Shards [Book Three]

by Peter W Prellwitz

  Lieutenant Posen pulled up the stool Jody had used yesterday and put his foot on it. His boot was so highly polished that I could make out the faint purple reflection of the uvive. He continued to study the tabinal, but now he was doing it to establish some kind of superior position for the interview by making me wait. I let it bounce off me. If I stayed calm, I could still try to improve our poor start. He finally seemed to reach a point where he could begin. Without taking his eyes off the readout, he spoke.

  “According to this, you are Private Abigail Wyeth. You are—or rather were—the anchor for the first triteam of Company A in the Third Regiment.” I carefully avoided looking at Cooper. “You also say you have accessed the puterverse at level twelve And Sergeant Eyer reports that according to their findings, it was you who took out five NATech commandos in hand-to-hand all by your lonesome.” Those last words didn't sound too good. I was getting a bad feeling. He set down the tabinal and looked directly at me.

  “So, tell me, Private, how does such a pretty young thing like you accomplish so much?"

  I felt a deep drop in the pit of my stomach that had nothing to do with the wakey-wakey drugs Ressler had given me. He didn't believe me. I had reported faithfully to him, except about my access levels and that was to lower them, and he didn't believe me.

  “I ... I'm sorry, sir?” I spoke slowly to hold my emotion in control, but I still felt my cheeks burning. “What did you say, Lieutenant?"

  “Oh come now, Private. You heard me clearly. I said, how could somebody as young as you actually have this kind of record, these kind of achievements?"

  “Sir, I'm sure Sergeant Eyer reported my ... my status?” I glanced at Cooper this time. A Cue had to be very careful about admitting she was a Cue. We had no rights whatsoever, and were at the complete mercy of anyone who had the whim to harm us.

  Posen saw my glance at Cooper and smiled. “You mean your status as a sharded Cue?” I flinched at his blunt, loud use of the phrase. “Yes, she mentions it, although she doesn't go into detail. I take it you're claiming to have gotten so far up in the Third's main enforcement Company by strength of your previous life?"

  “That's exactly what I'm saying, sir. My expertise in combat comes from the service I gave to my country during the Ethiopian Campaigns of my time. My computer expertise is just hard work.” I hedged a little on the last. He'd never believe that I not only knew Chris Young, the father of the webbing techniques still used, but that he had worked for me.

  “Ethiopian Campaigns, eh?” He frowned. “That's the twenty-second century."

  “Twenty-first century, sir."

  “No, it was the twenty-second, Private."

  This was getting stupid. “With all due respect, sir,” I said with rapidly thinning patience. “I was there. It was the twenty-first century.” I took a breath and plunged in. I had to establish my word as being valid. “I served as a recon platoon leader from 2015 until 2018. I completed seventy-nine missions in that time and finished with a field commission of major."

  “You're saying that they let women serve as officers that far back? That's a little far-fetched, don't you think, Private?” He had made the totally understandable assumption that I had always been a woman. I wouldn't correct him.

  “No, sir. Women served as officers as far back as the twentieth century. The United States had a female colonel during World War Two. And I believe a nation known as the Soviet Union had a female fighter pilot who was a Major during the same war. You know it as the Second Great War."

  “Hmm.” He looked at his notes. “And did you take out those five commandos?"

  “Yes, sir. That's how I picked up this wound."

  “And what were you doing out there with them?"

  “I don't know,” I answered truthfully. “After the initial attack, Corporal Lendler and I had taken up position at the personnel entrance into the hanger. We were laying down crossfire on the NATech soldiers who were behind our hovs when I received orders to shift to a covering fire while the main group in the armory counter-attacked. Since the corporal and I had only sidearms, I—"

  “A counter-attack? That's suicide! How could you take on two brigades of NATech Xeno troops and hope to survive?"

  “No hope involved, sir. They brought it to us. It would have been suicide not to counter-attack. As I was saying, sir, I needed to get heavier fire power to lay down a more effective cover. I had Corporal Lendler lay down a covering fire while I ran to a friend of mine and retrieved her plasma rifle. It was when I—"

  “You said you gave orders to a corporal? And what about your friend? Did you just take her rifle? And how could a small thing like you hold such a big gun?"

  I was getting very tired of the Lieutenant's belittling remarks. I waited a slow five seconds, then continued.

  “In the order you asked them, sir: I gave orders to a corporal because it was a combat condition and I'm the anchor of Company A's first triteam. Everyone, except Lieutenant Sanchez and Sergeants Thawell, Abdih and Halteman, follow my orders in a combat situation. As for my friend, she was dead, sir. She'd taken at slug through the head and an incendiary in her gut. Finally, I'm small, sir, but I'm also trained in over sixty weapons and twelve major categories of hand to hand combat."

  He looked at me with disinterested, unbelieving eyes. “Go on."

  “Yes, sir. Just before I'd picked up the rifle, we'd been hit with a plasma punch gun. That's how I picked up this.” I touched my right cheek. “Small arms fire at that time damaged my jacket. Most of the bruises are faded on my back, but they're still there. When I headed back, they punched us again, and the next thing I was aware of was waking up in the hov with three of their men pawing at me. I went wild and got lucky. I managed to kill all five, getting nicked during the free-for-all. I was heading back to the hanger when the whole area exploded."

  “I see. And what caused the two explosions that destroyed our base, two Xeno brigades and NATech's Fifteenth Armored?"

  “I don't know, sir,” I lied. “There was a red glow in the sky and a loud scream. The impact was great enough that it turned my hov around from four kilometers. The next missile hit only seconds later. The shock wave from that one destroyed the hov's gyro and grav integrity field and threw me, tearing open my knife wound."

  “A missile, you say? Then you do know what happened?"

  “No, sir, I don't. I think it was a missile. I know we don't have guns that heavy and accurate, or that can do that kind of damage. It must have been a missile. Don't you think so, sir?"

  He hardened his face at my question. “What I think is none of your concern, Private.” He stepped over to the panel and placed the shielding on, careful to stand outside it. The sound shield remained off. Posen had things to say.

  “Frankly, Wyeth, I don't believe a word you are telling me. This is too preposterous, too outrageous, too fanciful to be real. I mean, look at you!"

  “I realize I'm not at my best, sir. And I realize I don't look like much. But I am telling you the truth. I'm not overly fond of using my combat skills when unneeded, but make no mistake, sir, I am a dog."

  “That remains to be seen, Wyeth. You will remain here under guard until I can verify your identity and your story. Maybe you were assigned to the Third in a support role as a clerk or laundress or cook. Or maybe you're a rookie with a chance to impress us with this fanciful story. But my guess is you're a girl one of the men brought back from Alexandria for an evening's entertainment."

  That last one did it. He had systematically shredded my word, my patience and now my character. My face flushed and I rose to my elbow.

  “Sir, I will follow your orders as you give them to me. I will perform the duties you assign me to the best of my ability. And I will gladly die for my fellow dogs in the 179th even though I've never met them. But if you ever call me a prostitute again, Lieutenant, I will kill you.

  “You say you doubted my word and my abilities. I'm telling you right now, sir, that had I been off this machine, I could
have killed you and Cooper in less than five seconds, and not one sound would have escaped this sickbay.” I told them in detail what I would have done, and Cooper's shocked face told me he understood completely.

  “You have no idea what happened,” I continued. “Nor do you have any idea what kind of service I've given over my life. I've seen more combat than you, in two different centuries, and I've survived it all.

  “I don't expect to be instantly given previous authority and position. Neither do I expect you to swallow everything I've told you without checking, though I doubt you'll find a way to check either the battle or my twenty-first century service. I do expect, however, to be given the benefit of the doubt, and given respect as a person despite my non-rights status. And I expect ... I expect..."

  Everything became woozy and I was forced to lie back down. Ressler must have been watching, for he rushed up, shutting off the field.

  “That's enough! Lieutenant, I must insist that you leave.” His tone, which reached me with a dim echo, carried authority that had to be obeyed. “You may continue this debriefing later. Tomorrow, perhaps. Right now, Private Wyeth needs to be kept quiet. She's still weak from blood loss. And take Cooper with you. You have my assurance that she is incapable of leaving her bed for at least another forty-eight hours."

  “I'm sorry, Doctor, but your assurance is not enough. She's made it clear to us that she could become hostile, despite her small size. Cooper.” Cooper stepped alongside the bed, brushing the doctor back. He smiled wickedly at me and reached for the panel over my bed. I felt a flash of heat in my right arm, and a large animal, maybe a horse, sat on my chest. My eyesight faded, although I don't know that I closed my eyes.

  “Wait! Step away from that! This is a medical..."

  Ressler didn't stop talking. I just stopped listening.

  * * *

  Chapter Two

  "And the tour ends here.” Jody's swept her hand toward a corner in the women's barracks. My newly issued gear was lying on the stripped bed with blankets and sheets roughly folded and sitting on my pillow.

  “Thanks, Jody. I'll have to owe you the nickel, though. I'm a little light right now.” I opened my foot locker—some things never change—and tried to picture how I wanted to place my things in there.

  “A nickel? Why would you owe me metal?"

  I smiled. “Sorry, ancient expression. A nickel was a coin of value in that time, worth five percent of the main unit called a dollar. When you were taken on a whirlwind show of a place it was called the ‘nickel tour'."

  Jody had started helping me put away my things but laughed at my explanation. “That is so incredible! When did that expression first get started?"

  “Around the late nineteenth or early twentieth century. Why?"

  “I just find it so exciting to be talking to someone who actually lived at that time!"

  “Well, I was born in 1995, so I just slipped in under the millennium My only memories of the twentieth century include wetting my pants in day care, losing my first tooth, and kissing my first...” I broke off and modified my sentence. “...having my first kiss when I was five years old."

  “That's so cute! You actually had a crush on a boy when you were only five?"

  This was going to be difficult, dodging around these kinds of questions about my past. Maybe I should just jump right in. So I smiled.

  “A huge crush! I'd wait for the number five bus during kindergarten, but he took the number three bus.” It was amazing how easily I could switch the pronouns. Maybe not all that amazing, considering I had to do it to myself for over two years now. “I thought if I was just fast enough, I could sit next to him on the way home. But I could never make it. There were two bells, see, and he got out on the first one and I got out on the second. I never thought..."

  I stopped talking because I'd clearly lost Jody. She was shaking her head as though I were speaking a different language.

  “What are you talking about, Abigail? What's a bus? What's kindergarten? Maybe I should take this a little slower."

  “That's okay, Jody. I shouldn't really talk too much about it, anyway. I could get careless. But when we get a chance, I'll tell you about television and airplanes and baseball and lots of other things from the ancient mists of time.” I spoke in as deep a voice as I could to make the end sound ominous. We both laughed.

  We had finished unpacking and fixing up my bunk. I stepped back and admired the work. “All right! Private Wyeth, reporting for duty! Just one thing missing."

  “What's that?"

  “My sidearm. I imagine you confiscated it until you could verify my identity and story.” I glanced around to be sure the other dozen or so women in the barracks weren't listening in. They were watching us on the sly, but couldn't hear us. “Lieutenant Posen didn't look too pleased when he came to tell me I was to report to you for duty. I almost think he was hoping to find out I was a liar so he could ship me out of here."

  “You're right, he wasn't happy. He was even less happy when orders came down that he had no choice about keeping you, at least for a while.” She looked at me considering, “We're never bothered by TAU, let alone given orders. You must be something special to have them issue orders about you."

  I shrugged. “I have a knack with the puterverse and planned many of our raids. TAU probably doesn't want that talent wasted.” We used the word TAU as an acronym for Those Above Us. We didn't talk about the Resistance central organization too much, and they didn't deal with us too much, except to set up general coordination and shipping of surplus supplies and, in rare circumstances, to give a very specific order.

  “You planned some of those raids? How about the New Denver hit?"

  “Uh-huh. That was last one I went on. I was laid up after that one."

  “Sorry to hear. Were you injured?

  “No."

  “Oh.” She didn't press the point because it was rude to keep asking about something that you already know the answer to. “So how did you know that the generator would explode? In fact, how did you even know to hit that facility?"

  “We did our research and figured out how to bring down the weather net in just the right locations, times, and sequence to create the weather. As for the target, that took a lot of hard work before we determined it was a riping facility. Even then, we acted on a lot of empirical evidence."

  “I envy you, Abigail. We never take on targets that big. The Lieutenant is, well, never mind. That's personal opinion, and not something a sergeant should share with one of her privates."

  “I understand. I kept my negative opinions of superior officers to myself, too, with my recon outfit. Anyway, back to the original question: When can I get my sidearm back?"

  “You don't, Abigail. Sorry.” She looked uncomfortable, which she should have. “We keep all weapons locked away in the armory, and issue according to need."

  “That's crazy!” I said, my voice getting loud. “A dog should always keep her sidearm handy! What if we get discovered and attacked?"

  “Since it hasn't happened, the general feeling is that it won't. Besides, if NATech did decide to hit us, what good would small arms do against what they would throw at us?” She sounded totally unconvinced with her own words, as though she were parroting something she didn't want to.

  “What good...” I broke off and lowered my voice. “You're not serious, are you, Jody? What kind of an attitude is that to take? The Third was never hit before last week, and now they're...” My voice caught. “And now they're gone. But if we didn't have our guns with us, we couldn't have responded with any sort of effectiveness. I know we couldn't have gotten to the armory where we kept the big guns. As it was, it took the Fifteenth Armored and two full brigades to take us out. And precious few of them survived."

  “That's enough, Private! This isn't the Third, this is the 179th. And in the 179th, you will obey our procedures.” Jody didn't say it with relish, but she said it.

  “Okay, Sergeant,” I blushed a bit; I had stepped out
of line. “But we will get our own sidearm when they are issued, right?"

  “Why?” her eyes narrowed.

  “I had Dusty, our weapons specialist, make some modifications. If you don't know what you're doing, you can do some serious unintentional damage.” I didn't elaborate.

  “I see. I'll speak to the Lieutenant about assigning that specifically to you, though we normally don't.” She held up her hand. “I don't want to hear it."

  I sighed. “All right. Just make sure nobody fools with it unless I'm there. Moving along, now. How about puterverse access? Do I have any clearance yet?” Access to the puterverse was limited only by the user's rights, which everyone had in varying degrees. But it was possible in isolated areas like our base to limit access to the terminals, requiring special voice coding prior to entering the puterverse voice access code. I had woken from my drug induced sleep four days ago and I still didn't have terminal access. I didn't care what access they gave me; once in the puterverse, I could do whatever I wanted. But first I needed terminal clearance.

  “Sorry, but you not only don't have it yet, it's unlikely the Lieutenant is ever going to give it to you. You don't rate clearance."

  “I don't rate clearance?” I replied, stunned. “Jody, anybody who can breathe rates clearance! I have to get on! I've got some details to take care of, and some personal business as well."

  “Abigail, I'm sorry, but that's the way it is here. You can access under my account, but only for five minutes at a time and only with me in control. If either of us breaks those rules, I'll lose my terminal clearance as well. Please, don't push it."

  I didn't push it, but I was getting upset and more than a little nervous. If I stayed off too long, Mike would assume I was dead and would begin accessing the UTC sequences that gave him permission to begin detonating the UTC charges we had been laying for the past year and a half. I didn't want that to happen yet because the pattern wasn't fully laid and wouldn't be for several more months. On top of that, I hadn't even begun creating the safety zones needed to protect non-NATech sites from serious damage Even then I lacked the one piece of information that would make detonations fully justifiable: the source of the limitations that had been placed on the puterverse.