Merkiaari Wars: 03 - Operation Oracle Page 20

  Gina shuddered and went into a coughing fit.

  She finished with internal business and turned toward the cockpit. She struggled inside, but turned back almost immediately. She’d had a vague idea to use the pilot’s emergency hatch to get out, but the shuttle had gone down hard. The hatch was buckled and dirt was leaking inside through it. No doubt the front of the ship was buried.

  She struggled back out, letting her leg drag and not bending her knee to give IMS the best opportunity she could to make repairs. God damn but it hurt. Felt like someone was poking a red-hot poker in there. She coughed again, and panted trying to get more air. It did no good.

  As she made her way through the hold, she checked the other vipers and was cheered by what she found. Most in the forward section were alive and in hibernation. When she reached the section of the troop hold where the fire had been, she steeled herself against what she would see. The burns were so hideously bad; she couldn’t tell who was who and was glad of it. She was shocked to find even the worst victims were still alive. Whether they would wake up sane, she didn’t know. She would never get this horror out of her head.

  Back where she started in the hold she’d been riding in, Gina realised that she was still trapped. The only way out was the main ramp and it was not working. It looked undamaged, but there was no power to operate it.

  She patted herself down and found a few grenades left on the ragged remains of her webbing. She was wearing more than one set, tied roughly to her armour like bandoliers. She pulled them off and transferred useful items to her belt and webbing before discarding the useless remnants. There wasn’t much she could use. She needed more.

  Gina searched the bodies of her comrades pilfering power cells and grenades. She soon had a respectable pile. Back at the ramp, she pulled the manual unlocking levers all the way down, and then jammed the power cells and grenades tightly around the edges of the ramp where it sealed to the hull. She didn’t have enough explosive to dent the armour of a Wolfcub, but with the locks withdrawn, she hoped a big enough bang on the inside would overcome the inertia of the heavy ramp and blow it open. It depended a lot on how much pressure was left in the hydraulics. Those rams were designed to keep the ramp shut against atmospheric pressure while the ship travelled in vacuum, but the ship was pretty much trashed. With luck that meant the hydraulic system was totalled as well.

  Gina backed up and took cover. She hefted her rifle and selected full auto and full power. She took careful aim and fired at the clusters she had placed around the edges of the ramp. The explosions weren’t close to simultaneous, but maybe that helped a little, as it seemed to start a rocking motion that finally led to the ramp falling outward. It crashed down and a refreshing breeze entered the troop hold clearing the smoke a little.

  Gina took a deep breath, but her lungs were still shot and she started coughing. She headed for the open air, squinting against the light and dragging her bum leg behind her looking for hostiles on her sensors. The ship had been shot down by Merkiaari interceptors. There could be Merki troopers on the way to check the downed ship and eliminate survivors.

  She moved away from the smashed ship. She was amazed at its toughness. The crash had been high speed and the impact massive. How so many had survived to enter hibernation was a miracle. A target blinked into existence on her sensors and she turned toward it...

  Manual override protocols activated.

  Current run saved: Fuentez San Luis #002.

  Simulation terminated.

  Gina opened her eyes as the simulator couch settled upon the floor. What the hell? She was just getting started! She looked around, but the others were still under. She wondered if they had gotten out of the dropship yet, and how they had done it. She would have to ask Eric how he’d managed. The simulation was based upon his very real life experience of San Luis back during the Merkiaari War.

  “Talk of the devil,” she muttered as Captain Penleigh approached. “I guess I have you to thank for messing up my run?”

  “You were doing a good job of that all by yourself, Gina. You do realise the mission was not to shut off fuel lines etcetera etcetera, but to get out and back into the war? Operation Annihilate was the endgame of the San Luis campaign. Your job was to reach the assembly point and participate.”

  Gina grimaced. “I know that, I would have gotten there.”

  “Maybe,” Eric said, “but not quickly, and not efficiently.”

  “Tell me you left them screaming in there, and then I’ll consider efficiency.”

  Eric stared into the shadows of the simulator room bleakly, remembering a younger and more naive self. His jaw muscles bunched and he glanced down at Gina. His smile was crooked, and Gina shivered. She didn’t think his smile meant he was amused this time around.

  “I pulled you out because the General has a mission for us. He asked for you in particular. Any idea why?”

  Changing the subject on her didn’t mean he had let them die screaming. She really really hoped it didn’t, because she didn’t want to know that about him. She liked him, and she was comfortable with him as her immediate superior. She wanted to keep it that way.

  “No idea. What mission?”

  Eric shrugged and helped unhook her from the simulator’s sensors.

  Gina wondered what it was all about as she dressed, but she couldn’t imagine. The General had so many fires to tend; she could be sent literally anywhere. Well maybe not that. It was very unlikely she would be sent to a core world or back to the Shan worlds. Not impossible mind you, just unlikely.

  “What about my men?” she said, gesturing at the packed simulators. Her entire platoon was here.

  Eric shrugged. “They have hours to go yet. I’ve asked for someone to take over monitoring for me.”

  Gina nodded. That was prudent; if anyone was “killed” in the simulation before reaching the goal, they would wake early and need help.

  Eric ushered Gina along and out of the simulator room. On their way through the tech centre’s barren corridors, they met Kate hurrying toward them. She waved a sloppy salute in their direction that made Gina smile and Eric scowl, but she didn’t stop.

  “I asked for Stone,” Eric growled.

  “Kate can handle it,” she said and watched her friend enter the simulator room. “She gets bored. Stone probably wanted her out of his hair.” Not that Stone had hair. He shaved his head every morning.

  “She’s undisciplined.”

  Gina shrugged. So what else was new?

  “You don’t get it, do you?” Eric said. “Even after Callendri, you still don’t get it.”

  “I guess not,” she said. Callendri? What did he have to do with Kate?

  Roberto Callendri had been a recruit who had attacked her during a training op after accusing her of setting him up to fail. He had cracked, had what they in the regiment called a whigout. Kamarl Dolinski, Roberto’s best friend, had to put him down. Capped him with his pulser with a shot to the head at close range. Took Roberto’s head clean off.

  “Viper stability is contingent upon discipline, Gina. We train continually, and use harsh training methods all to keep us stable. Too much time to think is not good for us. You should know this by now, how can you not know this? What, you think after all this time I need more training? You think I still get in those coffins every week because I don’t know my job?”

  “Well...” Gina said but she hadn’t thought about it. Eric did still run sims occasionally, but not every veteran did. “Never considered it.”

  Eric opened the exterior doors and they marched shoulder to shoulder toward the admin building where the regiment’s offices were. The General had his office there, close to the operations room, which was just another name for a big conference room. It had tons of tech; holotanks, comm equipment, big screens... all for planning missions. She had been in there before, but only for training. She’d heard that the General was starting to rotate personnel through admin to round out his viper’s education. A good idea, she th
ought, as long as she didn’t get stuck in an admin position long term. She shuddered at the thought.

  “You can’t be comparing Kate with Roberto.”

  “I can’t?” Eric said. “Why? Because she’s your friend?”

  “No, but they’re nothing alike.”

  “If you think that, you’re not paying attention. They don’t have the same background, that’s true, but they’re alike in other ways. Kate follows only the rules she likes, and listens to only those she considers worthy according to her own criteria. She doesn’t follow orders because they’re orders, or because they come from officers placed over her, she follows them because in her estimation not doing so would inconvenience her in some way. If I gave you an order that you didn’t like, you might protest it briefly, but then you would follow it. Kate though would not protest; she would smile and nod and might even salute me, but then she would go off and do it her way.”

  Gina was surprised that Eric knew Kate that well. He was bang on, but his final estimation of her was way off. Yes, Kate would do things her way, but the job would get done. Anyone who had seen her in action could not doubt that. If not following orders as if they were gospel was the only thing needed to label a viper as a rogue unit, half of the regiment would be scrapped.

  Colonel Flowers was recruiting new men even now, and toughness wasn’t the only prerequisite. He was looking for tough skilled soldiers who could think for themselves; soldiers who could be relied upon to get the job done. Soldiers like Kate in other words. No, Kate was no rogue. If she had one fault, it was her single-mindedness. She could be too ruthless. The mission or goal that she set for herself came first with her. She was a bit like Eric and the other veterans in that way, but Eric didn’t see it. It was too close to home.

  In a situation where achieving a mission’s aims meant sacrificing lives, Kate would not hesitate. Gina didn’t like that about her friend, while at the same time she couldn’t help but admire Kate’s dedication to her mission. In Kate’s place, Gina knew she was more likely to sacrifice herself than others. A weakness in her perhaps, but that’s just how she was wired.

  “You just don’t like her because she reminds you of you,” Gina said with a grin at his scowl. “It’s true! All you old timers think alike. Mission first, nothing second. Well, Kate came off the assembly line with an attitude that could have been cloned from Sergeant Stone. She even talks like him, and you get along with Stone just fine. If you want to label Kate a rogue, you’ll have to scrap half the regiment and all the veterans.”

  Eric shook his head. “There is a difference. The old timers, as you call us, have the Alliance’s best interests as their focus. Kate only has Kate’s best interest as hers.”

  Gina felt she should defend her friend, but she didn’t know how. She knew Kate thought of things outside of herself. She had helped with Shima and had been more than happy to do it. She had joined Stone’s intel section, and was excited about the work she was doing there. Mission planning, she assumed, because it was all hush-hush stuff and Kate wouldn’t talk specifics. Kate couldn’t carry out any of the things she helped to plan until she was fixed, but she could help the rest of her team by designing well thought out operations.

  “I don’t agree,” Gina said, and would have to content herself with that. Kate would prove him wrong in the end, and that was all that really mattered. “Any idea what this mission is about? Anything on the books you can think of?”

  Eric accepted the subject change. “There’s always stuff on the to do list, you know that.”

  Gina nodded. People too. People on a viper’s to do list weren’t on it long though, like those guys on Thurston. Yi Zhang and his brother Hu Zhang (AKA Daniel King). They had been backers of the terrorist outfit euphemistically called the Freedom Movement. Daniel King had been part of the not so loyal opposition in government on Thurston, and had stabbed his own people in the back by supporting the bombers with the eventual aim of taking over the government himself. He and his brother had suffered a mischief not long before Eric left that world. Eric was instrumental in pulling the Freedom Movement down. Gina knew because she had been one of roughly a thousand marines on planet at the time and had helped him destroy them utterly when they attacked the capital on mass.

  “Anything stand out to you?”

  Eric shook his head. Oh well, they were nearly there. No doubt the General would explain.

  They entered the admin building and headed straight for the General’s office. Quite a few of the offices were in use again, and Gina glanced through open doors at the bustle. There was a lot of brass concentrated here and she wondered what they all found to do. Remembering how empty this place had been before, it was as if the regiment had been some slumbering leviathan, but one that was definitely awake again now.

  Eric led Gina into Burgton’s outer office. He took Raph’s salute and then they were ushered into the General’s presence. They saluted him, but he wasn’t alone. Sitting before the desk was a trim smartly dressed older woman Gina had never met. Eric knew her though. He greeted her like a friend before turning to introduce Gina.

  “Lieutenant Gina Fuentez, this is Liz Brenchley.”

  The woman stood to shake Gina’s hand and then took her place again.

  “Liz heads up our Department of Industry,” Burgton said. “She’s here for a couple of reasons. Your mission will be to escort and protect her among other things, but we’ll come to that in a moment.”

  Gina nodded. An escort mission to where, and to do what? She could do it in her sleep but why her? Eric said that the General had asked for her specifically. She couldn’t think why. A simple escort mission could be handled by anyone in the regiment.

  “Your platoon, where are we?” Burgton said. “I know what you’ve been having them do since you squared away our Shan situation. Well done with that, by the way. Shima left us very excited about the colony here and I think that could help us in future. I doubt we’ll have any issues with volunteers.”

  Gina nodded. “Shima loved site five, the one we used for her surprise vacation. Varya and Kazim were already leaning that way due to location and the mountains, but I think Shima will push them over the line into backing it before the elders.”

  “We won’t know anything more for a few months. It will take Shima around three to get home,” Burgton said. “But I’m sure we’ll hear back before the year is out.”

  Gina nodded again. The Shan had only been gone a few weeks. “You asked about my platoon, sir. Are you deploying us?”

  “No. I want to know what they’ll need while you’re away.”

  So the mission was a one unit operation? That made her wonder about it even more. Gina shook off her preoccupation and laid out her thinking regarding her men.

  “I’m happy with progress, sir. All four squads are coming together nicely. I’m not really surprised as most of them have fought together before, and all of them trained with me under Colonel Flowers. I thought there might be trouble when they transferred over from their old units, but that at least turned out to be a worry over nothing.”

  “So the next step is...?” Burgton pressed.

  “More training. I want to start them on squad and platoon simulations next. I have them in simulators every third day right now, and that’s probably about right for individual training. When they go to the larger squad and platoon missions, once or twice a week should be enough. I want them to get used to working as a larger unit again. This past year we’ve been fighting in penny packets a lot... no insult intended, sir.”

  Burgton smiled. “The truth doesn’t offend me, Gina. There was no help for it with so many in hibernation. So, if I were to send you on an operation, you would have no concerns for your platoon?”

  “I didn’t say that, sir. I should oversee their training regardless, and hell, I need some myself.”

  Eric snorted.

  Burgton glanced at Eric, but didn’t ask. “And if I were to assign someone to oversee them for you... Dolinski
let’s say?”

  “Then I would say my platoon was in good hands, sir, but Kamarl has his own platoon to handle. The way I hear it, 2nd needs even more work than 1st does.”

  “True. You have a suggestion?”

  “Bump Hiller to cover for me, just until I get back.”

  “Done,” Burgton said decisively. “Moving on to why you’re here. Liz and I have a job for you both. On the surface it’s a simple escort mission, and as I said, you get to protect Liz while she oversees her team. Why only two units, you’re thinking. Well, it’s not because I don’t value Liz or the mission. They’re both vital, and I mean that. Liz is a personal friend, but it’s her work that makes her indispensible to me.”

  Liz rolled her eyes. “Love you too, George. Seriously, no one is indispensible. My deputy can do my job, or I’d find a new deputy.”

  “Your job yes, but Oracle? No.”

  Liz cocked her head, but then acknowledged his point with a nod. “I’ll give you that one.”

  “Oracle?” Gina said.

  “That’s a long story,” Burgton said. “One I’m going to tell you but in the operations room. We have a mission to plan.”

  Burgton led them all out of his office and down the corridor to the operations room. No one was using it so they had it to themselves. Burgton waved them toward the main tank at the centre of the room. He worked the controls himself, and the room’s lights dimmed as the tank came alive.

  Gina frowned at the planet displayed and at the legend below it in bold text. Kushiel. Kushiel? Her eyes widened as she remembered why the name was familiar. It was The Kushiel of the Accords. The planet was bombarded from orbit into an uninhabitable waste by the Merkiaari. The Accords banning orbital bombardment and the use of atomics in atmosphere had been a direct response to what happened to that luckless world. What possible use could there be for the planet now?