“You only be called one name now,” Daskalov said.
“Oh, yeah? What’s that?”
“Slayer.”
Downtown Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Earth
“Come in, please,” Sansar Enkh said. She showed the American to her office, and he had a seat where she indicated.
Lieutenant Chris Sommerkorn, most recently a member of the Winged Hussars, was not your typical American. Big and burly, he was easily twice her size and over three times her mass. He wore a camouflage kilt, a black shirt with a pair of stylized wings on it, and an ushanka on his head, with the ear flaps tied up on top of the Russian fur hat. He took it off, and Sansar understood what Walker had meant about his hair. Although it was shaved on the sides, the hair on top of his head was six inches in length and stood nearly straight up as it was freed from the confines of the hat.
His appearance was as interesting as his record.
“Thank you for coming,” Sansar said. “I am looking for a new logistics officer, and I understand from Daniel Walker you are available.”
“Yes, ma’am, I am,” Sommerkorn replied. “It turns out I wasn’t quite as adapted to space and zero gravity as I thought.” He sounded somewhat sheepish, as if someone as large as he shouldn’t have been affected by something as small as a lack of gravity.
“Well, it happens to a lot of people,” Sansar said. “I’m happy to tell you this position is Earth-side; you won’t be expected to go to space.”
Sommerkorn’s breath escaped in a giant sigh. “That’s great to hear, ma’am,” he replied. “I’ve been pretty worried about it.”
Sansar pulled up his record and reviewed it in her head. “That wasn’t the part I wanted to talk to you about.”
“It wasn’t?” Sommerkorn asked, his voice displaying a touch of nervousness.
“No, it wasn’t,” she said, her eyes never leaving his face. “I’ve been looking at your mercenary record, and it looks like you’ve gone through a number of positions with all the rest of the Horsemen, as well as a couple of smaller firms before that.”
“Yes, ma’am. I have moved around a bit recently,” he admitted.
Sansar gave him a half smile when he didn’t explain further. “Perhaps you could elaborate a little bit on why that is. We are looking to fill the position for the long-term, not just hire someone who is going to move on after a pay check or two. Unless there’s something else I need to know…”
“No ma’am, there isn’t,” Sommerkorn replied, his voice firm. “I’m looking for a position where I can make a difference, and one in which I can stay long-term.”
“If that’s the case, can you tell me why it didn’t work out with all these other employers? While not exemplary, your fitness reports are favorable, yet your period of performance is less than a full standard-length contract, as if you had been let go from all of them early. I was curious as to why that was. Is there something you’re not telling me?”
Sommerkorn’s eyes fell to the floor. “Uh, well, you are correct in that I was let go from the other companies,” he replied.
“So these reports are inaccurate?” she asked. “You are not a good logistician.”
Sommerkorn’s head snapped up. “No!” he exclaimed. “I mean, yes, I am a good logistician; no, I am a great one! The reports are not inaccurate. I won’t lie to you ma’am; I’m very good at what I do. I am an excellent logistician. The problems I’ve had haven’t been with failing to do a good job, but with my perfectionism. I would always over-analyze things to save the company every penny possible. I now understand why I failed previously, and will not fall prey to analysis paralysis again. You can count on me, ma’am.”
Sansar was struck by the sincerity of the young man, and she believed in second chances…but this was the officer’s fourth—or possibly fifth—chance, depending on how you read his performance appraisals. On any other day, she probably wouldn’t have hired him, but today wasn’t any other day. Logistics officers were in short supply, and Sommerkorn was both here and available, and she needed someone to start managing her logistics’ affairs immediately. It looked like he was her only hope.
“Despite my misgivings, I am going to offer you employment with The Golden Horde,” she said. She adjusted the contract she was looking at in her in-head display and sent it to her slate. “Let there be no doubt, though; I will be watching you, and I am not one to shy away from handling problems within my company. If you fail to perform, you will be fired for cause, and it will say so in your performance report. In fact, I have already written this into your contract offer. Think well before you sign it, as you will probably not get any further chances if you are unsuccessful here. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, ma’am, I understand you.”
“In that case, I would like to tender you an offer of employment with The Golden Horde, at the standard rate for a logistics lieutenant.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” Lieutenant Sommerkorn replied. “Where do I sign?”
Sansar stood and smiled. “Right here,” she said as she handed her slate across the desk.
Sommerkorn took it and signed his name in flowery script. “Thank you, ma’am,” he repeated.
“My pleasure,” Sansar said, taking back the slate. “Welcome to the Horde.”
* * * * *
Chapter 4
Batbayer’s Barbeque, Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Earth
Cute, Lieutenant Chris Sommerkorn thought as the Mongolian waitress walked away. Although his tastes generally ran to tall Norwegians, he could make an exception now and again. And, truth be told, the waitress was the reason he had come back to the little café.
“Zdravstvuyte, tovarisch,” a burly, dark-haired man exclaimed in a loud voice as he sat down in the chair opposite Sommerkorn. “Hello, comrade.”
“Do I know you?”
“Not yet,” the man said with a strong Russian accent. He held out his hand. “I am Igor Ivanovich of Nicholas Imports and Exports, where we treat you like czar.” He smiled. “I cannot believe my luck! Seeing you here has saved me much time and trouble!”
“Why’s that?” Sommerkorn asked, suspicious.
“Because it will save me having to make an appointment to see you, of course! I just got in from off-planet, and first thing I was going to do after lunch was call you! You are Sommerkorn, da? Head of Golden Horde logistics?”
“Well, yeah, that’s me,” Sommerkorn replied. “You were going to call me? For what?”
“As I said, I have been off-planet. I was visiting some…contacts I have in Scientists’ Guild on…never mind, planet not matter…but they tell me about amazing new breakthrough they have.”
“What kind of breakthrough?”
“I’m glad you asked,” the man replied, smiling broadly. “The contacts are Altar. What do you know about Altar? Nothing? Well, let me tell you, Altar are great scientists. And busy? Almost like ants, they are.”
Sommerkorn called up an image and smiled. Not only did the Altar act like ants, they looked like them, too—freaky, five-foot-tall ants.
“Anyway, they have just come up with revolutionary new product that will change face of modern battlefield, and I secured exclusive license to market it to this arm of galaxy.”
“Congratulations,” Sommerkorn replied, looking for the waitress to ask the man to leave, “but I don’t see how this affects me. The Golden Horde only buys Earth-made products.”
“But, of course you do!” Ivanovich said smoothly, “That’s why I also bought rights to manufacture it and have contracted with Catherine Industries to produce it on Earth.”
Sommerkorn sighed. The waitress was nowhere to be seen. “Okay,” he said, “what’s your product?”
“It is wonderful!” Ivanovich crowed. “It is miraculous. Before I tell you what it is, tell me, what weapons most worry you on battlefield?”
“I don’t know,” Sommerkorn replied. “I’m not a CASPer operator.”
“Well, I was CASPer operator before injury,”
the man said, “and I was most worried about lasers. They fire at speed of light, making laser beam nearly unavoidable.”
“Okay, I’d believe that.”
“So what would you say to remarkable new finish for your CASPers that reflects lasers almost 15 percent better than your current paint?”
“I’d wonder how much it cost, and what the drawbacks to it were. Let me guess, it only comes in fluorescent pink, right? Or it makes you stand out on radar 50 percent more?”
“You can make pink if you want to,” the man said. He laughed infectiously. “I do not see advantage of being pink—I think you will be, how you say, laughingstock of mercenaries, da? It usually comes in gray, but yes, it can be tinted any shade you want. And no, it does not make you more reflective on radar. There are no drawbacks to new paint. In fact, I can sell to you for less than you pay for current paint.”
“I doubt it,” Sommerkorn replied. “It always costs more to get the better product.”
“Not this time, tovarisch. Due to unique and advanced manufacturing process, it is better, and I can sell it to you for less.”
“Better and cheaper?” Sommerkorn asked. “I’m afraid you’d have to prove it.”
“But of course!” Ivanovich said. “I’m glad you ask!” He set a briefcase on the table, opened it, and pulled out two cans. “Please take these samples as my gift to Horde. Try it out and see if it does not do everything I say.”
The waitress arrived with Sommerkorn’s food.
“I will excuse myself and let you eat,” Ivanovich said, standing. He handed over a business card. “When you’re ready to buy, you give call. Igor Ivanovich handle all details!”
Medical, Golden Horde HQ, Uzbekistan, Earth
“So…umm…is this going to hurt?” Walker asked as he lay down on the operating table.
“Do you mean like when you got your merc treatments?” the doctor asked.
“Yeah, that level of pain or worse?”
“Well, you’ll be asleep for the process, so you won’t feel a thing,” the doctor said.
“That’s what they tell you,” the company’s medic, Sergeant Mark Polanis, said, “and it’s true. It doesn’t hurt when they’re going in. But when you wake up, they hurt like a son of a—”
“Is that really necessary?” the doctor asked, interrupting his assistant with a glare. He turned back to Walker. “It’s true that when you wake up, there may be some discomfort. Nausea and disorientation are often common side effects, but they usually go away quickly. You may also experience a sensitivity to light or several other physiological occurrences, but they are also usually minor and transitory in nature.”
“How long have you been certified to do this procedure, Doc?” Walker asked. Nausea? He didn’t need nausea afterwards; he had it now! They were going to drill into his head with nanites!
“Certified? Well no one ever really gets certified in this procedure.”
“Really? Isn’t it considered a medical procedure? I thought you had to be certified to conduct medical procedures.”
“Well, see, this isn’t really a ‘procedure,’ since no one ever does it this way. So, since it isn’t a procedure, you don’t have to be certified. Besides, Uzbekistan is a little more forgiving on what you can do with a medical license than most other countries. I have a certain…latitude here I might not have in other places. Like the United States, for example.”
“What do you mean, ‘no one does it this way’?”
The doctor shrugged. “Most people get their first two implants, take some time to get adjusted to them, and then come back and get their second set. Due to the time constraints involved, we’re going to give you all four now.”
“Have you done it this way before?”
“One time,” the doctor replied. “But don’t worry about it; we’ve learned a lot more about pinning since then.”
“You’re not filling me with a lot of confidence,” Walker said, starting to get up. “Maybe I should go get this done in town.”
The doctor sniffed and put a hand on Walker’s chest. “Bah; they’re heathens out there. And the conditions in their facilities? A sanitary Uzbek hospital is a contradiction of terms. Besides, they’d see you were American and take you for every last credit you have.” He pushed Walker back down. “You’re much better off here.”
“Well, can you at least explain what you’re going to do to me?”
“I can do that,” Polanis said. “Look at it this way. The basic set of pinplants is just a couple of contact points behind the ears that are hooked to your cerebrum via a series of nanite-constructed links. Nothing could be easier. They’re grown into your skull, so they’re very tough and won’t get knocked out, even if you take a MAC round to your head. You can think of it kind of like we’re running a USB into your brain. It will let you have more of a virtual reality experience while you’re playing video games or watching movies, but it isn’t really that helpful in killing bugs.”
“Okay, so I need more to do the good stuff,” Walker observed.
“Exactly,” the medic agreed. “The next level up in the civilian world will give you an additional set of implants that help your brain operate in parallel, allowing for faster data handling, as well as greater storage and processing of that data. You’ll be able to hold more information in your head and process it faster.”
“That’s how the guys at the gate could speak English,” Walker said.
“Right again,” the medic said. “To get both of these procedures done on the outside would cost about 6,000 credits total, 1,000 for the first set of implants and 5,000 for the second.”
“But you keep saying, ‘in the civilian world.’ I take it I’m having something done differently than what most people get?”
“Yes, you are, and that’s why you signed the agreement to remain with the Horde for a period of no less than eight years. The extra stuff you’re getting ain’t cheap.”
“What do you mean?”
“The problem with implants is that they’re alien technology,” the doctor said as he did something at the top of Walker’s head. “Hold on—you may feel a pinch. There.”
The top of Walker’s head went numb. “What was that?” he asked.
“Just a local anesthetic,” the doctor replied. “Now, where was I? Oh, yes, the implants are alien technology, and the trick is adapting that technology to Humans, which is taking some time. There are some alien species that have completely modified their brains with huge banks for data storage and additional processing capacity; they’ve blurred the lines between whether they are still a member of their original species or some sort of cyborg.”
“But you’re not doing that to me, right?” the butterflies were in full flight in Walker’s stomach, and a full-on case of anxious nausea was rapidly approaching.
“No, no, heaven’s no,” the doctor said. “Still too many issues with that, although I’d be happy to experiment a little with you if you’d like…Sansar turned out pretty good, this time…”
“No!” Walker exclaimed, trying to get up again. The medic held him down this time.
“Easy,” Polanis said. “He’s just fucking with you, Staff Sergeant. C’mon, Doc, you’ve screwed with the new guy enough.”
“All right, all right,” the doctor said with a theatrical sigh. “Just the basic Horde setup then.”
“If someone doesn’t tell me what you’re going to do to my head, and right now, I’m leaving!” Walker exclaimed. “I don’t want to be turned into a robot, and I don’t want to end up brain dead.”
“I’m not going to do either of those things,” the doctor said. “I am, however, going to give you the perfect integration of computer technology to match your still-functioning brain.”
“That sounds better,” Walker said. “Can you explain it in English?”
“Sure. The battlefront is a dangerous place, and it’s always changing. If a computer were to survey it, looking for threats, it would have to examine the vista
pixel by pixel and figure out what each thing is. Where does the rock end and the round enemy behind it begin? A huge number of algorithms have to work together to figure out where the enemy is, what things are dangerous, and so forth.”
“That’s the first thing you’ve said that’s made sense,” Walker noted.
“Humans, however, are more adaptable,” the doctor said, ignoring the interruption. “We can look at the same picture and use our judgment to figure out where the threats are. We can do the qualitative analysis robots and computers can’t, and we are better at recognizing patterns like three-dimensional shapes. Both of these things are key to staying alive on the modern battlefield, and why a Human will beat a robot, all other things being equal.
“With that being said, though,” the doctor continued after a pause, “there are other things the robot or computer can do that the Human can’t.”
“Like what?” Walker asked.
“Can you process radar or use other pieces of the electromagnetic spectrum outside of the visual to assist your target analysis?” Walker shook his head. “Robots can, if they are equipped with the right technology to do so.”
“Oh yeah?” Walker asked. “So can my suit.”
“Indeed it can,” the doctor replied. “The problem lies in how that information is processed and displayed.”
“I get it in a heads-up display.”
“You do, which means the data has to be received, processed, and converted to a visual image for you to see, and then you have to see it, process it, and convert it back into meaningful data you can act upon. That’s a lot of processes to complete before you can tell your finger to pull the trigger and kill your enemy.”
“And you can do better.”
“Absolutely,” the doctor said. “The speed of electricity through a wire is three million times faster than a neural impulse, so we will put onboard processing into your head and do the initial data analysis there. Then, it’s a simple matter of converting the data into an overlay that goes over your sight, somewhat like the heads-up display with which you are already familiar. The difference is that everything is going on inside your head, so there’s no need for visual systems that can break or be obscured with fog or smoke. If you can’t see, you have the ability to receive input from any of the suit’s sensors directly into your brain—radar, infrared, and even your targeting laser can be used to paint a picture if scanned fast enough—you will never be blind again. Well, not when you’re in a suit, anyway. In effect, your autonomous systems give you nearly superhuman powers. Want to be able to see through walls? Attach an S-band, pulsed-radar transmitter and receiver and you’ll be able to do that too.”
The Golden Horde (The Revelations Cycle Book 4) Page 5