Merkiaari Wars: 03 - Operation Oracle Page 22

  Kushiel had been vulnerable because of its location within the Human sphere of controlled space—it was a core world due to being colonised early in terms of Human expansion, but it was located in what could only be termed a cul-de-sac of barren suns. Because of that unfortunate happenstance, Kushiel was more like a border world in terms of its defensibility. Its own little fleet of ships, like most back then, had been mustered against commerce raiders—pirates—not alien invaders. The lack of habitable worlds nearby meant Kushiel could not call upon allied ships for help and expect them to arrive in time.

  Anyway, that was history, but it did affect what Gina and Eric needed to do in one way. Kushiel was an old colony world and that meant its population had bloomed and grown into the many hundreds of millions in terms of numbers. The people had spread out all over their world, building homes and communities. Kushiel had cities with populations in the millions when it died. That meant Gina had a good many targets to consider for their first explorations, big targets. And they would be explorations, not salvage operations at first. Eric had proposed, and Gina agreed, that they explore the various sites alone before ferrying Liz’s engineers and equipment to the surface. It only made sense. What if they landed everything only to find out that what they were looking for was on the other side of the planet?

  Liz had protested bitterly, even trying to pull rank. She said this was her operation and that the General had sent Eric and Gina as security, not to run it for her. She wasn’t under their authority, and neither was her team. Eric reposted by saying she damn well was under his authority, and that as the project’s security officer he would decide when something was safe. If he decided it wasn’t safe, she would stay aboard ship in the brig if that’s what it took to make her stay put. The salvage part of Operation Oracle was hers, everything else was his.

  Liz had appealed to the captain as the ultimate authority, but Gibson had failed to intervene on her behalf by explaining that his ship was part of Snakeholme’s merchant marine. Despite its unarmed status—not strictly true as even freighters were allowed limited defensive armourment within the Alliance—Hobbs and its crew like all such crews, held a reserve commission in Snakeholme’s Defence Force, and the SDF was commanded by General Burgton. In other words, he would do what Eric said.

  Gina found it all very amusing.

  What she didn’t find amusing was her growing realisation that finding what they sought was like looking for the proverbial needle in a world full of haystacks. She had a plan of course. She was filtering out buildings with an obvious use not connected with their quarry. Buildings such a residential blocks, shopping malls, vehicle parking structures, and many others in an attempt to narrow the places they needed to search. Even so, the task was a daunting one. She had to do the same with every city and town they discovered, and of course, they didn’t really know if the one they needed had even survived the bombardment.

  “How’s it going?” Eric said wandering over from where he had been watching things. “Anything stand out?”

  “More than Haverington you mean?” Gina said.

  Eric nodded.

  Haverington was the name given to Kushiel’s capital city and centre of government. Surprisingly, it had survived the Merki bombing, probably because it had been taken in the opening battles of the Kushiel incursion. Liz considered it a good bet for the A.Is location based upon the idea that the city was important, but Gina wasn’t so sure. There were other places. University towns seemed just as reasonable to her, but Liz was quite insistent that the capital be the priority. Gina was happy to comply if it made Liz happy. And besides, she might be right.

  “Yeah,” Gina said. “I’ve got plenty to check out. Too many. This could take a lot of time. The thing could be anywhere.”

  “Not anywhere,” Eric disagreed. “They were people like us, not aliens. We just need to think like they did. Where would we put it?”

  “Under a bloody mountain.”

  Eric scowled. “I’m serious.”

  “So am I. The Oracle facility back home makes perfect sense to me.”

  Eric rubbed his forehead and seemed to be counting to himself. “Let me try again. We need to think like Human colonists not vipers. Now. Where would you put it?”

  Gina frowned at the consol she had been using. She still thought her earlier thought had merit. University towns? But seriously, with modern comm tech the A.I could be anywhere on the planet and still be accessible, and if Liz was right the memory module would be close by. Archives and stuff seemed another good bet. Infonet servers and nodes... all that good stuff.

  She explained her thoughts to Eric.

  “Good. Find them.”

  Gina grinned. “Yes, sir captain... how?”

  Eric wasn’t smiling, he was serious. “Find me an intact library.”

  Cargo Bay 5, Aboard Hobbs, Kushiel System

  Gina gunned the engine and drove the APC (Armoured Personnel Carrier) up the ramp and into the shuttle’s cargo space. There was plenty of room. Hobbs’ shuttles were big suckers, as was the freighter they served. Hobbs was a super heavyweight among freighters, nominally in the same class as super dreadnaughts and fleet carriers because they all weighed in the millions of tons. Displacement wasn’t everything of course. Hobbs, being a freighter, was basically a series of hollow boxes within a pressure hull containing drives, power plants, fuel bunkerage, and crew spaces. That made for a huge ship. The only things built bigger by man were the stations, and one or two of the biggest shipyards where Hobbs and ships like her were constructed.

  Gina climbed down from the cab and made a quick inspection, but the automatic clamps had engaged properly to secure the wheels. There were six on each side, equipped especially for this trip with tyres rated to handle the sub zero temperatures of Kushiel. She hoped the thick chevron shaped blocks of tread could handle the conditions or she would be walking. She understood why the regiment didn’t use ground effect vehicles, the marines also used wheeled and tracked vehicles exclusively, but this was one mission where anti-grav would have come into its own.

  The huge balloon tyres were as tall as she was, and she took advantage by scurrying beneath the vehicle rather than walking around to check the other side. Everything was secure and she was ready to go. She exited the shuttle using the cargo ramp and headed across the hold toward Eric’s shuttle where he was still loading his APC.

  Both of the APCs were loaded with remotes and supplies that should be useful. She had chosen her loadout herself and was satisfied with her picks. The regiment’s APCs came with a default loadout to support a platoon of vipers in battle, but although they did carry recon remotes, none of it was really made for this situation. Weapons and ammo were useless here, and Gina had considered unloading it all to make room for more capable sensing gear, but in the end she decided not to bother. She had the entire troop hold built to carry forty vipers to use for her cargo, and she had done so.

  Eric had his own shuttle and gear, and had probably made different choices. It didn’t matter. This wasn’t a race or competition, but Gina admitted to herself she would like to be the one to discover the location of the prize. It had been her data that prompted this initial probe. As ordered, she had found a library for Eric to check out, while she had reserved an archive and Infonet server for her own investigations.

  “Ready?” Eric said. “I need a few more minutes.”

  Gina eyed the pile of gear awaiting loading, and stared enviously at the tracked jewel in Eric’s crown. She cursed herself for not thinking of it. It was a droid that the regiment used to defuse unexploded ordnance and IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices). The marines used them a lot when fighting terrorist outbreaks in the border worlds, which is where Gina had gained her experience of them.

  “Expecting things that go boom?” Gina asked, nodding at the gleaming black droid.

  “No, I’m expecting to send it ahead so I don’t catch cold,” Eric said and grinned at her scowl. “I think there’s another one in sto
rage. I’m sure I packed two.”

  Gina didn’t say a word.

  “I could let you have the spare,” Eric said in a wheedling boyish tone.

  “How much?” Gina bit out, but she was going to laugh if he kept at it.

  “For you a mere nothing. A favour to be named at a later date.”

  “A favour, huh? I don’t like open ended favours. You could ask for my last power cell in battle or something.”

  Eric chuckled. “How about dinner at Stirlings when we get back.”

  Gina’s eyebrows climbed. “Are you asking me out on a date?”

  Eric turned serious and nodded. “Deal?”

  Gina bumped fists with him. “Deal. Where is it?”

  Eric gave her directions and she trotted off to fetch her droid. Less than thirty minutes later, both shuttles were loaded and waiting to launch. The cargo hold took time to pump down, but before Gina knew it, she was on her way out of the ship and piloting the shuttle toward her target on the surface of Kushiel.

  “Hobbs this is Alpha-Two, proceeding on a least time direct course to my LZ. Will be going dark in... one-three minutes... mark.”

  “Alpha-Two, Hobbs copies. Good luck down there, don’t catch cold.”

  “Ha-ha. Alpha-Two out,” Gina said. By going dark she was referring to her entry into atmosphere when she would be briefly out of contact. “Alpha-One this is Two. You read?”

  “Alpha-Two, Alpha-One reading five by. You need something, Gina?”

  “Nope, just wondering about putting up a relay sat. We’ll lose comms when we land.”

  The two landing sites were too far apart for viper comm or TacNet without relay sats in orbit. Hobbs was overhead of course and would position itself to allow the shuttles to communicate with her, but the freighter wasn’t exactly equipped to support vipers in the field.

  “We already decided against that, Gina.”

  We didn’t, Eric did, but he was right about his reasons. They were here illegally. Hobbs could say, would say if asked, that she’d had an engineering casualty and was only in orbit until repairs were finished. Seeding the planet with satellites though would more than queer their lame excuse. What reasons could they give?

  Gina shrugged. “Okay, just checking. Have to bounce helmet comms off the shuttles and up to Hobbs.”

  “Right.”

  He didn’t have to say, that of course they would do that, but she heard it in how he didn’t say it. She grinned and changed the subject. She still had roughly ten minutes to atmosphere.

  “So, dinner eh?”

  “What’s wrong with dinner?” Eric said. “Got something better to do?”

  “I could find something I’m sure. Polishing my boots maybe. Seriously, a date?”

  “Why not? It’s not like either of us get out much.”

  Gina snorted. “True.” She checked her autopilot was following its programming. It was. “You think we’re okay though? You’re my commanding officer.”

  Eric sighed. “It’s only dinner, Gina. You are so... you are such a marine!”

  “What the hell do you mean by that?” Gina said. She had been proud to call herself a marine for fifteen years of her life, but he made it sound like a bad thing. She couldn’t help but be offended.

  “You’re so gung ho it’s painful. We’re vipers, Gina, not marines. Hell, we’re not even Human strictly speaking. Not anymore. We have our own ways, and besides, we’re adults. If you think you can’t control yourself...”

  Gina blew a raspberry.

  Eric laughed. “Well then. We’re agreed that two adults, such as ourselves, can have a dinner date together and not have it affect our working relationship. We are, right?”

  “Absolutely,” Gina said.

  “Good.”

  “Good.”

  “It’s a date then,” Eric said.

  “Right.”

  The silence stretched on longer than was comfortable. Gina searched for something to say, and eyed her chrono. Three minutes to atmosphere.

  “Want to bet that I find the prize before you?” Gina said clutching at work to fill the silence.

  “Stakes?” Eric said sounding interested.

  Not dinner again, Gina thought, though she wasn’t averse. This had to be better. “If I win you come with me on a mystery weekend. There will be fresh air and sunshine, and a possibility of drowning. You like boats?”

  “Boats? Sure.”

  “The sailing kind I mean,” Gina added to be sure.

  “Yeah boats, I know boats. Sails and ropes and stuff. Old school.”

  Gina nodded. “Yeah, that kind.”

  “And if I win?” Eric said.

  “That won’t happen, obviously, but just to make it fair, what do you want?”

  “Hmmm. Do you like going to the sensarium?”

  “Are you suggesting dinner and a sensim?” A bit cliché of him, but she wouldn’t mind. Sensariums were like the civilian version of running a sim, except you didn’t participate, you watched the story from within the fictional world the producers designed. It was kind of cool. Different enough from real sims to be fun. Restful too. “I went with Kate to the new Zelda and the Spaceways sensim. It was pretty funny.”

  “I don’t think it’s meant to be a comedy,” Eric said doubtfully.

  “Definitely not. Rabid Zelda fans would kill us for even thinking it.”

  “If I win then, you come with me to the sensarium in Petruso City, but I choose the sensim. No Zelda.”

  Gina smiled. “Okay...” the first turbulence shook the shuttle. “Blackout in ten seconds. See you later.”

  “...Gina... up...” Eric’s voice faded.

  She was into atmosphere now. The autopilot could handle things, but Gina was ready to take over the controls instantly. The weather front she would be entering could cause unpredictable updrafts and turbulence. A blizzard was in full swing over the target, but it was nothing to really concern a shuttle of this type. It had plenty of power, designed as it was for carrying heavy loads. Its power to weight ratio was through the roof, especially when mostly unloaded like now. Its muscle was closer to what a tug would have. The APC and other gear she had packed might as well weigh nothing for all the difference it made.

  Gina took the autopilot offline just a few kilometres from her objective and flew manually. She had every sensor the shuttle had scanning the surface looking for the antenna mast she had found on Hobbs. That telltale artefact gave her hope that the Infonet node it served was still intact. Not operational of course. It had no power, but she would fix that. Infonet nodes were housed within self-sufficient automated stations and acted as signal relays and buffers. When operational, they provided their community with access to Infonet and other net services, including archive access. Gina didn’t expect to find the prize here; that wasn’t the point of landing at this one. She was hoping to use it as a starting point in her plan of mapping the physical locations of all the other nodes and possibly even the A.I itself.

  But first a landing upon unstable snow and ice.

  The external cameras showed unforgiving white. Altitude was down to the hundreds of metres now, not thousands, and Gina expected proximity alarms to wail at any moment. Most of the buildings would be buried beneath the ice. The scans she had studied aboard Hobbs showed that pretty well, but the mast was tall even bent and canted at a twenty degree angle, and there were other taller buildings to watch out for. Not many, Woolsery was a minor community and seemed to be mostly two story dwellings, but there were enough to be wary of.

  The proximity alarm wailed.

  “Talk of the devil,” Gina muttered veering aside as one of those taller buildings reared up in her face. “Bloody hell that was close.” She checked and reset the alarm to give her more of a safety margin next time.

  Gina held the shuttle hovering before the building on its anti-grav and hit the external floods. The powerful lights pierced the storm and lit the ancient brick to reveal empty windows and storm damaged walls. Ice c
oated everything. She manoeuvred the shuttle to circle the building keeping her altitude constant. She was trying to place the building within the scan image she had displayed on one of her monitors.

  “I think it’s this one,” she said to herself tapping a finger upon one of the dark blobs shown on the scan.

  If she was correct, she needed to go east from here avoiding two more tallish buildings before she would find the mast. Damn she missed satellite access. She had become used to up linking to a satellite and just using coordinates with her internal navigation systems to find her way around. This treasure hunt primitive bullshit was getting on her nerves already. How the hell did anyone find their way about before GPS?

  Gina flew the shuttle while bitching internally and wondered how Eric was getting along. Despite trying to convince herself this wasn’t a competition, she did want to find the prize first. She had an added incentive now too. A weekend on a yacht with Eric would be fun. Chrissie Roberts had introduced her to the fun that could be had on the waters of Snakeholme. They had gone out a time or two with Kate before the regiment deployed to the Shan system and Chris was killed. Poor Chris. Gina missed her.

  Eric’s target was the library he had wanted her to find. No doubt there were others on Kushiel, but the one Gina had found for him was in Haverington. Visiting the capital had an added side benefit of pleasing Liz, who was still adamant, despite no supporting evidence, that the A.I would be somewhere in the city. Personally Gina thought she was grasping at straws. Liz was desperate for it to be true to keep Oracle alive. The thought that the A.I and its backup had been destroyed in the bombardment was her ultimate nightmare.