The Eternity War: Pariah

by Jamie Sawyer

  “Can the negative jive,” I said. “We’ve got a mission, and that’s enough.”

  “But it’s a shit detail,” Lopez complained.

  “Someone has to do it,” I said, “and we’re the greenest team on this bucket.”

  “I am ready for this…” Feng said, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “I am so ready for this!”

  Only Feng had any real soldier in him, and he wasn’t even a free citizen. Technically, Feng was former Asiatic Directorate property. South Asian features, smooth-skinned save for the data-ports, covered in barcodes and serial numbers—dark-eyed and-haired, muscled in an unnaturally precise way. He was a man-child: born into puberty, direct from the clone-vats. The location of his “birth” in the Asiatic Directorate—Crèche Three, Crema Base—was stamped across the small of his neck, like a brand. He had been liberated by Allied forces from the same planet, and in many ways he was a poster-child for the new Alliance—a super-state willing to forgive the transgressions of the Directorate’s political and military elite, and to strive towards a lasting peace for all humanity.

  But whatever Feng’s political heritage, right now he just looked like an over-excited kid. Granted, a kid who was about to be skinned with the absolute best in bio-technology, and about to be equipped with cutting-edge arms and armour, but still a child. He bobbed anxiously, nervously, as he was readied to mount the tank.

  “Cool your jets,” I said to the bay but really directed at Feng. “Just keep calm and we’ll get through this.”

  Medtechs descended on the squad, and began plugging us into the simulators. I let the staff work but I knew the drill in my sleep.

  Zero read more from the briefing. “All entrances to the outpost are locked down. You’ll be supported dropside by the fire teams and heavier combat-suits. I’ve uploaded your objectives to the suit network; you’ll have them as soon as you make transition. The Jackals’ destination is Tower Three, located on the outer aspect of the base.”

  “This is real, people,” Feng said, pumping his fists. “This is happening!”

  “I hear that,” Riggs added.

  Zero gave me a watery smile, and I felt a pang of disappointment for her. I knew that she wished it was her going into the tanks, but we both knew that would never be the case. Zero’s name was a joke, because she was less than that. She was a “negative,” her physiology incompatible with the implants necessary to operate a simulant. As she watched us going through the procedure, there was something almost melancholy about her expression.

  “Command expects the Black Spiral to be present in significant number,” Zero said, continuing to read. “Captain Heinrich says that this is going to be hot. You should be aware that this is a joint—”

  “More sorry-ass terrorists,” Feng said. “I am on this!”

  “We’re doing what we do when we have no one left to fight,” Lopez said. “We’re killing each other.”

  “Those daddy’s words, or yours?” Novak said.

  “Fuck you, lifer,” Lopez responded.

  Zero seemed more agitated than usual, which in her case was saying something. “Ma’am,” she said, “I really need to make you aware that this is—”

  “No time, Zero,” I said. “Tell me when I get back.”

  A respirator was snapped over my face, and a tech popped a bead into my ear. All that was left to do now was to get into the tank. It was already half-filled with blue amniotic fluid, quickly warming. My own callsign, CALIFORNIA, was stencilled in bold letters onto the tank’s outer canopy.

  “All good?” a medico asked.

  “Affirmative,” I said. I turned to check on the rest of my squad. Thumbs up all round. “Seal us in. You’ve got the formalities, Zero.”

  “Copy that, ma’am,” she said. “Transition commencing in three … two… one…”

  CHAPTER TWO

  ON THE READY LINE

  Understand this: when you operate a simulant, you’re only doing so by a highly complicated method of telepresence. The neural-link between the simulant and the operator is a purely technical procedure. Your mind remains in your real body throughout.

  The whole process is technical, scientific, safe. That’s the theory, at least.

  The reality is very different. Believe me: it sure feels like your mind has been ported directly into the simulant-body. It’s damned spiritual, and there’s no amount of scientific explanation that will make me think otherwise. You become that body, and you wear it like it’s your own.

  How does this miracle of science actually work? Good question, but it’s one very few can answer. The simulant tech was developed at the end of the Krell War—when the fighting was thickest, when it looked like we might be wiped out by the fishes—and exactly how and why it works is still a closely guarded secret. “Alpha-classified” doesn’t even come close to describing the level of security. I got drafted into the Simulant Operations Programme a few years after its inception, but I quickly learnt that where the tech is concerned you just don’t ask questions.

  The Jackals’ simulants were located in a specialised holding bay aboard the Bainbridge, and I made transition into a waiting body. Jesus Christo, I’d almost forgotten how good this felt. I was more alive than ever, skinned up in a state-of-the-art simulant-body. Physically the skin was factory-fresh, loaded with more hormones than a lifetime of sex with Riggs would ever produce. Mentally, I meshed with the body as though I’d been born into it.

  Simulants were force-grown from the operator’s body. Produced in specialised farms, they reflected the very pinnacle of Science Division’s dark arts. Only compatible with the genetic template of the original operator-donor, each body was much improved over the original model. The simulant was a representation of the operator at his or her finest: a snapshot of the user caught in their prime, without the baggage that real skins carried. Just like the Army Sim Ops recruitment campaign says—JOIN SIM OPS TODAY, AND BE EVERYTHING THAT YOU CAN BE! So Lopez’s face was plumper, lacking the skin-sculpt of her real body. Novak’s features were spartan without his gang tattoos, and so on.

  “Transition confirmed,” I declared into the communicator.

  “Solid copy,” Zero said back to me. “Jackals are operational.”

  My sim was already armed and armoured—the science team had taken care of that. I wore a reconnaissance-class powered suit, and the onboard AI programme recognised successful transition. WELCOME, the armour said. PREPARE TO ASSUME MANUAL CONTROL. The magnetic clamps holding the armour in place disengaged. I landed on the deck with a rumble, testing the suit’s shock absorbers.

  “You like the new armour?” Zero said.

  “I’d prefer something heavier,” I replied, flexing my arms, “but it’s nice. A girl can’t have everything.”

  Recon-suits were the lightest class of armour used by line simulant teams, and as a result they were sometimes unfairly referred to as “training suits.”

  “Your AI has made successful uplink to the battle-net,” said Zero.

  “Solid copy.”

  The recon-suit carried a complex sensor and intelligence suite, and as my armour came online an avalanche of data flooded the interior of my face-plate. The heads-up display—the HUD—filled with glowing holographics, info-streams, the ever-present bio-scanner. The data-flow gradually sank into the background, became a comforting undercurrent of battlefield noise.

  That wasn’t so for everyone. The Jackals were struggling to comprehend the wealth of information. Confused faces appeared behind their semi-mirrored visors.

  “Cancel what you don’t need,” I said, nodding my armoured head. “You can always bring up new feeds once we’re dirtside.”

  “This is more like it,” Feng said, rolling his shoulders in the armour. “I am so ready for this!”

  “Now you feel like a solider, yes?” Novak said.

  “Anyone would feel like a soldier in one of these things…” Lopez said. In other circumstances, the look of amazement on her face would have been fu
nny.

  “Just don’t let it go to your head, people,” I ordered.

  The hangar was filled with troopers, and the sound of boots on the deck, moving through the deployment hatch, was deafening. Most of the other teams were wearing the heavy shit: combat-suits employed by the frontal attack teams. Those were adorned with personalised insignia, with death motifs and callsigns. Even though nothing that went down in a drop came back up, this was ritual—and if there’s one thing that simulant operators cling to, it’s ritual. As I stared down at my own suit, I realised that it was completely untouched. None of the Jackals’ armour had been branded with insignia.

  “Why aren’t our suits marked up?” I asked.

  “I assigned the task to Novak, ma’am,” Riggs said.

  Novak sucked his teeth. “Is not a soldier’s job.”

  “A ‘soldier’s job’ is whatever I tell you to do, and—” Riggs started.

  “This is a bad sign,” Lopez said. “We can’t make the drop in unmarked suits!”

  “Again, Senator, how would you know?” Novak said. “Is first combat drop, yes?”

  Troopers from other squads passed us, making snide remarks on the open comms band.

  “Watch it, rookies!”

  “Fuck, you guys are already wasted.”

  “Shame about the new suits…”

  “Jesus, Private Novak,” I said. “Riggs is corporal. Like he says: when he tells you to do something, you do it.”

  Novak sort of shrugged in his armour, the servomotors humming as he moved.

  “Maybe you should mark his record, ma’am,” Riggs said. “Put some more time on his clock.”

  Riggs bumped shoulders with Novak, and the big Russian bumped back. Their armour produced a startling crash as shoulder-guards clashed. Inside a simulant and full armour, Novak was frighteningly large. Monstrous, even. “Intimidating” was an understatement.

  “Cut that out,” I said, frowning at the pair. “There’s no time to do anything about the suits now, but I don’t want this happening again. Just focus on the job.”

  Riggs wouldn’t let it go. “You want to watch it, lifer. I could always send a report to the Parole Board myself.”

  “Fuck you,” Novak drawled, in his usual semi-broken Standard, his accent making the words come out nasal. “You think I care about how long I serve?”

  “Hey Novak,” said Lopez, “are those blades regulation?”

  The convict had at least six sheathes strapped across the plates of his armour—on his legs, his chest, even his arms. Each carried a knife of a varying length and size, both military-grade and more improvised weapons. I suspected that Novak knew how to use every one of them.

  “What do you think?” he said, slowly.

  Lopez huffed and pulled a face. “I think that you’re an asshole, and I think that the Alliance should fire your Christo-damned corpse into the next available star,” she said. “I notice that you had time to find those blades, when you should’ve been marking up the suits.”

  “Can it!” I said. “Officer on the deck.”

  “And what an officer…” Feng said, but fell silent as I scowled at him.

  Captain Peter Heinrich—commanding officer of the strike contingent aboard the UAS Bainbridge—prowled an overhead gantry, watching the squads assemble far below. He was, as of now, the only real skin in the hangar bay: surrounded by tons of manufactured simulant skins. Was there something weird about the commanding officer of a simulant strike team being non-operational, incapable of using a sim? I certainly thought so.

  “On the ready line!” he yelled. “That’s it, people: form up, form up!”

  Each five-man squad assembled in formation—just how Heinrich liked them—and occupied the better part of the Bainbridge’s hangar deck. Although Heinrich’s gaze fell across every team on the deck, I felt its heat linger on us. The Jackals were at the back of the hangar, last in row. I looked down the line: even in simulants, they looked like four sorry sons of bitches.

  “You’re running out of formation, Jackals!” he shouted. “Get it sorted and fall in!”

  “Fucking hell, people,” I said, over my Jackals’ closed communications channel. “How many times do we have to practise this shit?”

  “By the way,” Zero said, breaking in on the comms network, “Captain Heinrich noted that you were late to the bay. He’s keeping a record of your attendance times.”

  So far as I was aware, Heinrich had never actually been in a combat zone, and he’d secured his role as CO through a combination of political wrangling and ass-kissing. Command had a way of doing that: assigning those with the least experience to the most important jobs. Heinrich’s shipboard uniform was replete with medals for being “employee of the month” and “most annoying REMF.” He was surrounded by a cadre of subordinate officers. They were all skinned and wearing combat-suits, keeping a tight cordon round the captain like the security detail of some particularly important diplomat.

  “Listen up!” Heinrich barked. “This is not a drill, and you are not conducting a training exercise!”

  “Someone ought to tell Jenkins that,” one of the other veteran officers further down the line said over the general squad-to-squad channel. Tinny laughs filtered over the network.

  “Fuck you guys,” I said, eyes forward on Heinrich.

  His bronzed brow creased again. Like Lopez, he was a Proximan, and rumour had it his background was almost as privileged. Heinrich shook his head, as though he couldn’t even be bothered to rebuke me any more.

  “All officers have been given an appropriate briefing package,” he said, “but for those of us requiring the headlines, this is how it’s going to go down.”

  The inside of my face-plate illuminated with graphics. The Bainbridge was fast approaching Daktar Outpost. The space station appeared as a glowing red dot on the screen, in a close orbit around the Shard Gate at Daktar 436.

  “Daktar Outpost is a scientific research station,” Heinrich continued. “Staffed by civilians, on last headcount it housed a hundred and six personnel. That was until two days ago, when the outpost stopped reporting. As of oh-six-hundred hours this morning, the station’s AI reports that there are less than fifty personnel left on-base. The organisation known as the Black Spiral has since confirmed responsibility for a station takeover. The Bainbridge happened to be the closest Alliance Army asset, which explains our involvement. Just your luck, troopers.”

  To my left, Captain Ving raised an armoured glove in the air as though we were in a classroom.

  “Yes, Captain?” Heinrich said, playing the role of patient teacher.

  “Are we expecting hostages down there, sir?” Ving asked.

  Ving was commanding officer of Phoenix Squad. His callsign was PHOENIXIAN, and he was an asshole. He currently held the record for the number of transitions across the Army Sim Ops Programme, and he also happened to be one of Heinrich’s favourites.

  Continuing the show, Heinrich gave a pantomime scowl. I suspected that Ving was a plant, that his question had been deliberately staged.

  “Good question,” Heinrich said. “The Black Spiral is holding the remaining station staff hostage, and has made certain demands as a condition of their release.” Heinrich paused, and let that sink in, before continuing: “Among the group are a number of Alliance military officers.”

  There were mutters from the sim squads, the rattle of weapons against armour. The force of Heinrich’s little speech might’ve been lost on me, but it had certainly had a stirring effect on some of the other veteran officers.

  “Which begs the question,” Riggs whispered over the comms channel, “who are these officers, and what exactly were they doing on a civilian outpost?”

  “Cut it out,” I said, glaring sideways at the corporal.

  “We don’t negotiate with terrorists,” Captain Heinrich said, jabbing his finger in the air to punctuate each word. “It’s not the Alliance way, and it sure as hell isn’t the Army way. So this operation is simple
. We drop to the station, and we secure it. Mission objectives have been uploaded to your suits.” He pressed his hands into the safety rail of the gantry, leaned over into the bay. “Priority objectives are to secure the Shard Gate, and get the hostages out alive. Any questions?”

  For a heart-stopping moment, I thought that one of the Jackals might have something to say, but to my relief they remained silent. Heinrich gave a self-satisfied nod from his ivory tower.

  “Good. I want this done smoothly, and I want this done fast. Get to it.”

  There was a wash of commands over the shared comms-net, but mostly I heard Zero’s voice: “Mission is a go. Lynx attack ships are ready for boarding.”

  Lynx ships sat in neat rows on the hangar’s apron—a half-dozen assault transports. Haunched and armoured, stubby wings deployed, their cargo ramps open. Each squad jogged to their assigned transport. The Jackals behind me, I hustled into the waiting crew cabin of LYNX 06, our ship for the operation.

  As I snapped the safety harness into place, my communicator chimed. PRIVATE COMM FROM CAPTAIN HEINRICH, the HUD said. I had no choice but to answer.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You’re a damned disgrace, Lieutenant,” Heinrich said, without preamble. “That outfit of yours is laughable.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said. It was difficult to argue with him on that one. “Understood.”

  “When you get back from this op,” he muttered, “I want to see you.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The comms link cut, and overhead the amber warning strobe turned green—indicating imminent drop. The Lynx’s cargo ramp slid shut, and we were sealed inside the hold.

  “Earth’s luck,” Zero said.