Tales from the Service: A View From Headquarters, Part 14

2953-07-30 – Tales from the Service: A View From Headquarters, Part 14 

This is another excerpt of the interview conducted in-person aboard the battleship Philadelphia in the Sagittarius Gate system on 19 July. 

D.L.C. - Duncan Chaudhri is a junior editor and wartime head field reporter for Cosmic Background.       

N.T.B. - Nojus Brand is a long-time explorer, datasphere personality, and wartime field reporter for Cosmic Background.      

K.T.K. - Captain Kenneth Kempf is the Naval Intelligence attaché to Seventh Fleet commander Admiral Shun Abarca.    

S.R.A. - Admiral Shun R. Abarca is the commander of Seventh Fleet. 

[D.L.C.] - Late last year we discussed what is known about the Incarnation home front with one of your staff analysts. Do you think the condition on their worlds is appreciably changing because of Force 73’s achievements? 

[S.R.A.] - Yes, I do recall your interview with Lieutenant Reid. She would be a better person to ask, and of course she is free to meet with your team if you would like to have regular briefings on the subject, but I can share a few things we hope are being achieved. 

[K.T.K.] - Whether they are being achieved, we generally do not know yet. Our best intelligence about Incarnation home worlds comes from prisoner interrogations, and we have not taken any significant groups of prisoners in recent months. 

[N.T.B.] - What about Fifth Fleet’s victory on Montani? Surely many prisoners were taken there. 

[K.T.K.] - Fifth Fleet shares intelligence with us when possible, but I am not aware of anything useful they have learned along that line. Most likely, the personnel devoted to the Montani operation by our foes had not been back to the Incarnation home region in more than a year, excepting a few senior officers perhaps. 

[D.L.C.] - You said you can speak about what you hope to achieve? 

[S.R.A.] - Obviously, the most ideal outcome is a collapse of the Incarnation regime and its replacement by some less fanatical government that is willing to end this conflict. It should be noted that they initiated it, and it cannot end until they say so, whatever we want. 

[N.T.B.] - Not much chance of that, given how cybernetics and monitoring software is used to enforce orthodoxy. 

[K.T.K.] - That is widely discussed in civilian channels, but we are still unsure how widespread that system is. It certainly is used within military chains of command, and it does wonders for the combat cohesion of Incarnation formations, but there is no reason to assume it is as widely used in civilian administration, given how expensive it must be for each person who gets the implants. 

[S.R.A.] - We have to assume the fanaticism of their highest policy makers is mostly genuine. It is only too likely that such zealotry is sought out and rewarded. 

[D.L.C.] - If we are not likely to see a government change bringing them to the negotiating table, what are some more realistic things you hope Bosch will achieve? 

[S.R.A.] - We already discussed reducing their supply of interstellar haulers. This has immediate strategic implications, but it also will likely have an impact on their civilian economy, such as it is. As best we can tell, their inter-system cargo routes are operated by semi-militarized transport services that use the same types of equipment as the military resupply system, with the same supply chain. 

[D.L.C.] - I see. You are hoping the transport shortage will make their economy feel the pain, too. 

[K.T.K.] - Their supply runs across the Gap can’t be slowed down without abandoning entire systems they took from Fifth Fleet in the opening years of this war. The only obvious place to take those haulers from, if they can’t make enough, is the civilian economy.  

[N.T.B.] - All the same, you have to feel bad for the poor people whose livelihoods are going to go to ash over all this. 

[S.R.A.] - I feel badly enough for all the Confederated businessmen and colonists who staked their lives and fortunes on the Sagittarius Frontier and had it all taken away from them in the opening weeks of this conflict. Their machines, raw materials, and even ships are unfortunately part of our foes’ war machine. Increasingly I am convinced that the goal of our foe was to entice Confederated interests to move resources to this side of the Gap for them to be easily mopped up in the opening phase of the conflict. 

[D.L.C.] - I had almost forgotten about all of that. Most people probably think Bosch saved or destroyed anything useful during his Lost Squadrons campaign, but that can’t possibly be true. 

[S.R.A.] - Unfortunately, less than a quarter of the heavy industrial equipment that had been moved to this side of the Gap before the initial attack is accounted for by the work of Bosch and others. It could have been much worse, of course; they could have waited longer and captured more. 

[N.T.B.] - Surely much of that will be burnt out now, if they’ve been using it non-stop for years, without the proper parts replacement chain. 

[K.T.K.] - Some of it, yes. But given how much was captured, including the machinery and tooling to fabricate new production machines, they could well have set up an entire factory complex building things our way, if they had spare manpower. 

[N.T.B.] - Why don’t we see that stuff on the battlefield, then?  

[S.R.A.] - We aren’t sure. Lieutenant Reid’s theory, which is the best so far, is that the product of this manufacturing, if any, has been focused on their civilian economic needs, freeing up their normal production capability for war materiel. Still, we’d have expected minor things like uniforms and rations made with our machinery to appear on some battlefields by now, and they have not. 

[D.L.C.] - It’s strange to think their civilians might be subsisting on wartime rations created by some of our own food-fab machines. 

[S.R.A.] - At least in part, they probably are, but we can’t know for sure until we’ve got boots on the ground of one of those worlds. 

[D.L.C.] - Do you think it affects morale? 

[S.R.A.] - It must, if for no other reason than these people have lived for generations on their own supplies, food, clothing, and materials. Having things that are different – and probably, in the eyes of the average person, inferior because it isn’t what is familiar – must be an indication that the war isn’t going very well. 

[N.T.B.] - Unless they’re told all that stuff is a stream of war booty from conquered worlds. 

[K.T.K.] - Yes, we’d considered that possibility as well, but that charade would be hard to keep up for long, and they would have to keep making things exactly the way we would, just for the charade. 

[D.L.C.] - Do you think the quality of life of the average Incarnation citizen is suffering from the conflict yet? 

[S.R.A.] - Probably not, at least, not much. They don’t seem to do much trading we can interdict, and they don’t seem to harvest many resources outside their home region either. Really, until our forces start putting pressure on their core worlds, and cutting them off from the outlying systems they need for resource harvesting, I don’t think their average family man is going to have much sense the war is going badly. 

[N.T.B.] - I suppose he could hear it on the newsfeeds, or whatever a cybernetic counter-human uses for media sources. 

[S.R.A.] - Captured soldiers we interview have shockingly low understanding of the war situation. We have to assume their civilians are kept even more in the dark than their troops. Most likely, they know there’s a war on, and most of them think their forces are winning, or at least not slowly losing. 

[N.T.B.] - They’re in for a rude awakening soon, then. 

[S.R.A.] - Inevitably, yes. 

While the interview we conducted with Admiral Abarca is longer than these two excerpts, we will return this text feed to stories sent in by our readers next week, rather than continue to post transcript excerpts. This embed team once again thanks Seventh Fleet staff for being open with the media and being willing to sit down with us in person as often as they do. 

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Tales from the Service: A View From Headquarters, Part 13

2953-07-23 – Tales from the Service: A View From Headquarters, Part 13 

At long last we have finally gotten another chance to talk with Admiral Abarca and his Intelligence advisor in person. Portions of the interview will, as usual, be presented here as a transcript, and the full interview recording will be available on the main datasphere hub. 

This interview was conducted in-person aboard the battleship Philadelphia in the Sagittarius Gate system on 19 July.

D.L.C. - Duncan Chaudhri is a junior editor and wartime head field reporter for Cosmic Background.       

N.T.B. - Nojus Brand is a long-time explorer, datasphere personality, and wartime field reporter for Cosmic Background.      

K.T.K. - Captain Kenneth Kempf is the Naval Intelligence attaché to Seventh Fleet commander Admiral Shun Abarca.    

S.R.A. - Admiral Shun R. Abarca is the commander of Seventh Fleet. 

[D.L.C.] - Admiral Abarca, it’s been too long. 

[S.R.A.] - Almost six months, yes. We have both been quite busy, but I had still hoped to sit down with your team before now. 

[N.T.B.] - We take up enough of your time and the time of your staff with all our queries, I figure. 

[K.T.K.] - We would usually prefer the queries, Mr. Brand. It means we have an opportunity to correct the record before an incorrect story is published. I’m afriad not all outlets query us as often as yours. 

[D.L.C.] - Well, I was hoping we could avoid talking about the Spike Wire story. I have other questions- 

[S.R.A.] - And we will get to them. I find that matter distasteful as well, and its timing is unfortunate. 

[N.T.B.] - They thought they had the scoop of a lifetime, and they just made everyone involved look bad, themselves most of all. 

[K.T.K.] - Indeed. I am honestly surprised that this is the first time it has happened in this fleet’s jurisdiction, given the remoteness of our theater and the relative isolation of the various press teams operating here. 

[S.R.A.] - In general, the press embeds and unassociated media outfits who report on this front for the people back home are fairly respectable people. I have had previous good interactions with the Spike Wire embed team, but chasing fame can make fools of us all. 

[D.L.C.] - It will indeed. I would much rather talk about Force 73, as my messages to your team leading up to this interview indicated. 

[S.R.A.] - A much less distasteful subject, Mr. Chaudhri. Indeed, I am so far quite satisfied with the performance of Captain Bosch and his force. 

[N.T.B.] - We’ve run stories about the struggle to get them supplies. Obviously this was an anticipated issue, but how much has their campaign been hindered by resource limitations? 

[S.R.A.] - A bit. I will be vague, as you probably expected, in my answer. 

[D.L.C.] - Of course. 

[S.R.A.] - It was, as you say, a problem we had anticipated, and it has not been quite as bad as we feared it would be. Progress in liberating the Kyaroh worlds on which resistance is still significant proceeds apace. 

[D.L.C.] - Yes. How many worlds is it now? Four? 

[S.R.A.] - Yes, but only two are of strategic significance enough to have had significant Incarnation presence when our task force arrived. There have been a few naval skirmishes unconnected with the conflict on any given Kyaroh world as well, most of which have been quite inconclusive. 

[D.L.C.] - You don’t sound disappointed by that. 

[S.R.A.] - I am not. Engagements which do not reduce Force 73’s striking power are the sort we can afford best, even if they also don’t reduce enemy forces in the region. A costly victory would end the campaign just as definitely as a costly defeat. 

[N.T.B.] - Makes sense. In the terms sim-game players might use, Bosch needs to play the objective, not beat his opposite number. 

[D.L.C.] - You play sim games? 

[N.T.B.] - No, my nephew does. He just placed in the semi-final round of a planetary tournament on Madurai last month. I’ve been catching up on his matches. 

I am honestly surprised that this is the first time it has happened in this fleet’s jurisdiction, given the remoteness of our theater and the relative isolation of the various press teams operating here. 

[K.T.K.] - Really? Quite the achievement. Which sim-game does he play? 

[N.T.B.] - War Titans. I hadn’t heard of it before he and my sister told me about it. 

[N.T.B.] - Ah, yes. I know of this one. A gang of Marine veterans of Brushfire put it together. Not very realistic, but complex and hard to master. 

[S.R.A.] - The youths who master these games and rank highly on their world often earn Academy slots. Even in my own Academy class, there were two such. Your nephew may be sitting in my chair in thirty-five years. 

[N.T.B.] - I’ll warn him it isn’t so easy when real lives are at stake, then. He’ll be overjoyed to know he came up in this conversation, Admiral. 

[S.R.A.] - Returning to your analogy, though: yes, that is a decent summary. Bosch needs to focus on planets, not fleets. The less Kyaroh worlds that are sending resources and cargo hulls to the Incarnation home worlds, the less war materiel they can produce. Intelligence suggests they have been chronically short of haulers for the entire conflict, and the long runs around Sagittarius Gate to resupply their holdings on the Coreward Frontier are only making this worse. 

[K.T.K.] - I will expand on this, if that is all right. Their haulers are mostly Kyaroh designs, often built in Kyaroh shipyards, and refitted with more efficient Incarnation star drives in Incarnation home space. These vessels are capable of the Gap crossing, but they don’t have facilities at scale to service all of them on the other side, so they need to make the crossing twice and travel across wide swaths of more forgiving space as well before they can reach a proper service yard. Their equipment is burning out, and without the yards in Kyaroh space, they’ll struggle to replace it. 

[D.L.C.] - And they could replace Kyaroh production only by turning over yards that are currently building warships? 

[S.R.A.] - It’s more likely they turn over yards that are currently refitting haulers to building new ones. What we have learned of their industrial base suggests almost all their yards are dual use. This would be little better. They know all this better than we do, and I think our foes will probably devote a large force to protecting or retaking the next Kyaroh system Bosch attacks with a significant orbital shipyard facility. 

[D.L.C.] - If Bosch is... Playing the objective, he will avoid a pitched battle. But will he just retreat? 

[N.T.B.] - From what we know of the man, I doubt it. 

[S.R.A.] - I had a long conference with him before he left, including some brief scenario simulations. I have some idea what he’ll do, but of course I cannot say it publicly. 

[D.L.C.] - Ah, of course. I understand. 

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Tales from the Service: The Commandant’s Ears

2953-07-02 - Tales from the Service: The Commandant’s Ears 

None of the three guards tried to follow Garth Raimundo back toward the Kodiak cradles, but he didn’t harbor any illusions that he was done with them. He would just have to move quickly, before the unit’s officers realized who he was and concocted some more serious business for him. 

That this serious business was ostensibly his main reason for being on Montani, but Garth had never had much patience for the official version of events. Commandant Calligaris could have sent someone else to debrief unit commanders about the performance of their heavy equipment in combat if that was all he wanted. Garth was the man sent when the center suspected there was information on the battlefield that would never be recorded in written reports which would influence the strategic picture.  

He’d almost finished capturing good images of the work that had been done on the first three Kodiaks, none of which had quite been repaired and modified in the same way, when the guards returned, this time with a lieutenant. The man was dressed in guard personnel livery, but he had the build and bearing of a real field grade Marine, so Garth guessed he was one of the proper Marines of the 114th put on low-intensity guard duty to recover from an injury. 

“Mr. Raimundo?” The lieutenant saluted crisply, befitting the rank Garth wasn’t displaying. “Colonel Montpellier is expecting you up at headquarters.” 

“Is he?” Garth raised an eyebrow. He hadn’t expected to be expected. In fact, he had hoped not to be. “Well then, lieutenant, lead on.” 

The guards seemed surprised at Garth’s words. No doubt they had expected him to once again flash his mysteriously unlabeled ident badge that gave him access to everything, everywhere. They fell in behind him as the lieutenant led the way toward the complex’s central office building, now serving as the regimental command post. 

Upstairs, in the never-occupied, half-furnished executive office at the corner of the third level of the building, Garth was introduced to Colonel Montpellier, commander of the 114th. A thin, bald man with a long, severe face, he wasn’t what anyone pictured when thinking of an officer of the Confederated Marines, but Garth knew not to make too many judgements on face value. Nobody who had reached the rank of Colonel in the Marines could be underestimated, much less one trusted with a Kodiak-equipped unit. 

“Mr. Raimimdo.” The colonel extended a hand, notably refusing to salute despite almost certainly knowing Garth’s official rank. That was, as far as Garth was concerned, fine. He still didn’t feel right about his rank, either, and didn’t really think himself worthy of being saluted by field commanders. “I heard someone from upstairs would be paying us a visit, but I expected an analyst.” 

“Normally that’s who you’d get.” Garth shook the colonel’s hand. “But I had other business on Montani.” 

“And taking our report was a convenient official excuse to be here.” Montpellier didn’t smile. “I know how this game is played.” 

Garth gestured back the way he’d come. “I was examining your Kodiaks. I hope you don’t mind. It’s all unofficial, of course.” 

“I understand.” Montpellier’s flat tone indicated that he didn’t like what he understood, but also that he knew he was powerless to stop Garth. “I have of course prepared a text report, but I understand you didn’t come all this way to copy over a few documents.” 

Garth nodded. “I’d like to have a chat with the Kodiak men who were at Pileser Three Seven. And the commander of the troop company who dropped with them.” 

The colonel’s eye twitched. “I should have guessed.” He sighed. “The center doesn’t care a whit about how we fared against Incarnation Cyclops units, does it?” 

Garth blinked. “You thought I’d come here to talk about that, Colonel?” He shook his head. “Do I need to quote your doctrine manuals? We both know you shouldn’t be sending your heavies out to tangle with the black scarecrows.” 

“We’re supposed to play the firefighter all up and down the line.” Montpellier scowled. “The boys screaming loudest for heavy backup are the ones staring down a Cyclops.” 

“I understand your perspective, Colonel.” Garth nodded. “But the Corps can’t afford to throw Kodiaks into the line every time one of the Incarnation’s heavies shows itself.” He held up his hands. “I really do need to talk to the troopers who were at Pileser Three Seven.” 

“They really sent you to about the landslide?” Montpellier scowled. “I’ll round up whoever we have on-base at the moment.” 

Garth nodded diplomatically. It wasn’t a landslide during a battle in a rocky gorge that had gotten the Commandant’s attention, of course, but there was no reason to tell Montpellier what he was really after, not yet. 

Unfortunately, our friend who is going by the name of Garth Raimundo refused to include the interview in his account, possibly for security reasons. I did a little bit of digging, as no doubt he intended me to, and yes, there is a report of one of the companies of the 114th engaging in a battle in a gorge and triggering a landslide. The report of that small unit action is not fully available to the press, but what I can see indicates little unusual about the skirmish besides the rockslide itself. 

I will continue to investigate this, as it is certainly our submitter’s intention to call attention to whatever he was sent to investigate, even though he can’t come out and say it outright. 

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Tales from the Service: The Commandant’s Eyes

2953-07-02 - Tales from the Service: The Commandant’s Eyes 

The Kodiak heavy armor-suit, which is only an armor-suit in the loosest of senses, has garnered a lot of public attention, especially since Marine public relations have focused on imagery of these behemoths fighting spindly black Incarnation scarecrows. Such duels are of course rare – I can only find record of three or four of them taking place, all on Montani under rather one-sided circumstances – but they are how the machines are being portrayed in the public eye. 

The propaganda that sells the Kodiak as an unstoppable battlefield titan is, as far as I can tell, for morale purposes. They are capable machines to be sure, but they were designed early in the conflict as a fast response unit to stabilize certain kinds of battlefield catastrophes, and they actually don’t seem to do well when they are left in the line for long periods due to their extreme maintenance needs.  

Why the Incarnation built an opposing unit of nearly the same size and of similar firepower is obscure. Naval Intelligence reports seem to indicate they assumed that Kodiaks would be massed in broad-scale breakthrough attacks and wanted their own fast response unit to break up such an assault and stiffen the infantry. Neither of the machines is particularly optimized for fighting the other in a fair meeting engagement, though perhaps in this the Cyclops has a slight advantage, being the later design. 

I don’t think these facts will impact the popularity of such duel-of-the-titans imagery, however.  

Garth Raimundo permitted the guard to lead him away from the Kodiak bays toward a squat prefab structure back near the main avenue. The smaller man was visibly trembling – he probably hadn’t had to do this before – so it would have been child’s play to disarm him and be off about his business, but there was no point taking even that small risk when there was in no particular hurry. The paperwork would be a matter of minutes, and then the chagrined guard would release him to continue his inspection, if somewhat less covertly. 

There were two other guards at their post, and both jumped up from lounging positions and grabbed for their carbines when Garth and his captor came into view. No doubt they had relaxed their vigil somewhat after Incarnation forces had been driven from Montani, even though many thousands of left-behind holdouts still roamed the outlands and a desperate, doomed rearguard force was still barricaded in the labyrinthine quarries and tunnels of the Btenda mines. 

“Let’s make this fast, please.” Garth turned his head toward the man with the carbine behind him without slowing his gait. “I really do have work to do.” 

“Around the Kodiak stands?” The guard prodded Garth with the butt of his gun. “Not damned likely.” 

Garth shrugged. “My ident card is in my right breast pocket. You will find I have access.” 

“Nobody but the operators and the brass have access.” The man shook his head. “Least of all someone in a too-clean dress uniform disguise.” 

Garth chuckled, making a mental note to report the probability that the 114th's uniform code was needlessly lax if these guards hadn’t seen a properly clean dress uniform to compare his to. “Run my ident, then critique my attire.” 

One of the other men scampered into the guardhouse and emerged with a portable digi-reader. Garth held perfectly still as the trio turned out all his pockets, predictably leaving the right breast pocket for very last. They found little besides the card and a few receipt-chits, of course; they didn’t even find his side-arm, a Liann Zhi micro-compact tucked into his left boot. He’d left nearly everything he’d brought with him in the groundcar. 

The reader chirped the moment it was run across Garth’s nearly-blank ident card, and the wielder frowned as it displayed an error code. “Bio-tagged card. He needs to be holding it for it to read.” 

Garth slowly held out one hand for his card, which was quickly placed on his palm and scanned again. This time the reader emitted a bright pinging noise, and Garth could see page after page of authorizations scroll over its small screen.  

“He’s got access.” 

“To what?” Garth’s captor leaned over his associate’s shoulder. 

“Looks like...” The other guard gulped and looked up at Garth. “Everything.” 

Garth arched one eyebrow. “Am I free to continue my duties, gentlemen?” 

The trio exchanged uneasy looks. “You really should, ah.” The third one stammered. “Come with us up to headquarters.” 

Garth shrugged. “I don't think that’s necessary.” He outranked the regiment’s Colonel, at least technically, and hated to pull that rank on field officers who’d done far more to earn their position than he had. “You are welcome to report my presence.” 

“Hey!” The man with the reader suddenly scowled. “This ident card isn’t working. It doesn’t show your name or your holo. Who are we supposed to report we apprehended?” 

Garth shook his head. “It is functioning to spec. But the contents of your report isn’t my problem.” He loomed at each of them, one at a time, then reached out for the handful of items that they’d taken from his pockets. “And it wouldn’t have to be yours, either, if you decided not to report it.” 

At this, Garth’s original captor bridled. “It’s protocol to report anything unusual. You just want us to overlook-” 

“I was only making a suggestion to make both of our lives easier.” Garth turned and started back toward the line of docked Kodiak suits. “Do what you have to do.” 

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