by Jamie Sawyer
Zero grinned from ear to ear. “I’m glad I don’t think like that.”
“What do you mean?”
“All this, it still excites me. I’d hate to lose that.”
“You almost did,” I said. “If Kwan had finished using the redactor on you …”
Zero sipped at her coffee. “Yeah, but he didn’t. And I’m all good.”
Was that really true? Zero’s ginger hair was pulled back from her head in a tight ponytail, and I could see the flash-burns where the redactor’s probes had made contact: where they had literally sought to suck knowledge out of her head. In normal circumstances, an event like that would warrant a full medical assessment, if not leave on one of Fortuna’s veteran retreats …
Zero was quiet for a moment, and then a little longer.
“Is something up, Zero?” I asked her. “I’m sensing that you’re here for a reason.”
“No,” she said. “I’m not.”
“I think you are. C’mon, spit it out.”
“Really, it … it’s not serious,” she said, at the same time rubbing the probe-burns on her temple.
I’d known Zero long enough that I could tell something was up. She wanted to talk about something.
“Go on,” I said. “I’m listening.”
“Well, it’s just that—” she started.
Harris appeared at the rec room hatch, filling the chamber with his presence.
“You people should be resting,” he interrupted. “Our ETA at Thane is only eight hours.”
Zero immediately clammed up, drank down the remains of her coffee. “Yes, sir. I—I was just working on a new programme with Nadi.”
“Well get rested. I’ll need you frosty tomorrow.”
“Got it,” Zero said, bobbing her head. “Yes, sir.”
“And less of the ‘sir.’ I’m not military anymore.”
Zero blushed. “Understood.”
She went to back out of the room.
“You want to talk, Sergeant,” I said as she went, “then you know where I am.”
“Solid copy,” she said.
Harris watched her go. “She’s turned out well enough.”
“She’s a good officer,” I said. “She wanted to be a simulant operator, you know, after we saved her from Mau Tanis. Do you remember that mission?”
“Of course.”
“Liar,” I said. “Mau Tanis was just another military operation for you. I doubt you can even remember who was on the Lazarus Legion back in those days.”
“I can recollect, well enough.”
“Way I remember things, you didn’t even want me to go back into the colony and pick that girl up.”
“I was concerned for your safety. The whole damned colony had just suffered a Krell bio-bombardment.”
“Yeah, that’s true. Still, Zero’s only here because I found her.”
“Things were different then. Easier.”
“There was no glory on Mau Tanis, Harris.”
Harris’ eyes misted, just a little. Recalling a memory nearly two decades old, when the Lazarus Legion had been deployed on Mau Tanis, and Zoe Campbell—Zero—had been the sole survivor of the operation. Harris produced his ever-present silver flask and poured something that smelled alcoholic into his coffee. He did the same for me, without asking whether I wanted any.
“What happened to my apparent and very pressing need for sleep?” I asked.
“You can have one drink with an old man, surely,” Harris said. He nodded his head reflectively. “Things were damned good back then. When we were Legion.”
“Times change. But they can be good again.”
“You have the Jackals,” Harris muttered. “And you’ve got a good outfit there.”
“Your team aren’t so shabby either,” I replied.
“They’re okay,” Harris said with typical understatement.
“How’d you muster them?”
Harris gave a sort of shrug. “I found them here and there. When you’ve been in the military for as long as I have, you make connections. Maberry was a Navy Corpsman, did two tours in the Van Diem Straits. She’s a real Devil Doc, that one.”
“She has a certain manner about her,” I said.
There was an opportunity, here, to tell Harris about Feng. I couldn’t explain it to myself, but I didn’t take it. I let the moment pass. Maberry clearly hadn’t told Harris about Feng, either. She knew that he was my problem.
“Don’t let that fool you,” Harris continued. “Things get hot, Maberry’s calm under pressure. Captain Tomas Lestrade was a combat pilot, retired out of Navy service. I found him working for the Euro-Confed merchant navy. The life didn’t suit him. Whatever he tells you, he’d rather be running combat ops than living the quiet life.”
“And Nadi? What’s her story?”
“She’s a war-orphan. Same as Zero. Except, instead of the Krell, it was the Spiral who killed her family. She was jumping ships out of the Arcturus Loop, offering her services as a code-hacker. Doesn’t have any family left; if we hadn’t stepped in when we did, I think she would’ve ended up in the cubes.”
“Unless we stop this war,” I said, growing maudlin for a moment, “I guess that there will be a lot more like her and Zero.”
“We can change that,” Harris promised. “But I’ve been meaning to ask you: do I still have the record?”
“The record” had been Harris’ for a long time. He’d held the top spot in Simulant Operations—been the operator with most transitions to his name—for years after he’d left the Programme, after he’d been declared dead.
“Sorry, Harris,” I said. “Captain Ving, out of Unity Base, has the title now. He’s a proper, bona fide, grade-A asshole.”
Harris ignored my assessment of Ving’s character, and focused on what he actually cared about. “How many?”
Given the Watch’s apparently infinite resources, I suspected that Harris already knew this information. It was more than public knowledge: Ving was the face of Sim Ops, a rising star in the Programme.
But I answered anyway. “Nearly three hundred,” I said, “although not all of those were in hot zones.”
That seemed to warm Harris’ heart. “Then they don’t count. Everyone knows that.”
“Sure,” I said. “Everyone knows that.” I finished my drink. “And talking of hot zones, when am I going to get a briefing on the next operation? My Jackals are hungry to get moving on this.”
Harris smirked. “They want new skins, right? I remember that feeling.”
A hand dropped to one of my data-ports, and I felt that caustic tang at the back of my throat. Yeah, I was feeling the withdrawal. I needed a new body as much as any of my squad.
Harris slid a data-slate across the table. “Here’s everything that you need to know. Consider this to be your briefing.” He activated the slate, which threw up a clean-lined tri-D schematic of a space station. He’d already flagged key locations—the Command Suite, Simulant Storage Depot, Birthing Chambers …“So far as we’re aware, these records are up-to-date and reliable.”
“We’re expecting resistance, I take it?”
“Of course,” said Harris. “It’s a simulant farm: we can expect simulants. Lots of simulants.”
“Then what’s our current equipment stockpile?”
“Limited,” Harris admitted. “What you brought aboard, plus some sidearms. Nadi and Feng have reprogrammed the Ikarus suits. We’ve got munitions, so the PDWs and pistols you brought aboard can be repurposed.”
“So we’re going aboard an Alliance farm dressed as Directorate?”
“Basically.”
“This doesn’t sound like much of a plan, Harris. There are only half a dozen combat-capable personnel on this ship: the Jackals, Pariah.” I paused. “You. How the fuck are we going to take on a single squad of sims, let alone lots of them?”
The words sounded all kinds of wrong in my head, and even worse spoken out loud. I was Alliance. I was Sim Ops.
“W
e can do this. Your fish will be instrumental.”
“Of course,” I said. “P is a Jackal.”
“‘P’?” Harris asked. “You even have a nickname for it now?”
“All right then, Pariah will help. It has a vested interest in settling this war. But I need details, Harris. How are we even going to get aboard the outpost?”
He smiled. “All taken care of, Jenkins, but our approach method is going to be somewhat novel …”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
ASSAULT ON DARKWATER
Thane’s star system was officially known as TX-1267, but it wasn’t publicly recognised as having been explored. TX-1267 was a pale main sequence star, supporting seven lifeless worlds. None of the planets were capable of settlement without some serious investment, and the system’s remote location meant than neither the Alliance, the Directorate nor any other space-capable human faction had therefore paid it much attention.
Thane itself was a gas giant that put out an unhealthy amount of background radiation, with an orbiting ring of asteroidal debris. The planet’s atmosphere was mainly composed of hydrogen, helium and methane, and to the naked eye it was an ochre smudge that made me feel vaguely nauseous. Thane wasn’t anyone’s idea of home, that was for sure, but those same features made it the perfect location for a covert science facility. Within the planet’s ring, hidden from view unless you knew exactly where to look for it, was Darkwater Farm.
Becoming increasingly drunk the previous night, I had studied everything there was to know about Darkwater and Thane. Harris’ briefing had been very specific, and he had meticulously planned the assault. In turn, I’d briefed the Jackals, and as a result everyone knew their role in this operation.
“You’re right about one thing,” I muttered, into the communicator, “this certainly is a novel deployment method.”
I was currently clinging to the side of a small asteroid, a lump of rock that wasn’t much bigger than me. I used the handgrips of the Ikarus suit to steady myself, and held on for dear life, poised ready for the next manoeuvre.
“I do not like this very much …” rumbled Novak.
“Getting a little queasy, hey, Big Man?” Lopez asked.
“More than little,” Novak answered.
Doing this in our own skin? It turned out that it wasn’t much fun.
“That planet,” said Novak, referring to Thane, “reminds me of home. Air is same colour.” His words were peppered with gasps and wet swallowing sounds, as though he was trying to stop himself from vomiting. “Same as Norilsk.”
“Your home has yellow air?” Lopez asked.
“On good day, yes. Is like bad place.”
“Is definitely like bad place,” Feng laughed. “Remind me never to visit you, Novak.”
“I never offered,” Novak replied.
The HUD on my Ikarus suit was alight with motion, as I tracked asteroids in the debris field. Usually, those asteroids would be barely visible against the silky dark of outer space, but the HUD gave me an augmented-reality view. The Jackals, along with Harris, were using the asteroids as launch-points to approach the objective. Except for Pariah, we were all using commandeered Ikarus flight-suits, Harris wearing the armour that Zero had used to escape Jiog.
“We approach,” Pariah intoned.
P was now wearing its self-made bio-suit, and it was the only member of the team that I couldn’t visually track. That was all part of the plan. In full fish armour, P would be almost invisible to the farm’s scopes and scanners. A single life-sign could easily be missed.
“I have visual on the target,” Zero said over the comms-network. “Flagging on your HUD.”
Zero, Nadi and Elena were on the Paladin, watching the mission unfold through the squad’s vid-feeds, at a safe distance.
“Solid copy,” I said.
The objective was a much larger asteroid, located deeper in the band of rocks. There, the debris was more closely packed.
I see you …
Darkwater Farm clung to the underside of that rock. It was an ugly black hulk of a thing: a space station composed of a dozen or so modules, arranged in a cross-shape, crucifix-like. Each of the station’s four arms was tipped with a docking bay, labelled Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta. A jagged range of sensor masters, radar dishes and weapons placements were scattered across its armoured hull, with the latter tracking targets through the debris field. The whole station was tethered to the asteroid by a series of cables that—on closer inspection—were thicker than my waist.
“The cables and gravity-drive keep the facility in a stable orbit,” Harris had explained.
Beneath me, Thane’s surface roiled and boiled. Various coloured bands polluted the otherwise mustard surface. I could almost feel the atmo attacking the outer coating of my Ikarus suit, although I knew that was pure paranoia. We’d have to be in a whole world of shit—quite literally—to feel that. The station would have to be knocked out of its orbit, for a start.
“Why bother with the tethers?” Lopez asked the squad at large.
“Plausible deniability,” Harris muttered. “If this place goes tits up, Sci-Div can blow them remotely. Darkwater would fall into Thane’s atmosphere within minutes. There wouldn’t be anything left for the enemy, whoever that might be, to salvage.”
“How are those new control systems working out for y’all?” Nadi asked, her voice cheery-bright, without any edge of military discipline at all.
“Great,” I replied. “I can actually read controls that are in Standard.”
“Now,” Lopez said, her voice popping with static, “if I could just get the heating controls to work properly …”
Nadi laughed. “You Proximans all same! Want it hot and comfy …”
“Easy for you to say,” Feng muttered. “You’re the one on the nice warm starship.”
The Paladin Rouge currently sat beyond the range of Darkwater’s scanners. We’d been deep-inserted into the theatre; Harris and Nadi had assured us that a half-dozen small targets, approaching through the asteroid field, would be capable of evading the base’s point defence systems. So far, that theory had proved to be true.
“Cut the chatter,” Harris said. “Are we ready to—”
“Hold!” Zero interrupted. “Check Beta Dock.”
The station turned gently in front of me. The farm was used to accepting traffic, and each of its four docks could hold a dozen starships. Most of them were empty, which was what we had expected. One, however, was not.
“Shit,” Lopez said, “there’s a ship docked down there.”
“Scanning now,” I said, focusing my suit’s scopes on the vessel.
“It’s an Alliance ship,” Feng said, doing the same. “A Simulant Operations ship, Intruder-class.”
Long, sleek, with a pointed prow that spoke of violence, the Intruder was a far cry from the Paladin’s squat outline. Weapons pods studded her outer aspect, nestled beneath the sleek nacelles, but the ship wasn’t really made for direct combat. The Intruder-class was a proper Sim Ops ship, made for penetrating enemy lines and dropping sims directly into the fray, rather than slugging it out with her own armaments. A ripple of nostalgia crept through me as I panned my scanner back and forth across the ship. Her hull plating was crisp, almost new, and although her null-shield emitters were deactivated, the ship sat in a docking claw ready to launch.
“Strike deployment configuration,” I whispered to myself.
“She’s a very nice ship,” I heard Captain Lestrade saying, on the Paladin’s bridge. “That’s a drop-deployment bay in her belly.”
Instead of a dedicated missile bay, Intruders carried drop-deployment tubes. Those were part of her mission role, and meant that armoured simulants could be fired directly from the ship into combat.
“Can you get any identification off the hull?” Zero asked me, obviously frustrated that she wasn’t out here with the rest of us.
“Affirmative,” I said. My enthusiasm was tapering off. “I have a name and serial code.”
“And?” Lopez asked. She couldn’t get a clear view of the ship, not from her location in the asteroid field.
“It’s someone we know,” I said. “UAS Firebird. Transmitting identifiers to you now, Zero.”
Zero reacted immediately. What with her near-photographic memory, I knew that she would recognise the name.
“What are Phoenix Squad doing out here?” she exclaimed.
“Phoenix Squad?” Harris asked. “Who the damn are they?”
“That’s Captain Ving’s squad,” I said. “I told you about him last night. He has the current Sim Ops record.”
Ving was a bully and a bastard. I didn’t like him, and I liked it even less that he would show up out here. It didn’t feel right at all.
“The Jackals and Phoenix Squad have a bit of history together,” Lopez added. “And with Captain Ving in particular.”
“He seemed to have a problem with me,” Feng said apologetically. “Being ex-Directorate and all.”
“Then today will be a chance to settle the tab,” Harris replied. “Their presence doesn’t change anything. We still have a job to do. Mission is a go. Follow approach path to objective.”
I swallowed. Licked my lips. The Ikarus suit’s mobility options came online: the thruster-pack attached to my back, currently at full charge, and the grapnel system built into the forearms of the suit. While it wasn’t a patch on a proper sim-class combat-suit, I’d grown to quite like the Ikarus. It carried some impressive kit and was well suited to a mission like this.
“Jackals deploy,” I said. “On me. Keep thruster activity to a minimum. Full stealth.”
“Copy that,” Feng replied.
Brief flashes of blue light marked the Jackals’ mobilisation. I fired my grapnel. The specially adapted harpoon gripped another rock, a couple of hundred metres to my left flank. The pulley mechanism whined softly as I was dragged across space, into the cover of the next piece of debris.
The farm’s null-shield flickered ahead.
“On Proxima,” Lopez said, her voice strained, “we have energy fields just like these on our hab-modules.”
“So?” Novak asked, grunting with exertion.
“The electric field activates, and attracts insects and other bugs,” Lopez said.
