Information Cloud: Science fiction and fantasy series (Tales of Cinnamon City Book 1)

by Peter James West

  Normally an order was an order. Droids had to obey his commands even if it meant they would be destroyed while carrying them out. But now that the self-preservation right had been enabled, a droid could take evasive action to save itself. It would return to its designated coordinates as soon as the danger had passed. It wasn't infallible by any means, but it did allow the droids to try to preserve themselves from destruction and following his orders at the same time.

  Riser lolled in his chair, watching the bizarre darting antics of the net-feed droids as they leapt out of harms way whenever a proton blasted its way through the cloud, only to dash back into position when it was safe so they could continue providing the best possible news coverage. It was an incredible performance. Over two hundred droids followed his orders while simultaneously weaving themselves in a dance of spectacular proportions to avoid being destroyed by passing fire from both sides.

  Nick Stew

  The second satellite strike was causing heavy damage. Wyser River had turned into a boiling muddy stew with Nick as its core ingredient. He had to do something, and do it fast.

  Since K1 was underwater, and the back of the Croc was facing Walstone Forest, he redirected all power to the upper shields. He was taking a risk, hoping that no proton cannons could hit him while submerged. The water would not stop proton fire, but if the Kamari could not see the Croc underwater, and if the riverbank was blocking the line of sight... It was a lot of ifs, but it was all he had to work with. Nick reconfigured the shields and held his breath. It would have to hold, for now.

  'K2 autonomous damage rep —'

  'Nick? Are you there?' Rachel's voice sounded shaky, scared. She was never scared. Nick balled his fist. Those Kamari bastards were going to pay for this.

  'Rachel! Are you okay?'

  'Been better. I'm just about in one piece. I've lost pod3. I'm still mobile but... and this will make you laugh —'

  'I doubt it.'

  'Havers Compound has opened for business. My front shields are taking a beating. I'm pulling back.'

  Nick watched a series of commands fly across his console. It was confirmation that K3 Croc was directing full power to its front shields, and limping backwards into the river. Rachel was maintaining her distance from K1. He wished he could see a damned thing through the reinforced Perspex. White flashes danced across the muddy water above but he had no way to see what was happening.

  Reports were finally coming in from the crab scanners. Energy sources had been detected all across Havers Compound. What use was that information now? If he ever got out of this alive, he was going to give Gail Thompson a piece of his bloody mind. Crab scanners had no place in modern combat. Their slow progress had endangered the lives of everyone in the Beacon Attack Force. If Nick had been warned earlier, his units might not have been exposed in open territory for so long.

  'Edwards?' Nick said. He had a feeling his words would go unheard.

  It was Rachel who answered. 'The satellite strike crippled K2. I think he was okay... just, but Havers Compound hit him with proton cannons directly afterwards. His shields were inoperable, I guess.'

  Nick rubbed his chin. Rough stubble was already poking through his skin, making him itch, but compared to Edwards he had no problems at all. Proton cannons could pound a large carrier into submission even when its shields were fully operational. Without shields, there would be nothing left but dust.

  A dozen warning lights flashed across Nick's console. He couldn't face any of them yet. There had been sixteen people on board K2, not just Edwards. Argumentative bastard that he was, he was still a friend. He didn't deserve to die like that.

  It looked as though this was Edwards' last combat operation with Nick after all - but not for the reasons he had hoped. Nick felt a pang of guilt about arranging for Edwards to be sent back to law enforcement work in the city. Edwards would have hated it, but if Nick had ordered it a week ago, Edwards might still be alive today.

  It was no use thinking like that. It was too easy to tie his mind in knots with ifs and buts. For every soldier who had died because of Nick's decisions, another had been saved. How could he quantify the value of one life over another? Given the choice, he would leave such decisions to God. He reminded himself that the only reality was here and now, and the only people that he could save were those who were still living.

  'Nick?' Rachel sounded worried.

  'I'm okay,' he said, but he knew he wasn't. It didn't matter anyway. He was trained to deal with exactly this kind of situation, and that was what he was going to do.

  The upper shields were burning hot. Every warning light was illuminated on Nick's console. The shields could fail at any time.

  'K3, are you operational?' Nick said.

  There was a noticeable pause. No doubt Rachel was offended by his officious tone, but he knew too that she would retain her professionalism. Both of them had always had to put work before their private lives, and before their daughter too. Lisa's face flashed before his eyes. No. He couldn't think about her now. He had to stay focussed.

  'K3 operational, Commander Chambers,' Rachel said. 'We've lost most of communications and navigation, but we can still carry out instructions downloaded from K1.'

  Nick felt the harsh tone of her words but he carried on regardless. 'Good. I want you to pull back.'

  'We are -'

  'Pull back further, to these coordinates.' Nick tapped them into his console, ignoring the blood that trickled down his cheek from a deep cut on his forehead. He hoped the bleeding would stop soon.

  'Okay.' Her tone of voice told him that she didn't agree at all, but she would do it anyway. He was her commanding officer.

  He wasn't ordering her to pull back because he loved her. He kept telling himself that. It was standard procedure. When one unit was down, and the commander was facing an unknown situation, another unit should always be pulled back so that it could report on any further losses that may occur. Nick suspected that it should be his own unit that pulled back, but he didn't care about that. He had to get Rachel out of danger. Okay, so fuck it. Yes, it was a personal decision, but what about it? He wasn't just some machine. The years of training hadn't eroded all of his humanity. Somewhere within him, he still felt responsible for Rachel and his daughter. He had been dealing with that for as long as he could remember.

  Nick's chest felt tight as he watched as K3 continuing its painful retreat. The proton cannons were smashing the hell out of Rachel's front shields. He wondered how much power she still had left. He couldn't tell from his console. Some of the remote diagnostics had failed to connect. It was a good thing that there were no mobile enemy units on the field, otherwise she wouldn't be able to redirect all power to one side like that. No Croc could defend against a proton cannon, and fight off another attack at the same time. RS6 personnel carriers were not intended to handle such heavy bombardments. They would normally be accompanied by assault vehicles. Nick wondered why Gail Thompson had not sent any with the Beacon Attack Force. Why was she leaving them so exposed?

  It was getting too damned hot. Sweat covered Nick's forehead. He brushed a hand through his hair, and it felt hot beneath his fingers. It wasn't burning, but it did smell burnt. He had a horrible feeling that it might be melting or smouldering. He struggled to slide further down in his seat. He had to put a little more distance between his head and the tortured surface of the Perspex bubble above his head. He knew it was the only thing between him and the boiling river water outside. The frothing waters were getting ever more agitated. The Croc lurched to one side, shuddering in the currents while tiny cracks spread across the Perspex above him. Nick gripped his seat.

  'Shields failing,' the console reported.

  He clenched his fists, despite himself. He knew that a shield failure was always reported long before it actually happened, but it didn't make him feel any better about it. He would be okay. He had some time left. He just needed to focus. The satellite couldn't keep this up for much longer, could it? Nick had no
idea. Ignoring all the warnings, he sent a quick report to Central Command, just in case.

  K2 down. Sat-strike.

  K3 pulling back due to heavy proton cannon fire.

  Havers Compound confirmed heavily fortified Kamari base.

  Code D6942.'

  The final code would tell Central Command all that they needed to know. It was a standard command code that meant the Beacon Attack Force might be destroyed. The code also admitted that he was about to do something drastic. It would look better on his record if it all went wrong.

  Combat ready, no longer described the state of the K1 personnel carrier. D6942 meant for all practical purposes that Nick, as the commander of K1, had decided to throw everything he had against the target, and hope that it stuck. It was a near kamikaze-style assault. That's why he had asked Rachel to pull back. Not so she could report the situation as protocol dictated, but because he couldn't bare the thought of her getting killed as a result of his own last orders. Nick realised that he didn't believe he would survive the next few minutes, and that made it even more important that his plan succeeded. He would only get one chance.

  Nowhere to Hide

  Riser leant back in his chair. He was starting to get worried. This wasn't quite how he had envisaged things turning out. The power of the swarm was a tremendous buzz, but row upon row of raging red lights in his head were not what he wanted at all. Every light represented someone that he had never heard of. They all outranked him by orders of magnitude, and every last one of them wanted to tell him that they thought he was a complete wanker - a wanker who would soon be unemployed, and perhaps the victim of a nasty mech-tractor accident. That was the summary of his mind's display. They all wanted to kick his ass. Even for someone of Riser's sensibility this was by no means ideal.

  He hit the pseudo power out switch and all the red lights went away. It would make it look as though he had lost power, and therefore unfortunately could not answer any of their urgent calls. It was a poor excuse, but it was the only one he could think of at short notice. All he could do now was watch and wait.

  There had to be a way out of this. In the centre of his mind, one red light was still blinking. It was Neech. That bastard knew he still had power! Fuck him! Riser flicked off the classical junk music, and switched back to 'Angry Young Men,' their first album before they had been bought out by the Prince of Scarvetch. Thunder and iron rumbled through his head like a freight train in a storm.

  Riser managed a small smile. These fuckers didn't have him in their net just yet. He had been crawling out of trouble since before he was out of nappies. If they thought he was finished they were sadly mistaken.

  And then he really did lose power.

  Cafe Lyon

  Henry had changed into a fine grey robe, tied at the waist with a thick red band. His golden chain was tucked inside his robe, but its shape was still visible as a rough outline beneath the fabric. As he strolled through Cinnamon City, he felt a lightness in his step, as though a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders. Was it just the effect of leaving Central Command? Tower Four was his home, but it could also be oppressive at times. Living in a high black tower, surrounded by the constant buzzing of security force fields could be disconcerting at times. It was not the most conducive atmosphere to relaxation and creative thought. Often, he found that his best thoughts came to him while he was out walking in Cinnamon City.

  He particularly enjoyed walking through the Old Quarter. He had been roaming through its narrow side streets ever since his childhood. The multicoloured box cabins had been much more spread out back then. Guildmaster Gumptor had been right about that. The box cabins were now so close together that even walking between them was becoming difficult. Some backed right up to each other, and others overlapped, like boxes and tubes thrown into a tangled heap. Henry squeezed his ample frame between a long blue tubular box cabin and one that was painted in such bright red colours that it made his eyes ache to be so close to it. He laughed as he slid through sideways and ducked under a yellow overhanging building to reach the other side. He had grown up in the Old Quarter and he still had fond memories of the place.

  'Hey Mister, can I lend ten credits?'

  Henry looked down at a small blonde boy with a heavily freckled face. A group of five smaller children stood around him with eyes gazing upwards as though Henry was a high building, towering above them.

  'Lend you ten credits?' Henry said. 'Don't you mean give you ten credits?'

  'No sir. I only need to lend. My momma will pay you back later.'

  'When will she pay me back?'

  'In the next life, sir.'

  The other children started giggling and hiding their faces behind their hands. Henry gave the boy an appraising look. One day he would make a fine diplomat. Reaching into the pocket of his robe, he plucked out a ten credit data disc and tossed it to the boy.

  'Thank you, Mr Man!'

  'Just be sure to build up a small empire with that, and remember me when you make it to the rank of Admiral, Okay?'

  The boy's face beamed, 'Sure thing, Mr. I'll give you a call when I'm Admiral and make you some tea.'

  The other children jumped and laughed and pulled him away, 'Come on Johnny, let's get some sweets.' Their laughter faded away as they ran around the corner out of sight.

  Henry smiled. Once upon a time, that had been him playing in these streets. How happy would he have been if a stranger had tossed him ten credits? He had never been so lucky but that didn't mean it had to be the same way for the next generation. Maybe that little boy really would make Admiral one day. Henry smiled at the thought. Anything was possible.

  Henry made his way deeper into the Old Quarter. There was a fresh breeze in the air and it made him realise just how much he enjoyed walking. He examined each building as he passed by. Some were new and some were old. Most were people's homes but some were trader's stalls, or small cafes that offered refreshments and synthetic food.

  It was right where he remembered it. A small door tucked into an archway at the bottom of three wide steps. It was hidden between an overhanging laundry block and the ugliest yellow, three-storey box cabin that Henry had ever seen. He descended the steps and opened the small wood-panelled door that led into Cafe Lyon.

  The cafe was dimly lit inside with flickering yellow flames that hung from the walls in mock-antique cages. A dozen wooden tables were laid out in a semi circle around the outer wall.

  Henry stepped over to a table close to the net screens and the auto-bar, and sat himself down on a wide bench, with his back against the wall. He tapped a button on the edge of the table and the auto-bar flickered into life. The pale blue face of a woman hung just above the table, semi-transparent and smiling back at him.

  'Welcome to Auto-bar!' the face said. 'What can I get you? Food? Drink? Other?'

  'Drink and food,' Henry said.

  The floating head blinked back at him, eyes staring with delight, 'Sure thing! What drink will it be?'

  'Orange juice.'

  'On its way! What food will it be?'

  'Poached trout, thyme, potatoes roasted in butter and a white wine sauce.'

  'On its way!'

  'Will there be any—'

  'No.'

  The head blinked out and disappeared. Thirty-seconds later the middle section of the table opened up to reveal a large square hole. From the bottom of the hole a platform started rising up, bringing with it a tray of synthetic food and orange juice.

  Henry picked up the knife and fork and cut himself a piece of trout. He popped it into his mouth and chewed slowly, wondering whether it would be as good as last time. The taste of freshwater trout assaulted his tongue, and the aromas from the herbs gave a fresh kick to the crunchy texture of the synthetic potatoes.

  It wasn't a bad dish. He could almost believe that it was real fresh food. Cafe Lyon wasn't cheap by any means, but it had the best food synthesizers in the area. Henry took another bite and nodded towards the nearest news feed co
nsole. It swung around to face him and lit up.

  'Thanks for joining us on Mekinet News,' a female news anchor's voice said. 'We have something special for you today. Yes, we have a live exclusive feed of a combat operation taking place at Havers Compound.'

  The console switched to an overhead view showing three Crocs huddled beside a river. The caption scrolling along the bottom of the screen said:

  Central Command has sent three RS6 personnel carriers to launch an attack on a suspected Kamari headquarters at Havers Compound.

  Henry spat his trout across the table. It bounced on the far edge of the table and hit the floor with a squelch.

  'What the hell is going on with Mekinet News?' he said.

  A blue semi-transparent head appeared between Henry and the news feed console, 'Profanity will not be tolerated. Would you like more orange juice, trout, or other?'

  'Clear,' Henry said.

  The blue head disappeared again.

  The news feed was now showing a big white building that had a subtitle:

  Havers Compound

  Henry shook his head. What was Mekinet News thinking? Central Command would go crazy when they saw this. Gail Thompson would be sending out commanders right now. Cinnamon City was getting worse. He had never seen such irresponsible live reporting before. It was more than just irresponsible. It was dangerous. Henry flicked over to another channel, CX Live.

  The news feed showed a crowd of people walking through the Old Quarter, a little way to the North. Several news agencies were walking alongside them, shouting out questions as they pushed their way through the streets.

  'What is this about?' One of the reporters asked.

  'This is about free elections,' a man said.

  Henry tapped the console, zooming in on the man at the front of the crowd. It was Guildmaster Gumptor.