Technokill

by David Sherman

  "Whew!" General Cazombi said. The right side of his face twitched slightly, in a way that those who'd served with him would recognize as a smile. "I have no authority over how things are run on this station, Captain. We have our mission and it does not include interfering in any way with how things operate here. Dr. Hoxey's experiments have been going on for some time now and I assume someone back at the Confederation knows about them and hasn't seen fit to stop them. She's right, too, that the more we know about the Avionians the easier it will be when the time comes to reveal ourselves to them."

  "General," Nast spoke up, "in my opinion we should just establish contact right now. Those poachers have probably blown the whole project anyway."

  "You may have a point there, Mr. Nast. But again, we haven't been asked. Captain," he turned back to Conorado, "I have never believed that the individual is less important than the group, even though I've had to sacrifice individual soldiers in battle. But I suspect that none of the three of us would ever ask another man to do anything, he wouldn't do himself. We all understand that every time a good man goes down it hurts like a knife in the heart. But we continue the mission. These scientists can never know that, and we cannot hold their ignorance against them.

  "But, Captain, I agree. The experiments are an abomination, and that these people, ostensibly some of the best brains our society has produced, could tolerate such a thing makes me sick too. When this is over, I shall join you in filing a formal complaint on the matter." As the general spoke his face reddened slightly. "That said, I have only one question: Are you ready to land on Avionia?"

  "Sir, my Marines are ready at your command."

  "Good. Mr. Nast, you will accompany Captain Conorado's men and make arrests whenever possible. Are you ready?"

  "I am, General. And I'll join you in that letter of protest."

  "Well then..." General Cazombi stood and stretched. "Shall we get that coffee now?"

  In the conference room refreshments were waiting. The visitors and the staff relaxed and discussed the briefings that had been given earlier. To the great relief of Dr. Abraham, the incident in the laboratory did not come up.

  "Well, thank you all very much," General Cazombi said at last, standing up.

  "One more thing, General." Dr. Abraham held out a specimen container. "The tiny capsules we found at the poachers' site. You might find them interesting. We found these on Avionia and we're sure they were left behind by the poachers—or the Avionians themselves. But if it was the Avionians, they had to have gotten them from the poachers. No culture of the Avionians is advanced enough to have manufactured anything like these things."

  General Cazombi examined the tiny capsules. One or two had clearly been ignited; the others had been carefully pried open and their contents, a fine granulated powder, put into a tiny specimen bag. He picked up one of the tiny lead pellets that had topped the cylinders and examined it. "Looks like an old-fashioned bullet."

  Abraham nodded. "And that granulated stuff is gunpowder, I believe."

  Nast picked out one of the pellets and examined it. "Who uses this stuff anymore?" he asked. Obviously, police intelligence had missed something.

  "Oh, it's still used on some worlds," Cazombi said as he inspected the brass casing. "On Elneal, for instance, the tribesmen use old-fashioned projectile weapons. Captain Conorado can tell you some interesting stories about Elneal." He inspected the bottom of the casing.

  "So. The poachers are trading projectile weapons for gizzard stones. Dr. Hoxey, how will this affect the balance of power among the tribes down there, eh? These little things, Doctor, are capable of killing a man, you know."

  "We don't know," Abraham answered for Hoxey, whose complexion had suddenly gone sickish. "But if the Cheereek—that's the tribe living in the area where we found these things—have guns—"

  "Oh, heavens to Betsy," Hoxey exclaimed, "this makes useless everything we've been doing to protect the Avionians! It is essential they develop technology on their own. This could destroy them. What do we do now?"

  "Now? Well, just now," General Cazombi answered, "I could use another cup of your coffee. And then, madam, then, well, I shall call in the Marines."

  Chapter 14

  Many of the Marines had never been on a space station before. It was huge, even bigger than a Crowe Class Amphibious Battle Cruiser. However, that size was where the station's resemblance to an amphibious battle cruiser began and where it ended. Avionia Station didn't have berthing and training spaces for the three thousand Marines of three FISTs; it was stressed to come up with space for the 120 Marines of Company L. Neither did it have a crew of thousands; instead it was run by a few hundred engineers and technicians aided by a small navy complement. Where an amphibious battle cruiser could single-handedly devastate a lesser planet, Avionia Station didn't even have defensive weaponry. Most of its nonengineering volume was taken up with living and recreational spaces for the hundred scientists who were aboard to study the Avionians, and mostly it had laboratories and other research spaces for those scientists. The ship even had a massive library of hardcopy scientific books, journals, and unpublished papers in addition to its electronic library, the content of which was larger by several orders of magnitude, though the space it took up was near infinitely smaller. And Avionia Station didn't turn its gravity off. But the surprises for the Marines of Company L began before they left the Khe Sanh.

  "Say what?" Claypoole exclaimed when he boarded one of the two Essays ferrying the Marines to Avionia Station. The interior of the Essay wasn't like any he'd seen before: it had rows of seats instead of simply a large open space for three Marine-filled Dragons.

  "The scientists who come here are civilians, Rock," Corporal Kerr said. "They don't make combat landings like Marines do, they travel in relative comfort."

  Claypoole found his assigned seat and plopped onto it. He bounced. "Nothing ‘relative’ about this comfort," he said, and sighed contentedly.

  Quickly, all the Marines riding the Essay filed in and found seats. In moments all were strapped in. A vid at the front of the cabin lit up and Captain Conorado appeared on it.

  "Listen up," he said. The image seemed to scan the cabin, and it felt to every man in the company that the commander looked each of them in the eye even though he wasn't physically present. "I know you've heard this before, but I'm going to say it again. This is not a combat landing; it is not a combat assault. We are transferring from a military vessel to what amounts to a civilian city. A civilized city, not a liberty port. While we are aboard Avionia Station you are to conduct yourselves like gentlemen and be polite in your dealings with station personnel." He smiled wryly. "A lot of the people over there have spent their entire lives in ivory towers and think they're in another one. Real Marines might be too much of a shock for them to survive, so behave yourselves. This isn't Bronnys—the locals don't revel in fights. Now enjoy the flight."

  The vid flicked off and almost everyone laughed. Gentlemen? Polite? Behave? Who? Marines?

  "He meant you, MacIlargie," Kerr said.

  "What? I didn't do anything." MacIlargie did his best to look innocent.

  "Not yet," Kerr said dryly. "But you probably will. So don't; I'll be watching." He leaned forward to see past MacIlargie. "That goes for you too, Rock."

  Claypoole spread his hands. "Come on, Corporal Kerr. You know I'm always the very model of decorum."

  "Sure you are. And Schultz braids flowers in his hair and helps little old ladies across the street."

  "But he does! The little old ladies, I mean. I've seen him do it."

  "So have I, Corporal Kerr," MacIlargie agreed.

  Kerr gave them a look of diminishing patience. "You know what I mean."

  Then there was no more talk, the Essay's PA chimed and a carefully modulated female voice began speaking.

  "Welcome aboard the Essay," the voice said, "the navy's most advanced shuttle vehicle, capable of both orbit-to-orbit and orbit-to-surface transport. If you look at the r
ight upper corner of the front of the cabin, you will see a message board with numbers on it. These numbers are the countdown to launch. Right now they should read about thirty. When they reach zero, the shuttle will launch from the Khe Sanh and begin its transit to Avionia Station. When the Essay leaves the ship, there will be a brief period of weightlessness. Do not be alarmed by it; it's perfectly normal. Approximately fifteen minutes after launch you will begin to debark on board the space station Avionia Station. Please do not leave your seats until the Essay's pilot says you may. Speaking on behalf of your navy, I hope you have a pleasant trip." The PA chimed again, the message was over.

  "Say what?" Claypoole said.

  Kerr shook his head. "This Essay wasn't designed for us, it was designed for ranking civilians."

  There was a slight jolt as the welldeck's bay doors opened below the Essay. The jets in the welldeck's overhead puffed so lightly the Marines hardly felt the Essay drop from the ship.

  "Are we moving yet?" someone shouted to general laughter. The only way the Marines could tell they'd left the ship was by the sudden absence of gravity. The amphibious landing ship, CNSS Khe Sanh, hadn't bothered to turn off its gravity generators before the launch as it ordinarily would when it spit out Marine-filled Essays.

  When the Essays were a safe distance below the ship, the coxswains—the voice had said "pilot" but the Marines couldn't help but think of them as coxswains—eased on their main engines. "Eased" was the operative word. The Marines weren't suddenly smashed into their seats by the many g's of acceleration they'd grown accustomed to; the gentle acceleration pushed them lightly and steadily into their seats until they reached what felt like a half g. A while later deceleration began just as gently, but they didn't return to full weightlessness. The Essay slid into Avionia Station's docking bay and the space station's gravity took over. The Marines looked at each other in surprise when they heard the clunks and clanks of the Essay being locked into place in the docking bay. Normally when Essays delivered them into an amphibious ship's welldeck, they only felt the clunks and clanks because the welldecks were in vacuum.

  As soon as the coxswains gave the go-ahead to disembark, the platoon sergeants stood up and started barking orders. The Marines filed off the Essay into the docking bay.

  "Gravity?" someone shouted.

  "We're walking!" someone else shouted back.

  "Hey, this is the way to do it!" a third Marine chimed in.

  Navy vessels turned off their gravity when they launched or received Essays. Marines boarding a navy ship were strung together on long lines and towed by sailors from the welldeck to the troop compartments and never knew which way was up until the ships got under way and gravity returned. This was the first time for nearly all of them that they'd walked off a just-docked Essay.

  "Right this way, gentlemen," boomed a chief petty officer in crisply pressed khakis as he waved the Marines past. "If you'll just follow that petty officer second class—he's the one with two chevrons under the eagle on his sleeve and a clipboard in his hand—he'll conduct you to your quarters." The chief's eyes twinkled as a PO 2nd was the equivalent of a Marine sergeant.

  The Marines gaped. All the sailors in view wore sparkling white uniforms. On a regular navy ship, the sailors routinely wore dungarees and, more often than not, were sweaty and greasy. Sailors usually looked mildly annoyed about having to lead the Marines, as though they had more important things to do. These looked more nervous than annoyed.

  "You and your sailors have been away from the real navy for too long, Chief," Charlie Bass said through a grin as he passed the chief petty officer. "A chief petty officer calling mud Marines ‘gentlemen’?"

  The chief grinned back. "This duty has its perks."

  A hatch led from the docking well into a monorail station where four cars were waiting. The platoon sergeants took over from the sailors and got their men in the cars by platoon. As soon as each platoon sergeant reported all his men accounted for, the chief signaled the sailors to board the cars and the lead operator closed the doors. The monorail trip took longer than the transit between ships had. When the cars reached their destination, the platoon sergeants got their platoons into tight formations and waited for the sailors to tell them which way to go.

  The second class found a spot where he could face the entire company and glanced at his clipboard. "First platoon, you follow Seaman Sumtow." He pointed at a sailor who raised his hand. The second class ignored the hoots that followed the seaman's polite call of "Follow me, please," and the platoon sergeant bellowed "Belay that, people!"

  "Second platoon, go with Seaman Drake." The second platoon sergeant cut off his men's hoots quickly.

  "Don't even think it," Staff Sergeant Hyakowa snarled at his men before the second class told third platoon to "Please follow Seaman Honor." Instead of hooting, the Marines snickered and nudged one another. A sailor saying "please" to Marines? That was too much. If they played their cards right, they could have a lot of fun with the local squids.

  The Marines were assigned to suites normally occupied by technicians, who were grumbling about doubling up, four to a suite instead of the normal two, but their complaints slackened when they learned the Marines were packed eight to a suite. The Marines didn't mind the crowding; not only were the assigned spaces larger than their berthing on the Khe Sanh, they were more spacious than the barracks quarters back at Camp Ellis. The pleasure the Marines felt only lasted until they assembled in a small theater to meet the people in overall command of the operation and get the first of their detailed briefings. Then they became all business.

  Captain Conorado stood at a dais on the stage. Four of the five chairs at a table next to the dais were occupied. Three of the four people were civilians, whom the Marines ignored. The fourth was an army major general. Most of the Marines glared at him. His presence meant the operation was probably being run by the army. Most of the men of Company L had been in the near disastrous war on Diamunde. The ground operations on that war were run by the army until the admiral in overall command relieved the senior army general of command of the ground operations and replaced him with the ranking Marine general. Convinced of the incompetence of army generals, the Marines of L Company never wanted to be under the command of the army again.

  "On board the Khe Sanh you were briefed by Captain Natal," Captain Conorado began as soon as everybody was seated and looking toward the stage. "He gave you the bare outlines of this mission. First Sergeant Myer impressed on you why the mission is important. Now we are going to spend the rest of today and all day tomorrow getting the details of what we're going to do and how we'll do it. The next morning we will be issued whatever special equipment we need and head planetside.

  "For the first order of business I will hand you over to Dr. Thelma Hoxey, the station manager. She will welcome you and introduce the other people at the table." He turned to the table. "Dr. Hoxey."

  Giving Conorado a curt nod, the lone woman on the stage stood and strode to the dais. She faced the Marines. She was short and squat, with stringy gray hair. Frown lines marked her forehead and disapproval lines radiated from her slightly pursed lips.

  "We are at Avionia Station on a scientific mission of gravest importance. Our mission is being jeopardized by unauthorized people who are planetside making contact with the indigenous population in violation of an Act of Congress and several Confederation laws. Your mission is to apprehend these people and remove them and all trace of their presence from Avionia. While you are on the surface of the planet, you are absolutely required to avoid any and all contact with the indigenous population. Anyone who makes contact with the indigenous population will be considered to be in league with the criminals who are already there and will be treated accordingly."

  She paused for a moment, then said, "Now I will introduce Special Agent Thom Nast of the Confederation Ministry of Justice." She returned to her place at the table without so much as a welcoming glance at Nast, who nodded amiably at her as they passed.<
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  "Well," Nast said, "I've worked with quite a few different law enforcement agencies during my career in the Ministry of Justice, but this is the first time I've ever worked with Marines. I've been looking forward to this ever since I got the assignment because your reputation as fighters is the highest. And I understand this company is regarded within the Confederation Marine Corps as one of the very best. A policeman working with fighters, that will be very different for me." He smiled broadly. "But I always enjoy working with the best."

  Then he got serious. "You know what the basic mission is. I'm not going to waste your time or mine by reiterating what you already know. Your job is to apprehend the people down there and hand them over to me. I come here with police powers extraordinary. If you don't know what that means, just take my word for it, it's an extraordinary power for a policeman to have." He paused while some of the Marines laughed. "Later we'll get into the details of how we'll do this. Thank you for giving me your time and attention."

  Dr. Hoxey didn't acknowledge Nast as he returned to his place at the table. Instead she said without standing, "The next speaker is Major General Alistair Cazombi, the C-1 from the Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He's in command of the military aspects of this mission."

  There were muffled groans from the Marines. Not only was he an army general, he was a staff officer.