Merkiaari Wars Series: Books 1-3

by Mark E. Cooper

  “There must be kayaks for rent here,” Roberts mused. “Look there.”

  Kate nodded. She could make out a few sails way out on the lake. “Boats seem popular.”

  “Not boats—yachts.”

  “What’s the difference? They all float don’t they?”

  Roberts spun around indignantly. “You’re joking. What’s the difference between a hang glider and a space plane?”

  “Oh well, if you’re going to be silly about it,” Kate said a little huffily. Everyone knew the difference between a non-powered hang glider and a rocket motored space plane.

  “I’ll ask Gina if she wants to get wet,” Roberts mused. “There must be somewhere I can rent a couple of kayaks.”

  Kate grunted still smarting from Roberts’ comparisons. “I’ll give it a go if you agree to try hang gliding with me.”

  “Looking forward to it.”

  Roberts eased back on the throttle, and they coasted into the station. She powered down the train and then joined Kate and her squadmates as they trotted off excitedly in search of a restaurant that could pass Hiller’s fine eye for culinary excellence. They attracted a great deal of attention as they made their way toward the centre of the city. Pedestrians stopped to stare, and a good many interrupted their journeys to shake hands and chat. One elderly gentleman, who introduced himself simply as William, shook hands with Kate and enquired about her home.

  “I’m from Bethany, sir,” she said aware of the sudden silence that fell over the civs.

  “Bethany! Bless my soul that’s good to hear. So they finally saw sense, who would have thought it?”

  “No, sir. My people are still the same. I doubt they will ever change.”

  “Oh,” William said downcast. “That’s a shame. Still, you’re here Katherine. Might I ask where you and your friends are going?”

  Kate smiled. Her brother had always called her Katherine. “I don’t really know, sir. This is our first time in Petruso City. We were hoping to find a good restaurant.”

  William brightened at hearing that. “My dear, I have the perfect place for you. Sovereigns is the best place in the city. I guarantee you will enjoy the food and the surroundings.”

  Kate was unsure, but all the nodding heads convinced her. The civs all agreed that Sovereigns was the place. “Thank you, sir. We’ll try there then. I hope they have room for us.”

  “Oh, I don’t think you need to worry about reservations or anything,” William said in amusement. “Just drop in and you’ll be welcomed I’m sure.”

  The civs laughed at something, but Kate had no idea what it was about. William gave her directions and then left her to find Sovereigns.

  “What do you make of that?” Fuentez said.

  “Don’t know, but everyone seems very friendly,” Kate said.

  They were more than friendly; they were treating the recruits like celebrities. Kate was a little puzzled by all the excitement, and distrusted it. They should be used to vipers, but instead they seemed almost honoured to see them.

  Sovereigns turned out to be very busy. Kate doubted they would have room for two squads of boisterous recruits, but when the manager caught sight of their black uniforms, he erupted into a dervish of activity. He immediately ejected a sizable group of his patrons, taking no notice of the recruit’s protestations. It made them all uncomfortable to be the cause of such strife, but far from being unhappy, those being ejected seemed proud to give up their places.

  Fuentez went to investigate and came back with a rueful look on her face. “Francisco… that’s the manager. Francisco promised them two free meals.”

  That explained their willingness to leave, and incidentally made Kate and the others feel much better. While waiting for their table, she became conscious of the remaining diners craning their necks to see. She stood taller, trying not to make eye contact, and pulled her carefully folded beret through her belt. She was feeling very exposed under the eyes of so many strangers.

  The highly trained staff had things ready in no time, and Francisco himself led them proudly into his restaurant.

  Kate sat opposite Fuentez, with Cragg joining them to sit opposite Takeri. Two platoons nearly filled the restaurant. Eighty vipers had a large collective appetite and it wasn’t long before they were eating and enjoying themselves. Fuentez and Takeri chose a light soup to start, and Kate did the same.

  Fuentez raised her glass in a toast. “I give you The Regiment.”

  “The Regiment.”

  “The Regiment.”

  “The Regiment and General Burgton,” Kate said a little self-consciously.

  They all drank to that.

  They began tucking into the main course. Hiller sighed with pleasure at the table behind, and Kate grinned. He had chosen duck in orange sauce for his main course, and it tasted wonderful. Cragg winked, he had ordered the duck for both of them, and Kate ate it with gusto. It tasted so good after the plainer meals they ate on base.

  “You should try this, Gina,” she said. “It’s great.”

  “I do like duck, but I prefer my chicken.”

  Takeri shook her head. “Barbarians.”

  “We can’t all be vegetarians, Selin,” Cragg said.

  “Why not?”

  “Because… just because,” he said with a frown and Kate laughed.

  Francisco came back just as they were finishing the main course and asked if everything was satisfactory.

  Kate had just eaten the best meal of her life. “It was great! I mean… thank you Francisco. It was very nice.”

  Francisco smiled in polite amusement. “Great is good, I assure you. Are you ready for desert?”

  “I think so,” she said and the others nodded. “What would you recommend?”

  “Something simple I think. Our apple crumble with a dollop of vanilla ice cream.”

  “I’ll have that,” Kate said and the others murmured their agreement. “Thank you.”

  “You are most welcome,” Francisco said and a few moments later four deserts arrived. “Enjoy.”

  “Thanks.” She watched Francisco move to one of the other tables. “Seems like a nice man.”

  “Yeah,” Fuentez said. “And his ice-cream is superb.”

  Everyone laughed and tucked in.

  The last surprise came when it was time to leave. Fuentez politely asked a waitress where to pay, but the girl just smiled and said the bill had been taken care of. Not one to take charity, she wouldn’t leave it there. Kate and the others waited in reception while Fuentez sought out Francisco. When she came back, she had a puzzled frown on her face.

  “What’s wrong?” Cragg said.

  “He said the regiment would take care of the bill. When I said that I wanted to pay, he laughed and asked me if this was my first time off base.”

  “What did he mean by that?” Takeri said.

  “He said everything is free for vipers.”

  “Free, everything?”

  Fuentez nodded. “He said the regiment always covers the bills, and it’s not just here either. Francisco says anything we buy in Petruso is covered by the regiment.”

  “That doesn’t make sense,” Takeri said. “They would have told us… wouldn’t they?”

  They all looked at each other then sighed. “Roscoe.”

  “I knew that smirking basta—ah, I knew that smirking sergeant was up to something,” Kate said. “You said the regiment pays?”

  Fuentez nodded.

  “That means the General then.”

  “Must be, but your point is…?”

  “My point is that we had better not buy anything too extravagant.” Kate cringed as she imagined being called before Burgton to explain why she had bought the entire squad a hang glider each. “I don’t think the General would like that.”

  Cragg nodded. “Good point, but how do we know what’s too much?”

  “We’ll know our limit when someone gets in trouble with the General,” she said, but she would have a word with Stone when they
got back. He would know what was permissible.

  “Oh great,” Gordon said. “It will probably be me.”

  Fuentez laughed and punched Gordon playfully on the shoulder as they left the restaurant. First Squad separated from the others outside Sovereigns, and went in search of Smithson’s Armoury. They found it easily. There was no end of helpful people willing to stop and chat or offer directions. Perhaps twenty minutes of sightseeing saw them trooping through Smithson’s door intent on buying a few little extras.

  * * *

  17 ~ Activation

  Tech Centre, Petruso Base, Snakeholme

  Gina stood quietly in the padded room with her weapon hand pressed firmly into the palm shaped receptacle in the desk, and watched Doctor Patel study the data being displayed on his monitor. He was hunched over the desk on a level with the screen, and must have been uncomfortable, but he didn’t show it. Gina looked around the room, but apart from the desk and the padded walls, there was nothing he could use for a chair. She had heard about padded rooms before this, but she had never dreamed she would become the occupant of one. Patel typed a command into the recessed keyboard in the desktop, and nodded approvingly when fresh results appeared. Gina tried to guess what he was thinking by watching his expression, but it wasn’t working. Patel was her judge and jury. As head of Medical, he had to sign off on her fitness for graduation.

  “Try to remain absolutely still, Recruit.”

  Gina turned back to watch him, and tried not to fidget. She had worked toward this for months, but now the waiting was over, and she found herself almost floating off the floor in anticipation. Any second now she would become a viper in full measure. She watched Patel intently as he reviewed the data so recently downloaded from her permanent memory. She had no idea what the individual bytes of data meant, but there was an awful lot of it. Could he actually read real memories from just a bunch of numbers? Was he seeing images in place of those figures?

  “Sir?”

  “Hmmm?” Patel said, still concentrating on the data dump. “You have a question, Recruit?”

  “I was just wondering… I mean if you don’t mind telling me…”

  “Out with it, Recruit. I’m a little busy here.”

  “Sorry, sir,” she said and bulled ahead. “I was wondering if you can actually decipher the data dump.”

  Patel smiled, and he looked up at her. “Can I see everything you did since day one of enhancement?”

  “Well… yes, sir.”

  “Of course I can.”

  She gaped. “You can?”

  Patel smiled. “Certainly. Think it through, Recruit. How would it be possible for a viper unit to download an experience into the simulators for others to use, if I couldn’t do something similar here?”

  Gina frowned. She knew about downloading recon data from her lessons in the classroom, but she hadn’t thought to apply the knowledge here. She was annoyed with herself. She shouldn’t need to be told to think problems through. She should have remembered her lesson and applied it.

  “Don’t worry, I’m far more interested in your system parameters, than I am in your expertise at climbing or canoing.” Patel pointed at the lines of data currently displayed on the monitor. “You should have worn a life preserver. Your enhancement doesn’t mean you can’t drown.”

  Gina smiled sheepishly.

  “Don’t feel too bad, Recruit. This sort of thing does take getting used to.”

  It did, but now she was thinking, she realised something else. “This is how the archives were created.”

  Patel nodded solemnly. “We never truly die, Recruit. Our memories live on in the archive. We mourn our dead, but we especially mourn those that were unrecoverable. We honour their memory.”

  Gina shivered. In this instance, unrecoverable meant they had been damaged so thoroughly, their core memories and processors were beyond recovery. She didn’t know how many vipers were missing in action—she hoped it was none, but she doubted it.

  “Now then,” Patel said turning back to his work.

  Patel placed his weapon hand in the second palm-shaped recess, and began typing rapidly. A viper’s neural interface was much faster than using keyboards, but they only used them to access Snakeholme’s Infonet or the regiment’s TacNet. He typed another command, and nodded in satisfaction at what he read.

  “This is the last time we will need to do this, Recruit. This session will activate all of your cybernetic enhancements, and put them under your control. I’m requiring you to be still for the same reason this room is so heavily padded. Accidents will happen, they always do. Your servo assisted musculature is currently set at unenhanced, but in a moment you will be at full combat readiness.”

  “Do I need to be aware of any special problems?”

  “Not special, no, but you will feel different. Powerful, very light on your feet. Both of those sensations have been reported to us time and again. My own enhancement was particularly embarrassing as I recall.” Patel shrugged. “In any event, there is only one rule: Move slowly and deliberately. You will soon see why. I will initiate your systems now, but don’t move until I’ve left the room. When you feel confident enough to move safely, you may return to your squad.”

  Patel tapped in his commands, and moved to the door. Gina realised what he meant the moment he hit the enter key. Gravity seemed to have diminished to a point where it barely held her to the floor. She didn’t move as Patel opened the door, but called a question.

  “Sir?”

  “What is it?”

  “You initialised everything via the link, can a bad guy do the opposite?”

  “No,” Patel said firmly. “Contrary to the popular myths about us and the danger we pose to the Alliance, no one has ever successfully hacked a viper’s systems. Not even Walden himself could control one of us. Your internal security prevents tampering; even I can’t do it without the consent of your processor. Only you can order it to allow access now that all your systems are online.”

  Gina shivered at the mention of the hated Douglas Walden. What would it be like to have a hacker trying to get into her mind? She shuddered as her imagination supplied all kinds of nasty scenarios. Anyone who tried to hack her systems wouldn’t live long. She would see to that.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Patel regarded her for a long moment. “You’re the first recruit to ask that question, Fuentez. I’m impressed.”

  “Impressed?”

  “At the depth of your paranoia,” Patel said and left.

  It wasn’t paranoia. She merely wanted to be sure of her body’s abilities. If someone could turn those off, she couldn’t be sure of anything. With Patel’s warnings in the forefront of her mind, she tried to take a step.

  “Yeee aaah!” she yelled in startlement as her single step hurled her across the room to slam into the padded wall.

  She shook her head at her own stupidity. Patel had told her to be careful. She turned on the spot until she was facing back the way she had come. With Patel’s admonitions in mind, she took another step and flew across the room as if someone had turned off the planet’s gravity. She landed with her leg striking the desk. She rubbed her thigh; there was sure to be a bruise tomorrow.

  “Dammit,” Gina hissed, and thumped the desk in frustration.

  CRUUNCH!

  “Oh shit.” She stared at the broken corner, and then guiltily at the door before trying to pull the padding over the damage.

  SHRRRTTT!

  “Damn,” she mumbled with a long length of padding dangling in her hand.

  * * *

  “Ha, ha, Haaaa!” Stone howled in laughter. “That was a classic. Did you see her face?”

  Flowers smiled, but there was a serious side to this. Up until now the recruits had used their systems in various ways, but they hadn’t lived with them every moment of every day. Before each session, the recruits would have the necessary system activated, and at the end, deactivated. It was a safety precaution, but now it was time to become
vipers in full.

  “She doesn’t seem too upset,” he said.

  “Nah, Fuentez can handle it.”

  “I tell you, Ken, I’m worried.”

  “Why?” Stone said in surprise. “Everything has gone as smooth as can be.”

  “That’s what worries me. Only nineteen scrapped out of two hundred and twenty… I don’t like it.”

  “Pardon me, sir, but that’s good!”

  “Don’t get me wrong. I’ll be pleased if we don’t have any more washouts. What worries me is that we might have a bunch like Robbins here.”

  Stone went quiet at the mention of Robbins.

  Robbins had been the best of them, a natural leader and looked it. Everyone gravitated toward him and wanted to be in his squad. Then one day he ran off base at full speed. He had snapped. It took a full squad of ten units to track him down, and take him out.

  Flowers squeezed his eyes shut trying to shut out the memory, but his processor insisted on finding and displaying it.

  Robbins was down. One leg was shot away, but still his weapon hand came up holding his pulser.

  “Please don’t,” Flowers said to his friend. “Don’t do it. I don’t want to kill you.”

  Nothing he said made any difference. Robbins was no longer in there; instead, the machine his friend had feared he would become looked out of his eyes.

  Flowers snatched his pistol in a servo-assisted blur and blew his best friend’s head off.

  “Sir?” Stone said.

  “What is it?”

  Stone looked at him for a long moment, perhaps guessing what had been going through his mind. “She seems to have figured out her own method.”

  He turned his attention to the monitor and laughed. “Full bore. I like her style.”

  * * *

  Gina muttered to herself then cursed her stupidity. Her strength was so distracting, she had ignored her other abilities. Using her sensors and range finder, she noted the dimensions of the room. With her back near the wall she leapt…

  …and landed to slap the opposite wall with her outstretched palms. She did that a few times pushing off with less power each time. Gradually she learned how much was necessary for the desired effect. In the end she found a small hop forward took less than a tenth of the effort she would have used while unenhanced. Knowing how much stronger she was, she tried walking and found she could do it if she concentrated on keeping her movements small and economical. Wandering around the room gave her greater confidence, and perhaps twenty minutes later, she decided she was ready to leave.