Merkiaari Wars: 02 - What Price Honour (24 page)

She had made an irrevocable decision when she hadn’t backed out at the briefing. The rumours of what happened when you became a viper were rife throughout the Alliance. Some said vipers were nothing but robots and were not human. Others said they were cyborgs and too powerful a threat to the Alliance. There were many other rumours, but one thing they all agreed on was that vipers were not completely Human any longer. By not backing out she had chosen to give up part of her humanity. She had seen Eric in action, and she had watched the Colonel and his sergeants throughout the testing. She couldn’t distinguish any external differences between them and any other person, except the weapon’s data bus in their right palms.

Until they moved.

They seemed to glide along, as if they might take to the air at any moment. She knew the illusion was caused by the strength they embodied, but the grace was surprising. Images of clanking, clumsy robots were very far from the reality.

She handed her Marine Lieutenant’s uniform to the sergeant that came to collect it with a pang of loss. She was a Marine no longer, not really. The saying:
Once a Marine always a Marine
, came easily while still in the corps, but from the outside looking in, there was a world of difference. The corps was all her family…
had been
all her family. She glanced around at her new one and hoped she had made the right choice. Being a Marine was more than wearing the uniform. It was doing one’s duty no matter what, being ever faithful to what the corps and the Alliance stood for. Wearing black didn’t change who she was, and she was determined her transformation into a viper unit would not change her either.

She strapped into her seat, knowing what would happen if she didn’t. The shuttle was much too small to have an internal gravity field. She was used to living and working in micro-gee environments and did not concern herself when the shuttle accelerated hard just a few moments later. One or two of the others were caught off guard, and she didn’t think much of their chances at promotion. They had been given plenty of time to change, but she noticed with amusement that some of the recruits were shy about undressing with men in view. They were probably from Bethany’s World. It was surprising to see viper recruits from there, especially when Bethany’s government had voted against their creation during the Merki War, but she supposed there had to be some normal people living there.

The Alliance had only been a dream back then. Earth, though highly respected as humanity’s homeworld, had been only one of many separate voices. It had taken a war to make the dream of the Alliance come to life. Worlds had banded together to resist the aliens, but they failed to hold the enemy at bay until Earth finally stepped to the fore with its forces. The Alliance was born and the Merki advance was slowed but not stopped. Ten years of harsh fighting culminated in the creation of the first vipers, and they slowly reclaimed the lost worlds. The war lasted almost twenty years—twenty years, and an estimated sixteen billion people died before it was done. It could have been many more—the Merkiaari were very thorough. They left little evidence of their genocide behind them. No one knew the exact figures.

The Alliance did succeed in pushing the aliens out of its systems, but at a high cost. Gina thought they should have pushed on and annihilated the Merkiaari down to the last male, but she understood why they hadn’t. Eighty percent of the new Alliance had needed massive reconstruction, and resources were at an all time low. It took almost fifty years to bring those worlds back to their pre-war condition. During that time, the Alliance Council became a way of life. Headquarters of the combined military remained in Sol system on Luna. Earth, as humanity’s homeworld, became the capital and therefore the centre of the Human sphere of influence—though of course it wasn’t central in purely spatial terms.

Peace and the rule of law reigned within the Alliance, but those yearning for a frontier type life had an outlet. These became known as the Border Worlds. They offered a hard and violent life to their citizens, but their sparse populations preferred it that way. They were left alone for the most part, but the Alliance did offer membership to them if they could reach a consensus among their people to join. Some of the Border Worlds had turned to piracy to supplement their lack of trade. Fleet was kept gainfully employed suppressing such outbreaks.

Gina studied the faces and postures of those around her. Most seemed cheerful and nodded to her before continuing their conversations. Her eyes locked on one woman who was silent and brooding. The woman’s eyes sharpened when she noticed Gina’s regard, and her hand twitched as if reaching for a weapon. The woman was a killer, pure and simple.

Gina forced her eyes to move on and the chill in her spine eased.

She couldn’t see outside. The shuttle was a military vessel and not a cruise ship, but she still knew the moment they arrived. Gravity returned as the shuttle crossed the threshold in the bay, and moments later a slight bump heralded touchdown. Various clanking noises announced the ship was secure and she unbuckled her harness.

 Colonel Flowers stood in the centre aisle and surveyed the recruits. “Listen up! You will follow your sergeants to quarters. You will not deviate from the course he sets. You will not lag behind gawking. You will not talk. You will not do anything other than march to your assigned quarters. Understood?”

“Sir, yessir!” Gina yelled with the others. It was like being back in boot camp.

“Carry on, Sergeant.”

Stone straightened. “Yes, sir. Each platoon will march in good order behind their sergeants—which means no pushing and shoving for you new people. Fifth platoon, you’re first.”

Obviously.

Fifth platoon was the last to board after all. Gina had been a sergeant herself, she knew the game, but Flowers seemed to be taking the security arrangements to extremes.
Washington
was Fleet for goodness sakes. Surely everyone on board her was reliable.

Gina marched behind Flowers into the bay. The place was deserted. There would usually be crewmen working to refuel the shuttle, not that it needed refuelling, but navy types always took the opportunity to do so. No captain of a ship, whether that ship be a battle group carrier or a lowly shuttle, would miss the opportunity to top off his bunkers. In this case that seemed to be exactly what was happening. She kept her scrutiny of the bay to herself and followed Flowers through a hatch deeper into the ship. She had never been on board a
Washington
class ship before, let alone that class’ namesake, and she wanted to look around, but the Colonel had ordered otherwise. She took him at his word when he declared mind wipe as the punishment for infractions.

Mind wipe was only used on violent criminals such as murderers and rapists. It had come about when bleeding heart liberals had managed to have the death penalty taken off the books. Hypno had been around for a while, but was used for entertainment only. It didn’t take long for the courts to see a use for it, and a new punishment for murder was introduced—personality death. Later the punishment was used on convicted rapists and then on all violent crime. It was amazing the difference it had made. Crime was cut to barely sixty percent of its previous levels in the core, and it had declined every year since hyno’s introduction. Whatever you called it, mind wipe or personality death, it was worse than true death and therefore a fitting punishment. How Flowers could justify it here she didn’t know; she wasn’t willing to find out.

“This is your toilet facility,” Flowers indicated a hatch on the other side of a section seal.

Gina paid it no mind, saving her attention for Flowers as he walked on.

“This is your refectory and day area. All platoons will share this space, and the toilet facility. The first compartment on the right is fifth platoon’s sleeping area. The next is for fourth and so on. Once everyone arrives, the blast door will be sealed.

“These areas are where you will live for the next three weeks. The rest of
Washington
is off limits. Anyone seen outside this section will be dismissed and suffer mind wipe. Anyone seen talking to a crewmember will be dismissed and suffer mind wipe. Understood?”

“Sir, yessir!” Gina said along with her platoon mates.

“Good. Get settled in, and we’ll start work at zero six hundred tomorrow—dismissed.”

Flowers walked away and entered another compartment this time on the left. Gina couldn’t see inside, but she assumed it was his cabin. She moved away from the chattering recruits and entered the area set aside for their barracks.

To her surprise, her name was already stencilled on a locker next to a rack. She opened it to see a full set of toiletries, a viper class-A and class-B uniform, and a box of compads with the viper patch displayed prominently on their cases—manuals. In the bottom was her kit bag. She opened it and found everything she had brought with her minus her old uniform. She found every one of her old ribbons and medals in a neat wooden presentation box. They had even unpicked the stitching and removed her unit patches from her old dress uniform to place them here. They were certainly thorough, she thought, fingering the patches.

Gina smoothed one of them flat in the palm of her hand. “Seventh Marines.”

As easy as that, she was no longer a Marine.

Storing everything back as she found it, she sat on her rack and began going through her manuals. They detailed the complete process of building a viper unit. She was surprised to see all the models listed and not just the newest version. She frowned for a moment, and then nodded in understanding. In the field, it might be necessary to make good a unit’s battle damage. It seemed unlikely she would need to repair a Mk1, or that she would have the biomech components necessary to do so, but better safe than sorry she supposed.

“What are you reading, Fuentes?”

Gina looked up and found one of the recruits. The name on his chest was M. Cragg. She remembered him. He was the lieutenant… ex-lieutenant now, who had asked the second question in the briefing. She showed him the case of the manual she was reading.

“Hmmm. Viper sub-systems: Internal sensors. Not the sort of light reading I would expect at bed time.”

“That depends on your definition of light reading,” she said.

Cragg laughed and sat on the rack opposite. He offered his hand. “I’m Martin, and you are?”

She shook his hand firmly. “Gina.”

“Pleased to meet you. The others are all sitting around chatting, don’t you want to join them?”

“Not really. I’m happy enough reading these, but don’t let me stop you.”

“Are you trying to get rid of me?”

“Yes. My chance to become an officer in the 501
^st
is important to me. If I can start learning now, it won’t be so hard for me later.”

Cragg frowned. “You’re right.”

He stood and walked along the aisle until he found his own rack. He retrieved his manuals and came back to sit opposite her.

Gina watched him find the same manual she was reading, and begin to work through it.

Cragg looked up and saw her staring at him. He grinned and gestured for her to get back to work. They both laughed and settled down to read.

* * *

Aboard ASN Washington on route to NGC 1513-4964

Kate couldn’t believe she was here on the way to becoming a viper unit. What had that bastard Stone done to her? It had to be something in his download. The sim had changed her somehow. Before she went in, she had been her old self and hardly able to tolerate the cyborgs near her, but when she came out, she had agreed to become one. And what about Hiller, he was here. How did Stone persuade a rich son of Bethany to give it all up and become a despised cyborg?

“Recruit Richmond?”

Kate blinked and blushed when she found all eyes turned her way. “Sir?”

Colonel Flowers tilted his head to regard her, as if wondering what kind of noise she would make when stepped on. “Am I boring you, Recruit?”

Kate reddened still further and tried to sit at attention. “No, sir.”

“Oh good. Then perhaps you will be kind enough to recap what I just said?”

Kate glanced down at the compads on her desk. Only one was active. It was displaying the inner workings of a viper unit. Specifically, it was displaying a viper unit’s sensor and electronic warfare suit.

“Sir, you were describing a viper’s EW and sensor suite, sir.”

Kate knew she had blown it when the rest of the recruits winced and shook their heads. Flowers on the other hand just pursed his lips and looked disappointed.

“We covered that section a half hour ago, Recruit.”

“Sorry, sir.”

“I know it’s a lot to take in, Recruit, but when we go dirtside, there won’t be time for any more lessons like this. There won’t be time for very much at all before you’re all prepped for surgery. Sorry doesn’t begin to cut it, Recruit.”

Kate looked down to hide her embarrassment.

“As I was saying,” Flowers went on in a brisker tone. “You all have a lot to learn. Aside from mastering a viper unit’s systems, which will take months, there’s the artillery course, the sabotage and subversion courses, various special weapons courses… the list goes on. Master Sergeant Stone will be cooking up all kinds of nasty simulations to test you throughout the learning process. My point is, ladies and gentlemen, and this goes double for you Richmond, you do not have time to waste.”