by Tony Teora
Monica’s body looked molded out of the gym, thought Ace. She had to be Marine security working part time at the bar for extra credits. There weren’t too many civilians on board.
Monica finished pouring the beer and put it and the double shot in front of Ace. Ace sipped the beer and then chugged his Jack Daniels in one swig. As Monica was about to say something, a blond woman entered and sat next to Ace. It was Janice. She was dressed in a casual outfit and looked even more beautiful than he’d remembered.
Janice smiled, looking at the two. “Hope I’m not interrupting anything?”
Before Monica could answer, Ace chimed in, “No, of course not. Monica just got me my drinks and we were talking about today’s fight.”
Janice laughed. “You fought well, but almost got yourself killed. I’m really sorry if I distracted you. I thought that robot was gonna crush you after he hit you in the jaw.”
Ace rubbed his jaw. “I was a little stunned, but I have thick skin, no big deal. It was my fault for fooling around. Waddaya drinking?”
“A ‘fuzzy navel’.”
“A fuzzy navel coming up,” said Monica, smiling at the two.
“So,” said Ace. “What’s your day job?”
“I’m a biologist working for Professor Cheryl Mendez. She’s the leading scientist who’ll be evaluating the bio-logs from GEN-6. After, of course, the Special Ops Team gets into the base and sends them back. You’re the leader of Special Ops, aren’t you?”
“I’m the leader of the Special Ops combat team, but we have an agent from Earth Command that’s gonna give the orders once I get them safely inside. Kind of a well-educated spook. His name is Chip Tucker. You heard of him?”
Janice sipped the orange-colored drink and waggled her head. “No, but I never liked any of the Earth Command special agents. They always seemed a little … untrustworthy.”
“I know, but it fits, since everything about this mission seems to be a lie.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, why is this base so far away from Earth? Also, what happened to the last ship that went there? I heard it never came back. They say the researchers got some kind of space sickness and blew up their ship. If this is just a little space sickness on a research base, why do we have ten thousand Marines aboard? I don’t think it’s just for off-Earth training, as some have mentioned.”
“I admit, I thought that was strange, too. But it’s possible.”
“Maybe, but the team includes a remote viewer, and the fact that they put me on the team to lead it makes me nervous about the mission.”
Janice and Monica both laughed. Monica filled up Ace’s glass with more whiskey.
“And why would a tough man like you be nervous? This isn’t your first combat mission, is it?” asked Janice.
Ace didn’t want to sound like he was bragging, but there was no way to say what he wanted to say without sounding like a show-off. And hell, with the robot fight, everyone knew he was a show-off anyhow. “No, this ain’t my first combat mission, but ever since I finished boot camp as one of the Big Guns, every mission I’ve been on in my eight years of service has been a clusterfuck. People die, lots. Earth Command only sends me and the other Big Guns into missions that are already fucked up. So I doubt this one is any different.” Ace sipped his Jack.
Janice and Monica just stared at each other.
“You’re a Big Gun Marine?” blurted Monica, interrupting the conversation with eyes wide. “I heard Earth Command had only ten Big Guns in their arsenal, and that they only go with special teams, and only on EarthCom classified missions.”
“There’s only eight left—and the missions are top secret. This is the first mission where I’ve been the only Big Gun ’cause we always work as a team … and it’s the first one I’m leading. Our team is tight and we trust each other with our lives. We’ll gladly take a few bullets for our teammates. But this mission’s got me all confused. The initial pre-board briefing said this is just a simple rescue mission on a research base. It can’t just be some little problem on a research base. I’m worried that a lot of people are gonna die and they don’t even know it.”
“Well, maybe it’s really just a little problem. Otherwise, they’d bring in your whole team, don’t ya think?” asked Monica.
Ace wanted to believe that, but his dealings with the people running the project told him they were lying. He could feel that they were hiding something, and it was big. The ones that knew he’d scored highly on telepathic reading avoided him, even though he didn’t believe too much in telepathy, and he’d said so many times. Something felt almost evil when Ace thought about planet Kabbalah and the GEN-6 research base. He just couldn’t get a good feeling about the mission. On the other hand, Ace felt comfortable talking to the two women. Something about those two felt really, really good.
Janice looked over at Ace. “My apologies, but what exactly is a Big Gun? I know they’re elite Marines. Is there something else?”
“Oh, yes there is,” said Monica, filling up Ace’s empty glass.
“What, exactly?” asked Janice.
“Well,” said Ace, “you have to rank number one out of your two-thousand-person training camp class.”
Monica continued. “They have to rank number one, and then they get millions of dollars of body enhancements. Am I right, big boy?”
“Yes, you’re right.”
“What kind of enhancements?” asked Janice.
“We get new arms, legs, and our eyes are modified. The arms and legs are made of a new type of natural-looking, natural-feeling flesh called tef-skin, and there’s a nano-titanium alloy used instead of bones. The eyes get ocular implants that are wired to our auditory system. We even get an encrypted internal comm line that can be manually turned on and off via thought.”
“So that’s how you beat Krill today,” exclaimed Janice. “You’re the man of steel.” Janice then frowned. “They didn’t change all of you, did they?”
Ace laughed. “If you mean man’s most important body part, no, that was made out of steel before the enhancements. No work was required in that area.” Ace chugged his beer.
Both ladies laughed.
Monica bent over on the counter with her low-cut shirt showing a peek of her voluptuous breasts and picked up Ace’s shot of Jack. She sipped it and rubbed the whiskey over her soft, puffy lips. “I’m glad that they didn’t change all of you, because Janice and I were looking forward to doing an inspection … to make sure you passed your fitness test. Isn’t that right, Janice?”
“A biological inspection, to be more accurate, to make sure the super man is functioning properly,” answered Janice, giggling.
Ace’s heart skipped a beat. Was he getting hit on by two women? Was it a joke?
“Ah, ladies, do you know each other?”
“Janice and I are real close, if you know what we mean. But we both occasionally enjoy a little manly company, and since we’re jealous types, we only engage in that kind of activity together … that is, if you’re the kind of Big Gun man that’s not prejudiced toward those kinds of women.”
Ace sipped his beer and smiled widely, almost embarrassed. He assumed that the robot had knocked him into heaven. He sat at the bar and had a couple more drinks with the ladies and then went back to Monica’s room with Janice. There, he told jokes and laughed as the two women slowly undressed and kissed each other. A new, computer-generated bootleg rendition of Elvis Presley and Eminem singing Burning Love was blasting through the thin wallpaper speakers, which made a nice accompaniment to the short, nude, sexy dance Janice and Monica did for him. Both of their bodies were more than amazing. Ace sat on a chair sipping a drink, feeling like he was in some strange, exotic go-go bar eagerly watching the situation and not sure how to exactly proceed.
But that changed quickly as the song ended and Janice pulled him out of his chair and into the bed. Monica did the first biological inspection of Ace, which didn’t take too long. She asked Janice to confirm her stud
ies. Janice agreed and doubled-checked all operating equipment, with good results. After a good hour of fooling around, Ace slept in the middle of the two beautiful women, and slept more peacefully than he’d done in his whole life. And that was a good thing, because the Aurora was scheduled to orbit Kabbalah in four days. Shortly after that, his team would land on the planet to try and get into GEN-6. What Ace didn’t know was that he’d want to get out of GEN-6 as soon as they got into GEN-6.
All warfare is based on deception.
— Sun Tzu, The Art of War
3
_________
Search and Rescue
Earth Date: May 4, 2069
Location: Orbiting Kabbalah Moon K-2
Local Time: 07:30 UST
Four days passed since Ace finished off the Mr. Rockem Sockem Robot, and although rumor had it Hiro fixed the M10 robot, Ace was still recovering from the pain in his slightly fractured jaw. Ace hooked up with Monica and Janice each of the last few nights, and the night before, he’d finished a half bottle of Jack Daniels. His head throbbed from a hangover from the previous night’s party with the “Sin Sisters” (as he affectionately called the bisexual girls), which added some more agony, but a refreshing, hot shower slowly washed away all sins—or at least washed away some of Ace’s epidermal bacteria.
Ace left the shower and casually looked out of his two-foot-round, gold-coated, plasma-glass window. In the distance hung a shiny black moon surrounded by distant, twinkling stars. The moon was getting larger in size as the Space Navy ship approached. Captain Jeffrey Ozias Karr of the United Star Ship (USS) Aurora was on the ship’s comm. “The Aurora is now entering a close orbit around moon K-2, it’s one of three moons around Kabbalah—it has a shiny black appearance because of volcanic activity,” Captain Karr said. “I’m gonna officially name it Black Beauty.” It looked like a gleaming, chocolate bowling ball with asteroid finger holes scarring the surface.
Ace dressed and left his stateroom to grab a hot JoJo synth coffee. Something inside him urged him to get in early for the mission briefing. As he walked into the mess hall and picked up a cup, he quietly observed Monica sitting at a table with two other women. She was the true black beauty, thought Ace. But even all the fun with Janice and Monica was getting to feel somewhat routine. It was enjoyable, but a lot more work than he’d expected. Something felt missing, somehow … but he knew his few friends would laugh their asses off at that revelation, so he kept it strictly to himself. He left the mess and headed down toward the Special Team Briefing Room to meet the team and Agent Chip Tucker, who was to head up the Search and Rescue mission.
Ace knew two of the team members personally, as he’d made a backroom deal to get them from Earth Defense, but there were others selected by ECOM, or Earth Command, which bothered him. Chip Tucker was ECOM’s choice for the mission. Tucker had kept the earlier remote video conference meetings with Ace short and simple, stressing this was just a simple recovery operation and that some of the scientists were holed up because some of the other scientists were a little space sick. Ace knew it was all frozen space shit. No one in power ever told the truth in dire circumstances. They just tried to calm the “sheeple”, as Ace called them. The Big Guns never trusted the bullshit stories coming out of ECOM air conditioning. Deep frying elephant dung in chocolate just made things stink worse, and Ace immediately lost respect for anyone swimming in that shit tank.
According to the watered-down report, there was an automatic lockdown procedure which protected the scientists from the “loonies”. How and why they got loony didn’t concern Ace. His mission was to protect the team and make sure they got in to extract the healthy scientists. They would gas the sick ones into a drugged sleep and then a special bio-hazard team would bring them out of the base and into the quarantined section of the infirmary.
It sounded simple, but Ace had a bad feeling about the mission. He wanted to arrive early for the meeting and just think. Approaching the SEC-10 conference room, Ace saw he was twenty minutes early. Upon entering, he noticed a petite and elegant Japanese woman meditating. She was drop-dead gorgeous. She had a TekPad holo screen showing a 3D image of the GEN-6 base. She opened her eyes, smiled, and stood up a full five foot four or so.
“I was expecting you,” she said to Ace. “My name is Kiya Maekawa. I’m working as a civilian on this mission, although I’ve had some previous military experience. Glad you came early. I’d like to talk to you in private, if you have time.”
Ace put out his hand and did a military side tap handshake. “Well, I’m not so sure if there’s any privacy on this ship. But if you want to talk now … sure, why not?”
Ace sat in a soft, black synth-leather chair across from Kiya and smiled while he observed the beautiful specimen. The woman was Asian but had some western features. Probably just half Asian? She had her light brown hair tied up in a bun. The light brown hazel eyes perfectly accented her almond skin and high cheekbones. She probably could have modeled if she was a little taller, thought Ace to himself, imagining a picture of the woman modeling in some sexy Tokyo nightclub show. He wondered what Kiya’s tight body would look like stripping and dancing, and he envisioned her sliding down a go-go dance pole in some cheesy strip joint he’d visited on a tour there. His smiled dropped to the floor as Kiya stared at him, her eyes glowing like a woman about to circumcise a man with a sushi knife.
“You know,” said Kiya, shutting down the halo projection, “you should be careful how you use your natural senses. I read you scored higher than I did for telepathic sensing, but I’m one of the best in remote viewing. And since we both have telepathic abilities, I’d ask that you try not looking at my private memories, especially my modeling career.”
Ace laughed a little nervously. “I wasn’t exactly thinking of a modeling career. I hear reading one’s mind isn’t an exact science. You could get your messages mixed up.” He’d heard about Marine telepaths but considered the science borderline witchcraft.
“Tell me if I’m wrong, but I sensed you thinking about my modeling in Japan when I was a student.”
Ace lied and tried to focus his mind on the lie. “Well, actually, I guess ya got me there … but what I really thought was that you were probably a little too short for a model. I imagined seeing you modeling. That’s all.”
“Short for a model? What? I’m five-five, and that’s tall for a girl in Tokyo!”
“I’m sorry Kiya, ah …” stammered Ace. “I’m a little hung over from a few too many last night.” Ace prayed the woman couldn’t really see into his current thoughts of the hangover, especially of him, Monica, and Janice dancing, drunk and naked, in Monica’s room before the two women shaved the hair off his balls before lovemaking. He immediately changed that thought.
“And honestly, I don’t trust that telepathy stuff. It’s too erratic. As a Big Gun, I trust my enhanced vision a lot more. I know I can sometimes ‘see’ things, but it’s more of an analysis. For example, it makes sense that someone as pretty as you would want to be a model.” Ace gave a sheepish smile, thinking she didn’t believe him. “That’s all I was thinking, really … I wasn’t trying to dig into your memories.”
“I sense your honesty … but as an expert in this area, seeing your telepathic scores concerns me, especially since I read you don’t even trust in those abilities. Ace, we have an important mission. I’ve been doing remote viewing, or RM sessions, on the compound, and since we got closer to Kabbalah, I’ve been seeing some real strange stuff. We’ll need to work closely. I think we’ll need not just your physical abilities, but your telepathic abilities, as I’m sure that’s why you were chosen. I just wanted you to know that we need to trust each other. And I want you to trust your senses—but not dip into people’s personal thoughts.”
“My senses are a little … should we say, tired.”
“You mean hung over?” asked Kiya with a sweetly devastating smile.
“Well, it’s a long and painful life, and I was trying to shorten mine. But
let’s not talk about me, my pain, or my friends. And yes, I do trust my senses. As for others, they need to earn my trust.” Ace was glad to get the discussion back on the mission. “And I agree with your remote viewing. I think we have more than a few space sick scientists, but I’m not sure exactly what.”
Kiya turned on the holo screen that showed a 3D green light layout of the GEN-6 compound. There were rooms that looked like laboratories, a kitchen, heating and cooling units, environmental controls, a gym, and a rest and relaxation den. There were also some strange, environmentally controlled, hermetically sealed rooms—or cells. The details of those rooms were blacked out, electronically redacted and missing, as if the information was deleted from the database.
Kiya stared at the diagram. “What’s your first impression on seeing this layout?”
Ace didn’t like the looks of GEN-6. No research outpost he’d ever seen had prison cells. Some kind of bio-testing crap had to be going on. Or was it a place to store prisoners? But there was no need to keep a prison base this far away from Earth. Or was there? Ace shook his head. “My first thought is that we have some nasty bio work going on. And whatever it is, there’s a big problem, or we wouldn’t be here.”
Kiya smiled. “Ace, I’ve been doing RM sessions, and I saw the same thing. I also saw something dark, hidden away on the base. But then it was as if it saw my RM session and put up some kind of dark wall.”
Ace laughed. “Listen Kiya, you keep doing your RM stuff, but I’m tellin’ ya, it don’t take a rocket scientist to see that with rooms like that, we had or have people in prison there, or someone’s doing some nasty bio-testing, or both. As for the dark bogey man, leave him to me.”
Kiya shook her head, realizing that Ace really didn’t trust in her RM. This was frustrating, but she’d experienced people like that before and decided to be patient. She sensed that something in his life had repressed his senses. “Fine, Ace, you do your job and I’ll do mine.”