Confederation -- 3

Chapter 3

It had been a long two months. I was hard-pressed to cope with the tasks involved in setting up an expeditionary force to attack the Pug-bears, but now we were on our way, moving out of Earth orbit and heading slowly toward Uranus. We were still training our crews and were in no hurry, so we kept the acceleration very low. It would take us three weeks to approach Uranus at the rate we were going.

We'd recruited men who had military experience before the EMP. We had enough to provide each of our two ships with a couple of squads of what I'd tentatively named Space Marines. Each ship also had a small crew that was supposed to handle flight duties. I kept the title of expeditionary force leader for myself and appointed Rudy to captain the second, larger ship. Joe was his Exec, and Whistle filled the position of pilot, ship driver, and also maintenance engineer, should there be any mechanical or electronic problems. That last was doubtful since the Sunnys built their ships with multiple redundant systems. There was a Lieutenant under Joe and Rudy to command the Marines and a couple of general crewmen and a cook.

The cooking wasn't too tricky. The Sunnys had created a complete set of food synthesizers, some of which were set to create human-specific food. Granted, it didn't taste good, but Frazzle was working on tuning the machine's output. I'd noticed that my meals were gradually getting more palatable.

Rounding out the crew of each ship was a small group of Sim-tigers. At Kasm's insistence, we'd asked for volunteers from his people and gotten ten out of the original fifty-six that were left after defeating the Pug-bear forces on Earth. Most of the Sim-tigers had spread out over the front range, where they gave every appearance of enjoying life as the apex-predator. Some were loners, but many had affiliated themselves with human families or individuals. The two races got along well, and something about the mutual relationship seemed to fill an empty space in the Sim-tigers' worldview. They certainly were appreciated by the humans. Having a Sim-tiger living near or even with you made you a lot less desirable target for any outlaw that happened by.

Even so, there were ten who felt strongly about carrying the battle to the Pug-bears. We divided them into two groups of five, one on each ship. They were nominally Marines and integrated with the humans, but their proper role was that of shock troops. A squad of five, armed with their now preferred weapon, the Katana, could easily overwhelm double their number of Pug-bears and any number of Pugs, providing the Pugs were unarmed. Pugs with anti-matter weapons were a different matter entirely, one that required human assistance.

Liz stayed on the smaller ship with me. I'd refused to leave her and our two children behind. I'd done it previously and nearly lost them, and I wasn't going to leave them behind to be involved in the next wave of fighting.

The final member of our crew was our battle-scarred tomcat, Jefferson. He had been with us for nearly five years and had an unerring instinct for locating Pugs. He hated the aliens intensely and had shown that he was perfectly willing to risk death by attacking them directly, although there wasn't much he could do against one of the tough-hided creatures. Liz and I had thought about leaving him at our homestead but were unable to trust that he'd be okay. Besides, he had such an outgoing personality that everyone on the ship liked him.

Liz was plenty busy. She doubled as my Exec, at which she was competent, and as the mother to an active five-year-old boy and our four-month-old daughter. Frazzle and Mrs. Frazzle, commonly known as "Red," seemed to enjoy the presence of my children. Red quite often served as a nanny for the two. Despite her petite size, she could control Michael, and she quickly learned how to deal with a human infant.

The Sunnys were egg-layers but carried their hatched babies in their arms until they were more mature. Red had her own ideas about diapers. Having a full coat of multi-colored, reddish fur that she was inordinately proud of, she was reluctant to risk getting human waste on it, so she was cautious with diaper changing. It was actually kind of cute to watch her carefully wiping Rowan's nether parts. I don't think any human baby had ever had such a clean posterior.

This was something that I'd never considered. Having an alien nanny, I mean. It's one thing to think about being friends with a being from another planet, but it's totally different to think about them caring for your child.

Our ship had a smaller contingent of Marines than Rudy's larger one. We had less space. I had recruited a cook and a couple of ex-submariners for other personnel, thinking they would help me organize the crew. It seemed to work. Even though I had no idea about the challenges we'd face, things were moving smoothly.

We'd set up classes so that the Sunnys could teach our people about safety issues and what to expect from the ships during daily operations. The Marines were a little restive at first, but then the Lieutenant in charge, Mr. Holmes, came to me and asked for permission to use the ship's largest area, the loading bay, for exercises and drills.

It so happened that Frazzle was nearby, and he came up with a good suggestion. "Dec, do your fights people (the Marines) need strength?"

I stopped my response to Holmes and turned to him. "Yes. That would be helpful. I'd like them to be ready for all possibilities when we start operations against the Pug-bears."

I'd taken to circumlocution when it came to talking about possible violence. The Sunnys were so averse to fighting that even speaking about it caused them to flinch.

"I can set de gravity ups in the hold," he said. "Would dat make them stronger?"

"As long as you don't set it too high. We don't want any injuries due to too much stress on them," I replied.

Mr. Holmes' mouth was hanging open in astonishment. I don't think that he'd even considered the rather remarkable fact that the ship had a gravity field.

"Sir! That would be great. Could we make it, so weight is increased by twenty-five percent?"

He was already planning exercises, and I had a brief pang of sympathy for the Marines. Then I felt even worse when I realized that I'd have to participate. I was one of the fighting forces, and I didn't want the men to think I was going easy on myself or any crew. With a brief thought of "What am I getting myself into?" I agreed.

It was ridiculously simple. Frazzle turned back to the control boards and made a couple of adjustments, then turned back to us and said, "Watch outs when you go into de hold. Gravity is now up, and your foots will be heavier when they cross the entry to the transporter. You be careful and don't fall down."

Holmes, Kasm, and I strode over to the inter-ship transporter and re-materialized in the hold side. The door opened, and, just as Frazzle had warned, I almost stumbled. My leading foot and leg suddenly weighed more as I swung them through the door. I recovered myself and carefully walked into the hold. I suddenly weighed about another fifty pounds, and it was like carrying a heavy backpack.

Holmes was experimentally doing squats, and then he went down on his knees and moved into a prone position. He went through twenty-five quick push-ups and then climbed back to his feet with a grin, "Those are much harder than normal. I usually don't feel this much burn until I reach a hundred. This will be great for working the boredom out of the men!"

I nodded and sighed, then got down myself. Twenty-five push-ups later, I was breathing heavily. I climbed back to my feet ruefully and glanced at Holmes. He immediately said, "That was very good, Sir!"

Kasm, who had shown no response to the additional gravity, except for a brief sigh as he took on the load, snorted and sent, "Dec, you'd better be in here with me every morning. I don't want you to run out of energy just when things start getting interesting."

I don't know how he managed, but he could add a slightly disparaging overtone to his mental communication. I quickly responded aloud, "No worries about me."

Then in response to Holmes' inquiring glance, I added, "Holmes, you don't have to try and flatter me. I know I'm not in as good a shape as I'd like to be. I know it took me twice as long as you to complete those. I'm going to work out with your men daily, and so are the other ship staff. We all need to be in fighting trim when we engage the Pug-bears and Pugs."

"Yes, Sir. You don't have to be so hard on yourself, though. You're a lot older than me," he replied.

"I don't call ten years older," I sighed. But it was true. Even though I lived a rough and ready life, Kasm was correct. My fitness wasn't what it had been.

Going back into the transporter was funny in a sort of silly way. Just as my foot had dropped when I stepped out, it flew up higher when I stepped in, making me look like I was attempting a clumsy goose step over the threshold. I grinned at Holmes as he tried it, "I guess we'll get used to the change with practice." He nodded. Kasm snorted sardonically.

Workouts proceeded daily, and everyone, including Liz, who insisted on participating, benefited. After the third day, I got the idea of teaching the men to maneuver in zero gravity, and after that, we moved from heavy workouts to flying about. I reasoned that the change was good for the Marines. There was no telling where they'd be called upon to fight.

The most challenging problem I encountered with the zero-g workouts was the habitual orientation of the guys. Everyone initially wanted to orient as if the floor was the floor. It stopped after I lectured them with my feet hooked under a beam on the ceiling of the hanger.

"When you're fighting in space, the soldier who insists on viewing things as if they were on the ground is at a grave disadvantage," I

started. "There is no right or wrong orientation in zero gravity. The primary orientation you need is toward your objective. If we're assaulting an enemy ship, the ship is the target. Call it 'Down,' and then things become easier. The target is always down. Let's make that a habit."

There was some discussion, but after that, the men loosened up, and it wasn't long before they were sailing around the room in all sorts of positions relative to each other. It made the concept of attacking easier when you didn't have to stop and try to figure out whether you were upside down or your cohorts were.

The exercise got more interesting when the Sim-tigers decided to participate. We worked on drills and coordinated attacks that used the strengths of both groups. Humans armed with unpowered, anti-matter weapons and Sim-tigers with padded sticks in place of swords. Several days of such training led me to conclude that our force would be more than able to out-match a reasonable number of the enemy.

After the Marines worked out, Liz and I would take Michael and our daughter, Rowan, into the zero-g environment. I wanted them to become familiar with the sensation. It might be vitally important should the ship ever be damaged so that the artificial gravity went off.

Regardless of the importance, both children had a blast. I had to train them not to bash their heads on the walls, but after they became used to the idea of rotating and landing carefully, both became adept at moving around the large space. Rowan could not yet walk, yet she quickly learned to push herself gently off the hold's wall. She would drift slowly across the space with an excited grin on her face and somehow stick out a foot or arm just in time to fend off the wall as she approached.

After watching her, Liz and I agreed that the children would probably become far better at zero-g movement than we'd ever be.

That night, Liz woke me. The kids were asleep, as were most of the crew. We'd set up two main periods, but the later-day crew was only one human who sat watch and either Frazzle or Red who stood by, should the ship need attention.