Markov's Prize

by Mark Barber

  “Rae, go take point,” she commanded, keen to give Gant a break and cycle her troops through the high-risk position at the head of the patrol.

  “Got it, Lead,” the slim woman answered, picking up her pace slightly to move to the front of the squad.

  As soon as Rae moved past Gant, Rhona saw the woman trip and stumble on some unseen obstacle, and then her entire viewscreen blacked out for perhaps half a second. As soon as it had rebooted, a warning flashed across the upper left corner of her screen – ‘EMP’.

  “Get down!” Jemmel yelled.

  Rhona dove to the ground as the jungle erupted into a barrage of noise. A fast paced chattering from an automatic weapon came from the higher ground ahead and to her right; Rhona saw the earth kicked up around Sessetti as his hyperlight shields flashed purple in an attempt to defend him against unseen projectiles before he was then knocked down to the ground.

  “Hostile 1 identified!” The squad’s spotter drone reported. “Hostile 2 identified!”

  Two red diamonds appeared in an area of foliage up ahead as the drone transmitted the location of two enemy soldiers to the squad members’ viewscreens. Rhona raised her carbine to her shoulder and opened fire, sending a stream of blue energy bolts tearing through the jungle ahead.

  “Targets, directly ahead at my marker, open fire!” Gant shouted.

  Two other plasma carbines and the single beam of a plasma lance joined Rhona’s fire and blasted into the blue and yellow trees at the marker which Gant had just transmitted to all of the troopers’ viewscreens, sending branches and leaves twirling in all directions as nature was scythed down by the destructive display of firepower.

  “Enemy Squad, left ninety, fifteen yan!” the spotter drone called as a further eight red diamonds appeared on the display.

  Muzzle flashes appeared from the left and Rhona felt a thud on her back. No pain, no damage reported on her display – her armor was holding. She took stock of the situation – an EMP grenade trap with two decoy enemy shooters up ahead, but the main enemy force was firing on them from a concealed position to their left. Even primitive weapons had a chance of taking them out unless she acted.

  “Squad Wen, targets left at marker beta! Open fire!”

  The squad followed her command and shifted their fire from the two soldiers ahead to the eight on the left by her newly uploaded marker, plasma fire again ripping down trees and foliage.

  Rhona jumped to her feet and ran back along the route they had followed, distancing herself from the firefight quickly. She turned to the right and picked up her pace, weaving her way rapidly through the trees as she ran along a line parallel to the firefight off to her right, remembering her duty to report the situation up to command.

  “Command, Squad Wen! Engaged with hostiles!”

  “Wen, Command, do you require support?”

  Rhona did not have time to reply.

  She could see two of the enemy soldiers now as she advanced alone through the jungle to outflank them. Two men underneath camouflaged netting were crouched over a bipod mounted weapon, pouring down high volumes of fire into her squad. One of the red diamonds on her visual display faded away as plasma fire cut down one of the enemy soldiers.

  “Squad Wen, friendly approaching from left of target, watch your fire!” Gant shouted across the shard.

  Rhona swore – it was her job to keep her squad informed of the plan and that was twice Gant had been forced to issue commands. Clambering up a shallow ravine, she reached a position above and behind the dug in enemy soldiers. She lobbed a plasma grenade down into the bipod weapon pit and then hugged her carbine into her shoulder before spraying rapid fire into the enemy position, her weapon bucking and rocking as it spewed out superheated packets of energy.

  Her grenade detonated with a dull thud, lifting the enemy weapon operator up into the air and spinning him around as he was torn apart by the blast. Men were scythed down as they were caught in the crossfire of her own weapon and those of her squad. Jemmel’s plasma lance sent another solid beam of blue energy up from the bottom of the ravine, hacking down a tree above the enemy firing position.

  Two red diamonds were still visible through the smoke and debris as two survivors ran up the slope, desperately trying to escape from the deadly fire from the Concord strike troopers. Rhona changed her carbine’s fire mode to single shot and held her breath, taking careful aim at the center of the diamond. She paused. Just two men, defending their homeland from invasion, now running away and presenting no threat. She did not fire.

  “Squad Wen! Cease-fire! Cease-fire!” She ordered.

  After a couple of seconds, the order registered and the firing stopped. Rhona remained knelt in place, peering over the nozzle of her smoking carbine as she waited for any indications of further hostile forces. She checked the vital signs of her squad through the shard. All in the green, no casualties.

  “Lian, you okay?” Somebody asked.

  “Shut up!” Rhona heard Jemmel bark. “They’re still out there!”

  “Eight hostiles eliminated, two escaping to the north,” the drone reported.

  Rhona eased her way back up to her feet and crept slowly down to the enemy ambush spot. Seven dead soldiers lay sprawled in their dugout; the ugly, cauterized burns of plasma wounds evident across their bodies. Rhona instinctively turned away and then felt a wave of calm wash over her from her shard connection, which immediately made her feel a little calmer. She approached the first dead man and grabbed his jungle green poncho, which was still invisible in her visual display. She removed her helmet and looked at the camouflaged garment with her own eyes, noting how much easier it now was to see.

  “Squad Wen, Command, sitrep.”

  Rhona had forgotten her earlier transmission to the command squad.

  “Command, Wen, we’re good,” she replied. “Hostiles engaged at my current position, one enemy squad forced back. We’ve sustained no casualties, but we’ve got hostiles defeated on the ground. We’ve got captured examples of personal cloaking devices.”

  There was a momentary pause before a reply came through.

  “Wen, confirm you have encountered and defeated live enemy personnel?”

  “Affirm.”

  “Wen, good job. Hold your position. Squad Teal are already on the way to reinforce your position. Secure any enemy technology you can find and await further instructions.”

  Rhona ran a metallic, gauntleted hand through her long, black hair as her squad emerged from the foliage to her right. Even with their helmets and faceplates in place, she recognized Gant and Jemmel at the front.

  “You okay?” Gant asked.

  “All cool,” Rhona replied. “I saw Sessetti go down, is he good?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” Sessetti pushed his way through a thick, orange bush and into the clearing. “I got hit by whatever those first two were using, but it didn’t go through, just knocked me over.”

  “We’ve been ordered to hold,” Rhona said, “the boys from Teal should be here in a couple of minutes. Spread out and keep an eye out for a counterattack. I’m sending your positions now. Drone, get yourself to the high ground north.”

  Rhona quickly surveyed the surrounding terrain before assigning each of her squad members a position to form a cordon around the enemy dugout. The feedback via the squad shard gave her an instant feeling regarding each individual’s mental state: relief from Sessetti, fear from Clythe and Rae, concentration from Qan, and anger and resentment from Gant and Jemmel.

  “Jem, before you go, check those bodies and make sure they’re definitely dead,” Gant nodded to Jemmel, who instantly followed his instructions. “Lead, a word please.”

  Gant stomped back through the undergrowth to the south, away from the dugout and the route the enemy survivors had used to flee up to the high ground. Rhona obliged and followed him until they were some distance away from the squad, when Gant turned to face her and removed his helmet.

  “We need to talk,” he said coolly.
<
br />   Sensing confrontation, Rhona planted her fists on her hips and tossed a lock of dark hair away from her eyes.

  “So talk,” she invited, meeting his glare.

  “I shouldn’t need to do your damn job for you as squad leader,” Gant began without hesitation. “There’s been a couple of times I’ve stepped in when…”

  “You look here, boy,” Rhona found herself adopting the same tone her father did whenever he would reprimand her as a child. “I know full well you were next in line for promotion, but I got it instead of you. So now you’ve got a problem with me. I didn’t choose to join this army or to get promoted, and hell, while you and I are being so open, I don’t give a damn for any of it. But we’ve got a job to do and now is not the time or place to argue over this. So you just fall into line, do as I say, and we’ll talk when we’re back at the basecamp. And if you try to override me just one more time, I’ll make sure you wish you hadn’t. You feel me, boy?”

  Rhona did not give the startled trooper time to respond. Dragging her helmet back on, she walked back to the enemy dugout position.

  ***

  The subterranean accommodation block gave Sessetti his first sensation of security since arriving on Markov’s Prize. He lay on his bunk, staring at the artificial mountain scenery projected onto the wall of his alcove and thought over the past two days. Turning over onto his back, the bunk’s suspensors kept him floating at waist height above the ground, his green issue blanket draped over his prone form. Now he was out of his armor, Sessetti felt the full force of the planet’s gravity. It was not crippling, not as fatiguing as some planets he had visited in his childhood, but at even a few quantum more than the standard gravity on many planets and certainly all spaceships, it was enough to make him feel weary and lethargic. The eighteen standard hour day of Markov’s Prize did not help. It would be that way at least until he became acclimatized. Until it became the norm.

  The squad’s accommodation arrangements were centered around a communal area, within which were some sofas, food and drink stowages, and an entertainment suite for projecting movies and games into a 3D holographic area near the southern wall. The engineering droids had dug eight alcoves into the walls surrounding the circular main room, giving each trooper an element of privacy; although in practice, the partition walls which cut off the alcoves completely were only activated for sleeping. Each alcove, as with the main chamber, could have a variety of images projected onto the walls, floor, and ceiling to give a more homely or relaxing ambience. Weste’s alcove remained empty, a permanent reminder of the man they had already lost. Still no news had come back regarding whether or not his clone would be activated.

  A single door led out of the squad accommodation area into a long, straight corridor connecting all of the squad accommodation hubs, but the stairs at each end of the corridor which led to the surface were only emergency exits. Each bed also doubled as a transmat pad and could be used to beam the occupant directly to a pre-designated pad on the surface, although as a defensive measure these transmat pads were only one-way. The squad’s arms and armor were neatly stowed in each alcove; standards of dress were relaxed in accommodation areas and most troopers wore loose fitting trousers or shorts, and other non-military attire.

  “Keep the noise down,” Jemmel warned Clythe from her bunk.

  The short woman had returned from the gym and lay suspended on her bunk in her gym gear, her muscular limbs seeming to jar with her elfin features.

  “Your partition curtain is soundproof,” Clythe called from where he sat on a sofa with a small keyboard he was writing a song with. “Use it.”

  Sessetti sat up and looked across at his friend. Even a minor outburst such as that was uncharacteristic. Nonetheless, there was no response from Jemmel. Aside from the sound of a simple major chord-based progression emanating from the keyboard, the room fell silent for a few moments, until Clythe spoke again.

  “Where are Rhona and Gant? They’ve been gone a while.”

  “Difference of opinion regarding squad command,” Qan remarked dryly from his alcove, where he sat watching a holographic projection of an action movie on his lap.

  “I’d imagine it’s progressed a bit further than that,” Jemmel smirked. “They’ve been gone ages and you can practically see the tension building between those two.”

  “What do you mean by that?” Clythe sat bolt upright.

  Any response was interrupted by a knock at the door.

  “Yeah,” Jemmel called out.

  The door opened to admit Van Noor. The senior strike leader was still in his green and white battlesuit, his plasma carbine slung over one shoulder. The five strike troopers immediately stood up.

  “As you were, chill out,” Van Noor flashed a brief smile. “We’re about to head back out, so I’m just doing the rounds and seeing how everybody is. Squad Wen all good?”

  “Doing fine, Senior!” Rae answered enthusiastically from her alcove.

  “Lian, Bo? How’s the company’s two newest heroes holding out?”

  Sessetti exchanged a glance with Clythe before looking back into Van Noor’s grey eyes.

  “We’re good, thanks, Senior. Interesting first two days on the job. We’ve both been shot now, so at least that’s ticked off from the ‘to do’ list.”

  “That’s the spirit!” Van Noor’s face cracked into a wide grin. “I heard you were shot up by some local kinetic weapon. Gives you faith in the hyperlight armor, at least. These things are pretty solid. Hopefully your squad is taking good care of you and helping you out with anything you need. I’d hate to hear of any old school crap going on in my company, with self appointed combat veterans trying to talk down to the newer guys instead of helping them. Any of that going on, people might get to see the senior’s evil side, hey, Jem?”

  Jemmel nodded and looked down at her feet.

  “Yes, Senior,” she replied quietly.

  “Good… good,” a darker look in Van Noor’s eyes did not marry up with his friendly smile.

  “Senior?” Qan suddenly asked, stepping out from his alcove into the main communal area. “You got a sec?”

  “Sure,” Van Noor replied.

  “I’ve been in this company for nearly a year now, and…”

  “I know,” Van Noor cut him off, “the party was supposed to be a surprise. I’m personally blowing up all of the balloons for you. Go on, what is it?”

  The tall trooper winced for a second before continuing.

  “Everything people say about the boss. How much of it is true? Was he really a circuit fighter who killed ten men with his bare hands?”

  “Qan!” Jemmel exhaled a warning under her breath.

  Sessetti looked across at the other members of his squad. Even as a newcomer, he had heard plenty of rumors and stories. Van Noor nodded slowly before checking over his shoulder.

  “There’s a lot of rumors floating around about your strike captain,” he eventually said. “All you need to know is that he’s the finest commander any of you are likely to work for in your time in C3. But no, he hasn’t killed ten men with his bare hands. It was five. He fought three seasons in Determinate Fighter and won the title every time. That competition is full contact, so whilst fatalities are very uncommon, they’re certainly not unheard of, but five dead in three seasons is pretty much a record. Sure - if a fighter gets killed, they ain’t likely to stay dead long, what with full-freeze regen right there by the ringside. Still - can’t be much fun waking up to find you’re living in a tank for the next six months. The message from this one is not to piss the boss off. His evil side puts mine to shame.”

  “I’m not so sure I agree with that.”

  Sessetti looked to the doorway to see who had spoken from the shadows.

  Strike Captain Ryen Tahl stepped into the room, also clad in his battlesuit.

  “Company Commander!” Van Noor called, standing stiffly to attention.

  The five strike troopers immediately snapped to attention. If Rhona, with her fla
wless beauty, fitted the stereotypical view of the beautiful fighting woman as seen on recruitment posters and highly sanitized action series, the ruggedly handsome, powerfully built Tahl looked more akin to the anti-hero of a dark thriller. His tired, blue eyes complemented his light brown, almost sandy colored hair that had grown out to the point of bordering on the maximum regulation length over the course of several successive campaigns, adding to the appearance of a man who was run down. Tahl walked slowly into the room, taking a few seconds before holding up a hand.

  “Please, as you were.”

  Sessetti found himself shifting to the ‘at ease’ position, but certainly not relaxed.

  “Well?” Tahl gave the slightest of smiles. “Boots fit alright? Mail getting through?”

  Sesetti sniggered at the well-used catchphrase from a comedy series which was popular back home.

  “All good, sir,” Qan replied.

  “Is Strike Leader Rhona around? I wanted to talk to her about something.”

  “No joy, sir,” Jemmel offered. “We haven’t seen much of her.”

  “Well, I figured I’d say a thank you for your efforts earlier today,” Tahl said, “those recce cloaks you recovered from the enemy dugout have been passed on to Intel and have already been processed. I doubt you’ll find any of them sneaking up on you for the remainder of this campaign. So good job, all of you.”

  “The troops were just telling me how they’ve at least been shot and blown up, so they’re pretty much fully fledged strike troopers now, sir,” Van Noor remarked.

  “I dunno, sir,” Clythe smiled, “I guess we need to kill something first.”

  “No, you don’t,” Tahl said seriously. “Remember why you’re here, everyone. These people are centuries behind us in a hundred ways. Their average life expectancy is only one hundred years; ordinary people still have to work to pay for food, clothing, and shelter; all kinds of social prejudices are still openly tolerated. We’re not here to kill them. Our strategic objective is to secure this island as a safe base of operations until we can disable the planet’s defensive grid and allow the IMTel to take control. My personal objective is to keep this company as safe as possible in the process. So no, I’m not concerned about taking lives. What I care about is preserving them.”