by J. L. Curtis
Fargo dropped off the skins to have them prepared, then parked in front of the Copper Mug and started up the steps. Before he opened the door, he stopped. Why, ah hell, maybe these are intel. If they are, Nicole can handle them. Probably should at least show them to OneSvel… Oh hell. Fargo, stop lying to yourself. You want to see her. Pushing the door open, he was relieved to see the restaurant was basically empty. The only person there was CSM Thakuri, who had chopped off the Trader’s hand, and was now the platoon leader for third platoon.
He waved at Thakuri as he went to the door behind the bar and knocked, “Nicole?”
He heard a mumbled, “Come on back.” Opening the door, he realized he’d never been in this area. He saw light coming out of a door a few feet down the passage way and headed for it.
Tapping lightly on the door frame he asked, “Nicole?”
Nicole looked up, “You found me. Holly, this is Ethan Fargo. He lives out in the Green, and he’s the commander of the militia for our little corner of the world. Fargo, this is Holly, my wayward child.”
Holly laughed, got up and turned to face Fargo. He was stunned at how much she resembled Nicole, almost like a twin sister. He also sensed she was a stronger empath than her mother, “Pleased to meet you. Sorry to bother you, but I need to talk to your mother for a minute.”
Holly smiled, “Oh, that’s fine by me. The longer I sit here, the more work I get dumped on me. Mom has the better of the two jobs, she just sits behind the desk, and orders me around.”
Fargo laughed, “No comment.”
Holly got up and walked out of the door. He waited until she was well down the passageway. Turning back to Nicole he asked, “Do you have an offline capability to read a data cube?”
Nicole nodded, “Encrypted?” Fargo shrugged and she reached into the bottom drawer of the file cabinet, pulling out a standalone datacomp, “Here, try this one. If it is encrypted, you should be able to enter whatever code you need, or prints as required.” Fargo was smart enough to not ask where it had come from.
She got up to leave, and he said, “Stay, if you would. This might pertain to militia stuff. If it does, you’re the intel expert, not me.”
She sat back down and pushed the datacomp across the desk. Fargo slipped the first cube into the slot and waited. Nicole said, “It’s an auto privacy, so if there is something you want me to see, you’ll have to release the block.” He nodded as the holo formed, and scrolled, ENTER DESIGNATED FINGERPRINT TRY 1 OF 2.
Muttering he pressed the middle finger of his left hand on the pad. Nicole laughed, “Fingerprint, right?”
“Of course. The one least useful thing to use. Moisture, blood, damn near anything will screw it up. Two tries and poof.”
“Happened before, didn’t it.”
Fargo rolled his eyes, “Oh hell yes. In combat twice. The datacomp clunked twice and accepted his fingerprint this time, then started scrolling data. After about five minutes, he stopped it, saying, “Okay, this cube is all Trader material, specifically for this sector. It’s all yours. I suck at paperwork.” He extracted the data cube and set it on the desk, then put the second cube in the slot. Once again the holo formed, but this time it simply said, NUMBERS.
Fargo sighed, punched in the appropriate numbers. General Cronin swam into focus, and Fargo heard, “Congratulations, Ethan. You did the right thing. I hear you’re a bit under gunned out there, so I’m springing some Gustavs loose for you, along with appropriate ammunition for it. You’ll have to train the militia on them, as these were never picked up by GalPat. Also, there are two things we need you to look into. Force Intel has a line on the stray ice that’s showing up. That’s one. The second is another set of techs that disappeared from the asteroid belt on Arcturus. We’re pretty sure they were hydrocarbon specialists. That data follows. Close hold as always, Semper Fi, Marine.”
Fargo leaned back, “Um, this one… I don’t know, I guess it also falls into your expertise.” Spinning the unit around he said, “My numbers are eight three four six alpha romeo two four eight. You’ll need them to read that, and I guess I better add you to the access for the other cube.”
Nicole started the holo then stopped it, pushed a couple of selections and restarted it. Fargo saw General Cronin and heard him say, springing some Gustavs loose for you, along with appropriate ammunition for it.”
Looking at him, she asked, “Gustav? What the hell is that?”
Fargo chuckled, “How about a nine hundred year old weapon?” Nicole’s eyes widened as he said, “It’s a man portable, as in unarmored, eighty-four mil recoilless rifle, if you will.”
Nicole said, “Eighty-four millimeter? Really?”
Holding his fingers a little more than three inches apart, he continued, “Eighty-four. A little over three inches. Anti-personnel, anti-armor, mortar, rocket propelled, good out to at least a thousand yards, or further depending on the uses. It’s either datacomp controlled or lace controlled, but you have to load the individual rounds. We used it extensively in the Marines. Love that damn gun! It bailed us out of more than one shitty situation.”
Nicole nodded, “Okay. I believe.” Ducking her head, she restarted the holo, as Fargo snuck out to the fresher. He came back a few minutes later with a coffee bulb for each of them, courtesy of Holly, and dropped hers gingerly on the desk. She distractedly picked it up as he noted she’d put the holo back on the privacy setting.
He’d finished his bulb by the time she finally sat back, “Woof, that is a lot of data. No, you probably shouldn’t have shown that to me, but I doubt you would have grasped all the nuances of it. The general’s bottom line, along with his intel weenies, is that both the ice and probably hydrocarbons are being mined illicitly in our sector. The big question is, how the hell are we supposed to find them?”
“I can reach out to the GalScouts; I’ve still got a few connections there. They might be able to provide me info that GalPat and the Marines don’t have. Data sharing on new discoveries doesn’t always get across the fence, if you know what I mean.”
***
OneSvel pushed the data cube back across the desk and extruded a pseudopod, touching Fargo gently on the temple, We’ll send a priority request up the chain, we should have an answer in a couple of days. Your pharmacope is low, what have you done to yourself?
Fargo projected, Stupid, I shot a twenty mil almost two hundred times. Shoulder is bruised. Pretty stiff still.
OneSvel extruded another pseudopod, probing the shoulder gently, How long ago?
Four days now. “Ouch!”
OneSvel said aloud, “Medbox for you. Not bruised, torn muscle. Two hours to repair, minimum.”
Fargo groaned, “I’m supposed to be at dinner in an hour. Can I come back after dinner?”
OneSvel waved a pseudopod, “Not satisfactory, but understood. Females of your species have ultimate power over males.”
Fargo rolled his eyes, “I like to tell myself, not always.”
OnSvel’s GalTrans made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a laugh.
***
Hyderabad had returned from wherever they had gone, calling in system fourteen divs ago. Mikhail agreed to fly Fargo and Nicole out to the Enclave, “I’ve never actually been there since the initial setup. Probably not a bad idea to visit, and check on the status of the systems.”
Mikhail set the shuttle down well away from the Hyderabad, and whistled as he walked down the ramp, “Now that is a parking job!”
Fargo and Nicole laughed, “Evie is that good. I’ll bet the pads aren’t a foot off where they were last time.” Lal came limping toward them and Fargo said, “Lal is the head man; he’s the one you need to talk to.” Mikhail nodded and headed toward him, as Fargo and Nicole walked toward the weapons building, carrying their equipment bags. Fargo was wearing his uniform and kukri this time, having vowed not to screw that up again.
Jiri met them with a grin, “We’re full up on armor, plus spares! And three quarters of a million rounds of ammo b
etween all the weapons. I’ve set up a training schedule that has everybody doing fams and checkout on the armor. We might as well check them all, and I’ve got you two slotted for fourteen to sixteen with Horse, including a half div on the range.”
Nicole looked up at Jiri, “Is there a junior version for me?”
Jiri laughed, “Chief, you’re bigger than some of our troops.” Waving his hand, he said, “Any suit will fit anyone. I understand you have an intel brief for us?”
Nicole nodded, “Yes, I’ve put together what Fargo provided with some stuff I’ve collected here. I need about an hour.”
Jiri pulled up his datacomp, “Hmmm, nineteen to twenty? After dinner?”
Nicole laughed, “You just want me to put everyone to sleep, don’t you?”
***
Fargo knelt the armor a little after sixteen, popped the hatch, and groaned as he stretched and disconnected the waste connections. He climbed down and shivered as the cold wind hit his sweat soaked undersuit. He started jogging toward the weapons building and the showers and caught up with Nicole halfway there, “How did your session go?”
Nicole shrugged, “Fairly well. I can run the suit, but that’s not what I’m good at.” She glanced at him, “What were you doing, contortions in there? No wonder all armor smells as bad as it does!”
Fargo switched sides so he was downwind of her, “Well, some of us actually work our armor, not just walk around in it.”
Nicole glanced at him and replied, “Women know how to work smarter, not harder.” With that, she sprinted the rest of the way to the weapons building, giving Fargo a good view of her very nice backside. He grinned and picked his pace up, but stayed behind her all the way.
***
Fargo looked around the room as Nicole gave the brief. It was crowded with nearly the whole settlement jammed in one room, but he and Lal figured they could use the input from all the adults. Besides, it wasn’t like most of the others, both men and women, had been soldiers in their own right. Mikhail was also on one side, as his travels around Hunter might have picked something up too.
Nicole stopped the holo, “So, in summary, there are a number of indicators that in fact Traders are in this sector, if not actually in this system. There have been at least eleven different sightings, if you will, of unknown/unusual actors, and a few ships on Hunter itself.”
One of the women tentatively raised her hand, “Chief, if we travel to other than Rushing River, could we be watching, too?”
Nicole remembered her, “Yes, of course, Sushma. Any chat you pick up in the markets, or when you’re shopping or trading could be of interest. Many of you are veterans, so you can recognize Spanglish, which is the prime language that the Traders use. It’s not hard and fast, but it’s a pretty damn good indicator. I’d also like to ask the men, women, and datacomp-literate kids to be looking for anything unusual in the e-tainment or messaging systems.”
Fargo saw a couple of very young kids, maybe teens glancing at each other and smiling, and he shuddered, thinking Nicole had just unleashed something she might not like on the world. Cyber-stalking and hacking were still a problem, even eight hundred years since the invention of computers.
First Inspection
Fargo’s e-tainment system pinged, “INCOMING MESSAGE. IMPORTANCE HIGH. Fargo sighed, “Now what? Display message.”
F- PALETTE, R MAJ
T- FARGO, E MIL CPT
S- INSPECTION
R- GALPAT OPORD 28240536, GALPAT DET HUNTER MSG 28240614
GALPAT COL KEADS AND TEAM WILL INSPECT MILITIA UNIT 28241205 0800. FULL INSPECTION INCL CAPABILITY, WEAPONS, PAPERWORK, ABILITY TO DEPLOY. CERTIFICATION SUBJECT TO INSPECTION. TEAM WILL REQUIRE WORKSPACE, FOOD (SEE ATTACHED FOR SUITABLE RATIONS), BILLETING (SEE ATTACHED FOR SUITABLE QUARTERS) FOR TWO DAYS.
S/PALETTE
Fargo groaned, “Oh, shit. This is all I need.” As he started to open the attachments, a second message overrode the first in red script.
FARGO THIS IS CAPT JACE.
DO NOT LET THEM KNOW YOU HAVE ARMOR. THEY DO NOT HAVE A NEED TO KNOW AT THIS POINT IN TIME. HAVE GHORKAS BLOCK OFF BACK OF WEAPONS BUILDING. DO NOT RELEASE ALL INTEL TO THEM. HAVE LEVESQUE BRIEF ON ONLY INTEL PROVIDED BY GALPAT. THERE ARE REASONS.
JACE OUT.
Fargo sat up sharply, prompting Canis to start barking, and Cattus to come up snarling, “Cool it you two! Down!” Canis rumbled, but lay back down, while Cattus prowled to the window and looked out, tail lashing. Now what the hell do I do? And how the hell did Jace, oh never mind… Guess the first thing to do is send the inspection message to Jiri, Nicole and Lal. I wonder… Glancing at the clock he noted it was only twenty-one. In for a credit, in for a thousand…
“Comm link. Search Mankajiri Rai, voice and visual. Connect.” The e-tainment system went to snow as it worked to complete the connection. Finally he heard, Jiri accept the call.
Jiri looked askance at Fargo over the link, “What’s up Fargo?”
“Did you get a message from Palette at White Beach?
“No, should I have?”
“I hoped you would have, standby one. Attach Palette message to this connect,” Fargo heard a ping as the message was attached, “Read that. Bottom line is we’re getting inspected.” He saw Jiri’s eyes track off to the side and assumed he was reading it on a corner of his system. When he came back, Fargo asked, “Do you folks have space to house all those people they want to bring?”
Jiri nodded, “We can, it’s not luxury, but it’s a roof and beds.”
Fargo nodded, “Copy all. As far as I’m concerned, the food thing is BS, they’ll eat what everybody else eats.” As he said that, he wiggled his fingers in the old Marine finger codes, Do you remember this?
Jiri glanced off screen, then answered in code, Yes, “We’re not long on food. Mostly basic stuff. We aren’t into the luxury items.”
Fargo quickly passed Jace’s message in code as he said, “Looks like we’ve got three days to put this together. I’ve never been through a GalPat inspection…”
Jiri said, “We’ve got at least five or six former inspectors here. We’ve got that handled.” In code he answered, no problem. Int brief your prob. We will hide, and brief all.
“Okay, I’ll put that in your hands. Who will handle the loggie side?”
Jiri laughed, “Horse of course. Adhit will take care of the admin, along with a couple of the women. Of course they won’t get any official credit.”
Fargo chuckled, “Okay, I’ll fly down to Rushing River tomorrow morning, get Nicole up to speed, and come up tomorrow afternoon, if that’s acceptable.”
Jiri grinned, “Works. Remember to bring your kukri.”
Fargo sighed, “I’m never going to be allowed to live that down, am I?”
Jiri laughed, “Nope! Disconnect.” The screen went to snow and Fargo sat back down, wondering how Jiri would hide the armor. He forwarded the message to Nicole, fed the animals, and headed to bed, pondering how to get through the inspection.
***
The shuttle landed at the Enclave and Fargo and Nicole stepped off the aft ramp, waved to Mikhail, and walked up the hill to the weapons building. Nicole cocked her head, “Boxes?”
Fargo looked up and realized there was a line of people snaking toward the door, boxes in hand, “Yep, boxes. I don’t know why, but I guess we’ll find out.”
They got into the building between two women carrying boxes, dumped their gear bags in the office, then wandered back toward the armor storage, listening to the babble of voices and occasional curses that resonated from the back of the building.
“Make sure your boxes are marked! At least ten boxes per family. If you don’t have ten, grab an empty, fold it and mark it, cm’on people!” They couldn’t see who was yelling but it did sound like Adhit. As they stepped through the door, they were met with a wall of boxes that stretched almost to the roof, with an eight foot passageway down the center of the room.
Nicole sniffed, “Oh, curry pow
der! And cinnamon.” She sniffed again, “And no smell of armor. Oh, well played!”
They continued to the back of the room, passing very narrow aisles that went all the way to the outside wall, again packed floor to ceiling with boxes. Near the double door, they found Adhit on a ladder, sweating as he stacked boxes up, another group were finishing off lower rows and two more stood by the ladder to move it with Adhit on it as the rows topped out. Adhit looked down, saw them and laughed, “Armor? What armor? We don’t have no steenkin’ armor.”
Fargo laughed, “Amazing. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear this was nothing but food storage from the smell.”
Jiri walked up, “My wife is pissed, but I dumped one entire packet of her good curry powder and a half jar of cinnamon all over the place. If we’re asked, and I’m sure we will be, this is a years’ worth of food storage. We’re Ghorka, so we’re strange. Kinda like that old religion in the Americas that kept all that extra food and supplies for a year.”
Fargo thought for a minute, “Oh, Mormons, I think. They were down in old Utah. Interesting concept, serves them well from what I hear on that planet they colonized. Can’t remember the name of it…”
“Moroni?” Nicole asked.
“I think that’s it. I thought Adhit was taking care of the admin stuff?”
Adhit replied, “All done. Me and my silent minions.”
***
Colonel Keads, over six feet tall, looking like a model for a GalPat recruiting poster, came down the GalPat shuttle’s ramp in working blacks with subdued emblems, closely followed by Major Palette in dress blacks, then the rest of the inspection party. Fargo called the militia to attention as the party approached, noting that none of them carried any bags off the shuttle. First test? Are we supposed to offload their damn luggage? Saluting the colonel, Fargo said, “Sir, First Company, Hunter Militia is formed and ready for inspection.”
He heard Major Palette whisper to the colonel, “Sir, their uniforms are not correct, they…” The colonel made a hand motion, and Palette shut up quickly.