Eric Spears

Eric watched out the window as the aircar slid down to land at his mother’s estate. As a marketing executive with ROMZtech, it was a nice place not far outside of Rome, the capital city of the Republic. A small mansion, the landing pad was next to the well kept garden. Gliding down to a graceful landing next to the main building Eric saw his mother and brother standing to the side talking. They glanced up toward the aircar as it came in to landing. Soft lights illuminated the house and garden. The sun was setting in the distance casting a reddish hue over the scene. The weather wasn’t hot and it wasn’t too cold. It always seemed to be pleasant and temperate around Rome.

His mother was a tall, thin beautiful woman and today she was wearing a green emerald dress that revealed her slim figure. She smiled when she saw Eric. Sean looked more animated and nodded at the aircar but kept talking to his mother. He seemed irritated at the interruption and Eric wondered what he was telling her.

“Son!” his mother exclaimed as the door opened. A butler bot moved to the back of the aircar to retrieve Eric’s luggage.

“Mother,” Eric said giving her a hug. With age treatment she looked to be in her late twenties, despite being well over sixty. She still had a powerful hug and there was no doubt she was staying in shape.

Sean shook his hand.

“Think about it mom,” Sean said.

“Think about what?” Eric asked.

“Moving away, off Everett,” Sean said.

“My job is here sweetie,” she said not looking at Sean. She sized up Eric.

“More handsome every time,” she said. “Have you found a girl yet?”

Eric rolled his eyes.

“He is married to an M508A200,” Sean said with a half grin.

“M508A8 actually,” Eric said with a smile at his brother.

“A8 or A200, does it matter? A standard soldier weapon,” Sean said.

Eric smiled.

“Soldier huh?” Eric said and Sean grinned.

Their mother slugged Sean in the arm, hard, almost pushing him over.

“You know better,” his mother said. She had served in the Marines as well. Sean might be the only family member that hadn’t served in the armed forces. Instead he had gone civil service for twenty years and had completed his twenty years not long ago.

“Soldier, Marine, Spacer,” Sean said with a good natured grin. “Hard to tell the difference.”

Eric rolled his eyes. Sean was just trying to instigate him.

“Uncle Mike is here,” Sean said catching Eric by surprise. This wasn’t late. “So is granddad.”

That caught Eric by surprise. The Colonel and the General were both here? Did that mean anything?

“C’mon,” Sean said. “You might be the last to arrive. Lots of relatives are here and I don’t know half of them. I’m glad I never joined the military. That much brass in the same room would make my skin crawl.”

“They are family,” his mother said. She had married into the Spears dynasty but that didn’t make a difference.

Eric followed his brother and mother into the mansion.

If a lot of relatives were here then Eric would be feeling his failure to earn cadre status even more acutely. He might be the only Spears on active duty that had not earned a commission and he would have to face a lot of disappointed relatives tonight.

* * * *

In addition to the Colonel and General, there were several others present as well. It looked like a dynasty meeting with numerous aunts and uncles and their spouses. Most Marines would be intimidated by the amount of brass in the room. Granddad was the highest rank, but there were two lieutenant colonels, three majors and a couple captains. Most of them were from great granddad’s side of the family, and more than a few were spouses. At a glance it looked the entire Spears dynasty was present, but Eric didn’t see uncle Kevin or aunt Margarette. Eric tried not to feel bad about being the only enlisted man here but nobody seemed to mind. At forty-five he was one of the youngest. Only his brother, at forty two was younger and his brother wasn’t a Marine. No pressure on him.

Everyone was filtering to their seats as granddad sat down at the head of the table. Eric ended up next to Sean. His mother, as the host of the get together was seated at the opposite end of the table from Granddad with her latest boyfriend, a Jason something or other. There were few faces Eric didn’t remember. Overall there were about thirty people and the room felt crowded. A quick glance at Uncle Mike made Eric feel better. The Colonel looked just as comfortable as Eric felt, which was dismal.

Once everyone was seated granddad tapped a spoon on his glass getting everyone’s attention and Eric received a notification from his cybernetics that the network was unavailable. A jammer had been activated, effectively preventing anyone from eavesdropping or recording.

Everyone fell silent and their eyes locked on the General. Usually business was handled after the meal.

“Thank you all for coming,” granddad said. He looked as young as the Colonel and for a man well over a hundred only his eyes seemed old. He moved with the grace of a stalking cat and had been a Leonis Republic Marine for well over a century. Looking at his rows of ribbons and his dress uniform, he was a very intimidating sight. Like uncle Mike it looked like a salad had exploded on his chest.

“I hate to start off with business,” the general said. “But there are a lot of things to talk about, there will be millions of questions and this is the only place we can really discuss anything. Are we secure Tanya?”

Eric’s mother nodded.

“Some information I can share, some I can’t,” the General said looking around. “A few of you already know, most do not.”

With a sigh the General suddenly looked his age. Eric could see a heavy weight on his grandfather’s shoulders.

“Nobody expects the war against the Union of Enlightenment to go well,” the General began. “Unlike the Han, the UE’s are probably more willing to turn Everett into a smoking cinder. Every projection we have, everything we know about the UE indicates if they feel threatened they may take that step.”

The General looked around and Eric couldn’t help feeling that this was merely an excuse. Something didn’t seem right. It made sense but some inner voice told him there was more too it.

“With that in mind I am encouraging everyone to seek jobs or missions off planet,” the General said. “What we don’t know is how quickly things will escalate or exactly how. We do know the UE’s are building a number of warships. They are trying very hard to turn their industry into a war industry. We know they have increased their intelligence gathering in Republic systems, and everywhere else.

“Now I can’t say for sure things will be better off planet, but I do think everyone’s chances are better,” the General said. Everyone was silent and Eric glanced at Uncle Mike. Why didn’t he want Eric on the Reaper if time was a concern?

“Does this have to do with that recent Fleet exercise where some jumped up officer screwed everyone over and massacred everyone?” Aunt Amanda asked. She was currently a Major with the Fleet Security Force. “Are people taking it that seriously?”

The General smiled as he looked at her.

“For several reasons, yes,” the General said. “That exercise exposed some glaring holes in our doctrine, preparedness and view of this cold war.”

“I heard that officer was being drummed out for pissing everyone off, dad,” Amanda said.

“Not exactly, but this upcoming war also means that the Spears dynasty is more likely to bear the brunt of the fighting. We are Marines and that is what we do, it is what we have always done,” the General said looking around. “If you need help getting off planet, or even out of the system, you contact me. You are all very precious to me in so many ways. What questions do you have?”

“If the UE’s nuke us, why won’t we nuke them?” Eric’s Grand uncle said. A colonel in charge of the third regiment. In more informal situations Eric called him uncle Ted.

“We most certainly will,” the General said. “What they do to us, we will give back to them multiplied. However, that doesn’t mean they won’t. They may think they can defend against our attacks.”

“Can they?” his grand uncle asked.

“The Reaper is going to teach them otherwise,” the General said. “Like it taught the Han. We will not submit. They will not have our worlds or resources. Not in a habitable condition anyways. The real problem is they may decide to use the Leonis Republic as an example, show everyone else how far the Union of Enlightenment will go, and they might already have a plan to reduce Everett to a glowing cinder. If they make an all out assault to destroy Everett, then we are screwed. They can launch hundreds of thousands of missiles from out of the system, just like we can do to them if we fully mobilize. We are gearing up but we can’t match their industrial base. Time is on their side, not ours and we aren’t ready. Few people in the senate think this cold war will turn hot and they don’t think the UE’s will risk all out war.”

Even Eric knew the dangers. Enemy ships could jump into the outskirts of the system, outside detector range and volley fire missiles. There could be ships out there now, latched onto asteroids with a high metal content, mass producing missiles and missile batteries from raw materials. Space was unbelievably vast and finding those enemy factories would be more difficult than finding a needle in a haystack. Of course any ships out there had made a one way trip. If they wanted to leave the system they would have to fight their way to one of the lagrange points and they were heavily patrolled. Large numbers of automated batteries circled the yellow giant that was called 10 Leonis Minoris. Any large enemy force that tried to enter the system could be decimated, but smaller missiles could not. Anything stationary could be targeted by attackers you would never find.

Eric’s uncle remained silent watching around him. Uncle Mike didn’t seem surprised, he looked more resigned than anything.

“How long do you think it will last?” A great aunt asked, a Major from third battalion, fifth regiment, Great Aunt Emilia.

“We don’t know,” the General said.

Eric noticed that Uncle Mike looked away, unable or unwilling to look anyone in the eyes. Did uncle Mike know?

“So will we keep fighting if Everett is destroyed?” Uncle Ted asked.

“You know it,” the General said. “I won’t discuss if or what provisions are being made.”

“Mutually assured destruction,” Eric’s mother said.

“Something like that,” the General said. Eric glanced at uncle Mike. His uncle was still not meeting anyone’s eyes. Like he was ashamed. What did he have to be ashamed of?

“Any other questions?” the General asked.

“I hear you already have a ticket off planet,” Eric said to Sean.

Sean nodded and glanced at their mother.

“Yea,” Sean said. “EnviroZen has some deep space project. It might make more sense now. It is all hush-hush, even within the company. Rumor has it we are setting up a deep space colony and EnviroZen is responsible for making sure the environmental systems are top notch.”

“For how long?” Eric asked.

“Five years minimum contract,” Sean said. “Maybe more. They didn’t say where, or provide a lot of details.”

“I thought you were going to be working on the environmental systems of Paris station, a luxury resort in orbit around Silva?”

“My contract has a clause and the pay is damned good for the change,” Sean said. “I thought it was going to be for a transit station on the Confederacy trade route. Maybe a military station, but now I’m not so sure.”

“About it being a military station?” Eric asked.

“Yea,” Sean said. “I deal with large environments. For hundreds of thousands of people. Most military stations may have a lot of people, but fewer comforts, besides, the military has their own engineers for that and military stations don’t have more than a few thousand. I just do civilian large scale stuff.”

“You have a boyfriend or girlfriend yet?” Sean asked. Eric scowled at him.

“So that is a no?” Sean said with a smile.

“What about you?” Eric asked.

“Yea. I’m seeing this one chick, real cute, but Mom said this was a dynasty meeting, no outsiders, so I didn’t bring her,” Sean said.

“Is it serious?” Eric asked feeling left out.

“Maybe,” Sean said. “She is coming with me on this job.”

“How many people going out with you for the job?” Eric asked and Sean shrugged.

“About five. My girl is hot,” Sean said. “You would like her. She was Army though. Avatar jock. Tanker I think. Combat arms. I’m damned lucky she is on this job too. Long distance relationships don’t work too well.”

Eric nodded. The Army hadn’t fought any battles in a very long time, maybe centuries. They were planetside troops and nobody had managed to land an invasion force on Everett or any of the Republic’s colonies. For that reason the Marines tended to mock the Army, but then the Army had a saying. ‘Marine wives, Army children.’ Marines were always deployed to space leaving the Army to console and care for the Marine wives.

“She was a staff sergeant when she got out. Aren’t you still a private?”

Eric sighed. This was not a new conversation.

“Marine enlisted don’t have enlisted ranks because we are ranked in specialties and we have to be more versatile. I might have to lead a team of Marines in an assault, but then someone else might be ranked higher in tank operations, someone else might be better at ship boarding. I am a senior Marine for a team though,” Eric said. “It is strictly administrative in that regard.”

“So you are a private first class?” Sean asked with a smile.

“Tongue my tush,” Eric said and Sean’s grin showed Eric he knew he had won. Of course rubbing in Eric’s failures was something his brother liked to do.

“You want me to tell you how much she made as a Staff Sergeant?” Sean asked.

Eric smiled back now, “I’ll bet I make more. Marines are paid by the ranks they have in different specialties. Army pukes just have their one rank.”

Sean frowned.

“Rumor has it they might be bringing Marine enlisted ranks back,” Sean said.

“Rumor,” Eric said. The Colonel had heard that too. Where was Sean getting his information and why did he care? The current Marine method had worked for well over a century. Marines were combat specialists and ranks would just put them into a niche that could cause problems if a junior, but more qualified Marine was put in charge of an operation.

Glancing around Eric noticed he and Sean were probably the only ones without someone, well, except uncle Mike, but Eric couldn’t imagine him around a woman, he was too much of a hardass.

It was going to be a long dinner.