Jezzie went over to the shelf and examined the holoprint. It showed Liam and two other people in Alliance Army uniforms. One of them was a young pretty woman. The other was Logan. From Liam’s apparent age the print was about twenty years old. But Logan only looked a few years younger than the man she had met earlier that day.
“You were in the War?” she asked when Liam returned from the kitchen with a couple of beers. He handed Jezzie one and they sat on a threadbare sofa.
“You were in the War?” she asked when Liam returned from the kitchen with a couple of beers. He handed Jezzie one and they sat on a threadbare sofa.
“Six years in the Alliance Army. Back then enlisting guaranteed you a government job when you returned. There was still a draft to meet the planetary quota but having more volunteers kept the draft numbers down to a politically acceptable level.”
“So you and Logan served together.”
“We met in basic training and were in the same platoon for our whole tour. I got out and became a cop. He became a Spartan.”
“Who’s the woman?”
Liam took a long pull from his beer. “Tanya Rudko. She was in the platoon, too. That print was taken when Logan made squad leader and got his sergeant stripes. A week later we were on our way to Ganesha.”
“You were at Ganesha? My partner is a war hero and doesn’t even tell me.”
“Ganesha was royal clusterfuck. We won because Admiral Chang got lucky. I’ve tried to forget what happened there. Seeing Logan again is bringing everything back.”
“Is that why you’re so hostile to him?”
“Since we’re going to be working with him, you should know what happened and why there’s bad blood between us. As you probably guessed, it’s about Tanya.”
We spent the first part of the Ganesha campaign strapped into the acceleration tanks. It was the Alliance Fleet’s job to clear the star system of Khyphon ships. We ground troops were just along for the ride. The Fleet sent six battleships to attack the three Khyphon motherships near the planet. The Khyphon withdrew after losing one mothership instead of the usual tactic of fighting to the death. While there was some puzzlement over this change, Admiral Chang ordered phase two of the operation to begin.
A dozen Planetary Assault Vessels moved into orbit around Ganesha. Each PAV contained a variety of planetary bombardment weapons. Eleven carried a regiment each of ground troops. The twelfth carried the ground force headquarters and additional support troops. Since human habitable worlds were at a premium, nuclear weapons were to be used only as a last resort. Instead, known and suspected enemy facilities were “rodded” from orbit with large metallic alloy rods.
Three regiments (including mine, the 79th) descended in assault shuttles to establish the initial foothold on Ganesha. Supported by gunships and Spartan battlesuits, we cleared out a perimeter large enough for the rest of the ground force to land.
That was the easy part. The Khyphon surface facilities had been dealt with by the orbital rodding. But the Khyphon had a new tactic of building underground tunnel complexes and waiting out the bombardments. These complexes had to be entered and cleared tunnel by tunnel and chamber by chamber. Spartan battlesuits didn’t have the room to use their speed and maneuverability and could be easily overwhelmed by Khyphon defenders. So it fell to us, poor bloody infantry, to clear the tunnel systems.
My regiment was assigned to clear the area around the spaceport. Scouts quickly identified several tunnel entrances. We entered and began exploring the tunnels. It was slow, nerve wracking work. The Khyphon were adept at ambushes so we were expecting surprise attacks at every turn. But we made little enemy contact and casualties were light. It was obvious the Khyphon were up to something but we were still caught by surprise when they struck.
Eight Khyphon motherships appeared near the planet. The Alliance battleships moved to intercept. The PAVs had to leave orbit and get away from the Khyphon fleet.
We didn’t know what was happening in space, though. We were too busy. While the motherships were engaging our ships, thousands of Khyphon warriors erupted from deep in the tunnels system.
Our platoon was underground when the Khyphon counterattacked. We had about half the platoon down right away, including the lieutenant. Logan took charge of the situation and started yelling orders. We started falling back towards the surface. Tanya was grabbed by a warrior and was being dragged away. Logan took careful aim and shot her in the head.
Jezzie gasped. “What?”
“The Khyphon would have tortured her for fun then eaten her. Rationally, I know Logan did the right thing. Tanya got a quick clean death. But I can never really forgive him for what he did.”
“Did you love her?”
“Logan and I both had strong feelings for her. Tanya would never choose between us, though. She cared for both of us and hated being the source of tension between us.
“I think a part of Logan died that day along with Tanya. He was never the same after. But then none of us were. There were thirty of us in the platoon when we went into the tunnels. Only nine of us made it out. The Army pinned medals on all of us and called us heroes. We just called ourselves survivors. I had my fill of war. I spent the last few months of my enlistment pushing papers at battalion headquarters. Logan volunteered for the Spartans.”
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