Merkiaari Wars: 02 - What Price Honour

by Mark E. Cooper

Stone and Hymas nodded and began connecting the other recruits to their rigs.

  Kate relaxed and wondered where she would be in a few minutes. Would the sim take her to Bethany again? Or would she go to Thorfinni and participate in a larger action? With the entire squad involved, Rutledge may well go for the latter, but there were many other options available. Stone was an excellent programmer. Hell, with him involved, she might find herself on Earth fighting a fictitious battle. He was that good.

  “Right, Richmond, I have one last connection to make and you’re done.”

  “Weapon’s bus?”

  “Close,” Rutledge said and smiled briefly. “Your weapon’s data bus could be used in a pinch, but it’s not really the best choice for this. Your primary node has a much higher DPR.”

  “DPR?”

  “Data Pass Rate,” Rutledge explained. “Turn over for me.”

  Kate rolled onto her stomach careful not to dislodge any of the sensors. Her primary node was located at the base of her spine. It tapped directly into the optical network running through her entire body and had been used during the final stage of enhancement. Final stage was uploading all the viper software she needed to operate her enhancements. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched Rutledge gently polishing a jack plug that matched the socket in her spine. There was a large central pin surrounded by two rings of much smaller and more delicate looking pins. He studied it critically for a second or three then bent to ease it into her. She twitched and hissed at the feel of his hand on her butt.

  “Don’t move,” Rutledge said sharply. “If I mess this up, you will not like it.”

  “Sorry, cold hands,” she said trying not to feel the pins sliding into her.

  “Cold hands are the least of your worries, Richmond. If I screw up your node, it will take surgery to fix.”

  Kate froze. She’d had enough surgery to last her a lifetime—a viper lifetime.

  “It feels weird.”

  “You don’t say,” Rutledge said dryly. “We were told that we couldn’t possibly be feeling what we reported. The R&D people insisted that the node doesn’t have touch receptors.”

  “What about the link to our nervous system?” Kate said visualising the schematics they had all studied.

  “That’s what we said, but they said it’s an entirely different sub-system, and could not be the cause of the phantom feelings we were feeling.”

  “Techies,” she snorted in disgust.

  Kate knew the moment the connection was made. An icon burst into life on her otherwise blank display, and a text message blinked before her eyes, or rather, that’s what it seemed like.

  Connection Achieved

  “That’s got it, Sarge.”

  Kate’s display was purely internal. It only appeared to hover before her eyes. This kind of thing still had the power to make her uncomfortable, but her reaction was mild compared with how she once would have reacted.

  Rutledge taped the wiring to her thigh to prevent accidents. “Okay Richmond, you can turn back.”

  Kate carefully turned over. “I’ve never seen simulators like this, and I don’t mean the extra connections.”

  “They’re a little different to others you’ve used,” Rutledge admitted. “We can do a lot more with a direct connection.”

  “Example?”

  “I could download recon data directly to you for instance, or use a download to create a sim so real you become me for the duration of the sim, or any degree between the two.”

  Stone’s sim at HQ was based on his download, so she’d known it was possible to do that here, but she hadn’t been enhanced back then. Maybe this sim would be even more real.

  “What about this time?”

  Rutledge grinned. “That would be telling. We don’t need your node to run this sim, but it does make it easier for us to monitor your responses. The hardware was wired this way back before the war.”

  “Looks brand new,” Kate said and it did. Everything gleamed as if just unpacked from the factory.

  Rutledge shrugged. “My training was a long time ago, Richmond. We haven’t needed to use this stuff for centuries. No wear and tear. Don’t worry, we’ve kept them upgraded. You’ll not find better anywhere in the Alliance.”

  “Where did we get them?”

  Rutledge winked and said one word before walking away to connect another of her squadmates. “Flotsam.”

  Kate gaped then smiled sheepishly as she realised he was pulling her leg. Flotsam indeed. Flotsam was supposedly a world in the Border Zone where anything could be bought for the right price—anything at all. It was a myth. A place where Zelda supposedly came from, and made her piratical living making fools of Fleet captains and quite often the Marine Corps as well. It wasn’t a real place. She frowned. Rutledge hadn’t laughed… nah! Everyone knew it was a fictional world. It had been created specifically as the setting for Zelda’s holodrama series.

  A short while later, Lieutenant Hymas left the room. Stone and Rutledge sat behind the consols to run the computers.

  “Listen up,” Rutledge said raising his voice. “You will all be running the same sim here today, so be aware that your performance will be graded and compared not only against the ideal of a perfect mission, but also against your squadmates performances.” He grinned. “I thought that might get your attention.”

  It certainly had! Kate had joked with Fuentez that a major’s slot in the regiment would suit her preferences, but maybe it shouldn’t have been a joke. Years of being led by incompetents had made her think of all officers that way. She had made dodging promotion at every turn an art form while in the rangers, and it had never been an a issue with ISS. She saw things a little differently now. No viper, no matter his rank, could be called incompetent at anything. She had always taken the easy way out, performing her missions and following orders, never trying to change things. To be fair on herself, changing the system on Bethany was beyond any single individual, but that didn’t mean she should add to the problem. That was exactly what she had been doing by ducking the responsibility that came with higher rank, but no more. Her new friends deserved the best leadership, and she was, in her own mind at least, one of the best recruits here.

  Now was the time to prove it.

  “Let’s see if you can make use of what you’ve learned so far and survive longer than five minutes,” Rutledge said and with that the couches all lifted and swung into the chambers.

  Kate lay still, or tried to. The computers calibrated themselves to her reflexes causing her to twitch uncontrollably just as they always did. She hated that about sims and probably always would. Slowly her world disappeared as the simulator’s matrix imposed itself upon her senses.

  The world went black, but then blinked to life less than a second later.

  “Sit down, George,” General Blackthorn said.

  George?

  “Thank you, sir,” Kate said and sat not knowing what else she was supposed to do. Who was George? She was, it seemed.

  “You know Admiral Kinley of course,” Blackthorn said indicating the woman to his right sitting in the only other chair.

  I’m aboard ship, I’m sure of it.

  “Certainly, sir,” Kate said automatically though she had never seen this woman before in her life. “How are you, Liz?” She tried not to show surprise at what was coming out of her mouth. Whoever George was, he had obviously known the admiral a long time.

  “Better for seeing that black uniform. How have you been keeping?”

  “Fine. As well as any of us can expect these days… the war.” She shrugged. “I’m still breathing.”

  “A captain now, how the hell did that happen?”

  Kate actually felt her face stiffen. It was weird. She was still herself, but she was wearing another’s face, or rather that’s what it felt like. “Tony is dead,” she said in a voice as cold as space itself.

  “Oh God…” Liz trailed off. “I hadn’t heard. You were promoted to…”

  She nodded
once. “Fill his slot.”

  Tony? Kate concentrated and was almost able to bring the young and smiling face into focus, but then it was gone. This sim was the strangest she had ever encountered.

  “Well,” Blackthorn said as the silence threatened to draw on indefinitely. “I called you in here because we have a problem. Specifically, Fleet has a problem with Garnet.”

  “A Merkiaari type problem?” Kate said already expecting Blackthorn’s nod. “What do you need?”

  “You,” Liz said. “I need you to volunteer for a solo op.”

  “You’ve got it.”

  “We knew you would say that, George, but listen first okay?”

  Kate nodded.

  “Garnet was taken two months ago.”

  “Garnet?” she said and guessed what the mission was. It was one she was particularly well suited for.

  “Doesn’t sound very impressive does it?” Liz said with a smile.

  It didn’t, but Kate knew it was. Oh, not from an ascetic point of view. Planets colonised purely for the metals below ground could hardly expect to look like Bethany or Alizon, but from a strategic point of view, it was an impressive gain for the Merkiaari. Using Garnet for a staging point, they could strike at any number of core worlds in a short period of time. Garnet’s occupation could not be allowed to stand.

  “I know where it is, Admiral. I reiterate, what do you need?”

  “I want you to go in ahead of the fleet and take out the Merki high command.”

  Whoa, she was right. This mission, and one just like it in the Thorfinni system, was famous throughout the Alliance. Kate suddenly knew beyond a doubt just whom she was playing. She was the General!

  “…the Marines in,” Blackthorn was saying. “If you agree, you’ll transfer to Prince Rupert within the hour. She will proceed independently of the fleet into the system. You’ll go in under cover of darkness, and make your way to the capital, which is, according to the reports received from the resistance, where the Merkiaari have their HQ.”

  “We’re in contact with the resistance?” she asked not knowing the answer this time.

  “Sporadically,” Blackthorn nodded. “We have a few satellite relays in system—heavily stealthed of course, but every message sent means another one found and destroyed. They’re not inexhaustible, so we have to use them sparingly. The resistance will be notified to watch for you. They will provide you with any last minute intelligence.”

  “Ships?” Kate asked trying to get a feel for the situation. To her, the Garnet mission was long dead history and that was no way to proceed. She needed to live it to succeed in her mission, or so she felt.

  “We have a frigate lying well outside the zone listening for transmissions. Thunderer stayed behind when the system picket was blown away. The enemy have two squadrons of the line in system with escorts, and we’re expecting more at almost any time.”

  “You’re waiting for them to assemble?”

  Liz nodded but she was surprised at Kate’s quick grasp of the situation. “You should have gone navy, George. Home Fleet and my Second Fleet will go in as soon as the rest of the enemy arrives.”

  Home Fleet, meaning Earth’s only naval protection, would arrive late, but it wouldn’t affect the outcome. Second Fleet, led by Admiral Elizabeth Kinley, had been savaged, but it had managed to survive while taking a heavy toll on the Merki dreadnaughts. Home fleet eventually arrived and blew the rest of them into space dust before moving on to the system’s only habitable planet.

  Almost three quarters of a million men were dropped on Garnet in the biggest land battle the Alliance had ever put together. The Merkiaari were annihilated when their entire high command was assassinated by a lone viper—a captain named George Burgton. Almost ten Merki divisions reeled in confusion at the loss of their commanders, and then began to die as they were struck from the air and the land without let up for a month. The result was Garnet back in Human hands with ninety percent of its population dead.

  That was all ancient history, but from the perspective of the sim, it was the future and still to play for. What mattered now was doing as well or better than Burgton had. Kate had a few ideas.

  “I volunteer,” Kate said playing along with the sim.

  Blackburn nodded. “Your gear is aboard Prince Rupert waiting for you.” He stood and Kate shook his hand. It felt real. “Good luck, Captain.”

  “Luck has nothing to do with it, sir,” she said with massive confidence.

  Kate turned toward the hatch after shaking the Admiral’s hand, but before she reached it, everything went dark and she found herself strapped into an acceleration couch. She was piloting a one man unarmed space plane. It was of a type popular among flying enthusiasts in the Alliance, for its quick responses and its ability to reach orbit. It had limited range and no weapons, but she needed neither of those things. All she needed was a way to get from orbit to Garnet’s surface. The little plane was ideal. According to her instruments, she was coasting without power, and would enter Garnet’s atmosphere in just a few minutes. She was no longer wearing the class-B uniform she had met Blackthorn in, instead she was wearing viper battle dress, and at her hip was a V2 pulser… no it was a V1.

  V1’s had a shorter range and were the forerunners of the V2, but they were also contemporary with the Merki War she was about to re-fight. She found her rifle clipped to the bulkhead behind her. It also had some minor differences to the most current model. Smaller magazine, she noted, and it had a larger power cell. It was heavier too, though not significantly so. She was happy enough to have it even though this model predated the addition of the grenade launcher that was currently standard viper issue. On the co-pilot’s seat by her side was a pack; inside she found rations and water for three days, and a black case. She grinned. The case held an HTR or she had never seen one. She stroked it and her lips formed themselves into a small smile before she tied her pack closed.

  “One minute to atmosphere,” the computer’s voice said, sounding remarkably like Sergeant Rutledge.

  Kate turned back to her controls and turned off the autopilot just as she hit atmosphere. The plane skipped and bounced once before cutting into the air. Wing tips began to glow and the plane shook violently as friction and turbulence had their way, but she was unconcerned. She had flown this type of plane in all kinds of conditions. They were tough, easily able to withstand buffeting much worse than this.

  She let her hands guide the plane by feel, while she took a moment to send a coded thought to her processor. It took a second and third attempt before the command was accepted, and she growled angrily under her breath. She had done well in the classroom. The Colonel’s demonstrations and lessons had been easy to understand, but putting what she had learned into practice was proving harder. No doubt that was part of the reasoning behind all the sims scheduled for the weeks and months ahead. Sergeants Roscoe, Rutledge, and Stone were great believers in practice.

  Her processor finally cooperated and accepted her commands. A map of a city appeared before her eyes. Corigin City was small as cities go, but then Garnet was hardly what she would call a core world even though it was damn important to the Alliance. The Council didn’t agree with her. Garnet had been named a core world ever since its colonisation. Its location alone was enough to make it so, but the mining operations on Garnet’s surface and throughout the system’s extensive asteroid belts, could only add to its importance. Garnet’s pre-war population was already low—barely twenty million. Post war, there had been a little over a million half starved and crazed people left alive.

  Corigin City was the capital, but there were only seven decent sized cities on the entire planet. A significant percentage of the population spent their lives living and working on site at the factory and mining complexes that Garnet was famed for.

  Kate concentrated and ordered her current location added to the map. She didn’t expect the result she received.

  “Unable to comply. Location is outside current target area.” />
  The voice in her head always sounded like that idiot Whitby to her. As soon as she graduated, she was going to change it. She continued on her current glide path and considered a new command. She settled upon displaying the entire continent, including her current position marked in green, and all known Merkiaari positions in red.

  That worked.

  She studied the map and discovered a great many splashes of colour glaring balefully at her. Every city was solid red, and there were a good many areas outside the city limits as well. Her course was completely wrong. She quickly corrected the matter by turning twenty degrees starboard.

  Kate was well into the atmosphere now, and was concentrating on her little craft’s sensor display. The single passive array was enough to detect electronic emissions from Merki vehicles and targeting systems, but was not powerful enough, hopefully, to betray her presence.

  At two thousand metres, she found what she was looking for and manoeuvred for a landing. She dove steeply, spilling air and wasting altitude like a spend thrift, until she was on her desired approach. She hadn’t powered up the thrusters once and was pleased. Trees sped by below, but she took no notice as she concentrated on the clearing coming up. She shoved the stick forward recklessly, only clearing the last trees by bare millimetres. Skimming the ground, she braced herself and wrenched the stick hard back. The little plane stalled and slammed to the ground in a spectacularly inept looking landing, but the semi-crash had an important purpose. As she had planned, the little craft, broken and battered now, stopped abruptly and did not strike the trees that edged the clearing on this side.

  Thumping the harness release on her chest, Kate sprang from her couch. Snatching up her rifle and pack on the way to the hatch, she took one last look around, and leapt through the broken aperture and into the trees. The instant she left the safety of the plane, an alert starting flashing on her display. It was warning her of heavy concentrations of lead and cadmium in the soil and atmosphere. There was nothing she could do except get inside as quickly as possible. As soon as she had some cover, she went to ground listening and scanning the area intently.