Jackers

by William H. Keith

  The words and rhythm of “The Ballad of Morgan’s Hold” pounded at her. Inside the curtain was a typical military barracks, lined with bunk beds and lockers and occupied by perhaps fifty people. Katya was surprised at the number. Only eighteen genies were carried on the Scouts’ muster list at the moment, and so far as she knew no more were due to join the tiny genie outfit.

  Then she realized that most of the people in the room were full humans.

  One of the humans was jacked into a mentar, which he held in his lap, eyes closed as his thoughts shaped the chords falling from it in rippling, pattering trills. The rest were singing along.

  We disobeyed our orders when they said to sound retreat.

  And Morgan laughed and said “My God, we’ll see who’s the elite!”

  For fighting steel had broken faith, the samurai had fled.

  But Morgan’s men defied Nagai, they stood and fought and bled.

  Coincidence—and biting irony—bemused her. “The Ballad of Morgan’s Hold” was an infantryman’s song from long before the rebellion, one commemorating a heroic last stand on, of all places, Herakles. A handful of troops, of crunchies, under the command of Captain David Morgan, had held off wave after wave of Xenophobe attacks after the Taisa Nagai had ordered the defenders to evacuate the planet. Their stand had allowed untold numbers of civilians to evacuate up the Heraklean sky-el.

  Warstriders did not make that stand, it was the infantry

  Who stood and fought and died and paid the price of mutiny.

  We took our stand on Argos Hill, four hundred fighting men.

  And when the smoke had cleared away, sixteen walked down again.

  So caught up in the song were most of the men and women in that room that Katya had not been immediately noticed.

  “Attention!” someone shouted suddenly, and the words and music dwindled away. With a clatter of motion, people started coming to their feet.

  “Carry on,” Katya said. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

  It had taken her a moment to realize just what it was that was bothering her about the sight. It was the intermingling of genies and full humans, something she’d not seen since bringing Tharby and those first few genies to Stone Mountain. Especially after that one rape incident, there’d been so much prejudice among the humans she’d thought they would never accept the gene-tailored workers.

  Then she realized something else. Of the humans present, none had more than Level 1 hardware—palm circuitry and a single T-socket behind one ear. Some of the humans, judging from the length and style of their hair, didn’t even have that much.

  Nulls. Katya had rarely had much to do with Nulls, a growing lower class unable to interact in economic or long-range AI transactions. There’d always been a certain small percentage of humans who couldn’t accept the nano-grown cerebral implants or skin circuitry, and there were more who refused the cybernetic enhancements on religious, philosophical, or political grounds. Frequently unemployable save in menial jobs, they were largely invisible to society as a whole. The military used them in nontechnical slots, as leg infantry, and for lifting, loading, storing, carrying…

  The sorts of jobs genies were frequently employed in.

  Nulls frequently felt the same sort of gulf between themselves and socket-equipped citizenry. Perhaps they felt closer to the genies, who were also Nulls, than they did to technically augmented full humans.

  With a small, inner start, Katya realized that the entire group was watching her, waiting for her to speak. Within the stratified rigidity the Confederation was inheriting from the Hegemony Guard, officers did not casually drop in on their troops; striderjacks did not associate with crunchies.

  Maybe that was a large part of what was wrong.

  She noticed Tharby, sitting on the floor next to the mentarist. She’d learned from others already that it was Tharby and four other genies who’d taken down the Tachi at Anversen; she’d intended to seek him out, to commend him for what he’d done, to thank him… and to tell him she was leaving. With the entire room watching her, that seemed to be the cowardly way out.

  “Excuse the interruption,” she told them all. “I just came by to say… to say that I’m being ordered out. I’m sorry I can’t take you with me. And I—I’m sorry I can’t stay here, with you.”

  “Where you off to, sir?” Tharby asked. During the past few days, the genie’s use of military courtesy had improved. His language had improved as well, becoming smoother, more… human.

  She shook her head. Many of the soldiers here might well find themselves under Imperial interrogation soon. “Another star system. That’s all I can tell you.”

  “Why we not go?” a big worker genie in the back called. “We fight Impies good!”

  “Yeah!Gok ’em!” another chorused, and then the barracks walls were ringing with answering shouts and catcalls.

  When the room was silent again, or nearly so, Katya tried her best to answer. “There’s only room for a few, and that’s saved for the people the topjacks say have to go. And… and they need good people to keep fighting the Impies here.”

  “Ha!” a full human said. “Well, it figures, don’t it, tokes?”

  “Like always,” a ningyo said nearby. Cradling a Pk-55 flechette rifle, she looked sleekly dangerous.

  Tokes. The human soldier had called the genies tokes… guys. Or maybe he’d been referring to everyone in the room. Same thing. He was including the genies as part of his circle of comrades.

  Then Katya understood what it was she was feeling here. The Nihongo word was yuyo, which meant camaraderie, but which for soldiers throughout the Hegemony had taken on the special meaning of the warrior’s bond, that special relationship shared with men and women who’d faced privation, loss, and death at your side.

  The genies had proven themselves in battle. They’d been accepted.

  “We have good friends here, Colonel,” Tharby said, almost as though he’d just read her thoughts. “We will stay and fight the Impies. Thank you, for everything… and good luck.”

  “Thank you, Tharby.” She had to fight back her tears. “And good luck… to all of you.”

  Turning, she pushed through the curtain, then stopped. She could not resist a parting lesson for her students. “You know, Tharby, what you did today was incredibly brave. It was also incredibly stupid. Lots of warstriders have antipersonnel charges or sempu blasters to kill people who try the sort of thing you did.”

  The genie grinned at her, golden eyes laughing. “Stupider than finding a place for us with full humans? I don’t think so!”

  “Good-bye, Tharby.”

  Turning, she fled into the night.

  A burst of laughter and good-natured gibes followed her. Seconds later, they struck up the final verse of the song. Outside, she could no longer hear the words, but she already knew them by heart.

  At golden Tenno Kyuden they cannot begin to see

  That honor’s price is paid in full while glory can befree.

  So give a cheer for Morgan’s crew, the God-damnedinfantry,

  The men who fought the Xenophobes, the grunts likeyou and me.

  Katya had never felt so torn. Duty required that she follow orders. Her yujo-bond and the responsibility she felt for those in her command demanded she stay. Besides, this was her world, her home. Could she simply turn her back on it all?

  Yet Dev was going to Herakles. And Travis Sinclair. Damn! Simplest was to accept the bonds of military discipline. She’d been ordered to go; she would go.

  But gok it was hard.…

  Chujo Tetsu Kawashima pulled himself hand over hand into Donryu’s bridge space, positioned himself within the embrace of an empty control linkage module, and strapped himself in. Food and waste feedlines snapped home in his shipsuit connectors, and a pair of large plugs jacked home into the T-sockets behind his ears. His palm touched the interface, and his surroundings vanished, replaced by the squadron’s Combat Coordination Center.

  The room was a fict
ion, a virtual reality construct designed as an electronic working space for Kawashima’s battle staff. For convenience and for decorum’s sake, there was the illusion of gravity, though there were no chairs since ViRpersonas did not grow tired. A well in the center of the deck projected a three-dimensional view of New America and the space surrounding it. Golden points of light swarmed about the planet, each accompanied by a block of data giving ID, mission, and vector.

  As Kawashima materialized next to the display, the other officers—there were twenty in all—faced him and, as one, bowed. The voice of Shosho Fusae Eto insinuated itself into his mind, speaking for the entire team. “Konichiwa, Chujosan.”

  “Konichiwa,” Kawashima said, returning the salutes with a measured, courteous bow of his own. “Carry on, please.”

  In fact, there’d been no distraction from necessary duties, and no need to tell them to go back to work, since the linked minds of the battle staff continued to process information, whatever their virtual reality personas appeared to be doing.

  The personas of his officers appeared relaxed, attentive to their duties, but he could feel the undercurrent of tension. No one, he knew, cared to risk the chujo’s wrath by mentioning what had happened.

  It would have been easier, Kawashima thought glumly, if his orders permitted him simply to reduce the surface of New America to radioactive glass and slag. Such wholesale destruction was certainly within his power… but it would also be counterproductive. The discontent and outright anger such an act would provoke would undoubtedly do more harm than good. Fear, by itself, was never as useful a tool of government as were good public relations… an arcane science he’d learned about in his studies of Western history.

  But his own job would be so much simpler if he’d been permitted to make an example of this world.

  Bad enough had been the news that the Kyodaina had been destroyed, the Imperial thrust up Gaither Valley to the rebels’ Stone Mountain base stopped cold. Less than thirty hours later, one of Ohka Squadron’s destroyers, after rendezvousing with several ascraft from the surface, had broken orbit and accelerated toward the fringes of the system. Kawashima’s subordinates thought nothing of the event at the time; ships were always coming and going, traveling to or from Imperial bases for maintenance or servicing, returning to Earth with field reports, or arriving at New America with reinforcements, orders, and news.

  This particular destroyer, the Arasi, had only been in orbit around New America for a few days. According to its log, which had been routinely downloaded into the squadron’s HQ data base, Arasi had been stationed in the Chi Draconis system—at Eridu—but had received special orders from Earth to transport several teams of Kurogun to New America’s surface.

  Kurogun. The word shocked in its sudden coldness. The “Black Forces” were the Imperial military’s covert special operations unit. Swift, deadly, and secretive, with advanced training in Kokorodo and in numerous martial arts traditions, they carried the reputation of modern-day Ninja. No wonder no one in Kawashima’s command had brought the matter to his attention. The Kurogun were never discussed, and it was widely assumed that the less one knew about them, their missions, or their whereabouts, the better for all concerned.

  In any case, Arasi possessed all appropriate codes and clearances; its captain, Taisa Ihara, had exchanged greetings via laser ViRcom link with the commanding officers of several Imperial picket vessels, and nothing had appeared out of the ordinary. When the Arasi accelerated clear of New American orbit, no one had even bothered to alert Kawashima to the fact; Ohka’s commanding admiral, after all, had more important things to occupy his thoughts than the movements of individual ships.

  That had been four standard days ago. Today, early that morning by Donryu’s shipboard clocks, another vessel had arrived in-system. She was Nagara, a Sendai-class light cruiser under the command of Taisa Kakeui Matsushida. Thirty-five days earlier, Matsushida had left the Chi Draconis system, also under routine orders from Earth to report to Kawashima at 26 Draconis.

  When Nagara’s log was downloaded to the HQ data base, however, Donryu’s command AI had sounded an alert. There was a discrepancy. According to Nagara’s records, the fleet it had left behind at Eridu had included the Amatukaze-class destroyer Arasi, and that had been a full five days after the Arasi had claimed to have received its “special orders” from Earth and left for New America.

  The entry was specific and detailed. According to Nagara’s records, the pacification of Eridu had already begun. Arasi was taking part in the operation, bombarding key cities and facilities from orbit in support of the marine landings there. In fact, Captain Ihara was listed as receiving a special commendation from Admiral Takernura for his part in breaking up a concentration of rebel warstriders seeking to escape from the enemy capital at Babel.

  The commendation was dated two days after Arasi was supposed to have left the Eridu system.

  There was no doubt that Nagara was the ship she claimed to be; Matsushida had been a senior chu-i under Kawashima’s command aboard the old Aoba, and he knew the man well. Arasi was the imposter; without question, her captain had been a rebel masquerading over the ViRcommunications channels as Ihara.

  Which meant that the people the Empire was most interested in seizing on New America, Travis Sinclair and the Confederation delegates and the leadership of the Confederation’s army, had all almost certainly fled. The enemy destroyer—she must have been the old Tokitukaze, reported lost at Eridu, he realized—had slipped into the very midst of Ohka Squadron, taking advantage of the inevitable confusion and bureaucratic blind spots that hampered any ponderously large military formation to conduct an evacuation right under the collective noses of the fleet.

  “Please excuse me, Chujosan,” Taisa Eto, his chief of staff said, giving a rigidly precise and formal bow. “Shosa Yoshitomi has submitted another request for reinforcements before mounting his next attack on the rebel base. He insists on speaking personally to you.…”

  Kawashima felt his face clouding, saw Eto’s face go carefully and emotionlessly blank as he braced himself for the storm. With an effort of will, Kawashima controlled his thunderclap of anger.

  “Very well, Etosan. I will speak with him. We will discuss carefully and in detail the necessity of carrying out one’s orders with the men and matériel at hand.”

  “Hai, Chujosan!”

  The bird might have flown from its New American cage, but Kawashima was still determined to take that cage apart, bar by bar. The ruin might well offer some clue as to where the bird had fled.

  Chapter 19

  Needless to say, the development of cephlink technology, as with all technology, carries with it a terrible potential for abuse.

  —Man and His Works

  Karl Gunther Fielding

  C.E. 2448

  Over a week after the escape of the rebel destroyer, Chujo Kawashima had left his accustomed surroundings and cephlink simulacra aboard the Donryu for the direct experience of a reality of a different kind. It was a moonless night at Port Jefferson, and the grounded Imperial transports bulked huge and shadow-edged beneath the glare of glowglobes and the harsh illumination of a hovering, aerostat mirror reflecting the output from an array of mobile spotlights set up on the field. Technicians and maintenance workers were everywhere, readying ships, servicing heavy equipment, and swarming about the hulking, motionless forms of black-armored warstriders, prepping them for new missions.

  Accompanied by his coterie of staff officers and assistants, Kawashima strode rapidly from the lowered ramp of his personal aerospace shuttle. Soldiers along the way offered stiffly formal rifle salutes, while others stopped what they were doing and bowed. Neither slowing his stride nor acknowledging the salutes, Kawashima crossed the open field swiftly and entered a low, heavily guarded building with bunker-thick walls. A young marine chu-i met him at the door, bowing low.

  “Konichiwa, Chujosama.”

  “Konichiwa. I need to see them. Now.”

  �
�Hai, Chujosama!”

  Once, this had been a storage warehouse at the edge of Port Jefferson’s primary launch field, which accounted for the massive construction. Since the Imperials had taken the spaceport, however, it had been pressed into service as a command bunker, and the jackstraw tangle of sensor instrumentation and communications lasers still cluttered the roof.

  And now that both Jefferson and Stone Mountain had fallen, it was being used as a holding place for special prisoners.

  The final battle on the slopes of Stone Mountain had been savage, the casualties to Yoshitomi’s marines staggering. The rebels had fought like fanatics, taking on Imperial warstriders in close-assault charges with explosive packs and homemade bombs. Kawashima had never heard of such insane tactics—rebel troopers had actually swarmed onto the feet of warstriders, jamming packs of explosive into their ankle joints. Ankle-biting, the ground commanders were calling it, a tactic that had claimed at least nine marine warstriders.

  Finally, however, just two days ago, an Imperial assault team had at last reached the main blast doors leading to the Stone Mountain labyrinth, but only after a prolonged laser bombardment from orbit had finally broken the rebel static defenses. A one-kiloton nuclear charge had breached the door; another had been used to clear part of the mountain’s interior. The rebels would not be using Stone Mountain as a military headquarters ever again.

  After that, the rebels had begun surrendering.

  Almost certainly, the majority of the rebel troops had fled deeper into the wilderness, the… what was it New Americans called it? The Outback, yes. The Imperial garrison here would face stiff guerrilla resistance from those survivors for years to come, but that was not his problem; guerrillas would not be able to carry out an interstellar campaign or incite revolt on other worlds of the Shichiju, which was Kawashima’s primary concern.

  But if many rebels had escaped, thousands had surrendered or been gathered up by far-ranging patrols of warstriders and infantry. Camps had been set up outside Jefferson, and a small army of Imperial intelligence personnel were interviewing the POWs now.