CHAPTER 3
Perrin kept his back to the wall of the elevator as it continued higher. The company commanders and colonels Jematé and Timmons were closest to the doors. Jematé seemed more tense than usual. One of the captains yawned and mumbled an apology.
The elevator stopped and the doors opened with a ding. The Hegemony military’s nerve center on Dahrien reeked of sweat and old coffee. Holo boards ringed a central dais with a tactical ring where an officer could command battles anywhere on the planet.
Perrin licked his lips, jealous of the top-tier equipment Central command had at its disposal. His attention flitted from holo to holo, trying to grasp the strategic situation. Many of the provinces far from Malakal, the capital, were dark except for a bright red X through the center of the regions.
“Bretton Eleventh?” A female colonel with her hair pulled into a messy bun stepped between the workstations. “The marshal’s expecting you.”
“Can my operations officer pull data while we speak with him?” Jematé lifted a hand towards Perrin.
“No . . . I don’t think there’s time for that.” She gave them a plastic smile, then her voice fell to a whisper. “You won’t be here that long.”
“Certainly.” Jematé followed her to a set of double doors guarded by a pair of soldiers in Flanker gear. The colonel cracked the door open and peeked inside, then held it open.
Jematé marched in and stopped two steps from a wooden desk. He stood ramrod straight and saluted. The man behind the disk didn’t rise. He was bald, at least Perrin thought he was bald at first glance. A wide patch of scar tissue and synth-skin grafts that didn’t match the tone of his skin stretched from the middle of his forehead to the back of his right ear. One eye was milky white; the other swam in the throes of some manner of narcotic.
A pile of empty field ration wrappers overloaded a trash can on one side of the desk. Two stacked crates of water bottles were on the other side. There was a distinct scent of urine in the office.
“Colonel Jematé, Bretton Eleventh Infantry reports as—”
“Yes yes, Marshal Jaworski.” The man returned a flippant salute. “There . . . were supposed to be more of you. General McDaniels says your governor could only find one transport?”
“Correct, sir.” Jematé remained at attention. “The rest of the brigade will arrive as soon as possible.”
“I have been begging the Highest for reinforcements for two years.” Jaworski leaned forward slightly. “The first thing the Most High Council told me to do was fall back on the Local Force Generation plan. I did that. Trained tens of thousands of Flags to fight properly and armed them with fresh gear from the printers out of the Navy’s picket force. Do you know what happened next?”
Jematé’s lower lip quivered.
“I sent them all to clear out the five provinces in active rebellion against the Hegemony and they were all dead in a month.” Jaworski smiled, revealing several missing teeth. “At least, that’s what was reported to me. Then the Flags launched a brand-new offensive that cut this city off from the thermal sinks and now the civilians are running off whatever solar panels and generators they can find. Guess how happy they are?”
“Sir, I don’t—”
“Then I have to pay off the families of all my not-so-dead Flag militia and that sucks out my operation budget. Then we pull DNA off dead insurgents and it turns out I was paying stipends to the enemy. I cancel the stipends to the ‘widows,’” he emphasized the word with air quotations, “and then the locals get even angrier with me. The nerve. Sheer.” He banged a fist against the deck with each word. “Fucking. Hubris.”
“Tea, sir!” The blonde colonel appeared with a paper cup. She held it to his lips and ran a hand down the back of his head as he drank. The marshal stared off into space for a moment, then suddenly noticed the Bretton officers again.
“Huh . . . where was I?” Jaworski’s eyes darted from side to side. “I reported all this to the Hegemony and asked for more soldiers. Proper soldiers. Not a Skien detachment, those freaks make everything worse, and the locals hate them more than anything. There was a delay as the Highest relocated to Deseret sector and my reports went to Tirana. Of course the Highest doesn’t announce when she moves. She doesn’t answer to anyone, certainly not me. Beg beg beg. Flags start getting Alliance weapons smuggled in and then I lose the Junglei and Rumbek provinces. Then I finally get word from the Most High council and guess what they told me to do?”
There was a long pause.
“Guess!” Jaworski snapped to his feet and slammed his palms against the desk. It was at this moment that Perrin realized the marshal was not wearing pants.
“A-a switch to law and order enforcement and public services?” Jematé asked.
“Ha!” Jaworski flopped back into his chair and a waft of stale farts tickled Perrin’s nose. “Listen to you, all full of practical ideas. That won’t last long. No . . . the Most High, paragons of the Hegemony and the best of us—Hegemony, my heart my ass—ordered the orbital reduction of areas actively beyond my effective control. I laminated the order. Signed by all of the Most High council. Want to see it?”
“I . . . I accept your word, Marshal,” Jematé said.
“You can’t! I’ve got it locked in a vault somewhere. You think I’m going to risk losing my ‘get out of war crime’ ticket with actual ink signatures on it?” Jaworski laughed nervously. “So I did as ordered and donated several multi-ton tungsten rods from orbit onto a number of cities. This . . . did not defeat the insurgency. Rather emboldened it, I must admit. I did see that coming. Just so we’re all aware.”
One of the holo maps behind him beeped with priority traffic. The marshal spun his chair around, let out a string of expletives, then turned back to the Bretton officers.
“I can’t hold the surrounding provinces anymore. As such, I’ve made the strategic decision to collapse my forces around the capitol administrative area and hold out until additional reinforcements arrive from Bretton . . . or from the Highest. I’m expecting their next rejection to arrive via courier in the next hundred hours or so.” Jaworski smiled from ear to ear.
“Sir . . . I don’t understand. When my governor received the force generation orders from the Most High, the situation here was described as stable,” Jematé said.
“Are you . . . suggesting the Most High misled a member world?” One of Jaworski’s brows ticked up.
“Never, sir,” Jematé said.
“I didn’t think so. But you’re here now and it seems I’ve got a city that’s about to fall to the insurgents.” Jaworski rubbed his hands together. “Tabuk, about a day’s convoy from here, attacks permitting. Your battalion will escort a logistics run and join the 31st Macadan Infantry that’s holding the city.”
An elbow to Perrin’s stomach from Timmons prompted him to pull out a small pad and jot down the orders.
“That perimeter fails and the Red Banner will have a straight shot to the capital,” Jaworski said. “The city’s full of loyal Hegemony citizens, some even from Dahrien, and I am not interested in reporting another massacre to the Highest. The convoy leaves in . . . four hours and forty-nine minutes. Chop chop.”
“But, sir . . . Hegemony standard operating procedure has at least two weeks of acclimatization. We haven’t been able to offload—”
“That’s amazing.” Jaworski set his chin on his palm. “Did you catch the part where this entire planet is about to fall into anarchy?”
“Roger, sir,” Jematé said.
“Don’t worry.” Jaworski shook a finger. “Word from the Highest is nigh. Nigh, I tell you. They’ll finally send the reinforcements I’ve been asking for. An entire army of Skien troopers led by Supreme Marshal Telemachus himself. It’ll be fine. Orders!”
The blonde hurried back into the office and handed over several packets of papers to each officer. Perrin received a handful of data sticks as well.
“You’re still here.” Jaworski opened a drawer and removed an empty plastic water bottle and unscrewed the top. “I need my privacy.”
“We— Orders received and understood,” Jematé said. “Thank you, sir.”
Jaworski shooed them away with waggle of his fingers.
The Bretton officers left the office and made straight for the lift. Once inside, Jematé turned to face them as he rifled through the paper orders. Perrin did the same.
“Everything appears to be in order . . . sir,” Perrin said. “Looks like they generated these as soon as we landed.”
“This is all highly irregular,” Timmons said. “The Marshal obviously isn’t well. How can he have lost effective control of so much of the planet and how were we not told—”
“Everything is in order.” Jematé looked up from the papers. “This isn’t ideal, but we expected to be deployed to a combat zone.”
“Sir, we’re still pissing ship water,” Captain Dalois, a company commander, said. “None of our own logistics support elements can even be offloaded by the time we’re supposed to leave with this convoy to Tabuk.”
“We are infantry on orders to hold the line,” Jematé said. “So long as we’ve got bullets, batteries and food we can do that. There should be at least a level-III-rated foundry in the city—”
“There is, sir.” Perrin pointed to a paragraph. “The logistics point there has been supporting a division-sized garrison for . . .”
“Good to know,” Jematé said. “Gentlemen, this is the time where leadership is needed more than ever. Our soldiers aren’t going to take this well. I’m certainly thrilled with this situation but my opinion is irrelevant. None of our feelings matter. We have lawful orders and we are going to carry them out as the Hegemony expects of us. Questions?”
“Governor Engelier didn’t know any of this,” Timmons said. “The situation’s been deteriorating on this planet for years, sir. Why didn’t the Most High tell us the truth?”
Jematé gave him a dirty look.
“Forgive me, sir, I misspoke. Why didn’t the Most High give us the complete situation when the troop tasking came to Bretton?”
“That is a question for later. Right now we need to figure out how we’re going to get the entire battalion onto this logistics convoy. I don’t even have a friggin’ local line to call the convoy master. Not even a secure radio.” Jematé shook his head.
“Do we at least have an operational picture of the city we’re supposed to defend?” one of the other company commanders asked.
“Map on page eighty-four.” Perrin pulled out a sheet that had a picture of the city taken from orbit. “No graphics. Must be an oversight from the planning cell. Colonel, can I run back up to—”
“No,” Jematé said as the elevator doors opened to an underground station. “The only thing we have time for is to jump through our own ass. I need to talk to Lambert. He’s suddenly become a lot more critical than I want him to be.”
“The shuttle that brought us here had secure comms,” Timmons said. “I think.”
“I’ll take a messenger pigeon at this point.” Jematé whistled at a shuttle bus.
Noah closed his eyes as yet another video he’d already seen droned on. He drifted off to a quick nap, his chin against his chest. He thought of a face framed by curly blond hair and a smile that was always ready when he was around.
A rough hand shook his shoulder.
“I wasn’t sleeping, sergeant.” Noah’s head snapped up as he looked around.
“You were nodding.” Mason pressed a hot paper cup into his brother’s hand. The smell of the lousy coffee didn’t excite Noah into more wakefulness.
“What is this, turpentine with a drop of sludge dissolved in it?” Noah took a quick sip. “It’s barely dark but plenty bitter. Even the sugar tastes fake.”
“Be thankful. We get out in the field and you’ll step over a naked and ready hottie for anything warm and edible,” Mason said.
“Okay, listen up!” Lieutenant Govrien walked to the front of the theater with a printout in his hand. “We’ve got the General Order Nine video—which has been in effect the entire time and will remain in effect—so no intoxicants, unprofessional relationships with the populace or any actions that will reflect poorly on the Hegemony.”
“What’re they going to do if we get drunk or get laid?” Boyle asked quietly from their row towards the back. “Send us to war on some shithole light years from home?”
“You think it can’t get worse?” Mason asked him as the lieutenant continued talking. “Wait, weren’t you a judicial referral when the levy order came down?”
“Not . . . officially.” Boyle sank back into his seat. He rubbed thick knuckles against his face. A semi-permanent five o’clock shadow had seemed to grow in during the few hours since planetfall.
“They going to feed us?” Noah asked as the LT walked from the front and another video from Hegemony Financial services played. “I think it’s breakfast time aboard the Izmir.”
“Just drink your coffee,” Mason said.
“Ha ha, I’m in,” Donan tittered from a few seats over. “Who wants to check their bank account?”
“Commo, you always come through.” Boyle slid over to Donan and leaned over to read the small slate in Donan’s lap. “How’d you get in?”
“There’s a zero-day exploit that must not have been blasted out to the techs here.” Donan frowned at the screen. “Just gets you into Hegemony’s unclassified network, none of the spicier feeds . . . What the hell? This can’t be right. ‘Special tax assessment’? Eighty percent?”
“Stow it!” Sergeant Corre shouted.
“Give me that.” Mason took the slate and accessed his pay stub. “Son of a bitch, they got me too.”
Sergeant Corre moved up the aisle, focused like a laser on the soldiers.
The doors burst open with a gust of wind and rain. Captain Dalois, his uniform soaked through and his patrol cap a wet rag, moved to the front of the auditorium and pointed at the video of an earnest-looking financial advisor who was emphatically explaining how Hegemony war bonds had a terrific rate of return.
“Turn that shit off,” Dalois ordered. The video paused a moment later, then blinked out of existence as the lights rose.
“The fuck did you do?” Mason jumped to one seat away from Donan, who slid his data slate between the seam of his seat and seat back.
Dalois huddled with his lieutenants and the First Sergeant for a moment, then stepped forward. The lieutenants had all gone pale. The First Sergeant somehow looked more angry than usual.
“Baker Company, we’ve received an immediate combat tasking,” Dalois said. “We will move immediately back to the Izmir and draw gear. Full kit and as many power packs as you can reliably carry from stores. We will receive ammunition at the convoy corral. This is not how we’re trained to plan for operations, but these orders came from Marshal Van Wyck himself. This is a critical mission, and he believes we’re the only ones capable of succeeding.”
“Holy shit, we just got here,” Noah said.
“When I say time is of the essence, I am not fucking kidding.” Dalois pointed to the doors. “Form up and then we are double-timing it back to the ship. If we aren’t on the ready line in . . . three hours and nineteen minutes, our ass is grass and the Hegemony will compost the lot of us. Move out.”
“Fucking move!” the First Sergeant shouted.
Noah knocked over a lukewarm cup of coffee and rushed towards the exit. He made it out into the rain and saw another company already running through the storm.
“Four columns, start running!” The First Sergeant pushed soldiers into a general formation. “Squad leaders, kick asses until the last straggler figures out how serious the captain is!”
Noah dodged a boot from Sergeant Corre and fell into the scrum. His brother huffed and puffed next to him as the formation turned into a long-tailed comet of confused and disoriented soldiers.
“Mason, was your last deployment like this?” he asked.
“Uh, equally messed up but for different reasons. Just about anything the Army does is a goat rope. At least no one’s shooting at us. Yet.” Mason pulled his Nic-strip out of his mouth and tossed it aside. “Don’t write home to Mom about any of this yet. She’ll just freak out.”
“How can I write home when I don’t know what’s even happening?” Noah asked.
The Izmir appeared through the gloom as they ran closer.
“Just wait. I’ve got a feeling this’ll get worse.” Mason punched his younger brother on the shoulder.
Chaos reigned through the Izmir’s cargo bay. A riot of soldiers raced from open cargo pods. Most grabbed armfuls of gear and dropped it in piles near their company areas. The equipment was scooped up and distributed as fast as it could be pulled from stores.
Colonel Lambert stood in the center of the madness, leaning heavily on his cane.
“Your platoon grenade-launcher attachments are in cargo pod ninety-three.” Colonel Lambert tapped on a screen held by a lost-looking lieutenant. “They’ve been there since we left Bretton. You’ve done at least six serial number inspections since then. They haven’t moved.”
The lieutenant turned and jogged away, the strap on his Flanker helm flopping.
“By the Saint this is going to be a disaster.” Lambert shifted his weight off his good leg for a moment. “Property books conflated— Don’t even come over here!” he yelled at a pair of sheepish lieutenants inching towards him. “I didn’t move anything since we landed. It’s exactly where you had it!”
“Lambert.” Major Perrin had transitioned into Flanker gear, though the frame over his right arm seemed to be locked at the elbow. “The colonel wants you to have a copy of the operations order. Here.”
Lambert held out a hand and a data drive landed in his palm.
“He doesn’t care how, but we need our organic support assets delivered to Tabuk City immediately if not sooner,” Perrin said, then looked over his shoulder to the chaos. “You’re to report to Central once that’s done as our rear detachment officer. Expect a fair number of loss investigations, but he’ll sign combat liability waivers for every completed packet.”
“How generous of him,” Lambert deadpanned. “Easton, this void port isn’t even connected to the main logistics hub at—”
“That’s Major Perrin, if you please,” Perrin said, annoyed. “I’m aware you have concerns, but there is a fire out there and Bretton’s best are about to go piss on it and put it out. Your problems are your problems until I can set up an operations center in Tabuk. Anything else? Doesn’t matter, I have to—”
He spun around but stopped when Lambert hooked him by the arm with his cane. The older man pulled a bright red plug from the Flanker’s frame just behind the shoulder and Perrin was able to bend his arm again.
“Ah, thank you.” Perrin unhooked himself and jogged back to the scrum of officers around Colonel Jematé.
“Anytime.” Lambert stuffed the safety pin into his pocket.
Sergeant Boyle turned his head to the left as far as possible. Targeting systems within his Cataphract’s helm locked onto black and white hash marks in the oversized closet that served as his platoon arming bay.
“Green across the board,” Sergeant Corre read from a holo plate on his helmet. The squad leader was already in full Cataphract gear, with a rotary cannon locked onto a mount on his back. “Look right. Look up. Clear. Step forward for actuator check.”
Boyle lifted his left leg and haptic sensors woven into his body glove transmitted the movement to the mechanized suit. Unlike Flankers, soldiers in Cataphract armor didn’t rely on muscle power with frame assistance to move about. The Cataphract suits were piloted, not worn. Granted, most of the hard work of moving the two hundred pounds of armor plating, hydraulics and weaponry were handled by the onboard systems, but it still took a fair amount of skill to move about without falling over or creaking around like an old maintenance bot.
He hopped out of the arming bay and raised his arms up to his sides and over his head. The thick plating on the crablike arms moved easily enough, though the left pauldron was a bit too close to his chin for his liking.
“Wait for my command,” Corre said. “Go/No Go system’s sluggish right now.”
“Pretty sure it wasn’t meant for every single Cataphract suit in the battalion to need the diagnostics routines all at the same time,” Boyle said. “This for real, sergeant, or is the old man just trying to get us riled up for nothing?”
“Forward shoulder rotation . . . rear . . . draw main weapon,” Corre read off the checklist and Boyle did as instructed. He slid one foot forward over the Izmir’s cargo deck and locked his right arm back. The rotary cannon locked into the cradle and he swung the barrel out in front of him, left hand catching the forward handle.
“System’s slow again.” Corre looked back to a cargo pod locked to ceiling. “You ever known Colonel Jematé or Timmons to cry wolf?”
“Negative.” Boyle revved the barrels of his weapon. “Maybe this is some sort of new guy hazing Central does? I wouldn’t put it past some commander stuck on a backwater looking to have a little fun.”
“What if this is one hundred percent real and we could be in combat as soon as we step outside of the wire? How about that for a possibility?” Corre chided. “We act like this is a big joke and the Patties will slaughter us the first chance we get.”
“‘Patties’? I don’t think any Alliance are here, Sarge. That war ended a while back . . . what do they call the bad guys out here?” Boyle asked.
“Doesn’t matter. Engage secondary weapon system,” Corre said.
Boyle lifted his right hand, then mashed it down against a control rig and twisted a knob to the right. A long empty frame on the back of his suit popped out of a slit in the plating and it arced up . . . then froze in place.
“Damn it.” Boyle shimmied inside his suit. “I told you this unit needs a factory reset.”
“You’re combat viable. Pull a mortar secondary when you get to the ammo depot,” Corre said.
“But, Sarge, I suck at mortars. Let me reset and then I can—”
“Did I stutter? Pull a mortar and get out there and into the cattle cars. I’ve got to get Donan and Laeland certified in the next fifteen minutes or we’ll miss movement,” Corre said.
“I just . . . appreciate you keeping your head straight, sergeant,” Boyle said. “Newer guys would panic if you didn’t have that stick up your ass. Wait. I mean—”
“This is why I get paid the big bucks. Move out and draw fire.” Corre canted his head to a transport truck loaded down with ammo and handing out shrink-wrapped packets of bullets and grenades from servo arms mounted on the back bumper.
Noah climbed into the back of a wide-bed cargo truck. The middle was full of plastic-wrapped cargo pallets locked into rails built into the floor. A row of seats braced the cargo, arrayed so those sitting could look out over the side rails. A turret over the cab bore a belt-fed machine gun.
The rain had stopped minutes after Noah was fully kitted out for the mission.
Noah sat close to the cab and set a backpack stuffed to almost bursting between his knees. More Flankers loaded up, and Mason took the seat next to Noah.
“Saint preserve us, what a cluster.” Mason popped the seal on his helmet and slid the visor up. “You got a full load out?”
“Huh?” Noah slapped magazine pouches and counted grenades by touch, then checked that his carbine wasn’t loaded. “Full battle rattle.”
“Whew!” A soldier climbed into the turret ring from the cab. He had a simple ballistic helmet on, with thick goggles over his eyes. He was shirtless but had thick gloves missing the fingertips. Tattoos with a variety of languages ran up and down his arms. He sat on a strap hung from one side of the ring to the other and spun around, mimicking shooting at something in the air.
“Uh . . . hi?” Noah lifted his visor. “We-we-we’re new here.”
The gunner raised one side of his goggles and looked at the Flanker.
“No shit, slick shoulder, it hot enough for you?” the gunner asked. “What pasture did fresh meat like y’all come from?”
“Bretton,” Noah said. “It’s a star system on the outer edge of the Gallia Sector that—”
“Cool story, I don’t care.” The gunner tapped his palm against the left ear of his headset. “Hey you.” He raised his chin to Mason. “You’ve got a combat patch. You get it here?”
“Tolmen Campaign,” Mason said. “Vac fight most of the time.”
“Sounds like it sucked. Watch your sector, call out anything with two legs you see off the road. If we’re past Yambio, any human you see is hostile. Armed or not, got it?” the gunner asked.
“That’s not our rules of engagement,” Noah said. “We’re supposed to positively ID a threat before—”
“Oye.” The gunner lifted his goggles onto his helmet. His other eye was an ugly knot of scar tissue. “There’s no such thing as a friendly Flag once Yambio’s in the rearview, you get me? They all hate us. They all want to kill us. You see something, you shoot something. You don’t and they’ll holler back to the Red Banner and then we get ambushed.”
“Don’t you have Dagger drones for security?” Mason asked.
“Flags have enough IFF transponders off our dead to mask themselves from the drones. Sometimes they’ll work as advertised when we cycle new IFF, but they’ve cracked the ’sponders and then things don’t work as advertised within a few hours.” The gunner shrugged.
“What’s your name? Where you from?” Noah asked. “I’ve never met someone from off world. Except for the Izmir’s crew, but they’re all Union so that doesn’t count—”
“I’m Amos. Don’t matter where you’re from when you’re in hell.” The gunner pulled his goggles on their strap and snapped them back onto his face. He danced in the turret, bouncing to a beat only he could hear.
“You short yet?” Mason asked.
“Short? Short means somebody can leave.” Amos laced his fingers behind his helmet and kept dancing. “No one gets off this shithole, not without a toe tag and a form letter and some copy-pasted signature from the Most High. Uh oh, getting low.”
He reached into a pocket and pulled out a small box, glanced around, then stuck a nozzle up his nose and sniffed hard.
“Whew. That’s laced with all sorts of shit. Don’t trust any Buzz you get off the Flags.” He shook the box at Noah. Noah reached for it until Mason stomped on his boot.
“You have any idea what that is?” Mason growled at him.
“No . . .”
“Then get by with caffeine tabs and shitty coffee,” Mason said. “Don’t get hooked on the first shit that comes your way. What’ll happen when you’re in the field and get whatever the hell bathtub uppers he’s on?”
“Like that time you couldn’t get your nic-strips during the plague years and you threatened to stab dad when he switched your coffee to decaf?” Noah asked.
“It wasn’t a threat. I was going to stab him,” Mason grumbled.
“Hey, sergeant.” Donan nudged him with his elbow. “Is it always like this? Getting jerked around and sent to the front line within hours of making landfall?”
“Ugh . . . the Army is usually a soup sandwich, but getting thrown out there this fast is a first for me. Never heard of anything like this happening to anyone else, but it’s a big Hegemony. There’ve been wars going since the Alliance War,” Mason said.
Donan nodded along, his eyes growing wider.
“But don’t worry. Enemy doesn’t know we’re here. We show up and it’ll throw them off trying to figure out how the good guys suddenly got so many brand-new badasses on their side. We’re going to reinforce the lines, not attack anything. It’ll be fine,” Mason said.
Amos swung his open-topped turret around and leaned across the top of the mounted machine gun. He leaned over the weapon, his jaw working on a lump of gum. His head canted from side to side, like he was considering what to say.
“Gunner, what weapons do the locals use?” Mason asked, stymieing whatever the veteran was about to say.
“Our gear.” Amos spat off the side of the turret. “Cataphract rifles and carbines mostly, but they’ll have some tubes with captured rockets. The Red Flaggers mostly get around on scrap trucks, but they’ve got higher-end gear that’s been smuggled in over the years. Plenty bodies on their side, lots of bodies and they don’t seem to care if they die. They just want to kill us. You get captured and they’ll scalp you before they hang you from a bridge with your guts dangling between your knees.”
He stuck out a thumb and mimed running a blade over his head.
“That wasn’t in the videos,” Noah said quietly.
“That’s your sector.” Mason pointed from side to side in front of Noah and then for Donan. “Same drill we did back home. Just with live ammo and live targets this time.”
“Hey, it’s quiet out ’til Buri Buri. Get some shut-eye. Wake up if I start shooting.” Amos gave them a thumbs up.
“Where are all the Cataphracts?” Noah asked.
“They’ll be in cattle cars.” Mason tilted his head to the truck behind them with a cargo container behind it. “Keeps them charged up and ready to deploy. Their ride looks just like the usual loggy truck. Enemy has to guess which targets are the easy ones and which ones bite back.”
Amos slapped the top of the cab twice.
“Rollin’ out!” the gunner shouted. Holo emitters built into the side rails of the flatbed truck sputtered to life. They formed a semi-opaque screen as seen through the cargo area. Vehicles in the convoy blinked on and off in a map, their route to Tabuk highlighted.
“Wow . . . never seen that before.” Donan leaned forward and poked his fingertip through the holo.
“Hey hey hey!” Amos shouted. “Do you know how hard it is to find replacement emitters? You futz with that and it’ll de-synch from the rest and you’ve given the Flags something to aim at. Stop it!”
“Sorry.” Donan sat back, then looked over at Noah. “What’s on the other side?”
“Holo of an olive drab tarp that doesn’t draw any attention to itself,” Amos said. “How is it you chuckleheads have never seen vehicle-masking ’jections before?”
“We’re from Bretton,” Donan said.
“Saint’s balls, if you’re going to jaw-jack the entire time, switch seats with me.” Mason got up so Donan could slide over and be next to Noah. The sergeant sat back, stretched his legs out and rested his chin on his chest.
The electrical motors in the truck’s wheels came to life with a hum and it rolled forward slowly.
“Bretton? Never heard of it,” Amos said. “That one of those weirdo religious colonies like they’ve got out in the Sudetas sector?”
“Gallia sector, actually,” Noah said. “Most everyone on Bretton belongs to the Church of the Adherents of God. Saint Robin led survivors of the failed colonies in the Moniker system—”
“You guys know how to use your guns, right?” Amos asked.
“We’re all Hegemony level-two tech certified, but we don’t use computation devices or anything like that in our daily life. Saint Robin taught that life should never be too easy, or the soul will rot.”
“Cool story, not interested in your cult.” Amos swung the turret around to point forward.
“We’re big fans of electricity and air conditioning.” Donan raised a hand.
Amos raised a single finger.
“We’re not a cult,” Donan said to Noah. “Why do people keep calling us that?”
“Because we send out missionaries. Though most people keep moving to Bretton because they want to . . . I’d rather not think about home right now. If that’s okay with you,” Noah said.
“Fall Festival’s about to start.” Donan’s shoulders fell. “Ma and Pa always have their cider stand in the corner of Brigham Square. I know they make some decent coin, but they never spent any of it until Noel on me and my brothers . . . this is the first year I won’t be with them. I told them to finally get themselves something for once. Ma said they’ll keep saving, give it to me to start a business when I get home.”
“They do make the best cider,” Noah said. “Could go for some now too, but sleep seems a lot . . . Donan?”
His squad mate had his head in his hands, fighting back tears.
The truck rumbled into a slight depression and through a concrete tunnel. It drove out onto a paved road outside the void port. Sloped steel walls extended around the entire port, topped with weapon emplacements and surrounded by razor wire and cleared fields marked with posts warning of minefields.
Drones circled overhead. Noah zoomed in on one of the Daggers, noting that one of the grenade cradles was empty and the built-in machine gun had several notches scratched into the barrel.
Humidity rose as the convoy rolled into a decaying jungle.
“Had to clear out a ten-klick buffer zone to keep the damn Flags from shelling the base,” Amos yelled over his shoulder. “Here’s a hint: You ever have to walk back to base, stay on the road and hope the dronies are in a good mood.”
“Look, there’s a city,” Donan pointed into the distance. Bland and identical skyscrapers faded into the mists in the distance. “Maybe we’ll get shore leave or a pass eventually.”
“You don’t want that.” Amos racked the charging handle back on his machine gun as they drove past two large orange posts. “Rebels sabotaged the replimats about a year ago. Everyone in the city’s been eating re-cyc meal supplements. Can’t even get rice in from the countryside without it being poisoned or turned to sludge from grain-rot. Rumor’s that the loyal Heg citizens are spicing up their dead just for something to break the monotony of turd bars. But those are just rumors. Hey, weapons free from here on out.”
Noah pulled the charging handle on his carbine, activating the electromagnetic coils around the breech. He touched the safety switch, feeling that it was pointed towards the butt stock, then glanced at it.
“Noah, I just . . . I just got real scared all of a sudden,” Donan said. “I haven’t slept in two days and now there’s insurgents all over the place that want to scalp me and eat me?”
“They just want to kill us, not eat us,” Noah said. “Okay, saying that doesn’t make me feel any better. But we’ve got combat vets with us. My brother, Sergeants Corre, Malo and the company commander have all deployed before. It’ll be fine.”
“You didn’t say the lieutenant,” Donan said. “I swear he can’t even shave yet. Did he get a commission from the governor like that idiot Perrin?”
“Lieutenant Govrien means well. Do you think all the combat veteran NCOs around him are going to let him get us killed?”
“They sure as hell let him get us lost when we were on maneuvers in the Scrublands. They had to send hover jets to get us home. You remember that?” Donan asked.
“Lieutenants get lost all the time. I’m pretty sure the platoon sergeant let him take us down the completely wrong pass through the mountains just to teach him a lesson. Did he get us lost after that?”
“We didn’t go back to the field after that,” Donan deadpanned.
“Then it was a one-time thing. Relax. Saint Robin trusted the Hegemony to protect Bretton from the Union. He said that protecting the Hegemony protects Bretton and the rest of the Church, which means we’re protecting home . . . in a roundabout way.” Noah shrugged.
“You trying to convince me or you? You know the Governor almost told the Most High for the sector to pound sand when the tasking came down for him to recruit a brigade? My cousin told me about it. His girlfriend works in the Governor’s mansion.” Donan nodded.
“And why would the governor do something that stupid? Refusing a military call up is no different than treason, according to the incorporation treaty.” Noah leaned forward and squinted. In a distant ravine, brown sludge poured from a pipe big enough for their cargo truck to drive into. The waste pooled in one corner of a lake with an oily sheen across the top. The smell of chemicals and rot wafted over them with the breeze.
“My cousin’s girlfriend’s supervisor heard the governor arguing with the Most High rep. Turns out everyone back home is also getting bumped up an entire tax bracket to pay for . . . everything. More theft,” Donan said.
“Damn, my parents are barely getting by on their stipend. Good thing we’ve got a decent garden. At least the Church isn’t taxed.” Noah activated the seals on his helmet and switched to scrubbed air as the smell from the lake grew worse.
“Yet.” Donan buttoned up as well.
“What ‘yet’? Did your cousin’s uncle’s mechanic’s parrot repeat that too?” Noah nudged Donan with his elbow.
“Ass. No, rumor is that the Most High for the Deseret sector tried to tax the religious holdings there. It was going through the courts when the Most High seized one of those big beautiful temples they have all over the place and ten star systems went apeshit. And I heard that from my other cousin, the one that works the sky dock,” Donan said.
“If that happened it would’ve been in the news.” Noah rolled his eyes.
“You think the Most High or anyone on the Highest want word to get out that they’re breaking the Constitution and a bunch of incorporation treaties? It’s not like Bretton is on any major trade routes.”
“What did Saint Robin tell us about rumors? ‘Keep your eyes wide open, and when you see, feel or encounter falsehoods: become the light of truth to those around you.’ This is basic priory memorization you should’ve gotten down when we were kids,” Noah said.
“Yeah yeah, you always had more achievement jewels in your crown than me. I was interested in girls, you weirdo. So how about those wide eyes, huh? How’s Dahrien looking to you?”
“Not . . . every world came to the Hegemony easily,” Noah said. “Things have been rough since the war with the Alliance ended. But the Hegemony pulled through the Union Conflict before that. Struggle makes us stronger.”
“We lost the war with the Alliance. Things have been getting worse since then and that was twelve years ago. You know my dad says that the Hegemony’s tax rate used to be three percent, and there were child credits. Now they’re taking seventy-five percent of our pay.”
“We’re on active duty in a war zone. We’ve got insurance premiums and stuff like that to pay for. And twenty-five percent of my salary is more than the zero credits I was making on the farm. Stop complaining before someone rats you out to one of the High Guard. It won’t be me, but if you do get sent off to re-education, they have a tendency to send entire squads with the offender,” Noah said.
“Did you see a High Guard somewhere?” Donan shrank slightly into his seat.
“No, but they must be out there. I saw we had a briefing from one on the schedule back at the indoc center. How about we concentrate on our sector and not the doom and gloom, yeah?”
“The High Guard didn’t even have to brief us to keep us in line. Got to admire that efficiency.” Donan leaned forward and glanced at Mason, who was sound asleep and snoring slightly next to Noah. “How can he sleep right now?”
“Maybe they teach that at the NCO course.” Noah shrugged. “Be glad we’re out here. Would you rather be back at the indoc theater re-watching all the training videos we’ve already seen?”
“Actually . . . yeah. At least at the end of the day we’d get to eat some quality Re-cyc Bars, drink shitty coffee and sleep in a cot. Do you know what day it is here? Thursday?”
“I don’t know. Things are blurry right now.”
“Monday. It feels like a Monday.” Donan sighed. “Does it bother you that we haven’t seen a single bird yet?”
“Maybe this isn’t a bird planet. Just watch your sector and I’ll watch mine,” Noah said.
“Boyle? Boyle, wake the hell up!” sounded in his ear. Boyle snapped back into consciousness with a kick against his Cataphract mech suit. He’d disabled the limb actuators before he’d dozed off to keep him from accidentally breaking out of the restraint harness in the cattle car. Cataphracts learned to sleep while standing in their suits within the first few weeks of drilling in the equipment.
“Huh? What? We there yet?” Boyle checked the data feed from the truck.
“We’re about ten minutes out from the village and a scheduled stop,” Sergeant Corre said to him on a private comms channel. “Captain wants all Cataphracts to stay buttoned up at the stop. Keep us from being observed by the enemy.”
“You woke me up to tell me to stay in bed?” Boyle chuckled. “So we’re just going to let the Flankies run wild?”
“They . . . will be fine. They’re not going to propose to the first local they see or take out a car loan at a disgusting interest rate just yet. But I want you to over-the-shoulder Sergeant Tallec and see if he can find high-magnetite tabs for Herve’s power core. His suit’s efficiency is amber and trending to black and those tabs—”
“We can find them in cargo truck transfer cases. I took care of it back in the motor pool when we were loading up. Herve’s green if you ping his system.” Boyle yawned.
“Wait, what?”
The holo on Boyle’s visor flickered as Corre shared Herve’s system feed. Herve’s Cataphract suit appeared as a paper doll in a grid field. The power systems were green across the board.
“Why does his system still show the serial number of his bad power core tabs? He still comes up amber in the squad and platoon dashboard. This doesn’t make sense,” Sergeant Corre said, a suspicious tone to his voice.
“Funny thing about the dashboard; if you replace the part while the processer stack is decoupled from the onboard power supply, it’ll default to the old part’s serial number when it reboots. Dashboard thinks the failing part’s still installed and the maintenance flag stays in the system. So we’ll get a new tab replacement eventually . . . right around the same time someone else’s tabs burn out.” Boyle yawned again.
“Herve’s fully mission capable but his suit is still prioritized for the replacement part . . .”
“Which I can trade for something if we need it. I didn’t think you’d mind,” Boyle said.
“Hold on, where’d you get the new tabs in the first place?” Corre asked, growing angrier.
“That was easy, boss, there was a maintenance depot at the void port and some of the guys assigned to the building were taking a break behind it. So I went over and struck up a chat with them. Decent guys. Been deployed too long, I think. Anyway, we get to talking and turns out they’ve got a pallet full of replacement tabs fresh from the foundry just waiting to be shipped to some place I’ve never heard of. So I arranged a trade. Simple as.”
“We’ve been balls to the wall since we made landfall. When did you have the time—or even the chance to do that?”
“I snuck out the back of the auditorium during all the ‘don’t do this or else’ videos I’ve already seen. Chatted up the guys at the warehouse and made the trade . . . they wanted a potent potable and I just so happened to have access to some. We’ve also got some extra armor repair kits in the squad mule.” Boyle smiled.
“Alcohol? You know we’re in a combat zone, and if you get caught with that you’ll be scouting out minefields in a penal battalion with a stick and prayer,” Corre said.
“I didn’t drink any, Sarge. Didn’t keep any either. There’s a sailor on the Izmir that had a decent stockpile of booze, so I borrowed a couple of bottles from him while we were offloading our gear. Doubt he’ll notice and if he does . . . good luck finding me again,” Boyle said.
The line was quiet for several seconds.
“So you stole—”
“Borrowed without the intention of returning. Technical term is ‘scrounging,’” Boyle said.
“So you stole one or more bottles of booze, snuck out of mandatory training and traded your illicit gains for parts the squad needed and fouled the supply system to get us another vital part in the near future . . .”
“It sounds much worse when you put it that way.”
The hiss of an open line came on and off several times.
“I’m not saying this, but good work. I am saying this: don’t get caught,” Corre said.
“Yeah, I learned that lesson the hard way. Which is why I’m here. Tee hee,” Boyle grumbled.
The line closed. Boyle leaned his head back and went back to sleep.