Boundary - Low Orbital Warfare: REPORT 10

The Combat Engineering Corps of the United Nations Solar System Defense Force was the smallest, and most exclusive group of soldiers to ever grace Earth’s orbital sphere. Required to both engage in standard zero gravity warfare as well as engineering tasks (often at the same time), it is safe to say that the Combat Engineers of the S.S.D.F. are always from the extremes of personality.

Carefully selected from promising trainees, recruits are required to complete the Orbital Marine Operator Certification, the Navy Engineering School Curriculum, as well as receive a minimum trade degree in an Engineering Field; all at the same time and within nine months. Given these steep requirements, only around 5% of applicants pass, and those who do are quickly drafted by the multitude of task forces into their ranks.

But despite their reputation of pyromania and rampant destruction with their liberal use of high explosives and plasma cutters, a Combat Engineer’s actual skill set was better and more commonly applied in the construction and maintenance of orbital infrastructure. 

Deep space station deployment, disaster relief, and satellite maintenance were all usual tasks assigned to the thin ranks of the Combat Engineering Corps. 

And for Lieutenant Keys, doing something like this was something much more familiar and homely than blowing up pirate cutters. 

“Last bolt for sector B-1.” Lieutenant Keys murmurs to himself as he activates the plasma cutter, the tool slicing through the final structural pylon within the satellite. 

The panel releases in silence, and the Engineering Drone attached to its surface clears the plating with a blast of reaction fuel.

Internals exposed; the Lieutenant takes a deep breath as stares into the mess of wiring. “Fucking finally.”

There is no reply from the rest of the squad, the Lieutenant taking a moment to turn and visually acquire the rest of Marauder.

Holding station approximately fifty meters away from the Java Treaty Satellite the Rubicon was casting a full array of electronic countermeasures. The lethal shape, prowling for blood, idles against the curvature of the world beneath it as it jams all but a few lines of communication.

Below them: an ocean engulfed in sunlight, a cloud layer forming a tropical storm as it surges towards the far arm of South-East Asia. The reality of observation set aside as the Combat Engineer rips apart the machine’s internal structure.

“You are doing a good job!” Master Sergeant Ling announces through the communication channel as he gives a thumbs up, his bulky suit just barely visible at the edge of the Rubicon’s hull.

“Oh shut up.” The Lieutenant returns to his work. “If this thing blows I’m the only one getting canned.”

“Then try not to make it explode.” Corporal Mercier informs from cover.

Ignoring them the Lieutenant grabs a handhold, taking a glance at the internal diagram displayed on the helmet’s H.U.D. A bundle of wires brushed aside, the man reaches a suited arm into his tool kit, removing the remote camera from its nestled position.

Carefully inserting the mechanism into the interior of the machine, the surgery begins.

Feeding the visual out to both the Rubicon and the rest of his squad, a small tune echoes through the communication line as the Combat Engineer begins to hum to himself.

“Is he singing?” Corporal Mercier asks as she pulls the camera image to the top of her heads-up display.

“That is what Keys does to keep himself focused.” Master Sergeant Ling answers quietly. “It is weird.” 

“Marauder Two be advised you have a hot mic.” Admiral Tucker announces.

“Copy that sir.” Lieutenant Keys grunts as he finds the hardware block release lever, the thing embedded deep within the satellite. “It's not like your Combat Engineer’s trying to disarm an orbital bomb right now, I gotta have tune to work with.”

For a moment the Lieutenant blinks, adjusting the camera angle of the endoscope as he attempts to read the lettering next to the handle. Automatically detecting the written language, the suit’s software automatically translates the Arabic into English.

DISARM.

“This has got to be a trap.” Lieutenant Keys sighs. “Ugh they really didn’t want anyone working on this thing.”

“Marauder Two status report.” Admiral Tucker requests through the channel with a hint of concern.

“Don’t talk.” Lieutenant Keys bites. “I gotta focus real fucking hard.”

The specially designed Ordinance Disposal Suit was a different beast compared to the standard combat wear of the System Defense Force Marine Corps. Twelve centimeters of ceramic composite armor was sandwiched between gel-suspended kevlar, every possible square inch of the Combat Engineer encased in a bulky cocoon of near impenetrable medium.

Staring through the incredibly thick suit visor the man takes a deep glance into the inner workings of the satellite, hastily built wiring protruding into the open panel.

“Suit, open note.” The Engineer speaks the command, the internal systems automatically pulling up the installed word processing software. “Add: three wires marked Delta, Echo, and Foxtrot into Central System One. Central System One; update: combine wires alpha, bravo to wire alpha. Previous designation bravo, redesignated with false wire.”

His orders are processed, the already four-hundred-word satellite documentation ballooning as new information is added. Provided intelligence sufficient to a point, personal comments required for efficient work.

“Is this normal?” Corporal Mercier asks the Master Sergeant in the private channel.

“It is how Keys does his thing. He will get it done.” The man replies as he sighs. “哎呀... I have known Keys for four years now, would be great shame to see him die in awesome explosion.”

“You have known him for four years?”

“He is good friend. Cover my back in operations, very good at blowing things up.”

Admiral Tucker enters their private channel next, a small tone marking his arrival. “Keys just kicked me out.”

“He did?”

“Said he needs to focus.”

“That is what Keys does.” Ling repeats.

“Just like back on the Beijing when he was setting up that C4 cake right?” The Admiral reminisces. “Good times.”

“C4 cake?” Mercier turns to the Master Sergeant, keeping her antimaterial rifle in its floating position.

“It’s like a cake but made out of C4 explosive.” Admiral Tucker begins to explain, then stops himself. “Back then it was his birthday, so we’d promised him that the Beijing would serve a chocolate ice cream cake for midrats. Turns out we had to respond to a piracy situation that night and I guess he didn’t take it well.”

“So, he created his own cake?” Mercier follows. “Cuisine à la maison?”

”Home cooking taken to the next level Corporal.” The Admiral chuckles at the joke. “I forgot what he did with that…”

“He used it as a grenade.” Master Sergeant Ling murmurs. “It was bad.”

“How bad?” The woman asks with gruesome interest.

“Everyone loves a gross war story, right?” Admiral Tucker leans back in his chair. “But I don’t think we can talk about it. At least not until the statute of limitations runs out.”

“You are crazy.” Corporal Mercier blinks. “This is unlike any other marine squad I have encountered. What is the English word… étrange?”

There’s a light laugh as both Master Sergeant and Admiral both take in her words, the old man replying with a calm tone.

“Corporal we’re going against the fucking Java Treaty. Being normal just doesn’t cut it.” Admiral Tucker leans back, adjusting the chair straps. “These are the countries who kicked America’s ass during the War on Terror, Europe, and Russia’s during the Syrian Escalation, and fucked up the Chinese Navy in the South China Sea. They’re all together now, every damn one. And we’re going to wage an Orbital War against them with a soon to be four marines and nine naval personnel. Any normal Task Force would’ve just sued for peace but here we are.”

Ling continues off of him. “And Java Treaty is the biggest threat to space development. It is a good war to fight.”

“But do you know why they’re the biggest threat Master Sergeant?” Admiral Tucker asks offhandedly.

The silence permeates, forgotten knowledge leaving minds. 

“You have got to be joking.” The Admiral sighs. “You people ever heard of something called the news?”

The pair remain silent, and Admiral Tucker takes a deep breath before beginning his rant. “Listen, the United Nations that I grew up with back in the 2030s is a fantasy. Today, the organization is just the four superpowers cementing each other’s cooperative power, screwing everyone else in the process.” He takes a pause as the bridge staff of the Rubicon stops their idle chatter, now listening into the Admiral’s one-sided conversation. “Think about it; which corporations get the first bids from the helium tankers? How many of them are either American, Chinese, European, or Russian?”

“All of them?” Mercier chances.

“We’ve centralized global power, no pun intended, into four states and left everyone else in the dirt.” Admiral Tucker smiles. “And to be fair, it’s not like the rest of the world can sustain anything close to what the Gang of Four have. Java Treaty nations only signed together because it’s their last chance at survival; the Middle East is barely keeping itself together, India has managed to beat a revolution just last week I think, and South Asia’s still seeing fallout from the S.C.S. Alliance’s breakup. If you’re not in the boat you’re drowning. And when you’re desperate you’ll do anything to get a rope, even sinking the ship.”

Captain Perez speaks up. “Is there anything we can do?”

“That’s the fucked up part.” The Admiral stares. “With our relations and their pride, the only thing the U.N. can do is just watch.”

“No interventions?” 

The old man scoffs. “Nothing official, you think India would let us get a good look at what they’re doing in Pakistan, or Iran and their old missile launch sites? Plus, the only real power the U.N. can exercise on-planet is done only by request.”

Master Sergeant Ling speaks up. “Is that why most of the Peacekeeper Corps. are in South America?”

Admiral Tucker nods. “I try not to follow what my compatriots are up to… but you’re right. South America’s the U.N.’s new Africa. All that lithium extraction makes for a lot of instability and gives us lots of opportunity to flex some political clout. If there’s a genocide or anything funny going on, Peacekeepers are probably going to be strong arming the administration out.”

Captain Perez narrows her eyes at the choice of wording, speaking up from her commanding position at the center of the bridge. “Strong arming.”

Taking a nervous grin, the Admiral eases back. “For the official record I have no connection to whatever the United Nations Peacekeeping Corps are doing down in South America, all I know is that sometimes there’s disagreements between Presidents and International Arbiters, and that sometimes a powerful nation gets involved and provides a ‘go order’ to ‘intervene.’ Most of the time it’s for the better, other times the blue hats really need to get down and dirty. 

“Actually Mercier I think you were on track for a posting in the Corps before the System Defense Force headhunted you.” 

The Corporal taps her suit’s helmet before replying. “A decision that in retrospect, a poor one. Though, if given a choice, I would do it again.”

“Why’s th…”

The channel chirps, Marauder Two entering unceremoniously as he begins with a hurried tone. “Sorry to interrupt your fun little rant, but you guys might want to see this.”

Projecting his camera feed, the entire squad observes the satellite’s interior. In less than five minutes the man had managed to gut the entire thing down to its core, panels ripped open and left floating, welded bolts suspended in. Within the mess of wiring laid racks of suspended star shaped metal bolts; stacked end to end across the circular frame.

“Be glad you’re not in my position.” Marauder Two slyly comments. “This is all covering a four-centimeter layer of C-6 high explosive.”

“Did you disarm it?” Marauder Actual asks.

“What sort of Combat Engineer do you think I am?” The man answers as he cracks his neck within the suit’s helmet space. “The internal hardware’s been disconnected from external input via soft-line and dish receiver. Funny thing: the design of the satellite is mostly reliant on its hardware routed through a capacitor monitor attached to the main receiver dish. So, if the right signal comes through the hardware actually detects the input, not a software. Though for our purposes since we wanted the software to be rewritten I kept aux power online; not easy though considering I had to trial and error my way past main power, which now that you mention I could probably disconnect the solar cells given that we’re only going to run software and not…”

“English.” Admiral Tucker orders.

“The bomb part of this satellite can’t be activated anymore; we can now modify the software.” Marauder Two pauses as he brushes aside a loose bolt. “No need to thank me, wasn’t too hard.”

“Good.” The Admiral glances as an incoming ground call approaches, the individual on hold pining again in impatience. “I’ll patch our software expert in, standby.”

For a moment the call drops, transferred over to another wire. From planet side transmitter directly beamed to the corvette and then to the Marine, the voice on the other side is surprisingly clean. Male with an almost artificial American accent, the unseen figure at the other end of the call begins with a joyful tone. “Lieutenant Keys, can you hear me?”

“Yes sir I can.” The Engineer replies promptly.

“That’s wonderful, my name is T.A.C. and it’s a pleasure to finally talk to you.” The voice replies. “Admiral Tucker has told me all about you, and of course the satellite we’re about to demolish.”

“Your name is T.A.C.?” Keys blinks at the unusual designation.

“I didn’t choose my name, I got it assigned to me when I was born.” T.A.C. sighs. “But names aside, I believe that you’re in the middle of disarming a bomb? I’m not one to go off topic but I believe that might take priority.”

“Right…” Lieutenant Keys blinks.

“Ok so I got two ways of doing this. One we hardware isolate the thing, which requires me to access a receiver device, closest one would either be a diagnostic tablet or your suit. Second is…”

“I already did a hardware isolation.” The Lieutenant interrupts. “They wired this thing up like a car bomb, if we tried anything funny with the software, I was pretty sure it would trigger a hardware failsafe.” 

“Good call then.” T.A.C. notes. “Well since you’ve already taken initiative on this, the next step would be to find a transmission point software staging.”

“Which I assume is my suit?” Lieutenant Keys asks.

“You’re a fast learner.” T.A.C. snaps. “What I’ll need you to do right now is accept my connection request. I’ll take of the rest.”

A prompt comes up in red, an anonymous user requesting root access into Key’s combat space suit.

The man pauses. “Just to make it clear; you want me to connect my suit directly into that thing? And give you root access into my suit.”   

“It’s the fastest way to do it.” The voice answers.

Taking a breath, Keys begins. “All due respect sir, but I’m concerned that it might send a decompress order right into my systems.” The Lieutenant objects. “You know what that means right?”

T.A.C. laughs. “Listen pal the only thing who would be able to do such a thing is me with root access. So, you either consent to this or I’m gonna have to break into the Rubicon and just try this via local wireless and trust me, you don’t want me to do a hack on wireless.”

“Why’s that?”

“Many reasons which include network lag and interference; all of them very dangerous given the fact that what you have there is connected to approximately one metric ton of plastic explosive.”

There’s a long bout of silence before the Lieutenant replies.

“Fair.”

Sighing the man reaches into his toolbox, removing the cable from its mounted coil at the maneuvering unit’s side. Connecting it to the suit’s diagnostic port and reaching into the satellite’s mainframe, the Combat Engineer finds the input socket.

Connecting in, the silence permeates.

“Are you sure this will work?” Lieutenant Keys asks as he accepts the connection request.

“Standard issue U.N.S.S.D.F. suit software is written in Open C, which I’m gambling is the same as the satellite’s guidance systems. Afterall, almost every modern algorithm is written in the damn language.”

“Gambling?!”

“Well it’s a gamble. C-Standard is pretty… I was wrong.” T.A.C. stops. “Oh no.”

“What?!”

“Don’t panic.” The voice replies as Key’s heads up display begins to fail, software blocks crashing one by one. “Stay calm and don’t unplug me. I have a backup of your suit software so I can reinstall everything once I’m done. All I need is just more processing power and storage, hang on.”

The pulsing of life support fails, the comforting hum of air stopped with a blank note.

The disembodied voice echoes in the helmet. “Don’t worry Lieutenant you’ve got enough oxygen for three minutes. I’ll be quick.”

“W-wait!” The man yells to the black.

There’s a few seconds of silence before T.A.C. returns. “Alright I’m done. Had to write a custom program from scratch so it took me a bit of time. You can disconnect safely now.”

“What the fuck?!” Lieutenant Keys bites as his heads-up display returns, life support returning along with it. “If you’re going to tamper…”

“Marauder Two status report.” Admiral Tucker hurriedly enters their channel. “We lost contact for a minute there.”

“I’m fine.” Keys responds. “Your friend just… fuck what did you do again?!”

“I needed a lot of space for software staging. Had to rewrite the entire flight control software of the satellite from scratch.” T.A.C. speaks up. “I didn’t have time to walk you through it, sorry.”

“From scratch…” Taking a deep breath, the Lieutenant reorients. “I’m good right?” 

“Yes, you are good Lieutenant.” The voice nods. “If that is all…”

Interrupting, the Admiral exhales. “You’re a cold-hearted bastard T.A.C.”

“Well, I’ve never been called that.” T.A.C.’s voice falters with a hint of embarrassment. “Anyway, I’m sending the authorization codes and the guidance system specs to both you Admiral Tucker, and the Rubicon’s Engineering Officer. Lieutenant Keys you’re also attached to that message so once you get back to the vessel please do read it.”

“Y-yeah…” The Lieutenant answers.

There’s a short pause. “Perfect, if that’s it I’ll get going. And if you need any help, just give me a call, twenty-four hours, seven days a week. I never am off the clock.”

The call drops unceremoniously, and the pair is left with silence.

“So, what you’d think?” Admiral Tucker asks.

“Of T.A.C.?” Keys pauses. “He wrote an entire satellite guidance system in ten seconds, right?”

“He did.”

“Wait wait.” Lieutenant Keys attempts to slow down the pace of conversation in confusion. “That’s… impossible.”

“And?”

“There’s no way a person could do that.” The Lieutenant notes. “How could he…”

“I’ll discuss this with you in person.” Admiral Tucker stops the man. “For now, just reassemble the satellite.”

There’s a long pause before the Admiral speaks up. “You did keep all the parts, right?”

The Combat Engineer stops as a loose bolt carefully passes by his field of view; its designation completely lost to memory. “Fuck me.”