Markov's Prize

by Mark Barber

  “But half of her brain is fragged,” Gant countered, “she can only remember a small quantum of what we went through.”

  “Yeah, and I envy her that!” Van Noor snapped. “She gets to go home with only some flower tinted version of what actually happened. And you guys are all moping around like that’s a bad thing! What would you prefer? Go home like the good old days with a host of severe mental health problems from combat and end up killing yourself? C3 is looking after us. You should appreciate it.”

  “I agree,” Sessetti admitted as he processed his thoughts. “Ila is safe and she only remembers the good times. That’s the best news I’ve heard for a long time.”

  “Right!” Clythe agreed. “She’s fine! C’mon, let’s go hit the city and celebrate!”

  “And the bad news?” Jemmel turned back to Van Noor again.

  Van Noor beckoned to Rhona.

  “Come with me. We need to talk.”

  ***

  Rhona followed Van Noor into the corridor outside the squad’s accommodation block. The senior strike leader wasted no time in casting a disapproving look over her.

  “You’re going out? Dressed like that?”

  “Aw, shucks, daddy, you think I’m showing too much leg?” Rhona rolled her eyes. “This is my spare time, I’m off the clock, I’ll dress how I want to.”

  “There is no off the clock!” Van Noor countered. “You’re a junior leader in the Concord Combined Command, and as the company second-in-command, I expect you to display some standards! Might not matter anyway. You know the drill – when a firebase is on reduced manning, somebody needs to stay back to monitor security of the perimeter. So we need an individual to stay here tonight.”

  “That’s a bad joke, right?” Rhona exclaimed. “What about Alpha Company? They live here too.”

  “They’ve already volunteered one guy. The regs say it requires two, so we’re providing a second trooper.”

  “What about you?” Rhona folded her arms. “You just said you’re staying here tonight.”

  “I don’t need to explain myself to you, Strike Leader,” Van Noor leaned closer, “and I’ve already told you that I’m spending my leave catching up on crappy paperwork that somebody at your rank doesn’t need to worry about. That doesn’t lend itself to checking the drones and walking the perimeter wire, does it? Now, I can’t tell you to volunteer for this; that would be bullying. What I can tell you is that, thanks to the message from the former Strike Trooper Rae, your squad is the only squad in the company that hasn’t lost a single guy. That’s why I’ve selected Squad Wen to provide a security detail for tonight. You’re in charge, so you pick somebody. I’m sure you’ll make the right decision.”

  “Well, it’s me, isn’t it?” Rhona growled. “I’m not gonna go in there and tell one of those guys their leave is canceled. I’ll do it.”

  “Good,” Van Noor smiled aggressively, “you can make the odd right decision. Now wash that blue crap out of your hair, put a uniform on, and present yourself to HQ in fifteen minutes looking like a Concord soldier rather than a Freeborn slut who earns a living on her back. Go on, get to it.”

  Rhona heard her fists clenching by her sides as she watched Van Noor walk away to the transmat pads.

  Chapter Twelve

  Voltz Nightclub

  New Wryland

  Markov’s Prize

  Sessetti stood motionless in the cubicle as the scanner beam quickly swept over him from head to toe. The interior of the booth glowed green, the signal that he was not carrying any weapons or narcotics. Sessetti wondered if such stringent measures were still really necessary now that the Concord had taken over and the overseeing man-machine interface would intervene automatically if any hostile intentions were sensed. Intervention would be automatic for the overwhelming majority of citizens who were fully compatible with an IMTel shard, at least.

  Vacating the security booth to allow the next man in the queue to step in front of the scanner, Sessetti walked quickly over to the transmat pad which would transport him up to the club’s main floor. He checked himself over in the mirrored walls as he walked; he was dressed relatively conservatively in black trousers and a dark blue collared shirt, but he wore his cuffs undone and the shirt unbuttoned halfway as was the current fashion. He had refused Clythe’s polite offer to provide matching eye make-up; as outdated and bland as it might seem to others, Sessetti had never found himself drawn to men’s cosmetic enhancements. It always seemed a bit feminine to him. Van Noor had seen him as he dashed for the last transport, stopping him to cast a judgmental eye over his appearance. The simple assessment had been positive: “Good, son. Good.”

  The familiar consent form was transmitted to him from the club’s shard as he walked – questions revolving around if he welcomed advances from strangers, whether he was looking for long term romance or something more casual and less meaningful, his gender preferences, the same form which he had filled out countless times at many clubs back home with the same red, amber, and green answer coding. Nothing had changed – he filled in the same answers as he always did in the few seconds it took to walk over to the transmat pads. It occurred to him briefly that the whole endeavor was relatively pointless – the system knew everybody’s preferences – but the illusion of choice for Concord citizens was a positive thing in itself, no doubt. It just took the reduced intervention of a military shard for him to be able to see and think that. The consent form, the transmat pads, all recently installed touches which marked out the planet, and its entire culture as well, on the way to being completely integrated within the IMTel.

  Sessetti stepped onto the newly installed transmat pad and watched as the entrance hall faded away and was replaced by the spectacular interior of the nightclub. A cavernous main hall, perhaps five floors high, was dominated by a huge dancefloor. The floor itself was illuminated with dazzling lights and holographic projections of spectacular, swirling shapes, their edges softened by the knee-high field of sweetly scented smoke which rolled in from the floor edges. Colored spotlights cast beams of light down from the ceiling way above in the darkness, and four curved podiums snaked in from the corners of the hall, each with a beautiful woman dancing around a pole. Curved stairways led up to four other floors, each with seating areas looking down on the main dancefloor. Perhaps a thousand people occupied the club, maybe two hundred of which were crammed onto the dancefloor, moving in time to the booming music which issued from all corners of the building with outstanding clarity.

  Patching back into his squad shard, Sessetti located his squadmates – Jemmel, Qan, Gant, and Clythe were all sat around a table on the third floor, overlooking the dance floor. Sessetti carefully pushed his way through the crowds and up the stairs, politely declining an invitation to dance which was sent across the club shard into his mind from a girl in the center of the dancefloor. Not what Sessetti was looking for, but the invitation was appreciated nonetheless.

  Qan waved enthusiastically from the table as he approached – the near deafening music faded to an altogether more sociable level as soon as the club’s shard detected he was attempting to engage in conversation.

  “You took your time!” Gant grinned, thrusting a glass of beer into his hands as he approached the table. “Has the boss turned you into some ass kicking sheng-fu master?”

  Jemmel tapped the table and the center opened, elegantly elevating a carousel of drinks and smoking options. She selected a thick cigar and passed it over to Sessetti.

  “Try one of these,” she ordered, “it’s local. It’s good.”

  Sessetti snapped the end off the cigar and felt it instantly warm as the chemicals inside reacted with the air to ignite. He inhaled a lungful of the wood scented herbs and then took a swig from his beer. Life was pretty good.

  “It’s pretty cool, you getting turned into a Ghar annihilating machine!” Qan offered.

  “Let’s not give the boss too much credit,” Jemmel argued, “he should be spending more time making the hard decisi
ons and calling the tough shots, and less time charging around the battlefield getting stuck in. That’s our job, not his.”

  “You’ve got a problem with the way he runs the show?” Gant laughed.

  “He’s soft,” Jemmel said evenly, “a company commander’s job is to use his assets to defeat the enemy, not wrap his boys and girls up in cotton wool.”

  “What a crock of nonsense,” Gant stepped in to cut off Sessetti’s equally passionate defense. “I’ve worked for strike captains before who adopt that mentality. We get the job done just fine the way it is. I want somebody above me who has my back, not somebody who’ll throw me away to impress his bosses.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s the difference between you and me,” Jemmel shrugged, “I’m able to see the bigger picture.”

  “Hang on, hang on!” Clythe suddenly sat up enthusiastically. “I’ve got another message! It’s my second invitation to dance! It’s… another man.”

  “It’s the way you dress,” Gant grinned, “and by the way, Lian, whatever you do – don’t offer any of the local girls a drink. I’ve looked it up now, but apparently it’s considered an insult around here. Something to do with the implications of forcing intoxicating substances onto others. However, I’ve found that here – the same as every bloody planet I’ve ever been to – the men are expected to chase the women.”

  “It’s social customs,” Jemmel countered as she blew purple-tinted smoke rings from her cigar, “same as it’s always been. Guys are expected to initiate the courtship rituals. Men need to do the chasing. It’s not right, but there it is.”

  “So that’s what we’re fighting for?” Clythe grunted. “To be treated differently based on gender in a club?”

  “Oh, dry your eyes and don’t even bother playing the gender card,” Jemmel drawled. “It’s exactly the same back in the real Concord as it is out here. It’s just that you’re only noticing it now.”

  “So you’ve been propositioned?” Qan asked.

  “Three so far,” Jemmel replied, “two to dance, one for a meeting in a booth. None of them have rocked my world, however.”

  “So if you don’t like the way these clubs work, why’d you pick this place?” Clythe demanded. “You chose this place and dragged the entire company here.”

  “I had a plan,” Jemmel replied, “a cunning scheme. But now Kat has been Van Gnawed again, and we’ve left her behind, my plan ain’t gonna work.”

  “He does seem to have it in for her,” Sessetti offered, deciding against the cigar and stubbing it out before selecting a berry scented hose and nozzle from the carosel and taking a drag.

  “He wants to screw her,” Gant shrugged, “can you blame him?”

  “Maybe, just maybe,” Jemmel smiled sarcastically, “d’you reckon we can go one evening without all talking about how amazing Rhona looks?”

  The table fell silent for a brief moment, the lyrics of a familiar dance song lifting in volume automatically to fill the lull in conversation.

  “You look great, Jem,” Sessetti offered. “I’m not trying to be weird or anything. But in front of the other guys, I just wanted to let you know that I think you look really great tonight.”

  Jemmel looked across at him but did not reply.

  “He’s right!” Gant smiled, throwing an arm around Jemmel’s shoulders and forcing her into a rough embrace. “Keep your hair longer like that, dude, it suits you better. Don’t worry, you still look badass.”

  “I’ll keep it like this if you shave yours off,” Jemmel countered, tousling Gant’s curly locks.

  Gant laughed.

  “Gimme a few days and you’ve got a deal. I just want to look this good for all of our leave so I can nail everything with a pulse which will let me near it.”

  ***

  The lilac tint to the clear night sky seemed unique to Rhona as she stared up at the stars. Years of travelling space with her father – admittedly the same parts, over and over – had given her more exposure to the wondrous variations so many different planets had to offer, but nothing was like the night sky of Markov’s Prize. The cut of the planet’s rings across the sky, the soft glow over the horizon, the gentle shapes of the gasses in the upper atmosphere, it all added together to present a picture of unique beauty.

  Rhona shook her head as she pictured a Ghar scout creeping up behind her to slit her throat.

  “Concentrate, you dumb bitch,” she cursed herself, carrying on her walk along Firebase Alpha’s perimeter fence and looking out into the jungles beyond. The trooper from Alpha Company she was sharing the duty with seemed okay enough, but she did welcome the opportunity to carry out the hourly check of the perimeter drones to visually ascertain that all was well. The cold plasma carbine felt strange in her bare hands; guard duty in a secure location called only for a trooper to wear an eye piece to connect to the base shard and give enhanced visual options in addition to barrack uniform and a weapon.

  The perimeter was securely patrolled by the tireless force of little spotter drones and their larger, armed, C3D1 cousins. Although the likelihood was extremely remote, it was not completely unknown for a drone to suffer a system failure, and for that failure to escape the notice of the security shard. That was why a periodic, physical check by a trooper was written into the guard routines. And as hugely disappointed as Rhona was to be missing a night out, if she was stuck here on guard duty, then she would carry out a damn good job of it.

  The security shard alerted her to a figure approaching from the southwest, identified as another Concord trooper. Rhona turned to face the trooper, wondering why the guy from Alpha Company would leave his post to talk to her when communication through the shard would have been easier. After a few moments, she saw the trooper and walked out to meet him. As she drew closer, she recognized that it was not her guard comrade, but her company commander.

  Rhona stood smartly to attention before bringing her right foot out and smacking into the heel of her left, tilting her carbine forward for inspection. Tahl returned the formalities of her presenting of arms with a salute.

  “Anything to report, Strike Leader?”

  “No, sir. Perimeter secure; no unservicabilities in drones or surveillance devices, sir.”

  “Good. Hand over your weapon.”

  Rhona swung the weapon around to lie horizontally before presenting it to Tahl.

  “Sir! Weapon is fully charged, loaded but not made ready. Ionic compression pack is checked and correctly functioning.”

  Tahl took the carbine, gave it a visual check, and then slung it over his shoulder.

  “Right. I’ve got the guard duty. Off you go, go catch up with your friends.”

  “Say what now?” Rhona exclaimed.

  “I’ll take it from here. Some of the guys from Delta Company have a late transport on. If you run, you’ll have time to get changed and go. Come on, hand over the eye piece, too. You shall go to the ball, my pretty,” Tahl winced immediately and exhaled before continuing. “I didn’t mean anything offensive by that. It’s just a famous line in a children’s story where I’m from. I didn’t mean…”

  “It’s okay, Boss,” Rhona suppressed a smile, “that story is famous where I’m from, too. But I can’t go. The company commander shouldn’t be pulling guard duty. Plus the senior strike leader specifically told me to…”

  “You leave the senior to me,” Tahl interrupted softly. “Besides, it does me good to remind myself of duties like this once in a while. Go on, go take your leave.”

  “Right,” Rhona hurriedly unclipped her eyepiece and handed it to Tahl.

  “The senior strike leader has spoken to me about some of your recent conversations,” Tahl warned. “You need to have a think about the way you’re addressing him. I appreciate you two don’t see eye to eye, but he is the most experienced trooper in this company, and he does outrank you. I want you to have a good think about the way you conduct yourself around him in future, okay?”

  “Yeah, absolutely,” Rhona nodded, checking the
time and mentally planning her outfit and hair. “I’ll make sure I get my act together and give him the proper marks of respect in future. What time did you say the transport leaves, sir?”

  “About twenty-five minutes,” Tahl replied.

  “Cool,” Rhona turned on her heel and started sprinting back toward the accommodation block.

  She stopped after a few seconds and turned back to Tahl.

  “Tonight’s gonna be awesome!” She beamed excitedly.

  Tahl gave a curt nod and turned to patrol the perimeter fence.

  ***

  Finishing mid-pack, Sessetti slammed his empty glass down in the center of the table and watched as Qan and Clythe struggled with the fiery liquid. The world swam a little, the club shard warned him about his alcohol intake and offered remedial medication; he ignored the advice. Gant let out a cheer as Clythe finally finished before hitting the table to bring the drinks carousel back up so he could start pouring again.

  “Right,” Gant said as he finished. “I’ve had an offer from a girl who appears to meet my lofty standards, so I’m outta here. I’ll catch you losers in an hour or so.”

  “By an hour, you mean five minutes, right?” Jemmel smiled sarcastically.

  Gant shrugged and staggered off toward the stairwell leading down to the packed dance floor. Qan reached across to the carousel, unwound a pipe and nozzle, and began smoking a sweet, flowery smelling gas.

  “We staying up here all night or are we heading down?” He asked.

  Before Sessetti could state his opinion, Clythe smacked him on the shoulder and pointed down to the dance floor. The most attractive woman he had ever laid eyes on danced her way across the floor, bouncing from man to man as she lithely displaced a sequence of salacious moves. Wearing a tiny dress of metallic black which left little to the imagination, the dark haired woman attracted the attention of every man and woman near her as she navigated her way toward the stairs.