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Counterpoint: Chapter 1, Part 2COUNTERPOINT
CHAPTER 1:THE SOLDIER
PART 2
By Mya Thevendra
The marines filed out of the DropShip and began to assemble their gear on the flight deck, moving quickly in light combat fatigues. Each one of them wore a pair of standard issue protective goggles to keep the sand out of their eyes, but the rest of their faces, their necks and their hands caught the full rasping bombardment of flying dust and grit, the moment they stepped out of the cabin. The ground crew worked briskly around them, accessing the large wing bays on either side of the DropShips forward frame, and unloading the cargo of medical supplies into the nearby hangars. After the S.C.V. kits had been slid out onto the deck, a one-man cargo loader emerged noisily onto the landing pad from the service elevator that led down to ground level, and executed its trademark mechanical shuffle towards the two heavy crates. Although they weighed just less than half a tonne each, the loader hoisted them into the air with ease, before slowly reversing back towards the elevator.
After the last marine had gone past, Ian stepped onto the hard black tarcrete. Wisps of smoke were still curling around the DropShips underside, only to be sucked into the erratic wind currents as they rose upwards. He cast a backward glance at the DropShips interior, quickly scanned his eyes around the flight deck and over the ground crew working about him, and then stepped out of the landing circle. The entire base was about a square kilometer in size, and as he peered over the wide rim of the Starport, the structure of the complex unfolded around him.
Through the dust and haze, the massive figures of the vehicle plant and the equipment bay stood like monoliths, set firm into the sand and rock beneath. A basic shuttle tube network had been constructed between each of the base’s primary structures, and at the center of the network lay the installation’s heart and focal point, the command center, it’s domed form streaked and blurred behind the veil of flying sand. Standing some two hundred feet tall, and reaching around three hundred metres from end to end, it was an imposing sight, but a welcome one all the same.
Ian approached the marines, now stood straight, their gear assembled at their feet. They neither flinched nor squinted as they stood in the midst of the harsh winds, but such discipline was commonplace amongst the Confederate Anglian corps, and Ian expected nothing less.
He turned his eye to his XO, Sergeant Lorraine Sheppard, who was stood at the end of the line. He had always thought highly of her, even though he had initially been skeptical of the idea of a female XO. He was a man of somewhat old-fashioned manners and principles, and these had bred in him a sexist attitude of sorts. He had made his objections clear to his superiors when she had first been assigned to the Spider Monkeys, however, two tours of duty with her had taught him humility. He had watched Sergeant Sheppard develop quickly from an unsteady, inexperienced officer into the steadfast marine who stood before him now. She was quick, naturally intuitive and watchful, and most importantly, she was held in high regard by the rest of the unit.
On several occasions, she had put herself in the firing line to safeguard her men, and they trusted her implicitly for it. She was smallish in stature, deceptively so in fact, as her advanced skill in close combat had demonstrated many times. Bright lively eyes, and a rogue’s grin endeared her to most who met her, and finishing both basic and specialist training in the top five percent of her class made her prime officer material. The Spider Monkeys had been her first assignment, and after only two tours, Ian found himself wondering how he had ever managed without her. He paused for a moment, as if in deep thought, his lips pursed and his narrowed eyes wandering across the pale sky, before finally turning his attention back to his unit.
“Barracks.”
Upon the utterance of this single word, Sergeant Shepperd took one step forward and spun round to face the rest of the unit.
“SQUAD! REPORT TO MAIN BARRACKS FOR INSPECTION AND DUTY ROTATION! DISMISSED!”
The seventeen marines slung their gear onto their backs and double-timed into the main hangar entrance, which lead through into one of the shuttle tube junctions. Having made their way through the sparking and flashing melee of the hangar’s interior, they stepped out onto the junction’s main terminal. The terminal itself was compact, a narrow platform for personnel, connected to a winch and elevator assembly for moving heavier cargo on and off the base’s freight shuttle. One of the network’s four passenger shuttles waited ahead of them. It was the standard three sectioned tube train utilized in almost all confederate bases, long and slim in design, capable of transporting up to fifty people to any of the outpost’s primary structures, utilizing a network of magnetic rails and pressure tunnels to reach speeds of up to seventy knots.
The shuttle emitted a low rasping hum as power was cycled through its engines. Three pairs of sliding doors opened briskly, and the marines entered, Ian stepping on board last of all. Two rows of seats ran along each side of the shuttle’s interior, and a line of handholds was fixed to the ceiling. The marines filled up the walkway between the seats and stood firm, while the doors hissed shut. A sharp jolt, a whirring groan, and the tube shuttle pulled away. The terminal fell behind them and the widow landscape stretched away beyond the transparent protective shell of the shuttle tube. The ride was a fair degree smoother than the DropShip’s descent, and the view was now one from within the base, rather than passing over it.
Smaller, auxiliary structures flashed past and beneath as the shuttle followed the tube network towards the center of the base. Ian looked up. In the far distance, through the shifting haze of flying sand, his eyes traced the faint line of the outer ridge, the distant border standing like a dark band behind the sandstorm. He looked on ahead of the shuttle. On the right hand side, the outpost’s barracks drew closer. Given the unfinished nature of the base, the barracks were only of a small size but a functional tube terminal had already been built. The shuttle slowed as it drew into the bay, the engine tone lowering to a soft whine. The doors clicked then hissed, and as they opened, the stale recycled air, which the Confederate Terraforming Division still maintained was indistinguishable from the real thing, flushed into the shuttle. A single guard and the barracks’ duty officer were stationed outside the main personnel entrance, the duty officer seated behind a small computer terminal connected to the Fort Sunderland Artificial Intelligence mainframe. The marines exited the shuttle and formed up in front of the terminal, to be added to the base’s personnel roster. While the marines were being processed, Ian stepped over to Sergeant Shepperd
.
“Get them settled in…but make sure that they get onto the duty rotor a.s.a.p.”
“Yes sir.”
“Start them off patrolling the basin, then move them onto the transport route between here and the resource objective. I want it to be familiar territory to them by tomorrow evening.”
“Understood. Shall I meet you at Tactical, sir?
Ian nodded. He took a brief look at the marines, and then stepped back aboard the shuttle. As it pulled away, Ian sank into one of the seats. The gentle swaying of the shuttle was a strange comfort, and as he watched the seams of the shuttle tube streak past, he sagged in his seat, as if some weight was pressing down on him. He looked down at his hands, so old before his time. Scars and creases mapped out a life spent in soldier’s boots. A life spent alone. For how many years longer would he stand at the edge, gazing into the abyss? If Ian had looked up, he might have seen the gusting wind sending sand and dirt cascading along the roof of the shuttle tube. He would, if he had looked up, have seen an ochre veil settle in front of the shuttle, as powdery sand was whipped up hundreds of feet into the air. And then, if he had looked up, he would have seen the Fort Sunderland command center emerge through the tawny shroud, a colossal dome set like a mountain into the basin’s floor. He didn’t see any of this, however. As he peered further into the cracks of his own weathered skin, past old wounds, past old friends, old soldiers and a name and rank that had lost their meaning many years ago, he saw only the abyss.
Back to Chapter 1: Part 1
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