by D. P. Oberon
It turned out Buckingarra could drink and shoot simultaneously. That didn’t surprise Saradi. What did surprise her was Yasmie Lasi matching him drink for drink and shot for shot. Eyra Alvarez and Yoriko were the quiet ones, nursing their drinks and gazing steadily at the randomly appearing triant targets. Karavat Tsing and Peng were gesticulating and talking about some robot from the sounds of things.
“Wait a minute. They paired off by specialization didn’t they?” The epiphany struck Saradi.
“Yeah, I think they have,” Chengmedu said. “You’re a FlightTech?” She nodded. “Me too.”
“Do they decide specialization by personality?”
“Who knows? All questions and answers point to MilHire.”
Surprisingly, Yoriko was the sharpest shot — she hit several bullseyes — and Peng the worst. He had nearly shot the next booth’s targets. Saradi replaced Peng’s beer with a non-alcoholic drink. “You’re cut off,” she said with a wink.
Saradi and Chengmedu didn’t play. They leaned against the stands at the back watching their squads. They munched on some crispy soy-duck that had a nice sesame flavor to it and sipped on their non-alcoholic beers.
“You don’t drink?”
Chengmedu shook his head. “Been a squad leader all my life. Your subordinates get to relax, not you. Maybe I’ll have something when I’m back at the fort.” He nodded. “I don’t like the way those Boxing Roos are staring at us.”
“Let’s get Baahdan’Alro,” roared a drunken Buckingarra. He laid his gun down and stomped towards the bartender. There was some intense gesturing and then the bull actually came over and joined them for a few rounds. Saradi couldn’t believe it.
“Now that is old school tough. He could take on an entire squad of super-marines by himself. Even now,” Chengmedu said.
Bravo Two Zero and Bravo Two Six finished the night in a somewhat drunken stupor except for Saradi and Chengmedu. The squads stumbled out of Chengz Nuudle Bar with their arms wrapped around each other’s shoulders, singing one of the many lewd AAEDEF marching tunes with gusto:
“I don’t know but I been told.
Eskimo penis is mighty cold.”
“Thaw it out and you will see
It’s just fine for you and me.”
Saradi snorted at tune, but her senses were heightened as they strolled out on the street. A young girl stood ringed by some of the Boxing Roo gang members that had been bowling near Saradi’s squad earlier. The girl pleaded for an ice-cigar. It was cold out, and Saradi’s anger boiled when they groped the young woman and pulled at her clothes. The young woman didn’t even put up a fight.
Saradi thought about it for a moment. Bravo Two Zero could take them, even inebriated as they were. If Bravo Two Six joined it would even things up a little. There were ten Boxing Roo members.
A soft hand touched Saradi’s shoulder and Chengmedu’s voice said, “There are many like this, Sara.”
Anger twisted her features. “Yeah, is that how it is? Just let her get raped in front of me? That could be Novalie.”
Saradi strode up to the gang members. Buckingarra’s lusty singing slowly quieted as he realized what was going on.
Ten of the gang members stood in a circle. Three of them were women, dressed in boots with high heels that glinted dangerously. They wore tight red tops that showed toned shoulders. The men wore black singlets with the snarling face of a kangaroo. Every single one of them had their faces disfigured by the scarified image of a glove on their left cheek.
“Take off your clothes and beg for it,” said a man with a glowing mohawk.
The young girl stared at them with quickly shifting eyes. In spite of the cold, her hands reached for her shirt and she peeled it away. Her body was emaciated and covered in cigarette burns.
“Hey!” Saradi said. “Hey, leave her alone.” She shoved herself through a gap in the bodies and stood in the middle of the circle. “Put your shirt back on,” she told the young girl. Younger than Novalie, she realized. Much younger. She swallowed at the bulge in her throat.
“You the bitch from before. You really wanna get your throat slit,” said Mohawk. He spat to the side and walked right up to the girl. His hands reached out quickly and they clasped the girl around the neck. “This here is our whore,” he said. His hands began to squeeze, and the young girl’s face turned purple.
One of the women slurped from a beer bottle and slammed its neck against the wall. She put the bottle down on the ground where its jagged edges glittered like a sharp thorny crown. “I want my whore to ride on this bottle.”
“Let her go,” Saradi said, feeling sick.
“Or what, you flat bitch?” said the woman, taking out a vibro-blade that hummed and cast a blue light in the dark.
Bravo Two Zero and Bravo Two Six squad members circled behind Saradi. The Boxing Roo gangsters didn’t look too hot anymore.
Mohawk shifted the jacket he wore showing the nail-gun at his side. “Yeah, what are you going to do?” His other hand still held the girl and he hadn’t lessened his grip around her neck. The fool actually thought he could take them, Saradi realized.
Saradi attacked. She elbowed Mohawk in his neck, twisted down and grabbed the broken bottle and slammed it into the woman’s jaw. The woman screamed as blood poured down her neck.
Buckingarra howled and appeared between two gang members, his huge hands grabbed their heads and he slammed them together. There was sound of cracking and they slumped down.
Peng fought another woman who slashed at him with a vibro blade. He edged back against the wall bumping into a trash can. He grabbed the lid of the trash can just as the vibro blade plunged into him.
Karavat Tsing blasted a hole as wide as a head in the woman’s chest. In the same single movement he bent down and inspected Peng. “He’s injured.”
Chengmedu fought with two others. He moved deceptively quickly for somebody his size. They didn’t stand a chance.
Yoriko and Eyra Alvarez fought back to back against a thug who wielded a blow torch.
Saradi ran towards the fire, unsheathed her SR2 and fired at almost point blank range, right into the man’s backside. He shot forward splaying out the flames all around them. She shouted as the flames engulfed Yoriko and Eyra Alvarez.
The remaining woman swivelled her neck. She reached for her nail-gun and shot at Chengmedu but her hands were unsteady and Peng slammed into the woman. She fell twisted sideways, dislodged him, and then ran, leaving her gun on the ground.
“Roll call, status check,” Chengmedu shouted, walking toward the fallen forms of Yoriko and Eyra Alvarez.
It was Saradi who replied. “Three wounded, Huizhong, Alvarez, and Ueno. We need to get them to the octocopter, quick.”
Yoriko and Eyra looked like shit. Their skin and hair were burned. Saradi struggled to keep her panic at bay. Keep calm. We’ll get them to the octocopter and dose them with medi-bots. They’ll be fine, a voice said in her head.
“I’m fine,” said Buckingarra, staring of into the distance. “We should’ve got that one. She’s going to call the rest of the local Roos.”
“Okay, wrap it up, let’s get going. I’ll take Eyra, Buckingarra you take Yoriko. Peng you can go with Karavat.” Chengmedu looked around. “Yasmie come with Saradi.”
Saradi knelt in front of the young girl. The surviving members of the Boxing Roos splayed about them in pretzel poses, some of them groaning, some of them didn’t even move.
“What’s your name?” Saradi asked the little girl.
“Mala,” said the girl.
“Where are your parents?”
Mala shook her head.
Buckingarra grunted as he lifted Yoriko in his arms and he yelled out. “She’s an addict, Sara. She wants that shit.” He nodded at the packet of ice-cigars that had dropped to the ground during the fight.
Saradi picked them up. They looked like cigars except these were bloated and white, like finger bones. They smelled of bleach.
“Please?�
�� Mala asked, her voice cracking. She scratched at the scabs that covered her right arm.
“Will one harm her?” Saradi asked. The others all around her ready to leave. Chengmedu stared at her and shook his head.
“She’s gone, Sara, doesn’t matter if you give her the entire pack,” said Buckingarra.
Saradi scanned the girl with her AI and surprisingly she didn’t have any sign of air-tinge. Saradi took the pack of ice-cigars and held one out to the girl. The girl’s hand reached for it and just as she touched the cigar, Saradi’s left hand snaked forward and grasped the young girl’s wrist. She had been about to snatch the cigar and make a run for it.
“Mala, I’ll give you one of these now. But if you come with me I’ll give you more. Understand?”
“Understand,” Mala stammered.
Saradi let the girl’s hand go and left the bone white ice-cigar in Mala’s fingers. The girl flashed her a brilliant smile in that grimy face. Her eyes closed and a soft sigh escaped her lips as she inhaled. The cigar lit itself and the stench of circuit-boards filled the air.
“You’ve got to be shitting me,” Warrant Officer Christian Trisdale said as the members of Bravo Two Zero stood in a row in front of him. They had been summoned into his office as soon as their octocopter landed. “You’ve got to be shitting me. One day. If I didn’t see the holo-vid I wouldn’t believe it. I got a damn call from Rangi Topeora, herself. It’s the only call I’ve ever got from the general before. Apparently you destroyed two business establishments in the middle of Perth city itself, you killed gang members causing an all-out war between them and the local militia, and you brought a drug addict back with you. Did you get up to anything else while you were on R&R?”
“Sir—” Saradi began but Trisdale cut her off.
“The only reason that any of you are still here is because we are up shit creek without a paddle and I can’t send one fucking squad on a mission.” He walked up so that he was nose to nose with Saradi. “Don’t try any of your stupid stunts ever again and get out of my sight.”
“Yes Sir!” Bravo Two Zero shouted as one and made their way out of his office.
Before they walked out, his voice called to them. “Saradi, I’m taking half of your damn income for the medical bills that girl is causing us. You wanted to save her, so now you are.”
Saradi pressed her eyes closed as she walked out of the room. She put her back against the wall and slumped to the ground. Her squad mates sat around her.
“At least you saved her,” said Yoriko.
“Yeah and we didn’t tell him about Bravo Two Six’s involvement. He can go suck eggs. I would do it again,” said Peng, making fighting motions with his hands.
“Boxing Roos, screw me dead. That was suicidal.” Buckingarra had a smile on his face. “I actually like those big beefy burger-head super-marines now.”
“Yeah, Cheng and his buddies aren’t bad,” Saradi said.
Saradi and Chengmedu sat in a dimly lit area of the Botanical Gardens, hidden from prying eyes. The grass nice and soft. The warm breeze almost like a gentle heater. The ever present sound of marching droned on in the distance.
“It was such a relief to find they had a treatment for ice addiction,” Saradi said. “They’ve got a boarding school here. I’m not sure what’s going to happen to her afterward though. She needs a family.”
“Why don’t you adopt her?” Chengmedu asked, sitting up to face her. “When this is all over.”
She squeezed her eyes against the pain in her head. “I’m a really bad mother.”
“Come now, I’m sure all mothers think that,” said Chengmedu.
Saradi snorted and sat up to face him. “My daughter is nothing like me. She’s sweet, placid, her greatest ambition is to do arts and craft and be left in peace. She likes to read. And I was just such a dumb overwhelming idiot. Too caught up in false ego.” She sighed, picked up a strand of grass and stared at it.
“After this you can go back to your daughter. She’ll be there. Probably healed by then. Air-tinge is reversible if you hadn’t been breathing it for too long.” Chengmedu plucked a strand of grass and held it up in front of her. “We saved one life today, Sara. Because of you.”
Saradi remembered holding Mala in her arms as the octocopter took off. The girl had been shaking. Saradi held the ice-cigar to the girl’s lips and felt her calm. The girl had stank of shit and dirt, but Saradi hugged her close. She could’ve been Novalie.
She put her hands over Chengmedu’s shoulders. “Let’s have sex,” she said.
He snorted. “You’re always direct aren’t you?”
She pushed him to the dewy grass and mounted him. “Now.”
“I haven’t been laid in a damn long time,” he said.
“That’s two of us beef cake.”
She showed him how to do it executive style and he showed her the real secrets of a super-marine.
The first time was practice, but by the fourth time they were in the zone.
The next day they prepared for war.
Chapter 33 – Platypus Lake
“The target is an iordite mining facility in Yakutsk, northeast of High Beijing. It means incursion into the air space of the China People’s Empire. It is in effect a declaration of war.” Warrant Officer Christian Trisdale stood at the lectern with a looming holo-display that showed a map of the mining facility. It consisted of long barren plains covered by snow and in the middle of it all a huge hole in the ground. As they watched, tractor-mechs trundled across its surface, circling the perimeter as they descended. The camera zoomed in and the vastness of the mine was revealed to them. A city stood against the distant horizon and its width barely covered the width of the mine.
“Looks cold,” said Buckingarra. “Guess that’s why we trained in the snow all that damn time.”
Saradi felt a sinking pit in the bottom of her stomach. Nor could she quite believe her eyes. It was Alrosa Mirny’s mine! The exact mine she’d visited only three months ago. It felt like a bad case of deja vu. And that first time hadn’t gone well.
Chengmedu wore a thoughtful expression on his face. Saradi knew he would be visualizing the insertion. The battlefield was open on all sides and difficult to find cover. They would have to get in quickly, find cover, and head straight for the mine.
“I’ve a bad feeling about this,” Yoriko said, echoing Saradi’s sense of foreboding. “Look how open that is.”
As if Trisdale could hear their concerns, he said, “Before we enter the battle there will be several bunkers placed at intervals of four kloms surrounding the mine. The bunkers can hold under a tremendous amount of fire. They will be dropped prior to your landing. Your mission commences zero eight hundred hours. The bunkers are indestructible.”
Saradi didn’t trust anybody when they said something was indestructible. She also caught what he’d said “we” that meant Trisdale was coming along as well. She hadn’t liked him right from the start. Unlike Ali, it was more difficult to gauge what the slippery Trisdale was really thinking.
“There are ten rockets, each laden with a hundred thousand tons of iordite. Your primary objective is to launch the rockets and guide them to the AAEDEF orbital facilities. As part of the original mission, Platypus Lagoon, Bravo One Alpha and Bravo Zero Alpha performed the heavy lifting. You can thank them for that; your tasks will be that much easier.”
Peng frowned. “Rockets? How are we going to launch rockets? They’ve got auth controls. You can’t just press a button.”
Saradi found herself nodding at this. She wondered if maybe the launch controls were inside the mine or in the central control tower outside of the mine.
“Your secondary objective is to rescue Corporal Bheemasena Anantadevi. SOHIC intel believes he has the key to launch the rockets. His squad’s original task was to infiltrate and launch the rockets. The original two squads were ambushed and the Corporal ended up transcoding the auth controls into a physical key. There is no other way to launch the rockets.”
Instructor Ali, who stood next to him in the shadow, whispered something to Trisdale. He nodded attentively and then added, “The rocket’s cargo holds have been mag-soldered shut to prevent the enemy from stealing the iordite.”
Instructor Ali stepped forward and said, “We think Corporal Bheemasena Anantadevi has the key or knows the location of the key.”
Trisdale added, “You are to proceed with the primary objective at all costs.”
“At all costs,” Saradi murmured. That’s why they had been put through Selection. She looked at her squad mates and suddenly felt a protective urge take hold of her. She worried for Peng the most.
“The China People’s Empire Defense Force, CPEDEF, will be there. The WikiPeeks article ‘The Iordite Dagger’ has been the most read neuralnet article in the last two hundred fifty years. Don’t bother asking me or Instructor Ali about that article. Global Governing Body Top Secret is actually a level above our own military top secret clearance. I honestly don’t know about it and if I did, wouldn’t tell you. The armed forces of the entire sixteen empires have been mobilized because of that damn article. Words have power, people. You would do well to remember that.”
Peng whispered, “I heard that WikiPeeks’ entire organization got shut down. Like hard.” He made a gun out of his forefinger and thumb, and pulled the imaginary trigger. “They say AAEDEF forces did it.”
“Hey, we’re the good guys,” said Buckingarra. “We ain’t doing that stuff. WikiPeeks is run from High Singapore. Last I checked that was part of the Austra-Asian Empire.”
Trisdale said, “That’s why we cut Selection by a week, we needed to velocitize mission Platypus Lake.”
“The political balance between the China People’s Empire leader, Diaochan, and the Greatest Scientist, is delicate. At a political level they are aiming at a multilateral agreement, the longer goal being to have all sixteen empires as members of the Earth Citizen Union.” He waved his hands. “Not for you to worry about. If you get caught you either kill yourself, or keep your mouth shut during torture. We are soldiers. There is no diplomacy protecting us. Is that clear?” Trisdale’s neck bent forward as he stared at them.
