Originally hosted on annamittower.com

A baleful red light solemnly blinking on his datapad greeted Brigadier General Brantley when he returned to his desk. He lowered himself into his chair with a sigh. Yet another report urgently demanding his attention. Would he ever catch a break? No, he quickly answered himself, not on a base this new. Establishing a new base consisted of 1% excitement, and 99% paperwork and preparation. And, as the base commander, his life was pure boredom aside from the occasional disciplinary or other issue. A red light usually indicated an issue of sorts. Wishing that it would be something short and easy, he pulled the pad to himself and tapped the notification. After noting the source of the report, Lieutenant Colonel Kelly, he began to read.

A quarter of an hour later, he had to put the report down. His head hurt already. Short and easy this was not. Long, confusing, and downright odd suited it better. Brantley scrubbed at his face, trying to force his brain to work better. It didn’t help. He stabbed the com button on his desk and barked, “Dining service” in response to the automated system prompt. A few seconds later a live person came on the line.

“Dining service, how may I assist you, sir?”

“Coffee. I need coffee, strong and black and lots of it. Oh and some food too!”

“Yes, sir. It will be up shortly.”

The Brigadier General leaned back in his chair and glared at the report on his desk. It was the end of the work day, for heaven’s sake. Why did he have to deal with something like this right now? He silently cursed the XO. The woman was highly competent, responsible and absolutely brain dead when it came to the niceties of catering to a superior officer. It would never have crossed her mind to check what time it was before sending the report. He sighed again and pulled another datapad towards him for taking notes. He would have to unravel this report line by line.

The clearest bit concerned the personnel who were the focus of Kelly’s report. The entire report described certain oddities happening to the soldiers in 3rd Company who were assigned to barrack 9. To be specific, the female soldiers in barrack 9, though the males were mentioned in passing. It was definitely not something which required disciplinary action, that was also clear, but fell, rather, in the category of odd and weird happenings. Or perhaps the word coincidences would suit better. According to Kelly, and all the attached medical documents and personnel files, there had been an unusual coincidence of all the female soldiers reporting for similar symptoms in roughly the same time period, dating from about a month after arrival on the planet till present.

The female soldiers reported extreme exhaustion, sore muscles, bruised feet and limbs, and an inability to sleep restfully. The severity of the symptoms ranged from mild to severe with two of the severe cases being so dangerously exhausted that they had been shipped back on the last troopship to the nearest base with a major military hospital. The medical files highlighted another handful of soldiers who were earmarked as having symptoms possibly severe enough to medivac as well if their conditions didn’t improve.

In and of itself, this was a Problem. But two bits of information pushed it firmly into the weird and unusual category. Firstly, none of the male soldiers in the same barrack reported similar symptoms. In fact, when questioned by the medical staff, they reported the opposite. They slept unusually well and woke well-rested. None had sleeping problems. That ruled out any environmental factors at work, in the XO’s opinion, because that should have affected all soldiers equally. And, she concluded, that ought to rule out any problem with the barrack construction itself or the clothing or food provided.

The second, however, came from an unexpected source: the quartermaster. She wasn’t responding as part of Lieutenant Colonel Kelly’s investigation, but her report, submitted a few weeks prior, dovetailed nicely into the oddness around barrack 9. Apparently, the shoes of the female soldiers were wearing out at a faster than normal rate. The typical combat boots issued to all the soldier on this type of assignment ought to last for at least two years even under rough conditions, but the soldiers’ boots had needed to be replaced after a mere few months. Another layer to the oddness, as Kelly pointed out, was that the more severe the symptoms reported by a soldier, the faster their shoes were wearing out. This indicated that the soldiers were literally being worked to exhaustion, but Kelly’s investigation had discovered no difference in how the soldiers worked or trained in regard to any other soldier on base.

A beep interrupted his thoughts and Brantley realized his face hurt from how much he had scrubbed at it. He heaved himself up and tapped the flashing button. A panel slid up and the smell of coffee and food washed over him, bringing his wilted mind back to life a little. Food and caffeine should help his poor brain. He took out the tray and the panel slid closed.

Five minutes later, food gone, he started in on the very large mug of black coffee and returned his attention once again to the report. The XO had accomplished an excellent investigation, but she had obviously hit a brick wall, hence her tossing the ball squarely into his court for figuring this out now. Though obviously the correct course of action, he still wished it hadn’t needed escalating, but he couldn’t have more soldiers out of action from whatever this was.

Flicking open a new program on his datapad he composed a note summoning Lieutenant Colonel Kelly, Quartermaster Terand, Chief Medical Officer Major Okali, and the commanding officer of 3rd Company, Captain Thompson, to his office for a meeting. Wisely, he set a time for the meeting: 08:30 the next day. Otherwise the XO would pop in straight away to see the result of her report and “discuss” it with him which would take hours. No, he needed his rest first and time to mull it over before the inevitable head scratching at the meeting in the morning. He attached Lieutenant Colonel Kelly’s report summary to the message as well. Once he tapped send, he tidied up his desk and headed directly for his quarters. Another tap on the communit in his quarters set it to “do not disturb” ensuring a quiet evening unless there was a red level emergency on base. He settled back to enjoy that rare quiet, trying not to compare it to the calm before the storm.