insights.” He turned to the civilian. “Doctor?”
“Thank you, Captain,” she replied formally, and tapped the display to bring up a picture of Marduk. “You are all, by now, familiar with the limited data we have on Marduk and its inhabitants.
“Marduk is classified as a Type Three world,” she continued, and tapped another control. This time the picture was a large beast of some sort, with six stumpy legs, an armored forehead, and a triangular, fang-filled maw. The human scale model next to it indicated that the creature was a bit larger than a rhinoceros.
“That, by the way, is probably the same classification Earth would have had at the same technological and development level. Marduk, however, has not only an unfriendly climate—it’s extremely hot and steamy, which will have a negative effect on electronics—but also unfriendly inhabitants and wildlife. This particular specimen, called a damnbeast, is a good example. The first survey crew ended up shooting several specimens. The planet is warm enough that the dominant species are all cold-blooded, which makes a higher ratio of predators to prey possible. Whereas a mammal this size would require half a million hectares to support, one of these has a territory of less than forty thousand hectares.” She smiled faintly. “And this is the only recorded carnivore species listed in our onboard data bases. Further inquiries referenced the official Survey Service report.”
She smiled again at the general groan.
“The resident autochthons, the Mardukans, are at a pre-steam level of technology. Obviously, their tech level varies from area to area of the planet, but some of their most advanced cultures have discovered gunpowder, although that’s scarcely uniform and even the ones which have it don’t have anything resembling mass production or cartridge weapons.”
She tapped another control, bringing up a view of some odd weapons.
“These are the primary projectile weapons of the Mardukan societies which have mastered gunpowder: the matchlock arquebus and the hooped bombard. These weapons were used on Earth in the distant past, primarily in Europe, although the arquebus was rapidly superseded by flintlock muskets, and then rifles. The hooped bombard is a distant cousin of one of your Marine howitzers.”
She brought up another screen, this time a map of the Mediterranean.
“The Mardukan sociological climate has few direct counterparts in human history, but there are similarities to the Earth during the early Roman Republic. The Mardukans are broken up into city-states and small empires that are distributed along fertile river valleys, so these areas between the rivers are primarily barbaric. Although the barbarians do have a few gunpowder weapons, they rely primarily upon spear-hurlers and lances. The precise nature of the barbarian tribal structure is unknown.”
“Why is it unknown?” Lieutenant Gulyas asked, wondering where she’d gotten all this information.
“Well, probably because they ate the researchers,” O’Casey said deadpan, then grinned. “Or because it’s never been researched. From what I’ve been able to find, anything more than a thousand klicks or so from the spaceport is very much terra incognita. Either way, the data in my database stopped there.”
“Where did you have that?” Gulyas asked curiously.
“I always travel with my history and sociology databases,” O’Casey said with another smile. “I need them to work on papers.” She turned back to her pad.
“To continue, not only are the barbarians at war with each other—when they’re not raiding the borders of the city-states—but the city-states are continually at war with each other, as well. Any state of peace can be assumed to be a temporary truce, awaiting the slightest spark to ignite a war.” The smile she gave the officers of this time was grim. “I think that we can assume a Marine company is going to constitute a spark.”
She paused for a moment, then shrugged.
“That pretty much exhausts the primary data. I’ll make the full outtake available to you right after the meeting.”
“Thank you, Doctor,” Pahner said somberly. “That was a nice overview. I’m sure you also noticed that we can eat the food. The biochemistry’s a long way from Earth standard, but our nanites ought to be able to break down anything we can’t digest naturally, and they should keep anything in the local biosystem from actively poisoning us. On the other hand, not even the nanites can put in what isn’t there, so we’ll require supplements, especially of vitamins C and E and several amino acids. Which means we’ll be humping those.” He looked up when there were no groans from the lieutenants. “No complaints? My, we must be feeling sobered.”
“We’ve been discussing it, Sir,” Lieutenant Sawato admitted. The XO shook her head. “I listed out all the parameters, but, as Lieutenant Gulyas indicated, there are tremendous problems.”
“True.” Pahner leaned back and rested his chin on his hand. “Tell me what they are.”
“First of all, Sir, there’s the matter of time. How long will it take us to cross a world?”
“A long time,” Pahner replied calmly. “Months.”
The entire compartment seemed to draw a deep breath as someone finally said the words. They were no longer talking about a short drop on the planet, but about an extended stay. They had all realized it, but no one had wanted to say it.
“Yes, Sir,” Lieutenant Jasco said into the silence after a moment. The tall, broad CO of First Platoon was in charge of logistics, and he shook his leonine head. “I don’t see it, Sir. We don’t have the food or the power. We carry combat rations for two weeks, and power for one week’s use of the armor, but we’re looking at three to six months to cross the planet. We may be able to forage, and our nanites will help with digestion problems, but if we’re going to be dealing with hostiles, foraging will be limited. And given the intensity of the threat, we need the powered armor to survive, but it won’t begin to last that long. With all due respect, and not wanting to be a quitter, I don’t see a way to do this mission, Sir.”
“All right.” Pahner nodded. “That’s your input. Does anyone see a way to accomplish the mission?”
“Well, we can strip the ship of spare power systems,” Lieutenant Gulyas suggested. “There are powerpacks all over the place.”
“How do we get them where we’re going?” Jasco shook his head. “It’s a situation of diminishing returns when you overload suits carrying stuff—”
“We can preposition caches!” Gulyas gestured enthusiastically with his hands. “We send out a team that puts down a cache. Some of the team stays behind to guard it, while the rest come back to get supplies. They take them to the cache and use some of the cache to take them a little further. They leave a team with that cache and go back for supplies. . . .”
“We’d be defeated in detail if we strung ourselves out that way,” Sawato said severely.
“And that would take
“We could carry the armor,” Roger suggested diffidently, and looked around at the lieutenants. Jasco rolled his eyes and leaned back and crossed his arms, while Gulyas and Sawato simply refused to meet his gaze. “It would save power . . .”
“Ahem,” Jasco said. “Your Royal Highness, with all due respect . . .”
“I think,” Roger said, “that it would be better in these sorts of meetings to use my proper military rank.”
Jasco cast a quick glance at Pahner, but the captain returned it blandly, and the lieutenant was suddenly reminded of one of those Academy tests where there was no right answer.
“Yes, um, Colonel. As I was saying, the suits weigh nearly four hundred kilos apiece,” he continued with a not particularly friendly chuckle.
“Oh,” Roger said with a chagrined expression. “I . . . oh.”
“Actually,” Pahner said quietly, “that was exactly what I had in mind.” He looked around at the stunned lieutenants and smiled kindly. “Ladies and gentlemen, you are a credit to your training. ‘Hit ’em hard and hit ’em low, grab their balls and don’t let go,’ right?”
The lieutenants smiled at the Academy drinking song. Even though most officers in the IMC, like Pahner himself (although usually with less . . . spectacular career summaries) were former enlisted, it was well known in the officers corps.
“Well, we will indeed hit these ‘scummies’ hard and low when we have to. But we don’t have the power to smash our way across the planet, so we’re going to have to make treaties when possible, trade when necessary, and only kick ass as a last resort. When we kick ass, we’d better kick ass with a vengeance, but we parley first.
“One platoon each day, on a rotating basis,” he continued, “will be detailed as bearers. We will carry one squad’s armor. We’ll take Second Squad of Third Platoon’s; they have the most veterans and the highest combat
