“I never thought about that…” Walker mused. “If it’s that easy, though, why couldn’t you cure blindness? Rig up the implant system to a sensor and voila, the person can see again.”
“Well…uh…I guess you could do something like that…” the doctor hedged.
“What Doc is trying to say,” Polanis interjected, “is that this process is damned expensive, and the software required to use it is proprietary in nature. If we showed everyone how to do it, we would lose our competitive advantage over them.”
“We’re mercenaries, though. Wouldn’t that make us an absolute ton of money?”
“Yes, it would,” Polanis agreed. “And then it would make us all dead once everyone learned our secret. You can talk to the colonel about it if you want, but she’s always held that one Golden Horde member’s life is worth more than giving vision to an enormous number of slugs who want nothing more than to sit on the couch and play video games on welfare all day.”
“That much I agree with,” Walker said, nodding.
“Additionally, your pinlinks can be used to interface with nearly any electronic device. Weapons, computers, communications systems…nearly anything. The slowest part of the kill chain is the neural impulse to pull the trigger. If you want, though, we can run some cable from your brain to your wrist and install a robotic hand. That would speed it up by a few microseconds.”
“In battle, speed is life,” Walker said. “But I think I’ll keep my own hands for now.”
Polanis attached a needle to the IV running into Walker’s arm and pushed the plunger. “Okay, in that case, we’ll go ahead and get started. If you could count backward from 10.” Walker only made it to six.
Computer Operations, Golden Horde HQ, Uzbekistan, Earth
Sansar surveyed the enormous space that comprised the network operations monitoring center. The space had originally occupied the largest room in Horde headquarters, after the CASPer maintenance bay, with the knowledge the room was far larger than the center’s needs. The plan had been to build a dividing wall and use the extra space as their communications center, but like a parasite that continues to grow until it consumes its host, the center had grown to fill the entire room, and that plan had been scrapped within the first six months.
When the entire room had proven insufficient, the Horde had knocked down a couple walls and doubled it in size. Then they tripled it when the resulting space was still too small. The room was jammed with terminals, all of which were manned with operators monitoring every network they could get their hands on. If it existed in the Solar System, The Golden Horde wanted to know about it. The Horde made its money defending things, and the earliest Enkh had determined the best defense was one that knew the nature of the attack—when it was coming and what the attacking force looked like—as that was the only way to be prepared for it.
As such, the Horde wanted to know everything.
When their ships went through alien systems, they recorded every transmission they could receive and made an effort to collect on every network they could get their electronic tendrils into. Initial analysis was conducted on-ship, as all their craft had both a network technician and an intelligence officer trained in analysis; a thorough analysis was conducted once the ship returned to Earth. Usually, the Horde avoided actively breaking into the networks of the other Horsemen out of professional courtesy. Usually.
Everywhere else, though, was fair game, and the Horde employed the best hackers money could buy. In fact, an entire quadrant of the room was devoted entirely to finding and locating the best active hackers. Once a hacker’s identity and location were determined, a team was sent to make the hacker an offer he or she couldn’t refuse. Offers of vast sums of money and new and improved intrusion training was usually all it took to recruit them, but when the carrot failed, they were given the stick. The Enkh family had decided long ago that cornering the market on network intrusion and analysis was…advantageous.
The company also maintained close communications with Science Guild members involved in communications, networking, and cypher technology, buying the latest gear when it first became available in the prototype phase, and then developing it to its logical potential without the need to worry about little things like “corporate rules” and “governmental regulations” that often tied the developers’ hands. The Horde’s acquisition, analysis, development, and deployment teams had carte blanche in those areas, and spent more on it than most planets.
People came and went between stations, checking information they had picked up or looking for confirmation on a new piece of data they had discovered. The room was a beehive of activity, although you would never know it from outside the door. People spoke in whispers, so as not to disturb their neighbors; any information gleaned might be the difference between success and failure in a coming operation.
With all the resources the Horde invested, the network ops center’s director always had a good idea of what was going on in any of the major systems they actively monitored, and they always knew the current state of affairs in the Solar System.
“So, what have we got?” Sansar asked.
“What have we got?” repeated Major James Good, the center’s director. “I don’t know. Something’s going on, but we haven’t been able to figure out what.”
“What indications do you have?”
“Right now, there are more than double the usual number of alien vessels on Earth or in Earth orbit. There is also a lot of talking going on, but it’s encoded.”
“What are the ships here for?”
“To all outward indications, it looks like they’re doing normal things. Trading. Diplomacy. Even a little tourism.”
“What makes you think something is going on, then?”
“Well, I get curious when things happen outside the historical norm, so I’m interested when there are double the normal number of alien ships in our system. When they all have new codes we neither know nor can break, it goes beyond curiosity and into full-blown suspicion.” Good frowned.
“You can’t break any of their codes?” Sansar asked.
“The ones they’re currently using? No, we can’t; well, we can’t yet. We will break them eventually…but we haven’t been able to so far.”
“That is troubling. Are they all using the same code?”
“No, we don’t think so,” Major Good said; “however, it’s weird that the races we consider hostile—the MinSha, Tortantulas, Zuul, and Veetanho—all got new, unbreakable codes at the same time.”
“It is, indeed,” Sansar replied. “I would also go so far as to say it is highly unlikely that it’s a coincidence. Keep on it and break them as soon as possible. If they don’t want us to know something, we obviously need to know it immediately. Do whatever you need to; use whatever resources you need.”
“Yes, ma’am; I will.”
“Do we have anything new about the missing mercs?”
“No, ma’am. There hasn’t been anything like this since the initial Alpha contracts. There are a large number of merc companies that are failing to complete their contracts, and a high percentage of them aren’t coming back at all.”
“Can we point a finger at anyone?” Sansar asked. “Do you think someone is going around nuking Humans?”
“No, ma’am, I don’t think that’s it. There were some rumors about the Besquith using enhanced radiation weapons on Asbaran Solutions, but we haven’t been able to confirm them. Besides that, we haven’t seen any indications of the other races using nuclear weapons.”
“Are the Human mercs losing to one race, or are we all of a sudden faring poorly against all of them?”
“It’s mostly an across-the-board losing streak, but we seem to be doing exceptionally poorly against the Besquith, Tortantulas, and the MinSha.”
“Basically, the ones we’re most likely to fight?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Keep at it, Major. If there’s anything strange, anything out of the ordinary, or anyt
hing that just makes you say, “Hmmm, that’s odd,” I want to know about it. There’s something coming, and we need to figure out what it is before we become another one of those missing units.”
“I have my best analyst on it,” Major Good said, tapping one of the technicians on the shoulder. “Corporal Bolormaa Enkh is on it.”
“Corporal Enkh?”
“I know she’s junior,” Good replied, “but she is an outstanding analyst—one of the best I have ever seen, in fact. Her ability to put together seemingly disparate pieces of information to create a coherent whole is uncanny.”
“I hope so,” Sansar replied. “It looks like somebody is pre-positioning forces against us, and we are slowly being hemmed in on all sides. It looks like the Horde is being surrounded...and if that happens, it’s going to be bad; it takes a lot of shit to surround a Horde.”
Batbayer’s Barbeque, Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Earth
“That new finish is even better than you said!” Lieutenant Sommerkorn gushed. “You promised a 15 percent improvement in laser reflectivity, but our tests had it closer to 25 percent!”
Ivanovich smiled. “I learned long ago importance of under-promise and over-deliver.”
“Well you certainly did this time!” Sommerkorn exclaimed.
“You seem sold on product.”
“I am,” Sommerkorn replied. “It’s a phenomenal product at an exceptional price…but there’s just one problem. The bottles you gave me say they were made on Chitaa. Isn’t that the home world of the MinSha?”
“Is it?” Ivanovich asked. He looked thoughtful a moment then continued, “Yes, I believe you are right. One of deputies found coating at Science Guild outpost there.”
“I can’t use it if it’s from Chitaa.”
“Not to worry, tovarisch. The coating is now being made here. You should not have to worry about it beyond a few more bottles that may have gotten into the supply line prior to our manufacturing plant here commencing operations. The ones you should see from now on will be made on Earth.”
“I guess it’s okay then…” Sommerkorn said. “As long as it’s being produced on Earth. The only other issue is it’s kind of shiny when you apply it.”
“Well, then we have no problems, my friend. You need not worry about the shine, it will go away in day or two, and as to where it’s made, you have my word it’s being made on Earth. Other than that, you like?”
“We love it,” Sommerkorn replied.
“Well, how about this, then?” the man asked. “How would you like to be spokesman for company?”
Sommerkorn sat back and frowned. “I don’t know what you have in mind, but I’m not going to do anything that violates my contract with the Horde. I had a hard enough time getting this job and don’t want to lose it.”
“Of course not, tovarisch!” Ivanovich exclaimed. “I wouldn’t dream of making you lose job, especially not now when we’ve become such good friends.”
“What are you suggesting then?”
“We want to spread word about product, but we are small company; we don’t have large budget for advertising. You’ve been around; you know many people in merc business. How about this? For every company you mention us to that switches to our product, we’ll give Golden Horde 1,000 credits in goods and services with our company?”
“Wow,” Sommerkorn said, his eyes unfocusing as he started doing some of the math in his head, “that sounds incredible—I’ll be a company hero! What kind of good and services do you have?”
“For you, my friend?” Ivanovich asked with a smile. “Anything. Anything you need...”
Medical, Golden Horde HQ, Uzbekistan, Earth
Walker opened his eyes to find a middle-aged Mongolian woman in uniform looking down on him. The crow’s feet in the corner of her eyes displayed concern, while the rest of her face simultaneously exhibited strength. His eyes traveled down to her uniform and saw the rank insignia of a first sergeant. He started to struggle to sit up, but she reached out and put a hand on his chest, holding him in place.
“Sain uu,” she said. “Ta yamar sanagddag ve?”
Walker looked up and could almost see the words hanging in front of him. The letters spun around from their native Cyrillic alphabet and English letters juxtaposed themselves over them, turning into ‘Hi’ and ‘How are you?’
“Mostly okay,” Walker said, after a couple of seconds of contemplation. “My head feels full, and I’ve got a headache like you read about.” He paused and then added, “Wait; how did I do that? You didn’t speak to me in English, but I was able to understand you.”
“Operational test of data retrieval and processing systems complete,” the woman said in Mongolian to someone on the other side of Walker. He turned his head; Polanis was taking notes on a slate. “A little slow,” the woman continued, “but well within tolerances. No temporal or spatial distortion noted.”
The words converted faster in Walker’s head this time. “I can speak Mongolian, now?” Walker asked in Mongolian.
“Apparently so,” the woman said. “We typically download Mongolian, as well as most of the major Earth and Union languages as part of the startup package. Are you able to follow me better as time goes on?”
“Yes, First Sergeant, I am,” Walker said. “It was slow at the start, but now it is almost real-time.”
“Good. That means your neural pathways are reconnecting. The doctor said your brain plasticity was good, so your ability to access the new information will continue to improve with usage. You will also find you’re able to think faster and reach conclusions faster as time goes by. In the amount of time people normally think of as ‘jumping to a conclusion,’ you will be able to completely think through all of the data and come to a full, rational conclusion, then dump it and complete the entire process all over again. Depending on how well your brain adapts, you may be able to come to a conclusion a third time in that period.”
“So, I can think faster, and I’ll know more?”
“You already do,” Polanis replied. “You’re speaking Mongolian as if you learned it in your childhood, including using the Uzbek accent common to members of The Golden Horde. You just did it without even thinking about it.”
“Awesome!” Walker exclaimed. “Is that all it does, or is there more?”
“There is considerably more,” the first sergeant replied, “but you won’t understand a lot of it until you can actually see your new abilities in use.”
“Like what?”
“Like the ability to see 360 degrees when you’re in your suit. If you want eyes in the back of your head, you can have them.”
“That’s pretty handy to have on the battlefield.”
“It can be,” the first sergeant acknowledged; “it can also be a drain on your processing power. Just because you can do new things doesn’t mean you always should be using those capabilities.”
“What do you mean?”
“Right now, you have extra processing power beyond what most mortal Humans and most aliens have. If you start using that extra processing power to watch behind you or input raw radar or other sensor data, you can rapidly use up that extra power to the point your processing speed becomes what it used to be, giving up that advantage to the enemy.”
“How will I know what to use and what not to?”
“Practice and load sharing,” the first sergeant replied. “If every member of your squad looks at one sensor, none are overloaded, and your squad now has access to a wide range of sensor data.”
“I’ve seen young troopers I wouldn’t want to trust with being a primary system monitor.”
The first sergeant shrugged. “So don’t make them a monitor. Just remember, though, the more you take on, the slower you will function.”
“Got it,” Walker said.
“Good,” the first sergeant replied. “Let’s go meet your squad.”
“Am I allowed to leave?” Walker asked, looking at Polanis for confirmation. “I mean, I did just have brain surgery,
after all.”
“Yeah, but it was a simple procedure,” the medic said. “We’re monitoring your vital stats and you’re fine. It’s actually better to start using your new capabilities as soon as possible so you can get the pathways reconnected sooner.”
Walker looked around; he didn’t have any monitoring equipment attached to him. “You’re monitoring me now?”
“Sure. Your implants can transmit as well as receive. While you are within our network, we’ll be able to monitor your status. The waiver allowing us to do so was included in the contract you signed.”
Walker pursed his lips as he followed that line of thinking to its logical conclusion. “Hey, uh…you can’t read my thoughts, can you? Or put new thoughts in my head? Or control me through them?”
“Me?” Polanis asked. “No; no, I can’t. In general, we’re limited to just status info, and we can’t force you to do anything in any event. That would be a violation of Earth law. You will be able to talk through them to other people, but that is training you get on the second day; we don’t want to overwhelm you on the first day.”
“Which is why I didn’t want to go any further into your new capabilities until we needed to,” the first sergeant said, glaring at the medic. She turned back to Walker and smiled. “By the way,” she said, “my name is Muunokhoi Enkh, but you can call me, ‘First Sergeant Mun.’”
The Golden Horde (The Revelations Cycle Book 4) Page 6
