by J. L. Curtis
As they stepped out of the Hab, they saw the shuttle shifting back and forth on the descent, and Daman said, “What the hell?”
“Dodging beams. WO could bring it straight in since the shuttle is hardened, but why cause more problems than we already have. One of the reasons we picked the site as a landing spot. No beams in that direction.”
“Huh, didn’t realize that. I’m not a flyer, so I’ve never dealt with them.”
Fargo grinned ruefully, “Well, we did once, remember?”
“Oh, yeah. That…was ugly.”
The shuttle finally grounded to the south of the site, and the back ramp grounded slowly. Colonel Zhu, Master Chief Horschel, Chief Justicer Freeman, PLANSEC director Meecham, and prosecutor Park walked quickly down the ramp, followed by Nicole, carrying a data comp and vid recorder.
“Looks like we got the whole crowd. This is going to take a while.”
Daman growled, “Or they just want to see the blood and guts.”
“I don’t think so. Freeman and the female, Park, are with planetary justice shop. Meecham,” pointing to the heavyset man in uniform, “Is head of PLANSEC. I don’t know who the Master Chief is.”
Daman chuckled. “Horschel. I wondered whatever happened to him. He was Third Herd back in the day. Good troop, this must be his retirement tour.”
“Haven’t seen him around the Palace. Or at least not that I remember.”
“He’s not a spit and polish guy. He’s always been a field troop. He’s probably spending as much time as he can as far away from the Palace as he can.”
Fargo projected, “Nicole, anything from your review of the feeds? Any ideas? We’re in deep shit here.”
“I ran the analysis of the vids in slow motion. It looks as if the two shooters here, and the one at Feeder Two were attempting to shoot the sonics and disable them. It appears the rounds…bounced, for lack of a better word, right back at them and took them out, along with the others behind them and to either side. I’ve already turned over my analysis to GalPat, and I’m sure the colonel has it, or at least has been briefed. I also confirmed there were no rounds fired by our troops.
“Thank you! I love you!”
Nicole shook her head minutely, “Not now. Pay attention. Facts, not conjecture. Just facts.”
“Yes, dear.” He saw Nicole shake her head again, and huff out a breath, while covering a smile as Colonel Zhu walked up, closely followed by the others. Fargo and Daman snapped to attention, saluted, with Fargo saying, “Colonel. How would you like to proceed?”
Zhu returned the salute, “What in the hell happened here, Fargo?”
Fargo nodded to the others, “Sir, what we have here is a failed attempt to overrun the site. I believe the leaders attempted to breach the perimeter by shooting the sonics and disabling them. However that didn’t happen. Our people fired no rounds. The only round expended here was one round by me, against a sniper in an overwatch location in the village. Two people were in the location when I fired against it. Planet Security has that site secured. We did medical assists as soon as the sniper position was nullified, and evacuated the wounded to the Palace. As soon as your people got here, we pulled back into the site and have remained inside, with no further interaction with either the locals or the bodies. Two modified needle pistols have been identified and are marked with locator flags.” He pointed to the flag in the west, then the flag in the north. “We have not touched them, other than to verify they were safe. All that is on video.”
Colonel Zhu turned to Freeman, “Mr. Chief Justicer, how would you like to proceed?”
Freeman looked over to Mrs. Park. “Your recommendation?”
Park looked around, then turned to Fargo, “Did you detain any of the protesters?”
“No, ma’am. We were more concerned with the medical triage. There are only ten personnel at this site, and when I responded with Senior Sergeant Grayson, the medic, that only brought the count to twelve. By the time we had cleared the sniper, most of the protesters had dispersed.”
Freeman and Park stepped to the side, and Fargo reached out, brushing Park’s thoughts and picked up, “I’ve reviewed the videos. I need to go find the PLANSEC supervisor and see if they have anyone. If they don’t…then we need to take a hard look at them. These troops were set up, from what I’ve seen. And after the whole Perez thing, I’m wondering who is really running or trying to run this planet. This is another generation of Firsties causing trouble. With Smallwell in custody, and apparently Archer dead at Archer City…”
Freeman nodded. “I will stay here and keep them occupied. Send a couple of junior PLANSEC folks with scanners, and let’s see how many of these bodies we can identify.”
Freeman turned to the colonel, “Mrs. Park will make contact with the PLANSEC supervisor here, and detach personnel with scanners to see how many of the bodies we can identify in situ.” Pointing to Nicole, he continued, “I’d like to use the chief sergeant to record what we see and whom we identify. I have been impressed with her data analysis thus far.”
The colonel nodded. “Fine. I will accompany you, Master Chief, I’d like you to collect the data from the surveillance module, any maintenance data available, and data from the armor.”
Fargo noticed that Master Chief Horschel had a bag over his shoulder, as the master chief responded, “Yes, sir. I’ll get right on it.” He stepped forward and nodded to Fargo and Daman, “Lead on, gentlemen.”
Once they stepped into the surveillance module, the master chief’s attitude changed completely. “Warrant, haven’t seen you in a while. Heard you’d retired.” He glanced around the module, then at Fargo, “What’s a captain doing in charge of Ghorka? Or are you a figurehead?”
Fargo started to answer when Daman snapped, “He’s not a figurehead. He’s adopted into the clan. See the kukri? Ekavir leads by example.”
Horschel held up his hands, “Whoa! I didn’t mean…”
Fargo snapped, “Yes, you did, Master Chief. Don’t fucking play games with us. Yes, we’re militia, yes, we’re from off world, and yes, I’m the officer in charge. Now do your fucking job and do it without the lip. We didn’t kill anybody, well, I did, but that was a sniper. Daman, take care of this.” With that, Fargo stomped out of the module, obviously pissed.
Horschel looked at Daman, “What set him off?”
“You did. Marcus, you can be a truly stupid shit at times. Divide and conquer to try to get troops ratting one another out isn’t going to work here. And he’s not a poseur. He’s a combat Marine, Terran forces, one of six survivors of a clusterfuck where he brought the five enlisted suits to the evac point himself. Honestly, he’s crazier than a dune lizard. I’ve seen him kill things that were trying to kill him up close and personal, and never flinch. He’s also medically retired from GalScouts. He’s seen the nearelephant. Now sit your ass down and collect the data. Standard protocols are in effect.”
Horschel sat down and typed in a set of commands in the virtual keyboard, then looked up, surprised, “A full up multispectral surveillance unit? How the hell?”
Daman replied, “It’s a loaner from GalPat. Those five data cubes are the interviews and vid caps from all the suits while we were doing med triage. I don’t have all the armor vids, only the ones from the two suits here. You’ll have to ask the captain for his.”
“Gotcha.” He pulled the data from the system, filling three data cubes, and randomly checked the data. Looking at the data from the attack, he whistled, “What the fuck?”
Daman looked up, “What?”
“What kicked those rounds back at the shooters?”
Daman smiled. “Oh, that’s our little repulsor system.”
“Repulsor system?”
“You’ll have to talk to the Captain about that.”
Horschel quickly checked the other cubes and swept them into his bag, “Okay, open up the weapons locker and let me inventory it. Where’s the armor?”
Daman unlocked the weapons locker and stood back
as Horschel went through the pistols and rifles racked there, “Huh, little bean shooters? Where’s the real stuff?”
Daman sighed, “This was a security detachment, not a wartime detachment. And those little bean shooters will kill you as dead as anything else. Glass beads, five thousand FPS. Good to four hundred yards.”
“Well, you ain’t got any needle guns, so that’s good. Lock it up, now the armor?”
“Out back. I’ll show you.” Daman led him out between the Hab and maintenance modules to where Fargo’s armor knelt.
Horschel walked up to it, then stopped. Backing off, he walked around the armor, looking at it from all angles. “Um, this armor… It’s not GalPat standard. It’s…” Stepping up he leaned into the armor and punched the main power on, found the slot for the data cube and plugged it in. He said, “Authorized override, four, alpha, six, six, three, oscar.”
The AI said, “Override not authorized. Contact appropriate authority for approval.”
Horschel looked down at Daman, “Now what the fuck? Who’s appropriate authority?”
Daman smiled. “Well, I can guess it’s the captain. And no, this is not GalPat standard. It’s an advanced unit we’re testing.”
The master chief wilted, “Okay, I give. Go find the captain, please.” As Daman walked off, he mumbled under his breath, “How the hell did they get this stuff? And I still gotta find out what this repulsor module is…”
Fargo came around the corner, a bulb of coffee in his hand, “Yes, Master Chief?”
“Uh, sir, I need access to download your data from this morning. My override…”
“Didn’t work, did it? Master is on?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Cindy, override, both units, my approval. Download from zero seven to fourteen, today only.”
“But I need…”
Glad I had to come out here, otherwise I wouldn’t have thought about McDougal’s little toys. I need to have Jace get those plans to DePerez, and probably a patent for McDougal. At least this way, he’s protected, as long as I can get him to keep his mouth shut on anything other than the basics. “No, Master Chief, you only need today’s data. And as soon as you collect that, I need to take you over to the maintenance module to see a repulsor module. You will not be allowed to vid that, nor will you be allowed to provide any parameters in your report. That unit is also a prototype unit for GalPat, just like the armor and is restricted access under GalPat regulations.”
Horschel pulled the data cube out when the AI said the data was transferred, and he flipped the master switch off. Climbing down, he moved to the second set of armor and repeated the process. Finishing that, he swung down and said, “Whenever you’re ready, Captain.”
Fargo led the way to the maintenance module, stepping inside, “Senior Mac, the master chief needs to look at a repulsor module for his report.”
Mac nodded. “Yes, sir. Let me grab one.” He rummaged in a locker, the pulled out one of the modules, “Here you are, sir. Master Chief, if you have any questions?”
Horschel said, “Nope, no questions, Senior. That’s it?”
Fargo stepped in smoothly, “They connect much like the sonics do, with a little better spacing between the modules. They require a closed loop, just like the sonics, and ground to negative pole.”
Horschel backed up, “Okay, I need to see where they are emplaced.” He turned and stepped out of the module, with Daman following.
Fargo turned to McDougal, “Put it back, Mac, and stay low profile. People don’t need to know about your design, nor do I want anybody to get specifics of it. This is GalPat restricted, understood?”
“Yes, sir. Understood.” Fargo stepped out of the maintenance module, and McDougal flopped down on his stool, wiping a sleeve across his suddenly sweating brow.
Fargo and Daman stood watching as Master Chief Magar escorted Horschel around the perimeter. The colonel, Chief Justicer, Meecham, and Nicole had finished the northern group of bodies, and were now stepping carefully among bodies on the west side, following the two Planet Security men with scanners. “I wonder what they’re finding.”
Fargo glanced at him, “Not a clue. But I’m betting there will be a bunch of unregistered indentures or out of work people. That’s usually the kind drawn to free stuff. And I’d bet somebody was giving them free stuff to participate.”
Daman nodded. “That’s what Sonneburg turned out to be. Lots of proles out of the worker’s areas. Really poor.”
“And they fall for that shit every time, on every world.”
***
The sun had set and Eros was rising in the west before the final bodies had been scanned and counted, with Chief Justicer Freeman was looking the worse for wear. Mrs. Park had finally returned, scowling, and she and the chief justicer had returned to the shuttle by themselves. That doesn’t bode well, I wonder what she found, or maybe didn’t find? Fargo thought, as Colonel Zhu approached, Nicole and the master chief in tow.
“Fargo, your people are provisionally cleared. There are a number of issues that the prosecutor and chief justicer have to work on, and I’ve been notified your contract will not be extended.”
Fargo stiffened, “Not extended? For what reason?”
Zhu shrugged, then his temper flared, “I’m not really sure. All I got was a terse message from Director Vaughn, via Meecham. And he’s hot about the repulsor. He wants to know what the hell it is, and why he wasn’t notified. Also, master chief tells me your armor is non-standard. Is there anything else you want to tell me about? Like how somebody slipped a warrant for Smallwell through the GalPat system without my knowledge or how somebody, not anybody that works for me, suddenly became experts on surveillance and planetary databases?”
“Colonel, I can honestly say I do not have those answers, other than the armor and repulsor systems are test articles for GalPat, and thus restricted.”
“Then why the fuck is a militia, a deity damned militia doing testing on a backwater planet for GalPat,” he almost screamed.
Fargo smiled. “Colonel, think about it. I have one hundred retired Ghorka. All warrants, E-eights and E-nines. All of them are combat veterans, with an average service length of forty years. That is four thousand years of experience. And remember what Warrant Boykin told you?”
The colonel looked almost apoplectic, “Get back in your fucking perimeter and stay there. We’re releasing the bodies to their families. Their grieving families, thanks to you and your men.”
Colonel Zhu turned and stomped off toward the shuttle, not bothering to wait for Fargo to salute. Fargo cocked his head. “Well, we know where we stand now.”
Daman chuckled. “Yep, going home in fourteen and a wakeup!”
Winding Down
Boykin had finally come back at twenty-three to pick up Fargo and Grayson, who walked on board gratefully. Fargo climbed into the cockpit and slumped in the seat, and looked over at the Warrant, “Thanks for the pickup. I was beginning to wonder if I was going to have to spend the rest of the contract out here.”
Boykin grinned tiredly, “If they could figure out a way, probably. There was one hell of an argument on the way back between the colonel and the PLANSEC guy. The old guy finally had to step in to calm them down. Something about plots and missed or missing indentured and third gen Firsties. I didn’t catch all of it, since the mic is back by the ramp, but damn, they were going at it!”
Fargo smiled. “Good. I might have been less than forthcoming about our systems, and I used what you told him, whatever that code was, about not being able to talk about things like advanced armor or the repulsor modules.”
Boykin lifted off and set a course for Capital, leaned back and said, “That’s a good question. How are you going to handle that?”
“I’m lumping it in with the armor as test or prototype units. Gonna try to get McDougal a patent for it. The more I think about it, those damn things saved people’s lives, at least on our side, today. I think I have a way to get them into the GalPa
t system.”
Boykin smiled. “You know you turn that over to GalPat, it will disappear into the black hole, never to be seen again.”
“True, but if GalScouts also has a set of plans…”
“Oh… sneaky, very sneaky, Captain.”
“If we’d had something like this, I can think of at least ten or twelve scouts that would still be alive. Sonics doesn’t stop everything. Never have, never will, especially on some of the Exo planets we were scouting.”
Boykin busied herself with the comms with ORBCON and when she turned to ask Fargo a question, he was sound asleep. She smiled and turned back to flying the shuttle, humming softly to herself.
A div and a half later, she landed the shuttle softly at the spaceport, refueled and lifted again without ever waking Fargo up. Coming into the Palace on anti-grav, Fargo finally woke up, and she said, “We’re home, for this version of home.”
Fargo stretched, and chuckled. “Home is where the gear trunk is, right?”
“Pretty much. And we’re down.”
“Thanks again for coming to pick us up.”
“No problem, Captain. We live to serve.”
Fargo laughed, got up and eased down from the cockpit as Boykin finished the shutdown procedures. Kicking Grayson’s foot, he marveled once again at his ability to sleep in the contorted position he was in, and said, “You’re off until tomorrow at eighteen. I’m assuming you’re going to do your restocking tomorrow?”
Grayson yawned, “Nah, I’ll do it tonight. Sure as shit if I don’t, something will blow up on us.”
“Okay, and thanks again for your help today.”
“Just doin’ my job, Captain. Just doin’ my job.”
“Well, you did a good job. You saved lives today.”
Grayson shrugged and headed for the medical pallet stored on the forward bulkhead, as Fargo walked slowly down the ramp.