Chapter 98: To Sigmund

The activity aboard the Abraham Kepler becomes frantic in an instant. Many troopers were relaxing, sorting gear, and settling into their new accommodations. But in the 30 minutes before launch, everything needs to be packed away, doors sealed, and all personnel to designated launch locations where they can be secured to prevent injuries during launch.

The process isn't as dramatic when leaving a space station, since there isn't the same gravity change, just the transition to faster than light travel. Ships the size of the Abraham Kepler also rarely land on planets and aren't really designed for it. Sure, they can survive it easily enough, but it is a huge amount of stress on the structure, even with Kepler's advanced anti-gravity technology.

On the surface, the parties are still in full swing, welcoming the veterans home with no idea that the enormous bulk of the Abraham Kepler is about to take off until the sirens start sounding to clear the area.

There isn't anything built within half a kilometer of the landing pad, but even then, the closest buildings won't be safe to walk near until the ship is at least ten thousand meters in the air and begins its forward motion.

If Max could see outside, he would see thousands of veterans standing at attention outside every barracks building, saluting the departing troops and wishing them a safe and uneventful deployment, as impossible as that might be with an emergency departure. If anyone understands the true horror of that short-notice siren, it is them. They heard it two missions in a row, and both missions cost them dearly in lost brothers and sisters.

Inside the ship, the chaos has begun to settle as everyone gets their gear put away, and runs for the secured seating. The bunks have an option to securely net yourself in so you don't fall out, but even cadets this new know that they don't want to be laid flat in a tiny box for takeoff. It's much better to be in a proper chair. Most of them will be either in the cafeterias, where the high-backed chairs will all be turned to face one direction and the tables fold vertically to prevent flying debris from injuring the soldiers behind them. The rest will either be in the training halls or secured seating within their duty stations.

Stalwart Special Tactics Unit has its own training hall, so they have been designated to use it as their launch area, giving them more than enough room to work, and keeping them close to everywhere they're likely to be during a standard duty shift.

The ship shudders as it slowly lifts from the ground, minimizing thruster usage to prevent damage to the surrounding area as the anti-gravity drive shifts the flagship into the air. Once the Abraham Kepler has reached a safe altitude, the thrusters engage, slamming everyone back in their seats with no warning other than a slight rocking motion as they engage.

Max spends the next few minutes thanking whoever designed this layout for putting the officers' seats at the very front of the room, despite the fact that they are facing the mirrored window of the office, with minimal leg room. The sounds of motion-sick rookies let him know that the scene behind him is not going to be a pretty one, even before he looks in the mirror.

The thunderous force of atmospheric entry suddenly fades as they reach the boundary to space and the artificial gravity kicks in with a faint hum. A few soldiers are about to get up to clean themselves, having been downstream of the sick trooper, but Max stops them before they can.

"Everyone remain seated. The Abraham Kepler is about to transition to faster than light travel." He calls, knowing full well just how nauseating the first few times you experience the effects of the warp field engaging can be.

The actual function is a state secret, but as Max understands it, the drive creates a bubble effect in reality around the ship, bending the natural laws using immense amounts of carefully regulated energy in order to let the ship travel faster than the speed of light.

Keeping it a huge secret only matters to the enemy though, since even if it was explained to him, Max isn't sure that he could actually understand the level of astrophysics necessary to accurately explain how the warp drive works.

[Prepare for rapid transition] Comes the announcement, just as Max had predicted, and then the twisting lurch of the warp drive engaging flows through them, causing a few more soldiers to forfeit their dinners.

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"That's the worst of it. Everyone get clean and get settled in for the evening early. We have one week to pound enough knowledge into your heads that you don't die within the first five minutes of your first deployment." Max calls out, making a few pilots laugh, but not the infantry.

Every infantry soldier knows that the life expectancy of a rookie trooper sent on a forward deployment drop is measured in seconds and not hours or days. If they survive the drop, they will usually be expected to secure the position to reduce damage to the resource-intensive Mecha units that follow them. From what they've heard among the rumor mill, mostly from troopers who had family in Bravo Company, Major Max isn't like that and prefers to keep all his members alive, but he doesn't get to designate the drops.

The next day, Max sets the basic training for the Pilots to learn the essentials of hand-to-hand combat. They now have extremely agile Comor Pattern Corvette Class Mecha, and he plans to equip every one of them with swords. They do learn a little about sword combat in class, but the footwork and technique to make it truly useful are well out of the skill set that the academy covers. They only have one week, so that is what he will focus on for the pilots. How to survive up close and personal with other light mecha in an urban environment.

For the infantry, Max has Nico cover a wider variety of skills. It's too late to start teaching them martial arts, so she will focus on teaching them trench warfare, how to detect enemy hiding spots and basic infiltration techniques. Those three things are the most likely to help them survive the first few days of an assault, and the updates Max has managed to get about the situation on Sigmund say that's what it will be.

The enemy is not a human faction, but they are close to it. The planet has been invaded by the Narsians, a species of humanoid giants, roughly the same size as Line Mecha, between three and four meters tall. Their technology is strangely both very advanced and very lacking. They have powered environmental body armor, but they prefer to run everywhere they go, not using transport vehicles. They use high-powered energy weapons, but also carry large alloy melee weapons, that do devastating damage thanks to their size and strength.

That's why it's so important that the pilots know how to fight up close, the enemy is light mecha-sized and even more melee happy than the Cygnus forces were. They are also surprisingly agile, using a form of anti-gravity drive in their body armor to allow them to run at extreme speeds and jump up to fifteen meters at a time, according to the strategic videos that Max has managed to find.

They also don't use spaceships. Instead, they directly invade other planets using a form of wormhole technology. Once they have located their target, a portal is opened, and a scout team is sent through. If there is life or valuable resources, the invasion begins only minutes later with hundreds of wormhole exits dumping their army all over the planet and then closing. There is no word for losing in their language, or if there is, it's the same word that they use for death. If they don't capture the planet, there is no way for them to leave again.

Seeing the details makes Max realize how important the emergency deployment was. Even a week away, they might be too late, since the Narsians attack all at once across an entire planet. According to the records, many planets fall completely, the entire population having been killed during the first two weeks. Narsians don't keep slaves, they view the practice as inhumane. But they also don't have a use for survivors, so unless there was an enslaved population on the world, that they can deport elsewhere as an act of kindness, they simply kill all the indigenous inhabitants of the worlds they target.

It makes sense to Max, in a twisted way. You eliminate all potential enemies, and there is nobody left to complain that you are inhabiting their world. Once they are established, they will set up high-tech factories to build orbital defenses for their newly founded cities, with the old ones being demolished as unsuitable for beings of their size.

The infantry definitely won't have it easy here. There are no human infantry equivalent troops on the enemy side of this battle. The only bright side is that as a Special Tactics Unit, they have a wide variety of heavy weapons available to them so that they can effectively penetrate the heavy armor or the Narsian shock troopers.

By the end of the week, the Pilots' melee skills are looking at least a little less awkward, and the infantry has gotten the hang of breaching buildings and finding likely enemy hiding spots, so they are as ready as they are going to get.

The last thing on Max's list is to request a special meal from the cafeteria. The menu is generally set by Command, but within reason, it can be modified. One of the Kepler 111 specialties is a custard tart, that Max tried at the Formal Ball. All the ingredients are in the meals for this week, just in different forms, so Max has the dessert set for dinner before they drop. A little taste of home for good luck.

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