Attrition

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Attrition

Chapter 1

The Laredo II approached the warp point which would carry it out of the Zahn system. Behind the point defense frigate ship the Amon'Krie, a xenophobic race at war with the humans, finished destroying the surface of Zahn and the hundred and twenty million people who had lived there. Of the hundred and twenty million were every single person Antono "Ant" DaWeir was related to by blood. His history could be traced back six generations to the original founders of the planet. Currently Ant was stuck in the Flak Cannon point defense station with his commanding officer, Randall 'Chief' Worth. The Laredo had been badly damaged during the exchange with the aliens, and if they had not been intent upon destroying the human world Ant knew he would not be alive. Damage control was working on getting the old air scrubber back online, the new one had been picked up at space station Yuego, where Ant himself had boarded the ship for the first time as a replacement crew member. The ninety year war with the aliens had been hard on the humans, exacting a high cost in materials and manpower. A third alien race, mechanical beings known as the Qui, had told the humans that they knew many alien races and wars were known to go on for thousands of years without victory. That the humans were fighting so well against a more experienced, elder race was encouraging to their species survival. The Qui traded with both sides on the conflict, but as a policy stayed out of the conflict directly. The machines were not a hive mind however, and individuals of that race had joined on both sides of the Human-Amon'krie conflict in small numbers. The Qui also hinted that they traded with other races unknown to the humans, others that might not like them any better than the Amon'Krie. Currently Ant was trapped in the Flak Cannon control center with his immediate supervisor Randall Worth. They were fleeing the destruction of Ant's home world and the dozen or so battleships the Amon'Krie had brought in system to destroy the planet. The fight with the Fleet ships had been drawn out over several hours, but the outcome had never been in doubt. The Fleet only had a handful of frigates and a converted battleship to fight off the intruders, this was a major incursion into Fleet space by the aliens and Randall had assured Ant it would not go unanswered. The battle was over by several hours now, but they were stuck in the station because of the damage they had taken during the attack, the Laredo was built around a massive Hellbore gun that ran from aft to stern and was aimed by turning the ship towards the enemy. The gun was small compared to most of the larger capital ships, a mighty dreadnought, for instance, had several batteries of the same gun mounted on it. The Laredo was primarily a support ship, it was their job to shoot down incoming missiles, torpedoes and fighters. Their point defense weapons could also be turned on satellites if they needed to however they were not strong enough to be used on the heavy armor and shields of most other ships.

Ant was still in his first day of Fleet service, he had been picked up earlier in the day to help run the Point Defense cannon. Along with him three others from his home planet came aboard, Sam Hussein was an engineer, Sui Len had taken a berth as a Marine and Ami Garcia took a position working in the commissary. Sui was confirmed dead, Ami was still listed as missing in action and Sam's own boss the Master Engineer of the vessel had been severely wounded, leaving the engineering team in chaos. Each of the men and women on board had a 'palmo' a small, sophisticated computer that handled everything from conveying orders, to entertainment, to controlling the nannites within their own bodies. Without the palmos communication range would have barely extended the length of the ship, with the devices they could speak to anyone in system and even send out rudimentary communication, like a distress signal, outside the system. The palmo Ant had been given replaced the one he had earlier in the day, it was a special ship's issued device that could only communicate ship wide unless the officer's on board approved the outside contact. Ant had been told that this was to specifically keep the fact that the Laredo was undergoing an upgrade to equip it with one of the newest Artificial Intelligences that Fleet possessed. Now Ant was using the device to keep track of the progress that was being made to get the ship out of the system and restore it vital systems, like the air scrubber, which had been offline when they left the Yuego many hours ago. The remaining engineers were projected to have the system jury rigged, again, in a few minutes. During the battle they had gotten the equipment working briefly only to have it knocked out when the Laredo was struck by some missile debris. Fortunately the core equipment was not damaged, just disconnected and isolated in a section of the ship with no atmosphere, which engineers were equipped to deal with.

"Not much longer now." Randall said, "Looks like we will have air, enough to survive anyway."

Ant said nothing in response, their current pocket of air should last for another hour or so before it became so laden with filth that the men went unconscious. Randall looked over his newest, and now only, Point Defense Spaceman. 'So young', he thought to himself. An outside observer would have had the same thoughts looking at both of them. Randall was all of twenty in standard years and Ant was just over fourteen, each planet protected by Fleet set the age of their recruits and if they passed their tests they were accepted, no matter what their age. Pulling up the information on Zahn Randall found that boys and girls like Ant had started training when they were eight. The testing was mentally rigorous and could be physically demanding as well, if the candidate wanted to serve with the Marines, for example. The four people brought on board at Yuego all had stellar marks of achievement, Randall noted that Ant actually scored higher on his entrance exams than he had.

"We make you better, stronger and churn you out faster these days then even four years ago." he said out loud, with his hands he opted to store a copy of all the information on Zahn locally on his palmo.

"What Chief?"

"You. Me. I came into Fleet at sixteen and was thought of as one of the youngest kids enlisted, now you are here two years younger and I have to wonder when it will end."

Ant's brow furrowed in thought, "I don't think any younger than twelve, perhaps eleven, if the person has started their adolescent growth spurt, otherwise the uniforms and equipment would be unsuited for us."

"What? You've thought about this?"

"It was required in our ethics class, we discussed the pros and cons about young recruits. The overwhelming majority agreed that while giving our youth a chance to stay younger longer and mature more slowly, we also thought that course of action would not work for meeting our species survival needs. We fight now so we can have the good things later."

"Sounds like someone aced their government political science class."

And looked at Randall for a moment trying to determine if this was a joke of some sort, then said, "Yes. I did, all of us scored in the top percentile of all of our normal school work. That left the physical part of the job to weed out the best of the group who would go into space."

"There is more than good grades and fast reflexes to surviving."

"I know. I have been sitting here thinking about the part that luck played in my own survival. Sui didn't have the luck I had. Ami might be dead. How can we harness luck?"

"I think someone is working on that. You have konojo luck. Had. You are not green anymore. Twelve deaths, thirteen injured, that is half our crew and it looks like three of the four of you recruits are on the casualty list. You know what that means?"

"No." said Ant shaking his head.

"It means of the four of you, you are the luckiest. Not a scratch on you."

Ant smiled, his red eyes and somber manner lightening for a moment, "So you will keep me close to you then? So it will rub off?"

"Ant, Ant, Ant" said Randall shaking his head, "I was on the Laredo I when it got blown, two survivors, me and Sergeant Killert. I think I am lucky too. In fact you may only have survived because you were close to me."

"Where is Killert?"

"He was with the first section of marines. The one that died an hour ago when they lost compression in their ready station."

"Oh. I am sorry for your loss."

"Don't be, I wasn't that close to the man, me and marines don't get along too well."

"Have you been on the Laredo II since she was commissioned?"

"We walked out of the survival pod onto the deck of the Laredo II. Seriously, it was ready to depart as soon as we got back to Malfordor Station. The old Laredo was ready to be converted into a fast freighter, it was too old to be reliably upgraded, but not old enough to scrap. The crew was given the choice of staying with it when it was re-fitted as a freighter or going onto the new namesake. My boss was going to go with the freighter, which left me in the top job here if I took this berth. It was an easy choice. I didn't get on well with my old boss."

"Do you get along well with anyone?"

"Well, yes, we seem to be doing just fine. You will get a promotion out of this, pretty much anytime half the crew is wounded or killed you are guaranteed to get a promotion."

"Well I expected to make Space Apprentice fairly quickly. Space Recruit is almost not even a rank."

"True, but I bet you get bumped up to Spacer Second Class. I will put in for Spacer First Class and see what the Lieutenant says. I give you ten to one odds against that."

"Then why do it? Why not just put in to bump me up to Apprentice?"

"That is just the way it works. If I put you in for less of a promotion, the bells will go off in my superior's heads, they will think less of you, as will all your future officers. This way they see what I recommended and can bump you up to where you should be anyway while denying my full request, it makes them feel important and you end up where you should be anyway, so everyone wins."

"It still seems strange to do it that way. I didn't even do anything abnormal, just my job."

"You put in the new firing solution before battle, that was a kojono trick, something only someone fresh out of training would even bother to try. That will circulate to all the other ships and end up saving lives, you deserve a promotion for finding a solution that no one else would have tried. Plus we need more 'Spacer First Class' personal anyway, better you than some kojono from Burke's world."

Burke's world was a well known plane that frequently was the butt of many jokes around the Federation. Each world could set what laws it wanted on the surface, with no holds barred or oversight by the Federation authority, so long as the taxes were paid and recruits for the armed forces were given according to the population of each world. Burke's world barred most technology from all areas outside of the space station. The people there lived short, brutal lives and the recruits from the planet were typically so filled with wonder at the galaxy that they rarely worked out in Fleet. Most could not read or write when they came to serve and because of their lack of training they usually served in the supply corps, moving crates from point 'A' to point 'B'. The irony for the Federation was that Burke's world was a huge planet, approximately eight times standard and it was one of the earliest settled. The climate was mild and the resources were abundant, the world was well made for farming. As a result the population of the planet was over twenty billion people, making it a prime contributor of Fleet personal.

"Are the Burkers as bad as I have heard?"

"Some of them are not bad, Fleet has started recruiting them at ten standard about seven years ago, we get them early and put them through training for four to six years. Before they started doing that the Burkers were about useless, they could fist fight, fuck and drink that was about it. They all come to us with some very serious prejudices too, about women, sex, food taboos and alien species. At ten at least we can train them out of their ignorance."

"Do any of them ever go back?"

"They can't, Burke won't take 'em. Not that I ever heard of anyone who wanted to resettle there. Once they get a taste of technology they tend to not want to go back to outdoor plumbing and barn dances once a month for fun."

The door to their station clanked and started to cycle open, it made it about halfway when a dirty helmet popped through and a mechanical voice asked, "Anyone alive in here?"

"Yes!" Ant and Randall shouted in unison. Ant started to cough.

"Hell there is more smoke out there than we had inside."

"Probably true, the scrubbers are down and without the chief I don't know what progress they have made to get the system working again." said the helmeted man.

"Kermit? That you in there?"

"Yeah its me Lucky."

"Kermit?" Ant asked.

"It is his nickname, like 'Ant' or 'Lucky'."

"Oh you're called 'Lucky' because you survived the Laredo I's destruction?"

"Ah...something like that yeah. Kermit, meet Ant. Ant, Kermit."

Kermit held out a dirty gloved hand, which Ant shook. "Don't mind Lucky there Ant, he isn't half as bad as you might think."

"Bad? No he is okay, I get along well with him."

"Say it isn't true Luck! You've found a subordinate who you get along with?"

"I always liked kids, what can I say?"

Ant didn't know how to respond to this so he said nothing, but Kermit laughed and said, "They are sending us to them younger and younger these days are they? What do you think Luck, promotions all around?"

"Well I don't I know about you, but I know Ant and I deserve them, he came up with a firing solution to fix our little over heating problem before the battle started. Something I could have done but was just too lazy to work on. So I know he is up for big promotion. Plus we should get combat badges, this will be my second Oakleaf, that isn't anything to sneeze at."

"Yeah, we'll have a few crimson combat badges to go around too. Engineering got hit hard, but not as bad as it could have been. You know that second berth down there?"

"Yeah, yeah, they moved the AI into it didn't they?"

"Sure and the Amon'Krie fighter tore right through it."

"The AI is dead?"

"Completely offline, we don't know if any of it is recoverable or not."

"We can still jump though? We aren't stuck here are we?" asked Ant.

"No, the navigation computers can lay in a course on their own and they are up in the bridge, which is fine..."

"Vru!? You done over there with that hatch?" came a voice from further down the main corridor.

"Just about Ma'am. Gotta go. You guys can get out and to quarters from here. Watch yourself near the downside portal, it has been cycling open and closed at random." Then Kermit disappeared. A moment later their palmos alerted them to orders from the Laredo's commander, she brought them into an audio only conference.

"Ma'am." said Randall.

"Randall, how are your crew?"

"Only the new man survived Ma'am. Recruit Antono DaWeir."

"I was hoping maybe the others weren't gone. Are you injured?"

"No ma'am. We are both healthy, tired, but ready to help."

"Good, that is what I like to hear." Commander Wei gave them permission to join the engineering search and rescue team to act as another set of hands and muscle. Kermit welcomed them a few meters down the main passageway and Ant's life became a blur of physical work that kept him from dwelling too much on the fact that his entire world had been destroyed hours before.

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