Chapter 34: Epilogue

Admiral’s Bridge

WHSS Idaho, Mars Orbit

Monday, March 3, 2155

It had been a busy two days for Vincent Barbour. Following his surrender of the WestHem invasion fleet to the Martian Navy, he had received detailed instructions from the Martians. Admiral Belting had given him very specific orders, with the understanding that failure to comply with any of them would result in the destruction of his entire fleet. Barbour had no interest in testing the Martian admiral’s resolve.

First, the fourteen fully loaded Panama transports that had been designated as the Marine reserve were ordered to refuel from the Pegasus tankers and head back to Earth, leaving behind a pair of unloaded orbital landers. The landers were to be used to shuttle the crews from the damaged ships to the partially empty transports still in Martian orbit. As each Panama was filled, it was also sent back to Earth. The remaining functional warships were also sent back to Earth, with the final two ships in orbit being the flagship, Idaho, and the Panama II-class Boxcar II, where Brigadier Thomas was in charge of the Marines. They would be the last ships sent back to Earth.

When Barbour asked Belting what would become of Bangor, Cattle Car and San Salvador, Belting replied, “If you’re worried we will rebuild them and take them into our navy, don’t bother. Our old stuff is better than your new. We’re going to stick retrorockets on them and crash them into a southern crater.” Then he explained that if the WestHem Navy tried to get cute and load a nuclear warhead on any of the ships, the Martian Navy would be happy to return the favor in Earth orbit. Barbour didn’t want to chance it.

The trickiest issue was repatriating any of the Marines still down in the New Pittsburgh approaches. For that, they needed the cooperation of the Marines, and Brigadier Thomas was limiting his contacts with Admiral Barbour. The Marines were going to hang the Navy out to dry.

Command APC

New Pittsburgh Approaches, New Pittsburgh, Mars

Monday, March 3, 2155

Brigadier William Hostetler looked at his console monitor and reviewed his troop deployments. He commanded the New Pittsburgh Expeditionary Brigade (Reinforced), a heavy armored cavalry brigade assigned to New Pittsburgh as part of the Martian Planetary Guard’s mobile defenses in the New Pittsburgh approaches. In the event the Thor system failed to destroy the Marine landers, the MPG planned to defend the extensive trench system with a combination of dismounted infantry in trenches and a mix of armored cavalry regiments as backup and to exploit breakthroughs in the Marine lines.

The Expeditionary Brigade consisted of the Thirtieth, Forty-First, and Eighty-Ninth Armored Cavalry Regiments, along with the Twenty-Ninth and Thirty-Eighth Field Artillery Regiments. While each of the armored cav units had their own organic artillery, the two extra artillery regiments added a massive number of 150mm mobile howitzers. Brigadier Hostetler had started out in the WestHem Marines in an artillery unit; he knew deep down the value of artillery.

Following the Thor attack, the brigade had deployed from its position behind the trench system and rolled forward past the trenches towards the Marine landing zone. Once there, Hostetler deployed his regiments with the Thirtieth and Forty-First forward, and the Eighty-Ninth in reserve. The artillery regiments he lined up behind his forward regiments. Every part of the landing zone was within range of his artillery.

His aide, Major Cullie Karma, tapped on the hatch of the command APC. Both men, like the rest of the brigade, were wearing their MPG armored biosuits in the camouflage Martian red color scheme. Hostetler looked over at Karma, who said, “It’s time.”

“Intelligence has the Marine frequency and encryption cracked?”

Karma nodded. “We’ve been listening to them for the last hour. It’s rather ... disjointed. That’s being generous. The survivors are approaching panic levels.”

“Let’s do it.”

Karma went to his own console and clicked some icons on his screen. “You’re on.”

“Marines of Operation Martian Vengeance. This is Brigadier General William Hostetler of the Martian Planetary Guard. We have your landing zone surrounded. Your landers have been destroyed. Your fleet has surrendered and is in the process of being sent back to Earth. I call on you to surrender. You will be treated honorably and be repatriated to WestHem. We have an orbital lander coming in that will transport you back to your transports. Leave your weapons and begin walking east. You will be met by soldiers of the Martian Planetary Guard and be treated correctly. Anybody who is wounded will receive medical treatment. Do not attempt to use any vehicles. Any vehicles moving towards our lines will be destroyed without warning. Any Marines coming forward with weapons will be killed without warning. Please begin moving towards our lines. If you do not surrender, you will die in the landing zone.”

With that, he stopped and flicked the switch on his console. He turned to his aide and said, “Begin repeating that every few minutes, but remember the rules. Anybody trying to drive around or who isn’t disarmed, I want him smoked before he gets to the edge of the landing zone.”

“Understood.”

“I’m going to talk to my regimental commanders. You monitor this. I don’t know how many of these assholes are still alive, but I want them rounded up or dead.”

Karma nodded. “Yeah.”

Flag Admiral Office

Triad Naval Base, Mars Orbit

Tuesday, March 11, 2155

Matt Belting was all smiles as the four naval officers entered his office. Three were women, two walking and the third in a wheelchair, the remnants of her legs wrapped in bandages; the fourth was a man pushing the wheelchair. He came around his desk and shook their hands.

“How are you doing, Sheila? Any pain?”

Sheila Broadstroke answered, “No, Matt, no pain, I didn’t even know it was happening until it was all over. One second, we were shooting at the fighters and the next I was waking up in Wilmer’s sick bay.”

“As soon as we’re through here, we’re getting you over to Triad General. I don’t know if they can grow your new legs there or if we have to send you down to Whiting Memorial, but you know we’re going to take care of you,” Belting responded.

“I know.”

Belting said, “Everyone, please have a seat.” He pointed to a semicircle of chairs across from his desk and waited for them to sit down. The man pushed Sheila Broadstroke into place in from of the desk and then took a chair next to her. The other two women sat on her other side. “First, let me simply say that the performance of Task Force Destruction was beyond what we ever hoped. Sheila, you guys did brilliantly.”

“Thank you.”

“Now we get to decide what happens next. Stacy Wilmer was the last of the fleet to dock. The I-Owls and I-Seattles have all been refueled and rearmed. In a day or two, their crews will be returning from leave and be heading back out to shake down and start some fleet exercises. Now we need to decide what to do with you four.”

Sheila said, “Well, it’s not like we’re going to be refueling and rearming Hymenator.” The mortally damaged I-Owl had been destroyed by Stacy Wilmer after the survivors had been rescued.

Belting smiled and shrugged. “No, but we’ve got a few ideas.” He turned to Jane Harbaugh and Rory Rorhouseman. “So, tell me, was the Stacy Wilmer a good idea? Think we need a few more?”

Both women smiled. “She’s one hell of a ship, Admiral. Can I keep her?” said Jane.

“And you, Rory? Your thoughts?”

“I’m with the Skipper. She’s one hell of a ship!”

Belting nodded. “That’s what James Rutter and I decided after we read your reports. Yes, you two are keeping her. That cruise was a shakedown cruise unlike any other. When you get back from your leaves - and please, commit every possible sin - you will be heading back out for the fleet exercises. We need to figure out the best way to utilize the new battlecruisers. Rory, one of these days you might just get one of your own.”

With that, he turned to Sheila Broadstroke. “That is battlecruisers, plural. We’re going to be building a few more. The next one will probably be coming out of Phobos right about the time you are getting used to your new legs. We plan on naming our battlecruisers after heroic ships and heroic sailors. We were figuring on naming her Hymenator. Interested in taking her?”

Sheila was dumbstruck. “What?”

“You’re too good a captain to be stuck on Mars. You’ve seen Stacy Wilmer. Think you’d like one of your own?”

Sheila Broadstroke simply nodded. The Wilmer-class battlecruisers were an order of magnitude improvement over the standard Seattles and Owls the Martian Navy inherited from WestHem.

Belting said, “We need to fix some things. We’ve had analysts reviewing the records of the battles. They feel Hymenator’s loss was caused, in part, by inadequate fire control. The thinking is that while the fire control system tried to hop from torpedo to torpedo you ended up stuck in position too long. They aren’t sure whether it’s a hardware issue or the software. We have teams from both Ares NP and MicroZon-AmaSoft working on the problem. Part of the fleet exercises will be to test their solutions. On the plus side, if it works, it will probably also increase the percentage of hits as well.”

Sheila nodded. “Understood. I still want her.”

“Good. Now, until you can walk on board on your own, you get to study the specs and ops manuals and you get to work with the shipyard on the fixes needed by all our ships. Once we get an improved fire control system, we’ll be pushing it out to the entire fleet.”

Then Belting turned to the man sitting next to the wheelchair. “And you, Blake, what do we do with you? You are being reassigned to Phobos Shipyard. The designers are beginning to work on a next generation stealth ship. In my experience, the designers need combat-experienced officers and ratings to tell them what works and what doesn’t work.”

“Huh. I don’t know what to say,” replied Blake Cullins.

Jane spoke up. “Take the job, Blake. How do you think I got Hardass and Stacy Wilmer?”

Sheila answered for her XO. “He’ll take it.”

Belting smiled and reached into his desk, pulling out a bottle of EastHem whiskey and some paper cups. “I don’t have much in the way of crystal around here, but it’s the thought that counts. A toast, and then you can all head out. Sheila, we’ll get you to the hospital, and the rest of you can go on leave.” He poured the whiskey into the cups and lifted his. “Again, congratulations. You guys did a hell of a job!”

Emergency Military Headquarters

Denver, WestHem

Monday, March 24, 2155

Following the destruction of the New Pentagon, a pair of government office buildings on Victory Avenue, so named from the victory of WestHem over the Asiatic Alliance, were emptied out. They belonged to the Department of Welfare Services, but since nobody in the Executive Council gave a damn about either Welfare or Services, they were booted. They could do their work somewhere else. Officers began filtering in from elsewhere in the Solar System, mostly from Departure Naval Base and the ships in Earth orbit. They would form the basis of the new New Pentagon, whatever the Marines and Navy ended up calling their new headquarters, whenever it was built.

Nobody in WestHem or EastHem had any idea how the Martians had the ability to so totally destroy a structure the size of the New Pentagon without nuclear weapons, or even anything they could imagine was a weapon that could do it, and to do it without detection. Specially equipped construction crews were sorting through the rubble, looking for anything which might have caused the lightning strikes that every witness described hitting the building. So far, the only thing anybody had found was what looked like titanium structural members that might or might not have been part of the construction of the New Pentagon.

Both the Marines and the Navy needed to rebuild the departments destroyed by the attack. One of those was WestHem Military Intelligence. Colonel John Amos was summoned to Emergency Military Headquarters One by Fleet General Ronald Wadlow at 0930. EMHQ One was reserved for the Marines; EMHQ Two belonged to the Navy.

Amos showed up on time in his new uniform, with the epaulets of a full colonel and a new uniform cap with the appropriate gold braid. He had been promoted to colonel shortly before Convoy Martian Vengeance was attacked by the Martian Navy, and though General Finch had cursed him wildly for fucking up the intelligence, had never been cashiered as Finch had promised. Instead, Finch was dead, his atoms spread through the rubble of the New Pentagon. Amos had been on an inspection trip to Alaska at the time, a time-honored technique to get rid of an officer about to get the boot.

The new Chief of Staff of the Marines welcomed Amos to his office. “Colonel, welcome. I was given excellent reviews of your fifth column project by General Finch before he died in the 3-1 attack.”

Amos wondered what was up. In his last meeting with Finch, on February 28, Finch had sworn that he would have Amos up on charges, which the Colonel considered more than a bit overblown. How could he have known the Martians had built a navy capable of what they had done? That was Naval Intelligence’s responsibility, not his! The COS was expecting an answer, so he simply responded, “Yes, sir.”

“Well, we need to rebuild everything. He told me you had extensive experience dealing with our Martian assets. We are promoting you to Brigadier General and giving you WestHem Intelligence. Mars is our main priority, but don’t neglect EastHem.”

Brigadier General (Select) John Amos came to attention and replied, “Yes, sir. Understood!”

“Congratulations, General.”

“Thank you, sir!”

Executive Council Offices

Denver, WestHem

Tuesday, March 25, 2155

Chairperson of the Executive Council, William Jacobs, sat in his office’s private lounge with the new Chairman of AgriCorp, the corporation that controlled the food supply of WestHem. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mister Foster.”

Xavier Foster nodded and smiled. He had managed to climb over the bodies of his C-suite colleagues to become chairman. Literal bodies, too; three of his competitors had died over the last three weeks, though Xavier had only been responsible for the last one. “Thank you, Mister Chairperson. I wanted to meet you and discuss how AgriCorp could help in the new Solar System regime.”

Jacobs smiled graciously and said, “I appreciate the sentiment. I find it quite reassuring when our patriotic corporations work in concert with the government to improve the lives of the citizens of WestHem.” He wasn’t sure what Foster wanted, but at least he hadn’t walked in ordering Jacobs to clean out his desk.

“Thank you. I was hoping to discuss shipping priorities with you.”

Jacobs gave him a curious look. “Shipping priorities?”

“Yes, sir. Under the new state of affairs in the Solar System, it seemed appropriate I talk to you. While I know that WestHem can never acknowledge a surrender to Mars, their offer to provide half of their agricultural surplus to us cannot be ignored. As the premier supplier of foodstuffs to WestHem, AgriCorp has an obvious interest in assisting the government with this opportunity.”

Jacobs had heard rumors that the corporations were changing their pecking order. It was bad enough when one CEO died, and that corporation went through an orgy of self-destruction as the rivals for the top position fought each other. Now they were all fighting for Chief Executive Officer slots and fighting each other for the most important ranking in the corporate food chain. For generations it had been InfoGroup and its second-tier competitors, ICS, WCV, and now NewsSys. It seemed as if AgriCorp had risen above InfoGroup. InfoGroup’s stock price had taken a massive hit during Martian Justice, when the Navy had destroyed the satellite system orbiting Mars. Now, AgriCorp’s stock price had risen significantly when news of the ceasefire and food deal had surfaced, even if only among the business community.