"The more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war."
—old military proverb
The Freehold Military Forces Noncommissioned Officer Leadership School was known informally as "Tac Tech." Kendra had been surprised to find technical mathematics a prerequisite. She heard talk of "Tactical Calculus" around her unit and it had taken a while to realize it was an actual subject. Not only that, but it was heavily stressed for the entire four weeks of the course.
She caught a commercial flight on a ballistic shuttle. It was quick, jolting from high gees to emgee to maneuvers and landing. She was picked up by the base taxi and taken to billeting. This time, she had an NCO's room to herself, with standard hotel housekeeping service. She handed over the chip with her orders and her military credcard and checked in.
She arrived at class and was grateful to find coffee. Not instant, either. That boded well. Her class had barely ten students and they exchanged assessing looks. There was curiosity about her UN medal and questions for the lone soldier from Special Warfare, who looked far too meek to be a professional killer.
Seconds later, their instructor arrived.
"Communications is the key to modern warfare," Senior Sergeant Instructor Hugh Oleg announced as he strode into the room. "When I say, 'Room, ten shut!' you all know what I mean. As you were," he said, releasing them from their instantaneous reactive brace. They resumed their seats.
"You'd probably understand it delivered in any language in this environment. If, however, I'd used, say, Russian to order everyone to stand on one foot, it's doubtful you'd understand it in this context."
He handed out three cards. Kendra got the second one. "Turn around and face the back wall," he ordered them. After they did, he said, "Mr. Langston, please stand at the board. You will be advised to draw the images the other students are holding. They will not be able to see your work for feedback. You may not speak. Ms Anderson, please begin."
Corporal Jenny Anderson hesitated only a moment then said, "This image is an equilateral right triangle, with sides at right and below as I look at them. The sides are approximately twelve centimeters long by estimation." Langston easily drew what she described.
It seemed simple enough to Kendra. Oleg was not satisfied. "What about this break in the line?" he asked her.
"I thought that was just a smudge. Sorry, sir."
" 'Sorry' won't save lives. Every detail is important. Mr. Dubois, you're next."
Dubois began, "Langston, the image in front of me is a square constructed of translucent panels. We are going to rearrange them to form the shape of a capital T, sans serif," he said. There were a couple of snickers at the detail. "Place the red triangle at upper right. Immediately to its right, place the yellow triangle, below the corner and with the hypotenuses facing." There were giggles and chuckles at this point, because the instructions were not clear. "To the left place the blue rectangle, horizontal and aligned with the upper edge . . ." He went on and the laughs turned into hysterical guffaws.
After several segs, Oleg halted the proceedings. "Ms Pacelli, let's see if you can unravel this."
She turned her own card over and stared at it. It was the same problem, but the instructions Dubois had given made no sense. Then everything snapped into place. "Langston, ignore all colors. The large triangle goes at upper right, one side horizontal, hypotenuse to the right and underneath. The smaller triangle aligns hypotenuse to hypotenuse and at the right edge to create the right bight of the T's cross. The smaller of the two rectangles aligns with the figure so far and is horizontal to create the left bight . . ."
In seconds she was done and when she turned, Langston had it correct. He had one set of colors for his components, Dubois another and she a third. "Color blindness," she said aloud.
"That's one consideration," Oleg said. "Or the parts may actually be painted different colors from different generations of production. Each culture has its own assumptions regarding color, too. Lack of feedback can be due to either technical problems or because of assumptions that mean the mistake is overlooked until much later . . ."
It was a busy first morning. The afternoon was spent on tactical calculus. " 'It is impossible to predict all factors, but maximum accurate appraisal of the ones available will minimize errors.' That's what the book says. Now let's see where we go." It was fascinating, and there was a definite irony to reducing people to numbers for calculating battles. Kendra bogged down at first, but then caught on suddenly.
Oleg was flashing loads of data across their screens. "General terrain is represented by this algorithm and by entering grid coordinates of features here, their shapes and heights here, you can get a fair assessment of where to place your troops for a given objective. Then, plug in the relative numerical strengths of the units and enter any support weapons known. Now this is important," he paused to drive the point home. "You must honestly rate the estimated skill and training of the engaged units. If you lie to yourself about how great you are, you'll get killed that much faster. Too low and your attrition rate can suffer or you may fail the objective by not moving fast enough. Now, desired time to completion goes here . . ."
It did not, Kendra discovered, make command decisions any less complex. It created additional problems of finding the best data possible from all sources. They ran through numerous practice problems. They were reminded that this was simply introductory and that they'd be expected to practice further, with and without a comm, to improve their skills. "Wait until Senior NCO Academy," Oleg promised.
The day was a solid four divs long, eleven Earth hours, she thought, still converting occasionally. Kendra was exhausted, collapsed at once, and was barely conscious in time for the second day. As she sat moping into her coffee, Oleg strode into the room. "Logistics is the key to modern warfare," he said to begin the second lecture.
Communication, logistics, air power, intel, artillery, engineers, forward support, special warfare and other force multipliers. Every day another subject was thrown at them. Every evening, they read books from their required lists, while hyped on stims to improve their comprehension rate. It was a grueling, mind-numbing course and they had little time off even on the weekends. Twenty days of intense cramming was harder on the body than starvation and confinement. Kendra found herself eagerly looking forward to the mandatory exercise times, simply to work the knots out.
It was the second week that all the classes then in session, from first day to graduation, were gathered in the auditorium to hear a guest lecturer on strategy and politics. The lecturer was Naumann. He displayed an amazing breadth of knowledge of history and psychology, and Kendra was impressed by the sheer brilliance of his deductions and connection of such diverse subjects. She recorded and watched with interest as he finalized the talk with a summation of its relevancy to them.
"The basic flaw with the UN system is that it is based not on trust, but on force. Rather than a cooperative peace mission, it is an attempt to impose order from outside.
"Peace at the muzzle of a rifle is not peace, but imperialism and slavery. The UN points to its two hundred and sixty-three engagements as proof that the system is working, when in fact, it proves the opposite. From a military viewpoint, Sun Tzu teaches us that 'Hence to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting.'
"So obviously, the resident states of the UN are not sufficiently intimidated by the 'Peace' Force. They continue to rebel. The force is insufficient and unwelcome, yet they continue to attempt to impose it on each other.
"For comparison, the Freehold's government is a tiny fraction of a percentage. The residents are more numerous than and equivalently armed to the military. They are the defacto military. Power in a society lies with the military and who it will follow, rules. At any time, the residents could eliminate the government through revolution and demand or create a new one. The fact that they don't indicates a true willingness to make our system work. The basis of the system is maximum individual freedom and mutual trust between governors and governed. The UN is an authoritarian system, assuming ill intentions of all and holding the threat of punitive action as a means of control.
"This is why the UN cannot allow the existence of the Freehold. It is inevitable that some individuals will look to us as an example to aspire to or worse and more likely, with jealousy for our benefits. By not preventing it, the UN is giving tacit consent to our existence. Their governed will eventually ask 'why?' and there will not be a good answer the rulers can give. So they will inevitably attempt to destroy us.
"They have made diplomatic gestures of providing us with the 'systems' we lack, such as state-sponsored pensions and education. There is no way of bridging the difference in mindset, of explaining that any government-supported system is by definition government controlled and therefore authoritative and subject to abuse without possibility of objection. They cannot understand our rejection of what they perceive as generous offers.
"Their following offers were based on the assumption that such systems would need to be different, given the distance from Earth. They cannot see that our sociological assumption is that such systems must not be allowed to exist, no matter the real or perceived benefits. They are continuing to attempt to fix what we consider unfixable and have abandoned.
"Then force was applied, first politically and economically. With no restrictions on trade, our economy will—and has—shifted to other areas where necessary. The effect will be minor from a systemic viewpoint. Since there is no effective way for an authoritarian system to control the free market of a foreign power, we will suffer negligibly, while the member nations of the UN will find themselves losing essential luxuries that keep the population in check. We will be blamed for the loss. Once seen as offenders, it will be increasingly easy to use us as a scapegoat for any domestic problems, by inference and allegation. Such accusations will have the barest truth to them, but from such are the greatest lies knit.
"Physical force will ensue, probably after several engineered incidents to show us as oppressors of the individual. To an authoritarian, oppression of an individual translates as 'middle class oppressing the poor.' It is axiomatic that the ruling class truly cares for the peasants and is protecting the have-nots from the hated haves. The UN system is composed of 'equal' members, with some having the necessary inevitable privileges of the ruling class. To quote Orwell, 'All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.' " Kendra had not until now been familiar with Orwell. His works, unavailable on Earth, were required reading for this school.
"It is important to note that members of ruling bodies usually fall in the upper point one percentile of individual wealth and wield power all out of proportion even to that extreme. When they talk of 'taxing the rich,' they are never referring to themselves. The laughingly called two-party system of the United States in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries consisted of two groups of predominantly inherited millionaires, one claiming to help the poor, one the middle class. In both cases, the taxes were disproportionately leveled on the lower and middle classes, not on the rich or themselves. Ironically, the party claiming most to care about the poor, whom we now refer to as neo-feudalists, had a thirty-percent higher ratio of millionaires than did its opponents.
"So the UN will attempt subversion of the Citizens, promising wealth and power under UN aegis, if they will help tax the 'rich' middle class to support the 'poor,' defined fluidly as anyone who can look and see others financially better off. In such a system, most of those 'poor' will wind up poorer, but because the 'rich' are being punished for the sin of being competent and successful, that injustice will be overlooked. The system is simply class warfare. A popular phrase from the late twentieth century US reads, 'Tax the rich to feed the poor, until there are no rich no more.' Stripped of its awkward grammar, this translates as destroying the wealthy who supposedly must support the poor. It was apparently forgotten that the original goal was to feed those poor.
"Such hatred is easy to foment, even in a system such as ours. Few people ever think of the differences in culture between themselves and those in other wealth brackets. It is always assumed that others lead essentially the same life, just with finer or poorer trappings associated with it. The extremely wealthy cannot visualize the relative expense of basics such as food to someone on a subsistence-level income and the poor view the rich as having more disposable income without any additional operating expenses, social obligations or risks.
"So the UN will attempt to create a class war here, then apply military force to 'abolish' the classes and set up its own governors, most of whom will be corrupt and sent to this 'remote' assignment as punishment. They will embezzle and defraud what they feel is due them for 'tolerating' the local population.
"The only question is 'when?'
"Official estimates range from four to twenty-five years. The Strategic Staff all agree that politico-diplomatic relations are heading that way. The UN Forces are changing their training to add more rural engagements. There have been several researchers and 'observers' from various technical and leadership branches of the UNPF here."
A soldier in back stood to attention and asked, "When do you believe it will be, Commander?"
Grinning slightly, Naumann replied, "I'm at variance with the Strategic Staff and I've been told not to express my opinion as a prediction. So my opinion is that we will engage here within the year."
Kendra sat up. Several others looked shocked, also. War within the year? With Earth? She had more reason than most to fear that. She'd been told her whole life on Earth that war was impossible. Her current training made her see the lie in that theory and her thoughts whirled. Where would she wind up?
The concept of war continued to bother her the entire way through school, but she managed a decently passing grade anyway. If Naumann was right, what would happen to her? They couldn't trust an expatriate from the future enemy. Her friends were loyal, but fiercely patriotic and dedicated and if they were forbidden contact she was sure they'd comply with the order, however reluctantly. She decided not to raise the issue with them. She'd rather not confirm her fears of what they'd do.
The combat sim was almost familiar by now. It differed in that Kendra was a fireteam leader. She took her fireteam out under the squad leader's direction and promptly got most of them, and herself, "killed." Then it happened again. She realized just how hard it was to coordinate six people at once in what was accurately called "the fog of war." At least she knew which side she was on now. The losing side. She recalled a comment Naumann had made, to the effect of "If your plan is working perfectly, you are about to lose." She smiled at the truism.
She took the entire weekend to relax after her return, spending lots of time soaking in the tub, being massaged and doing nothing. The strain had been awful. She was elated despite her worry, though. She was finally a fully-trained soldier and felt confident of her ability to handle anything.
The war started two weeks later.