by Rick Partlow
Duty, Honor, Planet 2:
Honor Bound
By Rick Partlow
“The end move in politics is always to pick up a gun.”-R. Buckminster Fuller
Copyright 2012
To my family: Beth, Danny and Erin, for encouraging me to keep writing.
To my friends Pete and Tim for being sounding boards for my ideas.
Chapter One
Jason McKay adjusted his grip on the pistol, the tacky surface of his gloves holding it secure despite the sweat that soaked his palms beneath that material. The interior of the old storehouse was like a darkened broiler and his battle utilities were soaked beneath his body armor, rivulets of perspiration running down his face as he crouched behind the concrete solidity of a support pillar. This had gone on too long…the heads-up readout in his helmet was counting up past fifteen minutes since he’d entered the building and there was still at least one target inside, armed with an assault rifle. He was running out of time.
He winked his right eye and the shadowed recesses of the warehouse interior brightened into a two-dimensional, green-tinted maze of stacked cargo containers, each of the square, plastic boxes labeled with some arcane numeric designation next to their computer code. None of them showed anything on thermal and he saw no heat sources visible anywhere other than a few glowing power outlets. But he knew they were here…and they knew he couldn’t wait forever.
Drawing in a deep breath, McKay threw himself from behind the support column and rolled forward across the aisle as a burst of automatic fire cratered the pillar in a spray of concrete, then drilled into the floor inches behind him. He took cover behind a line of cargo boxes, flinching as the rifle fire tore into them just above his head. But now he knew where the gunman was: the fire had come from above, from the landing of the stairs up to the loader control room.
Getting to the stairs would mean crossing twenty meters of open ground…and that would be suicide. McKay glanced above him, then holstered his handgun and leaped upwards to grab the next shelf of cargo containers. Grunting with the effort of lifting his own eighty kilos plus another ten of body armor, he pulled himself hand over hand to the top shelf, then levered himself onto the topmost cargo container. Scrambling forward onto his belly, he drew his pistol from its drop holster and high-crawled down the line of boxes, their hard, ridged surfaces clunking awkwardly against his leg armor and elbow pads.
Now he could see a thermal source…human-shaped, through the window of the control room, part of the elbow sticking out the doorway as it aimed the rifle downward, waiting for McKay to show himself again. McKay cursed silently…he had no good shot from this angle. The doorframe shielded the shooter’s torso and head and he wasn’t sure his handgun rounds could penetrate the wall material. He looked around him, then felt at his belt, fishing a spare magazine from the pouch at his waist. Rising up on his right elbow and right knee, he threw the magazine as hard as he could across the room to the right. It clattered noisily against the far wall and he was already on his feet as the gunman turned the barrel of his rifle and his attention to that direction. McKay jumped from one cargo crate to the next with broad strides until he reached the end of the row, only three meters from the suspended claws of the cargo loader arm hanging from the ceiling.
Gritting his teeth, McKay threw himself across the gap, catching the upper mandibles of the loader arm with his left hand, while his feet found purchase on the lower pair, his knees flexing to absorb the shock. The Gomer with the rifle heard the metallic clank as the loader arm wobbled under his weight and he swung the short-barreled bullpup weapon around, but McKay was still moving, leaping off the loader onto the stairway landing, firing his outstretched handgun in midair.
The targeting reticle in his helmet HUD was connected to the sight of his pistol, but there was no time to focus on it; instead, McKay aimed by instinct, the large-caliber auto bucking in his hand as the floor of the landing swiftly came up to meet him. McKay took the landing in a shoulder roll, coming to his feet over the falling body of the gunman and pumping two more rounds into him before he fell into a crouch in the doorway, scanning for more targets. Before he could turn the whole 360 degrees, a blast of gunfire sounded from behind him and he spun around, throwing himself to the floor.
He saw a rifleman in the mottled grey armor and dark-visored helmet of the enemy slumped to the ground, his carbine clattering on the hard floor. Behind him stood a slim, curved figure in the darker fatigues and armor that he shared, a handgun similar to his own held outstretched in a classic tactical stance. It was obvious that both the shooter and the victim had come in on the other side of the control room through a now-open door that led to the outside, a moonlit sky barely visible through it.
“Thanks,” McKay said, breathing heavily as the adrenaline began to flow out of him. Before the word was out of his mouth, the counter in his HUD ran out and an alarm horn went off above them…
“Simulation ended, time has expired,” a voice sounded through his helmet speakers. “Colonel McKay and Major Stark have successfully completed Scenario Seven. Congratulations, sir, ma’am.”
The lights of the room came up and McKay sighed with relief as the climate control kicked in, bringing the temperature and humidity down. He pulled off his helmet and the illusions it had sustained abruptly ended: the “night sky” outside the open door had changed into a blank wall in the middle distance, the dilapidated look of the “warehouse” disappeared along with the bullet-holes in the walls and cargo containers, and the wounds on the downed enemies-and the pools of blood around them-faded away even as the two men rose to their feet, laughing.
“Damn, Colonel,” the one he had shot said, chuckling ruefully. “That was an awesome move…but you could have broken your neck!” He pulled off his helmet, revealing a sharp-angled, freckled face and a scalp-short brown buzz cut.
“You fight how you train and you train how you fight, Vinnie,” Colonel McKay reminded him, unfastening his body armor and letting it drop to the floor. Aside from cushioning you from impacts, it had the detrimental effect of immobilizing you if you were shot in the simulation. A small swarm of enlisted personnel came out from behind previously-invisible doors to collect the armor and the special simulator weapons.
“Is that why I got the drop on you, sir?” the other man cracked in a strong Australian accent, running a hand over his sweat-matted blond hair as he rose to his full meter-nine height.
“I wasn’t worried about you, Jock,” McKay said, smiling. “I knew she had my back.”
She was a tall, athletic woman, with shoulder-length golden-red hair, green eyes and a strong-chinned, high-cheekboned face that still took his breath away after six years. She smirked as she tossed her armor on the floor next to McKay’s.
“Yeah,” she said with just a hint of her native Irish accent. “We planned it that way…but you’ll note that my part of the plan didn’t involve jumping off any freight-loaders, Jason.”
“Shannon, I know better than anyone that no plan survives contact with the enemy.” McKay cocked an eyebrow. “Even when the enemy is our friends.” He slapped Vinnie on the shoulder. “Hell, especially when it’s these guys. They still get paid to do this stuff…you and I spend most of our time in meetings or buried in scout reports. Thanks,” he nodded to a Technician Second Class as the young man handed them water bottles. He downed about half the bottle, and then poured the rest over his head, sighing deeply.
“Well, even though you’re the youngest full-bird colonel in Republic military history,” Shannon reminded him between gulps from her own water bottle, “you’re still a desk jockey running the Intelligence Service…that generally doesn’t involve mu
ch field work.”
“Yeah,” he agreed with a dissatisfied scowl. “This wasn’t quite what I envisioned when Colonel Mellanby transferred me out of the Marines back when.”
“Sir,” one of the technicians, a Lieutenant, approached him, looking a bit hesitant. “I hate to rush you, but we do have three more training groups coming through this afternoon…”
“Yeah, I get the hint, son,” he nodded. Son…hell, he’s only about seven or eight years younger than me. “We’ll do our jawing elsewhere.”
The other three followed McKay out the main exit to the simulator bay, past rows of monitors that had displayed their session to the technicians. He was sure it had been recorded…he had already seen one of his and Shannon’s previous training runs on the ‘net. He shook his head slightly…it wasn’t always convenient being a living legend. Beats being a dead one though.
“So, Vinnie,” he went on as they headed for the locker rooms, “how goes the recruit training?”
“Oh, about as well as I could expect,” the younger man shrugged. “This latest class has a couple that show some promise. Tom…err, Master Sergeant Crossman, that is…tells me there’s one guy who’s even better at hand-to-hand than he is, if you can believe it.”
Shannon smiled, having noticed the slip. “Tough being an officer, isn’t it, Vinnie?”
“Sometimes I’d rather go back to being ‘Sergeant Mahoney’ instead of ‘Captain Mahoney,’ ma’am,” he admitted. “But it’s important work, and someone’s gotta do it.”
“See you boys on the other side.” Shannon waved, heading into the women’s locker room.
“You’ve got the job I was supposed to have,” McKay commented a bit wistfully to Vinnie as the three of them stripped out of their battle utilities in the men’s locker room. “And don’t think I don’t wish sometimes I were still Captain McKay, First Special Operations Command instead of Colonel McKay, Fleet Intelligence.”
“Well I am damn glad,” Jock proclaimed, stepping under one of the showers, “that I stayed ‘Sergeant Gregory’ when you blokes tried to talk me into OCS!”
“One of ‘you blokes’ was the President of the Republic,” Vinnie reminded him.
“And he lost the next election, didn’t he?” Jock shot back. “Shows how good his advice was.”
The three men had just finished showering off and were beginning to get dressed when the ‘link clipped to the collar of McKay’s black uniform shirt chimed for attention.
“McKay,” he responded tersely as he tucked the shirt into his trousers.
“Colonel McKay,” a voice he recognized as that of his aide de camp, Lieutenant Franks came over the microphone, “I’m sorry, sir, I know you left instructions not to disturb you, but sir, it’s General Kage again…he keeps calling back and insists on speaking with you today.”
“Oh great,” Jock sighed, listening in on the conversation. “What does that…” he stopped in mid-sentence at a quelling look from Vinnie, “…fine Colonial Guard officer want now?” he finished, rolling his eyes.
“Put him through, Franks,” McKay said with resignation in his voice, stepping out of the locker room and out into the corridor.
“That’s just it sir, he’s…”
“He is here,” said a harsh voice behind him, a voice as sharp and unyielding as the edge of an axe. McKay turned to see a trim, compact man in an impeccable grey uniform approaching. His craggy, scarred face was chiseled out of amber, his dark eyes clouded with a roiling anger. His hair was dark and wavy and the only thing that gave a clue to the man’s age were deep lines on either side of his downturned mouth.
“General Kage,” McKay nodded. They were indoors and he wasn’t formally reporting to the man, so a salute wasn’t warranted. Not that he would have given one anyway…
“I thought I would find you here, playing your child’s games, McKay,” Kage shook his head. “Perhaps if you put as much effort into your job, your recommendations to the President on the Inferno situation would have been more rational and less impossibly optimistic.”
“I had trusted people on the ground in Inferno, General,” McKay shrugged, unconcerned. “I listened to their recommendations and passed them on up the chain. Well, up the last link of the chain,” he grinned maliciously, “since I do only report to the President.”
“I am well aware of the unwarranted trust President O’Keefe has in you and your department, McKay,” Kage ground out. When he was upset-which, in McKay’s experience, was most of the time-you could hear a hint of his odd accent: Japanese by way of Peru. “While you can make light of it, it is my troops that will have to deal with the results of your miscalculations when the criminal scum you’ve arrogated into a political party rise up and try to take the Inferno colony from us.”
“Inferno isn’t yours to keep or not, General,” McKay reminded him. “It belongs to the colonists, not the Colonial Guard and not the Multicorps. You’d have less trouble if you and your troops remembered that. As for the political situation, Governor Cho seems to be handling it well…he has the parties talking instead of shooting, which is an improvement over the first time I visited.”
Kage’s mouth snapped shut on his automatic retort. He shoots, he scores! McKay thought, fighting down a laugh. He had last visited Inferno as a Second Lieutenant, the platoon leader of a Marine Reaction Force, sent in to rescue a Colonial Guard unit that had been captured, along with their armory and weapons, by the local rebels. He had defeated over 400 rebels at the cost of eight of his Marines’ lives and when the local CG Captain had tried to interfere with his medics treating a civilian casualty first before a CG trooper, McKay had beat the shit out of him.
He’d expected to be court-martialed, but instead the original head of his department- Colonel Kenneth Mellanby, the legendary “Snake”- had transferred him into Intelligence and tasked him with setting up a new special operations team. He’d been assigned Shannon Stark, Vincent Mahoney, Jock Gregory and Tom Crossman as the kernel of the new team and they’d been given a shakedown mission to guard Valerie O’Keefe, daughter of then-Senator Daniel O’Keefe, on a goodwill tour of the colonies on behalf of the Economic Justice Association. That had put them on Aphrodite when it had been invaded by the forces of the former head of the Russian Protectorate, Sergei Antonov, long thought dead in the Sino-Russian War.
McKay and his team had been instrumental in defeating Antonov’s attempt to conquer Earth, which had made McKay and the rest legendary figures and made his position as the new head of Fleet Intelligence nearly unassailable. By bringing up Inferno, he had not only reminded Kage of the fact that he had pulled the CG’s fat out of the fire before, but tangentially that there was no way Kage could get around his authority.
“McKay,” Kage finally spoke again after a visible attempt to control himself, “you may think that there is nothing that can threaten you, but I will tell you this: if those rabble on Inferno cost the lives of even one of my men, I will make it my mission in life to see you pay for it. You should try to remember that you, too, are capable of making a mistake.”
“I’ve made plenty of mistakes, General Kage,” McKay shrugged. “I do try to learn from them, however. Given the history of the Colonial Guard’s dealings with the colonists on Inferno, I’d think you’d want to try that, too. If you are actually concerned about your troops, my advice would be to stop trying to put down the New Dawn Party and start trying to give them a stake in the future of the colony beyond digging up iridium for the mining firms. People don’t want to burn down cities when they own part of them. That’s Republic policy.”
“For now,” Kage snorted. “Presidents change, McKay. You’re this President’s golden boy, but I wouldn’t get too comfortable in the position.”
Before McKay could respond to that, Kage turned on his heel and strode purposefully down the corridor and through the exit.
“Whaddya suppose he meant by that?” Jock wondered. “Next election ain’t for another seven years.”
“He’s just talking out his ass,” Vinnie shrugged. “As usual.”
“Either way,” McKay said, “we’ve got more important things to worry about.” As he spoke, Shannon Stark emerged from the woman’s locker room in her Intell blacks, her dirty utilities in a bag slung over her shoulder. “Shannon, tell them about the reports from the Scouts.”
“We had an observation post in a system near the inner frontier,” Shannon told them quietly. “They were checking out a habitable there, fourth out from the primary. They’d been checking in every two months with a regular military patrol, then, about four months ago, the patrol cruiser found this.” She pulled a tablet out of a thigh pocket and touched the screen, bringing up a video feed, then turned it around so Vinnie and Jock could see it.
The picture was a recut and remixed video that started in orbit around the green and blue planet, then descended with the lander through a thick, stormy atmosphere to circle above a tall, old-growth forest. The trees were subtly different from terrestrial flora, yet similar in a way that convergent evolution had, they found, made almost inevitable. Here and there, as the shuttle passed lower above the treetops, the two former Marines could see a local flyer, aloft on four wings. Finally the picture dissolved in a cloud of dust and fire as the lander came down on VTOL jets, and then the view switched to the helmet camera of a Marine, walking point in a wedge formation of other grey-and-black camo’ed, body-armored ground troops.
Their rifles swung back and forth in a constant scan as the trees slid by on either side; tall, broad-leaved plants tugged at their weapons and harness and once in a while an out-of-focus flitting dot spoke of swarms of flying insect-like life. Then the trees gave way to a wide clearing, the darkened ground speaking of the recent clear-burn that had established the base. As they moved into the clearing, video cut together from different helmet cams showed several domes sprayed from buildfoam, linked together with walkways lined with flat, local paving stones.
