Star Strike - Ian Douglas

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Transcendents, Emanist religions were popular with large segments of the population on Earth, especially with the Antitechnics and the various Neoprimitive and Back-to-Earth parties. Neognostics like Daley even advocated a complete renunciation of all activities off the surface of the Earth, especially now that the ice was retreating once more.

      That was why Alexander—and Devereaux too, evidently—were surprised at his position.

      As Alexander closed the e-pedia window, he realized Daley was still speaking, and that he was looking at him as he did so. “Whatever the tenets of my faith might be,” the Neognostic was saying, “Humankind cannot evolve, cannot grow to meet its potential, and can never contribute to the idea we know as God if we as a species become extinct. So long as we remained beneath Xul notice, survival and growth both were possible. But now?” He spread his hands. “I dislike the idea. My whole being rebels against the very idea of war. But … if there is to be war, better it be out there, five hundred light-years away, than here among the worlds of Man.”

      “Good God,” General Samuels said in the silence that followed this speech. “I thought it was nuts including a Paxist on the Advisory Council, Ari.” The Paxists included those who believed in peace-at-any-price. “But you’re okay!”

      “The Paxists,” Devereaux said sternly, “were invited because they represent the views of a large minority of the Commonwealth population. Very well. General Alexander, thank you for your presentation. The Council will retire now to its private noumenon and vote the question.”

      And the Council was gone, leaving Alexander alone in the imaginal room.

      If the reaction to Daley’s speech was any indication, though, he would need to begin preparations.

      The Marines would be going to war.

       6

       0810.1102

       USMC Recruit Training Center

       Noctis Labyrinthus, Mars

       1512/24:20 local time, 0156 hrs GMT

      Garroway opened his eyes, blinked, and flexed his hands. This was … wonderful. The crisp reality of the sensations coursing through his imaginal body was almost overwhelming.

      The hellish empty time was over.

      “Pay attention, recruit! This is important!”

      Warhurst’s order snapped his attention back to the exercise. He tried to let the feelings flow through his mind, but to keep his focus on the scene around him.

      The landscape was barren and unforgivingly rugged, a volcanic mountain of black rock and sand cratered and torn by a devastating firestorm and draped in drifting patches of smoke. He was standing in the middle of a battle … an ancient battle, one with unarmored men carrying primitive firearms as they struggled up the mountain’s flank. Gunfire thundered—not the hiss and crack of lasers and plasma weapons, but the deeper-throated boom and rattle of slug-throwers, punctuated moment to moment by the heavy thud of high explosives.

      Something—a fragment of high-velocity metal—whined past his ear, the illusion so realistic he flinched. He reminded himself that he had nothing to fear, however. This panorama of blood, confusion, and noise was being downloaded into his consciousness from the RTC historical network, the sights and sounds real enough to convince him he really was standing on that tortured mountainside. But the Marines around him were noumenal simulations—literally all in Garroway’s head. Two days earlier he’d received the nano injections which had swiftly grown into his new Corps-issue headware, and this was his first test of its capabilities.

      “Move on up the slope,” Warhurst whispered in his ear. He obeyed, feeling the gritty crunch of black gravel beneath his feet. A Marine lay on his back a few meters away, eyes staring into the sky, a gaping, bloody hole in his chest. Garroway could see bare ribs protruding from the wound.

      It’s not real, he told himself. It’s a sim.

      “Yeah, it’s a simulation, recruit,” Warhurst told him. Garroway started. He hadn’t realized that the DI could hear him. “But it is real, or it was. These Marines are members of the 28th Marine Regiment, 5th Marine Division. They really lived—and died—to take this island.”

      From the crest of the volcanic mountain, Garroway could see the whole island, a roughly triangular sprawl of black sand, rock, and jungle extending toward what his inner compass told him was the north to northeastern horizon. Offshore, hundreds of ships—old-style seagoing ships, rather than military spacecraft—lay along the eastern horizon. A few moved closer in, periodically spewing orange flame and clouds of smoke from turret-mounted batteries, and the beaches near the foot of the mountain were littered with hundreds of small, dark-colored craft like oblong boxes that had the look of so many ugly beetles slogging through the surf.

      “The date,” Warhurst told him, “is 2302, in the year 170 of the Marine Era. That’s 23 February 1945, for you people who still think in civilian. The mountain is Suribachi, a dormant volcanic cone 166 meters high at the southern end of a place called Sulfur Island—Iwo Jima in Japanese. For the past four days the 4th and 5th Marine Divisions, plus two regiments of the 3rd, have been assaulting this unappealing bit of real estate in order to take it away from the Japanese Empire. For two years, now, the United States has been island-hopping across the Pacific Ocean, closing toward Japan. Iwo Jima is the first territory they’ve reached that is actually a prefecture of Japan; the mayor of Tokyo is also the mayor of Iwo. That means that for the Japanese defending this island, this is the first actual landing on the sacred soil of their homeland. They are defending every meter in one of the fiercest battles in the war to date.

      “Yesterday, the 28th Marines started up the slope of Suribachi which, as you can see, has a commanding view of the entire island, and looks straight down on the landing beaches. In an entire day of fighting, they advanced perhaps 200 meters, then fended off a Japanese charge during the night. They’ve suffered heavy casualties. Lieutenant General Tadamichi Kuribayashi, the Japanese commander, has honeycombed the entire island, which measures just 21 square kilometers, with tunnels, bunkers, and spider holes. The defenders, 22,000 of them, have been ordered to fight to the death … and most of them will.

      “This battle will go down as one of the most famous actions in the history of the Corps. In all of World War II, it was the only action in which the Americans actually suffered more casualties than the enemy—26,000, with 6,825 of those KIA. The Japanese have 22,000 men on the island. Out of those, 1081 will survive.

      “The battle will last until 2503, a total of thirty-seven days, before the island is declared secure. Almost one quarter of all of the Medals of Honor awarded to Marines during World War II—twenty-seven in all—were awarded to men who participated in this battle.

      “Ah. There’s what we came up here to see. …”

      Warhurst led the recruits farther up the shell-blasted slope. At the landward side of the summit, a small number of Marines were working at something, huddled along a length of pipe.

      “The mountain now, after a fierce naval and air bombardment, appears cleared of enemy soldiers, and several patrols have reached the top. Half an hour ago, a small flag was raised on the summit of the mountain to demonstrate that the mountain has been secured, but now a larger flag has been sent to the top. The men you see over there are part of a forty-man patrol from E Company, Second Battalion, 28th Marines, of the 5th Marine Division, under the command of Lieutenant Harold Schrier.

      “Those men over there are Sergeant Michael Strank, Corporal Harlon Block, PFC Rene Gagnon, PFC Ira Hayes, and PFC Franklin Sousley, all United States Marines. The sixth man is Navy, a Pharmacy Mate—what they later called Navy Hospital

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