Con-Red: Recourse Read online

  “That’s when we lost all contact with the Fredriksburg and her escorts. As you can see, General, we lost all sensor feeds instantly. Our ships can still be out there, we just can’t see them…or anything else for that matter.”

  General Stelle took a slow, long breath and stood up straight. He put his hands behind his back while staring at the display screen at the front of the command center. It had changed to show all the presently stationed military units and the locations on the planet from where they had last reported their positions. It was a guess as to whether they were still in the same positions. With the communications and tracking systems offline, those soldiers could really be anywhere. They could even be engaging some enemy and calling for support, but there was no one to hear or acknowledge them.

  Brinek’s many years of experience and instincts told him that something like this could not happen by accident. Systems of one kind of another were bound to fail at certain points in their life cycle, but for all of them to go offline at the same time was unheard off and pretty much impossible. That was unless there was an external explanation for it and that inevitably led to only one of two conclusions, either high command took the systems offline for a drill or the system was under attack by unknown enemy forces with technology advanced enough to disable all his sensors and communications systems without any warning.

  In his mind there was only one course of action to take, “Colonel, put this base on Condition Red, get everyone ready for combat and deploy all defensive forces to their designated stations. I want our perimeter locked up tighter than a Galicar’s shell. Assume we are at war until told otherwise.”

  There was a flash of genuine shock and surprised at those commands. The Colonel and every other person within the command center dropped everything they were doing for number of seconds as the realization of what had just happened sunk in. Their training took over instantly, however, after the moment of surprise and as one they hurried to their specific wartime duties. At the same time an alarm called out through speakers around the room as well as those arrayed all over the underground facility. Along with the loud klaxon, red illuminators ignited all over the base informing the occupants of the situation even before the Colonel’s voice resounded through concealed speaker systems.

  Every person on the base knew what Condition Red was. It was the thing they had all trained for and most hopped to never witness. A majority still assumed it as a drill, however, and as such joked with each other as they stumbled out of their bunks and donned their battle dress before rushing out towards the nearest armory to pick up their weapons. Some of those jokers actually sobered when they realized the weapons they were issued contained full charged power packs and set to full power. That had never happened before during drills for safety reasons.

  General Stelle stood tall and proud as everyone went along with their duties. He had been with these soldiers for years and had pushed them harder than anyone ever had. Now they understood why he had been that mean old man during all those drills that they hated. Brinek had known that one day there would come a time when they would need those instilled skills and the confidence to complete their tasks without second guessing themselves. That confidence how filled the TACCOM in spades. Every person in the room knew their jobs from the moment Condition Red was declared and would do them to the letter until they were ordered otherwise or became incapacitated.

  From behind the general heard a pounding of combat boots against the hard floor of the hallway and a group of soldiers in full battle gear rushed into the room. They quickly formed a line and stood at attention, their BR-112 battle rifles firmly attached to the chest plate of each soldiers’ combat armor.

  The General turned to face these young men and women, admiring them for a moment before speaking his first words to them. “You’re squads will receive the first missions of this conflict. As you might have already noticed, all our wireless communication are out. Until the problem is alleviated we must reply the centuries old tradition of couriers. You will take your units to areas now designated on your TacLinks and try to link up with the units stationed in those areas. Once located you will inform them that we are under Condition Red and relay orders for them to regroup and head to their designated bases. Should said units not be at their locations proceed to secondary Recon objectives. All of your orders have already been relayed to you.”

  He paused and let the mission sink in for a second before continuing, “I know what you all are thinking and let me make it perfectly clear…this is not a drill. You follow your orders and trust your training.”

  With that he took one last slow look at all of them, almost as if it would be the last time laying his eyes on them before turning away to look at the displays once more. He could hear Colonel Gustauf Lakler shout for them to move out and conduct their missions as ordered, adding that they would finally be able to earn their keep in his army.

  “We need to do something about our communications problem General,” Lakler exclaimed as he stood behind the General, looking at the highly detailed map of the area surrounding the base. New indicators started to appear on the map as units started to take up their new positions and get reinforced with new personnel from the reserves based within the large mountain complex.

  General Stelle nodded slowly and a map of the mountain range appeared on the screen in front of them. The computer systems in this room were completely integrated with his neural implant and registered his thoughts instantly. He took a moment to scan the map before it quickly zoomed in on a curved, snow covered mountain ridge.

  “If we install a series of TLaRs in these specific areas,” multiple flashing dots appeared along the rim of the ridge, “we should have most of our units covered.”

  “I’ll get a squad from the 152st to take care of that.”

  “They will need some support, just in case and as backup. Do we have any units in the area?”

  Again, as soon as General Stelle’s mind thought about the units within that area the map zoomed out and a popup screen appeared at the edge of the map. Unit designations and icons appeared scattered around the map from their last known locations a written list of those units and their capabilities was displayed within the popup.

  “I’ll never get used to this implant,” the General grumbled as he ran this hand through his hair, getting slightly frustrated with his lack of mental control on the neural chip in his brain. The younger officers that got them probably had everything squared tight within days, the general thought. His kind had no need for such devices. He was an old fashioned warrior and couldn’t for the life of him understand why the higher authority would order him to get the implant. What the General was never told, however, was that during Condition Red, the sensitivity of readers within a facility increased in order to help speed up the process of gathering information and issuing orders.

  As he surveyed the map, another icon flashed to life just above the Kalka Mountain Ridge. While the other icons were greenish, this one was in fact a dark blue.

  “That’s SOU Echo, from the 603rd Marine Special Operations Battalion. The Navy boys came down last week, before the Fredriksburg took off, to conduct mountain exercises. I completely forgot about them with all the fun we’ve been having.” Gustauf spoke quickly and turned towards the general with a small smile.

  Without warning and to the surprise of everyone nearby, a soldier manning the nearness communications station turned towards the two commanding officers, “you aren’t going to believe this sirs, but it’s Colonel Slaige of the 2-603 MSOR. He was planet-side overseeing Echo Team training. He’s requesting a sitrep and orders from FRONTCOM. Echo has been monitoring our TLDL transmissions and knows about Con Red.”

  “Those MarSpec boys must have a TL-35…figures,” the colonel stated with a roll of his eyes and a smile at the thought of them having better equipment than his own soldiers.

  “I don’t care what they have, you tell them we got a mission for them.”

  Learkat Ridge<
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  Frontiera

  Vapor expanded in all directions as the large CT-76 Buzzard transport slowed to a hover and slid sideways onto the snow covered outcropping at the edge of the mountain ridge. The transports thrusters, four in total, swung down and out to help maneuver the heavy craft into place. They wavered slightly from one direction to another as they fought against the heavy winds coming down the mountainside to keep the transport as stable as possible. The outcropping was too small and unstable to occupy a Buzzard transport craft so the pilots had to keep her in a hover only a few meters off the ground.

  Both pilots were already aware of how difficult that job could be with the unpredictability of the wind gusts. They had almost lost their transport and her precious cargo on more than one occasion during this mission. If it hadn’t been for the always present automatic recovery system they would have never made it to their final destination in one piece. The ARS constantly monitored the craft with a hands-off approach until it sensed that living pilots could no longer react or physically regain control of the transport, at which point it would simply take over and attempt to save the ship. Once recovered, the pilots could simply turn the system back to standby and keep it running in the background.

  As the transport’s rear end swung over the outcropped and stabilized, two things quickly happened in unison. Firstly two rectangular portals, one on each side of the craft, appeared to melt open and from each one a pair of soldiers leapt out. Each pair of these warriors had weapons at the ready and ran to predesignated position. 1st Lieutenant Charles ‘Jade’ Aldrish, Corporal Faiad ‘Mule’ Walid, Lance Corporal Martinez ‘Joker’ Liandro, and Lance Corporal Candan ‘Sweets’ Restok each crouched down at their destinations and proceeded to scan the entire horizon for signs of enemy activity.

  Even before their armored bodies hit the snow covered rocks a vertical impression formed along the rounded rear of the craft. It quickly grew deeper and wider just before the entire rear opened up in either direction, as the alloy structure dematerialized. Once the opening was large enough a ramp extended out and from this ramp jumped down two other soldiers, Gunnery Sergeant Katherine ‘Cat’ Questok and Sergeant Hovnik ‘Broke’ Zawelak, followed by a large cargo container. The container dropped almost a meter before slowing itself down and softly settling onto the snow covered ground.

  Behind the drop container hurried four army combat engineers, following the two heavily armed Marines that preceded the container. All of the marines seemed to carry themselves noticeably different than the engineers and even though one could not see their faces behind the helmets they wore, an aura of experience and confidence filled the air. One of these marines was different from the others, however. This particular marine commanded the full respect and loyalty of the others. He also had a small hatchet etched into the side of his combat helmet.

  Lt. Colonel Duntan “Chief” Slaige landed in the packed snow with a half crouch just behind the four combat engineers. He quickly moved out of the way and made room for the rest of his team to drop in behind him. With his sophisticated heads up display, Chief didn’t even have to look around to make sure Echo team was where they were supposed to be. Having done this many times before the entire team deployed throughout the immediate area without a single word from Captain Malory ‘Stripes’ Porter, their actual CO. She jumped down closely beside him and quickly moved off through the snow to oversee her team.

  With the help of the overlaid map of the outcropping being projected in from of his eyes, Duntan was able to monitor every member of the team. With just a quick thought he was able to change the entire HUD to display whatever he wished. Another thought and the map disappeared just as soon as he got the information he needed. As he expected from these elite troopers, everyone was where they should be, a testament to the fact that they had been doing this repetitive task for almost five hours now. At this point he had actually been with Echo Team for over two weeks, ever since choosing to participate with them in their mountain exercises. It had actually started off as a personal outing to get away from the rather mundane life as the Commanding Officer of 2nd Battalion, 603rd Marine Special Operations Regiment and now he was cut off from his entire Battalion by some sort of planetary communications blackout.

  To Duntan Slaige, a man of over thirty years within the Corp, this was just another challenge. He had learned long ago that one should not obsess over the things that could not be fully control controlled, but instead to focus on those that he could, such as the current mission at hand. Even seemingly routine missions such as this had tremendous purpose and posed certain risks in wartime conditions, such as they all found themselves in now. Every member of the team knew that without completion of this task, fighting whoever had attacked them would be almost impossible as the United Planets Federation military forces were spread throughout this continent of Telfor and relied on a solid communication network to function properly. Without communications, each unit was on their own and could no longer coordinate any defensive or offense operations. It was not to say that each unit was not a competent fighting force by themselves, but they were much more effective when cooperating with other support units such as artillery and air support.

  The Colonel noted the difference between his Marine Corp and the UPF Army forces with a hint of smugness. Marines were a completely different breed of soldier and had been for centuries now. They all trained to fight on their own from the start because their missions often found them cut off from any support for long periods of time. Every marine knew that they would be the first in and sometimes the last out and this reality afforded marines a sense of brassiness. Chief would never downplay the importance of the Army; it was just that the two services usually had different tactical objectives.

  Thinking about the Marine Corp brought Duntan back to reality, a reality where there was a high probability that the UPF was now in an armed conflict with unknown forces. He also thought about the other Marines that had been stationed in orbit, attached to the Frontiera Defense Fleet and wondered if any of them were still alive. Taking a slow breath inside his insulated helmet, he pushed those types of thoughts from his mind and focused back to the mission at hand. Standing there in the thick snow he continued to monitor Captain Porter as she coordinated Echo Team and the Army engineers they were escorting.

  He was proud of how she was handling herself during this tense situation. She already had two of the engineers standing beside the container entering a security unlock code to open it. Duntan knew the Captain well and had full confidence in her leadership ability; after all he had chosen her for the position over a year ago. He let her lead for the most part, only offering advice when need be. For moment there was no real need for him to take command of the unit.

  Scanning the rest of the ridge he noticed two other engineers off to the side prepping a piece of real estate on which the new Tactical Laser Data Relay system would sit. The TLaR, as it was referred to, was able to absorb tremendous amounts of data and relay them almost in real-time to other laser datalink receivers across the battlefield. While not a new technology it had been improved upon over the years to be a very effective backup system in case wireless data systems went offline, such as was the case now. The only limitation was that, as a laser, it worked only by line of site.

  To help alleviate this limitation General Stelle had launched a squadron of drones fitted with full communications payloads. These would receive laser signals from all over Telfor and relay them to the closest units or relay stations. This was also why they were all now working on this mountain ridge, installing the relays at the highest point possible to make it easier for incoming signals to be received. The mission was already proving to be successful as the five relays they installed hours ago were already transmitting and receiving messages. The TLaR they were working on now would be the last and would help cover Destona, the capital city of the planet, and the land surrounding it; finally reestablishing some contact with the city.

  Destona was a c
ity of almost two million inhabitants, which made it the most populous area on the planet and in the event of war the civilians living there must be protected at all costs. It was the military’s job to defend the city by all possible means and in the event such was not possible, those civilians had to be evacuated. The city was also home to the majority of military families living on planet. Since the unit rotations lasted a minimum of two years, most soldiers brought their families with them, making adjusting to the new living arrangement easier. This fact made Colonel Slaige cringe a little inside. The soldiers on the ground had enough to worry about in times of war without having to worry about the safety of their family as well. It would make some of them crazy and perhaps reckless when the realization of the situation set in.

  The Colonel remembered when the policy changed for forward deployed soldiers. With many years having gone by without wars, the law makers felt it was alright for deployed soldiers on duty have their families join them if they so wished, it didn’t hurt to raise their popularity either. The decision for the individual soldier was a simple choice, however, much to the frustration of most commanding officers. The veterans knew what would happen if a conflict started and it was proving true at this instant, so many years later.

  A large bright flash in the sky above drew the attention of Colonel Slaige and a few others who happened to be looking in that direction. Within seconds, however, every helmet on the outcropping looked up into the heavens just in time to see the light dim slowly and disappear. The colonel quickly willed his suit to display an internal reference map, which automatically calculated and predicted what orbital objects were above them at this instant. Without access to the planet-wide military sensor network the suit’s computer could only give projections and not hard data, however, since most things in orbit rarely changed their position without warning, the guess was most likely closer to fact.