by Peter Telep
"You gotta be kidding me."
He shook his head. "I told you they reprogrammed me."
"Music is like food for your ears," Cooper said, then wondered if that made sense.
"How do you chew it?"
"No, it's like sound. Good sound. Here." He went to his rucksack, unzipped a pouch, and removed his portable, antique CD player. If Shane knew he had taken it along, she'd throttle him. He had bribed the techies to let him have it and they, too, would be disciplined. The disc inside the player was the Severed Thumbs's debut album "It'll Never Be Okay," with the title track as the first song. Cooper made a lopsided grin and hit PLAY.
Teddy frowned as the vocals and guitar riffs invaded his ears.
Nodding to the beat and wishing he had a beer in his hand, Cooper exchanged the player for Teddy's ETC monitor. "What do you think?"
"This is supposed to satisfy some human need?"
"Yeah. The need to rock hard."
And the Severed Thumbs's lead singer crooned, "And it's never gonna be okay. 'Cause you've taken my thumbs away. And I'll never be able to say that it's all right."
The ETC beeped, and for a second Cooper thought the noise had come from his CD. He glanced at the coordinator's screen: proximity alert. Multiple airborne targets descending toward grid coordinate 345890 by 365740. He shot Teddy a wide-eyed look. "Shut that off, man."
With his finger poised over the controls, Teddy said, "I don't know how."
Cooper snatched up the CD and silenced it. Then he turned his attention skyward. "Listen."
A powerful drone descended upon Cooper and Teddy and caused the ground beneath them to shudder. Cooper went to the viewing slot and hurriedly brought up his binoculars. Spotting nothing directly ahead, he panned up.
The pyramid-shaped nose of a huge enemy tanker ship came into view. Cooper's gaze tracked along the craft's cylindrical fuselage to its forward-swept, tri-wing tail assembly. The freighter had to be at least a half kilometer long, and its hull was composed of the familiar grid pattern of armor he had seen on the enemy's fighters; but the similarities stopped there. Modestly fitted with two pairs of conventional belly cannons, she probably relied upon an escort; without one, she would be as vulnerable as an Earth Forces tanker. Cooper let his view stray a bit from the ship, and there they were: twelve standard Chig fighters flying in column formation, six on each side of her.
"ETC is reading three tankers and accompanying defense wings," Teddy said, raising his voice to be heard over the din of the thrusters. "Recording data now."
"Bet these are the same tankers that took off and forced us to change our drop zone," Cooper said.
"Probably. And they've returned to be refilled."
Cooper nodded. "Chigs are gonna be real busy down there in a sec. Let's watch."
Though the airfield lay on the other side of the aqueduct, Cooper still managed to spot the final approaches of two of the three ships. Landing gear that resembled the extended forelimbs of a praying mantis came down, and the massive crafts' retro rockets fired, blasting shallow craters into the bed of snow covering the tarmac. Amid a newly created fog of dissipating thruster gases and swirling flakes, a longshoreman crew of twelve Chigs, accompanied by half as many silicates dressed in post-nuclear biker gear, appeared as if from nowhere. Along with them, several wedge-shaped vehicles sped into view and paused to hover a meter off the snow. Within thirty seconds, the airfield had metamorphosed from a cold, desolate-looking flat valley into a strategically attractive landing strip swarming with enemy activity.
"Hard to see. Teddy, you getting good shots?" Cooper asked.
"Indeed, the snow unearthed by the tankers' arrival is making photography difficult, but I think so. And Lieutenant Hawkes?"
"Yes?"
"Have you noticed that there are silicates down there?"
Cooper had come to know the silicates as just as much an enemy as the Chigs, and seeing them among the spoogemiesters had become so common a sight that he hadn't given it a second thought. But presently it was a silicate calling his attention to the fact. He wasn't sure how to respond to Teddy's question. "Uh, yeah. I see some A.I.s among them. So what?"
"Just wondering if that bothered you."
He took his eyes off his binoculars and looked gravely at Teddy. "Shouldn't I be asking you that?"
"The Marine Corps anticipated silicate participation in the guarding and operation of this facility," he responded, keeping his gaze glued to the viewfinder of his digital camera. "I regard the silicates here as the enemy just as much as you do. The fact that they are Artificial Intelligence beings like myself is unfortunate but does nothing to alter my position. Let me pose a question to you, Lieutenant Hawkes. If there were In Vitroes down there instead of silicates, what would you do?"
"That would never happen," Cooper snorted.
"Just suppose."
Scratching his chin thoughtfully, he said, "First, I guess, before I blew them all away, I would wanna know why."
"Would knowing why make you feel better about killing them?"
"I don't know. But I've never heard of tanks helping the enemy. I'd have to know why."
"When Aerotech reprogrammed me, they included several global news discs. I seem to recall that it was an In Vitro, Luke Duc Tran, who assassinated Secretary General Chartwell. Seems to me the Chigs might want to recruit Mr. Tran."
Cooper shoved the digital camera away from Teddy's eyes, then grabbed the silicate by the collar of his environment suit. "What are you gettin' at here? You sayin' you think there are tanks who are traitors? No way, man. I don't care what natural-borns have done to us. We still wouldn't defect. Tran didn't represent tanks. I think he was working for Aerotech."
"I didn't mean to incite you, Lieutenant. I only mean to make a comparison. The enemy wears many faces, and recognizing who is truly your enemy is the battle won. The faces I see down there are not those of silicates."
"And you would kill them?" Cooper asked, staring hard into Teddy's crosshaired eyes.
"As quickly as I killed those Chigs back at the ravine. Now, if you'll please let me continue. These photographs are vital."
Releasing his grip on Teddy, Cooper said, "Right." Then he pressed the rubber rings of his binoculars to his eyes and rolled the night vision image back into focus. "They got their liquid lunch lines hooked up to the tankers now. You see 'em?"
"Affirmative. And I've also spotted a hatch built into the tarmac. It may lead into a subsurface passageway that returns to the aqueduct."
Sweeping his binoculars over the airfield, Cooper finally found the circular door. It was white, thus difficult to spot, and approximately two meters in diameter. "So that's how all of those Chigs and A.I.s appeared so quickly down there," he said.
"It seems to make sense. And I believe we may be able to enter the structure through that hatch as opposed to finding a way in via that bridge superstructure."
"How are we supposed to get to that hatch without being spotted?" Cooper asked, doing nothing to stifle the skepticism in his voice.
"We'll leave that up to Captain Vansen."
Cooper exhaled noisily. "Sorry I asked." He doublechecked the com panel on his belt to make sure his link was still set for incoming messages only, then said, "You know, Shane's barely mentioned Nathan. I don't get her. I don't get her at all. What do you think, Teddy?"
"Who am I to comment on human behavior?"
Before replying, Cooper made one more sweep of the area. "Hey, where'd they go? Still a couple of Chigs out near the fuel lines, but where are the rest?"
"I don't know," Teddy said, and he sounded as baffled as Cooper.
"You see them open the hatch?"
"No."
"Do you think there's another hatch?"
"Possibly. Or some other way into the aqueduct we can't see from here. Now, using the hatch as an entrance comes with a catch."
"Which is?"
"If there's another way into the duct, the Chigs could use it to cut us off.
"
"That's a chance we'll probably have to take," Cooper said. "And if Shane doesn't agree, then maybe you and I'll do it alone. You got enough C-670s on you to do it, right?"
"Negative."
"What are you talking about?" Cooper asked, his face creasing in disbelief. "You're supposed to have them. You lose them?"
"No. I do have the charges. But negative to the idea of disobeying an order from Captain Vansen. I will not go with you alone." Teddy's tone left little room for argument.
But Cooper proceeded anyway. "You do know that she'd turn you into scrap in a heartbeat."
"Trust me, Lieutenant. I am intimately familiar with Captain Vansen's temper, which is exactly why I won't disobey her." And then, to Cooper's further astonishment, Teddy ceased his photography, turned a scowl on him, and actually became indignant. "Unlike you, I still have a lot to prove. I cannot complain my way through this mission and second-guess every order the captain gives. Being a silicate does not preclude me from being a professional."
"If I were wearin' my flight suit right now, I'd be showing you the patches that scream all about me being a professional. If you wanna score points with everyone, it's probably a good idea to ditch the criticism and start kissing a lot more ass."
"I'm familiar with that idiomatic expression, Lieutenant, but your advice, to use another, falls on deaf ears. I call them the way I see them."
"You know, I was the one who defended you, man. I mean, Wang and I got into it back on the Haldeman. I just wanted all of them to give you a chance, the same chance they gave me. I thought in that way, we were a lot alike." Cooper sighed disgustedly. "And now you're saying I'm not a professional? Who the hell are you?"
"I'm—"
Cooper cut him off with a raised index finger. "You tell me your sorry, and you're eating that camera."
"What should I say then?"
Drawing his finger back to his lips, Cooper thought a moment, then said, "Tell me why you don't think I'm a professional."
Teddy appeared to stare into a thought (though he was probably accessing his RAM or ROM). "Professional soldiers are those who are engaged in specific activities for the benefit of the civilians who financially support them," he began placidly. "Professional soldiers think of unit, Corps, country, and planet before themselves. They are not prone to bouts of selfishness because they understand that their duty calls them to a higher purpose, one which might not gain them personal gratification, but one which will, in the end, benefit the world, and, in turn, benefit them."
"You stole that outta the Air and Space Cav's manual," Cooper accused. "I've read that before."
"I'm reproducing some of it here because I believe you've forgotten who you are."
"I know who I am. I'm a tank, a nippleneck, a sucker who got sentenced to the Marine Corps." Cooper fixed his gaze on the aqueduct, but he wasn't staring at it. The pictures in his mind took him so far away that he used stars like stepping stones to return to Earth. He stood in county jail coveralls in a cell with a wiry, pale-skinned man who was intermittently biting his yellow fingernails and screaming, "Get me away from this tank!" Even the dregs of natural-born society had shunned him. How could he ever expect to be a professional?
But he had done remarkable things since that fateful day of incarceration. He had participated in the Battle of the Belt, had been serving aboard the Saratoga, one of the finest carriers in the Earth Force fleet, and had run nearly a hundred successful sorties and at least as many ground Ops. That loser back in jail would have never been able to accomplish the things Cooper had. And the bitter irony was that if Cooper returned to Earth and told that guy what he had done, the guy would never believe him. After all, Cooper was a lowly tank.
"Lieutenant Hawkes?"
"What is it?" Cooper asked, his voice barely audible.
"Thanks for giving me a chance."
Cooper looked at him and found the silicate staring back. "You know what, Teddy? You're probably right about me. Tanks have been accused of being selfish, but it's only because if we don't think about ourselves, no one else will. We're born without families. And when you're a tank, it's like, I don't know. It's hard to trust anyone."
"I share that experience," Teddy said, nodding. "I exist never knowing when someone will pull the plug on me, be it In Vitro or natural-born. This mission won't change that. It's clear that Captain Vansen doesn't trust me. And the truth is, I don't trust her. But I know my orders."
Cooper smacked his lips. "I'll make you a deal. I'll try to trust you. Completely. But you gotta do the same for me. And if that means sidestepping Captain Vansen, not by disobeying her but, say, by not revealing everything, then you go along with it. Get it?"
"What do you propose?" Teddy asked, a trace of hesitancy already in his voice.
"I say there's only a single hatch down on that airfield. Forget that the Chiggies and silicates vanished."
"But Captain Vansen could have observed their disappearance from her position."
"Possibly. But if she didn't, we're not gonna volunteer the information. We'll keep it compartmentalized." Cooper winked.
"And in the event that the Chigs use their alternate entrance as a position from which to attack us?"
"Then you and I'll be ready for them," Cooper answered, permitting only a millisecond's gap between Teddy's question and his reply. "And besides, we're still not sure if another entrance even exists."
"That's true," Teddy agreed. "They could have something even more dangerous waiting for us. Like multiple entrances and escape routes, hidden gun nests, buzz beams, electronic trip wires, sonic weaponry towers—"
"All right! All right! Now you're stalling to sound like me." Cooper grinned then proffered his hand. "Deal?"
Teddy extended his arm for the handshake. "I know I'm going to regret this."
eighteen
"When operating under cold weather conditions there is a tendency for Marines to allow themselves to become constipated. This condition is brought about by the desire to avoid the inconvenience and discomfort of relieving themselves under adverse conditions. This condition is also caused by changes in eating habits and failure to drink a sufficient amount of liquids," the CWS instructor had said.
The fact that Nathan remembered the man's words and advice on how to treat the condition did little to help him at the moment. His bowels felt knotted as he climbed, and climbing precluded him from everything but that task. He had harbored the false hope that Kyoko's tea might help, but it had provided only a momentary calm in his gut.
And it wasn't as if he had anyone to confide in about the embarrassing problem. In order to feel better he was supposed to adjust his normal eating and drinking habits to fit the activities in which he was engaged and not put off the normal, natural processes of relieving the body of waste matter. That had been easy for the CWS instructor to say, standing on a dais in a warm classroom with a latrine only a minute's walk away. He didn't have to go through the tedious unbuckling, unstrapping, unbuttoning, and unclipping that Nathan had to every time he felt the need. Yes, Nathan could have worn a Urine and Fecal Collection Device, but the irritation the unit produced wasn't worth the trade-off.
Kyoko had assumed lead, with Penny following close behind. They were nearing what Nathan guessed was the midpoint in the climb. The plan had been not to fully ascend the mountain but to climb in an arc pattern over the wall facing the aqueduct, rising no more than five or six hundred feet. Nathan hadn't complained. Anything over twenty or thirty feet, and he thought he was a goner anyway.
Penny's voice sounded in his comlink. "What's the delay, West?"
"Just not feeling so well," he told her. "Give me a moment." He shifted his weight to his right leg, his boot resting squarely on a foot hold, and, waiting for the knots in his belly to loosen a bit, he took in his surroundings.
The aqueduct lay twinkling far below him, the west side partially hidden by a smaller chain of slopes at the foot of the mountain supporting the facility. Plainly vi
sible and rising impressively like a great fist from the snow was the east side mountain, its massive rock face impaled at nearly the center by the conduit. The snow and ice had accumulated on the aqueduct so much that it was difficult to see exactly where the gigantic pipe touched the stone. Technology always encroaches on nature, Nathan thought, but nature always finds a way to fight back.
"Ready to climb?" Penny asked.
"Yeah," Nathan answered unenthusiastically. He found a sufficient hand hold and pulled himself up without bothering to give her the verbal cue that he was doing so.
Winter climbing requires intense physical conditioning. Far more effort and expenditure of energy is required than in summer, so Nathan had learned. Overextending oneself in the mountains in winter can be deadly. The margin for error is simply not that wide. Factor in constipation and a bad attitude, and you've got, he thought, one hell of a slim margin at that.
Knowing that strong, smooth movement was essential, Nathan focused on his mixed climbing technique and tried to forget about the odds of failure. Meeting up with the fifty-eighth wasn't just a good idea anymore; five hundred or more lives depended upon it. At least there were things for which to be thankful. They were only racing against the clock and not bad weather as well since Kyoko's atmospheric reading had reflected a storm-free twenty or thirty hours. And avalanches, according to his instructor, develop after heavy snows, or driving wind, or both. They typically occur on slopes of between thirty and forty-five degrees but sometimes develop on much steeper inclines. Sudden warming trends will bring one down, as will certain loud noises. Present conditions on the main mountain clearly ruled out such a disaster.
However, with ice axes and hammers being swung around by Kyoko and Penny, it would be all too easy for one of them to accidentally chop the rope. Nathan had already abandoned his ax, opting for the simple hand and foot holds that had become increasingly more abundant. But icy gloves touching smooth stone didn't give him much friction, and as he found the next set of holds, he double-checked his grip before drawing in a deep breath and continuing.