by Chris Hechtl
“Why the hell didn't someone tell me about this before?” Jornel demanded.
“You'll have to ask the officers involved about that,” she said in a mock sweet voice. “We can't transmit the intel he gathered through the ansible network, but a copy has gone out to the intelligence services as well as to Admiral Irons.”
“Well, I've got some digging to do, some movies to watch, and some people to yell at,” Jornel said. “Thanks for giving me more work to do,” he said dryly.
“You're always complaining about being overworked and underpaid. Since I haven't heard the gripe in a couple of days, I figured you were bored and laying low.”
“Not anymore,” he growled. “Thanks,” he drawled.
“You're welcome,” she replied with a grin.
The lieutenant watched the recording on fast forward. There were some parts that turned his stomach; the cat was one viscous fighter. He was shocked that something in the cat's armor uploaded viruses to the ship's network. He frowned as his pause and wondered if he should be looking at the video at all. Could that be why he hadn't heard about it? He checked … it was classified, but he had the necessary clearances to access it. No, that wasn't it. He breathed a sigh of relief. He had wondered in the back of his mind if Jojo had done him any favors that were about to bite him in the ass.
He made notes, then plugged the video into a simulation, following the gunny's path. The fatalities he inflicted were noted as well as the damage. He also took note of the enemy hardware. He'd have to pass that on to some engineering experts to tell him more he thought.
When he was finished, he decided to call it a day. He had calls to make in the morning.
<(>~^~<(>
The next morning Jethro's implants pinged. He had a call from orbit. Apparently from an officer, so he quickly finished up with his time in the head and then got dressed. When the ping came through a second time he answered it.
“Yes, sir?” he asked cautiously. He noticed those around him in the troop bay looking curiously his way, but he waved their concern away.
“Gunnery Sergeant McClintock, this is Lieutenant Jornel. I'm the JAG and intel officer assigned to TF 22.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I've been a bit lax in going over the details of the engagement in Kathy's World it seems. I just got around to viewing your report as well as your footage. I'd like more details if you can spare the time.”
“I've got a half hour before breakfast, sir. I was going to go chow, but I can skip it. What do you want to know? It's all in my report, sir.”
“Well, let's start back at the beginning Gunny. You volunteered for the mission?”
“No sir. I was ordered to go.”
“By …”
“Lieutenant Queen passed on the order, sir. It was a Hail Mary. I assume the chain of command above her ordered it.”
“They didn't mention it in their reports, which I found odd. So this was an authorized mission?”
“Yes, sir. You can get confirmation of that from Lieutenant Chiang who is here on the planet or speak with Major White Wolf who read the report.”
“I'll do both. Thank you for pointing them out. Still, I only have their word for it; I don't have anything direct from Lieutenant Queen. She's not here.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Okay, so, you used your rocket pack to get over to the hostile ship. You evaded their sensors how?”
“Classified, sir,” Jethro said instantly when Bast blinked the word on his HUD. “Sir, my implants are warning me I am straying into matters I shouldn't,” he warned.
“I see. Well, you are in a public place I take it?”
“Something to that effect, sir,” Jethro said, looking around him uncomfortably.
“Well, I want all of the details, so repeat the story from your perspective,” the lieutenant ordered.
Jethro inhaled, then exhaled slowly. It was going to be one of those days he thought in the corner of his mind as he thought back to the incident.
“Yes, sir. As I was saying, I managed to get within reach of the ship. I used my armor and a pair of modified grav jacks to get through the shield.”
“Who authorized their use?”
“I was told to take what I need to get the job done, sir,” he stated.
“And who modified them?”
“Classified, sir,” Jethro said before Bast could object.
“I see we need to have this discussion in person,” the lieutenant harrumphed. “I'll need you to come up here to the flagship on the next available shuttle, Gunny.”
“Sir, I have a duty here to perform and a leadership role to continue with the Marines, the recruits, and the militia. We're starting to train some of them, and the Major has me heavily scheduled for the foreseeable future.”
“Well, I can't come to you.”
“Incoming! Take cover! We have artillery incoming! Defensive systems active!” A voice said over the intercom and over his implants.
“What was that?” the lieutenant demanded as Jethro motioned for the troops to get under cover. The concrete building shook. He turned to look out the narrow slit of a window to see mortar rounds arching in. The first had been unexpected, but the others were engaged by the lasers and Marine defensive systems. Now that surprise had been lost the window had closed on getting anything in to do damage. The only way to get past the defenses was with a saturation bombardment.
“Sir, the base is under attack,” Jethro said, watching as the sky lit up with explosions. His eyes scanned the heavens; he couldn't see the Marine defensive fire without Bast's and his sensor's help, but he could see the damage. The rain wasn't bad; everyone was under cover. But the three rounds that had hit had cratered a part of the vehicle park and the center quad.
“Stay inside. Get me a report on that attack. Someone backtrack that fire and call in a strike. Alert the teams in the area to that position now,” Jethro ordered, voice dropping into a stern command tone.
The Jag officer was surprised by the attack and realized as he heard the panther passing on orders that he was a distraction. “We're both very busy so get back to work, Gunny.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Stay alive. I've got more questions for you.”
“I was afraid you'd say that,” Jethro exhaled slowly as the building shook and dust flew. Apparently a round had gotten through the best the defenses had after all. He looked around as the link cut. “All the same to him I'd rather stay here and get shelled then deal with that crap any longer,” he said. Bast looked down her virtual nose in disapproval. He grunted when he saw a familiar icon on his HUD. His armor approached and then stopped and opened up.
“Yeah yeah, I'm going,” Jethro muttered as he climbed in.
<(>~^~<(>
The computers and radar arrays immediately localized the artillery strike and sent in drones to confirm it while the defenses did their best to cut down the incoming fire. Since it was unpowered on the downward fall, it was harder to track. Some of the rounds were dummies; others had explosives enshrouded with ceramic or plastic to make them harder to target.
Two armed drones circled and then hit the mortar sites that were still packing their gear before they ran. Two other mortar sites had been abandoned, one closest to the base had been a dummy.
The drones hit any human running from the area as well. “I want some alive. They may lead us back to their nest,” Moira ordered.
It wasn't that simple however. When they tried to capture some of the artillerymen with stunners, snipers cut their own people down. The drones and fast reaction squad went after the snipers only to see a few suicide and one other get taken out in a fire fight.
Jethro used his armor to try to sneak up on the fourth sniper but the slowly lifting fog in the area clouding the hillside gave him away. The sniper panic fired at the ghostly apparition. Bast snapped off a return fire that tore the human apart.
“They had a blind set up. They cut their own people down to prevent capture. Rut
hless as usual,” Lieutenant Chaing observed when it was all over but the cleanup. He winced when he saw a medic treating another medic.
“Well, I guess we can't have it all our way forever. The enemy is starting to take the fight to us again. We'll have to be on guard.”
“Or we could take the fight to them, ma'am,” Captain Lyon said hopefully.
“I don't like how they got in so close like that. They slipped right through a hole in our net,” Moira mused.
The captain nodded grudgingly. “That they knew it was there speaks about the level of surveillance they have on us.”
“True.”
Chapter 32
Sabu checked in with the squad. They'd bunked in at Baker for the night after escorting a convoy of parts in. They were supposed to go out in the morning with returning supplies. Baker had been battered but was undefeated. Robots were already hard at work repairing the damage. The pits had been filled in, and the damaged equipment had been stripped of usable parts and then fed into the recyclers.
Too bad getting the injured and dead back like that wasn't possible he mused, watching his troops get up before reveille. They had a long day ahead of them, but they rarely complained about it or the workload. Every day it seemed like there was something else to do, but it also seemed like they were making glacial progress in the fight against the barbarians as well as in restoring civilization to the masses.
He knew he wasn't the only Neo to become increasingly uncomfortable and unhappy that the humans had taken over a lot of the city, filling in for the void where the aliens and Neos used to be. Many of the refugees were also humans. Any aliens or Neos who came into the city were directed to the ghetto. The cops and locals harassed anyone who settled in the vacant buildings, even if they belonged there.
Some settled into the ghetto, feeling hopeless all over again. They soured even when the Marines came calling. Others defiantly settled near the firebases despite the danger from the pirates. The recent shelling had terrified many, but they didn't run as many Marines had expected, just hunkered down under whatever coverage they could find. The seeming safety and salvation of the Federation was their only protection. Fortunately, the bases had adequate active defenses to cover the area.
There weren't any utilities, no sewer lines, water, nothing. Yet they stayed there in the camps. They occasionally lined the roads looking for work or a handout. At least they wanted to do something he thought.
Some had gotten enough of their backbone back to join in with the militia. They ignored the crap that the veterans spouted and actually listened to the Marines. Some were timid, only good for support personnel, but others were vicious fighters.
Some dragged stuff into the slums daily to make them better. They were always looking for handouts. From what he had heard, the Major had set up some sort of food distribution set up with drones watching over it all.
The humans on the planet though … they bothered him. They didn't treat others well, ignoring those in need. The ones with the most money and power seemed ungrateful about the liberation, which bothered him even more. He had learned a little more about the history of the planet, including some of the human distrust of Neos over the past couple of days, but it still didn't make a lot of sense.
“What are we going to do with them?” Chavez asked, nodding his head to the people outside the wall. “They are in the perimeter ….”
Sabu flicked his ears. The pressure from the slums had pushed them closer and closer to the firebases. There was still a dozen meters of space but the fire lanes were gone. “I know.”
“And the humans ….”
“It's not just about the humans really,” Sabu stated slowly. “Or not all their fault. I've gotten some intel when we went to that library. Done some reading.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. Apparently there is, or was, an island here on this planet. Emerald Island. It was settled by a corporation, one of the megacorps that bought up the colony's debt and screwed them over back in the day.”
“Something tells me I'm not going to like this story,” Chavez said warily.
“Heh, it'll get interesting, trust me,” Sabu said. “Apparently the CEO created some sort of city there, The Emerald City, and planned to retire there. It was all glittery and golden, pretty. He was some sort of genius engineer and programmer. His wife was a genetic engineer. When they came to the planet, they brought with them her three sisters.”
“And lived happily ever after in some sort of human orgy?”
“Who said they were human?” Chirup asked.
Chavez flicked his ears.
“They were human and quit interrupting for a minute,” Sabu scolded as the other Marines hunkered down to listen. “Apparently they set up some sort of nutty religion or something. Shut everyone else out. The family had a falling out and two of the sisters left. The other two stayed at the lab and kept working on their super-secret projects.”
“It all came to a head when a little red haired teenager and her Neoterrier crash-landed during a bad storm on the outskirts of the island. She made friends with a Neolion and an industrial robot. They made their way to the city to call for help and extraction. But apparently when the young lady had crashed, she'd inadvertently killed the favorite sister of Mrs. Oz. She flipped her wig in grief; apparently her husband had recently died and she bottled all that grief and rage up and directed it at the girl and her companions.”
“I'm suddenly not liking this story,” Chirup said.
“Heh. Apparently she had killed her husband in a fit of jealousy, thinking he had cheated on her with one of her exiled sisters. When it had been proven wrong, she'd gone into deeper grief. But the engineer had backed himself up by uploading a copy of his mind to the city's computer network.”
“Another A.I.?”
“Yes. He saw what his wife was doing and her persecution of the girl Dorothy and her companions, so he directed a Vesuvian friend in a Ynari plant droid to help them. Glinda, the youngest sister of the quartet tried to help as well. Anyway, apparently the group got pissed when the gothic … I did mention the elder Mrs. Oz was Goth, right? Her and her sister? Big into black and even more for mourning. Anyway, she unleashed her secret weapon, an army of flying armored monkeys.”
“Seriously?” Chavez asked, chuffing.
“Not kidding. Neobaboons, vicious. In powered combat armor that Oz had constructed. They were supposed to be a security force to protect him and the island.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. They wreaked havoc on the island and the surrounding area. The A.I. Oz directed Dorothy and her team to get into his lab and shut them down.”
“How?”
“They snuck in through a secret exit he'd made but never told his wife about.”
“Oh.”
“Anyway, they got in, shut the monkeys down, and they just dropped out of the sky. But Mrs. Oz went after them and nearly killed them until Dorothy threw a bucket of acid into her face. She melted right in front of them.”
“Horrible. But she deserved it.”
“Did she? I don't know. She was off her rocker; that was for sure. And she'd killed a lot of people or at least her cyborg troops had. So, maybe. But that's why people here aren't thrilled about Neos. It's been ingrained in them, and they hold one hell of a grudge.”
“Yeah,” Jethro murmured. He nodded slowly.
“Huh. Learn something new every day I guess,” Chirup said. “Not that ancient history matters now,” he said, cleaning his shoulder with long licks.
“Yeah,” a few Marines murmured in agreement.
“One thing though, something they failed to point out.”
“Oh? What's that?”
“There were Neos on either side of that conflict. But the humans here focused on the damn monkeys exclusively. That and the human heroine. They conveniently forget an insane human was behind it all. And it was her husband who created the damn monkeys and their armor.”
“An android, human girl,
Vesuvian in a Ynari plant droid construct, and two Neos,” Jethro said shaking his head. “What a team. With, oh yeah, a little help from the slightly insane A.I. neural download of the idiot scientist who created the mess. But it was the Neos who did a lot of the grunt work, for precious little credit,” he said sourly.
Chavez flicked his ears then cocked his head quizzically. When he caught on, he nodded slowly. “Right, the terrier and the Neolion, right?”
“Yeah. Against the flying monkeys. Who would do that?”
“Baboons really.”
“Okay, Baboons. Still stupid.”
“Augmented cyborg Neobaboons in flying powered armor against five people. Classic asymmetrical warfare,” Chavez said.
“Now you're being a kiss ass. Quoting the book,” Sabu teased. The husky/malamute mix just stuck his tongue out at him.
“Quit that. I don't swing your way. Now, about that story … I wonder how true it is.”
The husky flicked his ears. “Why?”
“I was wondering if the Horathians are after the armor. One of their objectives. They are always after loot, remember?”
“So? They can't use it right?”
“No, not without rebuilding it. But some of us might …,” the cat waved to the others around them.
Jethro frowned then nodded. “Bast?” He murmured under his breath. She pulled up the files she had. Most of it was from the planet's media. All of it was recent talk, apparently the Horathians had indeed been looking for the island.
According to the report, they had been about to mount an expedition to the island when the Federation forces had arrived.”
“That story is from way back before the Xeno war! No way that stuff is still around,” Chirrup scoffed.
“You know that. I know that. But do they? More importantly can they take a chance?” Again the husky cocked his head at Sabu. Sabu flicked his ears. “I'm going to suggest to the boss lady that we use it somehow. A possible trap.” He turned a look on Jethro.
“Ah. Now you're talking …” the husky replied, nodding eagerly.
“I'll talk to the Major. No promises,” Jethro said. “And ask our local intel experts. The thing that gets me is that they didn't mention it. Nor did the enemy get to the island. That in itself is odd. And the natives just abandoned it? Left it alone?”