Clarkson nodded. “Got it, John.” He spun around and followed his crew up the stairs. He still sounded nervous, but that wasn’t surprising. A thirty second pep talk wasn’t likely to chase away the fear, especially the first time. Marek knew that much from his own experiences.
He still felt the fear himself. It wasn’t as acute as it had been the first time he’d gone into battle, but it was always there. People who hadn’t been in battle thought veterans overcame fear, left it behind. Legends and heroes were more inspiring as unshakeable monoliths, super men and women with no weaknesses. Marek knew better. He knew from his own experience, and he knew because he’d served with some true heroes, and all of them had been scared too. Veterans dealt with the fear, not defeated it. They shoved it aside, made it an ally, let it focus them but not paralyze them. He knew from training; he knew from experience – if he let the fear rule him he was vastly more likely to end up KIA. Reaching that realization, asserting the dominance of judgment over fear…that was a as good a definition of veteran as Marek could imagine.
Unfortunately, this was a hard lesson, and his prospective citizen soldiers weren’t likely to learn it quickly. If it came to real war, a lot of them would die before they learned it at all. Marek started to realize how deeply unprepared they were. There had been bluster and speeches, and hushed meetings late at night, but the non-veterans had no idea what they were heading into. He wondered, how would they hold up, bloodied and battered, their homes burned, their friends dead at their sides? Would they have the inner strength to persevere against whatever the Feds threw at them? Freedom was not going to come cheaply.
He realized how unprepared he was himself. He’d reluctantly come to terms with the need to take up arms again, but he hadn’t considered all the realities, at least not in detail. The last time he’d set foot on a battlefield he wore powered armor, assisted and advised by an artificial intelligence unit that was the cutting edge of information technology. His troops, even the few who were newbs, had been though years of training. When he had first resolved to take a stand here, Marek remembered the combats he’d been in, but now he took stock of the realities. This was going to be a vastly different war, and the challenges were going to be unlike anything he’d encountered before. As a veteran officer he knew he would bear heavy responsibility to forge his untried soldiers into a combat ready force. His thoughts were grim, tentative. Can I do this?
“John, what do you want us to do with them?” Aaron Davis was one of Marek’s employees from the factory. Also a veteran, Davis had served five years in the Corps, though only two were in combat assignments, and those were in quiet sectors. He had a gift for administration, which made him a great asset at the factory, but Marek wished he’d seen a little more action. Still, he was a fully-trained Marine who had been in battle, which made him worth his weight in frag grenades right now.
Marek glanced over at the six Federal officers who had been stationed at the armory when his people burst in. They claimed to be there to assist in the inventory and categorization of weapons, but Marek knew they were an advanced team prepping for the shutdown of the facility. “Make sure they are tightly bound.” Their hands were already tied behind their backs, bound with durable polymer shackles. “Gag them too, and secure them in the back room.” Davis nodded and turned to go. “And Aaron?” Davis stopped and looked back. “They are not to be harmed. This may well come to fighting, but we are not going to start it. Understood?”
Davis had an odd expression on his face; Marek couldn’t decide if he was disappointed they weren’t going to shoot the Feds or offended that Marek was worried he would hurt unarmed prisoners. This entire situation was like nothing he’d ever prepared for, and he wasn’t sure exactly how to handle his people.
“I understand, John.” His voice was clear, respectful but a little too sharp, too clipped. That answered Marek’s question. Davis clearly would have handled the Feds less gently had he been in charge. That kind of attitude was spreading rapidly. The federal authorities were barely tolerated in the colonies in the best of circumstances, but on Columbia they had been cracking down pretty aggressively. A lot of bad feeling had developed, and many Columbians were anxious to strike back. And with the veterans, you never knew what was in their past. Some of the ex-Marines were native-born colonials, but many of them had come from some of the Alliance’s worst slums. They’d survived and found a home in the Corps, and later in the colonies, but many of them harbored intense grudges against Alliance Gov and the system they’d had to endure.
The strange relationship between the Marine Corps and the federal government created a lot of unpredictability in the current, rapidly changing situation. Almost certainly, some individual Marines would side with the colonists. But in many ways, the Corps was caught in the middle. When it was defending the colonial worlds against the other Superpowers, it was serving both Alliance Gov and the colonists. Now, for the first time, the Marines faced the possibility of a choice…obey an order to fire on colonists or defend those rebels and attack other federal forces. Or sit the whole thing out.
The Corps was generally perceived to be sympathetic to the colonies, and overall that was true. But Marek knew it was more complicated. The Marine Corps was made up of thousands of individuals. The views of its commanders, the loyalties of its personnel, and the reality of its situation were all major factors in how it would respond. The Marine Corps would have immense difficulty sustaining itself without supplies and resources from Earth. A Corps that declared for rebelling colonists – or even disobeyed orders to attack those rebels - would quickly find itself very short of weapons and equipment. It was even possible that the pressure of the looming conflict would fracture the entire organization…that Marine would end up fighting Marine.
He might – just – be able to help forge the colonists into an army that could take on the better equipped Federal Police and other paramilitary forces they were likely to face. But he knew if Marine assault units came to Columbia to fight for the Feds, his amateur troops would be cut to pieces. The prospect of firing on other Marines was something he didn’t want to imagine. He liked to think it couldn’t come to that, but he’d been in battle too many times. If they came here to attack him, to fight his ragged little army, he knew he’d do whatever he could to destroy them. He could feel the anger, the bitterness and confused feelings about an eventuality that hadn’t even happened yet. He had always considered other Marines as his brothers and sisters, but he would think of any who came here to kill colonists as traitors. If they made themselves tools to repress what a century of Marines had died to preserve they would no longer be his brothers. They would be his enemies.
Marek pushed those thoughts aside, focusing on the matter at hand. He wished he had Anton with him, but he’d sent the tough old sergeant to scout the approaches to the armory. Anton and his scouts would give him warning when the Feds were coming; he was sure of that. He’d hesitated before sending Anton out, but he needed reliable strength estimates on approaching federal forces, not just a panicked message that they were coming. He could count on Anton to keep his cool and get him what he needed. If there was too much strength coming, he had to clear his people out and try to get away. Losing a fight here could end the resistance before it even began.