Chapter 1
Sand and Blood
The war on Titan had raged for three years now. The history of how the war
originated it was a long and bloody one. Titan, the fourth moon of Jupiter was
nothing more than a gigantic Iron Oxide desert. It's original inhabitance had
been Killimar religious separatists that had moved from Jupiter to escape
oppression from the population. Not long after they had set up there initial
colonies on Titan, a vast amount of resources, in the form of fossil fuels and
Titanium ore had been discovered by a survey team from Earth. It was only a
matter of time before the Inner Planetary Trade Consortium moved in. This sudden
intrusion by the IPTC was not viewed with great favor by the Killmar separatists
and random terrorist bombings soon escalated to all-out war between the Killmar
separatists and the IPTC. For the most part the Killmar were blamed for starting
the war, but the IPTC (A formidable economic and military power in there own
right) was blamed for escalating it to a full-scale armed conflict.
The fighting had gone on between the IPTC and the Killmar for almost six
months before the Galactic Union decided to intervene on grounds of Genocide on
the part of the IPTC. The Killmar were for the most part a peaceful group, but
as always there were it extremist sects who had started bombing mining outposts
that were the property of the IPTC. The real trouble had started when a group of
Killmar had assembled in Jericho city for a protest and a detachment of IPTC
soldiers fired on them killing 139 protestors. The Killmar responded with a
mortar attack on a mining facility, killing 13 IPTC soldiers and an unknown (but
assumed high) number of civilian workers. Within two months of the mortar attack
by the Killmar the IPTC had brought there troop strength on titan from about
3,000 to just under 19,000 combat ready grunts, as well as maintained a sizeable
contingent of armor and air support. Facing insurmountable numbers, the Killmar
began to fall to the IPTC in droves. When the death count reached 10,000 the
Glactic Union had
made the decision to intervene by deploying 3,000 troops to Titan.
After a year the size of the Glactic Union's military presence was well over
150,000 troops and the IPTC had increased there numbers to about 75,000 troops.
The Killmar began to shrink into oblivion, mostly from casualties inflicted by
the IPMC (Most of these deaths were non-military, but rather civilians). One
day, without warning a Glactic Union observation post came under attack by a
combination of IPTC and Killamr extremists. At first the Glactic Union pushed it
off as awkward timing on the part of the IPTC and the Killmar, but soon after
other outposts, firebases and logistics stations reported similar occurrences.
Without warning the IPCM and the Killmar separatists had announced an alliance,
and would cooperatively work to remove the Glactic Unions military presence from
Titan. This move was greatly
unexpected and lead to the deaths of 2,000 Glactic Union soldiers in one year.
With this new revelation the Glactic union was forced to bring its standing army
of 150,000 troops to just shy of 300,000 in six months. Titan was now a
full-fledged military conflict, the largest the galaxy had seen since the
Ziggurat uprisings on Earth 35 years earlier.
Titan clamed an average of 17,000 lives a year, mostly IPTC and Glactic Union
foot soldiers. Combat on Titan was strange, quickly switching from extreme range
500 meter firefights to point blank room clearing operations and hand-to-hand
combat. The IPTC, while well-equipped, could not compete with the sheer numbers
of the Galctic Union. As for the Killmar they chose to fight with guerilla
tactics, staging stealthy run-and-gun ambushes instead of the open firefights
that the Glactic Union greatly favored over urban operations. Your average
Glactic Union grunt was little more than a trained chimp with a rifle, but when
it was 700 trained chimps with rifles, things started to look bleak for the
defending force. Casualties for the IPTC went
down and gradually climbed for the Glactic Union as they took to the offensive.
There eventual goal was to seize control of Titan from the IPTC Killmar alliance
and place it under a military government, but it was predicted to be a long and
hard fight that there was much of a chance of losing as winning. This war, for
all of its death was placed mostly on Galactic Union infantry, who bore the
brunt of the fighting. The effects on human psyche were horrific and it was
common for soldiers to be sent home due to strange combinations of schizophrenia
and PTSD. Those that went home were never the men that they once were.
This story is about a man, a man named Paul Miles from Mars who joined the
Glactic Unions army believing in the cause, and leaving Titan as something that
he never wanted to become.