Chapter 31 – Martello One Nine Six Five

Lance-Corporal Fahim Al Harbi led his squad into Martello 1965 and began barking orders, trying to sound – and lead – like Sergeant Ken Kowalski, his platoon sergeant. He knew they were eyeing him for corporal's stripes, and he wanted the prestige that came with them. Right now, he was an Acting Corporal, with the responsibility but without the actual stripes, nor with the right to membership in the Sergeants' Mess.

In the post-shortage economy of the Diaspora, getting a promotion didn't get you any physical benefits, but it did give you an ego-boost. It meant that your superiors felt you were worthy of higher things. They tried desperately not to promote a soldier or sailor to the level of his or her incompetency. Occasionally, they succeeded. Every assignment Fahim went on, he knew he was being watched and graded. As a lance-corporal, he himself was expected to watch and grade his men, looking for those suitable to join him in his empyrean rank.

"Smith! Hornsby! Jakobek! LeBrun! Physical check of the trenches and artillery emplacements!" he barked. "Smith, take the north, Hornsby the south, Jaokbek the east and LeBrun the west. Move it!" The four privates moved out, grumbling about not being artillery crew as they sealed their helmets to their battle suits and dropped their visors.

"You have had the basic training on them, you should be able to tell if anything is wrong, and that is what counts! We can get the experts in to fix it if there is!" He turned to two other members of his eight-man squad. "Chandler! Baker! Get the CIC up and running! You should be linked to Central Command by now!"

Privates Chandler and Baker disappeared into the Combat Information Centre pod, checking that the sensors were active and reporting in with the command bunker near Camp Shackleton.

"Lefebvre! Mueller! Inventory check! Let's make sure the last crew left us some field rations!"

The two picked up the data pad that held the inventory for Martello 1965 and started down the ramp to the storage pods.

"Corporal!" called Baker from the CIC. "We can't raise Shackleton!"

"Try Scott!" Fahim ordered, cursing that they hadn't thought to do that themselves.

"No AI!" Baker added. "No contact with any AI!"

Lance-Corporal Al Harbi let out a muttered curse, but ordered his men, "Carry on. You know the drill by now."

He turned and went to check on his men.

The first stop of Lance-Corporal Al Harbi's inspection rounds, as it would prove the least pleasant from a physical comfort point of view, was to the men outside checking out the trenches and surface emplacements of Martello 1965. He found the guns safely stowed, their barrels clean, lenses polished and protective coverings keeping them from being battered by the all-too-frequent storms. The electric repellers were keeping the steps and trenches reasonably clear of snow – only a quick sweeping was needed to restore the trenches to their as-dug status.

The weather, on the other hand, was testing the quality of those repellers right now. Thule weather tended toward "grim", and right now was no exception. A combination of snowfall, high winds and electrical interference made being outside hell even sealed in a heated battle suit. It also likely explained why communications with Thule's two settlements was lost at the moment. They'd be stuck here until the storm passed, as no Marine on Thule trusted transporters when communications were down.

The antennae of the sensor platform looked undamaged, as did the tiny radome that housed a radar even more powerful than those used by the most powerful Earth-based air traffic control centres.

Satisfied, Lance-Corporal Al Harbi ordered his men to return to the somewhat Spartan comforts of Martello 1965's central assembly hall.

"Any joy on communications?" Al Harbi asked his CIC watch. Baker and Chandler shook their heads dolefully.

"Well, keep trying. There's a weather front out there a mouse couldn't get through, that might be the cause of the problem. Jakobek! You've had the advanced sensor course, man the sensors and see what we've got. We're basically blind out here."

"Yes, Corporal!" Jakobek left his battle suit on, but dropped the helmet on the shelf under the sensor station. He began manipulating the various sensor devices to see if there was anything but storm out there.

Al Harbi looked at the displays of the optical scanners – cameras, to anyone on Earth, but far more powerful – but all he could see was wind-driven snow. He continued on his inspection.

As he entered the central assembly room, he was outraged to find Smith, Hornsby and LeBrun lounging.

"Hey, goldbricks! We have got inventory to finish, and other bunkers to check. Smith, check out the barracks and mess hall. LeBrun and Hornsby, give Levebvre and Mueller a hand with inventory! Sooner we get finished, the sooner we can get back to our concubines!"

At the mention of concubines, the men began moving a little faster. It still wasn't fast enough for a fuming Al Harbi, but it was faster.

The rest of Martello 1965 proved as basic as the vast majority of Martellos across Thule. The first level consisted of a central assembly room with a barracks bunker, mess bunker, medical bunker with two med tubes and basic first-aid supplies, and the CIC bunker. The next level held storage bunkers filled with food, water and other basic supplies. Below that, deeply protected against both Sa'arm incursion and accidents, the fusion reactor took up one bunker and the ammunition for the guns took up four others.

Martello 1965 did not have anything extra: no tank barn, or hangar filled with attack fighters, or hydroponics. Some of the Martellos had been converted to have other duties aside from the primary mission of fire-support position, like the one that held the Planetary Command & Control Centre. Martello 1965 was just a bog-standard military installation of the sort that Lieutenant Carruthers and his band of base engineers were creating in wholesale lots.

The afternoon wore on, and the duty wore on the men. They had finally finished inventory, as expected finding nothing amiss. Lance Corporal Al Harbi ordered his men to grab a cup of coffee in the mess bunker while he checked with CIC.

Baker and Chandler were still fruitlessly trying to re-establish communications with either Camp Shackleton or Base Scott. "Nothing yet, Corporal," reported Baker. "We can't return without contact."

"Is it possible that the weather is disrupting communications?" Al Harbi wondered aloud.

Chandler ventured, "I've never heard of such a thing happening before, but there's always a first time for anything."

"Corporal?" whispered Jakobek from the sensor station.

"Yes, Jakobek? Got something?"

Jakobek pointed to a sensor trace, a narrow column that rose from the general direction of Base Scott. "It might be debris. If so, it would have to be quite a high level of destruction to be visible by sensor trace through this crud." He indicated the stinking weather outside.

"Speculation?" challenged Al Harbi.

"If I were a betting man, I'd say Swarm."

"I was afraid you'd say that." Al Harbi swung to face the viewscreen at the far end of the bunker. "Tactical," he ordered.

Jakobek brought up the map of the area. So far, the screen showed clear.

"Baker, PA on." When Baker nodded, Al Harbi continued, "All hands into your battle suits. Prepare for action."

He could hear the men in the mess bunker cursing as they struggled into their heavily armoured, heated arctic battle suits. He turned to his CIC crew. "Baker and Chandler, you too. Leave your helmets off, but close enough to grab." They nodded and reluctantly began donning their gear.

"What's up, Corporal?" asked Private Mueller as she entered the CIC. She was closely followed by Hornsby, who carried a tray of four coffee mugs.

"We can't raise Scott or Shackleton, and we've got debris on the wind. Could be Swarm, could be an accident. But I can't think of any accident that would leave both places incommunicado."

The privates looked at him with worried faces. At that moment, Al Harbi realized the loneliness of command – especially command of detached, out-of-communications-range forces.

Swallowing a fillip of fear, the Lance-Corporal turned to the two new arrivals. "Take over for Baker and Chandler. Try and raise someone – anyone, even any Navy ships. Are the others still in the mess bunker?"

"Yes, Corporal," reported Private Hornsby.

"Call them. Smith and LeBrun are to go out immediately with monoculars to the central observation platform and do a visual scan – not that they'll be able to see much in this muck. Lefebvre is to unlimber the four RLA-20's. Baker, Chandler, down that coffee quick. I need you to go down and get at least two boxes of ammo for each gun. I also want a half-dozen RH-5 anti-armour rockets at each machine gun, plus some MB-20 fragmentation grenades, as many as you can find, and some Beehives."

Smoothly Mueller and Hornsby took over from Chandler and Baker. Baker took one swig of the coffee, Chandler decided he didn't need coffee if the Swarm were that close. Both raced out of the CIC bunker as Mueller contacted Smith and LeBrun to pass along the Lance-Corporal's orders.

"Corporal!" cried Jakobek in alarm. At the edges of the sensor sweep, red dots began appearing, first a few and then more, growing exponentially at an alarming rate – and moving quickly toward Martello 1965.

"Mueller, ping for IFF." Although it was standard protocol, Al Harbi was convinced that the Identification Friend or Foe would return a nil signal.

"Nil signal. I say again, nil signal."

Jakobek added, "Sensors indicate standard Sa'arm land cruisers, at least fifty coming fast with more entering sensor range."

Fahim winced. The worst possible situation. "Are they in cannon range?"

"Yes, but we won't be able to activate the cannon before they're on us."

He turned to the pair manning the communications station. "Alert everyone – get down to the armoury and grab as much stuff as they can. Place the transmitter on automatic repeating SOS. Then get going – you're more valuable manning guns than trying to talk to people who might not exist anymore."

Carrying two boxes of a thousand rounds each, his pockets stuffed full of fragmentation grenades, and slinging four RH-5 rocket launchers, Al Harbi raced out of the comforting warmth of Martello 1965's bunkers and scrambled along the trench system to an RLA-20 machine gun emplacement. He threw the ammo boxes beside the gun and fed the belt in. He would have to man the gun solo – his other men were manning other emplacements scattered around the Martello and he didn't have a soul to spare.

Suddenly, shadows could be seen through the blowing snow, coming in from the northeast. This was not a good sign – Camp Shackleton was over there. The gun mounted on the low observation tower had the best view at the moment, and opened up. Every gun on every turret on the land cruisers opened up in response. No doubt about it – even if they weren't Swarm, they were quite unfriendly.

"Fire when your guns bear!" he ordered. His men were experienced and disciplined, and gave careful aim before popping away.

Hornsby and Smith had taken the time to bring up a few rounds for the cannon mounted at cardinal points around the Martello. The two did the work of six, the normal crew complement for the howitzer, and managed to get off two shots. Then the Sa'arm artillery began landing.

The first round from a heavy turret gun took out the observation platform. To the horror of everyone, they heard the dying screams of one of the two – whether it was LeBrun or Smith was impossible to tell – as the platform lit up in yellow flame and shattered pieces of metal began raining down around them. The radome tower beside it, damaged in the same strike, slowly keeled over to lie over a stretch of trench.

"Keep firing! Keep firing!" Al Harbi encouraged his remaining men as his own gun spit death at the approaching Swarm.

The big cannon on the east side got it next – it was doubtful if either Hornsby or Smith realized what was happening before their bodies were completely disintegrated. Several metres of trench disappeared with them. Before they died, they'd managed to get a couple of dozen land cruisers. It was not enough to make a real difference to the outcome of the battle, though.

The Sa'arm were systematically ripping the Martello's defences to pieces. All four of the big guns were gone now, their barrels pointing uselessly at the sky and their hydraulic pistons smashed even if Al Harbi even had any men left to operate them.

The gun stopped firing, and to Fahim's astonishment he discovered he'd run out of ammunition. Two thousand rounds, and still the Swarm kept coming.

By now the land cruisers were close enough for his RL-5's. Unfortunately, the RL-5 was a single-shot weapon, and he only had four. The Sa'arm had over a hundred land cruisers. He took careful aim and had the immense satisfaction of watching his target burn and start exploding, sending blast fragments, smoke and flame through the turrets. He now needed to find another firing point – already Sa'arm fire was pounding the area he was standing in. He ducked and began running down the zig-zag trench.

As he did, he came across another of his men. The Sa'arm heavy round had smashed through the faceplate of the man's helmet and exited out the back. The man's head had shattered inside, and the battle suit was singed up the front so badly Al Harbi couldn't read the name tag to see who it might be... not that he really had the desire at that moment.

Again and again and again Al Harbi did his cut-and-run, not even stopping to see the effect of the last two blasts.

It was time. He'd witnessed five of his eight men dead, and with the Swarm all over the Martello, the rest either were already dead or would be shortly. He went down to perform his last duty as a Confederacy Marine.

Inside, conditions were still somewhat acceptable. While the blasts had raised dust and dirt and destroyed two entrances, the third he ran to was still intact. He raced into the CIC bunker, noting that the SOS was still sounding. It wouldn't need to much longer.

At the Reactor Control Station, he entered in the override command and opened the cover to the switch. As he inserted the key, the bunker door flew across the room. A Sa'arm, the first and last that Lance Corporal Al Harbi would ever see, tried to squeeze into the room.

At least I get to die staring the enemy right in the eye, Fahim thought with some satisfaction as he the key. Deep in the bowels of the Martello, the fusion reactor began an uncontrolled, uncontrollable overload that in a nanosecond would blow the entire valley and all the Sa'arm in it to radioactive glory.

Lance-Corporal Fahim Al Harbi blinked and stared at the antiseptically white ceiling. A second ago, he was about to die. Was he dead?

"Welcome back, Fahim," came a familiar voice.

"Sergeant Kowalski!" Fahim sat up and looked around the Medical Inspection Room. "It was... it was so real," he panted.

"It's supposed to be. It's designed to test how you'll react when you face the real thing, when everyone is looking to you like at Martello 1965. You thought those were real privates, you thought the Swarm attack was real, you didn't know if home was still there or not, and you had to react as if you were on your own. I hope you've learnt something about yourself."

"I have. I've learnt to trust the men under my command. I've learnt that I can take suggestions, and that I don't need to know everything. And I've learnt something else."

Sergeant Kowalski looked at Al Harbi curiously.

"I haven't told my concubines often enough how much I love them. When I didn't know if they were alive or dead, or if I'd ever see them again if they had survived, I felt such pain. If you can excuse me, Sergeant, I need to go back to my family in my pod and demonstrate to them that they are indeed loved."

"They're actually not in your pod. They're waiting for you in the Sergeants' Mess, to celebrate your promotion. Congratulations, Sergeant. You've earned it." With that, Kowalski shook the younger man's hand firmly.