Chapter 28: Proteus’ Birth

But truer stars did govern Proteus’ birth;
His words are bonds, his oaths are oracles,
His love sincere, his thoughts immaculate,
His tears pure messengers sent from his heart,
His heart as far from fraud as heaven from earth.

- Julia, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act II, Scene VII

The birthrate had begun to ramp up in May, as the first wave of settlers reached their nine-month mark. By July it had reached a full-blown baby boom. Having become pregnant weeks before her pickup, Lisa Whitefeather was swept up in this wave of the boom.

That night, the Whitefeather clan was lying together in the massive main bed, sleeping in exhausted happiness after a very pleasant ménage à cinq. William found himself jolted awake by an iron grip on his forearm. “Bill,” Lisa whispered, “I think ... it’s ... time...”

“Not Braxton Hicks, then?” William asked in concern.

“Ohnothesearedifferent,” she blurted through gritted teeth, her face a mask of pain as another strong contraction tore through her. She then relaxed for a few moments. “I’ve been having them for a few hours now. Guildenstern’s been timing them for me.”

T’kliktguul’s voice was tinged with an apology. “Friend William, your mate Lisa did not wish to disturb your sleep until the birthing time was close. The birthing time is now close. I have been granted the honour of hosting the birth, due to our relationship. Please proceed to the nearest transporter nexus. I have a maternity medical pod waiting in one of my sick bays. There is no need to rush unduly, but you should proceed there expeditiously.”

The other women had roused by this time. “Callie, you have the pod,” William ordered as he and Lisa started for the main door. Lisa only made it halfway across the main living space before doubling up with another contraction. William scooped her up in his massive arms as easily as if she were the size of a three-year-old and carried her the rest of the way to the colony’s primary transporter room.

The Marine manning the transporter had already been alerted by the colony AI and had the settings ready for a quick trip up to T’kliktguul. It hadn’t been his first transporting of a pregnant concubine to one of the colony transports that night, and likely wouldn’t be the last.

Lieutenant Kirk Boland had made the decision months ago that the smartest use of the colony transports while they were stuck in orbit was as a backstop for the colony’s medical facilities. While a handful of medical tubes in Nova Alabama had been converted to handle human birth, each pod on the three transports included one specialized for obstetrics. They could also handle any other trauma, but human mothers still preferred to be awake and alert when they gave birth, requiring medical beds that didn’t have lids that didn’t need to close.

That meant that all children born at Atalanta’at entered the universe in space, as true children of a spacefaring civilization should. T’klikrooz reflected on all those Tuull younglings who had started their lives on his decks. The modern Tuull newborn merely whimpered, whilst the human newly whelped youngling tended to scream its displeasure at leaving the warm, comforting womb with the vigorously lusty cries of a born warrior. He reflected that the Tuull infants he had known as a young freighter were much the same as their human counterparts whose first hours he currently had the pleasure of hosting. He had to wonder if the “advances” his creator species had gone through in pacifying themselves over the long history of his existence were truly advances.

Meanwhile, aboard his old friend T’kliktguul, young Master Mark Whitefeather was indeed expressing vast displeasure at the cold, cruel, unfeeling universe. Those cries of separation were instantly assuaged, though, when the little boy found his mother’s teat and began to suckle for the first time. His belly quickly filled, and sleep overtook him.

“He’s perfect,” Lisa gushed as she held her son protectively.

“Yes,” William agreed, his eyes filling with tears, “absolutely perfect.” He bussed his concubine lovingly. “Just like his mother.” The hug he was giving her became even more protective. “I love you, you know. You ... and our son.” He looked back down at humanity’s future, cradled in Lisa’s comforting arms.

Atalanta’at being a military colony on the front lines of an interstellar war, William Whitefeather’s paternity leave was of necessity quite brief. A sense of duty, reinforced by a driving need to protect his child and those who would join young Mark in the upcoming months and years, proved a stern taskmaster.

He’d been working with Lieutenant (“Don’t call me Christopher”) Janke on tactics to use the child-man’s “elite” 2nd Company. He quickly realized that just as Janke had underestimated the professional soldier, so Whitefeather had underestimated the teen football hero. The youth just needed someone else besides his former English teacher to look up to. The kid was still bull-headed, but was prepared to change his tactics once it became obvious they weren’t working. He just wasn’t far-sighted enough yet, something that Whitefeather was sure would come with experience.

The misfit company itself had realized after a solid month of encounters with the former Canadian’s highly unorthodox training methodology that here was a man of wit, imagination and intelligence, a man who knew his trade well. They might not precisely like the man, but most of them respected him.

So two days after the birth of his precious first child, the men of the Second found themselves in a large lecture hall. They were startled by the sight of Lieutenant Whitefeather as he strode up to the lectern. The startling part was not the sight of the man himself, but of his uniform: the usual green kepi was now paratrooper maroon red. It was no coincidence that it was the same shade as the beret that certain elite Canadian soldiers wore. On his chest were his Canadian jump wings.

“Gentlemen,” Lieutenant Whitefeater addressed the men, “welcome to the Airborne.”

As the men stirred in their ranks, he continued. “Now, jumping out of perfectly good aircraft isn’t exactly a safe thing to do around the Swarm – except in certain highly unusual circumstances. They tend to shoot stuff down fairly quickly if it’s travelling sufficiently slowly and predictably, like falling parachutes tend to do. So forget the airborne assault tactics like what spearheaded the Normandy D-Day landings. However, what we can do is use the air assault tactics pioneered by such units as the First Air Cavalry of the United States Army.”

One private stuck up his arm.

“Yes, Private?”

“Sir, what’s the difference? Between ‘airborne assault’ and ‘air assault’?”

“Ah, good question. Thank you for asking it. Shows you’re paying attention. With airborne assault, infantry is typically parachuted in with all the kit they can carry, usually by fixed-wing aircraft, as part of a larger invasion operation. They’re to disrupt enemy operations and hold key points like crossroads until they can be relieved by advancing ground forces. With air assault, where the troops are dropped in using VTOL aircraft from low altitude, the operation is more along the lines of a hit-and-run raid or scouting operation.”

The man nodded in comprehension.

“There are usually a LOT more troops involved in an airborne assault operation. The limitation is on how many fixed-wing aircraft you can mobilize. You drop behind enemy lines and are supported by airborne supply drops. An air assault operation is typically much smaller and limited by the VTOL craft cargo capacity. Our Leopards can take more than a typical Earth military helicopter can ever dream of – approaching a C-130 – but still, we just don’t have the forces to march out and take Swarm-occupied terrain, so airborne operations are not practical. So the purpose of our air assaults will be to find out where and how many of the dickheads there are, and to try to disrupt their operations – maybe mislead them into going elsewhere for awhile and buying us more time, maybe cause them to become more cautious in their advance, again buying us more time. In other words, scouting and hit-and-run.”

Whitefeather picked up his data pad and double-checked his notes. “That means we need training in rappelling on top of our ordinary infantry training. We’ll also need more training in using fire teams as opposed to squads and platoons, and in integrating them in such types of operations. We’ll need more of those LSC-101 Corgi scout cars. Oh, the Leopard drivers?”

“Sir!” came the call from several points around the room. Eight men stood up.

“How low do you usually fly?” Whitefeather queried them.

They looked at each other in puzzlement. “The book says no more than 160 metres above ground level, Sir, except on landing or approach, and only in the landing or approach vectors.”

Whitefeather nodded pleasantly. “That level is set for urban North America, to ensure that you clear transmission towers. Are we anywhere near urban North American centres at the moment?” He cocked his head quizzically.

“Er, no, Sir,” one brave birdman admitted.

“Right. You’re going to start practising what’s called ‘nap of the earth’ flying, starting with simulators this afternoon. We need to get your altitude down to somewhere closer to a tenth of the civilian peacetime level, routinely.”

“Sixteen METRES, Sir?” one man cried.

“Fifteen, actually, when travelling slow. You may need to get down to less than half a metre during combat operations, but you’ll have to travel at walking speed for that.”

The man blinked and sat down, amazed.

“OK,” Whitefeather went on briskly, “while our Leopard drivers spend some time in the simulators learning how low they can go, the rest of us are going to start with a fixed ground installation that mimics the ass end of a Leopard, training on rapid egress and dispersal. First, we’ll break your squads down into fire teams of about four men, consisting of a lance-corporal, three riflemen and a machine gunner. That means some of us will be getting promotions. Mister Janke, can you think of anything to add?”