Merkiaari Wars: 02 - What Price Honour

by Mark E. Cooper

  Gina nodded. It was more focused on the job and less on ceremony for one thing. She would prefer a little more ceremony actually. Unit cohesion always benefited from it. It always made her feel a part of something greater than herself.

  “It’s not that different. We’re still Alliance forces, still under orders from HQ, and I hope still expected to follow the regs.”

  “Oh sure,” Richmond said easily. “Stone and the others are sticklers for the regs. No question. I’m kind of glad, you know? I’ve always been that way myself.”

  “Me too. So now I know what kind of pumping you were doing to Stone, what gives?”

  “As best as I can understand it, the General wasn’t pleased with the way the families of his vipers were being treated back during the war, so he offered them a place here safely tucked away from the Merki advance. When most of the 501st died in action, their families simply stayed on. Their descendants run the station for us, and they maintain the outpost on Uriel. Hell… they own and run everything but the base itself. Without them we couldn’t survive here. The farms, industries, clubs, breweries, shops, power plants, breweries… everything we need is right here.”

  Gina nodded in agreement. They had everything but Fleet to take them to war, and ammunition to use during it—except they had ships didn’t they? Washington hadn’t brought them all the way here, instead, it had handed them off to another ship for the final leg of the trip to Snakeholme—a destroyer crewed by vipers. She had to wonder how many more ships General Burgton had managed to purloin and how.

  “We haven’t got a weapons factory by any chance have we?” she said in an off-hand way.

  “Not that I know of, but we’ve got plenty to train with. I’ve seen the supply bunkers, and they’re full.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of,” she muttered.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Come on,” Richmond said. “You meant something by that, and I want to know what.”

  “All right. Doesn’t it seem odd to you that the base is stocked well enough to fight a war when there hasn’t been anyone to use the stuff?”

  “We’re here…”

  Gina waved that away. “Yeah now, but that stuff has been stockpiled for years. I didn’t see much unloading, did you?”

  “No but—”

  “And what about all the security? What was all that crap about on Washington? She’s Fleet for Chrissakes, yet we buttoned ourselves up like we were in hostile territory. And what about Hammer… a destroyer crewed by vipers? Don’t you think that’s a little odd?”

  “I don’t get it,” Richmond said with a frown. “My CO sent me to HQ. We were tested right there! We were ferried by Fleet, so the Admiralty must know, which means the Department of Defence itself must know too. It seems kosher to me.”

  “Kosher?” Gina frowned. “What has food got to do with it?”

  “It means okay… sort of.” Richmond reddened. “Hell, I mean everything seems fine to me. The General is one of the good guys. He’s a hero.”

  To hell with it. Richmond was right. What could possibly make a man like the General turn on the Alliance? “You’re right. I’m just jittery about the op. You got any advice for me?”

  “Yeah, wear clean panties.”

  Gina bent double with laughter. It was so unexpected after all her worrying about silly conspiracies. She felt the knot of tension dissolving. “When do they switch on all your goodies?”

  Richmond shrugged. “Not until they have enough of us to build another squad. Doesn’t make sense going over the same ground two hundred times when they can teach us by squads.”

  “Good thinking. You’ll make lieutenant in no time if you keep on like that.”

  Richmond looked uncomfortable at the idea. “I don’t know. I’ve always made sure I’m never in a position where I have to order someone. I prefer solo ops, always have.”

  “Too late now,” Gina said with a smirk.

  “Why?”

  “Vipers are treated as officers when working with other forces. So you see, Kate, you’re already an officer as far as your friends in the rangers are concerned. Just imagine what Whitby and his cronies will think when they hear.”

  “Yeaaaah…” Richmond said with a grin. “Hell, maybe I should go for major. It would serve Whitby right. I would just love to order him to carry my kit around HQ.”

  “Why not go for colonel?”

  “Nah, no fun, but majors do see action now and then.”

  Gina nodded. “Good point. You be major, I’ll be captain, and we’ll throw Cragg the Lt’s slot. Okay?”

  “Fine by me,” Richmond said with a sloppy looking grin.

  Gina checked her wristcomp. “We better head back. My time’s almost up.”

  “You’re time is only just beginning,” Richmond said seriously before grinning again. They turned around, and with the blustery wind now at their backs, they made their way toward the Tech Centre. “We ought to get ourselves some hang gliders. This wind would see us up there all day if we wanted.”

  “Ever done any?”

  “Have I! I was Airborne before ISS took me on. I still have my jumpmaster’s wings in my kit. Of course I’ve done some gliding. If it’s in the air, I’ve done it.”

  “Sorry,” Gina said and grinned at the indignant look on Richmond’s face. “I was only asking. What about mountain climbing?”

  “Not yet, but I’m willing to learn.”

  “Me too.”

  They entered the Tech Centre together.

  The Tech Centre housed medical as well as the workrooms containing the equipment necessary to make viper biomech components. They had been given a tour of all the facilities when they first landed. They were extensive. The biomech vats, the nan-assemblers, and bodymod processors were a little scary. The recruits had been silent and apprehensive as the Colonel explained the uses of each machine. The operating theatres seemed mundane in comparison. The recruits knew they would be fed into those silent machines at some point in the enhancement process, and from their expressions, no one looked forward to it.

  “I’ll hang with you until you go in, okay?”

  “Suuure,” Gina drawled. “Glad of the company.”

  They made their way through empty and echoing corridors imagining the voices and bustle that must have filled this place during the Merki War. It was spooky imagining black clad vipers walking here performing various tasks. They were all gone now, only echoes filled this place.

  They entered the medical section and were finally greeted by activity. Medical was probably little different from its Merki War days. Recruits wearing black viper battle dress were sitting nervously along the wall on the red plastic chairs that seemed to breed throughout Alliance space. Men and women wandered from one room to another with compads in their hands. They typed as they walked, but no collisions occurred. Viper sensors allowed them to move without looking. They all wore surgical gowns over their uniforms, but there was no doubt they were all vipers. Gina recognised Lieutenant Hymas, but that wasn’t how she knew. They had a… call it a presence. Richmond had it, Hymas had it—vipers had a quality that made a person notice them in a crowd. She remembered her first step onto the concourse of HQ. Her eyes had wandered and suddenly locked onto a man. It had been Sergeant Stone, but she hadn’t known that then. All she had known was that he stood out, and it wasn’t his obsidian black skin either. It was power barely contained.

  “Recruit Fuentez reporting, sir,” Gina said as one of the gowned men approached her.

  “Yes I know. Captain Patel, Fuentez. You’re just in time.”

  “I’m early, sir, aren’t I?”

  “Yes, yes, but we’re a few units ahead of schedule. Follow me and we’ll get started.”

  “Yes, sir.” She smiled nervously at Richmond. “Gotta go.”

  “You’ll be fine. Think about those mountains and how we’ll run up them.”

  “Yeah,” Gina said and followed the now impatient Patel
down the corridor and into a treatment room.

  “Now then recruit. The first part of the process is to deactivate your med system, which means removing all trace of your existing bots.”

  “Sir, may I ask questions?”

  Patel frowned at the interruption. “Seeing as you’re already asking them, I don’t see why not.”

  “Thank you, sir. Why destroy my bots? They’ve looked after me all this time without trouble.”

  “Why do you think?”

  “I don’t know, sir.” If she knew she wouldn’t be asking.

  “Your IMS consists of various types of nanobots—highly specialised nan-assemblers and nan-disassemblers mostly. I always like to think of them as your own little regiment of soldiers. You have the officers, those that make decisions. You have the scouts, always on the lookout for trouble and reporting back to the officers. Then you have the soldiers consisting of nano-d on the frontline ready to eliminate the enemy—disease and various toxins in this case. And finally you have the engineers, consisting of nano-a, ready and waiting to repair any damage. The system is designed to maintain you as you are now—hopefully in perfect health. It’s a good system.”

  Patel told her to hold up her right arm. Gina did so, and Patel punched in a request for a status update on her wristcomp. Her IMS reported back and Patel nodded. He keyed in a shutdown sequence and her wristcomp went offline for the first time since it was issued. He removed it from her arm revealing pale skin underneath and discarded the device to one side. Gina felt its loss acutely. It had been with her since she joined the Corps fifteen and more years ago.

  Patel rummaged in a drawer for something he needed and continued his explanation. “The problems start when you realise just what enhancement truly is, Recruit; it’s the restructuring of the body into something else. Enhancement is a process completely at odds with your med system’s purpose. The second stage of the enhancement process prepares your skeletal and muscular structure for its transformation. If we left your old IMS in place, your bots would continually try to undo all our work, in effect maintaining you in your present form.”

  Patel found the syringe he was looking for, and placed it on a metal tray sitting on a wheeled stainless steel trolley to one side of the room. The syringe was huge, much bigger than usual. Gina watched him add a few more things to the tray, and nodded when he looked at her and raised an eyebrow.

  “I understand. Thank you, sir. Are first stage bots combat ready?”

  Patel shook his head. “No. As the name implies, they’re first stage and of limited duration. They’re programmed to expire when the job is done. Anything else?”

  There were a great many questions she wanted to ask, but by Patel’s tone, she knew not to ask them. “No thank you, sir. That’s about all.”

  “Good. Lay down on the couch.”

  “Should I disrobe?”

  “Not at this stage,” Patel said and fetched a stand with all kinds of monitoring equipment on it.

  He rolled the equipment next to the couch that Gina was reclining on, and attached the sensors to her body. A steady beeping began and the monitors lit to display data regarding her bodily functions. She could read the screens, but the fluctuating lines and numbers might as well be Sanskrit. She could not understand them. Patel dragged the trolley closer and filled the huge syringe with a clear liquid.

  “Roll up your right sleeve,” Patel ordered and Gina obeyed. “Now this solution is full of stage one nanobots designed to clear your system to its natural birth state. It will take two hours at most. The monitors will tell me when they’re finished.”

  Patel tied a band around Gina’s upper arm to bring up a vein, and then used the syringe to inject the solution into her bloodstream.

  “You may feel some small disorientation, but don’t be concerned. Dizzy spells and temperature fluctuations are both normal for this process.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Gina imagined her old bots going to war with the new ones inside her.

  “Try to relax. Have a nap if you can. If not, we have a few novels here.” He picked up some compads and shuffled through them. “Do you like Zelda and the Spaceways? No? How about a detective story?”

  “I’ll try to sleep, sir, if that’s all right.”

  “Certainly, certainly. I’ll come by in an hour to check on your progress.”

  Gina closed her eyes and pretended to sleep. She listened for the door and heard it finally, but Patel was like all the enhanced. He was very quiet on his feet. The door slid shut and she opened her eyes to watch the monitors.

  Fifteen minutes later, Gina was sweating as if back in the jungle on Thurston. Her joints ached and her head also. Patel had not mentioned pain as a side effect of the process, but she had suffered worse and determinedly put it from her mind. Her teeth were chattering a few minutes later, as if the air conditioning had been turned up full. Her head was a blinding mass of pain, and she had a stomach ache. She couldn’t open her eyes without groaning as the room spun around. She tried to lie still, estimating the first hour was close to being up, but she had to do something about the pain in her guts. She pulled her legs up to her chest and hugged them tight, fighting not to throw up.

  Ten minutes later the monitors were beeping frantically, but all she could do was pant. Sweat was rolling off her in rivers and her mouth was parched. She had been through worse—hadn’t she? Desert fighting was rare, but Marines were trained for any eventuality. She looked up at the blazing sun, but blinked in puzzlement to see Patel’s concerned face looking down at her. He was saying something, but he swam in her vision, and she was unable to respond. There were people running by in the background, and others prodding her. She wished they would leave here alone.

  Gina watched the ceiling flowing by. She watched the lights receding and wondered where she was going. Was it time for second stage already? Patel was asking her if she was allergic? Allergic to what? He had only pumped nanobots into her. No one was allergic to bots. He must mean something else… what…

  Alarms screamed, and everything went black.

  * * *

  Chapter 14

  The Complex, Petruso Base, Snakeholme

  Kate heard the news about Gina in a glum silence. She sat on her rack in the barracks listening to the others speculating on the reasons behind Gina’s reaction to the enhancement process. Why did it have to be her? Why couldn’t it have been that arsehole Callendri? If anyone deserved this, it was Mr. Wonderful Roberto Callendri.

  “What are her chances?” Kate asked and everyone turned toward Cragg.

  Cragg shook his head. “Not good, Kate. They don’t know what’s causing it. They say she quit breathing a couple of times. I don’t know… I think she’s a goner.”

  “We don’t know that for sure,” Takeri said. “She’s strong.”

  “Yeah,” they all agreed that she was.

  Kate nodded along with the others, but if Gina had this reaction to the purge of her old bots, how was she likely to react to the other stages? Enhancement was an invasive procedure—very invasive. Biomech and cybernetic components had to be implanted, grown, and sometimes a combination of the two. A viper unit consisted of a unique combination of a Human body modified with plasteel, optical data feeds, servos, mylar musculature, and computer circuitry.

  Kate sighed. “We have a sim in an hour.” She resolutely pushed thoughts of her friend aside. “Better get squared away for inspection.”

  The others moved off and began stowing their gear and tidying their racks.

  A short while later, Sergeant Rutledge came in and the recruits stood to attention at the base of their racks. He made a show of checking their appearance and opened a couple of lockers at random, but like Roscoe and the other veterans, he was more interested in their performance during the training than in a tidy locker.

  Everyone passed inspection.

  “First Squad will follow me to the simulators, the rest of you will wait for Sergeant Roscoe.”

&nb
sp; Kate marched with her squadmates outside, and then double-timed it across the parade ground and into the Complex. The Complex was a single story building that sprawled over a large area opposite the Tech Centre. The parade ground was between the two. She and the rest of the recruits had been here before to watch holo footage of the regiment in action. Vipers, most of them long dead now, routinely downloaded data into the regiment’s archive after every mission. Those long dead heroes would never be forgotten as long as one viper lived. It was a form of immortality that appealed to all of them.

  Today would be a little different to their earlier visits, in that they would live the memories not simply view them. They would fight the battles fought so long ago, and perhaps win those that had ended in defeat. Kate was aware that she had done this before, and that the others hadn’t. They were nervous, but she dared not reassure them. No one must know of her time as Stone. She was determined they wouldn’t find out from her.

  They entered the simulator room. It was the biggest one she had ever seen. There were enough simulators here for the entire platoon to participate let alone a single squad. Usually these places held one or perhaps two rigs not forty plus.

  “Richmond,” Rutledge said pointing to a rig and she stepped beside it to wait. “Takeri, Cragg…” Rutledge detailed each of her squad mates to their rigs in the first row. “Remember your sim assignments. It will save me having to do this again.”

  Rutledge stepped behind the programming consol and activated the rigs. Kate moved aside as her simulator tank opened with a shushing sound of compression seals releasing, and the couch lifted out to settle neatly to the floor.

  “You know the drill, leave the wiring to me. I have a few helpers coming for that.”

  Kate stripped and climbed onto the couch eagerly. Others were less happy, but minutes later, everyone was ready. Rutledge began with her, but half way through his work, he looked up to find Stone and Hymas entering the room.

  “The matrix is ready,” Rutledge said to them. “Start connecting the others would you?”