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* * *
"Captain Brandon, sir, it's the S-3," called the company clerk through the open door of the commander's office.
Bob Brandon had been more than halfway expecting the call since his company began intense ACS drills in the parade field two days before. He picked up the extension phone reluctantly. "Captain Brandon."
"Bob, it's Major Norton."
"Yes, sir."
"Why are your troops training in ACS drills?"
"It seemed the thing to do, sir. We are an ACS unit."
If Major Norton noted the sarcasm, he declined to comment. "The problem is, too many of these ACS tactics need review. The colonel and I have been studying the manuals and when we're ready, and by that I mean Operations, we'll publish a training schedule of what we want trained on. There's too much armor and not enough infantry in their damned tactics, they'll get us all killed if we use half that stuff! In the meantime you are to stick to the prescribed training schedule, do you understand that, Captain?"
"Yes, sir. Might I point out that the training schedule calls for equipment maintenance. Our equipment is stored with the S-4."
"I know what the training schedule calls for, dammit, I wrote it, remember? Next week's is being revised for some of that ACS work, work that the colonel and I have reviewed and agree with, and until then you are to continue with the published schedule! Am I making myself perfectly clear, Captain, or do I have to have the colonel call you and explain it in greater detail?"
"No, sir, that won't be necessary. I'll be speaking to the colonel about this at length in the near future."
* * *
"And this is . . . ?" asked Sergeant Duncan, holding up a flash card. "Sanborn?"
"Umm, a Lamprey?"
"Right, and a Lamprey is . . . ?" he asked, referring to the information on the back of the card.
"A landing craft. Umm, space weaponry, like . . . uh, plasma ca
"Yawhol. Anything else, like, how many troops it carries? Shit like that?"
"Oh, about four, five hundred? Yeah, like, one of their companies. And one or two God Kings."
"Right. Okay, how do you identify one?"
"If it looks like a skyscraper but it fuckin' moves, it's a fuckin' Lamprey," said Sergeant Brecker, laconically.
"Ek-fuckin'-zactly," noted Duncan, neatly flipping the flash card into the trash. "If you are unable to identify a Lamprey, you desperately need your eyes examined. Next on our daily prescribed training of Posleen equipment identification, is this big mother-fucker," he held up the flash card. "Bittan?"
"C-Dec, Command Dodecahedron. Core unit of a B-Dec or Battle Dodecahedron. Twelve-faceted cube. Random mix of interstellar weaponry on eleven facets. Antiperso
"Very good. Excellent, even. How do you identify one?"
"It looks like a B-Dec, except smaller and the B-Decs have noticeable gaps between the attached Lampreys."
"Close. The correct answer is: if you want to piss your shorts and run it's either a B-Dec or a C-Dec and it don't really matter much which."
"How much longer we gotta put up with this shit?" asked Sergeant Brecker, rhetorically. The training schedule, by order of the battalion commander, had been read to each company during morning formation. Authorized ACS training, a total of thirty-five hours for this week alone, was currently "Identification of Known Posleen Vehicles and Equipment." There were twenty-five items. The following week there was "Know Your Combat Suit," an in-depth list of all the items on the suits. That, too, would have to be out of a book; there weren't any suits to study.
Bittan fished the Lamprey flash card out of the trash. "I'd really like to keep this," he said diffidently.
Duncan looked chagrined. "I'm sorry, man, I shouldn't let my attitude fuck the rest of you up."
"Don' mean nothin'," said Sergeant Brecker. "I mean, as bad as those fuckin' grass drills were, at least we felt like we were learnin' somethin'. It ain't your fault battalion's got it stuck so far up their fourth point of contact they couldn't find light with a nuke."
"F-U-C . . . K-E-D . . . " Stewart began to intone.
"Attention on deck!" snapped a specialist halfway down the barracks.
"At ease, rest even," called Captain Brandon. "Get the troops from next door and wake everybody up, I got newwws!"
"Whass happ'nin' sir?" asked one of the mortar troops.
"Wait'll we're all here. I don't want to have to go over this twice." He gri
Feet shuffled for a moment, then the mortar specialist answered. "It fuckin' sucks, sir."
"Glad to hear that the first sergeant and I aren't the only ones with that opinion." The gathered troopers got a real chuckle from that.
Troops were trickling into both ends of the barracks. As the trickle fell off and the group pressed forward Captain Brandon hopped up and sat on one of the upper bunks. He looked around at the sea of black, white and brown faces to make sure that most of the troops were present.
"Okay, here's the deal. We've been scheduled to lift day after tomorrow." There was a muttered and confused chorus. "Yeah, is that good or bad? Well, we'll be out of C-LOC, but we'll be even more imprisoned. However, battalion has indicated that we might get access to our equipment once we're on board ship. In the meantime I want you guys to bone up on all the ACS lore you can. We're not going to get much work with the equipment before we're engaged, so I want you guys to read the fuckin' book! I understand that there's only one per squad, so read aloud or share the reading. Read it in your spare time, read from it between deals! It's the only damn card we've got to play! So study like you never did in school. Williams," he pointed at a Second Platoon NCO, "maximum effective range of the M-403 suit grenade launcher?"
"Uh, a klick, sir?"
"Twelve hundred meters, close but no cigar, Sarn't. If you don't know it, I know your troops don't. Duncan, maximum effective range of the M-300 grav rifle?"
"Maximum effective range of the targeting system, sir."
"Explain."
"The grav rifle has the ability to leave Earth's orbit, sir. It will hit something as far away as you can aim."
"Right. Private Bittan, what is a Lamprey and how do you identify it?"
Bittan glanced at Sergeant Brecker and got a nod. "Umm, it's the lander portion of the B-Dec, the outer layer that surrounds the Command Dec. An' . . . if it looks like a skyscraper, but its flyin', it's a Lamprey, sir."
Captain Brandon laughed. "Good answer, troop . . ."
"Complement of four hundred normals, nominal, with one to two God Kings. Single random anti-ship weapon on its vertical axis. Normal space lift and drives . . ."
"Thanks, Bittan, that's the idea. You all need to get up to snuff on this stuff. Weapons, tactics, enemy equipment. Let's hope we get to use the equipment once we're on board, but in the meantime, study, study, study. We move to embarkation at 1030 hours day after tomorrow. That's all."
"Sir," said Schrenker, "are we go
"No." Captain Brandon did not look happy to pass on that news. "We've been ordered locked down and that's the way it's go
There was a disgruntled mutter at that, but no more. "Yes, sir."
"All right men, get back to it. And?"
"Study," they chorused.
He waved and walked out as the company broke up into buzzing groups.