied Rimworld Military and Solar Patrol, and although these two authorities are currently at war over the possession of Earth, it is our earnest hope that they will reconcile, and join us in fulfilling our vision of a free and unified Solar System.

“As you may know, I stand before you today as a defendant accused of a heinous crime indeed: the seizure, by force, of the Jovian moon Io from its former owners, the Murasaki Corporation. I denounce this claim as a product of propaganda disseminated by any one of the many governments who would wish to silence us, and our message of peace.

“But what is perhaps even more heinous is the idea that a planetary body in our Solar System can be owned. It does not matter who makes this claim of ownership, be it an individual, a government, a military force or a corporation. The Murasaki Corporation has long sought ownership of a multitude of planets and moons within this system. Mars, Titan and my native world of Dione have all felt the force of their aggressive military expansion in the past decade.

“What happened on Io is simple. I landed on the world with the purpose of gathering resources, and bore witness to a battle. The private security forces of Murasaki were engaged in heavy combat with a unit bearing the comm signature of ARM Special Forces, and, to put it simply, annihilated each other. I have here an internal gyro mechanism that experts have confirmed as the remains of an M-Twenty-Nine-Eight-Fifty-Four Mobile Command Center, a model and make manufactured by Pluto-Charon Spaceworks and used by the ARM frequently. I submit it as proof of my account, and it will be available for collection and examination, should anyone wish to verify the story.

“After some deliberation, I came to a decision, one that will hopefully set an example to other governments, and help usher in an era of peace and tolerance in our war-torn solar system. I have decided to make Io an independent, free and ungoverned world, its rich resources available to all. No military presence will be permitted there. Permanent settlement will be tolerated, but large-scale industrialization, such as that of Ceres, Dione, Titania, Charon and Pluto, will not. A more specific draft of regulations is being drawn up as we speak, but hopefully they will only be a temporary necessity. In time, they will be effectively discarded as a remnant of these troubled times in the history of our race, when we struggle to find a foothold on our many new homes in the Solar System.

“Thank you.”

TRANSMISSION 01: Post-Mortem

The following is a transcript of ARM military tribunal #7285611074, dated 8-2-29

ARMAND: For the purposes of the recording, will all present please identify themselves.

BRENNAN: This is Vice-Chairman Brennan, for the Recovery/Assessment Commission.

PRUITT: I’m Julia Pruitt from the Civilian Advisory Board

TIRSEN: Kent Tirsen, special advisor. I’m supposed to be some sort of adjutant, but mostly I’m just here for the coffee.

(chuckles from Brennan, Pruitt, Sheedy)

bin HASSAN: I’m Rear Admiral Kurt bin Hassan, Allied Rimworld Military, SpecForce coordinator and interim logistics supervisor.

SHEEDY: Lietenant-Commander Alice Sheedy, ARM SpecForces.

ARMAND: And I am Director-General Tcheky Armand, Commander-In-Chief of ARM. The matter we have convened to discuss is Lieutenant-Commander Sheedy’s conduct in the field in yesterday’s action,Now, if you’ll turn to page 18 of your briefs, you’ll find-

TIRSEN: Hold on. Julia, you’re director of the civvy-ad board, right?

PRUITT: Yes.

TIRSEN: So why didn’t you say that?

PRUITT: I don’t know. It just… didn’t occur to me.

TIRSEN: And Admiral, aren’t you in charge of all SpecOps now? You’re not just a coordinator anymore?

bin HASSAN: That’s right. Old habits die hard, I guess.

TIRSEN: But you’ve been in charge of SpecOps for two months now, right?

bin HASSAN: Yes, but I don’t-

ARMAND: Are you quite done, Mr. Tirsen?

TIRSEN: Yes. Sorry.

ARMAND: As I was saying, if you’ll turn to page 18 of your briefs, you will see an annotated list of major events in yesterday’s military action at Stockholm. At fourteen-twenty-eight hours local time, Lt. Cmdr. Sheedy issued an order to Lance Captain Overmars to retreat back to the northwest ridge whilst his tank lance was in battle, storming the CoRE encampment and assembly plant. Why?

SHEEDY: The battle was progressing poorly, sir. Our Flashes were getting shot to (slight pause) shot to bits by a laser battery on the far side of their air field and there was no room for the Bulldog to maneuver.

PRUITT: Excuse me, a Bulldog?

ARMAND: It’s a tank, Madame Director, of which the Lieutenant Commander had several.

SHEEDY: One, sir.

ARMAND: What?

SHEEDY: We had one M-Four-Sixty-Seven, sir. The rest weren’t ready yet.

ARMAND: One? What did the rest of your forward column consist of?

SHEEDY: (sigh) A mixed batch, really. We had some Thirty-Sevens, a few One-Oh-Sixes, like I said, and a One-Sixty-Five or two. The main assault force was M-One-Nineteens-

BRENNAN: Why did you not have any more of these… Bulldogs, Lieutenant-Commander?

SHEEDY: They were still being nanolathed at the northwest plant. We have two different models of ground vehicle prefabrication plants, Mr. Brendan. The Six-Twenty and the Nineteen-Eighty-Four; we call them Veeps and Veepees for short-

BRENNAN: It’s Brennan, not Brendan… ‘for short?’

ARMAND: They’re acronyms. Why did you attack when your assault force wasn’t prepared?

SHEEDY: We were led to believe time was of the essence.

ARMAND: Lightning assaults are something of a… specialty of yours, am I right? You took the mountaintop base on Titan in a matter of hours, and your record of commendations is as long as my leg-

SHEEDY: I can see what you’re getting at sir, but we weren’t prepared for the configuration of the CoRE base. They had positioned a missile turret centrally amidst the manufacturing plants, an M-Sixty-Seven. We had to single it out as a target if we were going to proceed, but taking it out put my light supports within range of another battery, most likely an M-Five-Eighty-Nine Gaat Gun. It tore the Thirty-Sevens and the Oh-Sixes to pieces.

TIRSEN: Uh, sorry, but you said ‘most likely’ a Five-Eight-Nine… this was never confirmed?

SHEEDY: (sigh) No, we… none of the light supports returned for their cameras to be analyzed.

bin HASSAN: None of them made it back? Not one?

SHEEDY: No sir. Zero.

ARMAND: But why were these ‘light supports,’ as you call them, leading your attack?

SHEEDY: The One-Nineteens couldn’t keep up; the base was too tightly constructed for them. Besides, I’ve used Oh-Sixes to storm bases before, and their speed makes up for their-

ARMAND: Then why didn’t it work this time?

SHEEDY: The base was squeezed onto a narrow embankment, under the drop-off of what I assume must have been continental-shelf seabed until the war.

BRENNAN: During Oresund, the wreckage pile-up on the seabed was so bad that the Atlantic was totally cut off from the Baltic for months. The nukes dried up a lot of the water. The Baltic’s still eighty feet below sea level.

TIRSEN: Jesus.

bin HASSAN: If the roads in the base were too constrictive for medium and large armor, was the base only defended by fixed emplacements?

SHEEDY: No, aircraft.

TIRSEN: Aircraft?

SHEEDY: Yes sir, gunships and heavy bombers.

bin HASSAN: The heavy bombers were performing strikes against moving units in-base?

SHEEDY: Not exactly, sir. The M-Two-Twenty Hurricane-type bomber has a small dorsal-mounted anti-infantry laser battery, much like our own M-Two-Oh-Nines. They were performing medium-altitude strafing runs over the embankment. Most of the time, they’re a nuisance compared to the Two-Twenty’s main payload, but they proved a sufficient deterrent for the light armor. We took most of the heat from the gunships, though. Those M-Two-Ninety-Fours pack a real wallop.

bin HASSAN: The CoRE commander was not hesitant to send in aircraft, even though you had a SAM blanket from the One-Nineteens?

SHEEDY: Apparently not, sir.

PRUITT: You saw all this?

SHEEDY: We have fairly reliable footage from the surviving vees, plus I was less than a klick away in my Em-See-See at the forward command post.

ARMAND: You should have pulled the lights back and cordoned off the base with the Samsons, and used artillery to take out those guns.

SHEEDY: It was a battle, sir. Structured approaches don’t always occur to you when your men are dying.

ARMAND: You forget yourself, Lieutenant-Commander. I am a combat leader as well, and am fully aware of what it feels like to be in battle. This was not a battle, it was an unqualified disaster.

TIRSEN: That’s… a bit of an armchair-general thing to say, Tcheky-

ARMAND: Tirsen! This is not your place to intervene. (pause) Moving on, once your retreat was issued, you also issued a halt-construction order on an M-Ten-Ten Retaliator-type nuclear missile launcher at Fourteen-Thirty-Three hours. Why? A low-yield nuclear assault would have certainly spared the lives of your men.

SHEEDY: We were having a resource-management problem. The generator wasn’t up-and-running quite yet, we were still reliant on solar power at the time, plus metal was tied up in nanolathing the armor. I realized during the assault that the embankment on which the CoRE base was constructed was narrow enough for the whole base to be well within big-gun range for our ships, definitely the Conqueror- and ¬Millennium-class cruisers and possibly even the smaller Enforcers as well.

ARMAND: Explain what happened next, please.

SHEEDY: After reviewing some locations, I decided to place a shipyard between our end of the north embankment and a small island. There was a limited approach for enemy ships, plus air cover from the Samsons and M-Seventy-Nines at the forward base. I did most of the grunt work myself in the Em-See-See, as well as laying the keels for the first couple of ships.

ARMAND: But again you came under attack from CoRE aircraft.

SHEEDY: Yes, Two-Twentys and Two-Nine-Fours again. They hit us hard, taking out two Enforcers, the Davids and the Syzygy, which were lost with a total of eighteen casualties. We had no real air support, as the AA on the Skeeters is piss-poor, especially in the low visibility we had.

PRUITT: I was lead to understand there were specific ships to counter aircraft, (papers being shifted) the, uh, Ranger- and Archer-class…

SHEEDY: They were unavailable to us, Ma’am, due to the complexity of their propulsion and weapons calibration systems. The Em-See-See has so much surveillance and sensory equipment crammed into it that there’s simply no space for advanced engineers; there’s only combat personnel in them, and all the naval crews are vessel-dedicated; the engineers only know the specifics of their own ships. Navy regs also state that the engineer double as a weapons technician when in a combat scenario, so I couldn’t pull anyone off the crews anyway. The Valks flew in some warship engineers later on, but at that point it was pretty much all over.

ARMAND: What had happened?

SHEEDY: Well, what had happened was that the Enforcers saved the day, really. They’re slow, but they’re relatively cheap and those Eight-Ninety-Eights on their stern have better range and power than I gave them credit for. They took out all the CoRE emplacements on the central island. In the end, we didn’t really need the big cruisers.

ARMAND: But what was your purpose in sending in the subs?

SHEEDY: The subs?

bin HASSAN: The report shows that at Fourteen-Forty hours, you began sending Lurker-class submarines north-east in the direction of the CoRE base, and that you constructed a sonar station on the route, which was destroyed and relocated several times, most likely by aircraft or long-range artillery, and that an entire squadron of six subs went down with all hands on board – that’s two hundred and twenty two lives, by the way – and that, after all that, you sent in another two subs-

SHEEDY: Sir, I sent those subs in to clear the channel between the central island and the north embankment. What happened was… an unlucky accident, sir.

bin HASSAN: An unlucky accident?

SHEEDY: Yes, sir. As I surmised, the enemy regiment was attempting to construct a fleet and readying naval defenses in the channel. I decided to clear the channel step-by-step; the clearance on both sides of the channel was so slim that it would be like shooting fish in a barrel, once I’d taken out the defenses.

PRUITT: But this did not go according to plan, I take it.

SHEEDY: No ma’am. The sub squadron encountered an enemy Em-See-See on the bottom of the channel. I ordered them to retreat.

PRUITT: Why?

SHEEDY: Nuclear fallout.

PRUITT: Excuse me?

TIRSEN: All Em-See-Sees run on nuclear power. You light one up, it’s like setting off a low-yield nuke in your face.

bin HASSAN: The design is by necessity quite volatile; it’s what enables Em-See-Sees to construct entire bases in a matter of minutes. The blast radius can be up to a kilometer wide.

ARMAND: What happened next?

SHEEDY: The subs retreated alright, but bumping into an Em-See-See on an armed recon must have put the fear of God into those sub commanders: they let loose with everything they had on the way out. The Eye-Eff-Sat records show nineteen independent torpedo trails in the last frame before the nuke whitewashed the imm.

bin HASSAN: Show some respect, Lieutenant-Commander. Commodore Jarvis was a friend of mine.

SHEEDY: No disrespect intended, Admiral. I’d probably crap myself and launch twenty torps at anything that moved if the same thing happened to me.

(Tirsen chuckles)

ARMAND: That is not the point. The point is that your ineptitude got a lot of people killed on what should have been an in-and-out mission. I understand that these are desperate times, and that if Commander Katanga were still with us, he would still be in command and could possibly have avoided this series of unfortunate… incidents, but the fact of the matter is that he is not, and we need someone competent in command of our SpecForce unit, and you are obviously not it.

PRUITT: The base was destroyed, Tcheky, and four complete manufacturing centers captured intact.

BRENNAN: Cut the woman some slack. When was the last time you sat on a nuke for three weeks, or won a battle that someone didn’t die in?

ARMAND: The assault was handled haphazardly and clumsily and while they might tolerate such ineptitude in the Initiative military, I will certainly not have it in mine. I move that Lieutenant-Commander Sheedy be removed from command of Special Forces, effective immediately.

SHEEDY: (sighs) Who would be given command?

ARMAND: That is not for you to decide or know. You are dismissed, and you are to turn in your commander’s stripes to me immediately.

SHEEDY: You’re demoting me as well?

ARMAND: Temporarily, until we can find a suitable place for you. Until then, report to Lieutenant-Colonel Foerster for your unit assignment. Now, dismissed.

(footsteps, door opens, closes)

ARMAND: I further move that SpecForces are temporarily disbanded and its personnel reassigned to combat attrition in civil defense and the Earth strike force. I’m sorry, Kurt, but I’m merging you with Gottfried’s corps in Madagascar.

bin HASSAN: It’s understandable. Maybe someday, when this is all over, I can take personal command of SpecForces myself.

ARMAND: Maybe. I seem to remember-

TIRSEN: Whoa, whoa, whoa, you’re disbanding SpecForces? Over this?

ARMAND: It’s not permanent, Jack, and no, it’s not ‘over this,’ it’s because I don’t trust Sheedy to lead a combat unit. She’s just not ready.

TIRSEN: We need a fast response unit. You think Blake and Wurth are just gonna sit around in Europe waiting for the rad to blow away? They’re gonna come at you from all sides with raids and hit-and-runs and when that comes, you’re gonna need Sheedy and her bunch. All those lightning raids you were talking about-

ARMAND:…were conducted when the unit was under Katanga. She’s lost without him. You heard her, Jack, ‘weren’t prepared for the configuration of the CoRE base…’ she’s a hack. The woman has no imagination and I cannot trust the lives of my men, our soldiers, to someone who cannot think on her feet.

(pause)

TIRSEN: And you all are just gonna sit there and take this?

PRUITT: I don’t see any other option, really.

BRENNAN: It’s a military call, Jack. This doesn’t change anything for my people. It’s not my problem. And as long as we’re still committed to taking back Earth, then it’s not even anyone’s problem. Not even yours, Jack.

(chuckles from Pruitt, Armand)

bin HASSAN: Well, if this is all over, some of us would like to get back to work.

ARMAND: Quite. Your concerns are noted, Mr. Tirsen. Perhaps when the time is right, your views on military organization will prove very well-founded, but now, I’m afraid, we must put such experimental thoughts on the back-burner. I move to adjourn.

End transcript.