First Contact

Chapter 808: Ultimis Diebus Hominum

I'd rather be sent to the front naked than spend a single day commanding garrison troops. - Unknown, Resource Wars, Terra-Sol

The enlisted did what? - Unknown

Vuxten looked up when there was a knock at the door.

"Enter," he called out.

The door opened and Major Nails clattered in. The black mantid nodded.

"Major," the mantid said.

"Major," Vuxten said. He waved at the chairs at the side of the room. "Have a seat, Major. What's this about?"

Major Nails moved over and lifted the armrest, then sat on the bench, pulling the armrest back and hitting a button so the back rest swung into position.

Vuxten wondered what the 428th Maintenance Battalion S4 wanted.

"Ah, that's the ticket there," Major Nails said. He combed his antenna for a moment.

"Stimbrew?" Vuxten asked.

"No, thank you, though," Nails replied.

"What can I do for you, Major?" Vuxten asked.

"Well, the Colonel asked me to come down and talk to you," Nails answered.

"Did I mess up?" Vuxten asked, feeling his stomach churn.

The Mantid lifted a bladearm and tilted it side to side. "Yes and no," he said. He looked around. "You haven't put your awards up or decorated your office."

Vuxten frowned and tapped the holoframe for 2.5D pictures. "I have pictures of my family."

Nails gave a grinding chuckle. "You are indeed a war fighter, Major."

Vuxten frowned. "I don't get it."

Nails nodded. "No, you wouldn't," he said. He sighed. "Anyway, the Colonel wanted me to come down and talk to you about the mistakes you're making."

"What mistakes?" Vuxten could hear the defensiveness in his voice but couldn't help it.

"Do you know what micromanaging is?" Nails asked.

Vuxten nodded. "Yeah. Going down and looking over their shoulders instead of trusting them to do their jobs."

Nails nodded. "At the Company level, yes," he said. He pointed at the holo-emitter in the ceiling. "Turn that on. The Colonel wants you to have a little training."

Vuxten nodded, turning it on. He respected Major Nails the Arty Strike, who had been in the military nearly sixteen years.

"OK, bring up my request for the transmission for the medic wagons to have variants loaded into the nanoforges and creation engines so we could do gear ratio to torque with the new armor kits," Nails said.

Vuxten nodded, bringing it up.

It was a long email describing which transmission variants that Nails wanted to test.

"Now, see how I stated it was the request by Bravo Company, and I was forwarding the S4's request?" Nails asked.

"Yes," Vuxten said.

"OK, now, let's look at your reply," the Major said.

Vuxten brought it up. He felt pretty proud of it. He'd included the projected torque outputs based on the information he'd looked up from the Materials Testing Labs as well as added a couple of other promising transmission variants. He'd even listed which mass tanks, nano-forges and creation engines to use for what.

"See all that?" Nails said.

Vuxten nodded.

"OK, here's my reply to Chief Bast.Nek," Nails said. He tapped his datalink.

The email appeared next to Vuxten's long, multipage with embedded images email.

Knock yourself out. Br S4's fine with it. -Nails

Vuxten frowned.

"You didn't send up any of my recommendations?" Vuxten asked.

"No," Nails said. "I put it in a file next to Chief Bast.Nek's request. Here's his request."

The email appeared.

Vuxten noted it had all the data he'd added to his own email, as well as pictures of the condition of current transmissions and test projections based on the failure rate.

"While I appreciate your data and your enthusiasm for armored medical transport ground effect vehicles, you'll note that the Chief had already done all that work," Nails said. "How long did it take you to put what you put in the email?"

Vuxten thought. "Um, two days."

Nails nodded. "The Chief spent about a week sending his men out to get the data he needed," the mantid said. He paused and combed his antenna. "Teaching his men where to get the data he wanted."

Vuxten nodded. "Sounds like good training."

Nails chuckled. "Why did you do it?"

Vuxten straightened up slightly. "So that I was sure that the job was done completely and all angles were examined."

Nails gave the equivalent of a smile. "That's good, Major. Do you know what you did wrong?"

Vuxten shook his head.

"If you were that concerned, you should have checked the email chain. The Chief's email was at the bottom. You just read mine and didn't read the Chief's, or you would have seen it had been done. If you wanted it done, you should have put it in a request for clarification or justification," Nails said. "Now, do you remember this email?"

It popped up. It was from 428 Maintenance, Charlie Company.

REQUEST FOR ALTERNATE LIQUID REFRESHMENT DURING LOW IMPACT DUTY PERIODS

Vuxten nodded. "From when I first started. I approved it."

"How about this one?" Nails asked.

It was an email requesting that template ranges between two types of templates get approved.

"They wanted to print out a couple of tank running gears and some other stuff for several tanks that had badly wet-printed running gear," Vuxten said. "I approved that."

Nails chuckled. "OK, I'm going to give you some advice."

Vuxten perked up. "OK."

"Any time it's vague, you ask for details. Do you know what happened to the first one?" Nails asked.

Vuxten shook his head.

"Well, Major, what you authorized was six kegs of We Made It dark bitter narcobrew. Bravo Company got shit-faced and played destruction derby with a couple armored vehicles. I had to go out and supervise them, in the middle of the night, while they repaired them," Nails laughed. "Your green mantid assistant was put out with me for jimmying the template counts."

Vuxten thought for a second then remembered it.

"I didn't put the punishments in writing. I could have. But then you would have been being asked why you authorized six kegs of narcobrew to be printed off in the motorpool POL nanoforge," Nails said. "I figured you didn't want that kind of headache."

Vuxten nodded. "Thank you."

"The Colonel thought it was hilarious," he added. "Now, the second one, that is waaaay too vague. They claimed it was tank running gears, but let me show you something."

Nails brought up the template listings. There was tank running gear for the first set of numbers and the last.

"Now, there's thirty different templates between those two Doe-tick's (DODTIC - Department of Defense Template Identification Code), and for the most part they're tank running gears, right?" Nails asked.

Vuxten nodded.

"Except," Nails said. He tapped one of the tank tread replacement template stacks and scrolled down. He then opened a request bar and typed in a sixteen digit alphanumeric code that wasn't listed but Vuxten noticed fit in between a rubber road pad for medium weight battle tanks and a debris detection laser emitter. It sat there for a second while Nails typed in the authorization code that had been automatically appended to Vuxten's approval memo.

Suddenly a template set popped up.

SPECIAL OPERATIONS INDIGENOUS PERSONNEL TRADE SUPPLY PACKAGES (TYPE A1-H7) popped up.

Bars of precious metals, knives, beads, jewelry.

Nails repeated it with another unlisted template between two types of running gear parts.

The next one was SPECIAL OPERATIONS DISCREET MICRO NANOFORGE (ONE EACH)

Vuxten groaned and put his head in his hands.

"So, they printed off a cracked nanoforge that is designed to not microstamp items or report printing, can be connected to any mass tank or the built in grinder being used, then they printed off at least two hundred black market kits," Major Nails said. "Luckily, I caught it before more than sixty of the kits made it onto the black market."

Vuxten looked up. "I can't believe I fell for that."

"Well, it's buried in there to avoid easy discovery," Nails said. He chuckled. "The problem is, our problem children know the template numbers for the stuff that command figures nobody would ever know without being told the numbers," he gave another rueful chuckle. "Doesn't matter if the DODTIC shift happens, they seem to know the new numbers before we even get the new DODTIC inventory listing sheets."

Nails leaned back. "They try it with every new or temporary Brigade S4 because the chance that you'll miss it and approve it outweighs the fact that I and now you, know what they were actually after. See, they actually did need running gear parts in that template spread."

"It's just what they really want is hidden. Even if I looked, I wouldn't have seen it," Vuxten groaned.

Nails nodded. "Exactly. Always be suspicious of anything too vague."

"But don't micromanage," Vuxten said.

Nails nodded again. "Right again, Major. You have subordinates. Me, the other Battalion S4 Officers, the Company level S4s, and your six man staff, which, I might add, have been busy playing eVR games in the Day Room and Rec Room because you don't task them with anything."

"I'm... I'm just used..." Vuxten started.

"You're used to combat arms. War fighting positions. The Telkan Marine Corps is too young to really recognize the problems an institution as old as the Confederate Armed Services know is just part and parcel to putting innovative, motivated, and aggressive people in charge of random items capable of havoc," Nails said. He gave the equivalent of a smile. "The Telkan Marine Corps doesn't have hidden nanoforge and creation engine templates, your people haven't figured out some stuff that we know causes trouble."

"Like what?" Vuxten asked.

Major Nails put up another email where someone was requesting an increase in the solvent as well as a solvent reclamation system.

"Know what that is?" Nails asked.

Vuxten nodded. "It's used by motorpools to reduce chemical waste by breaking down or reclaiming dirty solvents."

Nails nodded. "Yes. Now, for the ten credit question: do you know what they want it for?"

Vuxten squinted his eyes and frowned at the template request. It suddenly dawned on him. "It's a distillery. The solvent is alcohol based."

"Yup. They ran off a couple hundred gallons of hooch and funneled it straight to the black market," Nails said.

"And we don't bust them?" Vuxten asked.

Nails shrugged. "Eh. Not officially. I don't want it going up to Regiment or Division that you authorized this stuff and it was used improperly. Some officers might think it was an 'accident' and you're getting kickbacks from the guys running it."

"Oh," Vuxten said.

"Plus, I heard that you served under General Tik-Tak," Nails said.

Vuxten frowned at the subject change. "I did. Second Telkan War."

"Ol' Tik-Tak was the man when it came to black and gray markets," Nails said. "Man had his fingers in everything. From joyboys and coingirls to hootch and pit fights and gambling."

Vuxten blinked. "Really?"

Nails nodded. "Oh, yeah. Not a single credit chit went by without his fingers polishing it. Man had a black market organization like none of us had ever seen," Nails laughed. "Hell, he sold black market civilian defense grade warmeks to a Lanaktallan gangster."

"I can't picture that," Vuxten said. He'd met the general on a few occasions and couldn't imagine the officer getting up to illegal activities.

"Do you know why he ran the black market personally? Dedicated a staff and even military intelligence and CID assets to it?" Nails asked.

"Uh, money?" Vuxten guessed.

Nails shook his head. "Nope."

"He was some kind of Terran gangster?" Vuxten tried again.

"Not even close."

"Blackmail?" Vuxten threw up his hands.

"Buzz. Nope," Nails said. He shook his head. "Ol' Tik-Tak ran the black market for one reason and one reason only."

"What?" Vuxten asked.

"So he could control it," Nails said. "Joyboys and coingirls had frequent medical checks. None of the hootch made you go blind, the drugs weren't cut with powdered solvent, the gambling wasn't too crooked. He knew that the best fighting soldiers aren't happy with a few eVR games and a shiny action figure, they want stuff that makes them feel something outside of combat."

The black mantid leaned back again. "So Tik-Tak controlled the black market. Which, counter-intuitively, made his black market the safest one out there, prevented local indigenous gangsters from muscling in on his territory, and kept our people out of trouble with local law enforcement."

"So why don't you bust the guys snatching templates?" Vuxten asked.

"Because it's garrison and troops get up to stupid shit in garrison. Every MP on base knows that there's a brothel and a gambling hall hidden in conexes somewhere out in the yard where the empty conexes get stacked. There's a hootch den out in the vehicle reclamation yard somewhere and every MP knows it, but if you don't give the men a way to bleed off stress they'll explode," Nails shrugged. "Now, since you served under Tik-Tak, if it goes on the official record that you got suckered, there will be some officers who will wonder if you picked up some habits from him."

"Oh."

"But, you run into another problem. Captain WarkVwark is in your team, and he's well known for scanning local booze and then running off counterfeits from the nanoforges to sell back to the civvies. That means you have to kind of keep one eye on him," Nails said. "But, when its four weeks into an offensive, the man can find you twenty tons of reactive mass in a field full of empty mass tanks."

"But in the mean time, he'll be setting himself up a counterfeit ring," Vuxten guessed.

"Bingo," Nails said.

"The trick is to micromanage some things, just stamp 'Whatever, stop bothering me' on some others, and keep track of what the people with the template access and nanoforge overrides are doing," Vuxten guessed.

"Exactly," Nails said. He stood up. "Nice meeting you, Major."

"You too, Major," Vuxten said. He stood up and shook the black mantid's hand.

"Shoot me an email if you think someone's trying to scam you or you don't know how to handle something," Nails said. He laughed. "I was one of Tik-Tak's unregistered mass accountability officers for five years. I know all the template scams."

"Thanks," Vuxten said.

"No charge, Major," the black mantid looked at the walls. "For Daxin's sake, Major, put up some decorations. Award letters, Two-Five-Dee pics of you and your buddies, shadow boxes, anything. Your office depresses me."

Vuxten watched as the black mantid left, then went through his emails.

He spotted two that were vague and looked deeper, finding out that both of the requests would give access to black market hot ticket items. He went to hit "denied" on it and add a nasty note to not try to sucker him.

Halfway through the polite but nasty email about how he wasn't a complete wet behind the ears butterbar he stopped.

The person requesting it had nearly two hundred years in service and had been in the Telkan Marine Corps since its inception. With his relative time he had nearly twenty-two years in the Corps.

A being like that wasn't going to throw away his career easily.

Vuxten deleted the email and sent another one.

"Approved. Meet me in my office at 1900 hours for verbal briefings on status of requested template usage," he put.

After all, it was just a template that would run off two hundred 2.5D magazines of various species in the nude and suggestive poses. The other one was just a template that would print out a couple hundred units of six different non-species specific flavor additives that worked in the modern ration packs that were normally only available for hosting dinners for local authorities at semi-official functions.

It wouldn't hurt anything and a couple of shovels full of dirt from the ecological recovery yard would replace the mass.

Better to control it than have people go blind from bad hootch.