Chapter 31: Martello One Nine Six Five

Lance-Corporal Fahim Al Harbi led his squad into Martello 1965 and began barking orders, trying to sound – and lead – like Sergeant Ken Kowalski, his platoon sergeant. He knew they were eyeing him for corporal's stripes, and he wanted the prestige that came with them. Right now, he was an Acting Corporal, with the responsibility but without the actual stripes, nor with the right to membership in the Sergeants' Mess.

In the post-shortage economy of the Diaspora, getting a promotion didn't get you any physical benefits, but it did give you an ego-boost. It meant that your superiors felt you were worthy of higher things. They tried desperately not to promote a soldier or sailor to the level of his or her incompetency. Occasionally, they succeeded. Every assignment Fahim went on, he knew he was being watched and graded. As a lance-corporal, he himself was expected to watch and grade his men, looking for those suitable to join him in his empyrean rank.

"Smith! Hornsby! Jakobek! LeBrun! Physical check of the trenches and artillery emplacements!" he barked. "Smith, take the north, Hornsby the south, Jaokbek the east and LeBrun the west. Move it!" The four privates moved out, grumbling about not being artillery crew as they sealed their helmets to their battle suits and dropped their visors.

"You have had the basic training on them, you should be able to tell if anything is wrong, and that is what counts! We can get the experts in to fix it if there is!" He turned to two other members of his eight-man squad. "Chandler! Baker! Get the CIC up and running! You should be linked to Central Command by now!"

Privates Chandler and Baker disappeared into the Combat Information Centre pod, checking that the sensors were active and reporting in with the command bunker near Camp Shackleton.

"Lefebvre! Mueller! Inventory check! Let's make sure the last crew left us some field rations!"

The two picked up the data pad that held the inventory for Martello 1965 and started down the ramp to the storage pods.

"Corporal!" called Baker from the CIC. "We can't raise Shackleton!"

"Try Scott!" Fahim ordered, cursing that they hadn't thought to do that themselves.

"No AI!" Baker added. "No contact with any AI!"

Lance-Corporal Al Harbi let out a muttered curse, but ordered his men, "Carry on. You know the drill by now."

He turned and went to check on his men.

The first stop of Lance-Corporal Al Harbi's inspection rounds, as it would prove the least pleasant from a physical comfort point of view, was to the men outside checking out the trenches and surface emplacements of Martello 1965. He found the guns safely stowed, their barrels clean, lenses polished and protective coverings keeping them from being battered by the all-too-frequent storms. The electric repellers were keeping the steps and trenches reasonably clear of snow – only a quick sweeping was needed to restore the trenches to their as-dug status.

The weather, on the other hand, was testing the quality of those repellers right now. Thule weather tended toward "grim", and right now was no exception. A combination of snowfall, high winds and electrical interference made being outside hell even sealed in a heated battle suit. It also likely explained why communications with Thule's two settlements was lost at the moment. They'd be stuck here until the storm passed, as no Marine on Thule trusted transporters when communications were down.

The antennae of the sensor platform looked undamaged, as did the tiny radome that housed a radar even more powerful than those used by the most powerful Earth-based air traffic control centres.

Satisfied, Lance-Corporal Al Harbi ordered his men tto return to the somewhat Spartan comforts of Martello 1965's central assembly hall.

"Any joy on communications?" Al Harbi asked his CIC watch. Baker and Chandler shook their heads dolefully.

"Well, keep trying. There's a weather front out there a mouse couldn't get through, that might be the cause of the problem. Jakobek! You've had the advanced sensor course, man the sensors and see what we've got. We're basically blind out here."

"Yes, Corporal!" Jakobek left his battle suit on, but dropped the helmet on the shelf under the sensor station. He began manipulating the various sensor devices to see if there was anything but storm out there.

Al Harbi looked at the displays of the optical scanners – cameras, to anyone on Earth, but far more powerful – but all he could see was wind-driven snow. He continued on his inspection.

As he entered the central assembly room, he was outraged to find Smith, Hornsby and LeBrun lounging.

"Hey, goldbricks! We have got inventory to finish, and other bunkers to check. Smith, check out the barracks and mess hall. LeBrun and Hornsby, give Levebvre and Mueller a hand with inventory! Sooner we get finished, the sooner we can get back to our concubines!"

At the mention of concubines, the men began moving a little faster. It still wasn't fast enough for a fuming Al Harbi, but it was faster.

The rest of Martello 1965 proved as basic as the vast majority of Martellos across Thule. The first level consisted of a central assembly room with a barracks bunker, mess bunker, medical bunker with two med tubes and basic first-aid supplies, and the CIC bunker. The next level held storage bunkers filled with food, water and other basic supplies. Below that, deeply protected against both Sa'arm incursion and accidents, the fusion reactor took up one bunker and the ammunition for the guns took up four others.

Martello 1965 did not have anything extra: no tank barn, or hangar filled with attack fighters, or hydroponics. Some of the Martellos had been converted to have other duties aside from the primary mission of fire-support position, like the one that held the Planetary Command & Control Centre. Martello 1965 was just a bog-standard military installation of the sort that Lieutenant Carruthers and his band of base engineers were creating in wholesale lots.

The afternoon wore on, and the duty wore on the men. They had finally finished inventory, as expected finding nothing amiss. Lance Corporal Al Harbi ordered his men to grab a cup of coffee in the mess bunker while he checked with CIC.

Baker and Chandler were still fruitlessly trying to re-establish communications with either Camp Shackleton or Base Scott. "Nothing yet, Corporal," reported Baker. "We can't return without contact."

"Is it possible that the weather is disrupting communications?" Al Harbi wondered aloud.

Chandler ventured, "I've never heard of such a thing happening before, but there's always a first time for anything."

"Corporal?" whispered Jakobek from the sensor station.

"Yes, Jakobek? Got something?"

Jakobek pointed to a sensor trace, a narrow column that rose from the general direction of Base Scott. "It might be debris. If so, it would have to be quite a high level of destruction to be visible by sensor trace through this crud." He indicated the stinking weather outside.

"Speculation?" challenged Al Harbi.

"If I were a betting man, I'd say Swarm."

"I was afraid you'd say that." Al Harbi swung to face the viewscreen at the far end of the bunker. "Tactical," he ordered.

Jakobek brought up the map of the area. So far, the screen showed clear.

"Baker, PA on." When Baker nodded, Al Harbi continued, "All hands into your battle suits. Prepare for action."

He could hear the men in the mess bunker cursing as they struggled into their heavily armoured, heated arctic battle suits. He turned to his CIC crew. "Baker and Chandler, you too. Leave your helmets off, but close enough to grab." They nodded and reluctantly began donning their gear.

"What's up, Corporal?" asked Private Mueller as she entered the CIC. She was closely followed by Hornsby, who carried a tray of four coffee mugs.

"We can't raise Scott or Shackleton, and we've got debris on the wind. Could be Swarm, could be an accident. But I can't think of any accident that would leave both places incommunicado."

The privates looked at him with worried faces. At that moment, Al Harbi realized the loneliness of command – especially command of detached, out-of-communications-range forces.