Merkiaari Wars: 03 - Operation Oracle Page 23

  Gina hoped Liz was right even if it meant losing to Eric because she knew the General needed them to succeed. He needed Oracle. Despite everything Liz said, Gina didn’t think it would be that easy. Her slow but methodical idea of mapping Kushiel’s net infrastructure had more chance. She was sure.

  Gina found the other two buildings, and suddenly the map in her head had proper landmarks. She triangulated, calculated distances in microseconds, and flew confidently straight to the Infonet station. It was right where it was meant to be. Ha! Maybe this treasure hunt thing wouldn’t be too hard after all.

  She studied what her external cameras revealed of the station and its surroundings. The blizzard was at its height, but Hobbs had updated the forecast and predicted it would blow over within the next couple of hours. That was good but not critical. It was -42° outside, but her environmental suit could handle the hard vacuum and absolute zero of space. The APC was easily capable of the local conditions also. No, what concerned her was landing upwards of two thousand tonnes of cargo shuttle on snow and ice.

  The station was completely buried, and the surrounding area was featureless white. How deep was the surface snow? Gina hovered just above it to bring the antennas close and switched her attention to what the shuttle’s GPR (Ground Penetrating Radar) was telling her. GPR used electromagnetic radiation (high-frequency polarised radio waves) to penetrate the ground and reveal what was hidden. It was particularly good at it where ice was concerned.

  She studied the reflected return signals and grimaced at what she saw. There were voids and cracks all through it. If she landed here, the shuttle would collapse the voids and bury itself. Frowning in annoyance but not really surprised by the setback, she manoeuvred and flew slowly away from the station looking for a good landing site.

  * * *

  15 ~ Buried Treasure

  Woolsery, Kushiel, Kushiel System

  Gina listened intently to the shuttle settling upon its landing struts, wincing at the occasion jolt as the ice compressed beneath its weight. She had a death grip on the controls, hardly daring to lower the power to her anti-grav any further. Of course she had to eventually. Barely a third of the shuttle’s weight was yet bearing upon the ice. GPR reassured her that the three metre thick ice was solid all the way down to the frozen ground beneath. It should take the entire weight and more just fine. The half metre of snow on top was immaterial to that.

  She lowered anti-grav output still more and felt the shuttle lurch down a few inches then halt at a very shallow angle to starboard. It was nothing really, and she made herself start breathing again and ease her grip upon the VTOL (Vertical Take-Off & Landing) joystick before she crushed it. She sighed when, after a few minutes of sitting still, the shuttle remained stable. She cut anti-grav entirely and the shuttle remained solidly in place. Good.

  She quickly shut down her drives and headed into the back. She needed to get a move on. She hadn’t tried to contact Hobbs or Eric, but she was feeling a definite urge to make up some time. For all she knew, Eric had already accessed his objective.

  She quickly pulled on her environment suit over her uniform blacks and sealed her helmet. The suit ran its diagnostics and all came up green. She had air and power enough for days, and replacements in the APC to extend that to a week if necessary. She was taking no chances, but seriously, she didn’t expect any problems.

  She unlocked and opened the cargo ramp. Wind and snow blasted inside, and her suit’s heater immediately kicked in as the temperature plummeted within the hold. It would do no harm within the shuttle, but she still hurried her steps unclamping the APC’s wheels. No sense letting ice build up inside. Her preparations took only minutes, and she was climbing up into the cab to back out of the hold.

  The APC handled the snow beautifully. Plenty of traction in twelve wheel drive. Gina used her helmet comm to close and lock the shuttle’s cargo ramp by remote, and watched it rise into place. No need to run down her suit’s power, she decided, and removed the helmet setting it upon the seat beside her before turning her attention to navigation.

  She quickly orientated herself, and using the map on her internal display, put herself on a direct line back to the station. She gunned the engine, and the APC quickly accelerated. Its automatic gearbox changed gears smoothly, propelling the fifteen ton machine as if it were a mere ground car. Eighteen forward gears and three reverse; she doubted anything on Kushiel would phase it.

  The blizzard was really howling now, almost whiteout conditions, but there were no obstructions between the shuttle and the station. She had flown the route and knew it was clear. She turned on every light the APC had and kept going. The suspension was pretty good, but when she hit a pressure ridge in the ice a few minutes later, the APC launched itself into the air and landed bouncing on its balloon tyres. Gina grunted, bouncing in her sear almost losing her grip on the wheel. She laughed at herself. She should have belted in and driven slower, she didn’t want to wreck. She slowed down and took it easier after that.

  The trip took less than half an hour.

  Gina parked the APC so that its lights illuminated the mast. With no way to enter the building, she planned to bore down through the ice a few metres from it. The ice should be at its thinnest over the station roof, and she had just the thing for making the hole.

  The regiment was primarily a front line combat unit, but centuries of unconventional missions had resulted in a few changes. When the Council betrayed General Burgton and mothballed the regiment, he hadn’t taken it lying down. Outwardly it appeared as if he complied, but in truth vipers went underground. Everything they did from then on was handled stealthily. Anything the regiment needed was found either on Snakeholme, or it was requisitioned on the down low—either outright stolen, or more usually diverted to the regiment’s use by clever manipulation of records and computer systems. Only in the past decade or two had the regiment received anything like a budget big enough to maintain itself properly.

  President Dyachenko was the first president in a very long time to take a personal interest in vipers. He had authorised funds (funds nominally earmarked for secret research projects) re-tasked to bring the regiment back up to strength, all in secret. The Shan incursion had changed a lot of things. Recruiting was now in the open, and the regiment once again appeared on the books as an operational combat unit. It had a proper Department of Defence approved budget, but the regiment was still commanded by General Burgton and he had not changed how he ran it. He would never again allow his men to be hung out to dry. Anything his regiment needed was supplied directly by him through his people on Snakeholme, or it was supplied by people paid by him. He had moved heaven and earth to make the regiment self-sufficient. That applied to combat situations as well. Need arty? Vipers were trained in the use of all types of artillery, and their gunnery skills were excellent. The regiment maintained its own artillery pieces, both towed and self-propelled. Need space transport? The regiment had ships to transport vipers anywhere they needed to go, and it also had warships to escort those transports all crewed by personnel drawn from the SDF (Snakeholme Defence Force). Need something blown up? Vipers were trained in all types of demolition, and in defusing such things should that come up. Vipers were trained in every conceivable form of combat known, and all of them were pilot trained so that any viper could quickly replace a lost unit. All this, because General George Burgton was one paranoid sonofabitch, and would never again truly trust anyone but his own people to support his regiment long term.

  In theory, anything Gina would ever have to face should’ve been covered in her training, but she had to admit while standing upon an ice sheet in a blizzard on a dead world, that no one could have foreseen her need for a post hole boring machine. The regiment was a combat unit, but in line with Burgton’s self-sufficient philosophy, his men were credible engineers—if by credible one meant they could build a basic bridge, defensive redoubt, or other temporary structure when needed using local materials. So although she didn’t in fact h
ave a post hole boring machine with her—because hey, she hadn’t imagined the need to bore holes for bridge supports today—she did have a working understanding of engineering principles. Enough to get by and improvise a workaround at least. The fact her workaround wouldn’t have been possible without Eric’s gift of the IED droid made no never mind.

  Gina stood outside in the -43°c conditions, toasty warm in her environment suit, and used the remote controls to drive the droid down the APC’s ramp. She could see what the droid was seeing using a window she had open on her internal display. It currently showed her standing in front of it and the antenna mast beyond. She piloted the droid to within three metres of the mast and parked.

  The droid had a number of probes, sensors, and even weapons equipped as standard. Sometimes they were used purely as a recon platform, and only the cameras might be used to check for explosive devices, other times its electro, magnetic, or infra sensors might be deployed. What interested her today was its array of weaponry. Normally the mortar and rail gun would be used to safely detonate IEDs, and that was fine on any other day. She didn’t want to blow up the mast though, or damage the station. She just needed a hole.

  She deployed the laser.

  Any laser could cut the ice, but generally they weren’t carried by Alliance troops. They had been once. Long before the Merkiaari War that was. They had been considered the cutting edge of weaponry back then and were used against other Humans on the battlefield many times, but that was before the Merki arrived and started kicking butt. For the first three years of the war, the Merki won battle after battle, and proved Alliance gear was inferior. Plasma weapons and weapons based upon mass drivers soon gained ascendance, relegating lasers to industrial use and space warfare where power limitations were less of a concern. More power gave naval lasers a real offensive punch, but making that sort of laser man portable was pretty much a pipe dream. No soldier would exchange her M18-AP rifle for even the most powerful man portable laser. Such a laser would only have power for one or two shots, while a hundred round magazines were standard for M18 rifles. Double capacity drum mags were available, but they were bulky and not commonly used. They were real bitches to reload in the field and she’d been desperate enough to reload her empty mags with loose rounds a time or two when her squad ran out.

  The droid’s targeting reticule was clear on her display, but she didn’t fire. She wanted a nice round hole big enough for her and some gear to pass through. She quickly set up a firing pattern to burn a continuous circle through the ice two metres in diameter. That should be plenty. The first shot would mark the centre of the hole, and provide a drain for the melt water. Without it, the laser’s beam would be degraded.

  She activated the program and the droid went to work.

  Gina watched as the droid deployed one of its many arms and aimed down at the ice. It fired, melting the ice and quickly reaching the station’s roof. She knew the moment the laser hit the roof because a bloom of ejecta flew skyward peppering the ice all around with debris. The melt water in the hole quickly disappeared, and the droid stopped firing. A second or three later, the droid fired again and began circling its pilot hole.

  Gina was well pleased. The droid was doing its thing and despite the weather conditions, the ice was melted long enough to flow away down the hole. She had been worried about that. If it had refrozen before getting clear she might have resorted to explosives and risked damaging what she came for. Thermate would have burned through the ice and the roof easily, but then it would have ruined anything beneath it too. It burned hot enough to melt steel when applied properly. This was better.

  Gina let the droid work and started unloading a few things from the APC. She had a temporary generator, a computer, a winch, powerful lamps, and a bundle of ropes. She closed up the APC and carried everything to the hole that the droid was just about done with. She piled everything ready to use and peered down the hole just as the section of roof fell away. The droid beeped as if in satisfaction, indicating its program was complete and signalling its readiness for another task. It stowed its weapon arm.

  Gina took up the hand controller again and manoeuvred the droid out of her way.

  She ran a line from the APC to the winch and secured it, and then used it to lower the generator and other supplies into the hole. The electric winch wasn’t designed for heavy loads or for the extreme conditions, but it held up fine. Vipers were strong enough that had it failed, she could have lowered everything hand over hand if she had to. When the load hit bottom and the line went slack, she swung into the hole and used it to climb down into the darkness.

  Gina reached the icy floor and paused to look around. She switched to light amplification mode but grimaced at the result. It was only a little better than total darkness. There wasn’t enough light coming in through the hole for her systems to work with. Well, she would fix that directly. She turned in place, slipping a little on the slick surface. The melt water from her cutting operation had refrozen making movement tricky despite the debris from the roof scattered about.

  She located her supplies and dragged them off the ice before getting to work. She set up one of the lamps on its stand and ran a cable to the generator. She cancelled light amplification mode—she didn’t want to blind herself—and flipped the switch to start the generator. Light flooded the room, and she stared around at what was revealed. The first thing that caught her eye were the rows of cabinets running down the centre of the room, but it was to the dead status board on the far wall her eyes were drawn.

  She advanced to take a better look.

  There was no power to it, of course, but the status board still revealed much that she wanted to know. The station was an Infonet node. So much she had already guessed based upon the type of antenna on the roof. It was a relay station and was clearly labelled as Woolsery with a little “you are here” notice appended to it. The board also told her where other relays were by name, not coordinates unfortunately—it consisted of simple red and green lights with lines connecting them to indicate where in the system they were. A proper computer monitor would have been more informative, but only if she could get the computer running. All in all, she was satisfied with the more primitive display. Even unpowered as it was, it was useful. She made certain her database scanned the entire image of the board into her database. The place names especially. With those, she could find every one of those lights in the real world simply by calling up an old atlas entry and navigating to them using Woolsery as a starting point.

  Gina turned away to investigate the rest of the station.

  Woolsery Infonet Relay Station, Kushiel

  Hours of work tracing power runs, and Gina finally had the building up and running. The lights in the ceiling, frost covered like the walls and floor, illuminated Gina and her lash up of cables crisscrossing the floor and entering cabinets. The cabinets contained the memory crystals used as the station’s buffer memory. The nature of crystal memory storage was such that supplying it with power should return it back to its previous state without damage. The synthetic crystals were as hard as diamond and pretty much indestructible. Crystal memory needed power to change states, meaning the buffer should still contain the data it had contained when the station lost power. She was counting on that particular property of the crystals to lead her to the prize.

  “Okay, time to see what we have,” Gina said and switched on the computer she had brought and hooked up to the station’s net. “Hmmm.”

  There was a lot of data. Her computer was accessing the buffer memory and treating it like just another memory partition available to it. Truncated files or data that the computer considered gibberish was ignored as unreadable, but it could be read—maybe—aboard Hobbs with a lot of processing. She wasn’t interested in doing that. At this stage, she would search through the files she could actually read without aid.

  She ran searches and looked for information that Liz said would point to the A.I or its backup. Her computer stripped file headers an
d compared them to its search parameters, and slowly she pieced together a map of where the data had flowed from and where it was flowing to. A lot of it was general system data, stuff the net itself needed to function and of no interest to her, but as the search deepened more and more flags were raised to grab her attention.

  She smiled fiercely. This was looking better and better. She shunted the flagged entries to another window and started another search confined only to them. Almost immediately she began getting hits. She opened the files and devoured the contents. She was shocked to find Sebastian’s name almost immediately. Somehow she hadn’t expected that. She read the files, and was disappointed with the contents. They all seemed banal. Nothing out of the ordinary at all, but their presence was still significant. The file headers told her where they had originated, and it wasn’t Haverington. Eric was not going to be a happy bunny. He was looking in the wrong place.

  Gina didn’t pack up immediately, though she was sorely tempted. She decided to work through all the data here first. She had already done all the prep here. It would be a waste not to strip every byte of useful data from the effort. She let her computer work, and stood to stretch her legs.

  She wandered around the station poking into things while her computer did its job. The station wasn’t a big installation, one main computer centre with a couple of annexes containing offices and storage areas. She peered through open doors, and glanced into boxes at the detritus, wondering about the people who had used it all. She sat at a desk and jiggled drawers. One was locked, but her viper strength made short work of the flimsy lock. Inside was a binder that she pulled out and opened to a random page.

  It was a maintenance log. Time sheets and names of people long dead together with signatures and initials signing off on work and inspections done on the network. Nothing startling or even remotely interesting. Gina flicked through the pages noting more of the same. She threw it back into the drawer and shoved it shut. She opened another drawer but found nothing but blank forms. The last drawer yielded a few old books—manuals and technical spec sheets. It didn’t matter how advanced people became in their use of computers, they still had to print stuff out to get the full benefit of the data. It didn’t matter whether it was printed on archaic paper like on Earth before colonisation began, or on plastic flimsies like these. She didn’t think people would ever stop printing stuff out.