MissionSRX: Confessions of the First War Read online

  Mission:SRX

  Part 1

  Confessions of the First War

  By M. D. White

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

  Copyright © 2013 by Matthew D. White

  Cover Design Copyright © 2015 by Pixl-Photography

  Golf Copy

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission from the author.

  Dedicated to the Long Gray Line

  “We Die Proud”

  The Mission:SRX series so far:

  1: Confessions of the First War

  2. Ephemeral Solace

  3. Deep Unknown

  Standalone works within the series:

  101: Before Space Recon, a short story

  Introduction

  I first started writing about Commander Prime Jefferson Grant more than a decade ago for no reason other than that I enjoyed writing. As time progressed, the story became more involved, and I realized I had the beginnings of something special. Once I made the decision to turn the idea into reality, it took considerably more work to gather the personal experience needed to give it the quality finish it demanded. Confessions was always meant to come later as the backstory to a larger work, but I now believe it is necessary to provide a fitting introduction to the rest of the Mission:SRX series.

  What began as a journal entry absent-mindedly scribed while sitting in an airport has followed me around the world. I’ve added to these pages in a dozen states and multiple countries, on battlefields and in dorm rooms. At long last, I feel it is ready.

  My friend, thank you for making the decision to embark on this journey with me. I hope you find as much enjoyment reading this story as I did in its writing, and I hope you continue to follow the adventures of Commander Grant and his team, wherever fate may lead them.

  V/R

  M. D. White

  1

  To all who may be interested in a story that should never be forgotten.

  My name is Jefferson Grant. I was once a proud father of a beautiful daughter, but sadly, she was never given the chance to live; same with my wife, who gave her life for me on the same night. Later in my life, I became a soldier, a pilot, and a patriot of humanity, but I write this passage from a darkened prison cell, far from the honor I have earned. Here at the end there is no day, no sun, and no hope. There is a mattress, a blanket, this notebook, and a pen. However, I will do what I can with what I have. That attitude kept me alive when I was fighting for my life and those under my command against another foe a very long way from here.

  It seems that although I gave everything I owned— physical, mental, and spiritual –to the human cause, it was just not enough to hold off these demons who despise my actions and my methods in closing the curtain of this war.

  From first glance, it may appear that my life is at a close, with my judgment fast approaching. It is too late for me, but perhaps these words can save another man from this terrible fate to which I am succumbing. Although these words may consume my energy over the remaining hours, I feel that this truth must be brought to light, so as to free my spirit, cleanse my name, and give my side of the story.

  To begin with, my life had been blessed many times over. I had a wife and a new daughter in my suburban home. I worked at the edge of the city as a prominent manager of numerous divisions of employees at a respectable technology company. The Federal Commission of Space Exploration had been cranking out their earliest ships in order to get man to the stars.

  Two technologies had been developed and refined in order to make the dream of interstellar travel a reality. First was the development of a greater-than-light-speed engine which cut travel time between stars down from hundreds of years to several days. Second was a device which created artificial gravity. The gravity generating cells, or g-cells, each about the size of a compact car, were arranged in a grid covering an entire ship from end to end, simulating the effect of an Earth-like gravitational field. Each cell also contained a backup power system which could maintain the field for days if the ship lost its power or took heavy damage.

  Together, those concepts took man to the stars. The world looked on in astonishment when we discovered the first planet with extra-solar life. They were little more than microorganisms, but it was a start. Later, four more were found with similar results, but things changed with the fifth.

  Three years after it achieved the first light speed jump, humanity made first contact with an intelligent alien species. The first exchange took place while en route between systems, with both humans and aliens landing on a large, isolated asteroid.

  Instantly, hundreds of Earth’s top linguists, biologists, sociologists, mathematicians, and others were sent to unravel the structure of the aliens’ world and attempt to interact with them. It was a slow process, but progress was made. They were originally found, if one were to consider a straight line from Earth, in the constellation Aquila, prompting many to refer to them as Aquillians. Those of us who would define their careers by killing them rarely personified them to the degree of giving their species a name.

  It was discovered that the Aquillians had developed space travel some time before we did, as their technology for navigating between stars was far more advanced than ours. Our researchers estimated them to be only a few lifetimes ahead of humanity. Additionally, they had been able to reengineer nearly every planet in their system, making them all into hospitable worlds.

  They had evolved with gravity equaling approximately 1.14g’s, making their planet slightly more massive than earth. Most of these creatures stood slightly taller than the average human, but their bodies, while thin, were incredibly strong, as if they were made from living steel. They were carbon based, required water and breathed an oxygen-rich atmosphere with several trace materials we had yet to identify.

  While bipedal and somewhat humanoid, they had clearly arrived by a different evolutionary route. Their skin resembled soft leather, with the areas around their joints toughened like armored scales which took on colors from dark gray to light tan.

  Their faces had human-like eyes, albeit larger, that were probably supported by lesser-developed patches of light-sensing skin on either side of their heads. Despite the familiar eyes, larger jaws and a leathery scalp made the differences apparent.

  The aliens appeared to be completely nonviolent in nature, which was a blessing until things fell apart a year later. In an event that is still shrouded in mystery, an untold number of alien soldiers descended on a small fleet of human ships somewhere within their system. They boarded in peace before attacking and killing everyone on the manifest. Hours later, the creatures fired on the ships with what were thought to be human nuclear weapons, rendering them nothing more than dust.

  Thus began humanity’s First Interstellar War. Shortly thereafter, the aliens attacked several colonies closer to their home system and left no one alive. To this day, evidence has only been discovered via security feeds.

  Initial reports of their strengths were varied, to say the least. From the outset, the aliens lacked anything more advanced than rudimentary squad tactics and certainly didn’t seem capable of anything as complex as orchestrating an interstellar war. Their early weapons, too, were fashioned using simple concepts and mechanisms.

  Things changed very quickly after the first few months in action. Without an indigenous skill base to work from, the aliens instead began to mimic our weapons and tacti
cs, using whatever they could to exploit our methods. It wasn’t long before our soldiers came under attack from small arms and mounted weapons similar to our own designs and our admirals fell under siege from their own maneuvers.

  Intelligence community workers were left scratching their heads the first time a squad of soldiers was recovered after reporting small arms fire identical to classical terrestrial assault weapons. They took a second hit when another casualty was found with what looked like a 12 gauge lead slug buried in his temple. Shortly thereafter, we began to recover weapons from them as well. The designs which began as grotesque contraptions conceived in someone’s garage quickly evolved into accurate projectile rifles operated by refined powder-based cartridges.

  By the end of the first year, the aliens had become extremely effective warriors. Their methods of reverse engineering our combat technologies proved to be a great danger to our forces. When they didn’t follow our tactics precisely, they often added their own alien twists which proved to be unpredictable and deadly.

  Our leadership determined that the aliens had to be dealt with quickly and by using every tool we had available. With every passing day, they became more competent and effective against our methods. Everyone knew it would only be a matter of time before the Aquillians would come for Earth, and no one wanted to find out what kind of damage they would do, which is where my story begins.

  2

  Before the first day of this life, I had encountered the military very little. My company occasionally saw contracts for various components of the military’s weapons and machinery, but that was all. I rarely worked late, but today was different. We were overbooked, and I was running like a madman all through the day. I took a minute near my normal quitting time to give my wife a heads-up to not expect me home for a while. I continued working until sometime in the evening when I passed out from exhaustion.

  In that sleep, I had the most haunting nightmare that could ever be imagined. I can still remember it in excruciating detail, as if the ordeal was burned into my memory with a branding iron. I was reclining on a wooden bench in our backyard along with my wife, with my baby daughter in my arms. All was at peace as we looked into the waning light of the evening sky.

  My wife, Allison, looked over and saw our daughter was fast asleep. “I’ll take her in,” she whispered and I handed the baby over.

  “You’ll be in shortly?” It wasn’t a question, especially with the way she looked into my eyes.

  I nodded. “I’ll be along in a few.”

  Being left all alone, I looked toward the stars which had just begun to shine in the darkness. They were beautiful in their simplicity, and I pushed away thoughts of the war and how we were already orbiting some of them, fighting for our survival. In my own world, I had everything I could have asked for, everything I needed.

  Smiling slightly to myself, I let my eyes slide closed for a moment before they shot open. The entire sky glowed blood red and a tremendous explosion shook the earth. My vision skipped, and I was sprawled on the street in front of my house. My chest felt crushed, but I forced myself to look up. Before me was chaos. Houses were burning; I heard the screams of my friends and neighbors around me. Smoke choked my burning lungs. People began congregating in a group on the street in front of me, and I saw my wife, clutching our daughter, running to join them. I scrambled to my feet, shouting her name, but my voice was drowned out. I ran toward her, but never made it. A beam shot down from the sky, landing right on the congregation. I felt the heat on my face, as if I was being burned alive. Then the blast hit, vaporizing everyone beneath it and leveling the entire town.

  My head jerked up as I awoke. My office was the same as any other evening. The lights were dim, my computer on standby on my desk, and I was alone with that horrible nightmare. I went over to the vanity to get some water, poured a glass, and looked out of the window behind my desk.

  My breath left me as I saw flames shooting up from the suburb against the dark horizon. I dropped the glass and it shattered into bits against the thin carpet. My head pounded and spun. All I could see was the fire, heard only the screams of thousands. I grabbed for my chair, missed it, and collapsed upon the ground.

  Some hours later I awoke, the vision still burning in my mind. I could see the columns of smoke in the dim light of dawn and wasted no time. I pulled my keys off of the desk and ran out of my door. The hall was dark and had no power, which meant no elevator. I half ran, half fell the twelve stories from my office down to the parking garage and to my car. I threw the door open, jumped in, cranked the engine, and threw it into gear. There was no one at the security shack at the entrance, so I slammed through the thin wooden guard without a second thought.

  There were only a few cars on the road downtown, which was unheard of in recent years. Well, at least since I started working in the area. I weaved through the streets, taking at least two corners, on my count, on two wheels. There was no police presence, and I didn’t much care either way. In less than five minutes, I was on the freeway with three exits left to get home.

  I power slid down the ramp and gunned the engine again on the final straightaway. I was cruising up to about 120 mph when I saw an overturned tractor trailer a few hundred feet ahead. I mashed the brake pedal to the floor and dropped the gear from 6th to 2nd. It was a high performance sports car, but it couldn’t handle that final maneuver. There was a loud bang from under the hood and the engine seized. My display went dead and I felt the transmission dislodge from the engine and dig into the ground. I slid off of the highway and into some loose gravel, barely missing the truck that was right ahead.

  When it stopped, I tore the key out and continued on foot, running full speed down to the entrance of my community. As I crested the hill, I saw that there was nothing left of my home at all. In fact, the development itself was nothing more than a blackened and charred crater. There was some activity by a detachment of firemen and police, with a few members of the National Guard dispersed around the edge. As I approached the site, I ran right into one of the soldiers.

  “Sir, we cannot let you in, it isn’t safe,” he said, catching me by both arms.

  “Let me through!” I shouted. “My entire family was in there.” I wrestled free of his grasp and ran forward.

  Immediately as I reached the crater, I lost all sensation of where I was. I could barely make out the difference between the roads, now low, charred expanses of coal, and what used to be the houses, now slight mounds of coal and ash. Smoke was still rising from the ground all around, which assisted my choking and tears.

  My experience was far too similar to many others around the world, I would soon come to learn. The attack was to be known as the Earth Strike, the first military operation launched against the citizens of Earth on their home ground. Somehow, nearly a dozen alien ships slipped around all of Earth’s defenses and initiated a daring suicide maneuver designed only to terrorize and break the spirits of humanity.

  The ships ended their final light speed jump inside of our upper atmosphere – a feat which we have still not yet replicated— broke their formation, and proceeded to wipe a few dozen population centers clean off the map. They must have known they would never return, since it took less than an hour for the defensive forces in orbit to mobilize and strike back against the invaders. The aliens took limited fire from ground installations, but were shredded by several space fighter squadrons.

  The operation in its entirety was to become a case study for military scholars of every denomination. To the leadership, this offensive was a lesson that they could no longer protect us at home. To the Earth Corps, that although they were half a galaxy from the front lines, they were just as likely to be called upon to perform gallant acts of heroism in defense of the planet. To the soldiers fighting in far off systems, that they were not only fighting for their own lives, but directly for the ones they had left behind. And to the intelligence and research communities, that we should never again underestimate an enemy that we know so very
, very little about.

  During my training, we extensively reviewed the events of the attack from every point of view. A few sparse security cameras captured actual strikes, which were nearly impossible for me to watch. Far more evidence came from the star fighters’ mission feeds, which showed their parent ships’ eventual destruction. Seeing the alien vessels burst into flames after being pulverized by hundreds of incoming shots gave me a quick breath of relief, but did nothing to return my life to the way it was. I was going to make them all suffer, and I was not alone in my thinking.

  Even though the goal of the attack was to demoralize the earthlings, the exact opposite occurred. Productivity soared overnight. Recruits like myself filled the ranks of the Space Corps. Our interstellar fleet expanded quicker than ever before thanks to improvements in our labs and foundries. In only a few short months, a campaign which once lacked support over much of the world was reborn as a fiery beacon a reminder to all the galaxy of humanity’s resolve. Apparently, our foes didn’t know us as well as they thought they did either.

  3

  I don’t remember how I got to the recruiting station that day. I assume I just wandered back, but before I knew it, I had signed up for the Space Corps.

  In the twenty years prior to my enlistment, the armed forces of Planet Earth became reorganized as two main branches: Earth Corps and Space Corps. To avoid the obvious problems that would inherently be present in such an organization, units were generally split between cultural lines. Single countries from Earth would be responsible for their own missions, and they also had their own areas of space to watch over.

  Since the outset of the war, Space Corps had seen a great deal more action, while EC had been reduced to merely a police force. Given that I no longer had any family, nor any real will to live, as well as an unquenchable blood lust for those responsible, it came as no surprise why I chose the path I did.