Merkiaari Wars: 02 - What Price Honour

by Mark E. Cooper

“Eagle One, Falcon Leader.”

  The explosions died away to be replaced by the crashing of falling trees and the crackle of burning undergrowth. Gina wiped mud and leaves from her visor and blinked at her surroundings. She could hardly believe what she saw. For almost a klick ahead of her, nothing stood above ground level. Fires were burning all over, and where huge majestic trees once stood, now all that remained were piles of broken kindling surrounding a deep crater.

  The fighters screamed by overhead. “Eagle One, Falcon Leader,” the call came again.

  “Falcon Leader, Eagle One. You sure know how to trash a party,” Gina said, crawling to the edge of the huge smoking crater.

  “Navy training, Eagle One,” the voice said with a chuckle before hardening again. “Falcon Leader clear.”

  “Always knew flyboys were nuts, but this is ridiculous,” Westfield said in awe.

  Gina nodded in complete agreement. “Sensors up,” she ordered and rebooted her own software.

  “No hostiles,” Frankowski reported first and the others concurred.

  Eric pointed off to his right. “I have one.”

  Gina didn’t know how he knew that. He was a civ. More than that, he didn’t have Marine armour or tactical helmet with its sensor package. There was a depth to his emerald green eyes, a kind of knowing weariness that puzzled her. He noticed her watching him, and his lips quirked into a crooked smile. He seemed to find her amusing, which was strange considering the situation they were in. Strange or not, there was something about Eric that said she would be wise to heed him.

  “Frankowski, Westfield, go check it out. The rest of you cover them.”

  “Aye, aye,” her people chorused and moved out.

  Eric stood to follow.

  “Not you.”

  He shrugged. “As you wish.”

  As she wished? Damn right it was. “Who are you? What are you?”

  Eric smiled. “I think you already know, Sergeant, or perhaps you’re only now beginning to guess.”

  She glanced at his stump. Now she had time, she noticed something odd. It excited her at the same time as it appalled her. The bone wasn’t shattered or even split. Instead, it was bent and twisted at the end like metal. She knew why that was.

  “A viper?” she whispered reverently.

  Eric smiled again. “I think it’s time you called in, don’t you?”

  “What rank?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “It does to me.”

  He straightened to attention. “I am Captain Eric Penleigh, Special Assault Group, 501st infantry.” He relaxed and laughed at her dumbfounded expression. “Don’t bother to salute.”

  Gina nodded slowly. Of course he was 501st, all vipers were. To meet one was rare, especially when the Alliance consisted of more than two hundred member worlds, a total that didn’t include those in the Border Zone like Thurston. Who knew how many Human settled worlds there were altogether? She certainly didn’t. They had a great many worlds to cover.

  “Don’t make a fuss, Sergeant, and that is an order. I’m supposed to be Eric the terrorist while on this God forsaken planet. If you want to tell your people something, tell them I’m an informer who needs protection.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.” Gina almost saluted, but she managed to restrain herself in time.

  “And watch the sirs,” Eric added before walking away.

  “Is there likely to be more of this?”

  He looked back over his shoulder. “Probably.” He went to join her people in their search.

  Gina made her way to where Pike lay. She sat beside him and keyed his wristcomp to display a read out on his medical condition. It was in the red. She watched as his bots reported back that his condition was critical but stable. Reassured somewhat, she contacted base.

  “Red One, Eagle One.”

  “It’s about damn time,” Major Stein said. “Report, Eagle One.”

  “Sorry for the delay, Gold One. Something came up.” She wondered what had happened to Lieutenant Strong. “I have two dead and one seriously wounded.” She patted Pike on the knee, and he smiled feebly back at her. “We have the package and—” she broke off at a warning beep in her headset. “Wait one.” She changed channels. “What have we got?”

  “We found a live one, Gunny,” Frankowski said sounding surprised. “Our civ wants to take him in. I say we cap him for what he did to Gracey.”

  “Copy that.” She wanted the bastard dead, but Eric was no civ. “Bring him in alive. I want to ask him where his bastard friends are.”

  “Aye, aye. Eagle Nine clear.”

  Gina quickly changed channel again. “Gold One, Eagle One.”

  “Eagle One, Gold One. Go,” came Major Stein’s quick reply.

  “We have the package and one prisoner, sir. Request extraction co-ordinates.”

  “Gold One copies. Co-ordinates follow…”

  Gina tapped the figures into her wristcomp and pressed save. “Eagle One clear.”

  Frankowski prodded the rebel forward and made him sit before Gina in the mud. She gave Frankowski a meaningful look and he nodded almost imperceptibly. They had played this game with prisoners before. Gina casually pointed her rifle at the rebel and asked her question.

  “I ain’t talking to you bastids,” the prisoner spat before she could say another word.

  Gina grinned. Frankowski raised his pulser and pressed it against the man’s right knee. The terrorist closed his eyes and sweated. Gina was impressed. He hadn’t uttered a single word of protest.

  “Gunny?”

  Gina glanced at Eric. He was watching her intently. “Not yet… maybe later.”

  Frankowski nodded and lowered his weapon.

  Gina knew that there was nothing left of Grace to recover, but maybe Pags? “Any sign of Pags?”

  “He was near me,” Pike panted.

  Gina turned and surveyed the crater. Pike had been near the centre when he was hit. Nothing had survived. She said a silent prayer for her two friends, and then turned back to business. She had other friends that needed her. She downloaded the evac coordinates to their wristcomps, and then detailed off her people.

  “Frankowski and Westfield can look after our friend here. Cole, you take point. Ridley and Gleeson, you two carry Pike in the centre. Hollings, you’re rear guard—keep your eyes open for any more of this guy’s friends.”

  PFC Liz Hollings nodded and raised her weapon eagerly. Pags had been her best friend and she wanted payback.

  “And me?” Eric said.

  Gina studied him for a long considering moment. Vipers were lethal to anything that moved, but her people didn’t know what he was, and he wanted it kept that way.

  “In the centre with Pike. You’re wounded.”

  Eric nodded.

  “Let’s move Marines,” she ordered and Cole set a fast pace into the jungle.

  * * *

  President’s office, parliament building, Thurston

  “We have their location Mister President,” Major Patrick Stein said patiently.

  He was quite pleased with the calm sound of his voice. In reality, he was boiling with anger. Rage would be closer to what he was feeling. Two of his people were dead, and one would be lucky if he was back on duty in a month. He didn’t want to think what might have happened. The reality was bad enough.

  His thoughts turned to Gina, more properly Gunnery Sergeant Fuentez, but she had been with him long enough to be counted a friend not just a subordinate. She had been quiet when her squad arrived back at base. Oh, she had said the proper things during debriefing, but he knew she was hurting. Losing people you cared for was always hard, but losing those under your command was harder. Gina felt responsible for their deaths, and as the one directly in command, she was responsible. He knew she’d done all she could, but it would be a while before she accepted it. Who would have believed the situation could go down the crapper so quickly?

  Certainly not he.

  Third battalion was exactly one t
housand strong, of which no more than eight hundred and ten were line Marines. Eight hundred and eight now, he thought grimly. All Marines were rifleman first, and capable of fighting, but the odd one hundred and ninety were not truly meant for that. They were supply sergeants, cooks, and a hundred and one other things needed to keep a full battalion in the field for extended periods. He might need them all if this damn… if this President didn’t make a decision soon.

  “I just don’t know,” President Thurston said.

  Stein clenched a fist. “With all due respect, Mister President, you petitioned the Alliance for help. You do still want membership… don’t you?”

  “Yes but—”

  “Then I don’t see the problem.”

  President Thurston sighed deeply and stood from his place behind the authentic wooden desk. He gazed out of his blast-proof window at the bustling city below. “Look out there Major and tell me what you see.”

  Stein stood and joined the man. “I see buildings and streets. People walking… what more is there?”

  Thurston laughed. “What more he says. No, you’re right, but what I see is a future for my people. Did you know that less than twenty years ago this city would have been no bigger than a half dozen shacks?”

  “That’s hard to believe, sir,” he said respectfully.

  “It’s true, I promise you. My father lived in one. I did too for the first ten years of my life, but my father had a dream and managed to infect others with it.”

  Thurston stood silently gazing at what his father had wrought.

  “Dreams, sir?” Stein prompted.

  “Hmmm?”

  “You said your father had a dream.”

  “Yes he did. Anyone who was anyone was a miner in those days. My father arranged a meeting with the others and they agreed to build a consortium. They signed their holdings over to the company and became equal partners. Ships rarely came here back then, much rarer than today.” Thurston smiled. “I know what you’re thinking, Major.”

  Stein tried to look innocent. “I’m not aware of thinking anything at the moment, sir.”

  Thurston grinned. “That’s an amazing statement don’t you think? What I meant was, shipping is still infrequent, but back then we would be lucky to see a ship every five years. Now we have dozens. Anyway, he went off world and came back with the backing and machinery to mine the planet as it should be done.”

  “What has this to do with the terrorists, sir?”

  “The money he generated paid for the city out there, Major. It pays most of my people’s wages. Close to seventy-five percent of the population works for the company. The rest are in service industries, clothing, tools, food—things like that. More are starting up every year, but we are a long way from economic independence. Those terrorists, as you call them, are my employees.”

  Stein nodded. Now he was getting somewhere. “You are the elected representative of this world, sir. It’s your duty to uphold its constitution.”

  “Don’t tell me my duty.” Thurston snapped with eyes flashing. “Who do you think wrote the damn thing? My father built this colony and the company from nothing; without him this world wouldn’t be what it is today, but for all of that he was still a dictator. The people elected me as their first president when my father died, and I wrote our constitution a week later. Do you really think I would betray that just to save money?

  “I promised them a voice, and by God they will have one,” Thurston ranted. “Those people you would have me kill, are not only employees of the one company keeping this world from barbarism, they are citizens. They have a right to a voice just as everyone else does.”

  “A voice yes,” Stein said angrily. “But they have no right to go around blowing things up and killing my people.”

  Thurston’s shoulders sagged. “I know.”

  Stein took a deep steadying breath and in a milder tone asked, “What are you going to do?”

  “Call the election early,” Thurston said squaring his shoulders. “Your terrorists don’t want to join the Alliance? Fine. If they want to stand against me, that is their right. I will make joining the Alliance part of my campaign so that everyone will know where I stand. If I win, we join, if I lose…”

  “If you lose?”

  Thurston shrugged. “If I lose, you leave, and I hand over the government. I can go back to mining for a living.”

  Yeah right. He owned a tenth part of a company, which was sole owner of seventy percent of Thurston’s resources, and the only company that could currently exploit them. He certainly wouldn’t need to work, but perhaps he wanted to. Without the presidency, his life would have a void within it that he would need to fill.

  “When?” Stein said.

  “It has already begun.” Thurston nodded out the window.

  Stein turned to look and saw people rushing to view the public address screens scattered throughout the city. He hadn’t taken much notice of them before now—he saw thousands like them on worlds throughout the Alliance, but this was the first time he had seen an entire city stop to watch.

  Everyone was silent as Thurston’s recording gave his people news of the coming election, and his reasons for calling it early. The recording ended with everyone staring in stunned silence. A moment later, they turned toward the parliament building and shouted in one voice.

  “NOOOOO!”

  “I think it’s likely you will win, sir,” Stein said wincing at the volume of the shout.

  “Well, well. I don’t know what to say… well, well, well,” Thurston said touched.

  * * *

  Chapter 2

  Planet Thurston, Border Zone

  An old and well-used MPV (Multi-Purpose Vehicle) coasted along the quiet street with a turbine strong enough to rip trees out of the ground idling beneath its battered exterior. MPVs were often used for clearing stretches of jungle ready for construction. Although Thurston’s capital was young, its streets were paved as befitted any major city, yet a kilometre outside of the city limits, it was almost impossible to tell that humanity had ever laid claim to the planet. That being the case, most people still relied on MPVs to travel.

  The vehicle looked not at all out of place as it slowed and stopped opposite the gate leading to the grounds of President Thurston’s residence. Its windows were dark as if it had been used recently in the full bright of day, yet the addition of extra lighting seemed to deny that. The driver was a dark shadow within his air-conditioned cocoon as he watched the gates. When a guard began to take an interest in him, he accelerated away.

  As soon as the MPV was out of sight, the guard relaxed and went back to his coffee.

  “Well?” a second guard said.

  “It was nothing, just some damn tourist.”

  “A tourist? You’re dreaming. No one in his right mind would come here.”

  “We did.”

  “Exactly my point.”

  At that moment, the sound of a turbine split the air. It screamed like a banshee when the driver pushed the throttle through the stops and aimed at the gate. The guards pulled their weapons and ran out of the guardhouse. Both men crouched and fired repeatedly into the MPV’s engine bay hoping to kill the turbine before impact.

  They failed.

  The reinforced gates gave way as the MPV struck them. Both guards dove aside and came up firing, but unbeknown to them they had no chance of disabling the vehicle. It had been fitted with heavy steel armour in strategic places. It was more like a tank than an MPV.

  The driver didn’t flinch as he smashed into the President’s house, nor did he panic as the MPV ground to a stop imbedded in an interior wall. Instead, he switched off the turbine and retrieved the detonator. He flicked open the red cover with a thumb and pressed the button concealed there.

  Driver, MPV, and residence disappeared in an eye-searing ball of flame as two hundred kilograms of industrial grade explosive detonated.

  * * *

  Gina sat on her rack and field stripped her rifle for the ten
th time. The well-practiced movements were automatic after all these years. The repetition of routine soothed her. There was nothing at all wrong with the weapon. If there had been, she would be screaming at the supply sergeant for a replacement component.

  Grace had been with her in boot camp. Both of them had joined on the same day and had been fast friends ever since. Even her promotion over Grace hadn’t dimmed their affection for one another—and now she was gone.

  At least it was quick. Not like Pags.

  She snarled something under her breath. Even she didn’t know what it was. It was quick, so it was all right? To hell with that. It wasn’t all right. It stank!

  Oh, what was the use?

  If she’d brought the launchers, Grace would still have died. That was what she told herself, but would she really? Toting a tripod mounted RPG (rocket propelled grenade) launcher through the jungle would have slowed them, but she would have known that and left earlier, so it didn’t count. She would have set it up behind the riverbank, and given it to Frankowski and Westfield because they were the best at laying it on the target.

  Eric arrives, the enemy arrives, she orders open fire…

  Gina frowned. No, that wasn’t how it happened. Grace had lit up the jungle with the AAR before the order was given, but that was okay because she was in the best position to see the enemy. Which in turn meant the enemy launcher had Grace zeroed even before Eric finished introducing himself. Grace was dead from the moment they set out on the mission.

  No, she couldn’t accept that.

  How about this then? They could have taken an automatic RPG launcher. Again, it would have taken more time, but they had that. She would have set it up behind the riverbank—it really was the ideal place—and put Westfield on it because he was the best with the computer. Eric arrives, and the stupid launcher kills him because he isn’t wearing Marine armour with its IFF transponder telling it not to shoot.

  Damn!

  The only thing that would have saved Grace was her giving up the AAR. She knew Grace wouldn’t have given it up voluntarily. She had been the best with the weapon and had seniority. Taking it from her without grounds would have shown a lack of confidence in her that Grace would never have forgotten. If Gina had known then what would happen, she would have taken the weapon anyway and given it to… who? Whoever she gave it to would have died in Grace’s place.