by Vance Huxley
By the time Bells and Hood carried her in to see the medic, the Basted’s medic so he’d keep his trap shut, Bobby had made a decision. Any more undercover jobs for Magpie had to be short ones. One or two jobs in a complex, no more even if the job took longer and maybe wasn’t as neat. Then he spent five hours helping Siflis and Bells to keep Hood penned in their quarters, until the medic told them her skull was intact and Kwikheal would deal with any other damage. Hood couldn’t be allowed near Magpie or the medic would guess about their relationship, then so would the rest of the Basteds. Most of them thought Magpie didn’t fancy blokes, but if they found out she pooched Bobby didn’t trust some of them to carry on ignoring her sex. They’d want to try their luck.
Guns and the Baron were both curious about why everyone in the café died, but Bobby just kept saying it went viral and the bomber was dead. Twenty hours later the medic let Magpie come back to her quarters. Bobby, Siflis and Bells went to the range to practice with carbins for a couple of hours and left her with Hood. When they came back even Bells didn’t flick them about the cuddling, though he did flick Magpie about whether he’d seen her underwear.
Even without knowing the real reasons for Bobby’s reluctance, the other Corporals agreed that Magpie couldn’t be used again on this job. The basteds settled down to finding out exactly where the other two rebel leaders slept.
* * *
Three days later Bobby had an unscheduled call from Guns, Area Manager Gunnar Eriksson. “You’ve killed the bomber so wrap it up.”
“I’d planned on catching at least one leader alive, so that we can roll the lot up properly.” This call really worried Bobby because Guns usually left him to it. “Is there pressure?”
Guns hesitated, which rang a few alarm bells in Bobby’s head. “Yes and no. Not local, or about this job. Can you kill the other two?”
“That might take a while because they have to drop at the same time. Any warning and we’ll spend months finding the second again. Don’t you want the rest of them?” Usually the task included a clean sweep of every possible minor player. Bobby might have qualms about his job, but he did it properly. After all, only this job and his steel umbrella kept the squad alive.
“Kill one and give His Lordship what you’ve got once he’s dead. Let him break down doors and suchlike, and with the vid he’ll probably get the other. It will make him much happier and impress CyberBlast-Sage which can’t be bad.” Gunnar sighed. “Can you extract whoever the hell you’ve got embedded?”
“Yes. Everyone’s already out and safe.” Bobby smiled at the “whoever the hell” because Guns regularly tried to find out. Occasionally Bobby let him know which one of the men had been undercover, but Guns wasn’t fooled.
Though this time Guns didn’t follow it up, so the reason for urgency must be serious. “Let me know as soon as it’s all done. Remember, give His Lordship as much help as possible since you can’t do the job properly this time.”
“Yes sir.”
“Piss off. Out.”
Bobby smiled. Guns knew that Beebi had been flickin him with the, “Yes sir,” and the officer didn’t care. In fact, Guns insisted on no names or ranks when they spoke like this, over a radio. Then Bobby frowned. There had been jobs with a deadline but Guns had never nudged to get a job finished faster, or left one part-finished. In the end he couldn’t come up with an answer, so Bobby went to collect his Corporals.
* * *
The meeting didn’t take long. They could get a sniper near enough to both leaders to drop one, then everyone would pull out. Before sending out the squads, Bobby did as he’d been told and gave the Baron a shot at glory. “This file is all the locals we have identified including vid of the important ones. It’s time-locked so please don’t try to open it.” Bobby handed the disc to the Baron.
“Don’t you trust me?”
“You slur? Yes, of course, but there is a leak of some sort out of the barracks. One of these names might give you it.” Bobby shrugged. “We’ll be finished by then.”
“Finished? How, if these people need collecting?” The Baron frowned, puzzled. No doubt he’d been told the culprits would be dead or handed over gift-wrapped.
“We will have broken the centre, killed two out of three ringleaders, and you can roll the rest up while they’re trying to reorganise. There’s vid of the third man in there. I can’t say more and please don’t even hint that a breakthrough is close. Don’t make any sort of move until the file opens.” The Baron grinned and agreed, he would get to drop all those men and that armour on someone’s doorstep after all.
* * *
Bobby replayed that conversation in his head when he knocked on the Baron’s office door just after midnight. Engines roared in the background as troop carriers set off for a dozen addresses. “Enter.” Bobby stepped inside.
He tried to be polite about it. “You were very quick, your Lordship, considering when the file opened.”
“We were on alert because of that bloodbath. At least a score dead and injured and they can’t all be rebels. There were women caught in the crossfire.” The Baron looked truly shocked and rightly so, it had been a shambles.
“You were on alert before that. The reason you are so efficient and the reason for the bloodbath are the same. You told someone.” The Baron opened his mouth to deny it but Bobby didn’t want to catch nobility lying and got in first. “Someone warned the targets just before either sniper pulled the trigger, a very trusted someone because they both ran without checking. I’d told my men to kill one at least, and stressed they weren’t to let both escape. The first pair of Troopers in our cordon with a shot opened up with carbins or did you want both the ringleaders to escape, considering what they’ve done here?”
“No of course not, but I...” The Baron stopped, braced himself and owned up. “I did tell three people, trusted people. Not details because I didn’t have any, and only ten minutes before the file opened. They were told to get their sergeants rounded up and keep them in a room, ready to go, to save finding them all.”
Bobby grinned. “Simple then. The first target had a warning at 23:52 and fifteen seconds, the second one ten seconds later. You have names and a time frame, or just squeeze all three and their sergeants. Maybe this is for the best if the leak is so high.”
The Baron frowned. “Don’t you want them? Don’t your superiors want a traitor?”
“No slur. Take him out the back and shoot the basted for all I care. We’ve got an urgent job so I will need your bus, the one for collecting reinforcements from the station. I’ll leave it at the airport.” Bobby got out because whoever the spy turned out to be, the Baron was already in shock over how high he’d got. That would probably turn to rage fairly soon so Bobby wanted to be gone rather than be a convenient target. Though if Guns needed the Basteds so badly, whatever he’d got waiting wouldn’t be a picnic.
Heavy Metal
Dawn had just staggered over the horizon when the plane landed at the nearest airstrip to what Beebi’s Basteds called home, their barracks. Bobby immediately started really worrying because Area Manager Eriksson waited on the tarmac, and he looked grim. Guns never showed up at the airstrip. He had the usual buses waiting, and the usual score of Troopers guarding them, but this time the Troopers helped to shift the gear and stow it in the bus instead of getting on the plane. “I hear you even got the spy, or the Baron did.”
Bobby shrugged. “The Baron must have worked it out, because I left that to him. It was pure luck we got a straight lead.” Bobby was more concerned about Magpie, though after three days of Kwikheal her dizzy spells had stopped. She still had headaches, but reckoned she could use a knife if necessary. Bobby just hoped this wasn’t another rush job and Magpie would have time to recover properly. He’d already reminded Hood not to carry her gear.
Guns grimaced. “Yeah, well your luck ran out. Management want a word and they’ve descended into our own personal shite-heap to meet you. Upper management, way above my pay grade, far enou
gh above that I’m not invited to this meeting.”
“What?” That must be seriously high up the corporate tree. Bobby couldn’t remember talking to anyone above an Area Manager apart from the Duchess, except on a job. Upper management, boardroom level, didn’t usually get their soles grimy down here among the Troopers, and especially near the Basteds.
“Your lot aren’t exactly inconspicuous are you? Maybe you’ve finally stamped on the wrong set of toes?” The Area Manager shrugged. “Though in that case they should be after my head as well. Nobody told me anything but if you’ve finally pooched it, so have a couple of your old friends.” He smiled. “The barracks is that way. No sightseeing on the way, don’t call us, and have a nice day.” His laughter followed them up the road as the buses headed towards the barracks.
“How bad is it?” Bells started worrying straight away, of course.
“You heard, the sooner we get there, the sooner we know.” Bobby had his own worries to deal with. Upper management were too upper for Troopers to chat to.
“Do we ditch the notsi?” Bobby could hear pleading in his voice, because Bells hated even the parades when he’d been awarded more metal because he had to wear purely standard weaponry. He felt naked without his notsi, not standard issue. Considering the amount of notsi on the buses, the heap on the road would be conspicuous.
Bobby sighed. “No, if they asked for us, they know what we are and a couple of spares won’t matter.” Unless some super-dick in upper management needed an example, Bobby thought but definitely didn’t say. Though why go through this bulsh first?
* * *
Fifty armed Troopers were waiting. Nearly all the men were told to go straight to their quarters and stay there though they kept their weapons. Two Troopers separated Bobby and Hood’s squad from the rest and relieved them of all weapons before they were let into the canteen. The strange Troopers increased Bobby’s worries because strangers weren’t allowed here. The Troopers promised to guard the weaponry, which might have been bulsh but as soon as he stepped through the door Bobby knew this wasn’t a total stitch-up.
Sarge sat at one of the tables, the original Sarge from his Timer days, now a Trooper Sergeant-Major with three stars and the crown on his stripes. Then Bobby felt unsure again when he saw the Line Supervisor behind him. He recognised the same dick who’d been in charge of him as a Timer. Bobby saluted. The dick looked as if he’d swallowed a Jiff, not just sucked it, which seemed a bit of an overreaction.
“At ease. I’ve read your chips to catch up and I truly have no idea why you or the Sergeant-Major got this job. I’ve got it because of you and the complete shambles you left behind.” Bobby stared, baffled because he’d been given metal and promoted after that fight. The dick, the Super, had been promoted to Line Supervisor so he should have been happy. Though he’d stayed a bottom level Line Supervisor for nine years, so maybe that hadn’t gone well.
“Slur?”
The dick glared at the slurring. “The Sergeant-Major will explain. After all, no point in having a dog and doing the barking.” Bobby could see the look in Sarge’s eyes, the look that made Bobby think of carelessness on toilets, boom in the bog. Bobby had his own spare grenades now in case he wanted someone to be careless, and he knew Siflis had one. A few of the others probably had something nasty tucked away if Sarge had lost his.
“Yes, slur.” Bobby looked at Sarge who sighed, then smiled.
“You’ve just won the lottery, and a long, all expenses paid holiday. You’ll be going to exotic places, meeting new people…. And hopefully not having to shoot any of them. Come on, let’s get a warm drink.” Sarge paused. “They told me it’d be your squad, your old one.” He looked curiously at Magpie.
“Magpie is part of the squad.” Sarge shrugged. They went to get a hot drink, and two doughnuts which brought another smile from Sarge. The dick paced the floor the other end of the canteen, scowling about something. When Bobby and the squad were all sat around a corner table in the canteen with a hot caff, Sarge started with a strange question.
“How are you with world news? Not who’s pooched who, or who started the latest politically inspired food riot, I mean the news about the other blocs and space?” He looked at the four blank and one hesitant faces and sighed. “Some time before you volunteered for this unit,” all of them snorted, “there was some news, about a discovery?”
“Some alien wreckage, or something from the Age of Space?” The other three looked at Siflis. “Hey, I noticed because I play space games on the pad. I told you, I always liked the space stuff. Though that all disappeared from the news a bit back so I suppose it was a false alarm.”
“There was all that crap about selling Plebs to Aliens, back when….” Hood glanced at Magpie and shut up.
Sarge cut in. “Someone found a chunk of Alien space junk. What wasn’t advertised is on here.” He gave them five pads with a second glance at Magpie. “Read now, and swallow before letting anyone else see them. Then give them back to me because I’ll be right here in sight of you.” Sarge looked round. “It’ll take a while. What sort of quarters did your lot score?”
“Usual. Eight-man squad block.” Sarge kept looking, and Bobby gave up. “All right, nobody else wants to bunk with us so it’s private.” Actually Bobby was in charge so he just told the rest the room was off limits to give him some peace and quiet. More to the point Hood and Magpie could relax and hold hands. Bells had imposed strict limits on the amount of kissing because he’d get frustrated, but Magpie could wear a skirt twice a week.
“Let’s go.” Ten minutes later the five of them were stowing their returned gear and then they all started reading. Sarge prowling round the room peering at this and that distracted some of them, especially his inspection of the privacy screen in front of the last bed. Then the content really grabbed their attention, all of them.
* * *
The pad information started five years ago with a fluke, a tiny turn of fate on which might depend the very survival of their whole civilisation. As that long-ago lecturer told the Timers, automated probes had been sent out sampling asteroids for metals. When the probes tested an asteroid they also took pictures of the surrounding area and attached them to the file. A small team looked at all the pictures just in case anything of interest showed up and it did. An operation left over from the discovery of a complete craft from the Age of Space. The astronaut had died long ago of course, but the craft had been a valuable find.
In this case the pictures caught something else, in the background. A bored operator flicking through the reports noticed the anomaly, a picture of a perfectly straight line and flat, smooth surface where none should be, right out in space, in the asteroid belt. He enlarged the picture, looked again, reassessed and his first impression was right. The surface couldn’t be natural.
He flagged this latest file and sent it to the head of shift. A few minutes later the woman turned up at his desk, wanting an off the record opinion. “Why did you flag this?”
“That surface is too smooth, and the edge is too clean and straight.” The operator shrugged. “In my opinion.”
“How sure are you? Off the record.” She sounded as if she already had an opinion, she wanted confirmation.
The operator knew better, but the excitement of the moment got to him. “Either another bloc has a different sort of probe up or the object isn’t from now, it came from the Age of Space.” He pointed at the picture to demonstrate. “Anything that’s been there for a long time, even a completely natural fluke, would have been worn. There’s all sorts of junk from asteroids down to dust hitting every object, but this is pristine.” He refused to mention the third possibility, because she’d just take the piss.
Though the pause meant she might have thought the same. “I’ll send it up the line.” She bumped the file up the line with the frames flagged for attention. “Let’s hope the Supervisor arrived in a good mood tonight.” They both grimaced.
The Supervisor must have opened the file strai
ght away because they both stood on his carpet in ten minutes flat and he wasn’t scowling. Both confirmed the first two ideas. “Forget about another probe. There are eight corporations currently in the asteroids and we all plot exactly where each other’s probes are.” The Super hesitated. “I doubt it’s from the Age of Space. Nothing on record is that big, and right out there. How sure are you this isn’t natural?”
The Supervisor pushed hard, but both were certain that the shadow couldn’t be natural, not even a natural freak which might be important in any case. “You’d better be right, because I’m asking the boss to send the probe back to have a closer look. That will shorten its working life. If this is nothing, you pair are taking the blame.” A little smile flitted across his face. “If it’s what none of us want to say, you’ll get a hell of a bonus.”
The file went up to the Line Supervisor with all three analyses and his recommendation. The next step took an hour but only because the Line Supervisor called a couple of colleagues to get their opinions. The decision making progressed so quickly because processing probe pictures bored everyone; very, very little of note ever happened.
Nothing of this sort had ever happened. The Line Supervisor bumped the notifications up to the Unit Manager. A long dormant snoop bug noted the speed of the notifications and consultations and their upward progress. It alerted a small burst transmitter gathering dust in a hollow under a window sill. As the pictures, attachments and increasingly urgent tags went up through the organisation, electronic and human observers took note. Several units tasked with just this sort of investigation bent their human and electronic will to finding out what.
“I don’t like spy vids much anyway Sarge, and this one hasn’t got a Diva in skin-tight sod all. Can’t we skip to the end?” Bobby waved his pad and Bells nodded.
