by William King
The gunship hit the ground, skidded along, and impacted on the wreck of a groundcar. It didn’t explode in the spectacular way that you expect if you watch a lot of action vids on Grid. Federal safety regulations ensure that subnuclear batteries have dampers to prevent that.
The force of the collision smashed the pilot and copilot’s faces into the plexiglass. The sudden stop didn’t do much good to anybody that survived the grenade blast.
The good folks below were starting to have second thoughts about their little stormtrooper-hunting expedition. I fired a few more bursts over their heads to encourage that line of thinking. A big, white-haired man in a black dress uniform shouted orders, directing a squad to storm my position. He was obviously a leader. Not a good thing to be on a day like today. He got a stream of bullets to the head.
The assault squad threw itself flat, obviously not wanting to attract any more attention. I decided to make one last attempt at getting them to see sense.
“Citizens, this is the mailed fist of your Federal Government oppressors speaking. Put down your weapons. Return to your homes now and we’ll call it a draw.”
Retranslation informed me that as a decorated veteran of the freedom-loving Federal Republic I felt honor was satisfied on both sides and we could all sheathe our weapons without shame.
I dropped out of sight to give the pulse cannon a chance to recharge and the local Nazis a chance to think about it. Hopefully, they were doing the math. I was just one stormtrooper. The rest of my squad could be arriving soon. They might even be armed.
There were a few more bursts of small arms fire, possibly aimed in my general direction. Just people wanting to show that they weren’t intimidated by a lackey of the Federal Government. I couldn’t blame them for that. I sometimes feel that way myself. When I looked up again the militia were carrying their dead out of the square. Good enough, I thought.
“Stormtrooper 13. Stormtrooper 13, what is your status?” Orbital definitely wanted to get this all recorded for posterity. Or possibly my upcoming court martial. I’d not done much toward establishing a peaceful and harmonious atmosphere in the town of Sternheim. I probably hadn’t engendered any great love of the Federal Government either.
Some days are just like that.
Chapter Three
The dropzone was just a cleared area in the rubble at the edge of the spaceport. A couple of military golems stood sentinel. Their reapers looked impressive, and they probably worked, unlike my own. Good to know the Arbitrators trusted them more than they trusted me. Probably sensible.
The perimeter fields shimmered in the morning light. It was the usual half-assed thing. They would stop the energy weapons that most of the locals didn’t have and interfere with the targeting systems of the smart missiles the locals couldn’t afford. They would not do too much against a good old-fashioned bullet. They would not stop a missile that was already precisely aimed by human hand either.
As I crossed the zone firewall, a medical drone darted over and settled on my wounded arm. The skin went numb and I heard the sucking, slicing, and clicking of scalpel probes as it treated my wound then buzzed away.
The ground crew waved to me cheerfully as I strode in. I wondered if they were up to date with my latest massacre stats. Somehow they always seemed to know what was going on even before Command. Maybe they were hacking into Orbital’s networks. They were all that sort of smartass.
“Stormtrooper 13, please surrender your weapon,” one of the golems said.
“It’s deactivated anyway,” I said.
“Nonetheless, protocol dictates that you surrender it to us pending inquiry.”
“Oh, now you are worried about me hotwiring the thing.”
“Please surrender your weapon.”
It’s not much fun arguing with golems. They would just keep repeating the request until they bored me to sleep or someone upstairs decided to let them shoot me.
I handed over my weapon. It was either that or hit them with it and I had done enough damage for one day.
I stepped through the shimmering perimeter and walked toward the shuttle. I had marched back all the way back from Jihadi territory. It was impossible for them to send anything to pick me up. It might be seen as provocative to invade Aryan airspace.
The shuttle door opened, and the golems followed me in. I was given the regulation 30 seconds to strap in then the shuttle accelerated smoothly into the sky. The vertical takeoff allowed me to take a look at the city as it slowly came into view. It was not the most prepossessing of places.
A froth of hab bubbles lined the streets between the massive concrete towers, temporary housing for refugees that had ceased to be temporary ten years ago. Most had that burned-out look that warzones get. The wreckage of haulers and ground cars strewed the streets. Snow covered everything. If you wanted to call that polluted, sooty mixed stuff snow. Somewhere off in the distance I caught the faint flash of a firefight. At least they weren’t aiming at us during liftoff.
Ring after ring of the city dropped into view. The sectors had their buildings painted in militia colors. Black and gray for the Jihad. White and silver for the Radical Orthodox. Green and brown for the Temperance Legion. The whole spectrum of civil war was splattered there in luminescent paints. Ruined smokestack factories raised single-chimney fingers to insult the alien sky, testimony to the colonists’ effort to recreate the industries of an earlier era they considered paradisiacal.
The shuttle nose tilted up. I did not feel anything as the artificial gravity kicked in. The world rotated, leaving my brain to cope with the cognitive dissonance between eyes that said things were moving, and an inner ear that told me everything was rock steady. I felt a faint twinge of vertigo.
The sky darkened as we gained altitude, reaching the edge of space in less than fifteen minutes. The shuttle could have done it faster, but it was aiming out past the boundaries of the city before it went hypersonic. It wouldn’t do to upset the citizens with our sonic booms. There are laws about noise pollution in civil areas.
Yeah, I know. Fed Gov is worried about noise abatement while its citizens are blazing away at each other with automatic weapons. Go figure. Maybe I could claim I went after the Aryans for breaking the noise pollution laws. Those assault rifles were plenty loud.
I walked myself through what I was going to say when I reached Orbital. Best to play it dumb. People say I have a natural advantage there, but they are just jealous of my good looks and charm.
The golems sat stock still, in sleep mode. I felt as if they were watching me. I told myself it was just paranoia, but I’ve had experience of hacked drones, and it was not pleasant.
Fortunately, cyberterrorism was not the sort of thing the militias on Faith went in for. They were resolutely primitive when it came to technology. That was the reason they had come to the Far Frontier in the first place. They wanted to avoid the decadent computer-controlled life of the Core Worlds. Looking at what they had, I did not see the appeal. I spent a good part of my childhood in ruins like those below. I like comfort. It’s a pity the Federal Government had made it its mission to ensure I never get any.
I met a neo-Buddhist once who told me I must have been a very bad man in a previous life. What did she know? She spent her whole life eating vegetables and meditating on nothingness.
A distant light glittered against the velvet darkness of space. It grew larger as we approached, a massive dodecahedron studded with weapons and pitted with launch bays. Orbital. Home. Of sorts. The shuttle rotated into docking position and, as ever, the sheer size of the thing impressed itself on me. The shuttle was plenty big but it slid in through the landing bay like plankton gulped down by a whale.
Inside, subdued lights glowed. All the walls were a nasty shade of beige that was supposed to be calming. The shuttle landed itself. The golems woke from sleep and escorted me down the ramp. Two of my unit and a bunch of techs waited to greet me with a round of ironic applause and the odd catcall.
Ragequit r
aised a fist in salute. His right hand had HATE tattooed on the knuckles but then so did his left, only there the word was partially overwritten by four black skulls. It went well with his shaved head, and huge squat form. “You showed those ignorant bastards, 13. That’ll teach them.”
His voice was at its quietest, which was still an angry bellow. I had his support which was hardly a recommendation. He has been on the edge of Blitz breakdown for as long as I can remember.
Lopez looked a little shell-shocked. He was a new arrival, a tall thin Latino kid, gawky looking as if he was still trying to get used to the extra strength and musculature that Formula Nine had given him. “I watched the vid,” he said. “They started it.”
The fact that a couple of the boys had turned out to show their support was not reassuring. It meant they thought I needed it. Killing citizens never goes down well with the brass. Not unless they are ordering it.
The door out of the bay dilated and I strode into the webwork of tunnels. A golem in front, a golem behind. I could tell that their weapons were armed. I tried telling myself that it was just protocol but it did not feel like it. Someone was taking this very seriously. From old habit, I started plotting escape routes. Two armed combat golems would be difficult. Getting out of Orbital would be harder. I took a deep breath and told myself not to be so paranoid.
A shadow emerged from a side corridor. The golems did not flinch or swivel to cover it with their weapons. They simply stopped. Someone had over-ridden their programming.
Carla from Covert smiled at me. She was a good-looking woman. Long raven-black hair, wide lips, dark skin, deceptively warm blue eyes. “Done it again,” she said. “Haven’t you.”
“Go screw yourself, Carla,” I said.
Her smile never lost a megawatt. “You are just a walking, talking engine of chaos.”
“Wake up, golems,” I said. “Time to go.”
They did not move. Her clearance was higher than mine. Or she could make it so. Covert has all manner of cybernetic subversion techniques.
“Anyone would think you weren’t glad to see me,” she said.
“And anyone would be right.”
“I thought we had something special.”
It was astonishing how flirtatious she sounded. It stirred up a lot of old memories I had to suppress. Her smile told me she knew that. “I’ve often thought of slipping back into your room sometime.”
“I would rather drop a devil scorpion into my jockstrap.”
“Whatever turns you on.”
I looked at Carla. “What is it you want to talk to me about?”
“So you finally figured out I wanted to do that.”
“I’m clever that way. I figure you’ve chosen an abandoned route and over-ridden the drones for a reason.”
“Good for you, big boy. After this conversation, you’re going to double time it on your way.”
“So what did you want to say?”
“You are busy digging a grave for yourself here. You’re offending a lot of people and giving the politicos an excuse to bury you.”
“You think?”
“It’s my job to know.”
“I didn’t know you cared.”
“Be a wise guy. But here’s something I suggest you do at some point and as subtly as you can manage. Check your memory logs.”
“Why would I want to do that?”
“Because somebody has been tampering with them. They’ve been doing it and in a way that’s going to be hard to spot. The blockchains are being corrected.”
“What?” This was particularly strange. It meant somebody was hacking all the way back to core record systems. And that was something only an A.I. could do.
“Your memory files are corrupt. You die, you won’t be coming back. Well not as you are.”
“How do you know this?”
“I have my methods.”
I was trying to think what those could be if she could trace something that was rewriting the very DNA of the infosystems. Did she have a bootleg in an isolation core for comparison?
“And you would never lie to me,” I said, heavy on the irony, light on the menace.
“Not about this,” she said and she sounded sincere. Of course, she always sounded sincere. And convincing. That was her job and she was very good at it.
“That all you’ve got to say?”
“Consider the fact that you getting caught in that ambush might not have been an accident. Watch yourself, lover. Bad times coming. Wouldn’t want to lose you for good.”
And with that she was gone. Just stepped back into the corridor and away. Maybe she had not been there at all. Maybe it was a hologram or something blasted directly into my brain through my armor’s Grid-links. I did not like the thought that anyone could be so fast or so stealthy. The golems came to life and extended their pace. I did the same. Carla had given me something more to think about than the Faith militias.
Chapter Four
I had not seen the Colonel look so angry since, well, my last court martial. She had turned the stereovid of her kids face down on the desk as if she didn’t want them looking at me.
She was a handsome Zulu woman with cropped gray hair. She sat at a real wooden desk, with the stars and stripes of the Republic behind her, framed by the eagles of StarForce. Her lips were compressed. Her brown eyes were narrowed and mean-looking, her breathing regular and controlled. I had the feeling that she was not very pleased with me.
“Sit,” she said, in a tone that would have intimidated a rabid Rottweiler.
I sat.
She stared at me with that what-am-I-going-to-do-about-you look that I’ve grown familiar with over the years. She looked at the paperweight on her desk, a globe that showed the Earth from space, then looked out the window of her office which showed Faith below us. They were not dissimilar. The types that colonized the Far Frontier wanted places that reminded them of home. If they could not find those, they terraformed worlds until they got what they wanted. If I remembered the briefing correctly Faith had not needed terraforming.
She drummed her fingers on the desk, and pointedly studied her slate. “I have here a psych test that says you are borderline psychotic. What do you say to that, Captain?”
“I’ll need to try harder. I thought I aced that test.”
“Go on,” she said. “Make a joke of it. How long do you think you are going to get away with this?”
“Permission to speak freely.”
She let out a long sigh. “Permission granted.”
“Until my contract with Fed Gov expires. Which is to say forever since it has a post-mortality clause.” Carla’s words were still on my mind, and I wondered whether this was as she intended.
The Colonel steepled her fingers and stared at me. “What happened to you? You used to be a hero. There was a time when we all looked up to you.”
So that was going to be the line, was it? I had some sympathy with the Colonel. She was in a strange position when it came to my career. I had been her superior once and it was possible I might be so again. Not likely, but not impossible.
“Nothing happened to me. I’m the same as I always was. The universe changed.”
She swiveled her chair to look at Faith, and continued as if I had not said a word. “You’re one of the First. All the rest are brass, blitzed, or permadead. How come you are still around here bugging me?”
“Just lucky I guess.”
She swiveled the chair back. Her face flushed. “You’ve no idea what you’ve done, have you?”
“Kept my sorry ass in one piece,” I said.
“You couldn’t have just run away, could you?”
“A Federal Stormtrooper never retreats,” I said. “Although occasionally we perform a retrograde advance.”
“Did you have to kill those militiamen?”
“It seemed preferable to letting them kill me. And let’s not lose sight of the dozen or so local Enforcers they had no qualms about butchering. We might want to remembe
r them too.”
“It’s election year,” she said. “Right across the core. And what’s the first rule of Federal politics?”
“Lie with a straight face?”
“We don’t shoot the voters. Why do you think you’re here?”
“I got a Form 210 attaching me to this battlestation. Same as you.”
“I mean why do you think you’re above this out of the way world at the ass-end of the galaxy?” I knew that was what she meant the first time but I thought I would make her work for it. “A peacekeeping mission to Faith. The only way down from here would be Solitary Sentinel duty on a corpse world.”
“We’ve both been part of StarForce long enough to know that Command works in mysterious ways.”
“We’re not talking about a standard operational SNAFU here. We’re talking about the second most highly decorated StarForce officer ever posted to the Far Frontier. And not just any stormtrooper but one of the First Fifty.”
“The first to survive Formula Nine with his sanity intact and his body still capable of motion,” I said. I am unreasonably proud of that.
“I know how you got your number,” she said. “The thirteenth experimental subject. The only one to come out of the pod still functioning and what we might laughingly call sane. You’re a war hero. You’re an historical artifact. Hell, you are the man who saved Terra from the Assimilators and yet somehow you ended up here, as far from the bright center of the universe as it is possible to get. Why do you think that happened?”
We both knew why but I wasn’t going to say it. She seemed to be doing a good enough job of that herself.
“You pissed off the wrong people,” she said at last. “You offended the brass. You offended the politicos. You offended anybody who tried to help you.”
I shrugged.
“You’re not going to work with me on this, are you?”
“Nope.”
“I want to believe there’s still something of the man the cadets all looked up to back at the Academy.” She shook her head and made a small despairing gesture with her hand. “But I don’t think I can anymore.”