Vorpal Blade

by John Ringo

  "Virtual reality?" Berg asked.

  "Got it in one," Jaenisch said, walking over to a computer terminal. "We've got just about every game on the market available on this thing but we generally use the one designed for the mission, a hack of Dreen War." Jaenisch opened up some windows on-screen and started a game up, then opened up one of the lockers, pulling out two sets of VR gear.

  The gear consisted of a light harness, gloves and a pair of glasses. The VR glasses, thanks mostly to Adar tech, had reduced to the size of wraparound sunglasses. The newest military combat "goggles" were similar in size and structure. Berg had even heard that DARPA was working on combat "lenses" that could be worn as contacts. That would be interesting.

  Jaenisch also handed him an M-10 and combat harness, preloaded with "simulated rounds." Simulation rounds used actual gunpowder to fire low velocity "paint" rounds that mimicked real bullets fairly well at short ranges. They required a special barrel and breech but the M-10 had already been modified for them and had the standard blue training barrel.

  The glasses stayed clear until they walked in the room, then darkened momentarily and came back showing a jungle scene. It wasn't anywhere on Earth—both the trees and sounds were wrong—and it took Berg a moment to adjust.

  "Where are we supposed to be?" he subvocalized. When they passed Basic, every Marine was fitted with combat implants that consisted of a small microphone implanted next to the vocal cords and a receiver in the mastoid bone. Learning to subvocalize was a requirement of Marine basic training. The system was virtually identical to the one the Adar used when they first reached Earth. For a short time, it had been thought that the Adar were telepaths since using the system looked much the same to an ignorant observer. There was virtually no sound involved and only short bursts of radio.

  "This is based on Chen's World," Jaenisch replied subvocally, his lips moving only slightly. "But it's got different monsters. All we have to do is make it to the far wall." He hefted a virtual M-10 and was now, in the goggles, wearing full battle rattle, a set of boron carbide body armor with fitted pouches for ammunition. "You've got left, I'll take right."

  Berg jacked a round into his own M-10, flicked the weapon off safe and nodded.

  "Let's do it."

  Jaenisch led off, following a narrow game trail. Berg kept his attention to the left, sweeping forward, up and to the rear. There were some light heat forms in his glasses, but nothing that looked like a threat.

  A thunderous roar from the right almost made him spin around but he kept on his sector and it was a good thing. Just as the roar faded, a form came charging through the jungle. It was bipedal and looked something like a more insectile Dreen thorn-thrower. Whatever it was it had a big mouth and Berg wasn't going to take any chances.

  He fired two rounds into center of mass and was unsurprised that the 7.62 mm rounds bounced off. But the thing had big multiple eye systems and he retargeted, hitting it in the eyes and blinding it. The thing continued its rush but missed the two Marines and Berg pounded it with single fire shots as it crashed past. He found a weak point under one of its arms and pumped five rounds into the spot until the thing dropped, thrashing.

  "Reloading," he subvocalized, trying to keep his sector in sight as he pulled out a magazine. He got the reload in place just in time to spot something dropping from the trees. It looked like a sheet of paper but it was headed either for the Marines or the dead beast. Berg fired at it and the sheet ripped apart, falling in tatters.

  Jaenisch had been firing at something as well and the two Marines went back to back as more of the bipedal monsters came through the jungle after them. Berg picked his shots more carefully since he only had thirty of the 7.62 mm rounds in a clip. He managed to drop three of the monsters before he ran out of ammo. The fourth and fifth, though, got him and the "jungle" vanished as the harness gave him a zap of electricity.

  "Grapp me," he said, shaking his head.

  "Not bad, actually," Jaenisch said, looking over at him. "I'm going to reset the system so we've also got .455s. You qualified on the .455?"

  "Yes," Berg said. The high velocity Colt magnum was rarely used by combat forces, but he'd qualified with one in Force Operators Training. He had wondered at the time why they were training on a civilian "gun nut" pistol that no other force considered worth its time. Now he had to wonder how much FOT was influenced by the Space Marines. A group that, officially, didn't exist.

  They returned to the prep room and added the big magnums to their kit. The gun's blue barrel was nearly a foot long and it was a heavy mother. But civilian hunters had used them to hunt both elephant and tiger at short ranges. It should stop even one of the bipedal monsters. He stopped before going back and readjusted the position of the ammo pouches on his armor. Every serious shooter had his own idea of where stuff should ride and Berg wasn't any different.

  "Same general scenario?" he asked as they reentered the "jungle."

  "It changes," Jaenisch said. "You never know what's going to come at you."

  Berg kept a watch out as they reentered the path and while it was a different beast, they attacked at the same point. This time they got low-slung bright-red centipedes, about the size of a leopard. And there were more of them than of the bipedal monsters. And, the 7.62 mm rounds just bounced off again.

  He let go of the M-10, which pulled back to his chest on its straps, and drew the .455 Colt. The magnum rounds did penetrate the centipedes' armor and, even better, he was a very good one-handed shooter. He fired all ten of the rounds in his magazine, getting six of the beasts, then did a rapid reload by just dropping his empty mag down the front of his armor and sliding another in. He got four more before they got him at last.

  "This seriously sucks," Berg said, holstering his smoking pistol.

  "Hell, you held out longer than I did," Jaenisch said, shaking his head. "I stayed on the M-10. Where'd you learn to shoot like that?"

  "I just enjoy shooting," Berg said, carefully. The real answer was in Force Recon Operator's Training. Force Recon had always been a tough unit with a killer qualification phase. But its advanced training had mostly been ad hoc at the unit level. The new FOT included an Operator Combat Training program that far exceeded the normal Force Recon official training program. He was beginning to realize that the "regular" Force Recon guys might have much more experience than he did, but he was probably better trained. He was going to have to tread that path very carefully.

  "Can you two-gun mojo?" Jaenisch asked.

  "A bit," Berg said. "But I can't fire simultaneously. That's total bullmaulk. Usually what I do is empty one pistol then empty the other one. The problem is, it really slows down reload. So if you've got more targets than you've got bullets . . ."

  "Want to try it that way?" Jaenisch asked. "I'll stay one gun on pistol, you go for two-gun?"

  "I'll try it," Berg said. "But I'll stay on M-10 to start since we don't know what it's going to throw at us."

  "I'll set it up for the same scenario," Jaenisch said. "I'm really curious."

  The third time through, Berg carried two of the magnums and Jaenisch one. The centipedes attacked at the same time and in the same way, which was a bit of cheating, since it meant Berg didn't have to guess where they were coming from.

  But the two-gun mojo worked. This time, knowing where and how they were going to attack, he managed to start winnowing them down earlier. When his right pistol ran out of rounds he holstered it and pulled out a clip. When the left ran out he did a fast reload then switched hands and went to a two-handed fire position, backing away from the centipedes until he had the last one dead. The things thrashed as they died, splattering green blood over the mostly blue vegetation and opening out the underbrush as they crushed it in their death throes.

  "Damn," Jaenisch said, shaking his head. "Shiny. Now, let's see if we can make it to the far side of the room."

  They were hit twice more but Berg's two-gun fire managed to stop both attacks cold and they eventually reached
the "stream" that marked the far side of the room. He only had four rounds of magnum left, though.

  "Clear VR," Jaenisch said when they reached the limit. "Not bad, Nugget. Not bad at all."

  "Thanks," Berg said.

  "This scenario is set up for a two team maneuver," Jaenisch admitted. "Six guys, not two. I wanted to run you through something harder than I thought we could handle, just to knock the starch out. So much for that idea. As a matter of fact, I hereby designate you Two-Gun. You may now call me Jaen."

  "Thank you, Jaen," Berg said. "But I don't think it's a good way to do battle normally."

  "Agreed," Jaen said. "But it was grapping awesome. I can't wait to replay the clip."

  "This is recorded?" Berg said.

  "Two-Gun, every second of every day we do this maulk is recorded," Jaenisch said bitterly. "Why do you think there are grapping cameras everywhere? We're guinea pigs. I'll explain when we get back to the armory."

  3

  Old Friends, Same Problems

  All the Adar tech in the world hadn't helped the lunchtime traffic on Monticello. Bill weaved his Ford Electra into the left-hand lane, getting around a late model Chevy pickup that was carefully doing the speed limit, and floored it, trying to make it through the turn at VA 168. Once past 168 he'd be clear most of the way to base.

  Unfortunately, as he approached the light it turned yellow. He figured he had time so he floored it but the car instead decelerated, the electric motor dropping to idle as the brakes automatically slid him to a controlled stop.

  Oh, yeah, Adar tech was good for some things!

  The pickup blew past him, still doing a stately forty-five miles per hour. He hoped the old fart got a ticket.

  The bright purple Chevy Neon that had been on Bill's bumper suddenly pulled out, the light having changed to red, and sped through the intersection causing a flurry of honks but, fortunately, no accidents.

  Speaking of Adar. Worst drivers in the world.

  Christ. Could this day get any worse?

  It wasn't really a florist's shop. It was a shop that supplied flowers for corporations and hotels. The company had no storefront, just a back door through the loading area. And the people who worked in the company were much more accustomed to the occasional street person wandering in and looking for a handout than fourteen-year-old girls with some alien pet.

  "Can I help you?" the young man with his arms full of arrangements asked curiously. He couldn't help but stare at the thing on her shoulder; as he watched it moved from one side to the other, its green eyes glittering in interest at the bustle in the room.

  "I'm looking for Mr. Miller," Mimi said politely.

  "He's over there," the man said, gesturing with his chin since his hands were full. "Go on in."

  The room was unadorned and looked more like a half-finished basement than a florist's. White wooden tables were heaped with flowers while several workers in eclectic attire assembled arrangements. About half were females but there was as much long hair amongst the men working on the flowers as there was with the women. Most of the men working in the shop were in shorts, as were a couple of the women; it was hot and the only breath of cold air came as a man exited a huge walk-in refrigeration room, his arms filled with colorful orchids.

  Miller had his back to the entrance and was peacefully snipping the bottom of some iris stems when Mimi cleared her throat.

  "Hello, Mr. Miller," Mimi said, wondering if the former SEAL would recognize her.

  Miller clearly was puzzled by the young lady who had spoken to him, but after a moment he placed the thing on her shoulder.

  "Mimi," the SEAL said, grinning. "What a pleasant surprise. It's been, what? Seven years? You've grown. And Tuffy's . . ."

  "Changed," Mimi said, grinning. "All the ET people got really excited when that happened. Only one of them got it right, though. I was talking to him one day in school and just sort of thought that I'd gotten over the whole stuffed animal thing. And he looked really . . . dumb that way. The next day . . . whole new Tuffy."

  "You're here on a trip?" Miller asked, puzzled. He was wearing a loud Hawaiian shirt, open most of the way down a chest covered in graying hair, and a pair of cut-off desert camo BDU shorts. "In town for school or something? Why San Diego of all places?"

  "I'm not here on a school trip," Mimi replied. "I came looking for you. We have to go to Newport News and see Dr. Weaver."

  "What's Bill want?" Miller asked gruffly, turning back to his irises.

  "He didn't want anything, but there's something he needs," Mimi said. "You, me and Tuffy. Tuffy told me. And we're going."

  "Oh, we are, are we?" Miller asked, turning back around. "I'm out of that game. You get older, you get slower. There's a time to reap and a time to sow, all that stuff. In my case, there's a time to kill and a time to heal. So if you and Tuffy have to do something, you go, girl. I'm going to keep making floral arrangements."

  "If you don't go . . ." Mimi paused and looked around the crowded room. "Can you take a break or something, we have to talk."

  "Okay, okay," Miller sighed. "Bob! Going on break. I don't know how long I'll be. That okay?"

  "Sure, Chief," the younger man called back. "Try to get those arrangements done by four, though."

  The coffee shop was considerably cooler than the floral factory. It was still early morning and the tall buildings on either side provided shade from the sun. For that matter, San Diego rarely got hot during the early fall. Only when the Santa Annas blew down from the mountains did the temperature get much above seventy-five.

  Miller set his mocha down and leaned back in the chair, considering the young lady who had dragged him away from work.

  "You came all the way out here on your own?" Miller asked, surprised.

  "It's not hard," Mimi said. "There's gates all the way to San Diego; then I took a taxi."

  "Most of our customers can't find the shop," Miller mused. "The boss prefers it that way."

  "Tuffy knew where to find you," Mimi said, shrugging. "He told me he'd been keeping track of you."

  "That's nice to know," Miller said dryly. "So, what's so important that you want me to go to Newport News."

  "They've finished the ship," Mimi said, carefully. "It's still covert and I'm not going to blow that for them. But Tuffy says that I have to be on it, with him, when it leaves. They've completed the . . . shakedown cruises. The next launch is going to be out . . . Tuffy says that we, you, me, him, have to be on the ship. I don't know why and I don't know if he's being cagey or he can't really explain why. I know that part of the reason has to do with . . . causality. That's about as much as I understood. Basically, he's saying that the ship is probably going to fail, and fail big, if we, we three, don't go along."

  "Look, you can't just walk up to something like that and say 'we're coming along, okay?' " Miller said, blowing out his cheeks. "The security's going to be . . . a mile deep. And the entire crew, and that includes the civilians, are already going to be chosen. That's even assuming that I'm willing to go."

  "You'll go," Mimi said. "You'll go because if you don't the mission's going to fail. And if the mission fails, it will probably mean the Dreen back. And this time we'll lose. Plus Dr. Weaver will die on the mission and he's your friend."

  "Friends die," Miller said, his jaw working. "One of the reason that I peacefully make flower arrangements these days is because I've seen lots of friends die. I don't particularly want to meet more people who are probably going to die. Which is what going on something like that would mean. Even if we could convince somebody that we had to go along, at which we have a chance in hell."

  "You need to call Admiral Townsend and get a meeting, today," Mimi said. "He's somebody you can just call, and he's briefed on the mission. He can get ahold of Dr. Weaver. And Dr. Weaver can get us on the mission."

  "You seem to know a hell of a lot for a fourteen-year-old," Miller said, blowing out again, this time angrily. "Greg Townsend . . . yeah, he'd take my call. But ge
tting us on the mission . . . ?"

  "He can get us in touch with Dr. Weaver," Mimi said. "That's all we need."

  "Okay, okay," the former chief said, shaking his head. "I guess it's time to call in some favors. And Greg Townsend does owe me. Big time."

  Bill parked the Electra in his designated slot and walked quickly towards the massive concrete building that guarded the upgraded subpens.

  Newport News had gotten out of the active sub business almost two decades before, when the full weight of the post-Cold War conditions had hit the Navy. Subsequent to that event, the base had mostly been used for "decomming" subs, turning them into razor blades in other words.

  Most of the subs that were going to be turned into razor blades had been turned when the Navy finally won the battle for the first warp ship. The battle had long-term consequences that were clear to the admirals. Weaver was pretty sure that with the data they'd gather from use it was possible to make another warp drive, albeit perhaps not as neat as the "little black box." Eventually, the Earth would need a star fleet, especially if the Dreen ever used warp space to attack. The service that got in on the ground floor was pretty certain to be the eventual "space service." Navy was navy, wet or in space. And that was one of the many arguments that the admirals, often disbelieving the words that came out of their mouths, made.