A World Gone Awry

"Mechanic, mechanic! Oh, Uncle Carl, it's you? Go, turn on all the sentry guns! What, only half of them work? Then turn on every one that does, and get them all in front of the walls! Sergeant Ruel, you and your men help!"

The elderly quartermaster mechanic Carl and his assistant Ruel went off in confusion.

"Ina, Ina, why are you making them climb to the very top? And standing so close together! Are you lining up for a firing squad? Crossfire! Ever heard of a crossfire formation? Sergeant Mark, take your men to the outer wall and bring all your machine guns! And Sergeant Baka, get outside the city! Yes, dig a trench outside the walls! I don't care what you think, I care what I think! If you won't go, I'll go myself!"

Yu Lian was fuming. Faced with a world where the technology tree had gone so badly awry, he could barely find the words. He'd complained about it plenty in his previous life, but back then, he'd just been a lone-roaming adventurer and hadn't had much personal experience. Besides, his active years had been decades later. By then, the famous generals who had emerged in that great era had reformed and refined various tactics, and things had become a lot more sensible.

But it was still the year 829, and the great era was still several years away.

The bear-man sergeant, who was brutal toward enemies but easygoing with his own people, offered no objections. He took a few strong soldiers and headed out with their tools. Their tactics might have been primitive, but their portable engineering equipment looked and worked like something out of science fiction, so they could dig a trench in no time.

"Ina, get over to the wide-angle sentry gun. I don't need you directing the troops on the walls!"

"What about the monitors? The communicators? Are they still not working?"

"Uh, they've been acting up a bit since yesterday. I..."

"Twelve-Star Communications, right? That lousy company can barely make a personal terminal without it exploding, and they still get military contracts? Tch. Hope they go bankrupt and the whole family ends up on the roof! What are you standing there for? Hurry up and fix it! If you can't, I'll hang you from the flagpole and make you generate electricity!"

"...Y-yes, understood!" The communications soldier was terrified. He ran off, drenched in sweat.

"Yoyo, Yoyo!"

"Ah—yes, Warrant Officer! I mean, sir! I'm here!"

"Where's my steak?!"

The sergeant produced a frying pan from behind his back as if by magic, then hurried over with an eager grin.

Yu Lian saw that he was still wearing an apron. Without even caring that it was hot, he snatched the meat away and barked, "Get lost! Put on your armor, then get back here and help!"

Everyone could feel Yu Lian's agitation. Everyone also knew that he was a Moonian, an "elite among elites" with a bright future; most of them had probably also heard that he was psionically sensitive. So no matter how much they cursed him in their hearts, none of them dared disobey his orders. Hadn't even Lieutenant Mondsen, the outpost's actual commander, said nothing? Sure, he wore a helpless smile that seemed to say, "See? Of course he's a Moonian. What Moonian wouldn't throw his weight around and brazenly seize authority from his nominal superior?" But at least he was smiling.

In fact, the lieutenant had been about to say something. He saw Yu Lian tear off three huge bites of meat and shove them into his mouth. The steak was no more than medium rare, with plenty of blood still running through it. At a glance, Yu Lian looked like some savage man-eater who drank blood with his mushrooms. The lieutenant shuddered, then stepped closer and spoke in a low voice. "Listen, Warrant Officer, don't you think you're being a little... uh... well..."

Yu Lian swallowed the half-raw steak in a few huge bites—he really was hungry—then said, "Overreacting? Paranoid? Suffering from delusions of persecution?"

"Uh, that's not what I meant. Of course, it's good to get everyone on edge. We can treat it as a combat-readiness drill."

"Sir, I've already said it. This looks exactly like a test of biological weapons! Even if it's just my paranoia, we can't afford to take that risk!"

"But..."

"Just pretend I've called everyone up for an emergency combat drill! Oh, right, let's take the armored vehicles out of the garage!"

"Uh, the power packs..."

"We have batteries for them by the gates, don't we? I need those two Vulcan guns on the roof! Baka and the others digging a trench outside the gates are in the most danger. We might need the armored vehicles to cover them!"

The lieutenant stammered for a moment, then finally nodded gravely. He didn't feel any anxiety about being sidelined. For a "Moonian," this little outpost was just a stepping-stone. Once Yu Lian left, he'd be in charge again.

What he was curious about was Yu Lian's defensive layout. Why position troops on both walls? Why have them dig a trench by the gate? Why not line everyone up on the highest, inner wall, where they could shoot farther?

And why had all the machine guns been placed at the ends of the walls and trench? Wouldn't they do more damage in the middle?

Outpost 12 had been built against a mountainside, its rear backed by a solid rock face. In front of it lay a gentle slope that led straight down to a vast wasteland. Two high walls stood at the front, both made of reinforced concrete. The outer wall was five meters tall, the inner one eight. Between them were the garage, guardroom, and a training ground the size of a basketball court. Behind the inner wall stood the main outpost buildings, including the barracks, warehouse, infirmary, radar room, and command room.

A total of six four-barreled dual-purpose anti-aircraft guns were mounted on the two walls. Of course, only half of them—three—were working now.

They said the outpost had once had a Typhoon missile vehicle as well, but the governor's office had removed it a few years ago over the cost. Their reasoning had been perfectly sound: "What are you going to shoot missiles at? The native Sandfolk? Can they fly?"

The outpost had also once had a fire-support squad equipped with two phase-particle cannons, but the governor's office had taken those away over the cost, too. Their reasoning had been even simpler: "Energy weapons are advanced equipment that require highly educated operators. Giving them to you would be a waste! Besides, what are you going to shoot with them? The native Sandfolk again? Their houses are made of mud!"

Even so, the outpost's terrain and defenses made it a truly impregnable fortress... by medieval standards.

If the attackers had heavy weapons—or even firepower on par with theirs—they wouldn't even be able to run. Yu Lian thought.

Still, as far as the "history" he knew went, the bugs (for now) had no heavy weapons. He hoped the butterfly effect of his own reincarnation wouldn't flap away something this important.

"So, what's the point of arranging things this way?" The lieutenant finally couldn't hold back his curiosity.

"This is the setup that lets us bring the most firepower to bear. If you've studied middle-school geometry, just think it over and you'll get it."

The lieutenant, a dunce who'd slept through grade school and middle school and barely scraped his way into a lousy sports academy, felt as if he'd taken ten thousand points of damage. He sulked in silence. But soon he decided that he ought to say something to a subordinate half his age. He nodded stiffly and said, "Yes, makes sense! I've thought it over, and this setup really does leave no gaps. All right, Warrant Officer, let's call it a new exercise in positional warfare! You have my support."

I wish this were just an exercise, too! Yu Lian gave him a helpless look.

The two great powers stood in a tense but unbroken standoff. The discovery of the Star Gates and the development of the New Galaxy—that is, the Andromeda Galaxy—seemed to have ushered the entire galaxy into its greatest age of expansion.

But no one knew whether the new warships and weapons, the vast armies, or the psionic warriors who roamed the stars were truly suited to total war. Even space battles between fleets had been dragged down the crooked path of bow-on engagements, surprise attacks, dogfights, and boarding actions. What, then, would ground combat look like?

The two sides would wear powered armor, form skirmish lines around their heavy weapons, and advance on each other while firing. Then, when they got close, they'd rush in with machetes and start brawling.

Sure, sure! Before he'd crossed over, whether it was Star-something Wars or Space-something-or-other, even those powerful silicon-based intelligent mechanical life forms from beyond the stars all fought like this. Maybe that was just what the space age was supposed to look like, for the sake of everyone's aesthetic sensibilities!

And so, crossfire and echelon formations—tactics that had already been going out of fashion in the twentieth century—were still considered novel in the space age...

In theory, the crossfire of two heavy machine guns could lock down a five-hundred-meter front. And he didn't just have heavy machine guns; he also had three autocannons capable of blasting armored vehicles, plus overlapping fields of fire arranged to take advantage of the terrain. In theory, if the enemy were still coming in the form of zerglings, hydralisks, and zealots, Yu Lian was confident he could hold the outpost—even until the fighting around Tulong Harbor was over.

But even that idea was already outdated.

Although every known civilization in the universe had botched its technology tree and military doctrine, at least they understood that a battlefield was never two-dimensional. Many civilizations had learned to use the sky as far back as their home worlds' days of cold steel.

The bugs, of course, knew how to do that too!

"Warrant Officer! There's a target approaching in the sky!" Ina's voice came from the highest sentry tower.

Yu Lian looked at the distant sky, but under the blazing sun he couldn't make anything out. Across the barren wilderness, he could just barely see dust on the horizon. Even so, he trusted Ina's judgment without hesitation. Compared with the radar and sensors made by Twelve-Star Communications, the eyesight of a future top sniper in the galaxy was far more reliable—even if she hadn't awakened yet, or even realized she was psionically sensitive.

"Prepare for battle!" Yu Lian naturally cut across the lieutenant and issued orders to everyone. Then he added, "Get me a suit of armor."

By "armor," he meant powered exoskeletons. Yu Lian remembered there were seven or eight spares in the armory. If their batteries had been sold off too, he'd shoot the lieutenant's damn head off right then and report that a husky had dragged him away.

Fortunately, the lieutenant said the spare powered armor was still in good condition. But he added, "The thing is, Warrant Officer, your spine's broken. The only reason you can move at all is that tube of nanobugs. You can't operate an exoskeleton."

"...Then bring all of them out for everyone else to use! Whoever can put one on, put one on!"

"Well, the powered armor belongs to the governor's office. Technically, we're not authorized to deploy it. And most of the people here don't have licenses. If they damage it, the incident report will be a nightmare!"

Yu Lian casually snatched a rifle from a passing soldier and angrily slapped a magazine into it.

Lieutenant Mondsen jumped. He put on a nervous smile. "I'm going right now! Right away!" Then he fled.

Yu Lian suppressed the urge to shoot him in the ass. Then he grabbed the private who'd just been robbed of his rifle and was staring blankly at him. "Come up on the wall with me. You're my loader!"