He turned abruptly and walked away without another word, listening with amusement as the major started to harangue the recruits, taking up where he had left off. Erik walked across the wet field, mud spattering all over his boots and the bottoms of his pants. Camp Basilone was still under construction, and there were temporary roads and modular structures everywhere. What a mess, he thought. One of these days this place is actually going to be finished, paved roads and all. He knew that intellectually, but it seemed a distant dream as he made his way through the muck and past the construction equipment.
Cain walked up to a metal door leading into a large, interconnected series of portable buildings. He placed his palm on the small scanner next to the entryway, and an instant later the door slid open. “Identity confirmed, General Cain.” The security AI’s voice wasn’t nasty, exactly, but it wasn’t welcoming either.
“If it isn’t old blood and guts Cain.” Jax’s deep voice was immediately identifiable. “When did you turn into such a hardass jackboot?” Jax had a little trouble finishing his sentence before he started laughing. He and Cain went way back, and he couldn’t resist a little mild ribbing.
Erik realized they’d been watching him on the monitors…not just Jax, but General Holm and Colonel Teller too. “I didn’t realize I had an audience.” Cain was mildly grouchy. He didn’t really enjoy training assignments – he was a combat Marine through and through. But right now, job one was rebuilding the Corps. The old training program had been compromised by General Samuels’ treachery, and they’d had to purge many of the new recruits and retrain others to replace them. Making matters worse, late in the rebellion the Directorate’s new powered infantry units attacked a number of garrisons. The Marines won every fight, despite being seriously outnumbered in most of them, but the losses had been heavy, especially in veteran personnel.
Samuels had been the Commandant, but he’d sold out to Alliance Intelligence and conspired to bring down the Corps…and he’d almost succeeded. It had been a well over a year since Generals Holm and Cain had rallied the loyal remnants of the Corps, but they were still rebuilding, trying to bring the Marines back to their former level of readiness and combat effectiveness. They weren’t there yet.
“We wouldn’t have missed it for the world.” General Holm wasn’t laughing like Jax, but he had a broad smile on his face. “After all, who’s going to teach the recruits how to wear their rumpled, mud-spattered uniforms as well as you?” The new Commandant of the Corps, Elias Holm wore a perfectly tailored and spotless set of duty fatigues, with five platinum stars gleaming on each collar. His smile widened as his eyes panned over Cain’s disheveled appearance. “I’m afraid we’ll never be able to put you on the recruiting poster, Erik.” He glanced over at Jax, who was trying – unsuccessfully – to control his laughter. “But, God…please promise me you won’t try to teach them to salute.” Cain’s salutes were notoriously sloppy. It was generally considered by his friends and comrades to be some subconscious resistance to authority that twenty years in the Corps had still not stamped out.
“I’m very happy I could amuse you all.” Cain smiled, though he managed to look annoyed as well. “You know, when we said we were going to rebuild the Corps, I don’t think I realized what a shitload of work it would be. Why am I not on a beach somewhere? I was on Atlantia enjoying the ocean air when it all hit the fan.”
After the Alliance’s colonies rebelled and won partial independence, the Marine Charter was revised and reaffirmed. The Corps was now answerable to a joint Alliance-Colonial commission, and all key Marine installations had been moved off of Earth. Camp Basilone had replaced Camp Puller as the main training facility. But the massive Puller complex had been built over decades and sprawled across miles of Texas prairie. Ideally, the switch would have been made gradually over a period of years. But in the wake of the Samuels affair, there was too much concern over security, and the Corps decided the entire training program had to be moved immediately. They were struggling to keep things on track, but construction lagged well behind their needs, and Basilone had more the look of a temporary encampment than a permanent facility.
Holm finally let out a small laugh. “I’m sorry if we’re taxing your precious constitution, but we’re actually starting to make some good progress here.” He glanced over at Cain. “We’re still not pushing through the numbers of recruits I’d like, but I’ll put the current training regimen up against anything they did at Puller.”
Erik walked over to the coffee dispenser and filled a cup. He’d never been much of a coffee drinker, but he’d developed a taste for it over the last couple years…at least if it had enough sugar in it. Cain was a hardcore Marine veteran, but he also had a bit of a sweet tooth. “I agree, sir.” He looked over his shoulder at the monitors displaying the recruits, who were still getting an earful from Major Simms. “But we’re going to be understrength for years. There’s just no way to catch up quickly. Not with the length and complexity of our training program.” They’d been compelled to dismiss most of the classes that had been in process at Camp Puller. They’d lost a lot of good people along with the bad, but the camp had been heavy infiltrated by Alliance Intelligence, mostly on Samuel’s watch, and it just wasn’t possible to unwind it all.
“It’s worse than you think, Erik.” Jax walked over to the conference table and slid out one of the chairs. “I just finished an analysis of optimum personnel levels compared with force availability. We’re either going to have to leave a lot of places totally ungarrisoned, or we’re going to be weak everywhere.”
The garrisons had lost heavily fighting off the Directorate surprise attacks, and the complete shutoff of new recruits had really created a shortage of manpower. Holm had tried to address it by luring back recently retired Marines to active service, but the results had been well below expectations. Response rates were strong; most of those who were able returned. But it turned out that most veterans who had settled on colony worlds ended up serving in the respective rebel armies, and a lot of them had been killed or seriously wounded. On worlds like Arcadia and Columbia, where the combat was intense, rebel losses in the war had easily topped 50% of those engaged…and the Marine vets had usually been in the thick of the fighting.
“We’re going to leave a lot of places uncovered.” Holm walked over to the table and dropped into one of the sleek metal chairs, motioning for the others to do the same. “I don’t like it, but I think it’s more important to deploy a few combat-ready mobile forces strong enough to accomplish something. If it came to any kind of serious hostilities, a bunch of tiny garrisons would just get mopped up anyway.”
“I agree, sir.” One of the wheels on Cain’s chair was jammed, and it made a loud screeching sound as he pulled it back. He kicked it, and the wheel came unstuck. “What’s the point of parceling out our strength and creating a bunch of forces that are all too weak to hold out anyway? At least if we’re concentrated, we can respond to any situations that arise.” He knew it wasn’t that simple. It sounded clinical and logical in a planning session, but they were talking about potentially allowing thousands of their people to be occupied, perhaps for years before they could be liberated. On paper it was strategy and tactics, but in reality it was human suffering and death. Cain had seen it before, when they’d finally retaken the systems the enemy had seized early in the war. He’d seen things then he would never forget…no matter how hard he tried. But still, they had no real choice.