A Loss of Innocence – Part 1

Here is the first installment.  Please comment below.  Enjoy! 

My family was against me joining the Solarian Marine Corps. 

Never mind the swelling of patriotism and the unification of humanity in the face of extinction from an extra-terrestrial threat.  I was expected to be an engineer, a doctor, or a lawyer.  According to my family, I would fight humanity’s struggle from a plush office or a cubicle, supporting our efforts with my intellect and not the power of my muscles.

“You’re not cannon fodder,” my father told me, the night before I left for basic training. “You’ll be there with all the teenagers who are being wrongly given a second chance.  Drug addicts, pimps, vandals and thieves are going to be your comrades.  It’s not like those World War II books you’re always reading.  The service isn’t noble…it’s just that we throw the dregs of humanity out there as a shield to give us time to win the war with our intellect.”  He sighed.  “You’re better than that.  Kids of your ability go to college and make real contributions to the war effort.  This is beneath you.”

My mom was quietly sobbing in the kitchen.  Ostensibly preparing my going-away meal, I believe she was actually using the kitchen to isolate herself from the source of her grief.  My parents were treating me as if I were already dead.

“The casualty figures for an average Marine platoon say that you have a 1 in 10 shot to survive your first three engagements.”  My father tapped his lips thoughtfully.  “You’re a smart boy.  Let’s say that if you pay attention in training, and you have a capable officer or senior non-com, your chances go up to 3 in 10.  That means that you have a thirty percent chance to survive three engagements.”  He pointed over my shoulder to the kitchen.  “That means that your mother will be presented with the Stars and Stripes in less than a year and a half.”  He began to pace back and forth.  “That blue star the Department of Defense so graciously sent us to put in our window will soon be replaced with a FedEx package containing a gold star.  How can you do that to us?”

I remained silent and stoic.  How could I say that I wasn’t doing it for them?  This was something that I had to do.  Maybe the reason why the casualty figures were so high is that we did keep throwing the worst of humanity out there on the edges of the solar system to defend our planet.  Maybe with more people like me, with more of my vaunted talents that my parents thought so much of, we could turn the tide, and rather than barely keeping the alien threat at bay, we could begin to push them back. 

That was an awful lot of maybes.

“I have to do this, Dad.  I’m not a boy anymore.  I’m a man.”

He face clouded with temper.  “Fine.  You’re a man, son.”  He pointed over my shoulder toward the sky.  “Go die like one, because that’s all you’re going to do.”  He strode out of the room, leaving me alone with my thoughts.

I shook my head to clear it.  This was the wrong time and place to recall that.  The nose of a boarding craft was no place to get lost in a reverie.  Surrounding me was my entire section, one third of a platoon, twenty-four men in three squads of eight.  One of the squads in the boarding craft was the heavy weapons squad, carrying a broken down .50 caliber machine gun, rocket propelled grenades, demolitions equipment, a heavy minigun mounted on a powered exoskeleton that shot depleted uranium slugs, and a new weapon developed by a partnership of defense contractors called the “bumblebee.” 

The bumblebee was a sphere of metal of the minimum size to maintain a practical anti-gravity field.  It was controlled by a computer mounted on the forearm of a corporal in the heavy weapons squad.  At the push of a button, the bumblebee sprouted a series of diamond edged blades that were around four carbon atoms thick, tapering back to the sphere.  The bumblebee began to vary the antigrav field in such a way that the sphere spun along the axis of the blades while still maintaining forward motion.  In the hands of a competent controller, the bumblebee could slice through heavy armor and into the flesh beneath, back itself out, and find another target.  The weapon got its name from the deep, wing-like buzz that the rotating blades made.

“Listen up, ladies and gentlemen!” Our section sergeant, a six striper who was old enough to have graduated from Annapolis before the consolidation of Earth’s armed forces, stood up.  “This is just like our training exercises.  We’re assaulting a fixed orbital emplacement around the orbit of Jupiter.  Our friends in the navy have been here before us, paving the way through the picket ships.  Rather than destroying the Rak’Lan base wholesale with nukes, they’re sending the grunts in to secure the base for our intelligence folks.  The more we learn about ‘em, the quicker we can find a way to beat ‘em.”  He paused and called up a hologram at the front of the craft.  “This is our objective.”  A schematic of a torus-shaped space station sprang into view.  A red arrow formed at the hub, and slowly zoomed in, simulating the hard seal of our landing craft against the wall of the station.  “We’re not sure what they do here, but we do know that it was heavily protected.  We’ve spent a great deal of lives and equipment to have this opportunity, so we don’t have the luxury of screwing up.  The brass hopes that this is some kind of command and control facility.”  A model of the inside of the station sprang into view.  “We’re not sure what the inside of the station will look like, but we do know that the Rak’Lan are oh-two breathers.  We’re going to assault their position by the book, establish strong points, and clean them out level-by-level.”  Tiny dots in the hologram resolved to Solarian Marines.  “The initial assault may be in free-fall.  We think the torus design is to provide economical gravity from spin.  Intel believes that they don’t possess anti-grav technology, but don’t be surprised if they do.”  He grinned maliciously.  “Our rules of engagement are simple.  If it moves and it’s not human, kill it.  It doesn’t matter what size, shape, or age it appears to be.  No mercy, ladies and gentlemen.”  His face turned serious and cold.  “Remember what those bastards did to Shanghai and San Fransisco.” 

The sergeant took his seat and strapped in.  “Squad leaders!  Equipment check and sound off ready for action.”

My squad leader, a black woman (with broader shoulders than my own) named Eliza Dunkel, made her way down the squad bay, checking weapons readouts, tightening web belts, placing a large hand on shoulders and whispering urgently.  When she came to me, I had a fine sheen of sweat on my face.  “You gonna be okay, Private Collins?”

I swallowed nervously as I nodded..  “Yes, ma’am.”

“Just like a drill, Private.  Stay with your squad, don’t panic, and remember your training, okay?”

I nodded a little more firmly.  “I’ll be okay, ma’am.”

A crooked smile tugged at her lips as she moved on to the man next to me.  Over the roar of our deceleration, I couldn’t hear what she said, which was probably intentional.  Each of us would have to face our own demons in the last minutes before the assault.  Mine was the disapproving glare of my father.  With an effort, I pushed the thought aside.  I would show him how wrong the odds were.

After a few moments, the squad leaders returned to their seats, and the pilot came over the intercom.  “Contact in two minutes, Marines.  Strap in and prepare for assault.”

The sergeant’s bellow could be plainly heard over the increased roar of our deceleration.  “You heard the spit’n’polish boy driving this bus, Marines.  Prepare for assault!  Our battle cry is San Francisco!”

“Hu-ah!” was the answer from twenty-four throats.  I was surprised that my voice was full and angry rather than weak and afraid.  My knees began to shake within my light armor.  The two minutes stretched for eternity as the marines around me shifted nervously.

“Marines,” the pilot said.  “Brace for contact!”  There was a sudden silence as the drive shut off.  After a few pushes of acceleration, there was a sharp lurch and a metallic reverberation.  “Contact!” the pilot said.  “Hard seal in thirty seconds.”  The strains of the Star Spangled Banner began to play over the intercom, a nice touch to score our landing.  “Good hunting, Marines. San Fransisco!”  A few voices here and there began to sing the words, my own among them, while others took up the chant of “San Fransisco!”

“On your feet, ladies and gentlemen,” the sergeant said, checking his assault rifle.  We unstrapped and surged to our feet, each of us checking the rear carapace of the Kevlar armor of the person in front of us.

“Hard seal!” The pilot said.  “Sergeant, deploy your troops at will.”

“Rogers!  Get your ass in that exoskel and get that mingun warmed up!  We’re gonna need some covering fire.”  One of the heavy weapons squad squeezed through the queue and stepped up and into the monstrosity of the exoskeleton.  With a whine of servos, he closed the chest carapace and powered on the targeting displays.  He shuffled a few experiment steps to make sure that the power subsystems were functioning properly.

“Rogers, you sonofabitch, watch were you put those big feet of yours,” someone said in mock indignation.  The joke broke the tension as the entire nose of our landing boat hissed open, Rogers standing in front of the section, his minigun traversing an arc of about one hundred and twenty degrees. 

It was like staring into the maw of hell.