Chapter 32 – Memories

Sailors and Marines from the Success and the Victory looked at the assembled fleet with awe. At the core sat ten kilopod transports, all currently empty pending a truly massive pickup of no less than 10,240 sponsors, plus an unusually large number of concubines and dependants, all destined for the Marines and all destined for one colony. Four Aurora-class transports, three laden with the families of the escort ships' crews and one with Filles de Roi, sat at the perimeter. And in a protective ring around that, Confederacy warships guarded the transports like protective sheepdogs.

"In Flanders fields the poppies blow"

Sergeant Ken Kowalski stood stiffly at At Ease, his boots and belt shiny, a poppy peeking out from behind his wedge cap. Behind him on Camp Shackleton's main parade square, Marines and a platoon each of Navy and Fleet Auxiliary sailors stood likewise, wearing their full dress uniforms. A company from the Thule Cadet Corps stood as disciplined and proud as any company of Marines. Each serviceman wore a poppy in his or her wedge cap just like Kowalski.

"Between the crosses, row on row,"

Around the perimeter of the parade square stood the ragged ranks of concubines and dependants, many of them standing at the same At Ease as their sponsors. Some of the younger children were held protectively by their mothers, clutching the mothers in turn as they realized that today was a solemn day, an important day. They were too young to understand why, and so were a little unsettled.

"That mark our place; and in the sky"

In ships and orbital facilities in space throughout the Thuleat system, on-duty service personnel were observing the goings-on. They too were wearing their dress uniforms, wedge caps, Sam Browne belt, shiny shoes, freshly-pressed creases. They were standing at At Ease, like Kowalski and his battalion. For this was the most sacred day in the Confederacy, more than Christmas, or Passover, or Daliwal. This was Remembrance Day, November the Eleventh. Back on Earth it went by many names, like Warriors' Day, or Veterans' Day, or Armistice Day, and in some lands on a day other than this one. On colony and ship of the Humans, on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, on the exact same hour and day and month that the Great War's armistice had come into effect ending the four years of largely ineffectual slaughter, all humans stopped work for two minutes and remembered those who had fought and died for the Confederacy and for Earth.

"The larks, still bravely singing, fly"

"Mom, what's a lark?" asked a very young dependant as his mother quickly hushed him. Kowalski hoped his two were being good for their already heavily-pregnant-again mothers. This was his second chance at being a father, and he loved it, but he knew sacred ceremonies like this one bored the little ones, and boredom made them restless.

"Scarce heard amid the guns below."

The saluting gun on the roof of the Camp Headquarters fired once. It was manned by sergeants representing the Confederacy Navy, Marines and Fleet Auxiliary, by Sub-Decurion Redburn as the sole member of the Civil Service, and commanded by a Thule Corps of Cadets Sergeant.

"We are the Dead. Short days ago"

Kowalski reflected on his own life, on those he had to remember who fell in combat. He was an old man, older even than the Old Man himself. As an 18-year-old youth, he'd gone south to the United States and volunteered to serve in their Marines. He was quickly at war in Viet Nam, where he saw buddies reduced to body parts by enemy shells and booby-traps. Now he was in space, on planets with climates far removed from the fetid jungles of southeast Asia, and he was still seeing comrades dying messily in battle.

"We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,"

This Remembrance Day, even the AIs were remembered. Not only humans had been lost in sunk warships and wrecked colonies, but many an AI as well. They had as their representative the base fire truck, operated by the Camp's AI, pulled up to the right of the cenotaph. In a long line along the front of the monument, Marines and sailors dressed in representative uniforms of historical services: a French poilu from the First World War, a British infantryman of the Second. One man was dressed as a U.S. Marine from Kowalski's first war, bringing up memories happy and sad to the old sergeant.

"Loved and were loved, and now we lie,"

Not only Marine and Navy warriors had been killed, either. Human casualties included dependants and concubines. Some of those concubines had given their lives heroically, working to save their offspring or their colonies from invading Sa'arm.

"In Flanders fields."

The saluting gun fired again. Thule was relatively peaceful, but Kowalski was aware that this was effectively part of the Confederacy's front line. As much as he hoped it would remain peaceful, he was painfully aware his second family was at risk. His first three children, long grown, were out in space as well, his sons in the Navy and his daughter a concubine at some watery research planet he'd never heard of. She'd given him yet another granddaughter. His other grandchildren were a more mixed bag, some still on Earth and others making their own way as sponsors or concubines in space.

"Take up our quarrel with the foe:"

After the reading of this famous Canadian war surgeon's poem, the bugler would play Last Post, then would follow two minutes of silence, then a Lament, and finally The Rouse. It was one of the few times in the Confederacy's Armed Forces that a bugler would play anything. Most of the calls on Navy ships were, aside from the bells tolling the time and the gong calling the crews to General Quarters, strictly verbal.

"To you from failing hands we throw"

Remembrance Day was never a day off in the Diaspora – there was just too much to do. This afternoon for example one of the platoons of the 1202nd would march out in sealed arctic battle suits to the grenade range to practise with MB-15 hand grenades. Another two platoons would be busy with small unit tactics. He'd have just enough time to enjoy lunch with his concubines before he'd have to rejoin his battalion.

"The torch; be yours to hold it high."

Another company would spend the afternoon training to land from orbit under battle conditions. A Martello had a bunker kitted out to look like part of a troopship, from which the soldiers would enter transporter nexuses and emerge from the backs of Kittens somewhere else on Thule. In remembrance of the Anglo-American invasion of French North Africa, it was called "Exercise Torch".

"If ye break faith with us who die"

Kowalski was determined that his men would be ready for the next attempt by the Swarm to invade this sector of space. He trained his men hard, and while he expected them to party hard too, he expected them to be "ready, aye, ready" at a moment's notice. He would not break faith: not with those who had died, and not with those still living who depended on him and his men to keep the Swarm at bay.

"We shall not sleep, though poppies grow"

Tonight, he'd pulled senior duty battalion sergeant again, from midnight until four in the morning. His concubines always missed him those nights, but it couldn't be helped.

"In Flanders fields."

The loud retort of the saluting gun echoed through the dome again, the smoke from the gunpowder charge rising into the air to be sucked away by the colony's air circulation system. The notes of Last Post began to echo their plaintive call through the dome and beyond, to Base Scott, to the three orbiting fortresses, to the factories, and to the various warships around Thuleat.

One more memory flashed through Ken Kowalski's mind: that of being an Army Cadet as a teen, standing in front of the cenotaph of his home town. Most years, the cold transformed the bugle's sound to something not unlike a kazoo. He manfully kept his face stern, preventing a highly inappropriate smile from breaking through. There were soldiers from that first Great War alive then, the first War to End All Wars that somehow hadn't ended all wars, despite the grizzled old men's warnings about just how horrible, bloody, terrifying, traumatizing, messy and sad this business really was. They were all gone now – living only in his memory and in the memory of those old enough to have known the survivors of 1918.

Before dismissing the troops, Colonel Deschenes had a piece of momentous news.

"It is official. We will be expanding. The 12th Brigade will become the 12th Division. We will be promoting many officers and NCOs, and reassigning many of you. We need to spread out the seasoned veterans so that we don't throw entire battalions of fresh meat at the Swarm. We'll be getting new warships, as well. We are still the Chosen Frozen, but we're now the Chosen Frozen Division."

A cheer rang up from the four thousand souls on the parade square. This was only two-thirds of the Brigade; the other third was off at Hesperusat, guarding against a new Swarm incursion. Half the fleet was with them; in a week half the Brigade would head out to relieve the garrison there, leaving a skeleton force in orbit until the task force currently at Hesperusat returned for rest, resupply and repairs.

From her station up at the saluting gun Samantha could see Lieutenant Carruthers out of the corner of her eye, standing beside the colonel. Subvocally she asked, 'A division, that's three brigades, isn't it?'

'Yes. And I've got to build two more domes to accommodate them all.' Carruthers had started to sweat.

Samantha realized that the Civil Service department's workload was about to increase severely as well. She also realized ... she had known this tall thin man beside her for months, had lost her cherry to him, was carrying twin boys by him, and still didn't have a clue what his given name was – as apparently neither did anyone else.

Learn Carruther's name. Yet another item on her ever-lengthening to-do list, as she helped the families of the Diaspora adapt to and function in the era of the Swarm.