Chapter 10

The following new characters appear in this chapter and others:

Captain Royce

Finance Officer 6’-0’’ tall, 195 lb, 31 years old, brown hair, gray eyes

Captain Rodeo

Supply Officer, S-4, 6’-0’’ tall, 200 lb, 33 years old, blond hair, blue eyes

SFC Rogers,

Sergeant First Class, S-2 NCO, 6’-0’’ tall, 195 lb, 38 years old, blond hair going bald, black eyes

SFC Max Dixon

Sergeant First Class, S-3, former Team member, 6’-1’’ tall, 210 lb, 36 years old, brown hair, gray eyes

SP4 O’Toole

Specialist 4, S-2 clerk, 6’-1’’ tall, 210 lb, 26 years old, brown hair, gray eyes

SP5 Fleming

Specialist 5, S-3 clerk, 5’-9’’ tall, 165 lb, 27 years old, blond hair, blue eyes

SFC Kim Atchine

Sergeant First Class, Senior Medical Technician, 5’-7’’ tall, 135 lb, 34C-22-34, 40 years old, black hair, brown eyes

SGT George Lighter

Sergeant, Medic, 5’-10’’ tall, 170 lb, 29 years old, blond hair, blue eyes

SP5 Perry Goa

Specialist 5, Medic, 5’-9’’ tall, 165 lb, 28 years old, brown hair, brown eyes

SP4 Richard Cox

Specialist 4, Mechanic, 5’-9’’ tall, 150 lb, 24 years old, blond hair, gray eyes

MSG Natalie Maharaj

Master Sergeant, Team Leader of Team A-31, Clare’s Partner, 5’-11’’ tall. 170 pounds, 36C-25-36, 39 years old, long black hair worn in a bun, brown eyes

SFC Dan Khawam

Sergeant First Class, Millie’s Partner, 6’-0’’ tall, 195 pounds, 34 years old, brown hair, gray eyes

SFC Naomi O’Flannagain (Omi)

Sergeant First Class, Magic user, 5’-7’’ tall, 135 pounds, 36C-24-36, 29 years old, long red hair, green eyes

Clare

Female Tiger, Natalie’s Partner, 111 inches long with a 34 inch tail, 38 inches tall at the shoulder, 350 pounds, not quite 5 years old

Millie

Female Bald Eagle, Dan’s Partner, 40 inches body length, 7’-4’’ wing span, 13 pounds, younger that Samson and Sara

The written orders for our deployment arrived two days later. They didn’t add much to what we already knew, but did tell us that the briefing at Special Operations Headquarters would be held three days after the date of the orders, which was that day.

In the meantime, we had been busy. Every piece of field equipment that we had was again subjected to inspection. This wasn’t finished yet but continued. All of the spare parts for the vehicles, electronic equipment, and the mess equipment had been checked and requisitions for what additional parts or test equipment that we would need were made out and submitted. All of our personnel had gone over their clothing and field equipment to ensure that they had everything, and that it was in good condition. We also checked the equipment for the Partners to ensure that it was in tiptop condition, as they were often hard on the things they used.

The day after receiving the written orders, we began to receive additional personnel. Apparently, Colonel Royal had taken a personal interest in our request for an increase of personnel to our TO&E and had quickly approved it.

Two NCOs, SFC Rogers and SFC Max Dixon, arrived to work in the S-2 and the S-3. Max Dixon was an unusual assignment. He had been a Team member who had suffered a head wound, along with several others while on an operation. The medics had been able to repair and heal all of the wounds over time, but Dixon had lost the ability to communicate with Partners from the head wound. No one could explain why or how he had lost the ability to communicate with Partners, but it had removed him from field duty. He was a lucky find for us, however. There were also two additional clerks who arrived with them to work in the S-2 and S-3, Specialist 4 O’Toole and Specialist 5 Fleming.

They were followed the next day by a Medical Team who arrived with their equipment. They were led by SFC Kim Atchine, a Senior Medical Technician with Sergeant George Lighter and Specialist Perry Goa, both medics. Last to arrive the following day were Captain Royce, a Finance officer, and Captain Rodeo, a Supply Officer.

There were also some personnel who arrived that we hadn’t requested. Specialist 4 Richard Cox, a mechanic, arrived with several of the other personnel. Lastly, SSG Patrick Bell, the Power Unit Repair Technician, arrived with orders attaching him and his vehicle to the unit for this deployment. We were all surprised by this but welcomed him, as he had done a fine job during the field exercise with us by filling in to help in several places.

Finally, the day and time for the briefing on our deployment arrived, and all of the leaders of the major sections of the unit assembled at Special Operations Headquarters with the Colonel and me to attend it. The briefing started at 1300 hrs, just after lunch, which we all had early.

The briefing started with a welcome by Colonel Royal, and then went directly to the facts with a presentation about the planet Parthas (Paradise).

“Parthas is an earthlike planet being only slightly larger than Terra with a comparable gravity. It has a 25 hour day, and a 400 day year, as it is just slightly further out from its primary than Terra is.

“It orbits a class G-2V sun that is nearly the twin of Sol being only slightly larger and a bit younger at 4.4 billion years old, as compared to Sol’s 4.6 billion years. It has a temperature of 5820 degrees and a metallicity of 0.02. It is a main sequence star, is non-variable, and it has no companion. There are 7 planets in the system.

“The planet Parthas has three main continents. Most of the settlement is on the largest continent. There are also numerous medium and large size islands. All of the continents show a considerable amount of what can best be described as heavy corrugations, having multiple parallel ridges and valleys across all of the continents. This is believed to have been caused by plate tectonic action in the distant past. However, it has affected how the planet was settled and how their civilization has grown. That will be covered in a later part of this briefing.

“There are presently no large and dangerous animals on the planet, except man. There is evidence of rather large and dangerous animals being there in the past. That concludes my portion of the briefing,” that briefer told us. He was followed by a female Major.

“Paradise was settled in two waves about 20 years apart. Both were from Ireland on Terra. The first wave arrived about 100 years ago. They settled on the one large relatively flat area of the main continent. They were mostly from the central and the west coast areas of Ireland and spoke Gaelic rather than Standard. On arriving, they were formed into clans, but it is possible that they did that prior to leaving Terra. They have a small central government and are ruled by a modernized form of Brehon Law, which were the laws in Ireland from Celtic times until the British conquest of Ireland.

“While the original settlers insisted on keeping Parthas as close to its original condition, as it was when they arrived there, those of the second wave are more modern in their outlook and wanted large cities and all of the benefits of modern civilization. To do this, they wanted to move to the area of flat land that the original settlers are occupying, as currently they only have the small flat areas along the coasts of the main continent. Neither group seems interested in settling on either of the smaller continents. There are fishing towns or villages on some of the major islands,” the briefer finished. This definitely left us somewhat confused.

“Just who are the ones in revolt?” the Colonel asked.

“The rebels are the descendants of original settlers. They refuse to allow the other settlers to use any of the area that they claimed and occupy,” the Major informed us, as if that was obvious to anyone.

“Wait,” the Colonel said. “The descendants of the original settlers are the ones in revolt?”

“Yes, they are at war with those from the second wave of settlers. They fire on any of them who enter the area they claim. It is the recognized ruling government of Parthas that has requested our help in subduing those in rebellion to their rule,” she finished.

“And this government, how was it established?” the Colonel demanded.

“There were free elections after the second wave of settlers arrived and had established an interim government. All citizens were encouraged to vote in it. The original settlers refused to vote claiming that they had already established a government and laws defining what was expected of citizens, and that this second government was illegal. The Unity has recognized the government established by the second wave of settlers, as the legal government of Parthas,” we were informed. The Colonel frowned deeply on hearing this.

“We will proceed now with the details of your deployment and arrival on Parthas,” Colonel Royal told us, cutting off any questions we may have had about why the present government was recognized as representing the entire planet.

“In 10 days, the Baltic will arrive here. It will require approximately 4 days to resupply the ship and perform any maintenance or updates that are necessary. You can expect to begin loading shuttles in 14 days to transport your equipment and then your personnel up to the ship. It is expected that the ship will be ready to depart in 18 days barring any unforeseen problems.

“When we received this request, a Unity government contact team was sent out to Parthas to establish contact with the government there, and to obtain a large enough facility for you to establish your headquarters in as well as obtaining vehicle support, and the hiring of local nationals to support your operations,” we were informed by Major Kanisha Ollennu.

“Do you foresee any problems with this schedule?” Colonel Royal asked following that.

“As we are currently constituted, no. Will we be assigned any additional Teams?” the Colonel asked.

“Yes, you can expect to be joined by another Team in 4 days,” we were informed by a Lieutenant Colonel, who had arrived in just the last few minutes.

“That doesn’t leave a lot of time for cross training,” the Colonel commented.

“They are an experienced Team and have just returned from Addison III, where they were tracking down poachers,” we were informed. This news was a bit of a shock, as we hadn’t heard anything about another Team being sent to Addison III. The briefing ended there, and we were dismissed. We would need to have a staff meeting to determine what we had learned and what additional supplies we would need to obtain to support this new Team.

At the hurried staff meeting back at our headquarters, a number of questions arose.

“Will their Partners have cages? Will they have all of their equipment? What about food for their Partners and the Team? How many Team members are there?” All of these questions and more were asked, but we had no answers, not even a Team number. It was the Colonel who settled things.

“Since we know nothing about this Team, we will order sufficient items to accommodate any type of Team. If we are over on some things, someone will use the excess.

“S-4, order food for a Team with both Eagles and Falcons. Also order meat for two Cougars and a Tiger plus food sufficient for 5 Team members.

“S-4, requisition an additional operational vehicle.

“Transportation, order repair parts for another operational vehicle.

“Communications, order parts for both types of surveillance equipment used by our flying Partners.

“We will presume for now that they have cages for the Partners that require them, and that they have all or most of their equipment. If there are problems, we will seek to resolve them before departing,” the Colonel told us.

“And if they have an Eagle Partner?” Luther asked.

“We should obtain several perches for whatever type of feathered Partner they may have, as well as for the Falcons that we already have. See about that S-4,” the Colonel ordered.

“Are there sufficient bunks for 5 or more additional Team members, as well as housing?” I asked.

“Yes, there are extra bunks, sheets, blankets and other things. There is also sufficient space in the quarters buildings that we are taking with us to accommodate additional personnel,” Captain Rodeo assured us after checking with Sergeant Two Bears.

“We have approximately two weeks to get ready. Let’s get all of the requisitions in for the new supplies and equipment quickly. We will know more in four days. Their ship must have just entered the system, if they are 4 days out. I’ll try to find out something from those in S-3. Someone must know who was sent to Addison III and when. In the meantime, continue to prepare your section’s equipment for shipment.

“S-4, we’ll need an estimate of how many vehicles we’ll require each day to move our equipment and supplies to the space port to be lifted up to the Baltic. We’ll also need an advanced party to go up to the Baltic and check on where everything is stored and where our rooms will be. We have a lot of personnel now, and we’ll require a lot of rooms to accommodate them all,” the Colonel reminded us.

“There are presently 38 personnel assigned to us plus 8 Partners,” Lt. Hue reminded us. I had lost track of the count and was surprised by the total.

“We need to remind everyone about taking their own entertainment with them. We have no idea what the Baltic will have available,” Luther reminded us, remembering our own trip here.

“That DOES NOT include a lot of liquid refreshments. We’ll still have a lot of cross-training to do on the trip. Additionally, there are likely to be classes on the way there, if they follow what we saw on the way here,” the Colonel reminded us before the meeting broke up.

You can imagine our surprise when late on the afternoon of the third day following the briefing, a small bus followed by a low-bed tractor trailer pulled into our parking area. There was a cage on the low-bed trailer, and three people emerged from the bus with two Partners, a Tiger and an Eagle. Those working in the warehouse hurried out to meet them and sent word to the Colonel and me of their arrival. We too hurried outside to meet them.

“Good afternoon, sir. I’m MSG Natalie Maharaj, and this is Team A-31. The others on the Team are SFC Dan Khawam and SFC Naomi O’Flannagain. Our Partners are Clare, the Tiger who is my Partner, and Millie, the Eagle who is Dan’s Partner. Naomi supplies the Magic,” the Team Leader informed us after saluting.