The admin building here in town is even more solid looking than the bunker-like one the Chinese had on Sirius Ad before their own attack craft blew it into rubble. The whole thing looks like a huge loaf of bread. It’s windowless, and judging from the visible wall thickness by the regularly spaced entrance alcoves, the concrete is at least two meters thick. All along the top of the building, there are sensor domes and retractable comms antennas that make the building look like the top half of a fleet frigate buried in the permafrost.
The four HD troopers look around with interest, while the SI major and his company sergeant look pointedly casual, old hands at the planetary excursion business. There are snowcapped mountains in the distance, much higher than anything the Eastern Seaboard back home has to offer, and I have to concede that as far as first visits to another world go, New Svalbard is one of the more scenic ones.
As we stand and gawk, the closest door of the nearby admin building opens, and a uniformed civvie steps out. He’s very tall, and his blue-shirted chest has a circumference that would give any fleet armorer sweats if he had to be issued off-the-rack battle armor. His uniform is a dark-blue set of fatigues with white arm patches, and there’s a shield-shaped badge over his left breast pocket that identifies him as a colonial constable, a civilian peace officer. He’s wearing glasses with small, circular lenses. As he walks out of the entrance vestibule and over to where we’re stretching our legs, I notice that he has a five o’clock shadow at nine in the morning. There’s a sidearm in a well-worn Durathread holster on his thigh, an older model large-bore metallic cartridge autoloader. The military stopped issuing those a hundred years ago because they’re useless against battle armor, but run-of-the-mill civilian criminals don’t routinely wear ballistic hardshell.
“Hey, Matt,” the SI major greets the constable. “How’s it going?”
“Not too bad,” the cop says. He eyes the armored eight-wheeler behind us. “What’s with the hardware? You expecting trouble?”
“What do you mean?”
The constable nods at the thirty-five-millimeter autocannon on the roof of the mule. The weapons mount is modular, and the crews usually run the local mules without heavy armament, but our task force commander’s new orders regarding battle readiness aren’t limited to trooper armament.
“Yeah, that,” the major says, almost sheepishly. “New management. Some Earthside one-star reservist who hasn’t been in a tussle with the Lankies yet. I think he’s expecting them to drop out of the sky any second.”
“Well, I’m glad you folks have some sensible leadership now,” the constable says with a dry smirk. “That peashooter’s going to make all the difference if we get a seed ship dropping on our heads this afternoon. I’ll tell the rest of the colony we’re invasion-proof now.”
Everyone has a good, borderline insubordinate chuckle at this. I decide that I like the tall constable already.
“Introductions,” the major says. He points to each of us in turn. “Lieutenant Colonel Kemp, Lieutenant Colonel Decker, Master Sergeant Fallon, Sergeant Major Dalton, Sergeant Major Zelnick, Staff Sergeant Grayson. This is Constable Guest, the senior law-enforcement official here on New Svalbard.”
“Head of a vast army of minions,” Constable Guest adds. “Twenty-one sworn officers, and four part-timers.” He looks at the assembled interservice mix of troops. “Lot of brass here for one little moon. I heard about all the new Earthside soldiers you dropped at the terraformers. Two battalions’ worth? Don’t tell me we’re getting ready to fight someone for this place.”
“Not as far as we know,” the major says. “We got something else going on, though. Is the administrator in?”
“When isn’t he?” Constable Guest says. “The science crew is here, too. They’re doing their weekly admin devotional.”
“Without you?”
“Stepped out for some fresh air,” he shrugs. “Go on in. Second floor, the big conference room next to the kitchen. You know the place.”
“Yeah, I do.” The major turns to the rest of us. “If you want to follow me, I’ll show you around and introduce you to the administrator and his crew. Staff Sergeant Grayson, you may want to head over to the airfield, meet up with the ATC on duty, and familiarize yourself with the facilities, in case we need your services later on.”
“Roger that, sir,” I reply. “Never was much of a meeting type anyway.”
I watch as the other troops file into the building behind the major. Behind me, the driver of the mule gingerly maneuvers his oversized vehicle into a clear spot next to the building across the narrow street to free up the path for other vehicles. Some colonists are milling around at a safe distance to watch the camouflaged steel monster with its out-of-place cannon armament try to fit into spaces never designed for Spaceborne Infantry fighting vehicles. We probably could have taken one of the light, unarmored mini-mules or walked the mile and a half outright, but the new brass elected to take the steel beast, and I just tagged along for the ride as the junior member of the entourage.