The Centers for Disease Control have reduced their reporting of pandemic swine flu / novel H1N1 cases to once a week, on Friday. We will attempt to keep our readers updated during the week by posting data from various state sites.

The CDC posted numbers a day early “to coincide with the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices meeting”.

Pandemic Novel H1N1 or Swine Flu trend based on CDC numbers for 6-25-2009. Click on the graph for a larger version.

States marked in this color are those which have stopped posting their pandemic flu case numbers on line, or the numbers are not easily found at their site.

Since the odds were long that a bad thing would happen, I was not worried. Well, no more than usual. I snuck a couple of additional air bottles and some combat rats onboard, finding places behind the wall plates that were empty enough to hold them. I also added some computing power, borrowing an officer’s battle comp from a boarding suit. That, I felt safe on, since no one had ever, ever boarded an enemy ship.

At least I could play Solitaire while I waited for the stations call to terminate.

Until the entire ship shuddered, and twisted. Now, I can definitively state as an Academy cadet and a career Space Marine that ships in space do NOT twist. This one did, and it was immediately followed by the loudest “bang” I had ever heard and a gee force of many gees shoved me sideways. Um… ow!

Zero gee made every bit of dust, debris and our friends flotsam and jetsam leap into the air making it difficult for me to seal my helmet. Yeah, I know, it was supposed to be sealed. What are you gonna do, toss me off the ship? Oops, happened already.

After I completed the helmet drill, I began to curse. I began with the crude, worked my way through the sexual and well up into the profane and blasphemous. I had begun on all of the curse words in all the wide variety of languages I had ever heard when it occurred to me to see if I could access the sensor logs.

What sensor logs? In fact, what memory storage? The jacks were all dead to the suit comp and to the officer’s comp. Odd.

Ever try to turn a screw in zero gee? OK, ever try to turn one that turns out to just be a screw head welded onto a face plate? I discovered that there was no access to those parts of the beacon that supposedly contained all the final memories of my ship. Now, being the trusting souls that I was, I had taken the plans and schematics that I had seen at face value. I truly believed that all the little pieces parts were where the prints said that they would be.

The Marine in me laughed out loud. “Embrace the suck.”

After several moments of contemplation and deep thought, I began to wonder if the beacon even had a signaling device. Not having anything else to do, I began the orderly removal of every screw I could see. I collected a variety of sheet metal, dials and knob not connected to anything, a Playboy magazine dating from the ship’s construction that had been left behind by some dockyard rating, and finally a problem.

There, at my two o’clock and up high, was the largest brick of demolition plastic I had ever seen.

There are gradients of bad things. Some make you say “Oh, shit!” Some cause you to exclaim “Oh, fuck!” And, then there are those times when the shit is rolling down hill so fast you don’t have time to speak.

The sole official duty of a Space Academy cadet was to be the “buoy boy”. That’s what the Petty Officers called it when there were no officers around. Except me, of course. I wasn’t really an officer, just a hunk of meat that was in the way.

Each ship of the Terran Navy carries an Omega Beacon. The beacon is launched when the bridge crew or the ship’s onboard computer determines that the ship will not survive whatever is happening. It contains the ship’s log and as much of the final sensor readings as it is possible to copy to the beacon before launch. That way, when, if, the beacon’s signal is heard and the beacon recovered the powers that be can determine what caused the horrid fate of the ship that launched it.

Since the beacon was a manmade body, and had small maneuvering thrusters, the brass had long ago determined that those qualities made it a space vessel. All space vessels had to have a captain, and all captains had to be officers.

No officer worth his salt wants to be ejected from a fighting ship in the middle of a battle. Thus the position of “buoy boy” fell onto the broad and manly shoulders of the most junior officer. Um… that would be me, in this case.

The drill was that on call to stations, I was to run to the beacon hatch, seat myself in the beacon and seal the hatch behind me. My clue that things had gone awry would be the violent acceleration of the beacon.

Our captain was thorough. We held a call to stations at least once a week, usually at meal time or in the middle of the sleep period. Or, so it seemed. After a dismal showing the first few times, I took a moment to scope out the ship’s plans and discovered that I could access any number of zero gee utilities tubes and that I could get to my station far more rapidly that way. All I had to do was not be seen opening the hatch that said “No Access” or be seen coming out of the one closest to the beacon.

I had also donated a night of sleep to a long and detailed examination of the beacon and the publicly available plans for the beacon. My job would be to flip the switch that scrubbed memory storage if the beacon was picked up by anybody but the Navy. Flip two covers up and flip two switches. I could also maneuver the beacon slightly if I somehow magically discovered that a piece of debris was about to hit us. You see, there were no sensors, no radio other than the beacon’s signal, and limited rations and air.

Whenever I did something unbelievably stupid, as young men often do, my dad would ask me “Did you take a stupid pill this morning, son?”

When I was discharged, after eighteen years in the Terran Marines, to accept an appointment to the Space Academy, I heard his voice. Two years from retirement and I bailed.

I was giving up a career to join a bunch of snotty nosed youngsters being tormented by older snotty nosed youngsters, all in the hopes of becoming one of those officers I had always looked down on.

Yep. That’s me, all right.

I did it for several reasons, mostly involving my future. The regs, beloved by all garrison lawyers, contain a curious provision. A Marine with at least fifteen years of service who is accepted into the Academy carries his longevity with him. In other words, I would reach my twenty as a wet behind the ears Kay-det.

It meant a number of other things, as well. My pay would be based on my years of service as well as my rank, so I would be making, on graduation, far more than any of my fellow, newly commissioned second lieutenants. As an officer, upon retirement, I would be entitled to free transportation anywhere in Terran space for life, and the Navy would pay my landing fees should I emigrate to a colony planet.

Oh, yeah, the way things were going in the war with the Bluecoats, an enlisted Marine could get himself killed. Naval officers died in combat far less often. It’s my skin and I’ve grown fond of it.

Planet bound military academies in the old days were four year programs. The cadets had their summers for drill and training. The Naval Academy was a five year program, with the entire third year spent on a training cruise in space. Take a wild guess as to who was low man on the totem pole on these cruises.

I was in good shape, and had lots of zero gee experience, so I wasn’t as exhausted by the run everywhere and always be late cruise routine. Book work came easy, so I managed to keep up with the constant assignment of manuals, and schematics, and inventories by hand that also went with the cruise.

I even found time to teach some friendly engine room ratings the probabilities of poker.

I was up several hundred dollars for the cruise when bad things happened.

Hey, there, fellas. How about buying a vet a drink?

Tell ya what. I’ll trade you a story for that drink.

Well, how about one about the Battle of the Grape Arbor?

Laugh all ya want, boys. Some of us did make it out. That’s why I’m in this chair, ya know.

Thank ya kindly. Let me wet my whistle and I’ll start.

Most of us was young like you fellas. Full of piss and vinegar, and sure of ourselves. It was our third, no, fourth landing and we were beating the Bluecoats pretty good. Course the arty and air support made the difference. Pound for pound a Bluecoat is as good as most soldiers and plenty o’ Marines.

Yeah, laugh… Youngsters!

The whole 34th was movin to the front, troopers in trucks and armor on lowboys. We’d beat the Bluecoats out of the area weeks before and figured it was pacified. We didn’t know. Intel sucked, again…

We was all on this main road, Route Angel it was called. Goin through a long valley with a gentle rise on either side. The hillsides was covered in plants with the fruit that the locals used to make their hooch. Some newsie from Earth thought it looked like a grape arbor and that’s how the place got its name.

What we didn’t know was that the Bluecoats had left behind some fellas, in bunkers buried in the hillsides. They waited until we was in the valley good, then sprang their ambush. Blew up the front and rear of the column, and there we was, looking at fire coming from both sides.

I read that the experts now figure the Bluecoats had a nuke plant buried back there someplace to power all those energy weps. All I know is that there was lasers hitting us from both sides.

How about another one? Talking is thirsty work.

Thanks.

My truck didn’t get hit at first but the one in back of us did. We bailed, hearin the screams of the guys in that truck as they burned. Never forget it. Never…

Where was I? Oh, yeah. Wasn’t much of a ditch along the road but we got as low as we could. If we kept face down, the lasers just missed our heads. Course, every now and then some damn fool would just have to take a look…

The sarge and some of the lances were trying to get the fellas up and moving. Ya gotta maneuver in this sort of ambush, and get into the bunkers. Right then, them Bluecoats was killin way more of us than we was of them.

If ya kept low, and was lucky, you could crawl up the hill. There’s always some fool out in front. Drew a lot of fire but kept goin. Got grenades into a bunker slit and that opened some ground. Kept crawlin, kept bein lucky. Fellas behind used the open space to move up and pretty soon there was a bunch of bunkers that wasn’t shootin at us no more.

Fool’s luck ran out, though, and a laser creased his back and burned right through the armor.

There wasn’t but a handful of guys left and most of us hunkered down in some cleared bunkers. The Bluecoats tried to get at us through their supply tunnels but we just turned them lasers around and pointed them right down the tunnels. Bluecoats burns just as good as Terran Marines.

Evac finally showed up, with armor and air. That fool who led the charge up the hill was in one of the bunkers where the Bluecoats was pushing real hard. Told his buddies to get and lay there pointing that laser down the tunnel. Finally two guys in battle armor came in and hauled him out to the evac.

Well, fellas, was that worth two beers? Thank you, but two’s my limit. This damn chair, ya know.

The young Marines watched the old woman in the handichair glide out of the bar, a Terran Marine flag taped to the back of her seat. One of them asked the barmaid about the oldtimer.

Her? Don’t they teach you boys how to read these days?

The barmaid pointed to the wall, covered in Marine memorabilia, and then walked over and tapped one of the pictures hanging there.

It was a young woman, wearing private’s stripes, and below it the caption read:

The President of the Terran Union in the name of The Congress takes pride in presenting the MEDAL OF HONOR to

Private Lorili Gibson
Terran Marines

for service as set forth in the following

CITATION:
For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of her life above and beyond the call of duty while serving as a Cook, Headquarters Company, Thirty Fourth Battalion, First Marine Division (Planetary Assault), on 21 July 2184.

Private Gibson’s battalion was moving by truck to the front on Gemma Aquilon, near the town of Suzu, when it was ambushed by a large force of enemy troops in concealed bunkers and well equipped with high energy weapons.

Gibson found herself dismounted and under heavy fire in a ditch alongside Route Angel, with many of her fellow Marines who survived the initial attack. Seeing that the only way to end the ambush was to attack the bunkers firing on her fellow Marines, Private Gibson began to crawl up the hill using what little concealment that there was. When she reached the first bunker, and still under heavy direct fire, she was able to throw a grenade into the bunker silencing its occupants.

Still under fire she continued to crawl to the next bunker, and the next. Private Gibson managed to silence four bunkers before an energy weapon creased her back and left her paralyzed from the waist down.

Her bravery and leadership helped encourage her fellow Marines and they advance in her wake, silencing two additional bunkers. The ambush survivors recovered Private Gibson and took refuge in the bunkers while waiting for relief.

During this time, enemy forces attacked the bunkers through extensive tunnels that connected the bunker system. Fighting was hand to hand at times in all the bunkers. Private Gibson killed one enemy soldier in such combat using a knife while preventing the certain death of an unconscious Marine alongside her.

When relief arrived, with the enemy attacks continuing against her bunker, Private Gibson volunteered to remain behind, accurately directing energy weapons fire against the enemy in the tunnels.

By her undaunted courage, intrepid fighting spirit, and unwavering devotion to duty, Private Gibson was an inspiration to her fellow Marines and was responsible for the survival of many of her fellows in that battle, thereby reflecting great credit upon herself and upholding the highest traditions of the Marine Corps and the Terran Space Service.

That old vet, boys, earned her two beers the hard way. Best you remember that.