Chimera Company Season 2 - Deep Cover

by Tim C. Taylor

  Just as well he’d locked the targeting system, because the GAC bucked and writhed, hovering with its nose up in the air and twerking its ass at the tanks and support troopers on the ground. Whether it was the recoil, the gravitic craft reaching its limit, the small arms fire hitting their rear, or the sheer weight of the heavy rounds Darant was throwing off the, it was all too much for the hover flier.

  The engines cut out and the GAC tipped over backward.

  For a stretched moment in time, it seemed to hang there, Darant looking down out of the top of his cockpit at the troopers looking up in astonishment.

  Lily screamed.

  So did the faces on the uniformed Militia troopers.

  Darant didn’t. He was too terrified.

  They fell out of the air, but the lateral engines and gravitics cut back in, pulsing in a carefully calculated sequence that had them loop the loop. They accelerated away in level flight through a fan of flame when the tank Darant had shot up finally decided to blow up.

  “You beauty,” Darant said in wonder. “Neat flying, Lil’.”

  “It wasn’t me,” Lily replied in an unusually quiet voice. “Some kind of automatic anti-stall. I had no idea we had one.”

  Darant fired over the heads of the receding troopers to persuade them to keep their heads down. Firing at Militia troopers still didn’t feel right, and he kept his bursts short because he’d expended half his ammo taking out that tank.

  He’d need every round soon, because this was just a sideshow.

  The real business was waiting for them up ahead in Execution Square.

  REVERED LEADER IN’NALLA

  “We can’t let the willfully cancerous dissenters destroy what we have built here.”

  The crowd filling Execution Square booed the WCDs.

  In’Nalla cocked an ear at the crowd through the bullet-proof transparent blast shield protecting the stage. “I can’t hear you,” she mouthed.

  The crowd went wild, screaming their hatred of WCDs.

  In’Nalla gestured at them to calm.

  “To the east of our great city awaits an army. Army? Hah! More like the discharge from a blocked sewer. In their ranks are communists, perverts, fascists, the filth of our world united in their intolerance of everyone who does not yield to their perverted ideologies.”

  She gave the throng a moment to cheer and howl their anger before pressing on. “These people – though I don’t believe they deserve to be called people, don’t you agree? – are united in their hatred. Hatred of us.” She picked out a screaming human woman in the front row and pointed her out. “Of you.”

  After letting the camera team fill the big screen with the woman’s face for a few seconds, In’Nalla pointed out other individuals, rapid fire. “They hate you. And you. And you.” She shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe they’re right? Do you think we should invite in the WCDs?”

  Execution Square went absolutely wild.

  Relayed through speakers on her side of the blast shield, the sound was an incoherent white noise, but it was music to In’Nalla’s ears, because it was filled with the passion she demanded of these people. Her people.

  The clamor soon took the form of a chant that echoed off the high walls surrounding the square.

  “Kill the WCDs.”

  “Kill the WCDs.”

  She raised her arms high in the air, her face wild with excitement. The chant grew in intensity.

  From stage left, Sanderson marched over to her. The new bodyguard had been waving at her with increasing urgency for over a minute.

  She put one hand out to ward him off, but he would not be deterred.

  So she cut the mic. “Not now,” she yelled at the stupid man. “I need this moment. Can’t you hear their passion?”

  “Kill the WCDs!”

  “Kill the WCDs!”

  “An attack is imminent,” he said. “They’re coming for you.”

  “An attack? Sanderson, look at them out there. Four thousand people literally screaming to kill the enemy. Half of them are armed, maybe more. It’s not like the scraps Major Lyssin has allocated me. It’s an army. My army.”

  “Ma’am, with all due respect, I’ve served in a real army. What you see here is an armed rabble. Highly motivated. Dangerous and unpredictable. And no match for an army with proper training discipline, and real machinery of war.”

  “Machinery of war.” She guffawed. “Such as what? More of those fantasy mechs?”

  He pointed at one the approach roads. “Such as that, ma’am.”

  Two needle craft painted green flew in from an approach road and circled the square.

  Several brave souls from the crowd below shot at them, flashes blooming on the underside of the fliers as bolts hit home and bullets ricocheted away.

  The fliers ignored the attacks and calmly blew away the rooftop positions where Lyssin sometimes deployed sharpshooters.

  “Come with me, ma’am,” urged Sanderson.

  He lunged at her, coming in to grab her around the waist, but she ordered him to stop with such a force of command that he hesitated. She glanced backstage where six worried Militia troopers looked on, all Lyssin had managed to provide her.

  “No, Sanderson,” she said. Major Lyssin promised me tanks. Instead I have six nervous wrecks and you. If these aircraft want to kill us, then there’s nothing we can do.

  The fliers descended and blasted away one side of the stage, hovering like oversized dragonflies with nose-mounted heavy blasters.

  Their fire, she noted, was meticulous. No one was injured, and the blast screen remained intact. In fact, the only injuries so far came from ricochets and rounds fired by the crowd that were falling back onto the square.

  “Ma’am!” Sanderson was about to grab her for definite this time, no matter that her Militia guards were pointing their blasters at him.

  “Oh, for pity’s sake, stand down, Sanderson. The rebels aren’t shooting at people, which means they’re here to play politics. Let them. Politics is a game I play to win.”

  The green fliers descended below the blast screen, hovering a few feet above the stage.

  “Surrender!” ordered a woman through an external speaker.

  In’Nalla could see her through the cockpit of the nearest flier. She shuddered at the sight of the woman’s hideously disfigured face.

  Lyssin’s troopers ran for it, the rebels content to let them go.

  Out beyond the blast shield, some of her bravest citizens were trying to clamber over the barrier to protect her.

  She let them come for the moment while she assessed her opponents’ next move.

  The rear cockpits hissed open and two rebels jumped down onto the stage.

  One was a bear of a man wearing electro-dispersion chainmail and carrying an extra-large Militia war hammer. The other looked a more conventional killer, an evil-looking human armed with a large blaster with twin rails below the barrel.

  It was the beardless one who shot Sanderson. Some kind of electro-dart by the look of it.

  Her big bodyguard went down, twitching on the stage.

  Pathetic.

  In’Nalla resisted the urge to kick the useless fool. If Sanderson had gone down so easily, he could never have been much good.

  “Well, gentlemen, what do you want?”

  “Your resignation,” said the man who’d shot Sanderson.

  She switched the microphone back on. “I don’t give in to demands from terrorists or mercenaries, or whatever the hell class of scum you call yourself.”

  “We’re not demanding anything,” said the bear. It was difficult to be sure behind all that bejeweled facial hair, but the man actually seemed to be grinning. He pointed at the crowd with the shaft of his hammer. “We don’t need to. They will.”

  Now it was her turn to grin in triumph. “My people,” she said into the microphone. “My brave and loyal people. I temporarily surrender myself to these killers. I will do what I can to prevent bloodshed. Please, get down from the bla
st shield. But do not go home. Stay here. Protect the approaches to the square. Occupy and fortify the buildings here. And above all, trust in me. In’Nalla is your future.”

  VOL ZAVAGE

  “That filthy beast comes near my gear again and I pull the plug on this op, revolution or not.”

  Enthree looked up from her workstation and tilted her head at the Slern. “Do you refer to the basten goat? I made a pledge to care for him.”

  Zavage’s kesah-kihisia was pummelled by the Slern’s indignation. Meanwhile, Enthree oozed amusement – she knew damn well who the rebel hacker had been talking about.

  Enthree, he was coming to realize, had many unexpected talents. Sarcasm was one of the least alarming.

  “Breaker,” said Zavage. “The bug’s messing with your head… Ah…” Zavage wasn’t sure if referring to a Slern’s ‘head’ was offensive. Too bad. Everything was offensive on this world. “I mean, messing with your mind. Hubert knows he’s been bad.”

  “Hubert? Pah!” Breaker extended some flesh out its shell to form a head which it promptly shook at Enthree and Zavage. “You two have been around humans too much. I can smell them on you. It’s just a damned animal, you idiots. And it was nibbling my gold-sheathed, duranium-enriched core data cables. My babies, guys. Please, have some respect.”

  Fighting to keep from laughing like a human, Zavage nonetheless humbly bowed his head to the little hacker.

  Breaker81, the Slern called itself, and it was in its tech-filled, musty basement in one of Kaylingen’s northern suburbs that the three of them were going to bring In’Nalla down.

  Zavage had never encountered the race before. In appearance Breaker81 was a cross between a scaly lizard and a mollusk, with pseudopods emerging from beneath its shell to perform functions of manipulation, locomotion, speech and eating. Its shell was painted to resemble stained wood with a cream edge in a pattern Breaker81 called Les Paul Standard, which it claimed to be an ancient human cultural reference.

  “Nah, you’re okay, guys,” said Breaker in perfect Standard, extending a pseudopod toward Enthree. “I can forgive anything for a chance to work with her. You’re a goddamned genius, sister. And a moneyed genius too. Say, the revolution’ll be over by tonight. Have you any plans for after?”

  “Let’s concentrate on making sure the revolution turns the right way,” Zavage admonished them.

  Breaker had hit on a helluva topic, though. Not hitting on Enthree so much as being wowed by both her hacking skills and the funds she could access to bribe the system marshal to ensure the Militia had someplace else to be today. That had taken serious money. It certainly wasn’t her Militia pay.

  Who was Enthree really?

  “It’s spreading,” yelled Breaker. “Ye gods! She’s done it!”

  Zavage hurried over to Breaker’s work pod. Even Hubert pricked up his ears in interest. The Slern said it thought better inside its shell and most of its body was stuffed inside the wood-effect carapace. Breaker had extruded a single, fat pseudopod from which it had extended a half dozen fingers and stalks that each held two eyes.

  Its displays showed the spread of the incriminating video footage Bronze had acquired from an insider. They had uploaded the recording to EB-Link in such a way that multiple influential groups were now sharing it like crazy, each believing it was one of their own members who had uncovered the footage that they were obliged to make public.

  Within a minute, even the media conglomerates were following suit.

  “You’re right,” said Zavage. “We’ve done it. In’Nalla’s finished.”

  REVERED LEADER IN’NALLA

  In Execution Square, the crowd stood mesmerized by the video footage on the big screen as it looped once more.

  “I’m betrayed by trans-cos who are greedy, petty, and led by utterly short-sighted assholes,” said In’Nalla’s angry red face. “It would be better if we had fewer companies, and they were steered by a central authority.”

  The citizens studiously avoided eye contact with each other, shifting their attention back and forth from the screen to their wrist slates as they scoured EB-Link, searching for someone to tell them how to interpret this.

  Needing their reality to be defined for them.

  Was the Revered Leader a traitor now?

  Or was she a victim of false news?

  The battle for the truth raged on EB-Link, but it was a battle she’d always won. She owned reality on this world. As the REEDs like to put it, if the Revered Leader told you two plus two equaled five, then to think of any other possibility was a thought crime.

  And to betray the Revered Leader was the biggest thought crime of all.

  It had to have been Asher who’d taken that footage. How could she possibly have dared?

  In’Nalla didn’t give a shit about why Asher had betrayed her. This was all damage limitation now. That and… maybe she could turn this betrayal to her advantage.

  First things first. Asher needed to pay. In’Nalla was about to order her sorry carcass dragged in, and her secrets tortured out of her when she stopped: it was that damned Blayde Asher she would naturally order to fix this sort of mess.

  Damn her!

  Slowly, ever so slowly, In’Nalla activated the comm link in her slate without getting more than a frown out of the killer who’d stunned Sanderson.

  She tried contacting her information shapers. The first three didn’t respond, were off grid altogether. In’Nalla’s heart beat faster… this had never happened before.

  So when the link to Sonep Mediaforce established and the CEO answer, a wave of relief hit her.

  “Jennling? Why are you the only media controller who’s answering my calls?”

  “Because, Revered Leader,” said Jennling Sonep, worry so heavy in his voice that she could picture his fat hands sweating, “the others have been seized by the rebel army.”

  “Then you must work fast while you still can. Here’s what I need you to do…”

  GENERAL GZEITER

  “Excellent work, my friend,” said Gzeiter heartedly, extending a hand to the Trucker.

  The mutant transferred his cigar to his mouth so he could pump Gzeiter’s hand vigorously. “Today, we will win a famous victory,” he said out the side of his mouth.

  His media team took images at the steps to the captured Forefront Building to show the Federation what could be achieved if the forces of resistance allied with the PHPA. Even if your top military commander looked like a janitor playing dress ups with a smuggler costume.

  Gzeiter smiled at his ally. That’s right, you dumbass fraggwort. Tell yourself you’ve won a great victory. Next time I see you, you’ll be dead.

  The combined PHPA forces and RevRec strike column had raced through the streets, never letting the civilian rabble stand firm, pushing on to take the headquarters of the three main media-shaping corporations, ending here at the biggest of them all, Forefront.

  They had expected a tough fight against the Militia, but other than a few brief firefights where the two sides had stumbled across each other, there had been nothing.

  Casualties had been minimal.

  But Gzeiter’s reconnaissance teams informed him that a counterattack was on the way.

  Gzeiter took a last look at the broad street. RevRec troops were trying to fortify the approaches, as they would also be doing at the other two buildings they’d seized. They were making a good job of it too, which was as well as he needed them to take a heavy toll on the incoming Militia force, while suffering devastating casualties themselves.

  Of more immediate importance, RevRec technicians had reconnected the Forefront Building with EB-Link. It was Gzeiter who controlled the message now. He had the best outfit of media shapers to do his bidding. At gunpoint.

  And when he’d turned the population against both In’Nalla and RevRec, Gzeiter would emerge to seize the Senate Building and announce himself interim president of Eiylah-Bremah, until such time as properly constituted elections could be held.

&nbs
p; “Good luck.” He gave the Trucker a respectful nod. “I’ll see you soon.”

  The moment he walked up the stone steps and through the reinforced bronze doors, he ordered them shut.

  “I want armor plating welded across all entry points,” he ordered his command team waiting for him in the marbled foyer. “All but one of our force shields to be deployed in staggered formation behind the main entrance. The last shield is to protect the roof entrance. Mobile suppression teams, get ready for an attack coming through the walls. Indirect fire, snipers and anti-air to the roof. Come on, people, we’ve planned for this. Now, make it happen.”

  With his team rushing to implement the plan, he keyed his comms to his propaganda and subversion commander. “Krendell, report.”

  “Early days, General,” she replied in that smug way of hers that sounded as if she were rubbing her hands in glee. “We’ve recruited twenty-eight technician volunteers from the staff here, and they do appear to have the skills we need to win the information war.”

  “Twenty-eight? The plan called initially for thirty.”

  “Yes, sir. We pressganged thirty, and two of them are contributing by having sacrificed their lives to encourage the others.”

  Gzeiter felt a chill run up his spine. Captain Krendell studied the inner workings of the human mind – and of most of the main Federation races – like a botanist dissecting rare insects. She understood how all the moving parts worked, and how to manipulate them, but showed no signs of possessing any human emotions herself, despite her personnel file insisting Krendell was the same species as Gzeiter.

  “Very good,” he said. “I’ll be with you in three mikes. Gzeiter out.”

  TAVISTOCK FITZWILLIAM

  From behind the half-assed cover of a few overturned cars, Fitz was watching the Panhandlers set up shop on the roof of the Forefront Building when the news he was expecting came in.

  “Trucker, Sentinel-2. Eyes on Militia column. Company sized. Light armed infantry and we count four jury-rigged gun trucks with heavy blasters.”