OBT Forum

Chapter 1

February 18, 3022
Pendle’s Town
Charleston
Taurian Concordat

“Eddie, my boy!  Damn good to see you again, son,” exclaimed the old man as he rose from his chair behind the desk in his office.

The subject of that exuberant greeting grinned as he leaned against the door frame, his arms crossed over his chest.  At just 24 standard years, Edward Calderon had seen fewer than a third the days of the speaker—much fewer.  But while the old man may have been retired from the Defense Force, the undress jacket of the planetary guard that he wore was still taut across tightly corded muscles.  And if his hair was thinner than in years past; well, did the quality of the brain beneath the skin and bone actually care about the number of hairs on the scalp above?

“So this is where they shipped you off to, you old coot,” Edward said as he unfolded his arms, stood, and then walked up to the old man with his hand extended.

“Old coot, my ass, you young whelp!” the man snapped; the words may have been harsh, but his tone held nothing but warmth.  â€œAnd for your information, Eddie, no one shipped me out.  I retired, if you will recall.”

“Actually, Brigadier, as I recall, it was a medical retirement; the docs wouldn’t recertify you for another tour playing mother hem at the Academy.  I think they said you needed some rest to ease the strain on that old ticker of yours.”

“A baseless slander; I was always planning to settle down out here away from the snake-pit of Samantha City politics.  Just maybe not quite so soon.”

Ignoring the outstretched hand, Ray Jessup embraced the younger man fiercely.  And then he stepped back and examined Edward from head to toe with a critical eye.  â€œCaptain, eh?  And with the IG no less.  You know you’re moving down in the world.”

Edward answered that with a snort.  â€œWe also serve who inspect troops and push papers, Sir.  Even if we trained for four years to pilot ‘Mechs—and less than six weeks for our current assignment,” he finished sourly.

“What did you expect, Eddie?” the former head of the École Militaire softly replied.  â€œYou’re the bloody heir for Christ’s sake; did you just think that graduating fourth in your class was going to earn you a lance command slot in one of the battalions on the Davion border?”

“No, Sir,” the Captain answered as he shook his head, “but they could have left me in one of the battalions of the Guard Corps.  Those units only seldom get rotated out anyway.  Instead I’m piloting a bloody desk too many damn days a week.  In GHQ on Taurus, no less.  You won’t believe the strings I had to pull to grab this inspection tour and get of the Cluster.”

“So is that why you’re here, Captain Calderon?  To whine to an old man about how unfair the universe is?”

Edward grinned, and then he snapped to attention and saluted.  â€œAbsolutely not, Brigadier, Sir!  Edward Calderon, Captain, Department of the Inspector General, Taurian Defense Forces; reporting as ordered!  Sir!”

Ray snorted again.  â€œCut the cadet crap, Eddie, and then draw up a seat.”

As the commander of the Charleston Volunteers sat back down in his sturdy, no-frills, no-comforts wooden chair, Edward did as his former instructor and both past-and-present mentor instructed and sat down in one of the two chairs arrayed before the desk.

“So, Mr. IG Man,” Ray drawled, “where exactly do you propose to begin with your inspection of Charleston’s defenses?”

“Well knowing you like I do, I’m certain you probably have the armor battalion out on a FTX—along with at least half of the infantry.  The infantry you don’t want some staff wienie from Taurus taking too close a look at.”

Ray nodded, a slight twitch in his mouth betraying his amusement.  â€œAnd so the staff wienie will do what?”

“Despite our reputation—well-earned reputation, may I add—at the IG’s office for an adverse reaction to fresh air, mud, muck, and grease, I think I will change into my field kit and borrow one of your choppers to observe the FTX in question.  Then, after we all return to base, I believe that a surprise inspection of the barracks and vehicle hangers is in order.  After that, we can start plowing through your paperwork.”

“Thank you, Lord,” Ray spoke loudly towards the ceiling.  â€œYou have worked a miracle today, a blessed miracle.”

“You know that God is omnipresent, right?  You don’t have to shout.”

“The hell I don’t, boy.  God is older than I am—I imagine he’s a mite hard of hearing as well.  But seriously, Eddie, it sounds like you learned a little more from me than how to operate a ‘Mech.”

“I asked myself what would the Old Man do?  And then I thought back to all of your inspections.  Of course, that means you know what to show me and what to hide, so I’ve got two weeks to ferret out all of your trooper’s dirty little secrets.”

“Well, as it happens,” Ray said as he stood, “there is a Field Training Exercise currently underway.  And I have a whirly-bird waiting on the pad anytime you want to depart.  I think that the Inspector General’s office will like what we have been doing out here to train up the local Constabulary.”

Edward raised an eyebrow.  â€œYou have the Constabulary in the field?  Not just the regulars?”

The old man snorted.  â€œOnly the armor battalion is regulars, boy.  And there is only a single battalion of that; plus a division of air-breathing fast-movers —one singular division of four planes—for atmospheric defense and a grand total of fourteen VTOLs, eight of which are converted civilian jobs.  All six battalions of Charleston’s infantry are local troops that have never been off planet in their entire lives.  Yeah, they wear the TDF uniform and draw a paycheck, but the previous commander let them go to pot—said that infantry were worthless and treated the troopers like shit.  And so he got shit results.  Good riddance to the asshole.”

“I’ve got almost three thousand registered members of the Constabulary, though.  They may be as green as fresh-cut pine, but damn if they aren’t eager as all hell to show the regulars what they can do.  Since I got here, we’ve started whipping the full-time infantry into shape and I’ve personally taken a hand in getting the Constabulary sorted out and geared up.  We train ‘em for three days a month, rotating then over a four-week cycle so that someone is in the field every bloody weekend—and the line infantry and armor are there with them each and every damned time.  And I’ll tell you this; some of those volunteers are down-right sneaky on maneuvers.  They’ve got all sorts of dirty tricks they are itching to try out on raiders or regulars alike.”

“Sounds like you’re having a wonderful time out here.”

“Wonderful?  Wonderful?!  I’ve got volunteers out there some of whom are totally clueless—and more than a few of the regulars as well.  Some of them actually know enough to lace their own boots without their mother holding their hand.  A few—a few, mind you—of them are pretty good, but wonderful?”

A peal of thunder resounded against the office window and both men looked towards the glass as the first heavy drops of an autumn storm began to fall.

Eddie shook his head.  â€œAnd you arranged for the weather to go south as well?”

“Don’t forget, God and I are close personal friends.  We partner up for bridge every Wednesday night down at the social center.”

“Having the time of your life, the time of your life.  Let guess, the FTX is in the middle of some god-forsaken miserable swamp filled to the brim with the local equivalent of alligators?”

“Don’t be silly, Eddie, my boy; there is no indigenous life on Charleston that even remotely resembles an alligator.  I had to import the genuine thing all the way from Ishtar.”

******************************************************************************

Edward frowned as he considered the field boots his batman had packed into his kit back aboard the DropShip Vindictive.  He frowned at the black glossy highly-polished finish that gleamed flawlessly on the leather surface to be precise.  Didn’t Stanton know what field utilities were for?  Removing another item from the case, he shook his again.  Sure enough, the buckle on his belt was bright glistening silver embossed with the Bull emblem of the Concordat.  At least the career Corporal had not been able to polish the trousers, blouse, and field jacket—although the snap buttons on the jacket’s front closure and all four pockets had been.  Polished and buffed until the anti-glare coating had been scrapped clean and each silver-toned circle shone like a mirror.

The young man sighed in disillusionment.  He had known going into the Defense Force that it was a schizophrenic organization at heart.  The Armor Corps and BattleMech Force were filled with professionals who trained hard, fought hard, and played hard—but professional soldiers regardless that were dedicated to defending the Taurian people.  Infantry Command and Fortress Command vastly outnumbered those components, but except in the direst of circumstances those sections never left their homeworlds.  While there were some good units in both of the two defensive divisions of the TDF, by and large they were filled with short-timers serving the mandatory two-year term of service required of all Concordat citizens.  And then there was the Administrative Corps and all of its glorious sub-departments—including the Department of the Inspector General.  Good solid dependable line troopers and officers fought like hell to stay out of the bureaucracy, leaving only those who wanted to play the political game to serve in its ranks.  Or those of us like me, Edward thought, who get stuck here because some bureaucrat doesn’t want to explain to Pop that I am just a soldier like any other in the TDF.

The REMFs of Administration seldom had any field experience, and for the most part they didn’t want any.  The exercises and war-games they played were in the political arena, not physical combat, and it showed in how the enlisted and non-commissioned staff performed their jobs.  Appearance—not substance—was by and large the watchword in Admin.  His batman had never even considered that Edward would go into the field and actually do his job; the thought had quite possibly never even crossed his mind when he had blithely ruined the effect of the field camouflage back aboard ship.   Even his rank tabs had been sewn on in bright golden thread, for Christ’s sake!  Full color rank tabs to boot.  Well, at least his sidearm was clean and functional—even if that too had been polished mirror bright.

His thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the thin wooden door of the small room he had been given at Charleston’s defense HQ.

“Come.”

The door opened and a local volunteer walked in, carrying a bundle wrapped in brown paper and bound up with twine.  â€œSir,” the trooper said, “with the Brigadiers’ complements.  And he said to pass along the following:  â€˜Ain’t seen a staff wienie yet that knows jack about the field—or their batmen.’  His words, Sir, not mine.”

Edward chuckled and shook his head.  Sure enough, he could see the outline of boot soles against the paper wrapping.  â€œBrigadier Jessup saves the day; or at least saves me from being embarrassed in front of real soldiers.  Thank you, Private, if you will just leave that bun. . .”

The window glowed with a flash of light as a sudden massive explosion slammed into the building, shattered the glass in the window and hurling both Edward and the Private to the floor.   The floor, walls, and ceiling flexed from the concussion wave causing flecks of paint and plaster to spray outwards like flakes of snow.

His ears ringing from the deafening clap, Edward shook his head and worked his jaw, trying to clear the canals and sooth his thundering eardrums.  He staggered up to his hands and knees, shards of shattered glass carving tiny slices in his hands and scoring his undress uniform’s knee-pads and boots.  That’ll piss Stanton off, was Edward’s first thought, even as he could faintly hear emergency sirens in the distance.

His second thought was brought about by the faint creaking of the walls and large cracks running jaggedly across their surface.  â€œLet’s get out of here before the whole place . . .”

He stopped before he could finish the sentence, because the Private would never hear him or anyone else again.  A fragment of the shattered window had sliced deep into the youth’s throat, spilling his life-blood out upon the floor in a growing pool of crimson.  Edward swallowed as he felt the bile in his stomach rising up, his nose catching the first wisp of the smell of death.  Unable to stop himself, he retched and heaved up the breakfast he had eaten just two hours before.  For several long seconds, he spewed bile and half-digested biscuits and bacon atop the broken glass, plaster dust, and shattered tile; and then he sat back on his heels and wiped the slime from his chin on the sleeve of his blouse.

The stench of his own vomit, combined with that of the hot coppery blood and the pungent odor of urines and feces caused his stomach to lurch yet again; but this time he held it back and he staggered to his feet.

Grabbing his web belt with the holstered automatic, Edward Calderon sprinted out of the door and into Hell.