The Herem Saga #1 (Mabel's War) E-Book

Davide Sassoli

• Herausgeber: Davide Sassoli
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

Milky Way, thirteenth millennium of the stellar age.
Human beings have long since left the surface of the Mother Planet, Earth, and so much time has passed they barely remember it.
They have established themselves as the predominant form of life among the stars and all the while they expand, colonize and multiply undisturbed. At times they are at peace, other times they quarrel with one another in an endless strife of meaningless skirmishes.
But one day the balance is broken. A terrible alien race, relentless and apparently unstoppable, now threatens to upset this delicate order and wash away over twelve millennia of progress and expansion.
People in the Milky Way call them Herem, the Anathem…

BOOK ONE: MABEL’S WAR

Planet Teodus, Sol Cluster: Mabel is getting ready to join his older brothers in their small agricultural enterprise, but when a terrible new enemy starts terrorizing the galaxy, he decides to give it all up to join the army.
He will endure years of hard training, during which he will meet Sig, Yowa, Alanna, Bera, Mina and many other young recruits, eager for adventure. This will mark the beginning of his military career, as well as the start of his adventures and of the mysteries he will find himself entangled in, starting from his first encounter, on Planet Vidalo III, with the terrible alien invaders.
Mabel’s war revives the atmospheres of the great classics. It is the first piece of a much greater saga, as well as a journey through the infinite reaches of space and into the one great mystery of the Universe: the Human soul, with its fears, anguishes and hopes.

Leseprobe

Davide Sassoli

The Herem Saga #1

(Mabel’s War)

More about the saga at:

www.theheremsaga.com

On the cover: Mabel

byGiulia Calvanese

Editing by:

Loredana La Puma (original Italianedition)

The Herem Saga #1 (Mabel’s War)© 2021 Davide Sassoli

All rights reserved.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Table of Contents

Cover page

Front page

On the Universe and its Distances

Intro

PART 1 – Dreams of Youth

PART 2 – War

PART 3 – Old Friends

PART 4 – A Difficult Choice

PART 5 – The Sirian Confederacy

The Galactic Chronicles

The Herem Universe

Thank you!

About The Author

The Works

On the Universe and its Distances

The easiest way to picture the Universe isa sandbox.

You could take a flat board and draw a map of all stars and planets you know of like cities on a landscape, but that would give you a very wrong idea of the actual distances which separate objects in the cosmos and their relative positions.

Astronomical distances are often measured in multiples of c (the speed of light). How long does it take for light (the fastest medium we know of) to travel between two places? From Earth to the Sun, it “merely” takes 8 minutes, and from here to the next star… that’s “just” a few years trip. To reach the closest star cluster, however, it would take over four hundred years, and that becomes forty thousand if we’reheading to the center of the galaxy. Andromeda, the closest other galaxy we can see in the sky, is currently two and a half million light years away from us.

Why? Because the Universe is just one, enormous gravitating system. It’s made of objects which exercise a constant pull on one another, so the closest ones tend to become even closer, and they will eventually come to revolve around a common center of mass. So planets and asteroids will never stray far from their star, leaving vast expanses of empty space all around, andstars (with their full systems in tow) will keep close to other stars, forming clusters, and star clusters will eventually form the spiral arms of a galaxy. A galaxy will then seek the vicinity of its nearest companions, forming a cluster of galaxies and so forth… up to the Universe: the biggest “box” we’ve ever discovered.

So it’s actually no wonder that science fiction is forced to call upon some very improbable concepts – like hyperspace, warp speed, or worm-holes – to allow for traveling to other planets. It’s also no wonder, though it might not be so easy to imagine, that an inhabited solar system might actually have no knowledge of its closest neighbor: though bound by gravity, the two would be virtually incapable of actuallyreaching one another, so they might just as well be on opposite sides creation.

This said… get ready for and adventure!

In Year 2491, according to the Gregorian Calendar, the first interstellar space-faring vessel left Earth, never to return.

The Galactic Chronicles record this event as the Zero Hour of the Stellar Age.

PART 1 – Dreams of Youth

Planet Teodus V, Sol Cluster, Galactic Year 12,489

Final call for sector Mira 9! Sector Mira 9, final call! All passengers are required to report for screening within ten local minutes. Sector Mira 9, final call!

Mabel was ten feet off the ground. He’d fallen behind while gaping at the spaceport’s interiors and its immense bearing structures, and those huge windows looking up to the sky; it was the biggest construction he’d ever seen in his life. Now he dashed, flew to the boarding deck for his first interstellar voyage, without feeling the least bit worried that they might leave him behind if he didn’t show up within those fateful ten minutes.

Mabel was a farmer. Three generations ago, his family had settled in Teodus V’s northern hemisphere, earning their keep by working in the agricultural installations that covered most of the planet’s temperate zones. He was the last of five siblings, three of which had followed in their parent’s footsteps, while Lemma, the only daughter, had undertaken a career in interstellar economy and was currently stationed in Atos, on the planet’s southern pole, where she dealt with important officials from off-world; she was, by all accounts, the pride of their small lineage.

But for Mabel, of whom no one had ever had any great expectations, the path was quite set, and everyone thought he’d do as his brothers had done: ask the family for a loan to buy his little piece of land, work hard, and be a supplier for one of the great distribution companies.

«With you onboard, we can make it, Mabby!» Natat, the eldest, would say. «I have the grains, the others own the grinders and you’ll focus on seed production. We’ll go on independently for a few years and then get together through family merging laws: we’re sure to make good money!»

Mabel had never objected. What else was he supposed to do? He lived on a Granary World, never had a passion for studies, and couldn’t afford to move to another system. The path his family had set him on was, by all accounts, the only possible one. But then something most unexpected had happened, an event which had given Mabel and all other youngsters of his age a chance to change their lives, forever and for the better: war.

Little was known of the enemy, except that they weren’t human, so no piracy or some stupid civil conflict. No: these were full-fledged aliens, whose goals and exact location were still unknown to the interstellar media. It seemed to be some sort of organic lifeform, which infested planets rather than colonize them, like insects, and they’d attacked a few small fringe colonies, wiping out the entire population.

These attacks had persuaded the once numerous and disparate military federations to unite under the banner of the FIA (the Federal Interstellar Army), which was now undergoing a vast-scale recruitment program, meaning that whoever met the standard age requirements and past an admission exam could volunteer to enlist. On Teodus, such exams had taken place in all major cities, and Mabel, to the great astonishment of his family members, had passed with a respectable score of 94 out of 125, just below the 95-point threshold which gave access to pilot career, and well enough that he could hope, after basic training, to be assigned to infantry tactical support units.

He’d returned home, packed his things, given a strong hug and a hearty fair well to his parents, and set off for the military spaceport, located at the north pole.

Now he was running to reach the pre-board screening in time, where he knew a short-tempered Sergeant would be waiting for him to give him his first earful, and he felt stupidly elated at the thought.

He came up puffing and panting, realizing the ultimatum didn’t expire for another five minutes and that he still had a long line of young recruits ahead of him, so the ship probably wouldn’t be on its way for a while.

He bent down to catch his breath, dropping the shoulderbag which held his few possessions (the orders had been quite clear: just a change of clothes and two small personal items were permitted, the rest would be provided by the FIA), and prepared to wait for his turn.

To his disappointment, there were no short-tempered officers giving earfuls to the latecomers, just a checkpoint with some sophisticated machinery that was set to prep passengers for interstellar travel. He’d never tried one, but he more or less knew how it worked.

Then, suddenly, he realized he was standing next to someone he knew.

«Darco?» He was Lemma’s fiancé.

«Hey there, Mabby. How was your trip?»

«What in the…»

«… devil’s ass am I doing here? It’s a question everyone’s been asking me lately.»

«It seems like a pretty good question…»

Darco was a contract selector, a big shot in the department where Mabel’s sister was employed. He was at least fifteen standard years older than him and surely out of age to enlist, provided he’d have the unhealthy idea to volunteer and throw away his brilliant career, not to mention…

«Where’s my sister?»

«In Atos,» Darco said. «She… preferred not to see me off.»

«You broke up?»

«Let’s just say she doesn’t really support my decision.»

Darco. Here…«How did you pass the exam? The age limits were very strict.»

«I persuaded them to let me take the written part.»

«And?»

«Full score.»

Mabel blinked. Full score? That was impossible. The evaluating officers had been very clear on the subject: the tests weren’t designed so that a single person could answer all questions correctly. Best to concentrate on one’s own areas of expertise and training and give it all in those. Full score… only a person with inhuman intelligence could have done it.

«I can see you’re puzzled.»

«Puzzled?!»

«But it’s actually quite simple,» Darco said as if he was talking about the weather. «When they saw my test results they had no choice but to admit me to physical testing, even if I didn’t meet the age requirements. And I had the feeling they turned more than a blind eye,» he concluded with a chuckle.

«But… why?» Mabel just couldn’t believe it.

«This, Mabby,» and his now ex-brother-in-law’s face became distant, «is by far the best question you’ve asked me.»

«And??»

«And the answer is that I felt like a caged animal here. This planet is beautiful, cozy… but it's just a speckle of dust in the Universe. And I want to see the Universe, Mabby. I want to see it all.»

«I don’t think that’s possible, you know.»

Darco burst out laughing so loud the others in line turned. «No, you’re right. But that only tells you there’s so much of it that living an entire life stuck on the surface of a single planet is pure insanity, a mockery of human intelligence.»

Mabel just couldn’t find the words, he felt dazed.

«Think of it!» Darco went on, apparently unaware of the other’s mood. «I’ve never even been to a moon.»

«Because Teodus V doesn’t have one,» Mabel found himself saying, feeling like an idiot.

«A pathetic excuse,» said Darco, his gaze lost beyond the wall separating that section of the spaceport. «Did you know that, on moons, people live longer?»

«I’ve heard that, but also that it's a pretty shitty life.»

«That’s just what those poor unlucky souls who can’t afford it – or who, like us, were not fortunate enough to be born there – like to say.»

«But moons have nothing. People there live in habitats or on space stations.»

«Habitats?» Hearing that comment, Darco seemed to wake from his daydreaming, and his eyes focused on Mabel once more. His gaze was intense, penetrating… had it always been like that? «Have you ever seen a Lunar habitat, Mabby? On Calypso VI they’ve colonized nearly half of the surface, and there are almost 2 billion people living there. They’re not habitats, Mabel. They’re fucking megacities! They have gardens, natural reserves… even lakes and rivers. They have domes as large as spaceports where they simulate wind and sunlight, and they live a hundred and more years without any sort of treatment.»

«Are you sure?»

Darco smiled at that remark, a half-smile which made Mabel feel like a little kid who had just asked an adult a very stupid question. Then he turned and was silent, waiting for their turn to embark. By then the line had progressed, and only a few latecomers remained.

Mabel slowly let himself be taken by euphoria and nervousness again: it would be his first interstellar travel! Probably the first of many!

This wouldn’t be a short journey. The ship, a deep space frigate, would take them through the galactic disc to the Swan Cluster, at Amera Starbase, where all recruits would be newly examined and tested before being divided into platoons and assigned to their training camps.

The screening was quick. He went through rays, had an injection, and they gave him a suit to wear, it was white and very rigid. He donned it next to Darco, who’d received a similar treatment. Darco seemed at ease, determined, with a clear goal in his mind… Mabel would have wanted to be like him. They wouldn’t see each other again for a very long time.

The ship’s interior was cranky, a long tube with metallic walls where seats were tight and hard. A Sergeant (he finally saw one) barked an order and silence fell, as the seat belts buckled up on their own. A holographic image appeared in front of their eyes, and a computer’s voice ordered them all to stare at the images without averting their gaze for any reason, lest they'd be excluded from the recruitment program.

Mabel did as he’d been instructed. The image was made of blue dots that looked like suns and planets moving inside a yellow and green fog, like a star system engulfed by a nebula. He felt a tear as the seat belts pulled hard on his junctures, and he felt an acceleration, stronger and stronger. Again, the ship’s computer warned them against averting their eyes from the images: the blue dots moved more rapidly now, frenetic even; the orbits seemed all to be pulled towards a center, a dark place that was getting bigger, like a black hole. He was vaguely aware that the ship’s acceleration had reached a dangerous level: soon the belts would cut through meat and bone, and blood would flood the arteries leading to the brain, making it pop. Was he screaming? Maybe he was imagining it: you couldn’t scream while your body was being accelerated at thousands of miles per second in space, could you? The dots were spinning even faster, more and more frenzied around the center of the image. The ship ceased to exist, his body was no more, the computer’s voice still talked but he couldn’t hear it. The dots were spinning so fast he couldn’t see them, until they were swallowed by the black hole. There was a jolt forward, followed by no knock-back. And then…

And then they were all back in their seats again. Hundreds of young men and women, scared to death but still alive. The holos turned back on and started showing them star charts, which widened to show the entire Milky Way and a single, glowing dot indicating their position: they were no longer in the Sol Cluster.

Mabel shook his head, amazed: he’d done it, he’d arrived. The adventure of his life, the one he had always dreamed about but never hoped to live, had come.

Attention, all passengers, said the computer. You are requested to remain in your seats during docking procedures. Federal Interstellar Army officials will greet you upon disembarking and assign you to your destinations. Welcome to Amera Starbase. 

Planet Ber III, Swan Cluster, Galactic Year 12.490

«Run! Ruuun! Run, damn it!!»

Mabel was running his ass off, but Sig was taking the lead. Behind him, he could hear a furious scraping, but for how scared he might be, he just couldn’t go any faster, and the bleak steppe beyond the training camps was a dangerous place even when you didn’t have an angry Berian boar chasing you.

He was giving it all he had, but Sig ran like he had wings on his feet. He was the fastest in the platoon, and the boar would go for the easier prey: the slow one.

Mabel dodged a shrub, tearing the sleeve of his suit and nearly tripping on a rock creeper’s protruding roots, of the poisonous kind, while behind him, a raging grunt told him that the thing was no more than ten feet away. Sig was leading by at least twenty paces now, flying.

Well… that’s what he got for following Sig on his stupid raids! And now he had no choice but to change tactics.

He ran straight for a boulder but, instead of going around, he jumped it clean, landing heavily in a small pool and crouching in the freezing water, pressing himself against the hard rock, practice rifle at the ready. The boar would round the obstacle, and, for a few seconds, it wouldn’t notice Mabel's deception; there was even a slight chance it would keep after Sig, who was still visible. If that happened, Mabel would run off at a ninety-degree angle so the thing would lose his trail,  like when escaping a tornado. Otherwise, he’d still have the advantage of the first shot, if nothing else.

A grunt, a clattering of hoofs as hard as stones, and a shape, just vaguely similar to the little piglets people kept as pets on Teodus (only this one was bristling with thick, dark hair and had tusks as long as knives), dashing over him and passing only a few inches from his head, landing beyond the water pool.

It jumped! Mabel’s incredulous brain told him, before his training kicked in and moved his muscles on its own, raising the rifle and aiming straight for the monster’s rectum.

Not yet…

The boar, as he had hoped, had fallen for it. It made two more leaps and was about to jump into a patch of high grass, then it stopped.

Mabel fired.

Practice rifles weren’t lethal: they fired a condensed electrical charge, the power of which was expressly calculated to incapacitate an average-to-large built human being; not nearly enough to take one of those things out with a single shot but maybe, just maybe, enough to scare it and make it run off.

Mabel hit clean and the beast screamed in rage, but it didn’t bail as he had hoped, instead it turned and stared at him, its little black eyes seeming to frown, before it grunted again and charged head-on.

Mabel rapidly fired two more shots, hitting the thing straight in the snout but failing to slow its inertia, and he was forced to literally throw himself out of the way with his last remaining strength, dropping the weapon.

For a moment, he thought he’d actually dodged the attack, but an excruciating pain in his leg told him otherwise. He dragged himself out of the muddy pool, trudging because the leg wouldn’t hold him, and as he glanced at it, his trained eyes told him the shinbone was broken. Then a low grunt, an almost feral growl, forced him to look up.

The boar was there, belly deep in turbid water. It must have knocked its head on the boulder, since one of its two tusks was cracked and its snout was bleeding black blood. It stared and almost looked as if it was saluting him, a last token of respect to a worthy prey on a difficult hunt.

«Well,» Mabel sighed, trying to ignore the pain and the cold, «you had this coming for you all along, hadn’t you? Great job, Mab. Truly a great job!»

No one told recruits they couldn’t leave the training camps, nor were they told that they could. They knew the risks, period. Ber’s surface was only partially terraformed (an Abortion Planet, as they called it nowadays) because at some point in the process, either something had gone wrong or the project was abandoned due to lack of funding. It had a breathable atmosphere, although oxygen content never exceeded 18%, and it had plants and animals, at least the few which had managed to survive on their own, though they had mutated in unforeseen ways and no one had ever had any interest in cataloging them. Boars, for example, were carnivores.

It was a test, of course, and perhaps the best way to limit casualties: if the Sergeants had ordered them not to go out, there would probably have been many more defections, since the thrill of risk and insubordination would have made it all the more appealing; instead, by not saying anything, they kept the number of unwary recruits who ventured in hostile territory, unarmed and untrained, in check, all the while testing their presence of mind and their ability to follow unspoken orders. Simply put: who got himself fucked was an idiot, and that was all the more reason to let nature have its inevitable course.

Mabel laughed at his own stupidity and stood on one leg, his left arm wide to give him balance while with the right, he drew the knife from his boot; it was the only lethal weapon he had ever been allowed to carry. Then he steadied himself for the inevitable.

«Well,» he said to no one in particular, «at least no one’s here to see this…»

Much later – as the sky was darkening – a lone man, exhausted, limping, and nearly bled dry, showed up at the northern checkpoint of Training Camp 41, which was situated just north of the planet’s equatorial belt. He had to practically drag himself onward, and every few steps he’d stagger to one side or the other. His clothes were torn and his left leg was poorly splinted. He was also covered head to toe in clotted blood. In one hand he clenched a knife and in the other was a long tusk, typical of medium-sized Berian boars.

He reached up to twenty paces from the gates before falling, but he dragged himself until he was illuminated by the camp’s floodlights and heard shouts from the watchtowers. Then he passed out.

Training camps were a nice place to be, Mabel thought. Hard maybe, dangerous at times – they made at least ten casualties a year – but on Teodus, where he’d lived a simple and predictable life, he’d never felt that sense of belonging, that nameless voice telling him: “You’re in the right place.” 

Four years on Ber III had definitely changed him.

He could fight now, run for miles without pause, and withstand physical pain at a degree he’d never thought possible. He knew how to survive, hunt, and repair equipment, and, most importantly, he could be part of a team. A team which, just like all his teammates, he knew he would give his life to preserve and protect if he had to.

They’d told him that first training platoons created bonds which never broke, and he believed it.

«So? What do you think?» Sig asked him while devouring his meal, as usual. «Automated assault units or infantry mobile support?»

Sigismund Coparwak, aka Sig, from a planet in the Centaur Cluster – a planet with a very complicated name no one ever remembered – was a hulking bull of over 240 standard pounds, which meant that here on Ber III, he weighed at least 320.

«My hope’s on mobile support,» answered Mabel, gulping spoonfuls of mineralized soup.

«You’d be better off as a pilot,» said Sig. «You’re the damn best around.»

«Being the best around doesn’t mean being good: when I took the admission tests, I didn’t have the score, and I think those tests nail it.»

«You talk too much,» Bera threw in. She was sitting right next to him and gave him a slap on the head. «You should just work harder.»

Mabel let her have her fun. Usually, when he reacted to her taunts, they first ended up in a furious scuffle and then on the camp beds fucking like… well, like Berian boars during mating season. Bera was one you had to know your way around with, even for a woman.

She was a native (yes, on Ber III there were native human beings, descendants of the very first colonists and regressed to a cave-dwelling society). She had been found by an expedition, alone and nearly frozen to death when she was still a child, and sent to a civilian colony under the care of a foster family; she said she’d become a soldier as thanks to those who had saved her. She was a perfectly civilized woman, but she still bore primordial instincts that could scare the shit out of you at times, especially if you didn’t know to expect them.

«Oh, I work hard!» said Mabel, taking another gulp of soup (that stuff was starting to nauseate him). «But I don’t want to be a drone pilot. I like mobile support better.»

«He likes to pop things,» laughed Bera, winking at Sig who was right in front of her.

«I guess you’d know that better than me,» he answered with his mouth full.

Now thatwas the sort of thing you did not say to Bera, even if she’d been the one to crack the joke. She wasn’t bad or touchy, she just tended to lose control at certain types of provocations, however good-natured or out of comradeship. Mabel felt her muscles tighten and instantly pressed a hand on her leg, firmly, holding it down until he felt her relax again. The mess hall wasn’t the place for a fight.

«Anyway… I really don’t know how you eat that stuff,» Sig said, seeing his mistake. «Nothing beats a good boar thigh, and sure as Hell not that dusty broth.»

Sig was the same guy Mabel had gone out “exploring” with two years back when he’d won that scar on his leg. He’d outrun Mabel, and the Sergeant had forbidden him to go back and look for him. He said he still felt responsible, and that joke about meat was his own way to pretend it never happened: Mabel had recovered completely, apart from the scar, but he’d never eaten boar meat again.

«It’s warm and nourishing,» the big guy added, slapping his hard muscular belly.

Bera grinned at that comment, and Mabel felt a hand making its way between his thighs while Sig just shook his head. Mabel usually didn’t like to put on a show, but their training period was ending and soon they’d all be reassigned, so they probably wouldn’t see each other again for a very long time. It was a very good reason to enjoy what little was left of those happy years, even if he had to bear the looks and glimpses of four entire platoons.

«How about you, Bera?» Donaug asked, sitting across from Mabel. «You still set on Special Forces?»

«Damn right!» she exclaimed, giving a squeeze that made Mabel squint, though the others pretended not to notice.

«And you’re not scared? Not one bit?»

She would have had good reason to. Special Forces moved in when regular infantry was falling back or breaking, and they had a tremendously high casualty rate. But when asked, Bera would simply raise her chin and shoulders and say: «Not in the least!»

Mabel did his best not to giggle, since he wasn’t in a position to make her angry. The more he thought about the end of training, the more he felt a nervous expectation building up inside him. It was like being back on Teodus when he’d been longing for the day he would leave for the spaceport to enlist. He’d felt equally excited and frightened, although this time, there was a new sensation, which hadn’t been nearly as strong when he’d left home: he didn’t want to leave his friends.

The last few months flew by. Training was nearly over and the number of skirmishes kept increasing, until there wasn’t a day when they didn’t take part in at least one contest, usually against another of the veteran platoons. There was even a scoreboard, hidden from the Sergeants, that kept track of wins and points for each platoon, and theirs, Platoon 9, was running second. 

«We need to screw those bastards from Platoon 7,» Yowa kept saying, hitting the palm of his left hand with his fist (he always did that when he talked).

«We’re skirmishing with them in two days,» Alanna reminded him. «If we beat them, there’s a good chance we’ll be first.»

They were sitting in their dormitory after evening exercise, studying a copy of the scoreboard Platoon 4 had provided with the latest ranking updates.

«A good chance we’ll be first…» started Yowa.

«… you ignorant ape» Alanna concluded for him, grinning.

Mabel smiled. Yowa was their Corporal, a recruit from the Crab Nebula who’d met the age requirements by just a few months. Actually, many thought he was older than he had declared, but he’d always denied receiving any form of youth treatments. He’d personally selected Alanna as one of his three squad leaders, the other two being Sig and Mina; she was one of the youngest of their group, born on a Starbase in a remote system Mabel didn’t remember. Sometimes, Yowa would flatter himself, expecting everyone to defer to him and call him “Sir!”, and it was Alanna’s and Mina’s job to keep him with his feet on the ground.

«What’s the objective?» Bera asked.

«Conquer and control.»

«Good.»

It was her favorite. It started with a frenzied rush to the objective location, which always changed, and the first to reach it had to entrench themselves as best they could and hold off the enemy’s assault; the skirmish would last thirty minutes, and the team who’d held the objective longer was the declared winner.

«I think we should outflank this time,» Mabel suggested, getting a nasty glare from Bera, who never wanted to outflank anything and always preferred a head-on charge.

«But it’s a good position for defense,» Alanna objected. «Shouldn’t we try to reach it first?»

«Those are natural trenches,» noted Donaug, pointing.

«Good for defense, but easily flankable,» Mabel answered, studying the map. «See? It can be attacked from three sides at once, and if we push through within the first fifteen minutes, we’ve practically won.»

There were rules that enabled “dead” members of a team to come back into play until the skirmish was over: they had to double back to their home base and wait at least three minutes before heading back out again, but this time, the area was vast: if a team got completely wiped out, it wouldn’t have enough time to mount another assault.

«Good plan, but risky,» said Alanna. «One mistake and we’re done for.»

«P7 is faster,» said Mina.

«Than you, maybe!» snapped Bera.

«Except for our she-wolf,» Mina granted. «But she can’t defend the objective all by herself against four or five of them, right?»

Mina never lost her temper, ever. Guys from other platoons called her “frost-bitch”, and even Bera seemed to calm down when she was talking to her.

«And we’re on the wrong side for a frontal assault,» put in Turru, one of the Badosian twins. «It’s a steep climb, and we’d be right out in the open.»

«That’s why we should get there first!» Bera protested.

«No. Let’s listen to Mabel,» said Sig. «We have almost no chance to get there first, and even if we do, we’ll be exhausted and they’ll wipe us out easy.»

«We flank them, like Mab said,» decided Yowa. «Three teams, and we go for the spots he indicated. We attack on my signal.»

Simple, clean… as if he’d been the one to think up the plan. Mabel repressed a sigh.

«But we should at least pretend someone is charging,» said Madru, the other twin.

«I’ll be bait,» Bera volunteered.

Yowa scowled at her.

«I never listen to you guys anyway,» she said, shrugging. «Better I go alone.»

«Could work…» said Sig.

«It’ll work like a charm!» Donaug partied.

It worked. Sort of…

Flanking had been a good idea, and Bera had done a wonderful job in letting the enemy think they were under attack by at least ten units. But Yowa gave the signal too late, so the surprise effect was only partial.

Sig was hit flat in the face. The rifles’ discharge was harmless, though highly incapacitating, but if you were hit in the face it hurt, a lot, even through mask and helmet. When he fell, his squad hesitated, and the defenders concentrated their fire, wiping out half of it before the survivors could regroup and find cover.

Alanna’s team was more cautious and was able to gain a vantage point, firing like crazy on the entrenched enemies who couldn’t respond effectively, but it was a stalemate.

Fortunately, all of this gave Mabel’s squad, led by Mina, the chance to score a winning charge on the defender’s first line on the south end. «Do what you do best. We’ll go on ahead!» she told him, running off with the others.

Mabel had waited for nothing else. Studying the maps, he’d picked the perfect spot for his role: a small dell, high enough and with great cover, from where he could flank the enemy from two different angles. He took advantage of his teammates’ advance, who drew Platoon 7’s fire, and climbed up in four quick leaps which brought him sliding right down into the dell… and straight in front of one of P7’s snipers.

The two stared at each other, bewildered, then Mabel pulled the trigger, just an instant before the other guy, at pointblank.

«Sorry, mate,» he apologized.

«Fuck… you,» the other gasped.

«I know, I know. Don’t move, ok?»

«You bet I’ll move! Back to base and then right back here to whoop your ass!»

He wouldn’t make it of course, so Mabel ignored him and looked up, rifle ready. «Now we’re talking…»

He hit three before they spotted him and responded with suppressing fire, and thanks to him, his squad was able to reach over the last barricades and handle the last defenders on that side without casualties.

Unfortunately, they were soon engaged by the ones who had finished clearing out Sig’s squad, and at the same time, half the defenders on Alanna’s side broke off to outflank them. Mabel tried to help out, but every time he looked up, he had to duck again. «Damn snipers!» And this one was good, probably had a specific order to take him down or at least prevent him from helping his companions.

He was able to peek with his mirror. Mina’s guys were fighting like lions, but they’d be overrun soon; half of them were already down, while on Alanna’s side, the situation wasn’t changing. Fuck!

Then a hurricane fell on the objective and on poor Platoon 7. Bera landed on them from above, shooting at everything that moved; even punches and kicks started flying. Mina was hit, but her squad broke the first wave of assailants, while Alanna took heart and charged head-on. The result was that nearly everyone fell, friends and foes.

Suddenly, Mabel heard some very loud cursing. The sniper? He got to his feet, aimed… but at that precise moment, the siren rang: it was over.

The outcome was a draw: Platoon 7 had held the objective, but they had been completely wiped out just a few seconds before the thirty minutes were up. In Platoon 9, there were only six survivors, including Alanna, Mabel, and, surprisingly, Bera.

«Second place… but we kicked their sorry asses!» Donaug bragged. He’d been among the last to fall in Alanna’s squad and was trying to cheer up Sig, who was walking with his shoulders slumped. It was terrible to be the first to fall. Everyone knew it.

«I’ll never be squad leader again…» he kept repeating, shaking his head. «I can’t believe it… not even a fucking boar gets hit like that!»

From what Mabel had gathered, it hadn’t been his fault: he’d received the order to attack with his whole squad, and he’d obeyed without hesitating, but Yowa’s signal had come too late. All because he was the fucking Corporal and he had to be the one giving the fucking signal!

Yowa was the only member of Platoon 9 who wasn’t on good terms with everybody, especially with people like Sig or Mabel. He was a “top of the class” kinda guy: never went out of line, roughly educated for a soldier, pretty capable in all sorts of exercises, and really good in the one thing that really mattered: taking credit. Who knew what he’d be writing in his report to the Sergeants? Would he blame Sig? Maybe not, but he’d surely take credit for the plan and then maybe, just maybe, he’d mention a delay in communications.

Mabel shook his head and forced himself not to think about it: when he started down that road, things could get messy.

That evening, in the mess hall, he was sitting next to Mina, who elbowed him and pointed at Yowa with a head tilt. «That one looks like he wants to leave us behind,» she said, in one of her rare social moments.

«He thinks he already has,» Mabel answered between his teeth. He would die to know what Yowa had written in that report.

«I think they should have made you Corporal.»

«Ok… what's in the soup?» he asked with a chuckle.

«Same shit that’s in yours, you dumb ass. I mean it, Mab. You’re the only one of us who’s capable of doing strategy: it’s always your ideas. And, even if you don’t think so, many here would follow you if you’d just say the word.»

Mabel didn’t know what to say, taken over by that slew of compliments. «Th-thank you… I guess,» he stammered. «But I have my spots on the record.»

«Like knifing a Berian boar to death?»

«I got lucky.»

«I would be dead.»

He looked at her. «Come on… if I had to cross fists with you, I’d be downright scared. If I did it, that means anyone can. Especially you.»

«There… you see,» she answered with a faint smile. «This is how a leader should behave. If those idiots don’t see it, then they’re just… just…»

«Idiots?» Mabel suggested.

«Right,» Mina agreed, putting her hands down.

They stopped talking for a while. Mabel got a glimpse of Bera, staring at him from the other end of the table, next to Alanna.

«What’s more,» Mina suddenly continued: «I still can’t figure out how you got that one to hit the sack with you.»

«Easy,» Mabel said uncomfortably (he was always uncomfortable when he spoke of Bera with someone else). «She got me in the sack with her.»