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Operation Grendel

Page 5

by Daniel Schwabauer


  “I’m going to write it my way,” I said. “I’m going to tell all of it.”

  “However . . . you . . . want,” he breathed.

  Maybe he knew I was recording our conversation on my own comms, and maybe not. Maybe he just didn’t care.

  Now at least I had something to fall back on in case they court-martialed me, even if such evidence was flimsy.

  Voices called in the street, a distant sound, and without any gunfire. I crawled to the window and peered over the sill. Men in jungle fatigues worked in a relay down the street from the direction of the base. “They’re here,” I said. “How do we tell them where we are?”

  When he didn’t answer I said, “Sir? The cavalry’s here. What do you want me to do?”

  I crawled back to him. His face was gray, his eyes fixed on the ceiling.

  The emptiness in the pit of my stomach widened.

  His comms. That’s how they would know. I had to put it on.

  But not yet.

  I flipped the catch on my own bracelet, felt the tingle along the inside of my wrist as it disconnected from my nerve endings. Couldn’t wear two comms. I’d have to leave it behind.

  The hollow feeling expanded into a revelation. Shirtless and disconnected, the familiar nearness of my own AI suddenly gone, I felt the weight of my absolute aloneness pressing me into the carpet.

  Everyone who had died today had given their lives for something they believed in. Those militia pretenders in the SAV. Their comrades in the hallway. The marines who had come to our rescue with no heavy weaponry or protective armor.

  Captain Sterling.

  He’d died not knowing whether something good would come of his sacrifice or not. He’d put his hopes in me because there was no one else. He wasn’t going to live to see how the story ended.

  Somehow, that thought seemed worse than the prospect of death. Everyone dies. But don’t we all expect to see how the story ends anyway?

  I removed his insignia and badges from what remained of his shirt. I’d cut it into bloody strips trying to get it off him, so now I wadded the strips into a ball and stowed them in the cabinet under the sink.

  A forensic team would have no problems figuring out what took place here, but by the time that happened—if it ever did—I’d be dead or admitting the truth publicly. Either way it wouldn’t matter.

  I knelt next to Sterling’s body and snapped my comms onto his wrist. The surface of the unit began flashing a red—NO HEARTBEAT—warning, which I deactivated.

  I’d just created a new victim. Cpl. Raymin Dahl, Kanzin Reserve Infantry, OrbSyn press corps: KIA on New Witlund.

  Voices erupted in the stairwell, followed by a muffled curse, then silence.

  I took a deep breath and lifted Sterling’s comms to my left wrist. Snapped it on. Felt the tingle of activation.

  —SYSTEM RESET. ANALYZING . . .—

  Sterling’s grid appeared on my vision, remarkably uncluttered by the normal tapestry of a military comms. There were no biological status indicators, no system tics, no reassuring icons to select in case I needed network access or satellite directions. Instead, a single folder icon, labeled “Operation Grendel,” blinked in my upper right vision.

  Below that were three small notification panels marked with my name and numbered.

  Practically everyone in Fleet used the standard comms reminder app the same way. On reset, or in the morning with a wake-up alarm, you could have your AI message you about things you didn’t want to forget. It was also an effortless way to encode thought-to-text ideas and bursts of inspiration.

  The first one was already selected, its contents displaying in a visual text window.

  > 1. Tell them what they want to hear. Give them a story.

  I’d read that before somewhere. But was it meant for me as instruction? And who did “them” refer to? The marines, presumably, but Sterling might have meant the Alliance emissary. Maybe he meant both.

  I’d have to solve that riddle later. I flicked the second box open.

  > 2. Admit something secret or shameful.

  In the corridor something moved, but I wasn’t worried. On my grid the newcomers were marked MADAR. The rescue team was here.

  Now, suddenly, I realized that I knew what the acronym stood for: Marine Autonomous Direct Action and Recon. I had not known that fact before putting on Sterling’s comms, and I can’t explain how I knew afterwards. I didn’t have the sensation of learning anything. I just knew what MADAR meant and that the four people who had just come into the building, three males and one female, were here to take me back to the base. The knowledge had come the same instant I saw the MADAR icons.

  No wonder Sterling’s AI grid was so spartan. It could afford to be. If a sled’s software is smart enough, it doesn’t need a steering wheel. It doesn’t even need a driver.

  I opened the last message.

  > 3. Your father was wrong.

  You’re a PSYOPS officer now.

  Everything you need to know is on this comms.

  Make it happen.

  I stared at the door to the hallway for what seemed a long time. Only when the system flashed its ready signal did I snap back to the moment.

  —ANALYSIS COMPLETE. NEW USER DETECTED. INITIATING WELCOME PROTOCOL.—

  A wave of sudden relief and unexpected otherness.

  This AI was no butler standing stiffly in the anteroom of my mind, mutely awaiting my instructions.

  She was a warm caress, a smile, a kiss on the lips that meant welcome home.

  She was a woman.

  [Hello, Ansell.] Her voice was soft butter, as tangible as any audible sound, and dripping with irony. She knew who I was, and knew that I knew. She’d been expecting me. We were going to play a game. It would be such fun! [Shall we introduce you to our marines?]

  5

  Invasion

  “Captain Sterling!” a voice in the corridor called.

  “In here,” I said.

  “Hold your fire.”

  A location map appeared on my grid, the names and ranks of the marines in the hall indicated beneath their icons.

  [They restore the link to AFNET?]

  [No,] my new AI said. [I have a proximity interface. Do you like it?] She might have been asking me about a new dress.

  I didn’t answer. I could feel her lurking there in the background of my mind, gathering information, trying to piece together who I was and how to best interact with me. Part of the PSYOPS welcome protocol, I guessed. But it was a protocol I’d never experienced and wasn’t sure I liked. As a Fleet AI, she wouldn’t be able to see any thought I didn’t deliberately send her, nor could she access my natural bio-memories. But she could observe my biotics and trace the activity on my grid. Who knew what else she could do, what else she might know? The PSYOPS boys were always pushing the limits of autonomy. Anyway, we were starting this partnership from scratch, with almost no time to get used to each other.

  I filed her response and took a guess at the voice from the hall. “That you, Sergeant Major?”

  “In the flesh, sir. Coming through hands first.”

  The door inched open, pushing the barricade with it, and Sergeant Major Glen Raeburn slid through with open palms. He wore UCMC jungle fatigues and carried an honest-to-God Ruger MG9c field carbine. His face was that of a unit leader, prematurely aged, tanned to the texture of buffalo hide, and sporting two days’ worth of graying facial hair. It was a face that had seen too much and couldn’t stop seeing it.

  I lowered my rifle.

  “You hurt?” he asked.

  I shook my head. Sterling’s body would be hidden from Raeburn’s view, so I pointed and started to say, Captain Sterling. But he wasn’t Sterling. Not now. And since I couldn’t bring myself to call the body by the name Raymin Dahl, I said, “He doesn’t have a pulse.”

  Raeburn came around to look as three other marines slipped into the room. They wore the same mottled green and gray fatigues Raeburn wore but seemed to be carrying he
avier gear.

  “Laclos, see what you can do.”

  She wore a medic’s badge above her MADAR unit patch, which featured a snarling rottweiler and the words “Mad Dogs.” Skinny, midtwenties, her blonde hair pulled into a short ponytail, Master Sergeant Laclos seemed unexpectedly cheerful, as if determined to find the universe as accommodating as possible. She touched my old comms on Sterling’s wrist and pressed two fingers against his neck. “Corporal Dahl?” She asked, glancing up at me.

  The question startled me. Then I realized she was asking about the body. I nodded. “Raymin Dahl, OrbSyn reporter.”

  “Sorry, sir. He’s gone. Did you know him?”

  “Just met.”

  Laclos pulled a bag from her thigh pocket and unfolded it. “Hopper. Pajari.”

  SFC Hopper turned out to be a Sergeant First Class, with skin as dark as his uniform and eyes hidden behind a set of close-fitting black sunglasses. “He the guy who wrote all those stories from the edge?”

  “Feature, writer,” I said, the words strange in my ears. “Yeah. That’s him.”

  Hopper sucked air through his teeth. “Good writer. Too bad he wasn’t on our side.”

  “Stow it, Hop,” Raeburn said. “Man’s dead.”

  I felt my face flush. Raymin Dahl may have been a hero to the edge militias, but that reputation clearly had limits.

  Staff Sergeant Pajari, tall and thin and carrying a mean-looking Barrett RMG sniper rifle, squinted at Sterling’s corpse. His expression was inscrutable, but the way he slipped the plastic around Sterling’s head told me he’d done this before.

  Together Laclos and Hopper tucked the rest of Sterling’s body inside the bag and sealed it.

  New icons appeared on my overlay, and I went to the window to verify what I was seeing. Half a dozen Sherpas were rolling onto the street below. Camp Locke’s garrison was finally flexing its muscle.

  I queried the AI for options under the device’s proximity sensors, and a list of possibilities appeared, including thermals. Sure enough, I could see the heat signatures of everything out to about 200 meters, like a satellite map with fuzzy edges. But the vibrant colors were distracting and hard to see through, so I nudged it off my grid.

  Now that Sterling’s body—that is, Dahl’s body—was stowed and tagged for the cleanup crew, Raeburn said, “Colonel Vermier wants to see you ASAP, Captain.”

  I followed Raeburn to the hall, hesitating at the doorway. I didn’t want to see the people I’d killed, didn’t want to see what those hundred rounds from Kurcek’s flash rifle had done to them. But there was no other way out. So I stepped into the hallway and breathed a sigh of relief. Someone had dragged the bodies away, leaving behind only the blood spatters on the carpet and wall.

  Once on the street I climbed into the back of a Sherpa with the MADAR team. The rear of the vehicle was open to the heat, the air thick with moisture and the buzz of insects. No one spoke, as if sensing that I needed to process what I had just been through.

  They had no idea what I was facing, the weight of it. So I stared out the open tailgate as the tropical greens and ochres of the jungle corridor rumbled past, and I tried to figure out what Sterling’s last instructions might actually look like. How was I supposed to “make it happen?” Did I even want to? Even if I succeeded—

  [I’m here for you,] my AI said. [I really can help.]

  [Thanks.]

  [Normally we’d spend a week together, learning each other’s quirks and habits, but there isn’t time for that. We’ll have to do this on the fly, especially since you will have to pass yourself off as a PSYOPS captain to Camp Locke’s commanding officer.]

  She was right. I should have been reading the mission file. But I didn’t want to know what I was facing. If I opened that mission file, would I be able to turn back? To decline the mission and own up to what I’d done? Besides, we were already turning into the main gate. Outside, marines were hauling back temporary barricades so the Sherpa could pass through. There wasn’t time to do any reading. If I opened the “Operation Grendel” file, it would have to be later. [Where do we start?]

  [Give me a name. Something meaningful to you. Someone you trust.]

  [A name? Seriously?]

  [Naming is an act of ownership. An act of mastery. Giving me a name will signal your subconscious mind about our relationship. You will need to trust me on a deep level, or this mission will fail.]

  Sterling had been leading me, manipulating me, ever since this assignment showed up on my comms back on Holikot. I’d had no choice about anything, including whether or not to write the original fake story about MADAR teams. And how much choice did I have about impersonating an officer? If I survived this nightmare, chances were I’d be spending time in a core penitentiary.

  And now the AI on Sterling’s comms was giving me the psych equivalent of a bedside enema. I’d been bullied enough by Fleet, by military operations, by rank. I wasn’t about to be bullied by my own comms! Besides, I wouldn’t be wearing the thing long enough to become pals with its digital keeper. She didn’t need a name. [Then I guess this mission will fail.]

  [Captain—]

  [Okay,] I cut her off. [Your name is AI. Welcome to the team.]

  She backed off, but I could still feel her there sulking as we pulled up to the admin building next to the skyport.

  When Raeburn jumped down to let me out I stood there on the blistering asphalt, glancing back and forth between him and his team. My undershirt and arms were smeared with dried blood, or I would have tried to shake his hand.

  “Thanks,” I said and meant it.

  Raeburn shrugged. “Don’t mention it.”

  He meant it too.

  Inside, an orderly ushered me to the third floor, through a command center staffed with noncoms glued to their screens, and into an office that smelled like coffee and furniture cleaner.

  “Captain Sterling.” The colonel turned from a row of windows overlooking the tarmac. She was a short woman with straight black hair pulled into a tight knot above the collar. Her green utilities looked well-worn, though the sleeves were neatly pressed and the fabric unspotted. She carried herself with the taut readiness of a besieged officer—someone who had clawed her way to a summit only to discover she was surrounded by the enemy. Her nametag read VERMIER.

  Colonel Vermier’s eyes took in my blood-stained clothing and skin in a glance. She had told Raeburn to bring me in ASAP and didn’t seem surprised by my appearance. “Have a seat.”

  “Thank you, Colonel.”

  “You all right?”

  “Five by five.”

  “Good.” She sat in the oversized chair across from me. “I’ve read your mission brief. How do you want to proceed?”

  “Colonel?”

  “Corporal Dahl was a critical piece of your operation.” Her voice carried the lilting accent of a local New Witlunder, suggesting she’d either been born in-system or had spent a good deal of time here. “You obviously can’t replace him at the last minute. So where do you go from here?”

  “Dahl was important but not critical,” I said, surprised by how easily I had put on ruthlessness. It was a bit like slipping into an old coat. “I’ll write the story myself. OrbSyn will run it under his byline. Someone at PSYOPS will come up with an explanation for his death. Give him a hero’s burial. And no one will know the difference.”

  “Really?” She looked surprised. “You think you can replicate his style? His, what do you call it, rapport with the militias?”

  “There’s only one Raymin Dahl,” I said. “But I’ve read everything he ever wrote, and I did major in journalism before I enlisted.” Both things were undeniably true. “More importantly, in this case, the story itself is so explosive I don’t think many people will be paying attention to how it’s written. No one’s going to be looking for a strong literary voice, if that’s what you’re worried about. All they’ll want is a way forward.”

  Colonel Vermier leaned back in her chair and glanced out the win
dow at the shimmering heat coming off the tarmac. “The Alliance frigate that shut down our link to AFNET is no longer in orbit. She put down in the jungle west of Seranik, then set up a defensive perimeter. So far their shock troops and drones have stayed within a four-klick radius. I’m wondering why.”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” I asked. “The Alliance government still wants the peace talks to happen.”

  She arced one brow. “They cut our pipeline, Captain. We not only can’t talk to Command and Control, we can’t talk to each other except by unsecured satcom.”

  “Maybe this is the enemy’s way of preventing Fleet from changing its mind. What better way to ensure the meeting take place than to remove any chance of a cancellation?”

  “And the attack from the New Witlund militia?” she asked, drumming her fingers on the edge of her desk. “That’s just a coincidence?”

  I shook my head. Strained to think of what Sterling might say and how he’d say it. But when I spoke, the voice I heard belonged to my father. “That’s an intelligence leak. Probably originated with the Alliance, but who knows? The point is that someone found out we’re leaving the locals to fend for themselves, and they didn’t like it. I can’t say that I blame them.”

  She stared at me for what seemed a long time, then touched the keypad on her desk. The window monitors blinked away the sunlight and began streaming recorded images and shifting ID tags. “This morning just after that frigate cut our link off-world, a grendel invasion fleet jumped in-system and began an assault of Quelon. Our command subnet has better shielding than the base nodes, so we had a downlink from our host planet for almost thirty seconds after that Strangler appeared.”

  Eleven heavy cruisers, twenty destroyers, and fifteen carriers—the big motherships that disgorge grendel invasion troops like dandelion seeds on the wind—appeared above the blue horizon of Quelon. A Grand Alliance armada so large it could only be the main body of their third fleet.

 

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