Chapter 28

"Karen," asked Terry at a group meeting, "would you tell us the important things about our target of Brer-3?" He could have asked the AIs, but he trusted Karen to extract the things most important for mission planning and the needs of the people involved.

"According to the AIs, Brer-3 had had a small exploring party from the Zuman race, with which contact had been lost. While the Zuman were no more tolerant of other races than most of the Confederacy, they did explore apparently uninhabited planets. When they found resource-rich planets, they kept up a reputation for being fine miners and smelters. More recently, they had taken on manufacturing, typically of heavy products." She chuckled. "A gamer, who works with the Confederacy database, called the short, strong, heavy Zuman as the dwarves of the Confederacy."

Terry resumed. "The mission will concentrate on the destroyed Zuman settlement, although it would repeat, with less intensity, the passive scanning done at Silvat. If this mission went well, I'm ready to recommend that the settlement of McMaster start. In that operation, we'd concentrate on building sensor nets and defenses in that system, and then launching the next recon mission from there.

"This mission, however, will launch from Blue Light in Earth orbit. Mary will be the mission commander, with Harry as an adviser. Moe will be naval squadron commander, and Mary's backup,

Given she'll be in command; I'm going to turn the details over to her in a minute. Mary will bring her children, who are sponsor-level but under 14, and able to help in many ways. Mary?"

Wearing a Navy major's uniform, Mary grinned. "Yes, an ex-concubine as mission commander. Terry and Moe aren't in a rut ... well, bad word choice. I have the highest regard for their rutting.

"Let me begin by noting, though, that Joni and Elaine are going to be our subject matter experts. While Elaine is the forensic science expert, Joni, as a volunteer but highly skilled urban archeologist, she has a strong background both for organizing a dig site, reconstructing the behavior of the Zuman. When she finds things, Elaine will do the individual artifact analysis.

"My son Kevin and daughter Sheri are just short of 14, and we expect them to be sponsors. Kevin is very knowledgeable in photography and general imaging. Sheri is interested in electronics, and I've had her studying ground-penetrating radars and other non-imaging sensors. Wanda's daughter Tanya, who is interested in history and culture, will assist in that reconstruction, as well as going on the mission. Joni?"

"Thanks, Mary. The AIs tell me interesting things about Zuman customs. While they appear to be as xenophobic as other Confederacy races, they are brave, especially underground. Several Earth cultures carry knives symbolic of their honor; the Zuman always carry some kind of digging tool. I like to think that someday, perhaps we might meet them through the shared experience of mining.

"Nevertheless, this isn't about meeting them. It's about understanding the Sa'arm. We need to understand how the enemy raids a settlement. How do they kill? How do they butcher? These should leave marks on bones, assuming the bones survive the making of Sa'arm chow, a process that we don't yet understand. Elaine will do the detailed analysis of bone marks, but I'll reconstruct the pattern of the settlement and of the attack.

"Do the Sa'arm use solid or force knives, their own body strength, or distance weapons? Did they have butchering tools such as saws? Given the time constraints, it will be possible only to log and photograph the position of remains, and then seal them in bags and send them to the ship."

Given the greater chance of coming into contact with the Sa'arm, there was no question of sending one ship. Sancho Panza would join Jervis Bay for the ten-day voyage to Brerat. They put part of the Marines on the second ship. This was standard air-landing doctrine to keep all the eggs out of one basket should disaster strike. The Marines had had little opportunity for joint training, although they all had prior Earth operational experience other than drills for ship-specific actions such as repelling boarders. LTC Beatrice Oonk, the Marine commander, worked on intensive training during the flight.

Medical resources were beyond the norm, given that there was the possibility of contact. Mary and Terry also were not willing to assume medtubes would cover all trauma possibilities. So, Leanne Kennedy was there as a fully qualified trauma surgeon, with Dan Roth covering anesthesia. Rona Fiore and John Faulkner, while not surgeons, still were physicians, and Rona was the medtube expert. Rona was also prepared to deal with psychiatric casualties, assisted by John for younger people, and Dan with wide experience. Barbara Sims was a physician assistant specialized in trauma.

The two Pirate ships traveled together to the Brerat system. Sancho Panza flew to the planet, and deployed the standard navigation-communications satellites, which linked together IMINT, SIGINT, and MASINT orbiters. In particular, they concentrated on mapping the Zuman settlement. It was approximately 100 miles from the Sa'arm Hive. As on the previous world, multispectral infrared showed shallow tunnels radiating from the Sa'arm ship, apparently establishing the base.

Once they knew the precise location of the mining settlement, detailed mission planning began, with the photographic and other imaging a key part. Forming the planning cell were Beatrice and her engineering NCO, MSG Bob Monroe; Elaine; and Joni. Harry devoted full time to technical interpretation of intelligence data, as well as organizing the plan. To him, this was also an opportunity to mentor Elaine.

Harry explained his role. "As the image interpretation person, let me guide you in studying the photographs, to learn what we can about the nature of the settlement. It appears to be centered on an open-pit mine, with one road going to what appears to a smelter, and then to their landing area. A different road goes to what would appear to be their living quarters. We see things that match AI-supplied images of Zuman mechanized mining gear, as well as trucks.

"There's what might be a control tower at the landing area. Look at it first, and then start moving outward. If we were extremely lucky, there might be recordings. I hope the AIs would help us identify their media.

"The residential area should have some dig areas, which Joni will lay out. Meanwhile, we'll look for places where there appears to have been conflict, for her to mark when she finishes the first site.

Prior to landing, we'll drop passive Unmanned Ground Sensors (UGS) to guard against underground attack. We aren't sure how much they go underground, but the scans of warm tunnels from the hive ships suggest it. We also have a few images from the AIs, where Sa'arm seem to pop out of the ground."

Mary continued, "Joni, as our urban archeologist, you'll select the dig locations. Elaine, you will also lead the survey and photography ground team, which will do the precise layout of the digging locations. Joni, you're going to supervise the main collection of samples, which very well may require a dig -- understanding that you have to be ready to evacuate at a moment's notice. Beatrice, you support the ground activities.

Joni responded first. "Hmm. Remember that I worked on urban archeology of colonial-era America, with the Alexandria, Virginia program. That doesn't qualify me to recognize industrial patterns, but I can certainly lay out dig sites and grids. Unless we have an industrial specialist or even an industrial architect/engineer, Harry probably knows the most about such things."

"Hmm indeed. Norwegian," Mary commented, "Put industrial facility design on our skills-needed list. We could use that on McMaster, just for the base planning. Joni, continue as best you can."

"Until and unless the AIs show us a better way, I have to say digs are labor-intensive. The scope will be constrained by the number of diggers available. By "digger", I also mean someone that's trained in the excavation protocol, not a guy with a shovel.

"Let's plan on using basic Marine fire teams, of four, as digging teams. Give each an engineer attached both to keep them on the grid and also to recognize anything that might be explosive."

"Correct," agreed Beatrice. "Ten teams from the squads of 3rd Platoon, and two teams for organizing the samples. We only have eight engineers and a section leader, so they're going to have to be shared among the dig teams.

"I'm open to having non-Marines on this. Still, we'll be working closely enough that those Marines can go to defense in a moment. Anticipating you, most of Third Platoon has gone through sleep training on dig procedures.

While still on Blue Light, Beatrice, the Marine commander, spoke to her Marines. "All of you are experienced Marines, but not from the same country. While you certainly have kept drilled as individuals and as small teams, I'm as aware as you are that we haven't been able to train as a unit. On this mission, though, your mission is security for a single small area, not maneuvering. On the ships, we can practice our communications and use virtual reality for the small units. I'm relying on your skill and professionalism -- after all, I'll be on the planet with you.

"Training as units helps us anticipate one another, and communications are essential. Having communications implants that let us talk silently, without carrying equipment, can be a great help -- but remember that there's a reason, with Earth radios, you have only one or two channels at a time. No one can keep track of everything at once. Even if the AIs can't take part in battle, they can help by creating channels that follow the organization structure. Make it an exception, if you're a rifleman in 1st platoon, to talk, in action, to a 2nd platoon machine gunner -- and certainly use those exceptions when they make sense.

"Most of you have not yet had the opportunity to select concubines, or, as many of us that have them prefer to call them, companions. I promise you that after this mission, you will start getting opportunities when we start extracting more people from Earth."

While there was no space for full ground maneuver rehearsals, Beatrice and her staff did have some virtual reality rehearsals. MSG Abner Stoltzfuss, the training NCO, was the focus of this effort. The Pirates' cognitive psychologist, Siobhan Collins, had extensive Earth experience with Marine training, and was the tool developer and consultant. By choice as a submissive, Siobhan wanted to stay a concubine.

Her eldest children, Brendan and Brigid, had grown up among Marines. Everyone who knew them was comfortable with their being commissioned ensigns on their fourteenth birthdays. Master Gunnery Sergeant Jose Hitchcock, the lead gunsmith of the Weapons Training Battalion, had retired and joined the Confederacy, in part to stay with his protégés, as well as to share space with his son,

"Every Marine is a rifleman," he reminded the group. "You have had individual range training with your M14EBR rifles, but not a lot of fire and maneuver with that weapon, and also the new ammunition. I've been able to get the AIs to give us a virtual reality system that lets you practice with them. They've also been willing to put some small attractor-repulsors on the weapons, so that you'll feel recoil and need to control it."

"New ammunition, Master Gunnery Sergeant?"

"Yes. We selected the M14 over the M16, because we wanted the more energetic 7.62x51mm rounds to penetrate Sa'arm skin. While we're keeping the regular service NATO round available, the primary, for now, is the M948 Saboted Light Armor Penetrator (SLAP). That's a tungsten-cored round, but, as an aside, we have made up a test supply of bullets with a depleted uranium core. We also have some a Raufoss-style armor-piercing incendiary-explosive, based on a .50 BMG round. Some of you will be asked to test these additional types.