Merkiaari Wars: 01 - Hard Duty

by Mark E. Cooper

  “Take the others, but give me a lander. I’ll get there.”

  “I haven’t got one, Tei. James and the others are marooned on Child of Harmony with the only one not destroyed. Even if I did have one, I wouldn’t give it to you. I don’t hold with suicide.”

  “No? Then what was that attack if not suicide?”

  Colgan shifted uncomfortably. “I calculated the risks and they were favourable. Putting you in a lander is not. You have no choice. This ship is jumping outsystem as soon as I give the word, but I wanted you to agree.”

  “Then, as I have no real choice, you have my agreement for what it’s worth.”

  “It’s worth something to me, Tei.” Colgan rose to his feet. “Come to the bridge with me.”

  Colgan led the way to the bridge, and asked Tei’Varyk to sit in the observer seat. He racked his helmet beside his command station and slumped into it. He was tired, but he couldn’t rest yet.

  “Prepare for jump.”

  “Jump drive hot, Skipper, all jump stations report manned and ready,” Lieutenant Wesley reported.

  “Referent?”

  “Referent locked in, destination Sol.”

  Colgan glanced at Tei’Varyk where he sat staring at his homeworld on the viewscreen. “Execute!”

  ASN Canada twisted and was gone. Where she had been, empty space remained.

  * * *

  26~Blown

  Deep Jungle, Planet Thurston, 01:00

  Eric crossed the open compound appearing casual and uninterested in anything going on. It was the middle of the night, but you wouldn’t know it by the activity under the harsh white floodlights on the towers. Night was when the work was done; daytime was for sleep and relaxation.

  The buildings, shacks at best, were constructed of materials scavenged from the jungle locally. A matter of both convenience and security. There was always the chance that supplies could be traced to the base, though Eric found it unlikely. It was impressive foresight regardless. All the important equipment was kept underground in the old mine itself. The command centre, barracks, motor pool, commissary... all were in the various tunnels and caverns protected from dinos and discovery both. Above ground, the shacks contained various stores mostly awaiting use in raids or shipment elsewhere. The only way in or out of the compound was by road, the only one was little more than a single lane dirt track. From the air it was invisible until it joined a properly paved road leading from active mining facilities to the east. From there it led to a small airfield able to handle transports and shuttles. Eric had travelled that route to reach the base.

  Eric kept his steps casual. He was a well known face and people nodded or raised a hand in greeting as he passed. He smiled and nodded in return, or gave a brief wink and grin if it was a pretty girl. He was liked, and he made sure never to destroy that image. He blended. He was one of them. They trusted him, and were even a little in awe of his skills because when they went on raids he planned, no one got dead. He was indispensable now. As planned.

  Eric paused as his sensors detected a weapon system coming online. He turned slowly, making it seem he was looking for someone. In reality, he was turning to watch as the sentry guns powered up. There wasn’t a test scheduled as far as he knew, and he made it his business to know such things. He squinted in the bright light of the floods, and watched. The guns were tracking something, but the jerking hesitating way they moved told Eric this was a malfunction not a test. He readied himself to run for cover, but then he realised the guns really were tracking but not firing. Not a malfunction then. He ordered his processor to run a sensor sweep. Multiple unknowns dotted his display and they were close! His right hand twitched, but he managed not to pull his gun. The unknowns had to be native wildlife, some kind of nocturnal flying dinosaur or bat. Did Thurston even have bats? He had no idea.

  He watched the sentry guns tracking the sources of his unease and knew what the problem was. The gun’s sensitivity had been dialled way down because they had kept fragging the wildlife and getting on everyone’s nerves. Sentry guns were noisy and burned through ammo at a horrendous rate. Now though, an unknown threat had been detected within a hundred meters and the gun’s programming said threats must be eliminated, but the sources were smaller than the new limits that had been imposed to prevent false alarms. The guns were stuck in a logic loop. They tracked, tried to fire, were prevented from firing, tried to power down, and looped back to detecting a threat and tracking again. That was why they were moving spasmodically when normally they would be smooth.

  “God damned junk!” someone cried heading toward one of the sentry gun towers.

  Eric nodded as if he agreed, but in fact he didn’t agree. Those guns were good tech and dangerous in professional hands. It wasn’t their fault they had been deployed in the wrong environment. Even here in the jungle they would do the job, they just needed a little care and tinkering. He could have had them running as smooth as can be in a few hours, or he could tell the techs here how to do it. He wouldn’t though. He wasn’t here to help them, he was here to bring them crashing down. He was here to end them, and had spent months here putting a plan together to do just that.

  Killing everyone here would be a short term solution. He had considered it a few times, but he wanted long term. He was tired of people making the same mistakes over and over, undoing his work and making him come back for a do over. He needed to change the political system, or aid President Thurston in his efforts to do so. A simple massacre here wouldn’t do it, wouldn’t even make the evening news. He needed a big splash, something big enough to tip the government over the edge and force them to take the leap into full Alliance membership instead of just talking the matter to death in Parliament.

  Eric turned back to his walk, letting his sensors map the minefield as he walked the perimeter. It was stifling hot under the camo netting and the nano net beneath it. Simple is efficient, Eric mused, taking a moment to look up. Funny how such a low tech solution as netting strung overhead could fool high tech observation from satellites or navy air patrols. The camo netting fooled the eye, and the nano nets fooled any sensors that relied upon heat, magnetic, or electrical emissions.

  When he had climbed aboard that transport at Zhang’s factory months ago and headed for the port, he had wondered then how the Freedom Movement had managed to hide a base on a planet with modern satellite communications and its attendant surveillance capabilities. What impressed him about the Freedom Movement’s solution was that the old mining facility had been hidden years ago, long before the Freedom Movement even existed. King had been planning and scheming for decades. He must have hidden the place in case he ever needed it, and somehow destroyed any record it had ever existed. To do all that just in case? Amazing.

  Had King always intended to overthrow the government, even as a young man? Why? Back then, democracy on Thurston had been a distant dream; not even that. President Thurston’s father had been a dictator, one of a handful of men who owned the company which in turn owned most of the below ground resources of the planet. He’d had no intention of ever joining the Alliance and must be spinning in his grave at his son’s antics. Writing a constitution based upon the Alliance constitution and then upholding it! Ye gods. He had even given away his own lifetime Presidency in favour of a five year term and proper elections! So King didn’t want Thurston to join the Alliance; what did he want?

  Eric had no idea, but he had used his time trying to find out, and had learned a great many things. He now knew names in the government secretly dealing with King and helping the Freedom Movement, he knew everything there was to know about the base here and its resources. He knew where all the terrorist cells were located and what their missions were, but he still had not fathomed King’s motivation. It didn’t matter. All that did was Stein’s marines taking King and the other government conspirators out. And they would. As soon as he reported in, Stein would move. Just a matter of time now.

  Timing was the thing. He hadn’t reported in yet,
because he didn’t have a long term solution to the government’s dithering. If Stein moved now and decapitated the Movement, the underlings would fade away only to re-emerge years later, probably stronger, certainly wiser from experience, but worse than that would be the government’s reaction. He could see it clearly. They would relax; believing the emergency over, they would go back to business as usual. Might even withdraw their application to join the Alliance, probably would because what need now eh? Now the emergency was over and the terrorists taken care of? Foolish to think that way, but Eric had seen it many times. Easy to forget when immediate danger passes. So he held back his data, stalled the marines leaving them in a guard position and reacting to events instead of preempting them. Not something they liked, to be sure. Marines preferred well defined goals... go here, destroy that. Take that hill. They were damned good at it.

  “Hey Eric, give a hand here could you?” Reiner said from across the compound.

  Eric lifted a hand and went to join him. “What’s up?”

  “Got to get this stuff squared away,” Reiner said struggling to drag a crate off the battered loader’s forks. “Goddamned pile of junk ran dry before I finished.”

  “Power cell dead again? Should have charged the mother before you started, my man. You know what this heat does to a cell’s efficiency,” Eric said getting a grip on the other side of the wooden crate and lifting. He groaned and cursed for effect, when in reality he could have carried it alone with ease. “Damn me, what’s in it?”

  “Ammo,” Reiner grunted, his voice strained. “Over there with the others.”

  Eric shuffled in time with the man. Ammo stores was a simple shack with canvas roof, and was stacked high with all kinds of crates; some wooden like this one, others metal, but most were the olive green fireproof plastic cases that told an experienced eye they were out of an off world Alliance weapon’s factory. The codes were in Eric’s database, and the sight of so many RPGs (Rocket propelled Grenades) and SAMs (Surface to Air Missiles) stockpiled here and in the mine had angered him when he first realised how well supplied the Movement was. They were for killing marines and navy pilots, especially the SAMs. Off world backing again. He saw the like more and more

  They manoeuvred down a lane left open between stacks for the purpose of moving stuff around, and had just navigated the corner safely when Reiner tripped. Staggering backwards he let go of the crate, trying to keep his feet out from under it. Eric should have held the weight easily, but the suddenly unbalanced load bit into his hands and tipped. Before he knew it, the crate had smashed upon the ground spilling cases of loose rounds onto the dirt floor. Hot blood scolded his palms and he scowled at his hands.

  Bloody wooden crates in this day and age. Bloody Border Worlds in the bloody Border Zone, bloody primitives...

  He muttered curses as he pulled out the long slivers of wood. He didn’t notice Reiner staring at him, at first. He looked up from his ripped flesh and saw Reiner staring at his hands. Eric looked down again and... oh shit. The synthskin glove on his right hand was ripped and the gold contacts of his weapon’s bus were clearly visible. Dammit, not now! He wasn’t ready. Ready or not, his cover just went bye bye.

  “You’re a—” Reiner began, shocked and horrified, but he said no more, and wouldn’t ever again as Eric leapt forward and broke his neck.

  Eric held the body sagging in his arms; maybe he could salvage this. He could hide the body; dump it in the jungle as a free meal for passing dinosaurs. The others would miss Reiner eventually, but maybe they would think the wildlife got him. It would be the truth...

  A shout, and the sound of running feet had Eric spinning in place, but it was too late. Another man was running for his life and screaming the alarm. Eric cursed, dropped Reiner, and hurried deeper into the ammo store heading for the far wall. He kicked his way through the wall and ran for the wire fence. It was a simple chain link affair, not meant to keep men in or out, just the smaller jungle creatures attracted by the chance of easy food. He chose a blind spot in the fence, a section the sentry guns didn’t cover very well, and ripped it down with his bare hands. He called up his map of the minefield, and started picking his meandering way through, while behind him, men grouped up and began their pursuit.

  In a matter of moments he was into the minefield following his safe route. Safe was a relative term, but his sensor sweeps had been thorough. He had everything well mapped and knew his own abilities. He could pass through, but his pursuers would need to turn the field off before they could follow. They must have realised, because they stopped at the boundary and ordered him to stop. He didn’t of course and they fired a warning shot. He kept going.

  Eric leapt over the last mines and ducked into the trees just as the enemy finally organised itself and opened up on him. He put the trees at his back and ran. Hard. No one could catch a Viper in flight, but they didn’t know what he was and would try. He watched them on his sensors as they entered the minefield. They didn’t know what he was or why he had killed Reiner, but they didn’t need to. All they needed to know was that he was running away with knowledge they couldn’t let him spread.

  Shots rang out unaimed. Surely they must be unaimed with the trees between him and them. They couldn’t see him, but they might get lucky. He couldn’t run full speed. The jungle was too dense. He changed course, heading away at a tangent hoping they would keep going straight. His sensors updated and Eric cursed. Someone was thinking back there. They were following using motion detectors or other sensors.

  Nothing for it, he needed extraction and fast. He made the call to Stein using internal comms linked via satellite.

  “I’m blown,” Eric panted. “Need extraction fast.”

  Stein snarled a curse. “Do you have what we need?”

  Eric wondered if Stein would leave him hanging if he said no. He grinned. Good thing he had the data then wasn’t it? “I have it, I have it all.”

  “Understood. I’ll have a team cover your withdrawal. Coordinates follow...”

  Eric adjusted his route and added the rendezvous to his map. It would take him less than an hour to reach, but the marines would take longer to get there even if Stein had a team on standby. He needed to delay his pursuers.

  “I’ll be there.”

  “Stein out.”

  Eric increased his lead and started to think seriously about using the road. He could really pile on the pace if he did, but the road went the wrong way. He could still use it to lose pursuit, and then double back. No, he didn’t need to give them even more opportunities to find him. According to sensors, they were already breaking up into teams and spreading out. Damn them, now wasn’t the time for them to show some competency.

  Eric was so busy watching what was behind and trying to plan an escape, he failed to note what was waiting for him up ahead until it was too late. He skidded to a halt and looked up and up...

  “Fuck me,” he whispered, his face draining of colour. “Desmond!” His hand was a blur reaching for his gun, but it was too little too late. The huge dinosaur’s jaws snapped forward. The crocodile like teeth ripping and tearing.

  The screaming began.

  * * *

  27~A Cry for Help

  ASN Invincible, Northcliff System

  Falling…

  …Twisting, and falling…

  …Down, and round…

  Twisting, and here!

  ASN Invincible staggered and bled away the awesome speed a ship could attain in fold space with a blaze of light, her impossibly fast motion—impossible now she had re-entered real space—was instantly converted to raw energy and blasted away from her into the void. She seemed to twist along her centreline one last time as if shaking off the last traces of fold space from non-existent coattails. The blue energy discharge that always accompanied translation gradually dispersed. That discharge would be alerting beacons and system defence nets of an intruder throughout the system, but not quite yet. The light-speed wavefront, though fast, would still take a mi
nute or three to hit the nearest beacon.

  Captain Monroe retched into her helmet and groaned at the smell and burning in her throat. With shaking hands on seemingly boneless arms, she threw the disgusting helmet away and coughed racking her chest with every breath. The steady beeping from the communications consol told her of a beacon query, but no one silenced it. Martin was out of it, and so was the rest of the bridge crew. Groans and coughing came from her left front as Keith Hadden tried to wake from the stupor that fold space had put him in.

  Monroe had never, never, experienced a worse translation. The speed she had forced out of Invincible was the cause, but the emergency translation back to normal space was necessary to save time, and time was in short supply.

  The beacon… she thought mushily as her people groaned and began to rouse. She stood on legs gone wobbly and tottered to the communications panel. Keying in Invincible’s security sequence, she dumped the prepared message into the queue and transmitted it to the beacon—fleet priority one.

  That done she staggered to her seat and collapsed into it. She had done what needed to be done. It was up to the authorities at Northcliff now.

  * * *

  Aboard ASN Sutherland, Northcliff System

  Northcliff was a beautiful planet, Lieutenant Commander Oakley thought, and he was stuck up here in this tin can! He sighed. His work was important, it was necessary and most times very interesting and rewarding, but at zero-three-hundred on the bridge of an Alliance carrier, the only thing rewarding enough would be a long sleep in his rack.

  “Sir?” Communications specialist Guauri Kistna said, frowning at her panel.