by Ryk Brown
“Send the tickets to our cell in Minneapolis, and have them attempt to scalp them at the game,” Aleksi suggested.
“Already done,” Garret assured him.
“Then it appears you have everything well in hand, Mister Natta,” Aleksi congratulated, observing the long lines of people. “And the turn-out at the other two locations you spoke of?”
“The last report showed them to be at good reservation levels as well,” Garret reported.
“Very well,” Aleksi stated, turning to return to his vehicle. “Carry on.”
* * *
General Telles and his team walked across the Aurora’s open port aft flight deck toward the Voss just as Nathan and Miri came down her aft ramp. “I trust the deployments went as planned?”
“Absolute perfection,” Nathan replied. “Right down to the nanosecond. You have to love those AIs.”
“I doubt Mister Hayes would agree with you,” Lieutenant Rezhik commented, walking alongside the general. “Gentlemen, store your gear and prepare for departure,” he instructed the two four-man squads who accompanied them.
“Good to have you back on board, gentlemen,” Nathan said, welcoming Kit and Mori as they passed by him on their way up the ramp.
“Are this many men necessary?” Miri wondered. “I’m just one person, after all.”
“You’re currently the most important person in the entire sector,” Nathan corrected.
“Had I more men to spare, I would have brought them as well,” General Telles assured her.
“How are ten or even twenty men going to protect me any more than one man while I’m aboard the Voss?” Miri wondered.
“You’re assuming that you will not have to leave the Voss,” General Telles reminded her.
“Leaving the Voss wasn’t part of the plan,” Miri argued.
“If the plan works, you’ll eventually have to leave the Voss and take charge at the capitol complex,” Nathan pointed out. “I’m with the general. The more men, the better.”
“I have three six-man, quick-response teams loaded onto Reapers. In addition, I have a platoon of twenty more Ghatazhak, accompanied by one hundred Corinari special forces, sitting in the cargo pod of a pod hauler. If we need more men, we’ll have them.”
“The Corinari volunteered?” Nathan wondered, surprised.
“Insisted would be a more appropriate term,” the general replied, glancing at his watch. “We have just under ten minutes until mission zero. Perhaps we should continue this conversation while under way?”
“You’re the general,” Nathan agreed, turning to head back up the ramp.
Miri took a deep breath, letting it out in a long sigh.
“Are you certain you’re up for this, Miss Scott-Thornton?” the general inquired politely.
“Honestly, no, I’m not certain.” Miri looked at him. “Are you ever certain?”
“Rarely,” the general admitted, offering her his arm.
“Then let’s get this over with,” she decided. “I’d like to go home. My real home.”
“As you wish, Madame President.”
* * *
Six bodies clad in black armor coasted through deep space, barely visible against the black, starry backdrop. Each man was followed by an external energy pack, tethered to his back by an umbilical.
Lieutenant Brons checked the display on the inside of his visor. “One minute, gentlemen. Check in.”
“Moskol, green.”
“Tokarski, green.”
“Close, green.”
“Siewert, green.”
“Kjelland, green.”
“Wow, I expected Tokarski to be asleep,” the lieutenant joked.
“I was until a few minutes ago,” Tokarski admitted. “Nothing like a zero-G nap.”
“Twenty seconds to upper atmosphere insertion jump,” the lieutenant’s CAPS AI warned.
“Stun only, boys,” the lieutenant reminded the other five in his team. “Don’t kill unless we have no choice.”
“Yes, mother,” Corporal Moskol replied.
“Has it occurred to anyone that this extended-range system has never been live tested?” Specialist Siewert asked.
“We’re testing it now,” the lieutenant replied. “Jumping in three……two……one……”
Six small flashes of light appeared, and the team of Ghatazhak coasting toward the Earth two light years away disappeared. All that was left were their auxiliary energy packs, their tethers severed by the very jump fields they had dumped their additional energy into.
Four buses, their sides decorated with the logo of the team they were pretending to support, exited the highway and pulled onto the service road leading to the Winnipeg net-hub.
Inside the lead bus, a man sitting behind the driver rose and turned toward the fifty passengers behind him. “Five minutes, people. Time to earn your credits. Signs and banners are in the cargo bays below. Grab something on your way out. And remember to remove your team gear before you disembark. We don’t want to get our Wolves involved.”
Six tiny flashes of light appeared in the upper atmosphere, fifteen kilometers above Earth’s North American continent. Six Ghatazhak in full mark two combat augmentation and protection suits fell toward the surface in formation. The men spread out as they fell, using their bodies to steer themselves toward their final destination far below. At eleven other locations around the planet, similar teams arrived, making their own controlled, covert descents toward the surface.
Less than a minute after their arrival, small drogue parachutes spilled out of the packs on their backs, trailing out behind them. Once deployed, the small parachutes slowed their descent enough to safely deploy their main chutes, putting them into controlled descents that enabled their suit AIs to more precisely control their approach to the small compound still seven kilometers below.
Six buses pulled into the lighted parking lot in front of the shopping center, joining the buses already unloading their passengers.
“Form up into lines beside your bus,” the man called over the handheld loudspeaker as disembarking passengers grabbed protest signs from the buses’ cargo bays. “The protest location is half a kilometer away. We will begin our march in three minutes.”
“How many do we have?” the man with the loudspeaker questioned his cohort.
“Looks like we filled every seat,” his cohort replied. “Should be about nine hundred people.”
“Excellent,” the man with the loudspeaker stated, looking satisfied. “That should make a believable protest.”
“Are they staging similar protests at the other hubs, or just this one?” his cohort wondered.
“Our instructions only referred to this hub. What might be happening at the others is no concern of ours.”
“The insurgency calls, and we obey,” his cohort commented, unconvinced that they were doing the right thing. “And if Galiardi’s marines show up?”
“They won’t fire on an unarmed crowd of peaceful protesters,” the man with the loudspeaker assured his cohort.
“I hope you’re right,” his cohort replied, “for their sake.”
“Just remind all unit leaders that no one is to make any moves that could be misinterpreted as violent acts.”
“Trust me, they know.”
Lieutenant Brons kept his eyes on the display inside his helmet visor. It had taken less than thirty seconds for his suit’s AI to maneuver him onto a precise course for the Winnipeg net-hub. He had been descending under canopy for two minutes now, and after initial course acquisition, he had yet to veer from it even one hundredth of a degree. As much as he hated to admit it, the AI was far better suited for the task than even a Ghatazhak.
“Twenty seconds to final insertion jump,” his AI warned. “Are you ready, Lieutenant?”
“Don’t be a wiseass, Cap
si.”
“I’ll take that as confirmation of your readiness,” his AI replied.
Although he was certain it was his imagination, Lieutenant Brons could swear he heard a faint bit of sarcasm in his AI’s voice.
“Disconnect in three……two……one……”
The lieutenant pulled his arms in close to his body and tucked his legs together as his parachute’s main lines suddenly disconnected. For a brief moment, he felt himself falling.
“Jumping,” his AI announced.
The lieutenant closed his eyes, counting off a single second as his AI jumped him the rest of the way down to the surface. Opening his eyes, he spread his arms back out for balance, and bent his knees in preparation for touchdown.
The lieutenant glanced downward. As planned, his AI had executed a micro jump that had transitioned him to a position only ten meters above the surface, an altitude from which his mark two suit could easily absorb the impact of landing.
He braced himself, landing with no more force than if he had ridden his parachute all the way down. A quick glance at the tactical map displayed on the inside of his helmet visor revealed twelve targets. One in each corner guard tower, two at the entrance to the main building, and six more patrolling the compound in pairs. It also showed him the positions of the other five men on his strike team, all of whom had jumped to the surface at the same time and were already swinging into action.
The red icons on the lieutenant’s display began changing to yellow, indicating the targets had been stunned by members of his team and were not currently a threat. He raised both arms, cocking his wrists downward and touching the sides of his index fingers to fire the blasters mounted on his forearms. Two shots, and the two guards at the entrance to the main building were down, rendered unconscious by the energy charges. The lieutenant then turned left, bringing his arms together and firing again, dropping the two guards charging toward him. Corporal Moskol, who had landed to the lieutenant’s right, took out the only other pair of guards within range.
Both Ghatazhak immediately moved to the entrance of the main building as the other four members of their team dealt with the rest of the EDF personnel trying to defend the net-hub. As expected, the sudden change in the guards’ states of consciousness automatically triggered the alarm. In less than a minute, there would be twenty more guards emerging from the main building, and it would be the responsibility of himself and the corporal to deal with them.
The lieutenant glanced at his mission clock in the upper right corner of his helmet visor display. They had been on the ground for twenty seconds and had less than three minutes left to take control of the facility and upload the hack provided by the insurgents before the auto-sync occurred.
Piece of cake, he thought to himself, remembering the Terran phrase from his time on Earth seven years ago.
The officers and technicians at Net Control were accustomed to sudden interruptions in their normal routines. However, the alerts were always drills, not indicators of real assaults against the data-com network that connected every person and every thing on the planet.
“Intrusion alarm at the Winnipeg hub,” the officer monitoring that particular facility reported.
The duty officer in charge of the facility immediately took notice. “Set condition three,” he ordered. The lighting in the room changed, indicating the change in defense condition.
“Intrusion alarm at the Moscow hub,” another officer announced.
“Intrusion alarm at the Beijing hub.”
“Intrusion alarm at the Guinea hub.”
“Intrusion alarm at the Brasilia hub.”
“I’ve got it, people,” the duty officer stated, halting the stream of reports before the remaining officers could sound off. “Set condition two,” he added, tapping a button on his console. “Command, Net Control, Commander Persei. Condition Two. Intrusion alarms on all hubs. This is not a drill. Dispatch QRTs to all hubs.”
Without communication, Lieutenant Brons and Corporal Moskol took up positions on either side of the building’s front entrance, readying themselves. As expected, EDF Marines came charging out. The first group of four ran a few meters before dropping to one knee to take up firing positions. Within seconds, the marines spotted two of the other Ghatazhak charging toward them from the north side of the complex and opened fire. What the EDF Marines had not expected was for the intruders to have personal shields.
The two charging Ghatazhak purposefully missed, firing all around the kneeling marines. Their feint had the desired effect, drawing reinforcement soldiers out of the building. Once the additional troops were in the open, the attacking Ghatazhak stopped missing their targets, again firing with precision. At the same time, the lieutenant and the corporal also opened fire, and in seconds, all twelve EDF Marines lay unconscious on the ground.
“North side, secure,” the lieutenant announced. It was the first communication between him and his men since entering Earth’s atmosphere.
“South secure,” Specialist Tokarski reported.
“Close and Siewert, sweep east,” the lieutenant instructed. “Tokarski and Kjelland sweep west. Moskol and I will secure the building. Once you finish your sweeps, man the towers. Those QRTs will be here in two minutes.”
Nathan stood at his makeshift station on the Voss’s command deck, trying not to watch the mission clock on his display and failing miserably. “Plus three minutes,” he stated. “Anything?”
“Not a peep,” Jessica replied from the starboard auxiliary station.
“Didn’t Telles say the net-hubs would be relatively easy to seize?”
“Relatively,” Jessica reminded. “Wait… Message from the Aurora. All twelve hubs are under our control.”
Nathan glanced at the mission clock again. “They’ve got thirty seconds to upload that hack. That’s cutting it awfully close.”
“They’ve got this, Nathan,” Jessica stated confidently.
“I wish I had your confidence,” Nathan admitted.
“If you’d trained with these guys for the last seven years like I have, you’d have just as much confidence in them as I do.”
“Another signal from the Aurora,” Jessica continued. “We jump in twenty seconds.”
Two EDF Reapers appeared behind blue-white flashes of light, three hundred meters above the city of Winnipeg and half a kilometer from its net-hub.
The lead QRT Reaper’s pilot looked out his window as they approached and started their circle to land, noticing the stream of protesters marching toward the Winnipeg net-hub, signs in hand. “Command, QRT One Five. We’ve got about a thousand civilian protesters approaching the facility. Estimate they’ll have it surrounded in one minute.”
“QRT One Five, Command. Are you saying protesters have taken control of the Winnipeg hub?”
“Command, One Five,” the pilot replied. “I’m saying that there are protesters approaching. We’re circling the facility now.”
Several bolts of energy weapons fire streaked up at the circling Reaper, slamming into its starboard shields and rocking the ship.
“What the fuck?” the pilot exclaimed, taking evasive action. “Hold on, boys,” he warned the Marines in the back.
“Did you get eyes on?” the senior marine in the back asked over the intercom.
“I was too busy evading,” the pilot answered as he came back around.
“I’ve got him,” the copilot reported as more energy bolts lashed out at them. “Shooters are in the towers. Black combat armor. The energy bolts are coming from something on their forearms!”
“Those sure as hell aren’t your run-of-the-mill protesters,” the pilot stated as he took more evasive maneuvers.
“Can you drop us in the center?” the senior marine asked.
“Negative,” the pilot answered. “We’d be sitting ducks the moment we dropped shields to let you down. Com
mand, One Five. We’re taking fire from the guard towers.”
“One Five, Command. Can you take out the towers?”
“Command, One Five, not without killing civilians.”
“One Five, Command. Are civilians in the towers?”
“Negative, Command,” the pilot advised. “Civilians are on the ground, outside the facility. They are unarmed. Troops in black combat armor are in the towers. Please advise.”
“One Five, Command. Stand by.”
“Figures,” the senior marine in the back complained. “Drop us a few blocks away. We’ll hoof it in.”
“And if those civilians get in your way?” the pilot asked.
“They won’t,” the senior marine assured him.
The pilot swung the Reaper’s nose around, turning away from the net-hub to find a place to set down safely and unload his ambitious passengers. “No chance this goes south,” he remarked sarcastically.
The door to Admiral Galiardi’s office at the capitol complex in Winnipeg burst open as his aide and two plainclothes bodyguards entered the room in a rush.
“What is it?” the general demanded.
“All twelve net-hubs have been seized,” his aide reported.
“By whom?”
“We do not know. Initial quick-response teams report protesters at all the net-hubs and soldiers in black combat armor in the towers, shooting at our QRT Reapers to keep them away.”
“Protesters?” the admiral wondered as he quickly dressed. “How many?”
“Numbers vary. A few hundred to a few thousand. Moscow has the most. Winnipeg is right in the middle at around a thousand. There are two QRTs on the ground at each hub, trying to find a way in from the outside, but the protesters are getting in the way.”
“Are the protesters armed?” the admiral asked, hoping for an affirmative answer.
“Not that we know of,” his aide replied. “But that could change at any moment.”
“Have we sent in reinforcements?”