This is a science fiction novel that I've been working on for some time now. This is its latest incarnation, which comprises, so far, a prologue and what I have gotten so far of a first chapter. The first chapter is called Endurance, which is also the title of the story until I come up with an official, better title. Anyway, enjoy. ..................................... Prologue For thousands of years, mankind has marveled at the cosmos. From the days of Babylon and Ancient Greece, man has watched the stars in the sky. Men saw star patterns, constellations, and named them. In the mythology of the Greeks, the constellations were the bodies of heroes and monsters hung in the sky by their Olympian gods. It was the Babylonians, some 3,200 years ago, that gave us the astrolabe, and their Mul Apin. Then came the age-old question: Are we alone? Again, it was the Greeks who saw into this idea. The writer, Thales, and his student, Anaximander, wrote of multiple worlds with extraterrestrial life around 2,800 years ago. These aliens became the topic for stories, and, later, movies, in pop culture throughout the 20th century, AD. One of the most notable stories was The War of the Worlds, written by one H.G. Wells in the late 19th Century, and a radio show of this book resulted in some widespread panic, something we, today, find nothing less than the result of laughable miscommunication. Then came the greatest years for technological expansion on the road to exploration of these cosmos: the Cold War. The Cold War was hardly about getting into space, but when the Russians launched the first artificial satellite into orbit around the Earth in 1957, it sparked what would be known as the Space Race. In 1961, despite its blow to the western superpower, the United States of America, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics reached one of the first great milestones to not only exploring, but actually colonizing the vast reaches of space: sending the first man into space. Yuri Gagarin, born on March 9, 1934 in Klushino in the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, was launched into orbit around the Earth on April 12, 1961. He remained there for nearly two hours. To this day, Yuri Gagarin is a revered figure among explorers of the galaxy. Before any further actions in space could be taken, humans would need to go beyond orbiting the Earth. Humanity needed to be able to land its astronauts on another celestial body. This next milestone, surpassing even Yuri Gagarin’s achievement, was reached on July 20, 1969. The first man to set foot on the surface of the moon was one by the name of Neil Armstrong, yet another legend in the timeline of space exploration. All the while, mankind kept asking itself that same question: Are we alone? In 1977, humanity found what it hoped was an answer to that question. On August 15, 1977 a SETI project at Ohio State University’s Big Ear radio telescope picked up a signal which closely resembled those released into space by human transmitters. This signal had origins far beyond the reaches of the Earth’s own solar system. What was later known as the Wow! signal was, for many, proof that intelligent life did, in fact, exist in the deep reaches of space. For many years after that, things continued normally. Movies continued to depict aliens as malevolent beings possessing far superior technology built only for the purpose of destroying the planets of others. It was not until the year 2042 that the next great move in space exploration was made. By this time, Earth was ringed by many hundreds of satellites, whether for military purposes, communications, or even weather. Almost as many probes had been sent shooting through space to take pictures of the eight planets of the solar system. Some were launched into orbit around those planets, and some were even sent to land on them. Such were the many robotic probes that were launched to Mars. That year, AD 2042, a team of five astronauts from the American National Aeronautics and Space Administration flew the first manned mission to Mars. The next logical step, as many scientists had planned for many years prior to that day, would have been terraforming and eventually colonizing the red planet. Unfortunately, political issues back on planet Earth caused major delays in the project. Between 2044 and 2070, a second Cold War existed between the United States and the Earth’s other major superpower: the People’s Republic of China. Rather than being almost entirely an arms race, like the Cold War with the USSR that preceded it, this was more of an economic competition; a trade war, if you will. As both the United States and China controlled massive power in the global economy, the victor of the trade war would ultimately secure its place as the world’s prime economic power, a political and economic entity without which few others could exist. In 2056, however, high tensions between the US and China sparked an arms race, including the buildup of tactical nuclear arms, conventional military forces, and the increase of the power projection capabilities of each nation. The United States, being a part of the age-old alliance known as NATO, had the upper hand in the latter of these, as it was able to establish and maintain allied military bases in Japan, South Korea, Australia, and the Mariana Islands. Even worse for the Chinese military situation was the reunification of the Korean Peninsula in 2058, when a major economic collapse in North Korea left the region in shambles, at which point the South Korean government took advantage of the situation and annexed the northern region. This, the Chinese saw as a rather aggressive move toward their border, further damaging US-Chinese relations. Fortunately, the United States, backed by NATO, was able to establish a complex and effective Strategic Defense Initiative System, designed to defeat incoming enemy nuclear ballistic missiles via a network of ground based missiles, boat-launched missiles, and a new, high-tech network of ground-based laser installations linked to orbital mirror relays. These means effectively defeated the entire Chinese nuclear arsenal, and the net of nearby American air bases in the Western Pacific made a nuclear strike by bombers nearly impossible. As tensions rose yet again in 2068, a new Chinese president took office, a man by the name of Jiang Enlai. This man was considered to be the “Gorbachev” of his time, a man of social and economic reform in China. He saw the issues that this new Cold War presented and attempted to initiate talks with the United States. These talks proved unsuccessful, that is, until January 20, 2069, with the inauguration of a new US president: James Douglas. Both of these men saw the need to end the situation that the mutual mistrust of their nations had spawned. To them, the world had, or at least should have, gotten past old quarrels and competitions, and yet another buildup of both nuclear and conventional arms had begun in the name of patriotism. Thanks to political talks throughout the next year, both men worked together to quell the second Cold War. In AD 2070, things seemed to have calmed down. Now, these men began discussing something more profound. These new talks began as discussions on the unification of both great nations, but soon grew into talks of unifying not only two countries, but all of them. For months, the presidents of the United States and China discussed the creation of one Earth nation, rather than hundreds that were simply bound to war for another several thousand years if left to their own devices. Ironically, the very policy meant to end human warring forever and to create unity among all peoples was the very thing that sparked World War III. When the two most powerful nations in the world presented their plan to unite the entire world under on banner to the United Nations, the permanent Security Council members were hardly going to deny them. In fact, more than one half of the rest of the United Nations agreed with the US and China. Now, there were some nations with the political will to oppose the United Nations’ newest plan, including nuclear power Pakistan and general military power India, among many other countries. Now, these nations were not so opposed to the United States and China as they were more willing to retain their independence. What they did not count on was the fact that the UN was not exactly asking for their input. So, when these nations, including Pakistan and India, partially mobilized their militaries as a way to show strength and independence, the UN responded in kind. Now, when the UN mobilized its forces, it targeted the independent nations separated from these two stronger nations, to which India and Pakistan responded by allying with each other to jointly defend themselves. Despite their efforts to beef up their defenses, including a military alliance with Iran, Pakistan and India were invaded on June 29, 2071. While their outer defenses were broken in a matter of days, the Indians managed to send reinforcements to back the Pakistani effort to create a northern buffer zone against the northern UN assault from Afghanistan, in which coalition forces intended to drive south to the Arabian Sea and cut off Iran from allied forces. While this was going on, India managed to gather supporting forces from the independent nations of Bhutan, Burma, and Bangladesh and mount a defense against the ruthless assault by Chinese and Japanese troops, as well as those from Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. While Thailand declared independence from the UN on July 4, it quickly repatriated due to the presence of built-up UN troops nearby. While the Chinese led the assault from the east, backed by groups of American formations, the Russians led the major offensive from the north, driving at the independent coalition through allied Afghanistan. Russian forces were backed by Norwegian, Finnish, and Swedish troops, as well as some Polish forces, plus forces from the nations of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan. The nations of Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan retained independence until they were overcome by Russian-led assaults on July 10, at which point the full forces of the Russian military were able to launch their offensive against the Pakistani and Iranian forces. On July 11, Egypt and Jordan formed their own independent alliance, linking themselves to the Indian-Pakistani cause. These joint forces would fight against European attackers until their demise on July 31, 2071, though, they did serve to stall a united UN assault on Iran from the west enough to give the primary independent forces in Iran, Pakistan, and India time to build up a stout defense, which held out against an American led assault through Turkey and Iraq, with UN forces made up of the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Romania, Greece, Turkey, Israel, Iraq, Syria, and Spain, as well as other various formations of troops. It would not be long, however, before India, Pakistan, and Iran would be forced to take drastic measures. As all three countries possessed nuclear weapons, there was no doubt that they had to be used. On August 9, 2071, the Republic of India launched the first nuclear arms of WWIII. India launched its attacks using intermediate range ballistic missiles at first, though those were mostly intercepted by the UN funded missile defense network established by the US using technology present during its cold war with China. The two other nuclear capable independent nations launched their warheads, but to little effect. By the time India could utilize its intercontinental arsenal to any real degree, Russian-led forces had succeeded in overtaking Pakistani and Iranian troops in its move to the Arabian Sea. On August 12, 2071, Iran was the first nation of the three major independent countries to surrender. By August 14, Chinese-led forces had overwhelmed the independent defense in Burma and Bangladesh, and US-led forces in the west had linked up with Russian troops along the border of Pakistan. On August 18, 2071, those armies opposed to the UN policy laid down their arms and disbanded, submitting to the superior UN coalition. And so it was that August 18, 2071 would be remembered as the day that humanity was finally united. It was some time around 8,000 BC that farming was invented, the one thing that made civilization possible, and civilization truly took hold in the middle-east some time around 4,000 years before the birth of Christ. Now, some 6,000 years later, after an ungodly number of civilizations, empires, wars, peoples, and countries, there was only one civilization: Human civilization. As the war had ended, and political turmoil settled to a length of peace, the time had come for humans to break the shackles of their tiny, blue planet and experience their vast cosmos. That very thing happened on July 11, 2096, when a group of scientists and engineers were sent on the second manned mission to Mars. This time, however, they brought with them the makings of a whole colony. For the first time in human history, from the first Homo sapiens idaltu in Ethiopia to the Homo sapien sapiens 60,000 years later, humanity was an interplanetary race. Starting December 2, 2096, humans began to slowly perform, for the first time ever, a process known as terraforming. Terraforming, in essence, was a way to take various kinds of planets and make them almost identical to Earth. This first attempt at terraforming had been in planning for well over 20 years, and the combined efforts of the Earth Federation, as it was known, proved fruitful. On May 22, 2117, the terraforming of Mars was complete. A new, artificial magnetic field was provided as the capstone to the project on what was now endearingly called the green planet. There was one remaining problem. If people were not to solve this problem, they may never have achieved efficient space travel, and would thus be confined to a home planet and one successful candidate for terraforming. It would take the lifetime work of two men, Dr Albert von Braun (2052-2149) and Dr Pavlov Kutuzov (2055-2150) to finally overcome one of the problems posed by the massive amounts of space between star systems. These two men are considered the fathers of space travel as we, today, know it. Theirs was a program endorsed by the United Nations to research and develop a device capable of taking a space-worthy vessel extreme distance in short amounts of time. They both spent many years of their life working on several different methods, until they decided upon one they felt they could rely on. After thousands of tests, mathematical calculations, and frustrating setbacks, both men arranged for their new device to be tested by sending a space craft to the dwarf planet, Pluto. This experimental ship, named the Yuri Gagarin, left the atmosphere of Earth at 6:41am GMT on January 19, 2138 with a crew of 20 and sped off at a cruising speed of about 0.00008C, which is approximately 50,000 miles per hour. About three hours into its flight, the Gagarin vanished from Earth based tracking devices. All communication attempts with the Gagarin were futile, and many feared that the mission was a failure. However, Dr. Kutuzov had already warned that no existing methods of communication would reach the Gagarin while in transit, though such communication was, theoretically, possible. Sure enough, on Janurary 28, 2138, at 2:32pm GMT, Earth ground stations received a radio transmission from the Yuri Gagarin, informing that it had reached Pluto and was preparing to orbit in order to slingshot back to Earth for another trip back using the new travel system of Dr. Albert von Braun and Dr Pavlov Kutuzov. After the successful first official testing of their new warp drive, both men became incredibly famous. This new development in space travel opened up a whole new realm of possibilities, as human kind could now reach out to the cosmos and land on the planets of distant stars, and even colonize them. A new age of man had begun. Earth could now become an interstellar empire… but for one problem: the early warp drives could not effectively surpass the speed of light. While a ship would not actually go faster than the speed of light, it could reach a destination faster than light with no actual limits on rate of travel. However, while a radio signal traveling at the speed of light would reach Earth from Pluto in a matter of about four-to-five hours, the Gagarin made its trip in around nine days; considerably slower than light. Clearly, some more advances in space travel technology would have to be made in order to make full use of the Kutuzov-von Braun invention. Over the next several decades, advances were made, the first few under the supervision of von Braun himself, improving upon the original warp drive system. When the first faster-than-light warp drives became common around the 2180’s, yet another problem was uncovered. The new faster-than-light drives had been developed to eventually carry man deeper into the cosmos, but even making a trip to the closest star other than the Sun, Proxima Centauri, would mean allowing over four years for radio signals to travel to and from the Earth to the colonization ships. The Swedish scientist, Dr. Arne Reinfeldt (2112-2201), spent years of his life working on a revolutionary new device allowing instantaneous communication no matter the distance between transmitters. This new communications system used, instead of simple radio signals, the properties of quantum entanglement to pass information to and from transmitters on spacecraft exploring distant stars instantaneously. With the advent of the new communications systems, paired with the ability to bypass the speed of light, it seemed that humanity was ready to finally break free from its final set of shackles and begin to truly explore the wonder of the cosmos. Sure enough, it did. On April 27, 2205, the first manned trip was made to the star, Proxima Centauri, with the intent of initiating the terraforming of a good candidate in that system: the planet, Atlantis. This planet, named by human researchers planning the colonization of Earth’s first out-of-system planet, had been selected in 2199 after nearly a decade of missions involving sending unmanned probes through space to make jumps to various inner planets in the system. The ship sent to make the 2205 trip was a large vessel called the Ferdinand Magellan, capable of housing 50 personnel and supplies and equipment to establish a colony and keep it running for six months, until additional ships could make the trip and begin the terraforming project. Over the next couple of decades, ships came in and out of the temporary ports set up on the surface of the planet, Atlantis, bringing supplies, personnel, and terraforming equipment. On September 1, 2223, the terraforming of Atlantis was reported complete, and work was started on building up the infrastructure of Earth’s new colony, including the construction of ground based star ports for vessels carrying supplies for the young colony. Over the next several years, people from both Earth and Mars flocked to Atlantis as the costs of space travel dropped. Before long, Atlantis had established itself as a large colony, similar to the human establishments on Mars. Atlantis was soon found to have extremely fertile soil after terraforming, and its terrain was littered with rivers and lakes, leaving thousands of valleys heavy with silt left over from floodwaters. By 2230, Atlantis was established as Earth’s primary manufacturer of food, as the surface of the now green rock orbiting Proxima Centauri was covered in farmland as far as the eye could see. Over the next 50 years, human colonization of the cosmos boomed. Shipyards were erected by the dozens just to meet the demand for new research and exploration ships needed to reach distant stars. By the year 2280, humanity had established about 70 new colonies, not counting Atlantis. It was at this time, however, that the vast expanse of human civilization caused a bit of a problem. Since the Third World War in 2071, the government of the UN had maintained what it thought was a clear understanding of each colony’s political ties to Earth. However, most of the colonies existed with the understanding that it would operate independently from the UN, so when strong human governments began appearing beyond Earth, the UN attempted to make clear, by diplomatic means, its intention to keep its colonies under human dominion. Unfortunately, this was not taken quite as innocently as the UN wanted to make it sound. Nearly every human colony in the galaxy took this to mean that Earth intended to mobilize forces and take them by force, even though the United Nations possessed next to no military assets useful for interplanetary operations. Despite this fact, the outer colonies scrambled to establish industrial centers capable of building space worthy fleets of cruisers, as well as military centers to equip and train soldiers in the art of planetary assault. This war, while very similar in presentation to the 2071 war, turned out very differently. While, in WWIII, the independent nations were few in number, and thus unable to effectively hold out against the masses of UN troops, this new war was almost entirely the opposite. The only colony that openly expressed support for the UN was Mars, while every other colony was either attempting to fight back or remain neutral. The flaw of the typical strategy of the colonist forces was that they failed to unify, and instead began attacking those weaker colonies around them in an attempt to create a buffer zone and to seize more planets for the production of military goods. Meanwhile, the initially superior industrial and military establishments on Earth and Mars began work on a star fleet of their own. The advantage of UN forces in the early stages of the war was numbers, as humanity had never fought an interplanetary war, much less an interstellar one. So, when the UN finally deployed its first combat ready fleet on February 20, 2279, according to the Earth calendar, it had very little idea of how to use its number of light cruisers and frigates. As the fleet reached Atlantis, it met only limited resistance from a hastily built fleet of small, armed corvettes. After the initial fight, the remainder of the opposing fleet joined up with the ships from the UN as Atlantis surrendered soon after the beginning of the battle in orbit around the planet. In the following months, the growing UN fleet engaged in combat against a wide variety of enemy fleets, some large, some painfully small, with armaments having a similar range of quality. Humanity’s first taste of space combat was, for almost the entirety of the war, a series of bloody massacres. For starters, ships had not been designed to handle damage well. Life support systems failed easily when the barrier between the ship’s interior and the vacuum of space was breached. It was not until later that effective methods were developed to repair ships in the heat of battle, with men still on board and projectiles still flying. As for the weaponry, ships used various types of weapons, including directed energy weapons, kinetic weapons like rail guns, guided missiles with and without warheads, and manned boarding operations. As the war progressed, these weapons were improved upon in many ways, with radical changes to weapons that might have been discarded after a few hours of real combat testing. By the end of the conflict, there was a whole new rulebook added to the repertoire of the UN military. This war demonstrated the very foundations of war beyond the Earth. One thing that this served to do was replace all water-borne fleets operated by the UN. Instead, the human navy would be completely made up of spacecraft. So, when the war ended on March 16, 2280, the newly formed Federation of Human Worlds decided to keep and maintain a military force including ground and space worthy forces, plus some water-borne defensive craft meant for planetary defense and law enforcement. It was soon after the war that humanity was again drawn in by its age-old question: Are we alone? The focus of this was again on the famous incident of 1977, when the Wow! signal was first detected coming from the Chi Sagittarii star cluster. This time, there was a signal picked up by the SETI ship, the Wernher von Braun, on October 22, 2281, about 79 light years from Earth. The signal was almost immediately recognized as being nearly identical to the Wow! signal, which was, by itself, nearly identical to the radio signals sent by humans into space. It was at this time that the Federation authorized exploration missions to the Chi Sagittarii star group, though the most recent signal had originated quite far from this target. What was found on one of the planets of the star group sent shockwaves through humanity. On October 31, 2281, undeniable proof of intelligent alien life was uncovered on the planet X1 Sagittarii-4, fourth planet orbiting its sun. Covering this planet were ruins of large cities that were active and thriving not 250 years prior. Proof of farmland was uncovered, and, most importantly, radio telescopes were found. This was, without a doubt, the source of the 1977 Wow! signal. As for the source of the most recent signal, the news was almost more than humanity could take. We made contact with them on April 2, 2285, and spent over a decade developing a method of communication, which began with the monumental task of translating an extraterrestrial language. That was more or less successful. The ability to interact with this species was never available to the public, but the effort to allow easy communication was so very wide among both Human and alien that most researchers could have been considered nearly fluent. The same was true of many of the aliens, who, having not been assigned any proper nomenclature by humans, were referred to simply as Advena benignus, meaning “the friendly stranger” in Latin. Indeed, they were friendly. According to the histories translated by Human scholars, alien political events transpired with surprising similarity to Human history as it happened up to the 1930’s. Early on, there existed empires and civilizations that came and went, nearly all of which aimed to acquire resources, much like Human empires did. This all culminated into a large war of imperialism, which bore similarity to the Human Great War of 1914-1918. What could have been compared to the alien League of Nations proved more effective than that of Humanity. Such global union meant that, by this point in the timeline of Advena benignus, there was little need for military weapons. Such lack of strength made the events of November 10, 2297 all the more unfortunate. Without any sufficient warning, a third party began its invasion of Advena space. Humanity began tapping its military assets, sending troops to help defend its ally’s planets and moving to design and manufacture weapons for the Benignus to put to use. By 2300, no amount of aid and support could save our allies. Enemy fleets were orbiting the Benignus home world in the beginning of June, and supply lines failed to reach the surface starting July 12. Without any allied vessels in orbit and only atmospheric defense forces totaling 201,000 aircraft to keep a full invasion at bay, the defending garrison of 17 million Human and 34 million Advena troops made a final, desperate attempt to stave off the invaders. Despite valor that was officially recognized and honored by the UN government, the defenders were crushed after a final offensive made by the enemy on January 7, 2301. By March, it was clear that our allies in this struggle had been wiped out. Humanity was left to fight on with its full might pitted against an enemy about which little was truly understood. By then, all was clear. We are alone. ....................... Endurance 12 May 2329 2042 hours Babylon, Earth The scarlet lights streaked across the sky, as would the blazing tails of meteors hurtling toward the planet’s surface. From the black night above, they fell in a ceaseless rain in reds and violets. They were born each time as shimmering tails being dragged smoothly across the heavens, ever refusing to die down like the glow of shooting stars. They fell closer and closer, and the glow of each streak built upon itself until it blazed like a bolt of lightning. The streaks fell about as fast as a bolt of lightning might reach down to smite the earth below, approaching with no warning but the sudden and brilliant golden hue taken on by the air nearby only moments before the scarlet lights touched down. Then came the dazzling, very nearly blinding flash of light that brought with it the crash of Thor’s mighty hammer and the shaking of the earth around it. The flash sliced through the night’s blackness for only an instant, before its recession unveiled the fountain of blazing, white sparks that soared high into the air and radiated out before scorching the world around. Behind these sparks, which shot up with many times the speed of a bullet, chunks of rubble and earth leapt up toward the sky, glowing dully orange with intense heat, all underneath the angry, white dome of compressed air that expanded out from the blast. Captain Remington Mitchell, United Nations Marine Corps, felt the shockwave two kilometers away. He had watched the blazing shell from its lofty origins in the belly of some alien battle cruiser in orbit, during its entire trip down to the surface of the planet and right down the streets of Babylon. Mitchell’s entire company, or rather what was left of it, had been waiting things out for nearly 36 hours in the bombed out shell of a parking structure. Suddenly, his internal comm. link crackled to life with some news he didn’t particularly want to hear. “Captain, transports inbound, touching down about four klicks northeast of your position. Marksmen spot foot patrols one klick north,” reported one of Mitchell’s many fire team leaders, Corporal James Hastings, a 21 year-old Earth native from Lambourn, England. “Troop count?” “Estimate one or two company-strength for enemy foot mobiles. Jameson says they look like those cannon fodder guys they like to use to soften us up. Transports indicate probably up to three platoons of airborne troops inbound. “Keep in mind, sir, those airborne troops might not be here to hit us, but if those foot mobiles catch a sniff of our operation, you can be sure we’ll take a full strength assault.” What operation? We’re here because our operation got torn apart… “Noted, Corporal. Pull yourself back to the perimeter. We need every gun on this force ready to fight.” “Roge, we’re on our way.” Mitchell clicked the channel off, and then opened the perimeter circuit he had established when so many of his platoon and squad commanders had been cut down earlier. “Listen up, people. I’ve got word from our scouts that some bad guys are moving in from the northeast. Now, we’re still cut off from the FOB, but I’ll keep them posted via comm. Until then, keep the perimeter tight. Bring extra ammunition to the north and east sides, and give the corner an extra few rifles.” Mitchell’s position was, for all its defensive preparations, quite precarious. Starting its deployment in the city with 112 marines, Remington’s company had been reduced to 54 men. In addition, Mitchell’s command had come to include three additional marine corpsmen from separate battalions and 14 Army infantrymen, three of which were SAW gunners. There were also two Army medics, not part of the same battalion as the other 14 Army personnel, and three tank crew members from yet another Army outfit, now without a tank. For 36 hours, 57 marines and 19 mismatched Army soldiers had made this battered parking garage their hideout. Cut off from friendly forces, these men cared for 16 wounded soldiers and marines as well as 18 civilians. The troops occupied the lowest two levels of the garage, reserving the third for wounded and civilians and the odd marksman. Firing positions higher up could certainly provide advantages in a firefight, but it would be more than enough for an attacking enemy to seize most of the lowest level and bring the whole structure down with explosives. Therefore, defenses had to be concentrated on the lowest levels. Over the course of those 36 hours, Mitchell’s men had managed to prepare manageable defenses using rearranged piles of rubble, anti-personnel mines, and sand bags foraged from abandoned fighting posts nearby. The north side of the structure had been hit at the edge of an artillery barrage many hours before, and so had three large holes blasted in its walls at ground level, skirted with dense rubble which made these breaches difficult to traverse, which was good news for the defenders, but still would serve as crippling gaps in even the stoutest defense. While the parking garage was considerably larger than the small northeast corner region being used by the soldiers and marines, the previous artillery barrage had smashed most of the three southwesterly quarters of the structure, with one large gouge blown into the structure diagonally to as to leave a relatively small triangle useful for the men holding out. However, these gaping hole left large entry points for enemy troops if left unattended. However, of greatest concern was the proper automobile entrance on the north perimeter of the parking garage, which left a rather well-marked route directly into the current base of Mitchell’s company. The entrance was spanned with sand bag walls and some rubble moved by the men. Still, it was a weak point in the defensive line. “Captain, Echo-Lead reporting enemy foot mobiles inbound. So far count fifteen—one-five—infantrymen moving in broad echelons. Identify as possible penal formation inbound.” “Roger, Echo, expect at least one full company-strength force inbound. Hold fire. Do not—repeat, not engage until I give the order.” Mitchell left his small command post, which was really just a makeshift sleeping bag and a few squad and platoon leaders nearby, and made way for the northeast corner of the parking structure, where Echo Team was situated. Accompanied by a squad of eight marines, the captain joined up with Echo and found the commanding NCO, First Sergeant Richard McIsaac. “What are we looking at, sergeant?” Remington toggled the view magnification of his combat visor and zoomed in as with a pair of binoculars. McIsaac designated three distinct targets with his War-Fighter individual combat/communications system, which then became marked visibly in the captain’s HUD. The outlines of three enemy soldiers became clear as day, and Mitchell watched the hulking forms as they slowly scouted the ruins of the city, moving closer and closer to the parking structure. Their mundane, grey-black armor identified them as what the enemy forces liked to use as cannon-fodder, functioning not unlike Stalin’s shtrafbats of the Second World War. “These Bugs aren’t all that subtle, are they, sir?” “Careful, sergeant. They don’t need to be. You know that just as well as I do.” Next, Mitchell called in through his squad-level circuit to all perimeter commanders in the structure, primarily the sub-commanders of Echo Team. “Hold fire. Engage within a range of fifty, five-zero, meters. Marksmen, engage apparent squad, platoon, and even company commanders. Anyone directing the action gets gunned down. Wait for my signal.” The black-clad alien warriors scouted out farther and farther from the ruins of other buildings, well into the killing zones surrounding the parking structure. More and more were apparent, now. Easily a platoon was visible or just hidden in the ruins of the buildings. As they approached, Mitchell keyed his radio twice. The captain had an alien sighted in the optical mount of his M-42A1 carbine. The scope on the weapon had the black shape lined up perfectly with a bright, red dot. He thumbed the safety switch on his weapon to the “off” position, throwing the fire select switch into the semi-automatic trigger grouping. Almost immediately, as he keyed into his radio and the high pitched beep sounded twice, there was a series of sharp, ear-splitting cracks, sounding not unlike oversized whips. With each CRACK, an alien figure collapsed. Instantly, the marines opened up on the approaching alien troops, dropping the foremost line of targets in seconds. Mitchell joined in, depressing his trigger twice in quick succession. Each time, the action of his weapon pumped a massive amount of electricity through two conductive rails along the barrel of the rifle, using the resulting Lorentz force to thrust forward to conductive contacts connected to each other and carrying the solid ammunition slug loaded into the rifle down the barrel, releasing it at an extremely high velocity right in the muzzle. Twice, the rail-gun mechanism fired a round, and each time the black figure in Mitchell’s scope lurched back, before collapsing after the second shot. He lined up a second target about 20 meters behind his first and fired once, missing his mark. Above him, three M-55E3 light machine guns opened up, laying down blankets of lethal firepower and cutting down several more targets. This time, with the element of surprise just about used up, the marines began to take fire from the line of buildings across the intersection. Blue-green streaks of plasma blazed in from windows and pieces of rubble. Mitchell heard two screams off to his right. Suddenly, there was a flash of light across the way, and chunks of concrete near his head were blasted away by a burst of violet light and intense heat. He rose up again, his carbine thundering as two more rounds sped downrange. Each shot split the night with a long orange tongue of muzzle flash. The heat involved in launching a round at high speed heated the air and the muzzle of the gun such that hot particles in the air glowed bright with each shot. As more of the black-clad figures emerged form the ruined buildings, Mitchell threw the fire select switch into three-round burst mode. This wave was more determined, and certainly larger than the first, and every set of alien eyes was locked on Mitchell’s parking structure. By now, there was no denying that enemy support would be inbound quite soon. Those airborne troops hadn’t landed far off, and their presence usually meant some heavy air support nearby. The captain fired into the ruins across the intersection quite frequently, unsure if anything was hit. Constantly, now, both of the lower two levels of the structure took fire from blue-green streaks of plasma, fired from the advanced technology of alien small arms. A series more screams told Mitchell that this firefight was not coming without cost. Suddenly, a frantic call came in on Mitchell’s internal comm. “Captain, this is Bravo-Lead. We’re taking fire on the north perimeter. Fucking Bugs are all over the place, moving for the entrance gap! We’ve got three men down already!” Damn… Well, wasn’t this inevitable? “Hold tight, Bravo. I’ll pull reinforcements over, but it looks like we’ll need to pull out soon,” Mitchell responded grimly. ......... About 150 meters above ground level, a group of three Marine Corps MV-230E Wyvern Aerial Hoppers cruised ahead configured for the close-air-support role. Suddenly, the pilot of the lead aircraft of this Eagle Flight, call sign Bulldog, spotted something in the corner of his eye. There was definitely a sort of oddly colored sparkling and flashing about eight kilometers away on his two o’ clock. The pilot, one Major Cameron Michaels, toggled the thermal view on his helmet-mounted display, and found that each flash showed up similarly on infrared. His copilot did the same thing and agreed. “Flight, be advised. Possible firefight, two o’ clock.” “Roger, Bulldog. Alpha check on ground targets?” “Uhhh, -Two, we’re looking at contacts bearing zero-one-one, estimate nine or ten klicks.” “Copy, Lead.” “Flight, move on attack heading.” With that, Michaels called in on an open channel with a short-range radio transmitter. “Any friendly forces that pick up this transmission, please acknowledge. This is Eagle Flight Lead. I have visual of a firefight about nine klicks out, near an old parking garage. Repeat, any friendlies in the area, please respond.” ……… Mitchell heard the call on his radio and immediately responded. “Roger that, Eagle-One. I hear you. This is Captain Remington Mitchell, UNMC. I’m the guy in the parking garage. Any chance you can help us out?” “Errrr… Roger that, captain. We have some weapons onboard for a pass, but I can’t pick you up right now. I don’t have the firepower to touch down at a hot LZ.” “Anything you’ve got, man. We need a break.” “Shit, I hear you. We all need a break out here. Tell you what, there’s a clear LZ about five klicks northeast of your position. I can make a pass, then meet your people there. I’ll try to have a few extra birds in the air for you guys. Meet me in an hour.” “Copy, out.” ……… “Alright flight, we have acquisition of targets. You are cleared hot. Remember, don’t hit that parking structure.” With that, Major Michaels locked a set of firing solutions into his on board fire control systems. The rest of his flight mates followed suit, and soon, he had a cool warbling sound in his ear, letting him know that his weapons were ready for firing. He pulled back on the collective control, bringing his tilt-rotor gunship/transport to a calm, level hover. As the two other pilots in his formation followed suit, Michaels thumbed the red switch atop his joystick, and felt the frame of his aircraft shudder as 40 guided missiles shot out from two 35-cell rocket pods. A series of misty, grey missile trails streaked out into the black night, tipped by blue-white tails of ion-propulsion rocket motors on each missile. In total, 120 missiles from the three gunships shot forth, announcing their impacts with bright orange and yellow flashes in each pilot’s HMD. Then, following Bulldog’s lead, the two gunships rocketed forward and approached the airborne layer of smoke and dust shrouding the remaining “Bugs,” as Human soldiers liked to call their alien adversaries. Michaels switched back to the thermal setting on his HMD, searching for the orange dots that would represent surviving targets beneath the opaque layer of debris. Having found quite a few, he squeezed the trigger on his joystick, letting off several lengthy bursts from the triple-barreled auto-cannon mounted under the chin of the aircraft. The cannon was smart-linked with the HMD of whichever man in the cockpit was in control of the gunship at that time, meaning that wherever Michaels was looking, the gun was aiming. Using the targeting reticule projected onto the visor of his flight helmet, he could spray the enemy formations with surprising accuracy. As he roared above the remaining aliens, his copilot took over with the gunship’s belly-mounted rotary cannon, firing backward using a view screen set up in the cockpit. ……… Mitchell fired off burst after burst, when, suddenly, he heard the shriek of rocket motors rushing toward him. Instinctively, he dove below cover, not quite knowing what good it would do him. However, when the first of the explosions shook his position, he found himself in surprisingly good health. Looking up, he saw the blue-white flares of rocket motors streaking in, impacting the buildings and streets occupied by the Bugs with thundering explosions that replaced the view in his NVG with a thick, grey wall of airborne debris. Soon after, he heard what sounded like a very large zipper being opened slowly, as three triple-barreled rotary guns sprayed the other side of the intersection with lethal 15mm rail-gun slugs. Switching to thermal view, Mitchell saw the destruction each round wreaked as it impacted with a bright, yellow flash in the polychromatic thermal view in Mitchell’s visor.
So far, I acknowledge that, as far as plot goes, this is very much underdeveloped, and because I plan to organize this story much like the Iliad where it starts out sort in the middle/late in the story then goes back to retell everything, you are left in the dark as to what has happened to put the characters where they are. My prologue leaves us off at a dire moment in March of 2301, and then you are suddenly dropped off in a parking garage on Earth 28 years later. So, my main concern here is as follows: Is the information presented clear enough? Are my details sufficient yet not too overdone that they take away from the story? Mainly, how is my writing style and organization?
