The United Commonwealth, American Supersector, South Atlantic Sector, the Falklands and Georgia subsector, 4000 Light years armwise, from Earth. The East Falkland Planet, The Northern Continent, Port Stanley, July 2982 CE 22:41 Zulu.

'Major-General, I do not agree that this is our last option.' 
The personal recollections of Field Marshal James Williamsons 3110.

IT WAS GOING TO be a long couple of days, groaned the Old Man to himself. He fought the urge to rip his earpiece out as it crackled and hissed right in his ear. 

With practised ease, a full company of light infantry riflemen and officers disappeared into the heart of the capital city of the planet of East Falklands. About an hour earlier, they had jumped from a naval cutter, at 15000 meters, and landed perfectly on target thanks to their AI-controlled parachutes. The HQ section of the company arrived at their position in a destroyed multi-storey carpark, where the broken and collapsed floors made it almost impossible to see the two men sitting amongst the rubble from their target building.

Sat against the outer wall of the ruins, busy with the all-important task of cleaning his KM-18 rifle’s chamber lens, was one of the two men. Thoroughly, but quickly and efficiently, in a manner only born out of practice and necessity, he had popped the retaining pins on his weapon, pulled out a fresh wipe from a webbing pocket and got to work as soon as they were in cover. The other, older, man was listening to the broadcast through his radio. He pressed the transparent earpiece, the cord of which was wrapped around his left ear lobe a few times, deeper into his ear as he knelt beside a rough-dug hole in the ground. 

"Tangos left- eighteen metres, south-west entrance of the district offices, fifteen of them. Get the hell down guys, don’t be seen! We are going to be here a while." There was another scream of hissing static, and voice as the call from 2nd platoon’s sergeant broke across the voice comms silence that was ordered for the operation and that the man’s radio picked up as he watched the hexamine stove burn, as it boiled water in a kettle.

He enjoyed making tea. It reminded him of laboratory work, with its mixing of solutions to create something new. The kettle on hexamine reminded him of a time before, before the Argentinian invasion, before the rebellions. It reminded him of distant worlds, to a knife-fight distance firefight in a ditch, and to a desperate defence in a farmhouse.

"Oh, for fuck’s sake. Patrick, please remind me later to kill Sergeant Brown when we finish this operation. Which bit of silence does he not understand? There are 283 personnel out here, not just him." The dim fire lit up the Old Man's face. The scars that covered his face looked fresh, open, and twisted because of the shadows cast by the light. He took a deep breath before he looked up at his Regimental Sergeant Major. The RSM was nodding slowly. He was still only 38 years old and thus only a third of the expected human lifespan, but the wear and tear of twenty years of weary slogging was slowly etching itself onto his bored, dirty, but far less scarred face.

 "I think, Colonel," he mused, slowly and calculatedly, "That duty falls to me." The Old Man snorted. "I am going for a quick walk. Make sure Bill and Toby have got settled. I’d like a cup of tea though, Sir."

The Colonel continued nodding as the RSM disappeared into the gloom after rolling over a window. After just a moment or two, the water had boiled. Reaching around in the ghostly light of the twin moons for the RSM’s mug, so he could pour the drinks and extinguish the IR signature that was the fire, his hand knocked into the large, fabric covered, black lump that was lying next to him. With a violent lurch, the black lump stirred, grabbed the rifle that had been laying across it. It swung the weapon around, as it swept the rubble with the muzzle, desperately searching for the person or thing that disturbed it, before fixing on the Colonel. As the lump became more awake, the more he realised he was pointing his rifle straight at his commanding officer, who, with a wry smile, just continued digging around for the RSM’s mug. The lump lowered his rifle and sat upright. The jacket that was wrapped around the glass scale body armour fell away.

  "Sorry Anderson, I was trying to find the RSM’s mug and just happened to nudge you. Go back to sleep. That is an order.” The Colonel said, finding the mug in amongst Anderson’s radio equipment.

"Oh ok, Sir. But if you’re making one, I wouldn’t say no," Anderson said, as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes. He found his own mug and passed it to the Colonel, who took it off him and added it to the pile. "So, anything interesting happen while I was asleep, Sir?" Anderson said, still rubbing his eyes free of sleep.

He looked funny to the Colonel. Anderson’s Solent platinum blonde hair had dust and grime from the concrete debris, but somehow this didn’t make his hair any less blonde. His bright blue eyes also stood out, as they reflected any light there was, which made them pop, even in this gloom. The ethnically Solent troopers were going to be a menace for stealth. Still, the Colonel wouldn’t have anyone else, he thought to himself. They had got the concepts involved in stealth work faster than anyone else he had ever served with before. 

 "Well, other than that, we dropped behind enemy lines, infiltrated an enemy-controlled city, and that Sergeant Brown ignored radio silence completely? No, not really Jack, you missed nothing. I mean, really, you are quite possibly the worst adjutant I’ve ever heard of." The Colonel proffered up the mug of tea, and Anderson took it, shaking his head disapprovingly.

"Ah, but you have heard of me, Sir. On the upside, you’re learning how to brew. I’ll ignore the remark about being asleep during the drop. I was always awake. You just have little use for a radio operator during quantum missive conditions other than to hand you papers, which a blind mute could do. And my personnel role ended with climbing on the shuttles." Said Anderson, as he sipped from his hot mug.

"Yeah, yeah, Specialist. Whatever helps you sleep at night! Not that you need help, you sat down there, and fell asleep for like 2 hours! How on God’s green earth did you pass basic training?" Anderson looked at his commanding officer with an indignant face of mock hurt. After a moment or two, they both sniggered. "And talking about ignoring remarks, damn it, man! I might be a relatively senior officer now, but I was a private once, and I can still make tea. Unlike Colm." Said, the Colonel while he drank.

"Is that senior in both meanings, Sir?" Anderson sniggered some more, until the Colonel gave him a dirty look. He drained his tea and placed the empty mug down on the ground. "Sorry, Sir."

The Colonel laughed silently as he grabbed at his webbing and detached the two pistol holsters that sat over his HOPLITE armour. In each holster was a pistol made for him ten years before. They were gifts from his uncle, the Chief of the Defence Staff, when they visited the Royal Small Arms Factories on Enfield. They had been visiting for Company purposes. Instead of being more normal laser or magnetic rail-based weapons, the pair were firearms built around a 150 mm steel-nitrate-carbon nanotube barrel that pushed a 9mm 10-gram copper jacketed, lead bullet at 550ms-1 via an explosive propellant. Their frames were polymer, apart from the finger pads and magazine catch which were a polished platinum-steel composite, and the slides, bolt, and trigger pack assembled from mixtures of stainless steels which made them tough and a just tad glossy. 

The Colonel drew a deep breath before he removed the left-hand pistol from its holster. He wrapped his left hand under the trigger guard before flicking the safety on and off with his thumb. With the same sense of purpose and certainty that surgeons have as they pick up the scalpel to start the first incision, he pointed the pistol out at arm’s length, aiming through the off red-dot. The Colonel lifted his index finger off the grip, wiggled it slightly, and placed it back on the trigger guard. He repeated this motion with all his fingers. After he replaced his little finger in its groove, he took off and reapplied the safety once again. He took another deep breath. 

Anderson watched with interest as the Colonel went through this, now familiar, routine. He had seen it a few times before, but he never tired of watching the man in action. The Colonel had a calm and focused energy that was infectious, and it always put Anderson at ease when he saw it.

As the Colonel re-holstered the left-hand pistol and drew the right-hand one, Anderson couldn't help but feel a sense of admiration for his commanding officer. The man had worked his way up through the ranks, from a lowly private to the Colonel in charge of his own corps. Respected by his subordinates and feared by his enemies, Anderson knew that the man's reputation was well-earned.

The Old Man waited for a just moment as he released his breath through gritted teeth. He couldn’t help but think about all the places he’d been with these pistols, and the myriad situations they had saved his life. He counted the number of men they had executed in the last ten years, as he delivered swift justice to those who believed armed rebellion was the best course against the Commonwealth. Once he had fully exhaled, he flexed his ring finger over the tiny silver union flag engraved into the right-hand side of the pistol’s grip. This caused the magazine to drop out into his waiting right hand.

"God save the Queen." He murmured, stripping the pistol down. As he removed the retaining pin that held the slide in place, he felt Anderson next to him break down his customised Mk-12 Infantry Command radio to clean and repair the working parts. This was standard practice after an insertion drop, as the radio, with its quantum encoder, which allowed long-range communications even with local radio silence, was their lifeline to each other and the outside world. Anderson was the most natural radio operator Macgregor had ever had, with his ability to find unblocked channels and workarounds for interference that verged on uncanny.  

As they worked, concealed in that alcove of broken concrete, the Colonel felt, rather than heard, the arbitrary changes in the static coming through his personal radio. These changes in noise were the combat chat messages of the Black Jackets, and to the untrained ear, it sounded no different to static. This background noise was fluctuating wildly because of all the Argentinean comms, which helped with obscuring their codes. He knew the static codes so well that it laid out all of his ten platoons’ movements like he was staring at the depositions board at Army HQ. 

Ironsides slinked back in after his chat with the Quartermaster Sergeant Major and 1^st company’s commanding officer. This disrupted Anderson’s work a bit as the RSM climbed over the pile of parts. They, company HQ and 1^st platoon, were encamped in the building two doors down from Macgregor and Anderson. Ironsides sat down next to his commander, who gave him his tea. It was cold, but Paddy had been fighting for a long time, meaning he didn’t mind. He necked the drink, shuddered as the liquid hit his stomach, then told the other two he was going to sleep. Thanking the Colonel for his brew, he drew his jacket close to him, which masked any glint of the glass body armour that was visible through his own chest rig, and promptly fell asleep. 

“Colonel Macgregor, Sir, the radio, and encoder, is up to scratch and with all due respect, you need to rest,” Anderson said, looking sidelong at the Colonel, as his commander rubbed his eyes hard, as he had been awake for 20 hours at this point. Macgregor stifled a yawn and finished rebuilding the right-hand pistol.

“Yes, you are probably correct, Jack. Wake one of us up in 4 hours.” He said, re-holstering his pistols after he reattached them to his webbing. He climbed into his makeshift bivvy, which was a sleeping bag buried in the dust. The thought that the infiltration had gone exceedingly well reassured him; and that despite the stupidity of 2^nd platoon’s Sergeant, the rest of the company was not really in trouble. Discovery, if it happened at all until they chose, would be tomorrow morning in the cold light of day. Macgregor was never happier to be in a high latitude winter. Maybe it was a dangerous plan, but the decision was final, and he would be glad for his 282 officers and troops before the week was done.

It was going to be a miracle if they survived, but if they got through undiscovered, this entire war would be theirs. Port Stanley would fall, clearing the last major resistance on this flank. All this was Macgregor's gamble. With that churning in his head, Macgregor struggled to fall asleep. Trying to relax somewhat, he pulled a small picture out of a specially made pocket in his bag. It was of an extremely attractive woman, wearing almost nothing bar a stethoscope around her neck, with a look of almost tortured lust on her face. Macgregor kissed it and breathed into the photo of his wife, who he loves with all his heart.

From outside his bag, he heard Anderson putting his spare parts for his radio back in his Bergen, then a pause and then a gentle scraping of broken concrete, as Anderson buried it. The gentle crunch continued as he picked up his rifle, and his night vision monocle and sat in the shadows. There were two quiet clicks as Anderson must have slapped his IR monocle into the bracket on his helmet and then down in front of his left eye, as he settled in for the night. 

Approximately 400 miles, due south of 1^st company position, the regiment headquarters, the 1^st Solent Rifles (the Royal Black Jackets), Solent Corps. Outskirts Port Harriet, 22:56 Zulu.

THE HEADQUARTERS OF The Royal Black Jackets were situated in the rolling grasslands of the lower plains, whose farmlands would typically feed the city of Port Stanley, in the northern part of the continent of Salvador, the planet of East Falkland. This region was full of headquarters for regiments assigned to 12^th CAA.

The HQ of the 1^st Solent Rifles itself was one of the standard construct extended cloister shape pre-fabs. Because the regiment was present in all three battalions, the building had three courtyards. Constructed from steel and concrete, the Royal Engineers put together the building in three days, despite its massive size. Designed so that a single battalion could live in one quadrangle, with all the equipment and the support soldiers from the Royal Logistic, Signals, and the Electric and Mechanical Engineers Corps. They were flat-packed self-contained units, and for 200 years the army had lived and died in them, on 1000 different worlds, and were not going anywhere soon. Multi-battalion units could be accommodated by stitching together multiple of these quads.

Here, there were three cloisters in a row, with the two central ranges taken up with officers’ quarters, company, and battalion-level offices; so the entire three thousand and so of the regiment effectively lived and trained together. In the northern range there were the enlisted barracks, with the southern range being gyms, 25-metre shooting galleries and other training rooms. Finally, the western and eastern ends were the stores and armourers. Around the complex, the army had landscaped subtly, so that there was now a 1000-metre rifle and 200-metre pistol range. 

 In a small briefing room, in the building’s second central partition, there was a tall, well-built man with deep brown, short-cropped hair standing in the middle of the room. He had his long, tough, and scarred arms spread out, holding his body up off a console, allowing him to stare at a holographic tactical map of the front line. He had been staring at it for two hours. And despite those hours, he was still feeling incredibly worried about the fact that the regiment’s commanding officer was so far behind lines with the 1^st company of his battalion, the 1^st. 

The man remembered the conversation he had with his colonel only twelve hours earlier, in which he had begged him to allow him to take the company instead. That the mission was far too dangerous for a full bird colonel and RSM to take part in this time. Not when the regiment was so new, and so desperately needed their experience. He had spent 30 minutes insisting that he had the experience required for the task; to no avail. His rank, sewn into the epaulettes of his khaki service jacket, proved that he wasn't lying. His single embroidered black crown, with its purple backing, showed he was a major, with special forces tours under his belt, specifically with the Queen's Own Anti-Revolutionary Company.

Macgregor, wrongly in the Major's opinion, had denied his request. He was no longer the 16-year-old from the Welsh Sector, just signed up with the Royal Logistic Corps EOD regiment. He had duties and responsibilities for the other two companies in 1^st battalion and couldn't go gallivanting around; which the man had felt was very hypocritical. And anyway, Macgregor had pointed out, he had run the QOARC. If anyone in the army knew how to run an unsupported company-level insertion, it was Colonel Alastair Macgregor.

Battalion Sergeant Major William Constantine would have been able to tell the Major exactly how many soldiers in the battalion were battle-ready, but the Colonel had also appropriated him. So, left with the rest of the battalion to prepare with no Battalion Sergeant Major, for an incredibly difficult mission, the Major had assumed it would have been a nigh on impossible task; bar the impeccable standards to which the new senior non-commissioned officers had been trained. Fidgeting in place, the Major moved the focus of the map to the frontline where the rest of the 1^st and the entire 2^nd battalion were going to engage with the Enemy. He pondered the landscape of the frontline, a series of rolling fields with deep entrenchments with a battered and deeply crater scarred no-man's-land, littered with barbed wire and dead men in various ghastly positions and states of decomposition, which gradually changed into the sprawling city, its high-rise buildings giving excellent over-watch positions.

It was the terrain plus the distance, nearly 200 miles, which needed to be travelled to relive 1^st company from their position in the city, which was why the Major was stressing out. He swore violently at the screen, throwing his cup across the room, which hit the wall and bounced after it hit the ground. He knew he had been right and cursed the Colonel for saying otherwise. 200 miles, through such fortifications was impossible to traverse in 4 days, even with a battle-hardened regiment, let alone a bunch of barely tested recruits. 

In the doorway, there was a slightly shorter, lean figure leaning against the wall, an almost middle-aged man who was wearing tracksuit bottoms and a black, skin-tight, shirt that showed every muscle move and quiver, his face half in darkness, though the illuminated half showed the forty-year-old man was tired and battle-weary but, currently, highly amused. He laughed to himself, causing the Major to turn around and glare at him. Behind him was another man, aristocratic in stature, his face shadowed as he stood in the dim hallway, leaning back nonchalantly against the wall. 

"Sorry, Sir. This situation has just got me stressed out. It is an extremely long way to be pushing advances through trench lines. Hell, I am an EOD man. I know this, so I can't get my head around what the Old Man is thinking." Michaels said to the man in the doorway. "What was Army thinking accepting this idea?" he added, exasperated. 

"Oh John, this was Army's best option for breaking the stalemate. You know this; the whole enemy general staff will be in Port Stanley in two days. We had to act. If we don't, they will get a better tactical sense of the front and reinforce Port Stanley, causing this war to be dragged out." The man said, stepping to the light a bit more, his dark blonde hair shining just a little, as the sweat from his workout beaded in it. He turned to look at the map. "Here," he said, moving the map to the south, "This is the Household Division moving up to the front, all seven battalions of the Scots, most of the American, some Canadians and the heavy infantry battalions of the Coldstream and the Grenadiers." The map flashed their tactical recognition flash as the man said their names. "Plus, the tankers of the Household Cav, the Chavarly, and Esposito's louts are going to be on station as well to make the breakthrough. Look, it is late. When was the last time you ate?" He asked, standing next to the Major. 

"This morning? I didn't have lunch, sir. I was organising." 

"Well, there is your problem." 

"Are you quoting ancient TV Programmes at me again, sir?" John laughed, for the first time that day, and hard. 

"I reject your reality and substitute my own, Major Michaels." 

"Please, Lieutenant-Colonel stop. We get enough of that when The Boss is in." The other man said from the corridor. 

The Lieutenant-Colonel pointed to the door with a metallic finger that appeared from out of his over length sleeve, its servos whirring and buzzing keeping its stretched-out position. 

"After you then, John. Lord Darnley is getting hungry too." 

"That's Major Maclaren, Lieutenant-Colonel Bartlett." The Aristocratic man snapped. 

Michaels, understanding Maclaren relatively well now, got the message that he needed to eat. He took one last look at the map and pressed a button on the console he was leaning on, which caused the map to turn off; bent down and picked up his mug. The LTC was holding the door open for him as he walked through the door. Looking around himself at the dark room, Bartlett closed the door, and the three strode down the gloomy corridor as the lights dimmed for night-time running, towards the mess, and a good gin and tonic.

"Any more news from Army, Maclaren?" Michaels asked the other man, as they walked.

"Of course not, John, the Lieutenant-General doesn't like us, so I and the rest of Corps intelligence have to beg for scraps. I am amazed that Lawerson even agreed to support this little adventure." Major Maclaren replied, stroking his chin, his face stuck in a data pad that just blipped loudly, doing his best attempt to read, talk, and walk all at once. 

"Lawerson doesn't know whose idea this was." Bartlett laughed his dark laugh. "Major-General Williamsons made sure that it came out as his idea."

"Oh, of course. Well, Macgregor could always get his way with James Williamsons. At least according to my father." Maclaren continued. Michaels just shrugged; he hadn't been with Macgregor back in his previous light infantry days. But, having met Jim Williamsons briefly, he could well believe it to be true. They were similar people. 

They got to the officer's mess, which because of the general lack of subalterns in the regiment and the specific lack of 3^rd battalion staff officers, was extremely empty. Chatting as they ordered, there was a brief wait for food, so just as they started eating, Major Thomas Johnson, along with Captains Johar, Williams, Evans, and Francis, had filtered in one by one. They each pulled up chairs to the table, perching extra glasses, plates, and elbows on it so that they couldn't move without fear of knocking something over. Rapidly discussing the upcoming deployment after the original three had finished their food, the group dispersed, hurrying to complete their tasks as given by Bartlett.

Michaels' and Bartlett's billets were right next to each other, towards which they were walking when they heard the loud bang, bang, bang of a trooper running along the corridor in his combat boots.

"Major, Colonel... wait up! " A deep voice boomed, rattling in between the steel walls. The two men stopped and turned around to see a man carrying a data slate running up the corridor. "What is it, Gordon?" The Major asked, reaching his arm out for the slate, snapping his stubby fingers at the man as he stopped short and threw a salute at the officers.

 Private Gordon Tracey passed over the data pad into the outstretched hand of Michaels.

"The Brigadier has just contacted to say that he will be at his staging post in 6 hours. Oh, and Colonel; Specialist Lightmore would like to inform you that Colonel Lomo tried to contact you. He left a message that reads 'Flavius. How is the arm, you rascal? Henry IV is ready to rescue Octavian, that crazy old man. Will be at regiment HQ in twelve hours.’ He has informed Ms Locke, and she has started to prepare the battalions for transport by the HCR." Pvt Tracey said, trying not to fall over his words in one breath. He stood like a loaded spring as he rocked onto the balls of his feet, nervous energy pouring off him.

"Thank you, Gordon, go ahead," Michaels said, with a quick, dismissive wave. Tracey saluted again. The spring unwound, and Michaels and Bartletts' heads turned to follow him out of sight, as he legged it back down the same corridor he just come down. Michaels turned to his senior officer and friend.

"Sir, I am sorry. I threw a wobbly. I’ve just never commanded this many humans in one go. I'm an EOD man, born and raised. But guess this is go time." His hand pushed down on his door handle, but Bartlett stopped him, putting his mechanical hand on Michaels's shoulder. 

 "John, you are and have always been a good friend. It's nothing. Now we’ve got to rescue the Old Man from the hands of those horrible marauding Argentinian soldiers."

"Of course, Rick, I was before America, and I will be into the future," Michaels gave Bartlett a tap on his cybernetic shoulder. "Thank you again, sir." Michaels threw a sharp salute to Richard and opened his door, but didn't walk through it. "Rick, one moment." Bartlett stopped, his body in the same position as Michaels, half in the door frame. It was odd for Michaels to call him by his first name twice in a row.

"Yes, John?" 

"I forgot to say anything earlier, but did you really call the Royal Tank Regiment, the Chavalry?" 

"Yes, that's their name. They are the Chavvy Cavalry." Bartlett said, matter-of-factly, like it explained everything. John threw his hands in the air, causing his door to almost smack him in the face before he caught it. He wanted to ask what exactly Chavvy meant but decided against it. 

"Fucking guardsmen." Was all that Michaels managed, laughing all the way to bed.

Bartlett tried to fish his radio and the earpiece out of his pocket whilst he walked into his room. He didn't bother taping the throat mike to himself, preferring to hold the radio in his hand as he moved books off his cot. He really needed to digitise his book collection, but he was a fucking hipster at heart, as Macgregor lovingly once described him. 

"Alice, how are we doing?" He asked, through his radio to his long-suffering Battalion Sergeant Major. 

"We are going ok, 1^st battalion is completely ready, 2^nd Battalion is getting there, but 3^rd Company is straggling, as Captain Leads is fussing." His earpiece crackled back. Of course, Dawson was fussing. He had done the same for every deployment for the last 7 years. The Earth-tinted Irish accented voice of the thirty-seven-year-old woman was clearly annoyed. 

At 5’1” inches tall, Alice Locke was the shortest member of 2^nd battalion by at least half a foot, indeed she was probably the shortest in the regiment, maybe even the Corps, though a lot of the tankers were tiny. A classically Irish girl, her deathly pale skin was at odds with her long red hair that she kept tied in a bun and wedged neatly under her peaked cap. She shunned a helmet, meaning welded to her head was her peaked cap; come rain or shine, bullets or parades. Her emerald-green eyes could, and would, pierce the soul of any rifleman who dared to displease her. Locke's operational experience was second to none, with citations, and medals, for valour against the Tarquin, and actions in the American Revolution, Scotland, and the Troubles.

Oh, the Troubles, she may never get over that, but she earned her WOI tabs in that conflict, as well as her cybernetic foot, and a dead brother. 

"You realise we haven’t had enough time to train for this type of operation?" Bartlett jerked back to reality, as Locke continued, and he had to cut her off mid-rant. Bartlett had learned a long time ago to not allow that woman to get any momentum in rants or she would never stop. He couldn’t help but imagine her helping him as he stripped off his top, being distracted by that thought. "Sir?" 

"No buts, Alice, you have 12 hours to get everyone ready. Now, get a couple of hours shut eye, and we..." He clicked off and changed over channels before she could start complaining again. No doubt she would be screaming obscenities down the radio at him because he cut her fully off. She’d calm down in a bit, pick up her walnut and brass pace stick, put on her duty face and be the best BSM in the Corps, bar none. Though preferably after she had got some sleep. Part of being a good BSM is that you had a short but controlled fuse. Uncontrolled detonations at unruly junior officers tended to be caused by a lack of sleep. 

"Colm, I need you to get a missive to Colonel Lomo as soon as humanly possible, which was actually five minutes ago, over.", Bartlett said, flicking his radio to get the attention of his radio operator, Specialist Colm Lightmore.

"Yes sir, of course, sir, ready to copy the message, over.". His Hampshire accent was crystal clear on the radio.

"Message reads as: Bolingbroke, the arm is fine, Sir -stop- Thanks for assist -stop- Will see you in 12 hours -stop-. Got that all, Colm? Over.”

"Of course, sir, it’s already sent, sir."

"Right, I am going to get a brief nap and then we will get on it. Out." Bartlett enjoyed the whine that his earpiece made when he turned off his radio, put it in its slot and got into bed.

Frontline trench, one thousand miles away from Regimental HQ, Spring Point, 7^th platoon, 3^rd company, 3^rd Battalion. 22:56 Zulu.

THE RIFLEMEN of 7^th platoon, 3^rd company, were standing to on the fire step of the deep trench that they were stuck in. They were waiting for the attack that would surely come after the forty-five-minute bombardment they had endured finished. The enemy 155mm railgun pieces, artillery with a range of one hundred miles and a punch like a Cepheid class destroyer blowing up in your face, had rained down sub-calibre munitions, trying to break open western networks trenches. Luckily, for 3^rd company, the trench dugouts were specifically armoured for that, and they survived unscathed to repel the marauders.

The trench itself was part of a thousand-mile-long network, which stretched from the outskirts of the city of Port Stanley to Fox bay. It surrounded the base of the mountain that had RAF Mount Pleasance, the forward combat base for the Royal Air Force on the continent of Salvador. It spread out either side of a one mile no-man's-land, for five miles of support trenches and underground medical centres, as well as ammunition and food dumps. The main fighting trench was six foot three and a half inches wide, by eleven feet tall, the walls cased in a foot and half thick concrete to protect the bunkers under the backside of the trench. These held the bunks and equipment stores for the soldiers, allowing for a relatively peaceful night, even under heavy bombardment.

On the opposite side, dug into no-man's-land, were bunkers for day operations, messes, first aid points, weapon firing desks for the remote machine-gun nests behind the trenches; tiny briefing rooms for the handover of duty NCOs; and yet more ammunition dumps. Interspersed between the doorways of these was a three-foot-wide platform, six-foot up from the floor, that made up the fire step. This was where most of the men of 7^th platoon were standing now. No one was talking as they waited for the attack. The silence of the trench was disconcerting for the soldiers ratcheting the tension. It would be the first time the Argentinians had attacked, and the first time many of the enlisted personnel had ever been in a firefight. It caused the 7^th platoon’s commander's heart to pound in his head as he walked to the ladder that led up to the platform.

The Colour Sergeant; for the Black Jackets did not have Subalterns, was worried that in his first action as a platoon leader something terrible would happen. He climbed up the ladder and removed the rifle that was slung on his shoulder and placed it on the sandbags in front of him. Wedging the battery between two bags, the Colour Sergeant took his hand off the mono-podding rifle. He took a deep breath, putting his finger on his earpiece, which activated his radio. 

"7^th Platoon, I do not doubt that we are a good platoon, as good as any in the regiment. Don’t panic, look too the rifleman beside you, and we will get through this battle. Colonel Macgregor and the Commonwealth are dependent on us doing our jobs well as we can. We will not let him down." He started slowly and calmly into the radio. His platoon, 27 people plus change, were all as petrified as himself, and he enjoyed listening to the murmur of approval from the platoon that was building slowly as they calmed into their firing positions. 

This noise masked the first snaps of rifle fire that whistled overhead. The lances of light made a noise like a truck smashing into a wall as the green laser pulses slammed into the sandbags protecting the backside of the trench and the remote machine railgun nests, giving off a weird ethereal glow as the lights passed overhead.

There was a momentary pause as the machine gunners found targets in no-man's-land and opened up with deadly accurate heavy weapons fire, which poured thousands of rail rounds into the blasted mud in front of the trench. The machine railguns made a low, but incredibly loud, ratcheting, clanking noise that hurt even through the standard-issue micro-radio earpiece and hearing protection. The Colour Sergeant picked up his rifle off its battery and turned on his scope’s night vision mode. He looked out into the world and saw a mass of green-tinted, ghostly soldiers, with a small Pan-American flag dead-centre of their helmets. They were sprinting across the ground, keeping low, towards the first barricade of barbed wire and land mines.

"Rifles, one-shot, one-kill, only pull that trigger if you know you can get a kill. We don’t know how long we are going to be here, and recharging is going to be tricky." The one piece of advice that had gone around about using the old KM-X rifles was that the batteries sucked even when new, and most were now 75 years old. 

The Colour Sergeant aimed his rifle at a sprinting soldier; the holo-reticule of his SUSAT perfectly framed his target. He breathed and squeezed the trigger, stopping at the first stage, before he felt his way through the sharp take-up of the second stage. Surprised when the break happened, the Colour Sergeant watched as the rifle to spat a lancing blue beam of high-energy light into the void of the darkness. It made its way downrange and blasted the man, whose head he was aiming at, causing him to explode in a pink mist of blood. 

First experiences with high-powered laser rifles always shocked people. The KM-9s could dish out a tremendous amount of damage to a person. Now was not the time to process the fact that he had actually killed someone as the attack built up in intensity and he put down three more Argentinians in rapid succession.

The Marksmen were using their EM-5Ds to hit targets as they popped out of their trench over a mile away. One, four people down from the Colour Sergeant, laughed into his microphone at the ridiculous situation in which they now found themselves. The man shot an officer barely five hundred metres out of his trench, right in the face, causing half the officer to vaporise, and spinning the rest around off his feet. The brutality of the defence caused the Argentinians to drop prone and start probing the parapet for weaknesses, as they tried to reduce the number of defenders. 

They found one such weakness in front of a young rifleman. A laser round had slid through the edge of a sandbag and hit the battery of the trooper’s rifle, causing it to detonate. This sent pieces of rifle shrapnel spiralling up in the air, making them small missiles as they fell back down to earth. One piece missed his body armour, falling in the gap between his neck and the shoulder piece. It almost removed his arm. His knees buckled from the impact and he collapsed, dropping completely onto the step, with his body hanging off the edge. 

"Medic, we need a Medic over here!" Th e trooper next to him cried out, as he dropped to the floor of the step and ripped open the wounded man’s first aid kit, pulling out a gauze pad and morphine. He applied the dressing with as much force as he could to stop the bleed; still in only the ten seconds that he was there was nothing that wasn't covered in blood.

"Tom, we’ve got Luke. Get back to covering our arse." The medic pushed the rifleman off his friend, who popped back up, and with renewed vigour poured fire into no-man land as they moved him off the fire-step and placed him in a first aid dugout to stabilize him.

"Colour Sergeant Holmes, we have a problem." The call came through from a machine-gun operator on his radio, just as a massive explosion occurred behind him blowing a machine gun post into what was the ink-black of night, but was now just a glowing mass of twisted metal and concrete causing everyone to duck along the trench, the shockwave of the impact rippling up and down, reflecting off the Zig-Zags. 

"Shit, I take it that is a tank, Daz?" he shouted into the link at the operator, recovering from the overpowering flash of the blast. 

"Yes, Colour. It’s a Type-443."

"Right, Corporal Greenly, take that bastard out." He ordered his heavy weapons fireteam 2iC.

"Yes, Colour." The link crackled and hissed as another shell buried into the concrete back wall, covering everyone in concrete dust and mud as cannon rounds slammed home around them. The platoon watched in amused bemusement as the railgun, rocket-assisted, subcalibre, antitank round scythed through the air, the speed of the round causing massive damage to the tank knocking out the turret ring, which then caught fire, burning with an electric blue flame, helped along by several laser pulses from the DMRs.

"Good shooting, old boy." The Colour Sergeant congratulated the Corporal over the whooping noise. 

More and more tanks appeared in the machine gunners' scanners and the marksmen's sights. The Sergeant-in-charge of the heavy weapons almost fainted, though, somehow, he held his nerve. This was far worse than anything in basic. The noise and the muzzle flashes were disorientating, made worse by the magnification by the optics on board the machine guns. 

"Shit, loads more tanks are coming, Holmes, about fifty more." Said the Sergeant, as the Marksman next to Holmes, using the Combat Information Network Databus system, flashed his targeting information into Colour Sergeant Holmes's SUSAT directly. This allowed Holmes to see the tanks, even without the aid of the thermal imaging that the DMRs had, as moving red diamonds in his sight. Holmes double tapped his mike with his left hand in acknowledgement, then reached over to his radio operator, and tapped him to get his attention, whilst the man was firing his rifle.

"Yes, Colour?" The private didn't look away from no-man's-land, his focus on keeping some of the closer enemy soldiers' heads down.

"Get on the horn to the Royal Artillery lads and get us fire support," Holmes ordered, taking over the private's firing position, covering his man, as he finally moved.

"Yes, Colour," He dropped onto his knees, and flipped the frequency switches to the fire support teams. Above him, there was the high-pitched cracks as the subcalibre projectiles fired from the machine rifles passed overhead at hypersonic speeds, as the machine guns rapidly shifted between the tanks, the hulls of which ferociously ignited and blazed in the night. "Hunter-8-Tango, Domitian-7-Charlie, Danger Close Fire on Previous Grid: Yankee88, over." The radioman called once, twice, three times. On the third, the ground shook as the last kilometre of no-man's-land was briefly gone in a shower of mud. When the Arty shells finally stopped landing, over a minute later, there was no evidence of the Argentinian assault, the soldiers and tanks having melted away into the dark. 

Holmes waited, then jumped down off the fire step. He wanted to go to his billet to sleep, as he had ordered his platoon to do. However, there was one more stop before his bed that he needed to go to. He dove into the medical bay and stopped at his soldier's body, for he had died just moments before, the blood from his arm splattered and strewn across the dugout.

He saw his CMT, crashed out on the floor, pull a face that was contorted between relief, sadness and lethargy. They locked eyes as she stood up. No words came to either of them, they weren't needed. He touched her face with the tips of his fingers. Nodding just once, she sloped out of the dugout to get cleaned. She was completely blood-stained from one person, and Holmes felt like throwing up at the thought of this room being awash with bodies, and he legged it out of the room, back into the pissing rain and his bunk, the psychological impact of the last hour playing with him. 

FURTHER DOWN THE Trench was the company CO, who had been languishing in his dugout, about to turn in for the night now the bombardment had ceased. He never made it that far. A young man, who was so soaked he must have weighed at least twice his weight in water alone, came barging into the commander's dugout, rudely bouncing the officer out of his chair.

"Captain Scholfield, 7^th platoon has been in a major firefight, about five minutes ago, against one hundred and fifty enemy troops and about fifty tanks. Total casualties: fifty-six enemy; one dead trooper, no wounded. Colour Sergeant Holmes requests information on the state of the rest of the company, more particularly to see whether they were the only area to be attacked?"

The young man held out a data pad for the captain to read. He picked it up, with a look of sheer shock and dismay about the sheer scale of the five-minute firefight held only 3 or 4 miles down the road, the roar of the bombardment hiding all that laser fire.

"Chris, get me the Lieutenant-Colonel on the radio; find out if this is occurring across this entire sector." The captain didn't mean to, but he sounded very apprehensive. This was also his first-ever time in combat. He was the youngest company officer in the regiment and one of four that had not had some previous service. This number did not include his girlfriend, 3^rd company, 1^st Battalion's Officer Commanding, Captain Shreya Johar, known to everybody as Mike, who was previously with a unit called QOARC. What he wouldn't give to have her with him now, but she had her own job to do. She was busy breaking Port Stanley. "Then get me all the platoon commanders on the line."

"Yes, sir," The adjutant nearly tripped over himself as he ran over to a shelf and placed the radio set on it. He picked up the copper wire landline between the Battalion HQ and the two other companies.

Captain Scholfield walked out of the dugout and into the pouring rain, where he found his 1^st platoon running around shifting ammunition, at the behest of the Colour Sergeant and the Company Sergeant Major. The Colour Sergeant saw him, threw a quick salute, and ran over to him. The radio traffic was already very dense, as the fire team leaders moved people into position. 

"What’s going on here then, Colour?" The Captain had to shout over the rain and the calls coming from the soldiers, so he pulled his earpiece out of his ear. 

"Nothing sir, just moving ammunition for the missiles and machine guns as those bastard tanks are moving this way. We just want to be prepared." The Colour Sergeant bawled over the noise, and the Captain nodded.

"You have this under control, Colour Sergeant. Give us a bell in a minute, will need to see you along with the other Plts."

"Sir, a response from the Lieutenant-Colonel. ‘Captain, not localised attack, repel at all costs but do not follow them back. Hold at trench, bravo at 7^th platoon. Contact as soon as possible. Out.' What do you want me to do now?" The radioman had reappeared in a position behind Scholfield, radiophone in hand. Scholfield looked around the trench and placed his radio earpiece back in his ear after he wrapped the cord around his ear a few times. 

 At that moment, the machine guns nested behind them blazed open, vaporising the rain into steam that rose off the barrels. This added to the general haze that the rain was causing in the moonless gloom. The riflemen rushed to the fire-step, amidst the screams of contact west, and waited for the enemy to come within KM-18 range, the machine guns still chattering behind them and the EM-5Ds lasers lancing through the air.

"Never mind, Chris, the war has come to us." He barked out a laugh, a throaty and pissed-off laugh. He climbed on top of the fire-step, and stood too, by the Colour Sergeant and pulled out his service pistol. The Colour Sergeant looked at him like he had grown an extra head. Scholfield tried to explain that he had a KM-35, but it was in the dugout, but he merely laughed again as the men on either side of them started firing.

THE FIREFIGHT AT THE 3^rd Company HQ and First platoon’s trench occurred the same way as it had at the 9^th, 7^th, 5^th and 3^rd platoons. They were all attacked by a massive assault that stopped and moved on when artillery was called for. It is still a mystery to the commanders, from the Lieutenant-Colonel to the Colour Sergeants of the units attacked; why'd they were attacking every other platoon? The major question was, how did they know? Was it just potluck or planned?

The Lieutenant-Colonel pondered on this problem. It was a long dark ponder in which the mental cogs whirred and slid towards a terrible suggestion. One the woman tried to put out of her mind. But oh, it felt good to be back in the field, flexing her brain.

"Flight Lieutenant, I need something." The Flight Lieutenant, Neil Campbell according to his flight jacket, in question looked up from the gleaming holographic map of the front, with replica firefights occurring along the length of the trench network, which updated as the radio operators' mk-9s sent in combat data.

"Of course, Colonel, what do you need?" He asked, his hand moving to his mk-6A5 radio pack that was balanced on the map side.

"I need to know what is on the other side of that line of sandbags, I need to know what the enemy positions look like, I need to know how many there are in those positions, and I need to know how they know our positions. What I need is a fly-by or a series of them. Make it so Neil." With that, the Flight Lieutenant nodded and left the map side, and left out a side door.

"Ma’am, another call from Captain Scholfield, enemy repelled, no wounded, only one death. He believes that first company is going to be the next target." A young female soldier had gracefully appeared, the light of the map, holding her radio phone in her hand, whilst clipping her blonde hair back under her beret.

"Major Reed confirms all-quiet, and the Royal Cypriots report they just had a full engagement. She wants to know whether she can allow some of her boys out into no-man's-land for a poke around, possibly three platoons' worth." She fiddled with the map and the current sitrep appeared on the map in glowing pictures and icons.

"Request denied, at least at the moment. Tell her to stand them by." I don't want to get in trouble with Macgregor already by losing riflemen pointlessly, she thought to herself, so she added. "Congratulate the Captain, and scold him for killing all of them, then contact the Royal Cypriots again, and find out whether the peculiar pattern was occurring there, too. Oh, and find me, Major Dent. I want a word with him now, please, and find out where Neil has got to. Thank you, Harriet. That is all.” She said, with well-drilled speed and clarity. Harriet nodded, her fingers flying across her data pad. She looked up when the Lieutenant-Colonel continued, "By the way, how do you just appear out of thin air? It is a most marvellous trait for a radio operator." The voice of the female officer sounded the very picture of a senior officer; curt, clipped and concise and slightly lofty, a complete contrast to her superiors. She was a woman of impeccable standards and class, snobbery not helped by the fact she was a Mixed Race South African. Despite the nearly 1000 years, and 1000 light-years, since the fall of apartheid, the South African cultures still were bitter about it. She had gained a large chip on her shoulder about her race, which had not helped in her court-martial.

She was not an officer born from the coddling of Macgregor, or even someone like Generals Ted Treskow or James Williamsons, like so many of the officers in the Corps. She had had, at least in Macgregor's estimation, the rather unfortunate experience of being commanded by then Major-General Nick Lawerson, back when he was the commander of the rapid corps 11^th CAA. Personally, Kerry liked General Lawerson's way of commanding, with very little in the way of personal connection with his troops, which she felt made it easier to make tough decisions. 

She was chafing a little under Colonel Alistair Macgregor, the former SF Colonel, who allegedly single-handedly defeated the entire revolution in the Kenyan System. Well, not quite single-handedly, he had his lapdog Regimental Sergeant Major Patrick Ironsides with him. He was at least loyal, they all were. Every man, woman, and bug-eyed-green alien who had ever served with him were loyal to him, and it annoyed her because he didn't seem like anything special when she spoke to him. She supposed she should be grateful for any command. By any right at all, she should still be in prison, rather than here, fighting again. She had heard about the formation of this corps, also from some of the more connected prisoners, whilst rotting in a jail cell on a Las Vegas colony.

 That he would select all his old favourites when he built it. Macgregor had done that. All the Warrant Officers, and most of the senior officers of the other two battalions, and the Solent Fusiliers regiment under Lieutenant-Colonel Beverly Fletcher, had all served with him previously. So, of course, she was deeply confused when an extremely space-lagged Macgregor and Bartlett rocked up one day, in front of her jail cell bars, holding a release order. It had a been a pleasant surprise to meet Richard Bartlett again, who had been a staff officer with her about 10 years earlier. But even he, an upper-class proper officer, was now Macgregor's best friend.

With 3rd battalion, Macgregor had merely selected Warrant Officer I Edward Rush and told her to get on with it, letting her choose her staff, the S-2, 3 and 4. Macgregor had even allowed her to choose which 2i/C she wanted from his list of names. Although, as she found out later, her choice, Major Lily Reed, was still an old acquaintance of Macgregor.

She had to admit, slightly grudgingly, that Major Reed was decently competent for an engineer, and although Edward Rush could be a miserable bastard, he was also exceedingly competent at his job. So, even if he wasn’t personally special, Macgregor had a good eye for talent. The LTC had, upon release, succeeded in digging up a few of her old staff; mostly ones that hadn’t ratted on her, and pulled them into this battalion, including her 2nd battalion S-3, Major Stephen Dent. This made her feel better.

She did not await a response to this order, as she continued the act of standing up out of her chair, as her BSM walked into the room, shaking his body like a dog, causing water to shed all over the dugout. 

"Still pissing down outside then, Mr Rush?" She said, looking up at him briefly before moving to the CIC map. He snorted, not having the energy to be sarcastic. Bad weather was one thing with which he couldn’t deal. It made his joints stiff as fuck. 

"There is something funny going on. The Royal Virginian Rifles have occupied for the last month this section of the network, along with the 12^th Indian heavy infantry. They had had no major contacts for six weeks, only skirmishes. Now, within twenty-four hours of the 4^th battalion, American Guards, and ourselves moving on station, we have had a full engagement of at least fifty tanks, plus infantry. Now I maybe getting paranoid and cynical in my old age, but that makes me suspect the enemy knows we are a brand-new unit. That they could relieve Stanley, if they push hard now." She had been moving the small holo-map frenetically as she spoke, the fire of information and intelligence burning through her veins. It felt good.

Rush brooded over the possibility but couldn’t see it. It was all just chance.

"Well, that is why you are the Colonel, ma’am." He said, recognising the fire in her eyes. He had seen it many times, in various commanders’ eyes, that rush of inspiration, that connection of dots. Sometimes it was easier to smile and wave. 

"Why thank you, Mr Rush." She said, as she spun data around on the CIC, the 3d representations helping her think. 

He couldn’t get his head around the idea. Honestly, the Argentinians most likely saw the troop movements. They had as many regular drone flights as the Commonwealth. Shrugging, he limped off in search of some tea and maybe a heater. This part of the line didn’t look like it was under attack anymore. 1^st company wasn't targeted like 3^rd company, anyway. So Rush relaxed, putting his feet up as he boiled the kettle for a cup of tea. 

Several feet above their heads, though deadened by the concrete encasement, was the unmistakable whump of a high explosive shell crashing into the soil behind the trench, swifty followed by several more.

Rush groaned, regretting his thought as soon as he had had it. No sleep tonight for him, and the very real possibility of combat. In the rooms next to the CIC, the enlisted personnel of the 1st platoon also groaned, pulling on their underbody armour combat shirts, armour, and boots. Before long, they were checking weapons. In the CIC, there was rushing around as the battalion staff assumed their battle positions.

"You might get that chance to redeem yourself already, Kerry." Said Rush, as they stepped out into the rain. 

"You know me disturbingly well already, Edward."

She took a moment, savouring the act of slapping the battery into her rifle, and checking the power, the first time she had performed the motion in anger for 4 years. Grateful for the rain, which masked her tears, she cleared her throat and pressed her fingers to her earpiece. Above her head, the first impacts of laser rounds hit the back of the trench.