The conference room once again felt uncrowded, with just Geary there along with Captain Duellos and the virtual presences of two ground forces colonels. Colonel Voston, the commander of the regiment very grudgingly provided by General Sissons, had that look Geary had seen so much of since being reawakened. It was the look of a man who had witnessed too many horrible things for too long. When a massive war went on for a century, many, many people had that look.
Colonel Kim, commanding Adriana Star System’s contribution to the ground forces, had a ready smile and a calm disposition. She had made no secret of her relative lack of combat experience and was paying close attention to everything said.
Searching for a means to open the conversation, Geary fell back on the old military standby of asking about prior service. “Have you been stationed at Adriana for long, Colonel?”
Voston paused to think. “About five years now. My unit was sent here to reconstitute after we got chopped up at Empyria.” He stopped speaking as if no further explanation was needed.
Geary chose his words with extra care. “There’s a lot of history I haven’t been able to fully familiarize myself with.”
“Oh.” Colonel Voston had the slightly puzzled expression of someone trying to explain something he had never before had to explain. “Empyria was Objective One for the Auger Campaign. It was a lynchpin for Syndic defenses in that region of space. We were going to go in with overwhelming force, take it, hold it, and move on to another star system deeper in. Hit one star system after another, going deeper and deeper into Syndic space, until we…” Voston hesitated, then smiled slightly. “Actually, I don’t know what we would have ultimately done. That was above my pay grade.”
“There were other campaigns like that, weren’t there?” Geary asked.
“Over the course of the war? Yes. Many. None of them had succeeded. But This Time Would Be Different,” Voston said, pronouncing all of the capital letters with extra, mocking emphasis. He paused once more, a shadow crossing over his face. “The entire Third Army was sent in against Empyria. We took half a million casualties during the landings, then lost a million more dead and wounded over the next several weeks as we reduced all of the Syndic defenses.”
“How many Syndics were defending that star system?” Geary asked, trying not to let show how appalled he was.
“They told us going in that estimates were about half a million defenders.” Voston shrugged. “I’m guessing it was closer to a million. No telling what the real number was. Too many bodies got destroyed during the fighting, blown into fragments, and nobody had the time or interest to collect fragments of the enemy. We’d gone in with three million, the entire army, but our losses were so bad that after we took Empyria, instead of heading for the next objective, we were told to hold for resupply and reinforcement.” Another shrug. “A month went by, the Syndics were popping into the star system and launching raids and counterattacks, logistics were a nightmare, another month passed, the next big offensive got delayed and delayed again; eventually, my division got sent to Adriana to rebuild, and here we’ve been since.”
Colonel Kim nodded. “Logistics. My mother handled part of that for the Empyria assault. Supplying three million ground forces soldiers on the attack strained our systems in this region to the limit. We dropped in freshwater recyclers, but still had to constantly bring in huge amounts of food and ammo. Every Sillis we had in that part of space was committed to the job, and we were barely keeping up.”
“Sillis?” Geary asked.
“SLLS. Super-Large Logistics Ship. There aren’t many left, so you probably never saw one. The Syndics figured out that with how many supplies each Sillis carried, they could score a significant victory every time they destroyed one of them. The Syndics started launching raids targeted on every Sillis they could find, tearing past other targets to destroy the big prize.”
Geary nodded as a memory came to him. “At Corvus, I saw a Syndic light cruiser that was designed to take out targets like that.”
“Corvus?” Kim asked, puzzled.
“A Syndic star system. One jump away from Prime.”
“Damn,” Colonel Kim said admiringly. “You were right in the Syndics’ guts, weren’t you?”
“We never should have built something that was such an attractive target and couldn’t defend itself,” Colonel Voston grumbled.
“It made sense from a logistics standpoint,” Kim said. “Just not from a war standpoint. You’d think after so many decades of fighting, the brass would have realized that.”
“I don’t spend much time assuming the brass will figure things out,” Voston said sourly, then realized he had said that in Geary’s presence. “Admiral, I apologize for—”
“Don’t worry about it.” Geary looked over at Duellos, who hadn’t said anything since being introduced and apparently didn’t plan on saying anything. “Let’s get started. I understand that General Shwartz has recommended that your regiment, Colonel Kim, provide security on the refugee ships.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Get me a plan for dividing up your force. They won’t be alone. We’ll have all of my warships nearby, and if any emergency pops up, we’ll have three platoons of Marines for immediate reinforcement on any ship that needs it, as well as Colonel Voston’s regiment if more ground forces are needed.”
Voston spoke slowly, as if trying to ensure his words were understood. “My regiment is full of soldiers who have lots of time in combat, Admiral.”
“I’ve been told that,” Geary replied.
“Yes, but… Admiral, there’s a reason we haven’t been sent back into offensive operations. I’ve got a lot of people who’ve been pushed to borderline status. I think they’ve been kept active only because the medical treatment costs for them once discharged would help overwhelm the treatment centers in their home star systems. They’re good soldiers. Good fighters. Good people. But they’ve been through hell. More than once. They might shoot when they shouldn’t. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Colonel, I understand. Can they still handle this kind of mission?” Had Sissons burdened him with useless troops, soldiers too burned out to function anymore?
“They’re good soldiers!” Colonel Voston repeated, his voice rising. “Excuse me, Admiral. They can do the job. Put them in combat, and they’ll know what to do. Tell them to set up a security perimeter, and they’ll hold it. But if you put them into some more ambiguous situation, they might… overreact.”
“I see.” Geary nodded his understanding to the colonel. “How about you?”
Voston smiled crookedly. “I won’t let you down. I won’t let my soldiers down. But, yeah, I’m pretty burnt, too.”
“All right.” Geary activated the star display on the table. “There’s going to have to be a lot of improvisation because of how little we know about the tactical situation. I intend coming into Batara ready to shove the refugees back down the throats of the government there. I want to do that in a manner that makes it clear they had better not toss any more refugees our way. Colonel Kim, your soldiers will make sure the refugees board shuttles to be dropped off at Batara without rioting or just passively refusing to go. Colonel Voston, your regiment will provide security at the place where we drop them off.”
“The locals are going to object?” Voston asked.
“Very likely. From what I hear of the current local leaders, they’re way too much like Syndics for my taste.”
“We can handle anything they throw at us.”
“You’ll have fleet warships providing fire support,” Geary added. “Once we have the refugees dropped off, I’m considering continuing onward to Tiyannak.”