First Contact

Chapter 968: The Shadows of Twilight

During the war I was one of the 'brave fighting men' to the population and politicians. When I ended up in the hospital I was a hero when they pinned my medals on me. When I came home I was brave and patriotic and people thanked me for my sacrifice when they saw the scars and the limp.

Six months later?

I was a drain on the taxpayers and a monster.- Found in diaries after every conflict

ATOMIC ATOMIC ATOMIC - Standard C3/2PW warning call

Why has this unit had 428 alcohol related incidents in a single month when there is only 240 troops in it? - 61st Ordnance Company, Resource Wars Era, Terra

"When I was a child, a Terran came to my school to speak in one of our history classes. We were amazed at just how warm she was. No, not just her reassuring, friendly demeanour. She radiated the same comforting heat a sunning stone at midday does, and her eyes sometimes seemed to be on fire as she spoke. She spoke at length of the many friends and enemies humanity had made in their history. I realised something important that day."

"The camp fire that can keep you warm at night is the same fire that can burn down the forest."-- Memoirs of War and Peace, u/Bergusia. Chapter 37, The Inheritors War.

"The Confederacy has vast libraries of doctrine, theory, history, and lessons learned. The majority of troops couldn't find the databases if you threatened to withhold the coingirls and joyboys from them." - General Ekret, First Armored Recon (Speed Metal), The Big C3, 8547 PG

'While some few adhere to human religions, the vast majority of Canis Familiaris Sapiens simply live to be companions of humans and work alongside them. Perhaps the most remarkable thing about Canis Familiaris Sapiens, which are already remarkable themselves as the galaxy's only known pre-interstellar uplifted species, is their concept of an afterlife. The psyche has no room for your concept of 'God', big G. There were some attempts early after their creation to create for them a belief system based on concepts of a pack and Sirius as a divine being, but they were rejected as was the cosmology.

Instead, the Dogboys generally hold to one of two destinies for their souls after death, discounting that there are atheist and agnostic Dogboys that believe that nothing persists after death.

The two destinies are believed to be a choice; Dogboys may choose to linger at a destination called the 'Rainbow Bridge' where they will wait until the souls of the terrans they cared most about arrive, and they will accompany them to the afterlife. This idyllic place is in a forested glade near a stream with everything they could want except 'their humans'.

The alternative is more dark; Dogboys may choose to join a never-ending battle in a dark dreamscape alongside others, where they will forever defend the souls and minds of Terrans from dark forces and nightmares. The 'Sleepless Watch' is a strong presence in their culture, and is entirely a belief of the Familiaris cultural subconscious. Which is what makes it so remarkable- They don't have a hell, because they can't imagine an eternity that isn't based around being our friends or protectors.

Because they're all the goodest of boys and goodest of girls. - Dr. Clifford Reddington, Dogboi theologian. Age of paranoia, year unknown.

Bit.nek was slouched down the in chair in the Day Room, with the rest of Third Platoon, Kilo Company, listening to the Training NCO, one Staff Sergeant R'Kalkrik, as the SSG droned on and on about how to properly call in an artillery strike or close air support.

He was listening to people practicing the unit call-sign, but other than that, Bit.nek knew something that pretty much all of the room didn't seem aware of.

Sure, when you're practicing, or things are calm, you'd go through the over, out, polite introductions, carefully enunciating things.

When the shit hit the fan and you needed that artillery right fucking now, all that went straight into the mass grinder.

"Am I boring you, Private?" the SSG asked.

Bit.nek was busy remembering calling artillery down on their own position when the slorpies had almost overrun the line during Iron Piglet.

"Private Bit.netk," the SSG said.

"Sorry, Sergeant," Bit.nek said, looking up. "Not boring me. Paying attention to the Kilo Company commo net identifiers."

"Do you have anything to add?" the SSG asked.

Bit.nek narrowed his eyes in suspicion. "No, Sergeant."

The Training NCO shook his head. "It's not a trick question, Private. Is there anything you can see that was missed?"

Bit.nek took a deep breath, then nodded. "A lot."

"Care to educate us?" the SSG asked.

Bit.nek frowned.

"Not a trick, Private. Why don't you come on up here," the SSG said.

Slightly suspicious, Bit.nek set down his fizzybrew and moved to the front. The SSG handed him the pointer.

"Take over the lesson," the SSG said, moving over and sitting down.

Bit.nek heaved a deep breath. "Morning, class. I'm PFC Bit.nek, and this is requesting artillery and close air support."

He turned and looked at the image on the wall. It was a standard by the book line art of terrain. He shook his head. "Terrain like this is only in books," he said. He cocked his wrist, getting the attention of the projector. He went through the context menus and just grabbed a picture of forest outside a city.

"First this in, this is what it'll look like," he said. "Only, there may or may not be heavy EM jamming, microprisms, smoke, fog, and the like, but we'll go with this."

"The book says use these two power poles, but a lot of places won't have them," he stated. "That's when you use your biggest advantage, which is your armor's brainbox. It tracks a lot of data, and using that data effectively is how you do this right."

He went over how the brain box kept track of everyone in the chain of command. From the CO and XO to the Platoon Sergeant, Platoon Leader, heavy weapons, even the Squad Leader.

"Now, a quick thing is tying this in with the datalink," he said. He tapped a set of fallen trees. "Triangulation is key for distance. In this case, you call your squad leader, ask him to carat the fallen trees, then, we'll say the platoon sergeant is on your right, you ask him to do the same, then you have the brainbox run the distance."

He went into calling it in, corrections, in flight corrections, danger close, even calling it down on your own positions. Several times he used his palm-implanted holo-emitter to add to the image being projected on the wall.

"The biggest thing, is you need to be able to do this while you're still fighting," Bit.nek said. "The enemy isn't going to stand there and wait for you to do this. Sure, if everything is going right and the enemy is dumb enough to charge an emplaced position, you have hours to do this," he shrugged. "Usually, it went from patrolling to fighting for our lives and putting ourselves in an arty-box."

He tapped the image, which now had lines and boxes all over of it. "You have to be running Madame-318, or fighting with your rifle, or, if worse comes to worse, beating them to death each other, and do this at the same time."

He went over calling in orbital fire support, tasking armor or BOLO units for fire support, even having mortar platoon running off hot-sticks so they could go to rapid fire on the mortar tubes.

"Finally, you have to look at which arty unit is supporting you. Tukna'rn, they are precise the millimeter but do everything by doctrine. You want them for your danger close and on your own position. Treana'ad are eager to help and nothing solves a problem like a peanut butter ripple salvo from their big fourteen inch guns. The Hamaroosan prefer incendiary but use light artillery with rocket boosters, less flight time but lots more burny burny. The Hesstlan, their tanks can provide the artillery firepower of an artillery platoon each but you have to catch them when they aren't slamming heavy metal," he brought up the different kinds of vehicles. "The big thing to remember is that if it's all dropped into the shitter and the Detainee is holding down the lid on you, every unit you contact will be engaged and you'll have to wait your turn in the queue. That's why you protect mortar platoon. You'll shoot your shoulder mounted rockets dry and slush out your nanoforge in the first two hundred seconds and cussing at your greenie battle buddy won't cool that launcher down faster."

He tapped the image on the wall again. "If you're really desperate, look up the nearest Treana'ad infantry horde. They can provide you with a couple dozen salvos of sixty millimeter mortar rounds while they're on the run," he said.

He looked around, seeing everyone staring at him. He flushed.

"Well, that's it," Bit.nek said, moving over and handing the pointer back. "Good talk."

The SSG nodded as Bit.nek went over, sat down, and picked up his fizzybrew.

The SSG moved up to the front of the class. "Good lesson, Private," he said.

Bit.nek just ducked his head.

"Only mistake was you should have let everyone ask questions. Just remember that next time," the SSG said.

Bit.nek just nodded, privately hoping there wouldn't be a next time.

-----

Major Tut'el stood, watching the class being given by the Training Officer In Charge, about the possible threats that the Battalion might be facing. Sitting between the Battalion S4, Major Rex, and the Commander of Charlie Company, a kobold, he was taking notes just as fast as everyone else.

Tanks, areospace fighters, strikers, infantry, power armor. Artillery, missile systems.

No robot combat armor. No giant bugs with bad attitudes. No fighting the same guys over and over and over until you just got tired of killing them. No self-propelled artillery. Orbital bombardment was standard high energy lance.

Battlesteel laminate armor. Decent flatware motors.

While he saw his fellow officers taking notes on what Military Intelligence and Confederate Defense Intelligence knew, he was taking notes on what wasn't covered by the briefing, planning on checking to see who could get him the data.

The topic then switched to the fact that the worlds that needed protected were former Biological Artificial Sentience System worlds.

Half of them were Tomb Worlds.

He watched as the Battalion Training Office switched the holo-emitter to the next possible threat.

Tut'el's mouth went dry.

Reflexes kicked in.

"HOWL, DAMN YOU!" Tut'el yelled, reaching out and smacking Major Rex across the chest as he came to his feet.

He pushed his left hand out, triggering his holo-emitter, cranking it up till he could smell scorched fur. His other hand dropped to his waist, looking for his modified Cutting Bar Mark Two.

The holo-emitter put out a hologram of bright red between himself and what had just jumped up out of the holo-emitter the Battalion Training OIC was standing next to.

The white line art shade was that of a Terran woman, her face covered in silver blood, her mouth open into a black pit as she silently screamed her rage, her hands outstretched, fingers hooked into claws, reaching out for...

He took a half step and stopped.

The shade wasn't moving.

He closed his hand, turning off the holo-emitter.

Major Tut'el turned slowly to look at the Battalion OIC. He tood two steps forward, clenching his fists.

"Are. You. Fucking. Stupid. Captain?" he growled out.

The Captain took a half step back, looking at the Battalion CO for support. "No."

"Surely, you are," Tut'el snarled. He took another half step forward. "Or were you just planning on killing everyone in the room?" he asked.

He reached out and grabbed the holo-emmiter, yanking it off the cable and dropping it on the floor. He stomped on it as he stepped forward.

"Were you planning on killing everyone in the room?" Tut'el asked.

His heart was thudding in his ears.

"What? How?" the Captain asked.

"That thing could have jumped out of the holo-emitter and killed half this room before any of us could react," Tut'el said. He wiped his mouth. "What were you thinking?"

"It's a non-phasic hologram. Approved by Brigade and Division," the Captain protested.

"So they're the homicidal or stupid ones?" Tut'el asked.

"It's non-phasic," The Captain protested.

"Right up until it rips everyone's fucking guts out!" Tut'el yelled. "Did none of you read a single briefing about the damn things?"

"I was just getting to the briefing," the Captain protested.

"The first thing it says is to show a Shade only in silver and crimson. NEVER any shade of white," Tut'el snarled. "That thing could have gone phasic and killed everyone in here."

"There haven't been any shades in this region," the Captain said.

"Major, a word?" the Lieutenant Colonel's voice was calm. When Tut'el turned he saw the CO standing next to the door.

Gritting his teeth, Tut'el went out the door that the Colonel was holding open, hearing it shut behind him.

"Take a moment, Major," the Colonel said.

Tut'el stood there for a long moment, closing his eyes, slowly getting his breathing under control.

"Better?" the Colonel asked.

Major Tut'el opened his eyes and saw that the CO was holding a fizzybrew out to him.

"Yeah," Tut'el said.

"I'll check the Captain's training material, see if the oversight in coloration was at his hands or further up the chain," the Colonel said. He glanced at the door. "Can they really go from a simple hologram to an actual shade?"

Tut'el nodded. "Yeah. Uh, yes, sir. And quickly. You have only a split second to react," he took a deep drink off the bottle. "Happened a couple of times before it went around the theater that you couldn't even draw them with white chalk in some areas."

"Even after the Flash?" the Colonel asked.

Tut'el nodded. "Even after the Flashbang, sir. Those things racked up a body count like you wouldn't believe in the first twenty-six hours. Tens of billions."

The Colonel raised an eye tuft. "That bad?"

"They didn't tell you?" Tut'el asked. He glanced at the door where everyone was paying attention to the Training OIC's lecture. "They're sending us to a Tomb World and they didn't tell you?"

The Colonel made a humming noise. "I think I need to review the training data," he said slowly. He looked at Tut'el. "I want you to double-check all training materials. Make sure they're not missing critical information. I know you have a lot on your plate at the moment, but I want this to take priority."

Tut'el nodded. "Yes, sir."

-----

Lieutenant Colonel Ssalressk looked at Sergeant Major HsstSsar as the replay came to an end.

The kobold checked his chron. "Took him less than a second to go from nothing to red eyes, took him sixteen seconds to cool to amber, nearly an hour to go from amber to normal," the Sergeant Major checked his datapad. "The Major was agitated the rest of the day, but was not abusive or short with any subordinates and handled problems professionally."

The Colonel nodded. "What about our other potential problem?"

The Sergeant Major consulted his datapad. "Gave a class on calling indirect fire support as well as close air support and orbital bombardment. Kilo Company Training NCO said it was a bit scattered, but covered everything nicely. Works well with others, just isn't very sociable."

"So, no problems with the Private?" the Colonel asked.

"He's shown up to PT pretty hung over or still half drunk, but he stays in the run or at least catches back up when he's done vomiting," the Sergeant Major said. He tapped the database. "He goes to the E-Club to watch the band or the dancers, play slots, but other than that, he keeps to himself."

The Colonel nodded. "Nothing in common with anyone else," he mused.

"Had an argument with the Armorer about..." he looked at his datapad. "Coolant Line 4 on the M318. Said you have to put extra insulation on it or use a size bigger flex line or it gets clogged after a couple dozen hours of straight use."

The Colonel nodded. "Let me guess, Armorer was arguing that nobody's going to be running the weapons that long."

"Right in one, sir," the Sergeant Major said.

"Check with TRADOC and Ordnance, see if he's right," the Colonel said. He turned and looked out the window.

"We leave in a week. PIMM is almost over," the Colonel said. "I don't want these guys first combat drop to be a complete shit show."

"Then that's what it's going to be, sir," the Sergeant Major replied.

The Colonel just nodded. "And it's up to us to make sure the shit show doesn't last a full six acts."