Merkiaari Wars: 02 - What Price Honour

by Mark E. Cooper

  “We’ll take it,” Wevers said for Second Squad.

  “Okay, talk to Kate. She knows where they are.”

  Wevers nodded.

  Gina glanced at the Captain where he stood observing, and then back to her friends. “That leaves the rest of us to investigate the tunnel, and look for the second target the Captain was talking about.”

  Callendri just glared in silence.

  * * *

  Eric watched Fuentez deploy her people; it was reminiscent of Thurston. Oh, the mission was completely different, and so were her men, but she handled the situation confidently as she had back on Thurston.

  During the earlier stages of her training, she had become a mascot to First Squad, not that Fuentez saw herself that way, or would have been pleased with the description, but it was true nonetheless. When she survived her enhancement, the superstitious recruits decided it was a miracle, and promptly made her their mascot—quietly and unofficially of course. Then had come the battle to catch up with the others, which she had done with, perhaps not ease, but she did make it seem easy. She wasn’t a complainer, so she worked on and caught up earning her place as unofficial leader of her squad. She was a natural, and seemed to have fallen into the role completely without prior thought. She was literally doing what came naturally.

  He turned away from his study of Fuentez, and targeted Roberto Callendri. His earlier attack on Cragg had been completely out of the blue. He would bear watching. There was something in Callendri’s silences that set alarm bells ringing, but anyone could lose their temper. It was no reason to scrap him. Eric watched Callendri glaring at Fuentez and worried. If the man was going to have a whigout, now was not a good time. Training rounds or not, their weapons could still be deadly if they struck an unarmoured target at close range. Eric eased his hand onto his pistol, and watched Callendri intently, but nothing untoward happened barring a lot of hateful glaring.

  Fuentez gave the word, and ten units from Second Squad took out the dummy launchers Stone had placed yesterday. The timing was perfect. First and Third Squads moved down the safe corridor, quicker perhaps that he would, but the few extra traps he had ordered set were found and disarmed in short order. Fourth Squad played a covering role on the look out for a sneaky bastard named Stone.

  Fuentez raised her arm, and then waved everyone down. “First two men, into the tunnel and secure the entrance.”

  Cragg and Hiller moved forward. Without hesitation, they fired into the darkness before stepping forward and dropping out of sight through the hatch in the ground. Rutledge grinned. He had warned Eric that the recruits wouldn’t fall for a booby trap at the hatch, but Eric hadn’t been so sure. He had ordered one placed directly under it. Cragg and Hiller had just fried it.

  “Clear,” Hiller called, his voice faint and echoing from the tunnel walls.

  Fuentez ordered half her squad into the tunnel before joining them. Eric jumped the queue; he didn’t want to miss anything.

  The tunnels had lighting, but of course, Stone had shut it down. As soon as Eric landed, he ordered his processor to go to light amplification mode, and the recruits suddenly appeared in the monochrome he always associated with his use of it. Fuentez had set a perimeter roughly ten metres down the tunnel, and was scanning the surroundings.

  “Richmond takes point,” Fuentez said in a hushed voice. “Cragg is rear guard. I want half on the left wall, half with me on the right… don’t bunch up people.”

  Eric stayed in the open with Rutledge of course, and received a very annoyed glare from Fuentez and Richmond. He supposed it was a little unfair giving the game away like this. He moved to the right wall while Rutledge took the left.

  “Move out,” Fuentez ordered, and the recruits crab-walked with their backs firmly against the plascrete following Richmond.

  So far, Fuentez had handled the platoon well, but then she should. Her promotion to lieutenant, though of short duration, had been well deserved. She was doing what she knew to do, and doing it well. All the recruits were good; many had been non-commissioned officers in their regiments or gifted PFCs. It was a shame there weren’t more slots for officers available, but a single regiment needed only so many. The others would have to be satisfied with doing the job. Not many would be satisfied, but they had years to get it out of their systems. It would take a while for them to realise that rank meant nothing when you had centuries ahead. Only the job and the Alliance mattered as the years rolled by.

  Richmond raised a clenched fist and everyone froze. “I have something on sensors… very faint,” she whispered. “Like something trying to hide, but poorly shielded.”

  “Check it out,” Fuentez ordered.

  Richmond didn’t respond. Instead, she went to her belly and eased forward to look around the next corner. She kept very still for a moment then eased back.

  “Merki squad. Ten males and three females, all heavily armed. They have a combat gravsled armed with a twin barrelled extended range pulser.”

  “Manned?” Fuentez asked intently.

  “Yeah, but it’s targeted the other way.

  “Range?”

  “Seventy five metres.”

  “Okay.” Fuentez turned to evaluate the recruits. Her eyes skipped over Roberto, but then almost reluctantly came back to him. “Callendri, you and your squad take them out. Second Squad will cover you.”

  “What about First Squad?” Callendri sneered.

  “We’ll cover this tunnel.”

  “There’s nothing here.”

  “Just do the damn job,” Fuentez said, fast losing patience.

  Callendri clutched his rifle angrily. A moment later, he led Third Squad around the corner in a rush. The move took Wevers completely by surprise, and her squad belatedly moved to cover him. The moment Third Squad opened fire, all hell broke loose.

  Callendri had advanced forward of his people, and was firing his rifle from the hip on full auto when the flash-bangs went off to blind him and his squad. Wevers was lucky. Due to the suddenness of Callendri’s foolish move, her squad was farther back and survived unscathed. Third Squad however was killed to a man, evidenced by the green fluorescent dye spotting their body armour and uniforms. Eric could almost hear Stone’s laughter as his paint-filled simunition rounds annihilated Third Squad. Wevers and Second Squad went to ground, and hammered the Merki-shaped targets to splinters. They never lost a man.

  Back in the tunnel, First Squad had their own problems to deal with. Cragg, still facing back the way they came, was rear guard and saw the enemy coming. He opened fire while calmly informing his squadmates that some kind of vehicle was approaching. In fact, the vehicle was an old mine car fitted with an auto guidance system set to follow the tunnel walls. It had two automated splat guns, mounted fore and aft, to simulate Merkiaari gauss cannons. Had they been real, the entire platoon would have been in serious jeopardy. Ten rifles opened up, and the splat guns were turned to slag before they could fire more than a couple of their paint filled simunition rounds. The mine car glowed red; the metal of the car was thick, and it took a lot of punishment before Cragg blew off a wheel to stop it. The two dummy troopers were turned to ash a moment later.

  “Cease firing!” Fuentez shouted, and the hiss-crack of pulser bolts stopped on the instant.

  Eric quickly stepped forward. “Dead recruits will remain out of the way while observing the rest of the mission. You know who you are.”

  First Squad had one man hit. Cragg had taken a paint pellet early in the fight, but he had a point of view about being left out of the rest of the mission.

  “It’s a flesh wound, sir,” Cragg protested.

  “You heard the order, Cragg,” Rutledge growled.

  “But sarge, it really is only a flesh wound. Look.”

  Rutledge made a show of inspecting the ‘wound’, and glanced at Eric.

  Eric smiled briefly, and eyed the single splat of paint on Cragg’s shoulder. “Hmmm, might have been a railgun, Cragg. It would have taken your arm off,
or it might have been a rocket or incendiary.”

  “Yes, sir,” Cragg said visibly crestfallen.

  “However, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt.” He raised his voice to announce the decision. “Cragg has a light wound, upper left shoulder.”

  Fuentez went back to work. “Gordon, Takeri, check Third Squad for wounded. Richmond, Hiller, move up and check the Merkiaari for anything useful. Wevers, move your squad up and cover them.”

  “Copy.”

  “Affirmative.”

  “Copy that, we’re moving.”

  Eric followed along and heard some commotion ahead. Pushing between the recruits, he found Callendri arguing with anyone who would listen. No one did. Most moved by the paint spattered and infuriated recruit without twitching an eyelid, but when Fuentez appeared everything went to hell.

  “You set me up!” Callendri roared at the sight of her. “You sent us out here to draw their fire!”

  “Don’t be a fool,” Fuentez said, sounding disgusted with his whining. “You walked into it after Richmond told us there was a heavily armed squad here. You took no precautions at all.”

  Callendri angled his rifle up at Fuentez before Eric could think to intervene.

  Kamarl Dolinski, a well liked member of Third Squad and Callendri’s best friend, reacted instantly. He drew his pistol in a servo-enhanced blur and pressed it hard against Callendri’s ear. “Don’t you fucking move.”

  Everyone backed away, but Callendri kept his rifle centred on Fuentez. He stared coldly at his nemesis, taking no notice of the pistol in his ear.

  “You won’t shoot me, Kamarl. I’m your friend… remember?” Callendri said without a flicker of fear at what his friend might do. His face was coldly calm. If he was feeling anything, it didn’t show on his face.

  “I remember a good man named Roberto. I don’t know who the hell you are, but you ain’t him.”

  Eric was moving when the decision came into Callendri’s eyes. “Shoot him!” he roared even as Callendri fired. Fuentez leapt aside, but too late.

  Hiss-crack! Both weapons went off together.

  “Damn me, the bastard shot me,” Fuentez gasped as she fell. “… it hurts…”

  Fuentez was down with a pulser burn over her hip. She was panting wide-eyed at the pain and shock of being shot by one of her own people, but at least she was alive. Her armour was burned away where the fringes of the shot had caught the lower edge, but it had stopped most of the charge. Roberto however, was dead. He didn’t have a head.

  Dolinski stood exactly as before with his pistol levelled, staring as if still seeing the moment he had shot his squadmate. Everyone stood frozen for an endless moment, but Richmond ended it by jumping forward to give aid to Fuentez.

  Eric looked down at the rogue unit that had been recruit Callendri, and shook his head sadly. Roberto had been a good man before the General took him into the regiment. He had been a lieutenant with many citations for bravery. He was awarded the bronze star twice for performing above and beyond the call of duty. Now he was dog meat.

  Eric sighed, how many more would die before they were done? “Dolinski, put up your weapon.”

  “I had to… I had to do it, sir. He was my best friend, and I had to do it,” Dolinski whispered in shock.

  “I know, you did the right thing. Callendri wasn’t in there any longer. He just cracked. It happens. Try to put it behind you.” The recruits were staring at what was left of Callendri. He knew what they were thinking: that could have been me. It might be me next time. “This exercise is over.” He contacted Stone to give him the word. Stone acknowledged he order and said he would come in. “Pick up Fuentez and lets get the hell out of this stinking tunnel. I’ll send someone back for Roberto.”

  Fuentez had quieted, but she yelled and cursed at the pain when her squad lifted her into Cragg’s arms to take her to the surface. Eric glanced at what was left of Callendri, and then resolutely turned away to follow the recruits.

  * * *

  Part III

  Present day…

  Chapter 18

  Aboard ASN Canada, Sol system

  Year 218 AST (Alliance Standard Time)

  Sol, the centre of the Human sector and capital system of the Alliance was a busy place to say the least. Earth, overpopulated homeworld of man was the centre of attention of course, but Mars, first colony and independent world was popular with out-system visitors as well. Space habitats bustled with humanity, civilian liners and merchantmen entered and left the system in a continuous and unending stream, shuttles flitted from ship to ship and planet to station often courting disaster as they skimmed close to jump capable ships jockeying for position in the queues for outbound lanes. And then, there were the warships patrolling the system and, many insisted, generally getting in other people’s way.

  Such was Sol on a normal day, but the day was far from normal for Tei’Varyk who was just now receiving his first impressions of the first Human system he had ever seen. Translation had been smoother than predicted, or so he was informed by the weak smile directed his way from Tei’Colgan. The wondering and speculation that had run rampant through Canada was now laid to rest.

  Shan did not handle translation any better than humans did.

  Tei’Varyk clamped his muzzle shut and repeatedly swallowed bile determined not to embarrass himself before the humans. He concentrated on observing them as they struggled to throw off the disorientation induced by jump translation to normal space. Gradually his sickness subsided and he was able to take a greater interest in what he saw.

  “Referent,” Tei’Colgan said removing his helmet and setting it down in the rack attached to his station. “Where the hell are we?”

  “Scanning... referent attained. We’re in the zone—Sol system confirmed, Skipper,” Janice said.

  “We have a beacon query, Skipper,” Lieutenant Ricks said. “It’s repeating.”

  “Send: ASN Canada declaring an emergency. Request an immediate priority routing to Gateway.”

  “Aye sir, transmitting now.”

  “Gateway?” Tei’Varyk said.

  “We could dock at almost any station really, but Gateway is the best one for us. It’s in Earth orbit for one thing, and it’s only a short hop to HQ from there. Besides, Canada needs a lot of work and Gateway controls the best yard facilities in the system.”

  Tei’Varyk understood that Colgan wanted his ship repaired quickly, but more importantly, being close to his homeworld would allow them to meet with Colgan’s elders that much quicker. Speed was essential; he tried not to think that it was already too late.

  “Docking at Gateway is approved, Skipper. They’re clearing a lane for us,” Ricks said.

  “Thank you, Mark, pass the lane assignment to the helm. Janice?”

  “Sir?”

  “I don’t want any accidents, but we need to get in and dock fast.”

  “Aye sir,” Janice grinned. “Best speed to Gateway station.”

  “Good.”

  ASN Canada swung into her assigned lane and accelerated on her two operational in system drives at her maximum attainable speed. The third drive had proven beyond repair and would need complete replacement at the yard.

  * * *

  Earth, capital of the Alliance

  “Order!” President Dyachenko said, not quite shouting.

  Not for the first time did he regret running for office. If only he had known what he was letting himself in for, he wouldn’t have come anywhere near the place! That was a lie, he grudgingly admitted to himself. Being President of the Alliance was a great honour and responsibility. Unfortunately, it was also a heavy burden. It did have one redeeming feature—it gave him the power to make what was wrong right again. He still believed that, but in all too many cases it was proving tricky to do.

  “Order!” he shouted, slamming the gavel down so hard he felt the handle loosen.

  “This is your fault!” Councillor Whitby went on. “One of our survey ships has been trapped
by the aliens; it could well have been captured or destroyed by now. Destroyed is one thing, but what if it has been captured? Think of the data on that ship in alien hands! The other ship was so badly damaged it barely made the jump to Northcliff, and it was a warship!” She waved a sheaf of papers in the air theatrically. “I have here a list of the dead and injured. The entire crew was nearly lost and the ship will cost millions to repair. I warned you this might happen, but did you listen, did any of you listen? No, and this is the direct result of your foolishness!”

  This was the third day of the Council session called to discuss the significance of Invincible jumping into Northcliff badly mauled by the Shan. As far as Dyachenko could see, and despite Admiral Rawlins’ testimony aimed at lessening the impact of the dreadful news, the session had produced absolutely nothing in the way of productive results. Paul Rawlins had done his best, but the entire thing had been a colossal waste of time. Worse than that, it had inflamed passions, making the Councillors second guess the original decision to contact the aliens.

  “—result of your incompetence!” Councillor Whitby raged, slamming the now badly crumpled papers onto the desk in front of her. She continued haranguing the Council but her rhetoric was aimed increasingly at the President himself. “Your stupidity, yes stupidity, will doom us all!”

  Gasps of shock went around the Council chamber at the insult so openly expressed. Many of the Councillors might agree with her sentiments, but to do so verbally and in public like this was just not done. It lacked finesse, and showed a deplorable lack of control—a fatal failing in politics. A goodly number of Councillors jumped to their feet to shout her down, and tempers frayed. Perhaps realising she had gone too far she sat down, but the arguing continued unabated. A light began blinking on Dyachenko’s desk comp, signalling Councillor Mindel’s wish to speak. It was one of many, but Dyachenko chose to take a chance.

  “Order!” he shouted, rising to his feet. He gave up using the weakened gavel and bellowed for quiet. Eventually he received a lower level of noise, but not the quiet he had demanded. “The chair recognises Councillor Mindel of Northcliff.”