{"id":1264,"date":"2017-11-10T20:38:00","date_gmt":"2017-11-11T02:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/keithgoodnight.com\/blog\/?p=1264"},"modified":"2017-12-28T12:37:59","modified_gmt":"2017-12-28T18:37:59","slug":"the-opponents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/keithgoodnight.com\/blog\/2017\/11\/10\/the-opponents\/","title":{"rendered":"The Opponents"},"content":{"rendered":"

August 2, 2184\u2014 Industrial Platform (Low Orbit) 380A\/X\u2014 continued<\/em><\/p>\n

Commander Jeanette Wheeler, until recently a captain in Warren Armstrong\u2019s Offworld Force and CO of its Sixth Company (assigned to Nova Colony), kept her eyes on her screens as her troops continued their deployment across the factory platform. She\u2019d stationed herself in the local IT room beside the loading dock, where her tech staff were at work taking control of the platform\u2019s automation and computer systems. She could monitor the deployment from there as well as anywhere: already the techs had piped the platform\u2019s security feeds into her tac unit.<\/p>\n

The sound of gunfire echoed down the corridor, the first since boarding began. The electric crackle of space-safe weapons, designed not to puncture bulkheads or hull plates, was entirely different from conventional guns, but just as easily recognizable.<\/p>\n

\u201cForward team report,\u201d she said into her headset. \u201cWhat\u2019s that firing? Was it you?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNegative, Commander,\u201d came the reply from the lieutenant on the scene. \u201cWe\u2019ve got disorganized fire from behind some barricades up ahead. Permission to return fire?\u201d<\/p>\n

Mission orders said he had to ask, and Wheeler knew her commanding officer well enough to know he\u2019d expect careful inquiries. That wouldn\u2019t have been Wheeler\u2019s own inclination. Blow the dusted rebels away. She still went rigid with fury when she thought about the events of last May.<\/p>\n

On that day of confusion, when the President of the Terran Federation ordered military forces on the Colonies to open fire in order to compel the offworlders to evacuate, and her then Commander, Warren Armstrong, had ordered them to stand down instead, Jeanette Wheeler\u2019s company had been the only one to put up a real fight. Like most of the twenty-four companies, nearly half her people sided with Armstrong: a percentage that would burn her with shame if not for the later discovery that her loyal half was the only one to really fight it out against the mutiny. There were half-hearted brawls and confused arguments everywhere, a few shots fired, on Galileo three soldiers were injured by strays.<\/p>\n

But Wheeler\u2019s loyal company fought it out for six hours before she was finally forces to understand the situation was hopeless, and told her troops to stand down. The cost of the fight was fifteen Terran military injured\u2014 divided nine and six between her loyalists and the mutineers, and five of Nova\u2019s civilian police. A tiny engagement by the history of war, but the only real attempt by any of Armstrong\u2019s companies to obey the Presidential order that day.<\/p>\n

In the wake of the fight, the offworld cops had seen the loyal troops and officers back to whatever transport was available to deport them back to Earth.<\/p>\n

Her actions on the day of the mutiny earned her promotion, from Captain to Commander, and a position as second-in-command of the Second Offworld Expeditionary Force. A posting which had brought her, today, back into space , where she was determined to avenge the humiliation of her last visit. She would be there when it was the offworlders, every last rebellious one of them, marched into transports, for their one-way trips back to Earth where they belonged. She would be there, watching, and especially so when the traitorous members of her own former company marched past, in irons. The offworld civilians would be headed to the relocation camps the Terran government already had prepared to house them. The soldiers would be on their way to courts martial for mutiny and treason. Commander Jeanette Wheeler would be there to see it.<\/p>\n

But first, she had the present mission to accomplish, and a commanding officer determined to accomplish it with the minimum possible bloodshed. And her lieutenant was waiting word on permission to fire.<\/p>\n

She wanted to say yes. But she had her orders. She had to inquire. \u201cWho\u2019s shooting? The tac report says the onboard security was diverted away from our position.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt looks like some of the factory crew, they must have passed weapons around out of the armory in the security office.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why would the factory workers be shooting? Wheeler would have expected them to just keep their heads down.<\/p>\n

Perhaps thinking the same thing, one of the techs looked up from the console he was working. \u201cCommander, before we cut the intercom we heard the platform supervisor issue a warning: they think we\u2019re pirates on a raid.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDust!\u201d Pirates would kill everyone on board as a mater of course, giving themselves leisure to steal as much as they wanted, and leaving no witnesses who could identify them. If the crew thought that\u2019s who the boarders were, then of course they\u2019d think they had no choice but to fight to the death. That would become a self-fulfilling prophecy for the unfortunate crew, and a source of unacceptable delay for the mission.<\/p>\n

\u201cLieutenant, the crew think this is a pirate raid. Tell \u2019em who you are, wave a flag or something\u2014 try to get the bloody idiots to see what\u2019s actually going on. If they won\u2019t stand down, use whatever force necessary to secure the area on schedule. But try talking first.\u201d<\/p>\n

She thumbed off her coms without waiting for an acknowledgement. To the tech, she said: \u201cReport your status.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything\u2019s five-oh here,\u201d he said. \u201cNo problem getting into the system, civilian net security\u2019s a joke even up here. We\u2019ve already cut off existing crew access, and the new software for the factory automation is uploading as we speak.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGood. Carry on, I\u2019ve gotta report to the Admiral.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wheeler left the IT room, made her way through dockyard Ops and out into the airlock corridor. A few meters down the hatchway into the transport ship stood open.<\/p>\n

The ship was designed for unmanned operation, and its lifesystem areas existed primarily for maintenance access. The normal interior was a network of winding corridors threading in among the ship\u2019s systems, punctuated by banks of status monitors and small workrooms where maintenance crews could get to work on whatever needed fixing. A small control room would allow the transport to be piloted on manual in a pinch, but it was little more than an afterthought.<\/p>\n

That was normally. Before launch, the transport\u2019s lifesystem deck had been refitted almost beyond recognition. Interior bulkheads knocked down, new screens installed, passages cut through into several of the transport containers the ship carried, which had also been refitted. Instead of the cramped maintenance space, the transport\u2019s interior was now a full (if inelegantly designed) CIC for running the military operation now under way all through the low orbit corridor.<\/p>\n

Admiral Richard Gali, commanding officer in charge of the Second Offworld Expeditionary Force, stood by the main tactical display, studying the reports coming in from the other boarding parties.<\/p>\n

Wheeler saluted. \u201cOur troops have encountered some resistance from the platform crew,\u201d she said. \u201cWord got around that we were pirates so the crew thinks they have to fight it out.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGet them straightened out, we didn\u2019t come up here for a bloodbath,\u201d Gali said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, sir. I\u2019ve already told Lieutenant Renner to wave the flag at them. It shouldn\u2019t be a problem for long.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBoarding parties at platforms 187, 203 and 492 report they\u2019re already secure, Commander,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t expect my flag unit to lag behind.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, sir.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cComs says this platform got off a message to Colonial Flight Control before we cut them off,\u201d he continued. \u201cThat\u2019s a potential problem. We didn\u2019t hear what they said, we don\u2019t know how much of the message got picked up. There\u2019s two weeks until the next scheduled crew rotation, we\u2019ve counted on that time before the offworlders find out what\u2019s happened. If a message got out, we could have attention on us before we want it. We need to get set up ASAP.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe tech team\u2019s already uploading the new software,\u201d Wheeler said. \u201cThat gets the refit started right away, whether the crew\u2019s been secured or not. My engineering teams are ready to move out and do the rest, the moment we get the all clear. I don\u2019t think we\u2019re going to have a problem.\u201d She hesitated, and then added, \u201cAnd, Admiral, my compliments to the teams at 187, 203 and 492, but I predict we\u2019ll have our refit done before any of them, pirate-obsessed crew or not.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNot that this is a race, of course.\u201d Gali allowed himself a slight smile.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course not. A little inter-unit competition is good for morale, but accomplishing the mission is what matters, not which team finishes first.\u201d Wheeler knew better than to return the smile, but she knew the Admiral would hear it in her voice. \u201cAlthough it\u2019ll be us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCarry on, Commander.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAdmiral.\u201d Wheeler saluted, then turned and left the CIC. When her back was to the Admiral, she let the smile play fully across her face. Those dusted offworlders would never know what hit \u2019em.<\/p>\n

TO BE CONTINUED<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

August 2, 2184\u2014 Industrial Platform (Low Orbit) 380A\/X\u2014 continued Commander Jeanette Wheeler, until recently a captain in Warren Armstrong\u2019s Offworld Force and CO of its Sixth Company (assigned to Nova Colony), kept her eyes on her screens as her troops…<\/p>\n

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