by O. J. Lowe
And we’re about to walk straight into it. It had already claimed one Unisco team and they were about to feed another to it.
This time would be different though, he hoped. For starters, they were forewarned that there was a very real danger there… Or maybe comms just didn’t work that far into the Green. Maybe they’d meet the other team on the way… It was good to hope.
“Our objectives are twofold,” King continued. “One, we are to investigate the site and discover any possible intelligence in relation to what caused it and how we can stop it. More to the point, the exact nature of the link to Claudia Coppinger. Two, we are to search out any evidence for what happened to our previous team if we can.”
The two of them weren’t alone for the briefing, a third man had joined them who was also going on the mission, a wiry figure with brown hair and a scar on his cheek who’d introduced himself as Ben Reeves and then sat down to listen to King. Wilsin didn’t know who he was, only that it was likely he wasn’t a Unisco agent. They carried a certain bearing, he hadn’t noticed it until Nwakili had pointed it out to him during a conversation some months ago, but there it was. Just because you didn’t notice something didn’t mean that it wasn’t there. Something worth remembering about the job in general. Anyway, whatever the bearing, Reeves didn’t have it.
Wilsin suspected he was a Vedo. Now that he found interesting, not just that King felt the need to bring one on the mission but that he’d been able to coax one into coming along in the first place. There were only a limited number of them working with Unisco, there’d been twelve at the start and a few more had graduated into it. Still to get them trained up to an acceptable level for the higher command to accept them going into the field… It all took time. Granted they all seemed sound people and you’d want them at your back, but something about it didn’t just sit right with him.
It wasn’t that he didn’t trust them. After all Ruud Baxter, their leader, was a legend. If he said they were okay, then chances were that they were okay. It was just… He didn’t know. His instincts told him to be worried. He couldn’t entirely trust what he couldn’t understand. That they commanded a mystical power was something he’d been told before, he hadn’t been at the moment when they had revealed themselves. Those who had been in the stadium on Carcaradis Island spoke of them with reverence, of their glowing swords and their superhuman abilities in the same way the public spoke of great spirit callers.
“We are going to enter Vazara as part of a research team that is going in to examine the Green,” King said. Wilsin knew he held a position as part-time lecturer at the University of Bacar, managing to balance the two roles in his life. Rumour had it he was spending less time at the university these days what with the Coppinger crisis. He wondered if that was the source of King’s newly whitened hair.
“Our third role is to protect the team on their journey through. We cannot reveal our true identities to them. Although we will be armed, we cannot admit ourselves to be linked in any way to Unisco. If we do, we will not be allowed to leave the kingdom. Mazoud has made that very clear. Leave your X7’s at home, alternate weapons will be provided. Agent Wilsin, you’re joining the team on the proviso that you’re looking for spirits in the Green. Mr Reeves, your background in xenobiology gives you an excuse to be there.”
Reeves shrugged his shoulders at Wilsin. “Hey, I didn’t always wave a sword made of light around. All of us had something before this, y’know.”
“Understood,” Wilsin said. “Brendan, I’m with you. It’s good that someone’s pushed for this to happen. I’m worried about that jungle.”
“We’re all worried about the Green, David. It can’t be controlled, and it looks out of control. There’s no rhyme or reason to it and that terrifies me almost as much as what might happen if Claudia Coppinger wins this war. Because make no mistake about this whole situation. It is war.”
That brought up an uncomfortable silence for a few moments before Reeves broke it with a cough. “No pressure then, wouldn’t you say?”
“Sounds simple enough,” Wilsin said. “The assignment. Be good to get back out there.” He folded his arms and leaned back in his seat. “When do we get underway.”
“The Green covers some several hundred miles currently,” Reeves said. “Might be a long walk.”
“I’m not in a hurry for anything else,” Wilsin said, shrugging at him. “Are you?”
“One more thing…”
Ross Navarro entered the room at King’s word, a large steel container crate in his arms. He looked like he was wincing under the effort of moving it, the silver box almost the size of his entire upper body and it looked heavy by the way his muscles were taut with the stress.
“Hey, guess what time it is?” he said. “It’s new equipment time.”
Privately, Wilsin loved this point of the mission. The bit just before when they came around with any sort of equipment that they thought might be needed. Of course, it was the first time he’d experienced it under Navarro. Most of the times he’d gone through it, it had been Alvin Noorland. On the big ones anyway. Navarro was still an unknown quantity to him. He had a good history, a meteoric ascent into his position. Even if there were some who said it had only been a gift from Arnholt because he’d spent weeks in Coppinger captivity, something to placate him.
“Ross,” Reeves said amicably. “How’s it going.”
“Great, thanks Ben. Should see some of the stuff we’ve got cooking up, it’s going to be bloody exceptional. Hey, how’s Alex? Not seen her for a while?”
“She’s good. Really taking to the training. Master Baxter thinks she has great potential.”
“Always knew there was something special about that girl,” Navarro said. “Should have seen the way she flew. No fear.”
“I’ve never felt that the absence of fear is a good thing,” Wilsin said thoughtfully as Navarro set down the case and started to open it up. “If anything, more the reverse.”
Navarro ignored him as he slid the case open and propped the lid up, clearing his throat. “Okay, so since Chief King requested that you leave the X7’s at home… They’re so associated with us right now that it might not be best to advertise their presence.”
“I’m curious about something,” Reeves said. “If you take weapons into Vazara, even if you have the proper permits, you’re going to attract attention, right? They’re going to know you have them. So why not go in with nothing and just buy some when you get there. There’s got to be a dozen people selling blasters on the quiet in any Vazaran city. That way they don’t know you have them.”
“It’s not about secrecy,” King said. “We want them to know we have them. We’re not there for insurrection, rather in the name of science on the surface. Going into the Green, we have a right to be able to protect ourselves. We start buying up blasters on the quiet and they do search us, we can’t tell them where we got them and why we have them when we do, it’s not going to look particularly good. At least taking them in, we know they know about them.”
“Sorry, I’ve never smuggled weapons into a hostile kingdom before,” Reeves said, more than just a hint of sarcasm in his voice. A Unisco agent would never have gotten away with talking to King like that but here he didn’t reply.
Wilsin ignored them both, walked around to look over Navarro’s shoulder into the case. Inside, it had been split into three sections, one of them lined with blasters of varying sizes. He studied each of them for several seconds, pursing his lips before pulling up a huge blaster pistol with a swing-out power pack.
“Ooh good choice,” Navarro said, watching as Wilsin looked down the sight. “Tebbit T6. Very potent. Six shots but it’s capable of punching a hole through anything short of a hovertank. Lot of stopping power. A lot heavier than the X7, that, so I’d practice with it first if you want it.”
Wilsin hefted its weight in his palm for a few seconds, considering it. He reached into his holster, removed his X7 and replaced it with the Tebbit. He could feel t
he difference in weight as it tugged at his belt, but it wouldn’t be an insurmountable problem.
“You know what, I’ll take it,” he said. “Take that and ten power packs of charge. Might need it all. Looks like the sort of blaster someone like me might take into a hostile environment. Massive. Over the top. Ostentatious.”
Brendan King went next, taking a Featherstone 54SF with fifteen shot pack. It was not a weapon Nick Roper would have approved of, Wilsin noted with a smirk. He famously didn’t rate Featherstone products. When he was offered a blaster, Reeves shook his head and tapped the cylinder at his belt.
“I got this,” he said. “It’s all I need.”
“Take a blaster, Mr Reeves,” King said. “You start waving that thing around if things get tetchy, it’s going to draw a lot of attention down on us. I’d rather you have it and not need it.”
Reluctantly, Reeves did, picking out a Bellario-4 and pocketing it, a small blaster pistol and not especially effective over any sort of range but Wilsin knew it’d do the job up close.
“I’ll sort you a holster out,” Navarro said. “Okay, so as for your other equipment, we’ve thrown positioning systems into the mix, portable for minimum effort in transport. If you get lost, and there’s a good chance of it given it’s a jungle out there, it’ll keep track. We’ll key in your muffler chips as well to ensure that you don’t lose track of each other… Ben, I’ll sort you something else out.”
Since he wasn’t technically a Unisco agent, Reeves wouldn’t be bearing the chip in his face that made the muffler technology work to obscure identities. We’ve thrown in three lukonium machetes, should let you get through the toughest terrain. Ropes, medical supplies, even a grappling gun. There’s three sets of hand scanners, in the absence of a proper spectrometer…”
“What’s our time frame?” Wilsin asked. “I mean, what’s a reasonable time to expect getting to the target zone?”
“Hopefully weeks rather than months,” King said. “Getting back will be easier.”
“It will,” Navarro said. “We’re putting together a positioning beacon for you. If at any point, you need extraction then activate it. It’ll send a signal to us, we’ll send an extraction in to pick you up. They’ll be with you as quickly as they can. Get in as legally as they can manage, pick you up, get out.”
“Well that’ll be an experience,” Wilsin commented dryly. He couldn’t see how this might possibly go wrong. It sounded sarcastic even in his head.
“I’ll be in charge of the beacon, Agent Wilsin,” King said. “It stays with me.”
“Your packs will also contain water purification tablets, a lot of them. That’s one thing that you won’t have trouble finding in Vazara now.” Navarro laughed as he said it. “Ironic really, huh?”
“Looks like things are all in order here,” King said. “You’ve done well, Chief Navarro.”
“Hey, it’s my job.” Still Navarro did sound pleased. Praise from Brendan King was praise indeed. “We’ll arrange for food as well to be picked up when you get there. We still do have some contacts in Vazara. People loyal to what was before, rather than what it’s become.”
“All sounds good to me,” Wilsin said. “When do we get this show on the road then?”
Chapter Six. Sore Points.
“There’ll always be criminals. With great opportunity comes great risk and when we live in a time of prosperity, there’ll always be those who put their minds to try and get there a little faster, a lot easier than working for it. There will always be men and women like this, from Regan Community Enterprises to the Montella Family to the assassins, Kenzo Fojila. They’ll see an opportunity. They’ll find a void and move to fill it. That’s what they do. It is their nature. They will always exist. And fortunately, so will we to combat them wherever they may go.”
Unisco Criminology Professor Rita Melane’s opening lecture to students at the Iaku academy.
Some months back.
“Again.”
Theo grit his teeth and braced himself, dug his feet into the mat and met the eyes of his opponent. This wasn’t much of a contest on the efforts of either of them. Neither of them knew enough to truly hurt each other deliberately.
That just left the potential for accidents. He didn’t like that idea, although if he didn’t want to risk getting hurt, he probably shouldn’t be here. He’d never been in fights before this, at least not ones on even footing. The guy they’d pitted him against didn’t look much more competent. He’d been told that he’d been at the Quin-C although Theo didn’t remember him, which admittedly meant nothing. He didn’t remember most of the cannon fodder who’d made up the earlier rounds.
“Today!” Khazeer said abruptly. It was voice of a man who didn’t want to have to repeat himself.
Daniel Roberts grinned at him, adjusted his stance slightly, shifted his weight onto the front foot. His eyes betrayed nothing. That grin pissed Theo off. He tried to shove it down. Fighting while angry did nothing for anyone. They’d had a senior Unisco agent in to talk to them about that some weeks earlier, telling them how he’d caught the killer of his fiancé and had beaten him senseless in the most dispassionate way possible. Personally, Theo hadn’t believed him. Nobody was that ice cold. People were only human after all. They thirst for revenge and when it was offered to them, they’d try to assuage that thirst.
He nearly missed the punch coming for him, blocked it with his forearm and grimaced with the effort as he felt the blow jar through his arm. Most of Roberts’ weight was behind it, he wasn’t huge, but he was definitely on the stocky side. What he had, he used well.
“Good!” Khazeer barked, hands on his hips as he stood watching on the side lines, a whistle around his neck and a shocksword in the other. “Now counter! Don’t stand there. If you don’t hit him, he will hit you.”
Really, Theo thought dryly. No shit, boss.
In a way, hearing all of this first-hand was helpful. The first time anyway. The second time it became annoying. The third time tiresome. He’d heard it now more times than he could remember, he wasn’t even sure how long they’d been training, how long he’d been stood in this ring with Roberts, but he was tired of it.
“Again!”
Theo lunged backwards, let Roberts fall with him, dragged most of his weight down and sent a knee into his stomach that doubled the stockier opponent over almost into two. He was through playing nice, he’d have dropped an elbow into his spine had Khazeer’s whistle not cut through the red mist.
“Good. That was good.” Maybe he’d managed to fool Khazeer for the moment. All it needed was a show of force and he’d done it “But you need to keep your temper. Lose it in a fight and you’ll lose the fight. And you need to keep your focus as well…”
Roberts rose up suddenly, the top of his skull grazing Theo’s nose. He recoiled back in surprise, more shocked than hurt, frantically blinking to clear the spots from his vision, tried to remember where he was. Roberts was on him in that instant, tackling him to the ground with his superior weight. He didn’t follow up, just sat there on top of him for a minute or so.
“You know what, that’s enough for today,” Khazeer said softly. If Theo craned his head, he could see the look of frustration on his face. “Hit the showers, put some cold packs on your bruises, report to your next class.”
Unisco training. That session summed it up in its entirety, at least the way Theo had seen it so far. One gruelling ordeal following another, very little chance to rest and recover. Time became confused between it all. Sometimes they’d start when it was dark on runs that were way too long, sometimes they’d not see daylight between classes. It was often late at night again by the time they went to bed, weary bodies threatening to break down crawling into rough sheets that felt like silk against the stresses of the day.
Often it felt like sleep was cut to a minimum. Theo got the impression that his head had barely hit the pillow and he’d closed his eyes before he was being dragged out again and thrown into three hours
of unarmed combat with an equally bleary-eyed cadet or shooting practice against targets that to his unpleasant surprise shot back. Nothing lethal but the darts carried a nasty payload of electricity that stung horribly when they landed. Then there were the lectures and the lessons of the stuff that they were expected to know as Unisco agents, the processes and the procedures, the theory behind the practical lessons they engaged in, facts and figures and histories and case studies, more learning than he’d done at any point ever and his brain felt like it was going to burst.
More than one trainee almost collapsed in a nervous breakdown, taken out of the rooms in a gibbering wreck. Sometimes they returned, sometimes they didn’t. It was brutal, more than once Theo had actually considered quitting before reminding himself that to do that would be to let them win. And if they won, then that would be essentially him losing and he wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction of beating him. That small thought deep in the recess of his mind was everything that kept him going. He didn’t want to lose. Not now. Not ever.
It was easier if he imagined the instructors as the enemy. They had their purpose, he had his. They were doing their jobs. It was important to take it in, learn from them but at the same point, not to give in to them. He couldn’t give in to them, he wouldn’t do it but sometimes he felt like he was reaching the end of his rope with them. Much more and… He didn’t want to think like that. It’d be his loss if he gave this up. He wouldn’t be able to live with himself if they forced him into quitting and that was the memory he plastered across the forefront of his thoughts every time they dragged him out of bed.