There wasn't a single human left on that planet. Look, I should know. The damn things weren't alive, and there wasn't a soul left alive on that planet when relief finally showed up.
How do dead marines win? Well, I'll tell you. I was a major in the 15th Division HQ when the 3rd battalion, 49th marines got pasted. And they just went to hell to regroup.
I was a glorified gofor as some might say. I saw the Old Lady grinding her teeth. "Damn it, we needed them!" She threw a data pad onto the main table. "The damn Cigs are going to have all the hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen they need from that moon." It was a shit show no mistake. We fucked up and General Davina Jordan couldn't do a thing about it. The Old Lady was pissed.
Strategic analysis indicated that Draco 3A was prime real estate for the enemy in that sector. The sector had a few systems but only one with an earth-like moon orbiting a gas giant. Christmas day for an FOB. We were dispatched to the sector for that reason. Neither us nor the Cigs had the big federation auxiliary ships at the time. Anyone who got there second would have to maneuver with ships loaded down with supplies and low on fuel, while the one who got there first would have full bunkers.
That was the idea, at least. We got there first. We just didn't think the Cigs would be able to get to 3A that fast, or how smart they were.
We were in a rush, and thought we were sitting pretty. The admiral pushed his ships to Rigel first, the first system the enemy would have to go through to get to Draco. The 49th regiment was deployed to Draco, 67th to Rygel, while the rest of the division held at Ruyen. That was the rear line for us in that sector.
We didn't think the Cigs had Fleetlord Borolarm with them. One mad SOB. We didn't think they'd bypass Rygel entirely and jump right into Draco! Or that they'd paste an entire battalion in one bit of bad luck. I was just counting my blessings that the seabees weren’t there yet. We knew how merciless the enemy could be. Long range sensors picked up the enhanced radiation bombs they used. Borolarm must've been impatient.
Sorry, I got the timeline mixed up, where was I? Oh, yeah. It took nine days for everything to fall into place. Day one, they said they were at the LZ. Near as we can tell, they got hit hours later. Took days for us to figure out, without FTL comms, and for everything to fall apart. Ships were pulling back to Rygel and it was day nine by the time the lieutenant colonel of the 49th got a message back to General Jordan, and mentioned the battalion.
That was when the Old Lady started grinding her teeth. She was going up and down, venting the only way a professional can; dressing down the 49th's commander for his misconduct. Being on the receiving end of the Old Lady's temper was like being naked in a hurricane, I'll tell you what. It was nine days since we had confirmation. It was nasty losses, and the only time Borolarm used neutrons in that sector. So, to be honest, it wasn’t super shocking in a buncha ways.
Then the lieutenant colonel of the 49th suggested sending reinforcements. I remember I took a step behind a pillar when I saw the Old Lady look at him. “Excuse me?”
“They're still transmitting. We've gotten microwave bursts saying they're still combat capable.”
I swear a vein popped out of her forehead. “They got a neutron bomb on their heads. They're all dead. Are you telling me there's still marines left there?” “Just an hour ago, ma'am. They sent a burst. They're still 10% combat capable, they said. I recommend we extract them immediately.”
“Are you some kind of moron?” Jordan demanded. “It's a trap. It's been nine days. We've had ships in the area, and they transmitted only then?” She looked down at the guy like he was a bug, and thundered, “The cigs are crawling up my ass, I've got three trashed battalions not including yours, and you think it's a good idea to send reinforcements to a system we lost because of your mistake, colonel? What kind of moron are you? If you want to pick up the pieces, you don't overcompensate, you follow my orders!”
I swear the guy was about to cry. A few of us laughed about it later; not about the dead, but dark humor is one of those ways you cope. Any one of the buggers would've done the same for us.
Any other day, I'd forget about that. But the scout probes kept sending us weird messages.
When we finally got enough big ships in there to get the place back, we found Borolarm had pulled out. The prisoners we took cited enemy resistance.
When we reached orbit, we saw their planetary CP was smashed, and so were the refineries. Now, I'll defend the Old Lady. It wasn't wrong to not send reinforcements. There wasn't a marine left alive. Their transport was destroyed and an enhanced radiation bomb killed the entire battalion on the first day. Except for their tank platoon, the recovery vehicle, and the mobile HQ.
It was an accident, a twist of fate. The radiation that killed the crews should have burned out the circuits too. Maybe there was a rock in the right place. Maybe they were dispersed just right, as Marine doctrine said. But their crews were DOA. The tanks weren't.
These machines were designed to operate even if the crew was incapacitated, to drive back to base even if they were dead. And to defend themselves if necessary. We found what was left of them hit by Rods from God, scattered around the refineries at the center of the enemy base. And I was on the team trying to figure out what the hell happened.
We found trails from the jungle, poking around every marine body we found. They led to the tarmac of the airfield the Cigs set up near their refinery. The place was a wreck. Two-hundred spaceplanes scattered across three klicks! Half of them looked run over, shelled, or lasered, the other half crashed into each other, and a whole bunch looked like they were hit by friendly fire! Tons of dead Cig pilots everywhere. I can't imagine what it was like, running around out there. It must've been like being a bug on a table. We thought there had to be marines left. But we examined the bodies. They were riddled with bullets and shrapnel, but they were already decomposing when they did. Cause of death? Radiation poisoning.
Okay, the cigs had a perimeter. They had auto guns and shit! But they didn't expect a bunch of tanks and drones to come screaming over like they didn't give a damn! We kept looking over those autopsy results every time shit didn't add up. The tanks didn't stop there. They smashed up the enemy flight facilities. By that time the Cigs had their shit together, and they were unloading with everything they had. Their air support, what was left of it, shelled the HQ.
The drones and tanks just kept moving, it didn't make any sense! They were doing hit and run attacks, after that airfield, it took a while. But they were smashing through buildings and stuff, and the recovery vehicle kept pulling them out! Anyone with half a brain would've stopped. But that's why we thought there were still marines. Not just marines, but anyone. With those kinds of losses and nothing left to lose? Why not fight like it?
The cigs tried to find the HQ facility but whatever protected it from the neutron bomb saved it from their scans. Every time they thought they knocked out one of the tanks that damn recovery unit rushed out to fix them!
But there was only so much they could do. The cigs finally started hitting them when they popped out to the refinery. The cigs had cleared the land and flattened it. There was no more cover they could hide in.
The HQ got hit at the same time. They found it too. Without the coordination they weren't as effective. They took kinetic bombardment rounds, but took the refinery with it. An AI? No. Of course not. That was all an effort to do body recovery.
We found they wandered around the jungle trying to find any marines who survived the neutron bomb, then when they couldn't, the HQ gave them instructions. They kept operational because of the recovery vehicle. It could do refits on its own! It could recover ammo, pull the tanks out of ditches, or what have you. Not as good as the engies but that is where the luck came in. The HQ truck had automated systems in case the crew was incapacitated. So they could do this all on their own. One of them got stuck once. A human would've panicked, or at least tried to get out. But the machine was just a machine. So it just worked itself back and forth until it got loose.
The tanks drove onto the tarmac with a bunch of spaceplanes trying to take off. They were like cats among the pigeons. They could drive everywhere and places a human wouldn't mind being trapped. And they didn't have the same failures. My guess is that the designers didn't anticipate having no one to reply to. So the tanks acted like clever Hans machines. Hans was a horse in the 20th century. They thought it could do math but turns out it was just working off subtle cues from the trainer.
The tanks tried to report in, and reached the HQ. But HQ couldn't ping an operator. So it tried to contact a human. Couldn't get that. So, it had to do something. It had tons of programs in its stacks to get marines home no matter what. It knows marines don't give up. So what does it do? These things had victory conditions they couldn't fulfill. So it expands its frame of reference to try and figure out how to satisfy “get the marines home”. Tried to contact the fleet, we didn't reply. So that means find a way to get our ships back there. And that meant winning. The machines weren't alive at all. They just copied the things marines would do. Won a war all to bring their buddies home.