COMMANDER

I was thoroughly searched by the security forces as I entered the building. There was a little trouble when they tried to take my katana but we worked out a compromise. So long as it remained in the hands of a security agent who would stay in the room with me so it never left my sight, I let them have it, along with my bag of purchases. In the fuss over the katana they missed three knives tucked away secretly in my clothing. These were clever units designed and made by Ronin of special acrylic polymers and carbon fiber. They were tough and strong, and held a good edge.

Eventually, we made it to a meeting room different than the one we had used before. The ministers were already assembled, as were fifteen armed security guards in light body armor. I was ushered to a place before the ministers. I noticed Deputy Minister Grone Nefal was not present. Prime Minister Edder Bando stood to address me.

“Commander Rawlings, thank you for coming. We are prepared to deliver our findings.”

I waited, saying nothing.

“After due consideration of the evidence you provided, and thorough examination by our best technicians, we have determined we cannot judge with certainty whether this evidence may have been tampered with or not. It could be quite real and exactly accurate, then again, there may be technology of which we are unaware which could allow tampering while leaving no evidence our methods are sophisticated enough to detect.”

He paused, and I took advantage of it.

“I understand the hesitation of the Hanosian people, Prime Minister, especially when there is technology beyond their understanding at play. You see, we did intercept a communications signal from Hanos this very morning which is quite beyond what technology I have thus far observed on this planet.”

Murmurs arose among the ministers and Bando could not hide the shocked expression which flitted across his aquiline features, with a widening of the eyes and a flaring of the nostrils.

“If you cannot be an adequate judge of our veracity, then what are your intentions, Prime Minister?”

He recovered quickly, the old fox. He straightened his posture a little and lifted his head to a regal slant.

“We intend to detain you, as our guest, of course, until someone who can verify your evidence arrives.”

“Ah, I see. Tell me, Prime Minister Bando, is this ‘someone’ the Shaquaree? Or perhaps another race within the LCP?”

He was sweating now and a fine sheen covered his features.

“You must understand, Commander. We are a simple people, a non-violent people. We cannot defy them. We can only hope to mitigate their actions and potential wrath.”

“So, Hanos is being held hostage to force you to give me over to them.” I paused a moment before continuing, “I must give you and everyone in this room fair warning, sir. If you attempt to detain me, many of your people here will be injured or killed, quickly and with violence.”

His face hardened and his eyes narrowed, and I knew his decision.

“Take him!” he yelled, pointing suddenly at me with a long, bony finger.

I was already spinning to my right and backwards, pulling two of the smaller knives. With one in each hand I dove into the middle of the gang of guards rushing at me, pulling at their handguns and weighted batons. I slashed and spun, kicking and striking. Blood flew in arcs and spatters and men screamed in pain or gargled in death. Four of them were down in as many seconds, dying as they fell with their lifeblood spurting in great arcs from open throats. Another went down trying to hold his intestines from spilling through his opened gut.

A baton hit my right forearm and jarred the knife from my grasp. I dropped to the floor to roll and kick. Knees buckled and more screams filled the room, and batons struck at my legs. I rolled in a backwards somersault and stood quickly, then ducked and twisted as two guards began firing their handguns. All they hit were their own fellows who surrounded me.

I jumped up and sideways, slammed the little knife in my left fist down through the helmet and skull of a guard and yanked it free with a spray of blood while I was pulling the third knife from beneath my belt. With knives again in both hands, I became a whirling cyclone of flying blades, boots, knees, and elbows.

“Now!” I yelled through the transceiver.

There was a loud explosion from outside the building and dust jarred from the walls with the concussion. The five guards left standing froze momentarily. Two more of them went down in an instant, and then I was leaping high to fly down toward a third. His handgun was out and hanging down low by his waist but he tipped it at the last possible moment and pulled the trigger. The projectile hit me hard in the left chest just below my collarbone but did not slow me at all. He died where he stood with a little acrylic knife stabbed through his eye and into his brain.

I recovered my katana from him as his body fell. I ignored the shopping bag as it contained nothing of any value. My BBDs and ABS would be handled by the team. The remaining two guards dropped their guns and began moving backwards away from me with their hands up in terror.

Most of the ministers had fled, or were fleeing, from the meeting room. I turned to see Bando standing like a statue, an expression of horror and disbelief on his once-regal visage. I turned again and began to run for the door when a loud humming sound blasted into my ears and my body doubled over in instant agony and shock. I hit the marble floor hard on the left side of my face and left shoulder, then sprawled fully out and unable to move. My limbs and muscles seemed frozen with every muscle in my body cramping fiercely. I couldn’t even breathe. They were going to get me, after all.

A young woman leapt in through the doorway with a device in her hands. She landed standing over me, the device emitting a sound like a shrieking banshee might sound, if one existed anywhere. From where I lay frozen in agony with spots beginning to appear in my vision from lack of oxygen, I could see she was wearing pink underwear under her blue skirt.

Then the deep humming was gone and my body relaxed from the cramping. I pulled in air in deep breaths. The girl was pulling on my arm and shoulder, yelling at me to get up and run. I ran. At least, as best as I could.

We made it out of the building and into the courtyard. I could see most of the team in their suits standing by the AV, weapons pointed outwards. Everywhere lay dark-clothed bodies of security guards. I staggered toward them as quickly as I could with the girl’s arm beneath my right shoulder, helping to support me. The effects of the device which took me down were wearing off quickly now, and within a few seconds I was running at top speed and dragging the girl along.

More guards were pouring into the courtyard, all of them firing automatic weapons as Zulu fired back. We were almost to the AV entry when the girl stumbled and fell as the lasers on the AV flared to life. The 10TW beams flashed and rotated and security troops were mown down like hay before a scythe. I picked up the young girl who had saved me and raced between two suited figures and into the AV. Moments later, the outer airlock hatch clanged shut and we were airborne. I knew Ronin was shouting orders by the actions of the other troopers.

I tossed the girl on an acceleration couch and began to strap her in when I saw the blood pouring out of a hole in her nice white blouse.

“Medic!” I yelled.

A nearby suit moved and Stitch’s voice came over the external speakers.

“Stand aside and I’ll get the bot on her!”

Within seconds the trauma bot was at work and the clothing was cut from her body for a full examination by the bot’s scanning beams. A moment later it was concentrating focus on the wound in her right side, through the ribs.

“Ronin, report!” I yelled.

She stuck her head out of the pilot chamber and searched for a moment before her helmet swung to center on me.

“We’re away clean, Wolf, no casualties. We had to remove a platoon of security outside our barracks building but it was a clear run to the AV and then to the landing zone. Right now Flyboy is taking us out over the bay and low around a jetty and then we’ll drop into the water and make our way to the rendezvous point to pick up Boomer and Star after they set off the decoy explosive. They’ll be headed for the river and walk the bottom to the pickup.”

“Gear?”

“We got all of it, even some of the foodstuffs we could cram into our field packs. Some of us even . . . Hey! You’re fuckin’ bleeding, Wolf!”

“It’s nothing, through and through. Some of you even what?”

“We got our hands on some civilian clothing. Thought it might be a good idea, maybe come in handy at some point.”

“Okay, good plan. Who’s on weapons?”

“Dog. Who else?” she added.

I could just imagine the nasty grin on her face.

“Any sign of pursuit?”

“Stand by . . .”

Her head disappeared for a moment.

“We’re clear,” Flyboy said over the transceivers, “no atmospheric craft or boats other than the usual traffic, no active sensor sweeps I can detect. Hang on, everybody, we’re gonna get wet!”

I turned quickly to help with stabilizing the girl for the bot until I saw she was under a restraining field. Stitch was bending a little to look closer at my chest.

“I didn’t think all that blood was hers, sir. Looks like you took a round.”

The AV shuddered slightly as it entered the water of the bay, and then we were a submarine.

“Under the collarbone at an upward angle, came out through the trapezius. No arterial flow and I can still feel my shoulder and arm just fine, so it missed the subclavical nerve set. You focus on the girl.”

“I have linked the AIs in the bot and the suit and now I get a running commentary. She is messed up big-time. Liver, lungs, heart, pancreas, diaphragm, all took damage. The worst is the liver and gall bladder. The projectile hit the top of her lowest rib and began to tumble and bone fragments from the broken rib spread in several paths, puncturing some organs and lacerating others. The tumbling projectile caused massive damage. The bot put her into a coma immediately and began repairs, and we have her on heart/lung bypass until we are done.”

“Prognosis?”

“Too soon to say. You should really get some treatment, Wolf.”

“The girl is the priority. She has direct knowledge of off-world technologies being used on Hanos, and she saved me from certain capture. I want to know why.”

I commed the ship as I sat down and leaned my head back a moment.

“Captain Lewellyn.”

“Here! Status, Commander?”

“As suspected, they did try to detain me for delivery to some race of the LCP who is applying pressure on Hanos for my capture. They used some type of advanced technology to incapacitate me but a young lady, a secretary I think, intervened with other advanced tech and we escaped. The whole team is in the AV but for two and we are on the way to pick them up now. We’ll find some place to lay low and sort things out.”

“I see. Several minutes ago there was another energy spike matching the earlier one, and we are fairly certain it is some sort of communications transmission. I am taking the ship out to the gas giant. We will try to hide in the rings alongside one of the small moons.”

“Understood. Out.”

Next, I contacted the wedge leaders for an update.

“Lt. Timmons, Lt. Jenkins.”

“Here, Commander.”

“Status report.”

Jenkins started. “Sir. We have agreed we need to keep the wedges in Alert Condition Two, so both wedges are rotating half the Troops with three on high alert, three off, on twelve-hour rotations. We have nine AVs and one LC operational, all troops are suit-synced, and the armory is at capacity.”

Timmons chimed in, saying, “Morale is very good, Commander. The clan bays and the wedges are right and tight. Captain Lewellyn is keeping us well-informed and maintaining the Ready Room briefings. All fighter pilot training is completed on both heavy and light fighters, and we have worked out a schedule with the squids for practice time in the simulators to stay sharp.”

“How about the Wasp fighters?” I asked. “Has the captain made any decision on those?”

“Yes,” Gene responded. “He is not going to replace them until the engineers complete a re-design. What they’re going to do is fit a mini-AI into each and connect them to the main ship AI via the subspace just like the transceivers we’re using now, so they will be completely robotic and able to respond autonomously very much like a human pilot. He has requested our AIs share strategic and tactical knowledge in order to better sync battle plans.”

Wow! And to think this was all the outflow of a single idea the doctor had!

“And, did you agree to the synching of the AIs?”

“Absolutely, sir. It’s already in process,” answered Jenkins.

Harlan’s tone and his choice of words, as well as those of Gene’s, were positive and decisive. I could see the sense of the decision, although it went against every grain of history over the last three centuries which worked to separate the Navy and the Marines, each guarding their knowledge base and resources jealously. The lieutenants had reviewed and agreed, and were telling me they had made a decision and would stand by it. If I thought they were wrong then they would take the heat and adjust as necessary without complaint.

“Good work, troopers!” I told them.

I filled them in on the situation dirtside and told them I could contact them as soon as there was anything worthwhile to share. Once Boomer and Star cycled in through the airlock, I had Flyboy take us southward down the shoreline until we reached another river big enough to let the AV travel underwater upstream. We found a bend in the river overhung by large trees shadowing the water from the sun and Flyboy settled the AV into the sand on the bottom.

After a full sensor scan, we moved the AV further upriver, then onto dry land in a little clearing surrounded by thick forest and fronted on the river. It would be a good campsite, far out in the rural land of the continent with no evidence of habitation for fifty klicks in any direction and over six hundred klicks from the capital.

The girl was stabilized and off of the heart/lung bypass and the induced coma. She would wake up when she would wake up, if she would wake up. Stitch had a look at the wound in my chest and treated it, then I went down to the river to clean up. Ronin had a perimeter guard set, and the rest of the team dismounted from the suits and were sorting out the civilian clothing.

Stepping out of the AV and into the sunshine brought back intense memories of Earth and my time there. The air smelled strongly of the river and mud, and various aromas of vegetation swept across my nose wrapping me in those warm memories of happy times. These were the things missing from the stale, controlled atmosphere of a ship, and things which simply could not be replicated. Sure, we could infuse various scents like vanilla or chamomile, or whatever, but it was not even close to the same as being dirtside. The warmth of the sun, the smells wafting on errant breezes, the sounds of the forest soughing and the noises made by insects, birds, and animals, the sound and smell of the river nearby as it flowed gurgling and lapping against the banks, all of it reminded me strongly of the first time I set foot on Earth. After growing up in the controlled atmospheres of the Mars habitats, the wind and the smells of Earth and the heat of the unfiltered sun on my skin had been a plethora of sensation which had nearly overwhelmed me.

I breathed deeply and stretched before I took off my clothes, the shirt was ruined but the pants were fine if I could get the blood stains out of them. After soaking the pants, I stepped in the river for a short swim and then stood in the shallows and washed off the rest of the blood from the earlier encounter. I was scrubbing again at my uniform pants when several of the team joined me, shucking their clothes and going for swims or washing.

Spear was nearby, squatting in the bushes to pee.

“Spear,” I called out to her, “when you get a moment, see about setting up a latrine. We might be here a little while.”

“You got it, boss,” she responded quickly, naturally.

It was the way of some of the line officers to allow their troopers to respond to them as “boss” rather than “sir,” sort of relaxed and unofficial. It felt kind of good. Her face reddened a little when she realized what she had done. I smiled at her to take away any possible stigma and turned back to my clothes. When she was finished she walked over and stacked her clothing next to mine and then walked into the river for a quick dunk.

The others in the water were several meters away engaging in a little horseplay, splashing and insulting each other when Spear suddenly cried out and disappeared under the surface like something had pulled her down. I hesitated just long enough to roar “Troopers!” and dove into the river as close to where she went under as I could.

Upstream a little from the others, the water was clear and I could immediately see a reptilian beast similar to the one which had attacked Dog earlier. This one was much larger, with jaws nearly a meter long and a tail longer than its body. It had Spear by one leg and was trying to pull her to the bottom, its long, heavily-toothed jaws clamped so tight the flesh of her thigh was distorted and blood was coloring the water. Naked and unarmed, she was still fighting back, struggling and trying to separate the jaws.

As I arrived I grabbed at the body of the beast and pulled myself onto its back and wrapped my legs around it, then reached forward and wrapped an arm around its throat just in front of the clawed forelegs. It was using its long, undulating tail to push it through the water, and still driving for the bottom. I jammed my fingers at its eyes, digging and clawing with all my strength.

The beast released Spear and suddenly was twisting and rolling with amazing agility. I had blinded one eye for certain, and maybe both, when it managed to shake me off its back. It clawed me hard with one rear leg as it spun and twisted and rolled and then the great tail slapped the side of my head so hard I nearly lost consciousness.

Then there were bodies of troopers all around us and knives flashed liquid reflections and blood filled the water. Someone grabbed me and pulled me away and toward the surface. I couldn’t seem to move right. Within moments I was being dragged through the short stretch of mud at the river’s edge and up onto the grassy clearing by Boomer and CanMan and they were both shouting “Medic!” Others were carrying Spear onto the level ground, as well. Her thigh was torn badly on both front and back and she was bleeding profusely, but she was conscious and cursing like a true Marine.

“Hold still, Wolf,” Boomer was saying to me as she tried to hold me down. “You’re looking pretty fucked up but Stitch is on the way.”

“Spear?” I tried to say, gargling and coughing as red water spewed out of my mouth.

“Hold still, sir!” commanded CanMan, pushing at my left leg and hip. “Hold him, Boomer! Goddamn it!”

She said something about “can’t” and “slick” and “blood,” then the darkness closed in around me.