“What? What makes sense to them?”
“Whatever is creating them has given them a detailed history. It’s a lie, but they have nothing else to go on. They have no connection to their true origins, no awareness of their creators. They believe they are the descendants of thousands of human beings who were sent out on multi-generational space voyages centuries ago.
“Those original ships were essentially giant factories, because of the voyage’s extreme duration. They had to be able to create smaller ships, repair parts, and any equipment they would require once they reached a habitable planet. The factory ships also created the succeeding generations. Artificially, because most of the crew was kept in a form of stasis during the voyage and they would need to generate a large population quickly once they reached their destination.
“The story goes on to say that eventually they lost contact with humanity. They succeeded in establishing colonies, and over the generations they mutated to speak the way they do. They also lost the ability to physically reproduce, largely because it was no longer necessary. They essentially became a separate species of human.”
“Lost tribes,” Varick murmured, and Mortas nodded. Space travel in the decades before the advent of the Step had involved numerous methods for bridging the void, and multi-generational missions had been among them. The unexplained loss of most of those ships had generated many dark theories about how the entities creating the Sims might have obtained human DNA long before the war.
“See?” The alien spoke to Jander. “That whole tale is a lie, but they believe it. The time required for such extensive mutations simply doesn’t fit the true chronology of mankind’s exploration of deep space, but the Sims don’t know the real timeline.”
“What do they know?” Varick asked. “Or, what do they think they know?”
“That humanity developed the Step long after the two species had grown apart. That when their human cousins found them, they were horrified by the changes. That all of their colonies were brutally eradicated by a race that was their closest relative in the cosmos. That to survive, they created updated versions of the long-duration ships and loaded them with the latest batches of new Sims. That they broke up into large groups, traveling different routes to the same region of space, staged to arrive at dramatically different times. That they needed to start over, somewhere beyond the reach of humanity and the Step.”
The alien stopped, largely because Mortas and Varick were no longer paying attention. Lost in the significance of what they were learning, the two officers looked anywhere except at the speaker.
“That’s why they attacked, the first time they actually encountered humans. They didn’t think it was the first time. They thought their persecutors had caught up with them. And they were ready.”
Chapter 12
“Mortas, you are the slowest member of this training squad. I’ve seen dead people who moved faster than you do. After rigor mortis set in.” Sergeant Stempful, one of the training NCOs in Banshee Basic, stood looking down at Ayliss. “Rigor mortis. Rigor mor-tas. I like that. You just got your nickname, Private Rigor.”
Ayliss tried to ignore the taunts, focusing on the sequence for transferring the battery from a broken signal beacon into its replacement. She’d already linked the two units with a communications cable, but saving the code data from the malfunctioning beacon before the new one was powered up was tricky. Her hands shook and her mind balked, but not from stress. Her arms were sore from all the push-ups, and the lost sleep of the previous nights was catching up with her.
“Come on, Private Rigor, everybody else is already done.” One of the other NCOs was speaking right in her ear, but in a whisper. The training cadre almost never raised their voices, and she’d found this more disconcerting than the expected yelling. Ayliss reached for the power button on the broken beacon, almost punched it, and then hesitated. Her tired brain started going over the steps, which she’d learned late the night before.
“Take your time, Private.” Stempful’s voice, in her other ear. “The war can wait. Your squad can wait. That beacon’s gonna call the only shuttle that can get you out, Sam’s breathing down your necks, but no one’s expecting you to hurry.”
Ayliss watched her finger turn off the power, and then her eyes shifted to a single indicator on the side of the replacement unit. It was a tiny red bead, almost flush against the housing, and it would light up when the instrument was ready to function. Refusing to look away, she still sensed the collective will of the rest of the trainee squad, ranged to either side of her at the long table. Success for the squad depended on every member accomplishing the task, and the penalty for failure was intense physical exercise.
The light came on, and she quickly completed the final steps while the NCOs moved away. Stempful returned to her position in front of the group, her electronic right eye seeming to bore through them.
“Never thought I’d see the day. Everybody got the job done. And this time Private Rigor actually met the time limit.” A sense of release filled the room, and Ayliss glanced left and right at her squad mates. Heads shaved almost bald, and wearing heavy fatigues that looked more like prison uniforms, their faces seemed almost identical. She’d gotten to know them well in the last few days, as the cadre had tasked the veterans to bring her up to speed on everything she would have learned in Force Basic Training. They’d all lost plenty of sleep doing that.
“Sergeant, I have a question,” Yerton called out from the far end of the bench, and several of the trainees groaned.
“Don’t make noises like that,” Sergeant Stempful commanded. “You’re a team. You support each other. How is Private Mute going to learn anything if she doesn’t ask all these questions?”
“Sergeant, this drill would be unnecessary if both beacons had batteries. I’ve been in the Force two years now, and I’ve never seen a battery shortage.”
“As always, Private Mute has raised an interesting point. I may have to give this some thought.” The line of trainees stiffened, having grown familiar with that phrase. “Yes, I will need some time to think. How about we all do that, and from the thinking position?”
Frustrated exhalations accompanied the squad as they moved to the floor. Seconds later they were all in a row, with only their elbows and the toes of their boots touching the surface. Their backs and legs were rigid, and their chins rested on the palms of their hands.
Stempful, in the same uncomfortable posture, regarded them at eye level. Unlike the trainees, she looked like she could maintain that stance for hours. “Mute, refresh my memory. What have you been doing for the two years you’ve been serving humanity?”
“Maintenance technician on armored vehicles, Sergeant!”
“Oh yes. That’s right. You were in a motor pool most of that time?”
Ayliss struggled to control her trembling muscles. The first few days of Basic had been nearly nonstop PT, and her entire body ached. Out of the corner of her eye she saw that little Bontenough was struggling, too. A corporal in the Force who’d given up that rank to volunteer for the Banshees, she hadn’t done anything to earn a cadre nickname yet.
“Yes, Sergeant!” Yerton barely got the words out.
“I’m sure that motor pool was well supplied, and that you had everything you needed. But you see, Private Mute, we’re training you for missions with the Banshees. Banshee units get dropped into all sorts of unpleasant places, often for longer than expected and far from logistical support. So when you suddenly discover that your last functioning beacon has no battery, would that be a good time to start learning how to change it out? Squad?”
“No, Sergeant!” The squad answered, sounding as if they were all being strangled.
“Recover!”
The squad sagged to the floor for a moment, and then got to their feet.
“Any other questions?” Stempful asked, breaking into an expectant grin.
“Yerton, you’re going to shut that stupid mouth of yours.” Private Elliott start
ed wiping down the fake Scorpion rifle, her large hands covering much of the hard plastic. She’d been the first to receive a nickname, and the NCOs called her Private Plodder. “I am sick of doing extra reps because of you.”
Sitting across from Elliott in the squad bay, Yerton looked back with hard blue eyes. “Just helping you out, Plod. You could use the PT.”
“I arrested lots of troops like you, Mute. Wiseasses who thought they were clever. That all stopped once we put the cuffs on them.”
“That’s funny. The cuffs never bothered me.” Yerton’s dummy rifle lay on the floor in front of her, still dusty from the day’s conditioning march.
“So you’re a liar, too? You’ve never been in restraints—they don’t let discipline cases into the Banshees.”
“Never said they were Force handcuffs, did I?”
“Cut it out, both of you.” Bontenough was scouring her Scorpion with a small brush. “We’ve got a lot to do tonight.”
“The ex-corporal has spoken.” This came from Litely, who sat leaning against her bunk. Like Bontenough, she hadn’t been nicknamed yet. Her Scorpion was already clean, laid across her lap.
Ayliss looked over in surprise. Litely was the member of the squad who should have been called Mute. Average height and dark-skinned, she’d demonstrated a quiet competence over the past difficult days. The squad knew next to nothing about her.
“Don’t need to be a corporal to know we’ve got to clean the whole bay including the latrine, and then practice up on the new radios for the test tomorrow. You saying we don’t have a lot to do?”
“Lots and lots of talk, from people who are supposed to have so many things they need to get done.” Litely inspected the fake rifle’s inch-deep muzzle before shifting her gaze to Bontenough. “How about we all just keep our mouths shut for the rest of the night?”
“Hey, fuck you, Litely.” Elliott glared across the floor. “And while we’re at it, fuck you too, Bontenough. I’m gonna straighten Yerton out, and I don’t need a referee.”
“Quiet is a good idea.” Amery sounded like she hadn’t heard the towering Elliott. “You know they’re monitoring everything we do and say, right?”
“Shut up, Legacy.” Yerton’s face wrinkled when she uttered the nickname. Amery was the only trainee other than Ayliss who hadn’t been a Force soldier. Her mother was a Banshee killed in the war years earlier, and so the NCOs had taken to calling her Legacy. “Whatever your dead mommy told you is a little out of date.”
“She didn’t tell me much of anything. She was gone most of the time.”
“Well that explains why we have to spend all night, every night, bringing you and Rigor up to speed. The rest of us already been through basic training, plus a few years in the zone. Why should we have to babysit you? How about it, Rigor?”
“You keep mentioning what an old hand you are in the army. Why don’t you understand that rules are rules, and we didn’t make any of them?” Ayliss asked, her tired brain violating the promise she’d made to Tin. The harsh lights in the bay pressed into her eyes, and the conversation on Larkin Station seemed like an event from another lifetime. She tried to focus on cleaning the dummy rifle, but her mind drifted to a happier time, when Blocker had taught her how to use a real one. She’d outshot every vet on Quad Seven her first day, and later she’d killed close to a dozen of McRaney’s pirates. The thought warmed her, and momentarily drove away the fatigue.
“Just a second, Minister.” Elliott spoke. “Forgetting we all watched you grow up on the Bounce? Your father ran the war for years, and he gave you two high-powered jobs. For all we know, you wrote up all sorts of stupid rules before you murdered that Zone Quest guy.”
“Don’t hack on her for that. The Guests are all assholes.” Litely’s eyes were on Ayliss. “Besides, she’s not the one who killed him. She didn’t even manage to finish the one she was fighting.”
“Yeah, funny how that worked out,” Elliott commented. “The three vets in that dustup did all the dirty work, and Rigor’s hands are clean. How about it, Mortas? Did we hear the real story, or the cover story? Were you the one with the knife after all? I bet you were. You got the look.”
“Uh-oh. Plodder’s gonna tell us about arresting that serial killer again.” Yerton almost sang the words, the sound grating on Ayliss’s ears. “What did you say he did? First time you told that story he murdered prostitutes. The second time it was the staff at an R&R center.”
Elliott gave Yerton a hard stare, and then leaned her rifle against a bunk. She rose easily, without touching the floor with her hands. “Stand up, Mute. You’re about to start living that nickname.”
“You think I’m afraid of you?” Yerton’s blue eyes danced, and she stood as well. “You’re nothing without a gun and other cops.”
“You talk a lot.” Elliott stepped toward Yerton, and Ayliss watched in dull fascination. The former military police officer was six feet tall and heavily muscled, and she could move with an ominous deliberateness. Bontenough was already between them, absurdly outsized, but Ayliss could barely hear the words telling them to break it up. Amery had joined her, which Ayliss found surprising because the motherless trainee was only slightly larger than Bontenough. Something deep under the layers of exhaustion told Ayliss she should try to help them stop the fight, but those words were lost as well and she just sat there.
Yerton made a sudden leap to her left, as if trying to get around the two shorter women, and the whole thing ended right there. The grinding lights in the bay turned off, throwing them all into pitch darkness. Right after that the entire room strobed with disorienting blue waves, and a voice hollered over the loudspeakers, “Outside in formation! You have ten seconds!”
Weariness fled as they lunged for the door, half of them turning and running back to retrieve their dummy weapons. Ayliss went down the stairs three at a time, and then she was through the door and out into the cold night air. She raced for the single line painted on the pavement, finding the crack that was her spot. The others appeared to her left and right, and then they were at attention.
Sergeant Stempful marched into view, followed by three other training NCOs. She stopped facing the squad, ramrod straight and clearly displeased.
“Understand something, trainees. You are not Banshees. You are a long way from being Banshees. No Banshee ever lays a hand on another Banshee, except in support. We are a team, and teams do not fight each other.” The icy words drifted away in the darkness. Ayliss stared straight ahead, seeing the darkened buildings of the sprawling military complex. The whole planet was controlled by the Force, and Jan had mentioned it once. MC-1932 was the latest home of the Orphan Brigade, except that was on a different continent and the Orphans hadn’t been there for months.
Stempful’s frosty disapproval brought her back. “No matter what happens from here on out, you will never raise a hand to each other ever again. Is that clear?”
“Yes, Sergeant!” they shouted in unison.
“Sergeant Nestor, escort Private Yerton into the personnel bay. Yerton, pack your stuff. Tomorrow we’ll decide whether you return to your unit, or roll back to start Basic over again with the next squad. Do you know why I’m dropping you, Yerton?”
“Fighting, Sergeant?”
“That couldn’t be it, because I’d have to drop Private Plodder too. No, Private Yerton, you’re being dropped because you’re a constant drag on this squad. Never a positive thing to say, never doing more than you’re told, and never taking the lead. Think about that while you’re packing. Dismissed.”
Yerton stepped backward, disappearing from the squad. They heard her boots on the pavement, then the door to the barracks, and that was it.
“Now some of you may be thinking that your lives just got a little better.” Stempful’s tone hadn’t changed. “You’d be wrong about that. We told you right at the start that the field load for this squad was based on its initial size, and that the load will not change no matter how many of you drop.
&nbs
p; “There is a sound reason for this. On an operation, the equipment required for a specific mission doesn’t change just because you lost some people. You have to get it to where it’s needed, and then put it into action regardless of how difficult that might be. I did hope that warning might make you see that you need each other, but apparently I was wrong.
“You’ll find out just how painful this is going to be later in the training, but if I were you I would try very hard not to lose any more bodies. Your load was going to be tough enough with six trainees, it’ll be crushing with only five, and I don’t even want to think about fewer than that.”
Stempful lowered herself to the tarmac, and then raised her body into the push-up position. Without being told, the trainees did the same. Looking over Stempful’s rigid form, Ayliss saw a trio of soldiers walking along in the distance, obviously returning from a night out. Their carefree voices carried across the dark compound, and her mind twisted with the desire to be over there with them, to be anywhere but where she was. She shifted her eyes to the ground, and Stempful’s voice took over.
“So while we’re waiting for Yerton to clear out, let’s use this unscheduled break to build up those muscles some more.”
Chapter 13
Jander awoke with a start, but didn’t know why. The shelter was quiet except for the hum of its various systems, and he’d fallen into an exhausted slumber when they got back. The alien had ended their discussion shortly after describing the Sims’ belief about their origins, and they’d watched it walk off into the wasteland. It had promised to meet them again, the next night, at Gorman Station.
The drone and the Ajax had tracked its heat signature for more than a mile before it simply vanished.
Lying in his bunk, he looked out through the open hatch. The shelter’s main room was gray in the dim light, and nothing seemed amiss. His leg throbbed lightly from the evening’s exertions, but it was the familiar sensation of tired muscles and so he welcomed it. He heard Varick give off a single subdued snore from her cabin, and he wondered if that was what had awakened him.
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