Title: On the Bounce
Author: Knife Hand
Feedback: Constructive feedback appreciated, flames unappreciated
Spoilers: All Harry Potter Books/Movies excepting the epilogue.
Rating: MA
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or Starship Troopers.
Summary: After the end of the Second Wizarding War, Harry decides that he is done with the Wizarding World, and Hermione goes with him. Welcome to the Mobile Infantry. Crossover with Starship Troopers Book. AU
There were twenty newly minted MI Privates on the shuttle with Harry and Hermione as it boosted from the London Federation Shuttleport, it being the main orbital Shuttleport in western Europe, with another three shuttles in the 'convoy'. Despite being American and Australian, Tara Maclay and Danny West were aboard having decided to spend their short leave in London rather than going home. All the new Privates were dressed in Duty Uniforms with the kit bags under their seats only containing basic gear.
The acceleration out of the Earth's atmosphere pushed the troopers into their seats until the shuttle reached its cruising velocity. After ten minutes Harry nudged Hermione and pointed out the window. It was only a twenty-minute trip to Moon, and while they had made the trip before for their Final Exam, it had been inside a Starship, which had started in Earth orbit. The powdery white of the Moon's surface was how they remembered it but they had not seen Luna Spacedock before. A massive space station, like a spinning ring in the Moon's orbit, with a dozen berths for Spaceships to dock along the outside of the ring and two spindly looking frameworks on the inside of the ring, somehow both connected and disconnected from the station, where the Starships were constructed.
There were four Starships currently berthed at Luna Spacedock. Two were 'Courier' vessels, smallish but fast vessels designed to take troops or cargo to various locations quickly and as innocuously as possible as they were light on weaponry. One was an Assault Cruiser, a Troop Transport designed to carry two MI Platoons into battle, with the distinctive row of launch tubes along the sides of the Hull for MI Drop Pods, and the 'blisters' of several weapons systems interrupting the smooth lines of her Hull. The fourth was a massive Dreadnaught, a Navy Ship of the Line that bristled with more weapons than Harry had thought you could fit on a Ship but had no MI contingent on-board.
In the Shipyard portion of the station two ships were under construction; one barley more than the first few sections of the ships skeleton and the other half completed but Harry could not determine what it was going to be, by the size though it was going to be either a Ship of the Line or one of the large Regimental Transports that the Navy preferred to transport Troopers in.
In the Navy there were three broad classes of vessels. Escorts, Trooper Transports and Capital Ships, aka Ships of the Line. Escorts were fast, agile and well armed, good for reconnaissance missions and escorting Couriers or civilian ships. Troop Transports did what the name implied, getting Troopers from one place to another. With the exception of the fat and lightly armed Couriers, most troop transports had significant firepower in order to deal with enemy interceptors or other ships in order to deliver their MI cargo to and from their operating zones and to provide, if necessary, orbital fire support to MI on the ground. These 'Combat Troop Transports' ranged in size from transporting single Platoons all the way up to Regimental Transports.
To many Navy personnel the Capital Ships were the 'Real Navy'. They were the ones that stood 'toe to toe' with the enemy in space and, so the Navy claimed, had enough firepower to send anyone else packing. Like wet Navy Battleships of old they had thick armour and as many weapons as could be crammed into their hulls.
After the shuttle docked there was a station hand there to direct the transferring personnel to their different assignments or transports. The four M Class Troopers were all assigned to the Assault Cruiser that was docked at the station. They arrived at the tunnel to the Assault Cruiser where a Navy Crewman was waiting to check their Orders and direct them to Trooper country.
They were met in Trooper country by a Platoon Sergeant who led the four new Troopers to a meeting with the two Lieutenants and the other Platoon Sergeant who were waiting to greet them. One of the Lieutenants, a Witch, stepped forward.
"I am Lieutenant Wildman." The Witch announced. "Welcome to the Avalon. I command 'The Wildlings', in joint operations I am Senior. Potter and Granger you'll be with The Wildlings."
Wildman stepped back and the male Lieutenant stepped forward.
"I'm Lieutenant Meeker, in command of 'The Magi'." The Lieutenant said. "Maclay and West will be in my Platoon."
Meeker stepped back and Wildman stepped forward again.
"I always want to make one thing perfectly clear to all new Privates, we do things a certain way in Fifth Battalion and we do it for a reason." Wildman announced. "The biggest question that new Privates to the Fifth ask is about the use of Magic in Combat and why we restrict it to the Vital Three. As you were told in Training, you Weapons and Armour are more effective than most spells. As for Transportation, we have tried it all and it was a disaster. We dropped a beacon as a Portkey destination. Due to the relative movement of both the Planet and the Starship, half the squad stayed on the ship, half arrived at the beacon. Unfortunately, the half that arrived was almost all torsos. One Lieutenant ordered his entire Platoon to Apperate onto his beacon and they all materialised inside each other and died within two minutes from blood poisoning."
Tara and Danny went a bit pale at the announcement but Harry and Hermione simply nodded slightly, their experience telling them blind jumps into combat was a bad idea. After letting the message sink in, Meeker and his Sergeant let Tara and Danny off and Wildman turned to face Harry and Hermione.
"I have received your training records from Sergeant Jansen, as well as your Pre-Enlistment records, official and unofficial, from some contacts I have back home." Wildman said. "Granger, getting your MI Armour Maintenance Rating while still in Boot is impressive, so I'm assigning you to Corporal McGonagall in Maintenance as her assistant. I believe you know her Great Aunt. Also when not in combat, two shifts a week you will spend with the Navy Armourer to learn Full Repair on the Powered Armour. Potter, apparently your field meals were better than anything Jansen had eaten since he joined, so you will be our Cook."
Harry looked over at Hermione who, while standing still at parade rest, still managed to give the impression that she was bouncing with joy.
"Potter will be in Second Squad and Granger, you will be in Sixth Squad. Platoon Sergeant Skinner will show you to your bunks. Welcome to The Wildlings." Wildman said, dismissing them.
Sergeant Skinner showed them through the narrow corridors to their bunks. In the tight confines of an Assault Cruiser, there were no large bunk rooms that could house all the Troopers in a Platoon, or even a Squad, instead for structural integrity reasons as much as space constraints, the Troopers were housed in small rooms that was just barely big enough for two troopers and their kit (not including their Powered Armour and weapons which were stored in the Armoury). It tuned out Harry and Hermione were assigned to the same room, though it was two weeks into the outbound trip when they found out why, and it was not just because they were the only new Privates in the Platoon.
Harry had taken to the Assault Cruiser's kitchen for the Wildlings, each of the two Platoons getting their own Mess and Kitchen, and his first meal was greeted with a round of applause. The previous cook had been the best in the Platoon but he was the best of a poor lot of cooks. Some Troopers had been requesting field rations instead. It was in the Mess that Harry found out why he and Hermione had their own room. For the first time in almost five years The Wildlings and The Magi were at full strength, and the new Privates had been the last arrivals so had been bunked together.
According to Scuttlebutt, an entire Assault Cruiser of Fifth Battalion had been 'decommissioned', with the two MI Platoons being split up between the most depleted of the other Fifth Battalion Platoons, and the Navy Crew spit up as well. The Assault Cruiser itself would be 'recommissioned' in a month or so to transport 'Regular' MI Platoons with a 'Regular' Navy Crew once all 'M-Class' data was wiped from its records. While the Officers and Senior NCO's were silent on why The Wildlings and The Magi were brought up to full strength, unlike the seventy percent of some other Fifth Battalion Platoons, the more experienced Troopers thought it was a sure sign that the two Platoons were going to be participating in either a dangerous solo operation or a major battle with 'Regular' MI forces.
Hermione confirmed that some serious combat was on the books based on how busy she was in the Armoury with Corporal Alyssa McGonagall, working such long hours that Harry would often bring them their meals to the Armoury after everyone else had eaten and sat with them as they tried to eat and work at the same time.
The only time, apart from the occasional Watch, when the two Platoons interacted with each other was in the Gym, using a mild unit rivalry as motivation for hand to hand combat training. It was in the gym, with Harry, Hermione, Tara and Danny standing together to watch a sparring session, when the two Lieutenants and two Platoon Sergeants entered and informed the Troopers that the Avalon would reach the location of their next Drop in five days, with briefings and hypno-training to begin the next morning. That basically ended the sparing match and everyone began to drift back to their own Platoon country to prepare.
TBC…
