Eric Spears

Eric appeared in a standard Marine debriefing chamber. Other Marines were already there and as Eric arrived Bass and Dawson appeared.

Sitting down in the nearest chair, Eric signaled he was ready.

Minutes later when everyone was present the room was called to attention and Lieutenant Bishop appeared.

“At ease, be seated,” the Lieutenant said looking around. His eyes rested on Eric for a moment.

“At this time all Marine units have been withdrawn from supporting Army units,” Bishop said. “On a positive note it looks like the Army now has control of things and they are fully mobilized. For us, it is back to hurry up and wait.”

The Lieutenant looked around.

“Only one of you saw action,” Bishop said. “Sort of. Apparently there are UE elements on planet working to subvert and cause political friction. Republic Intelligence believes they were the ones that launched the attack. As you may know there were several attacks in the Bertman Arcology and the Holmes Arcology. Saboteurs infiltrated those arcologies using basic robots with rail guns to attack Republic personnel responding to civil unrest. Commando Spears managed to take some out. Unfortunately his avatars were destroyed and the saboteurs destroyed all evidence of their robots and involvement. We do have footage of the robots used by some of the attackers. They look to be circumvented Aerostech Robots, model twelves, and the rail guns they were equipped with are cheap, 3D printed rail guns. Poor quality, cheap and effective. With the network down, Commando Spears’ recordings is all we have.”

“So we don’t know who was behind the attacks, sir?” Bass asked.

The Lieutenant shook his head.

“If Republic Intelligence knows, they aren’t sharing,” the Lieutenant said. “Right now current theories are that several UE ships out beyond the heliopause are supporting a local cadre of agents. RepInt is working hard to ferret out any moles or supporters who may be feeding them information. As you know the footage of Fleet Command redirecting the missiles onto New Wilmington was based on real footage, just with key information changed and fabricated. They expect something similar to occur with the arcology riots.”

The Lieutenant looked at Eric.

“The Army Lieutenant has dropped charges and the demerit was dismissed,” the Lieutenant said. “Lieutenant Colonel Anderson went to bat for you. In the future though I would recommend you be a little more careful about how you interpret orders. You did the right thing but it is only seen in retrospect. Doctrine is to put two avatars down each passageway.”

“Yes sir,” Eric said. Sometimes doctrine was stupid.

“The only saving grace,” the Lieutenant said looking around, his eyes warning others. “Is that Commando Evans was effective. He managed to take down four of his attackers. None of the other Army teams managed that much, even though they were alerted and ready. They did deploy avatars but the attackers used the darkness and poor sensors on the avatars to launch the attack.”

“What were they after sir?” Bass asked.

Bishop sighed.

“Power grid and the sewage uplinks,” Bishop said. “Taking out the power caused all sorts of damage to the arcology, jamming the sewer lines has made the arcology uninhabitable. They’ve also found network moles planted in various locations and who knows what else they have done. It looked like there goal was to render the arcology uninhabitable, which might cause a refugee problem and a lot of friction with other arcologies.”

“Sounds like as much a public relations war as a shooting war, sir,” Bass said.

The Lieutenant nodded.

“Correct,” Bishop said. “Nothing like the Han war and now the war with the Union of Enlightenment is officially hot. The cold war is over.”

“And this means nothing,” Wilson muttered next to Eric.

“It means they could try another torpedo attack at any minute,” Eric whispered back to Wilson. “And it means our chance to see action is that much higher.”

“Shit,” Wilson said.