Assault Troopers

by Vaughn Heppner

“Yes, sir,” N7 said.

  “The beasts fought valiantly,” Claath said, “which I predicted they would do. How could I foresee the artifact’s vanishing? Am I a theologian? Am I a savant on Forerunner technology? Who among the Jelk and their customers understands these ancient devices?”

  Was the Jelk drunk? Even as I wondered, Claath took another gulp of the yellow drink.

  “The fortresses of Sigma Draconis,” Claath said, “and the guardian fleet there, those are things a civilized Jelk understands. The jump routes into Sigma Draconis—if we could gain the star system, the entire Draconis subset would fall to us. These theological debates…” Claath laughed, exposing his pointy teeth. “I must speak with Axel Ahx. If I combined his battlejumpers with mine and with the Starkien fleet… Hmm, and if I could persuade Doojei Lark to commit to the endeavor…”

  Claath’s eyes narrowed as he studied me. “Your success against the outer asteroids is what propels my thoughts toward Sigma Draconis. It is a heavily fortified Lokhar star system, but it is far from their regular sphere of influence. It is the critical nexus point splintering important corporation areas into several unequal zones. With an opening of the Sigma Draconis route, corporation vessels would no longer need to pay the Star Alliance tariff. That would bring a twenty percent decrease in my hauler fees.”

  Claath drained the glass, tossing the container into the steaming vat. Droplets splashed upward, plunking back into the liquid like heavy raindrops. He grinned at me, and he triggered the clicker at the women. One by one, they dropped onto the steam-slickened tiles, groaned and writhed so their jewelry clinked. Obedience chips must have been embedded in their lovely necks.

  I caught him slyly glancing at me as the women twisted on the floor. His dark eyes were shiny and a little grin twitched at the corners of his lips.

  I knew what he wanted from me. Arrogance, I told myself. This was about arrogance. I needed to feed his so he remained blind to certain realities.

  “Stop it!” I shouted, as if desperate.

  Claath’s shiny eyes gleamed. “Why should I stop? I find their motions delightfully erotic and stimulating. Don’t you?”

  “Torturing them is inhuman,” I said with false anguish.

  “They’re but beasts,” he said.

  I forced myself to lick my lips as if anxious. “Why needlessly torment them? How—” This was difficult to say. “How does torturing them help them to serve you better?”

  “I want you to notice this, N7,” Claath said. “Creed-beast has an emotional attachment to human females in distress. Isn’t that interesting?”

  “Yes, sir,” N7 said. “I hadn’t foreseen that. I’d thought him more logical than emotion-driven.”

  Once more, Claath clicked the device, and then he made a shooing motion.

  Panting, sweaty women picked themselves off the tiles and hurried out of the chamber, some of them weeping.

  “Beasts are easy to control once you understand their motivations,” Claath told N7. “And that is a good thing for you,” he told me. “Otherwise, your actions in the Altair system would force me to destroy you. You disobeyed direct orders to continue the assault.”

  “There was a military reason for our decision,” I said.

  “No!” Claath said. “It wasn’t a beast’s decision to make. Against a straightforward directive, you failed to obey and failed to advance. What is more, you convinced my android to heed your wishes. I cannot understand such a thing.”

  “At the time,” N7 said, “his logic seemed impeccable.”

  “What logic?” Claath asked angrily.

  “I have studied the assault in detail, sir,” N7 said. “The beasts acted bravely when they knew exactly what to do. During the initial assault, they knew their orders. Afterward, they were unable to react as a coordinated whole and it proved their undoing.”

  I almost glanced at N7. His words surprised me. Did the android have ulterior motives? He would seem to be arguing for building larger battle formations such as companies and battalions instead of only having maniples.

  “Directing the beasts was your task, N7,” Claath said. “You were supposed to coordinate their actions and motivate them with needed knowledge. But you proved unable to fulfill your duties.”

  “Yes, sir, I agree,” N7 said. “Not that you need my agreement.”

  “For your sake,” Claath said, “I’m glad you understand that.”

  “Yes, sir,” N7 said. “I wonder, however, if beast-troops respond well to intellectual rigor, to android logic. I wonder if they would respond more quickly to one of their own speaking their peculiar creature-emotive language.”

  Once more, Claath’s eyes seemed to shine. “Are you suggesting we broaden the beast command structure?”

  “Yes, sir,” N7 said. “I have studied them. I believe they operate more smoothly if they feel a sense of loyalty and trust toward the higher commanders.”

  “I hope you are not suggesting we put this one in charge of the troops.”

  “No, sir,” N7 said. “This one appears to be more crafty that the others.”

  “He does not appear crafty to me,” Claath said. “But then I am many times more intelligent than you androids.”

  “Perhaps if you gave me more upgrades now, sir,” N7 said.

  Claath laughed. “This is intriguing. You are attempting to practice guile. It is an obvious attempt and therefore pathetic. No, you have all the upgrades I’m going to give you for the moment, N7. But I had already planned to broaden the assault procedures. The Earthbeast assaults were recklessly positive during the initial part of the battle. It is too bad they took over fifty percent casualties getting to the combat point of operation.”

  I swallowed down a retort. Over fifty percent casualties meant that over twelve thousand troopers had died in the Altair assault. That was obscene.

  “The heavy casualties mean I’ll have to spend more monies on training further Earth levies,” Claath said. His head swayed and he blinked repeatedly, sinking lower into the purple liquid until his chin touched the surface water.

  I was sure now that Claath was drunk, or whatever passed for drunk among the Jelk. How many alien decisions had been made while under the influence of intoxicants?

  “You will institute tests, N7,” Claath said. “We need aggressive beasts in the leadership, who fear me and desire rank at any cost.”

  “You might be better served into putting troopers into command positions that the assault troops already trust,” I said. “N7 told you as much.”

  “Are you attempting to instruct me?” Claath asked in a brittle voice.

  “I believe I’ve given you faithful advice all along the line. In fact…sir,” That was hard to say, and it galled me to call this evil Rumpelstiltskin sir. But I had to bend now so I could…I shook my head, not allowing myself to even think seditious thoughts while in Claath’s presence.

  “What, what?” Claath asked, as he splashed water. “What’s your point?”

  “By retreating when we did,” I said, “I preserved Earth troops for you. You don’t need to train as many new recruits now, which should save you funds.”

  “Bah, what do you know about business practices?” Claath asked. “You are an emotional, vicious creature.”

  “Who dearly wants to rise in rank,” I said.

  Claath laughed. “Your artifice is so obvious. It fools no one.”

  “I’ve shown you I can fight. Now I want to win your favor in order to help the humans on Earth. I’d also like to help the females on your ship.”

  “You want to use them yourself, eh?” Claath asked, while leering at me, the corners of his mouth twitching with amusement.

  “Yes,” I said. “The way they moved—I need a woman and would like to earn one if I could.”

  “Hmm,” Claath said. “Let me think about it. For now—perhaps you have a point. N7, take him back to the beast-hold. I must unwind for a time so I can bend my thoughts to devising a winning scheme. These Earthbeasts drov
e out a Lokhar legion. That is the salient fact. Yes, I must strike quickly before the league takes countermeasures at Sigma Draconis. The attack on Altair has upset the Jade theologians and thrown their leadership into turmoil. Perhaps that will be enough of an advantage for me to make the coup of a lifetime. I must think deeply indeed. Go! Take him away. Sight of his beastly stupidity makes it difficult to concentrate.”

  Keep thinking that, I thought. Then N7 beckoned. I rose and followed the android out of the chamber.

  -17-

  The next ship-day it was back to training. Claath couldn’t let his mercenaries get dull, but needed them at peak efficiency.

  Our restructured maniple—twelve of the troopers were others from equally shattered squads—donned bio-suits. We went outside the battlejumper to a zero-G chamber. Building-sized cubes and pyramids floated in a vast area. There, we fought against two maniples defending a red flag. Androids had set our laser rifles on low wattage and they’d tampered with the living armor. A hit froze the suits, leaving a trooper immobile.

  I led the maniple in a deception maneuver, and we froze thirty-seven defenders before the last of our side “died” in the mock combat.

  Three times I led my maniple against larger formations. We beat the other side the last time, even though they had three maniples of troopers. We fought new teams each battle, while we learned zero-G tricks. It was instructive, and our performance might have gone a long way toward determining what happened several days later.

  Before I get to that, I should say something about my thought process during the grueling days of retraining.

  Whether it was while peeking around the base of a floating pyramid, searching for signs of an enemy ambush, or trading blows in hand-to-hand combat or even at chow where they fed us more growth hormones, I pondered our situation and mine in particular. Maybe sight of the tortured women had stimulated my thoughts, or Claath’s recklessly spoken words had done the trick. It bothered me how human survival depended on the whim of a drunken war-profiteer.

  We’d fought to the best of our ability in the Altair system, but that hadn’t been enough for Claath. I knew that some people believed that if their wills were strong enough, they could defeat anyone. Willpower dominated everything, they would say.

  Well, I would agree that willpower meant a lot. Often, a person or even a nation wasn’t defeated until they admitted defeat. The ability to pick themselves off the mat for another round of battle meant that victory could well be one throw or knockdown away. But if a person or nation remained on the mat, their willpower broken so they admitted defeat, then there was nothing more that could be done. The war was over.

  It was important to remember, though, that the other man or side also had their willpower. One could say: “I refuse to quit.” The other fellow might also say: “Yes, I, too, will never concede you victory and I will rise again.” Given strong willpower on both sides, one of them would likely still lose. A bullet in the head ended all thoughts, including those about willpower.

  That was humanity’s unfortunate position. Claath had a pistol pressed against our collective head. We could willpower ourselves all we wanted, but if Claath ordered those freighters into space and emptied them, it would leave Earth with the final holdouts in deep mines or wherever people had managed to hole up and cling to life. If he sold his mercenaries to the Starkien contractors to die in agony before their Grand Council, that would be it for us. No amount of willpower would change the situation.

  My first thought the day the lander had set down on the snowy ground in Antarctica had been to hurt the aliens. We were dead already I’d figured, but we could at least make a few of them feel our passing. Now, humanity had a slender chance for survival. Claath had given us a chance, even if he was the author of our troubles for thinking to enslave the human race as his pay-for-hire fighting creatures.

  The trouble was that one day, probably sooner rather than later, Claath might well decide to take his freighters elsewhere to try a different venture. He would flush us one way or another. I now believed that was a given from him, because he decided things while drunk.

  So if that was a given—humanity’s extinction was only a matter of time—my playing along with Claath as his mercenary made no sense. I would be metaphorically twiddling my thumbs as our race neared the edge. I’d believed I had more time to alter our terrible predicament. The writhing women and the yellow intoxicant changed my mind.

  What were my options then? I had several. One would be to find a way onto a Starkien vessel with a few fellow troopers, kill the baboons, take the ship and flee far away. I’d search for an antidote to the bio-terminator and make Earth fertile once again. If the Starkiens could pirate others then so could I, and probably do a much better job of it, too.

  Isn’t that arrogant thinking, Creed? That you’re better than the aliens at their chosen profession?

  I shook my head in dismay. Couldn’t I learn anything from the aliens? How did arrogance help them? No. I needed to see clearly. Inflating my self-worth wasn’t going to gain me an edge.

  Firstly, I couldn’t storm a Starkien vessel because all they would have to do is ask Claath for the frequency to our obedience chips.

  What was the old saying? For want of a horseshoe a kingdom was lost.

  I thought this while floating in the zero-G chamber. It was the third day of practice. The android DIs had made things more interesting by adding thick banks of fog. They had funneled these in from sprayers, and the mist had added a sharp aroma like rotten cheese. Now the surviving two-thirds of my maniple needed to defend this sector from invaders who had four times our original numbers. They used the fog like U.S. tankers would have used smoke in a land battle: to advance while hidden from enemy sight.

  I used my helmet-comm to speak to the forward snipers. It hit me then: the idea. We needed to use maneuver against the invaders, not wait for them to maneuver against us. Do the unexpected, right? That’s how one often won a battle.

  Using magnetic boots and gloves, I crawled away from the cube edge and pushed off, floating for a new spot. “Listen up,” I said. “We’re going to use the fog ourselves. But we’re going the long route, circling them and hitting the enemy from behind in their assembly area.”

  “Is that wise?” Dmitri asked. “Is it not better to use defensive position against them? We kill them as they—”

  “I want to win,” I said, “not just make it a costly victory for them. But we need snipers back here to convince them we’re doing what you’re thinking. You stay, Dmitri, and keep your two best shots. The rest, head to grid two-B-six and get there pronto.”

  As I gathered my troopers, I reached back and felt the base of my neck. I couldn’t actually touch the skin of my neck, because the living armor protected me. The obedience chip was our horseshoe. As long as we wore these, our master could defeat any rebellion by the click of a button. Boom, boom, boom, all the Earthers would be dead. We had to figure out a way to short or extract the chip from our necks. Ella had theorized that if we tried to dig them out—with a knife, say—they would go boom. That might or might not be the truth. None of us had marshaled the guts to try it as the group guinea pig.

  “What were you just yelling about?” Rollo asked. He floated with me behind a large cube.

  I surveyed the remainder of the maniple: twelve troopers in bio-suits.

  Drawing on a wall, I quickly outlined my plan. “We’re jumping for Cube seven-A,” I said, tapping the crude map at a position on the other end of the chamber.

  “That’s a long ways away,” Rollo said.

  “Exactly,” I said. “They shouldn’t expect it, and the fog here blocks them from seeing us as we make the journey. From that spot, we jump and sail here,” I said, pointing at my map.

  A man chuckled nastily. He understood what I was trying to do.

  “Either this should work beautifully,” Rollo said, “or someone on the red team will spot us and they’ll plink each of us with ease.”

&
nbsp; “N7 said the best-scoring team wins a prize,” Ella said. “We have the best score so far. Why risk it with this?”

  I felt my chest tighten. I had my reason for risking it: I needed a higher command position. I needed to get more troopers used to obeying my orders. But to get that slot, I had to be better, far better, than anyone else. Claath distrusted me, for good reason, too. I had to make him choose me despite his qualms. I had to show him there wasn’t anyone else like me. Yeah, this was risky, and I doubted I’d do something so foolish in the middle of a real battle.

  “We gotta move fast,” I said. “Dmitri and his snipers won’t fool them for long. And it’s past time for them to have attacked. Are you troopers ready?”

  They said yeah.

  “Come on then,” I said. “Follow me.”

  We repositioned on a pyramid, curled up against a side and shoved off hard. As we sailed halfway to our distant destination, Rollo radioed: “Look over there, coming out of the fog at grid eight-C-four. I see two enemy troopers.”

  “Take the one on the left,” I said, twisting, sighting with my rife. “Use pulse shots, not long burns.” I fired, and I hit an enemy, freezing his bio-suit and shutting down his helmet-comm. Half a second later, Rollo nailed the other one.

  “Their firstman will wonder why they’re not reporting in,” Rollo said.

  “Nothing we can do about that now,” I said. “We’re moving. This is either going to work or it isn’t.”

  “I’ve heard that one before,” Rollo muttered.

  We made the long bounce without any more incidents. Again, we jumped, made third and fourth leaps. The fifth took us into position, and we found ourselves behind the enemy.

  “Light her up,” I said. “This is why we took the risk.”

  I hit an enemy trooper, froze her, shot a second and then an enemy maniple attacked us from our right flank. We “killed” most of them, but three enemy troopers survived long enough to fire at us. It lost me half my troopers, as the three enemies were crack shots.

  In the end, the red team “killed” all of us, but not before we took out sixty-eight enemy troopers with our stunt. Together with Dmitri’s “kills” and the troopers we’d frozen before the main assault, it was the best kill-ratio of any of the practice teams that I knew about.