WARP world (8 page)

The squad had backtracked down the mountainside. The natural contours of the mountain offered them a strategic camp site for the night, though no one was letting down their guard just yet.

Morning passed slowly as they waited for the next warp window and the interrogation data that would determine the course of their mission. When it came through, Seg spent the better part of the afternoon speed-reading, as he had been trained to do for work in the field, with Manatu parked annoyingly close by his side.

The reading wasn’t a full digestion, not at this rate, but it was a hearty skim that would give him a wealth of details. The Shasir was a perfect snatch, full of information. There was a good deal of caste bias to weed out but it was enough to put them onto the major vita sources of this world.

He split the display, again, opening the global map with the suggested hotspots the analysts back at the World had put together for him. Grudgingly, he could admit that they had done a good job. But then, this was about as easy an analysis as one could do. This world was rich, rich, rich. Loaded. Perhaps the best strike in over a hundred years or more. Almost enough to justify return visits, but that policy was sacrosanct. One in, one out.

However, he had an idea he had nourished since their arrival and now he was confident that the risk was worthy. He stood and headed straight for where Kerbin sat, back resting against her pack. Manatu followed in his wake.

“We’re going to split up,” he told her.

“What?” she asked, nearly choking on the ration bar she was chewing.

“You know, where you and your team go one way, and I and…he,” he pointed at his bodyguard, “go another.”

“Out of the question. Completely unortho,” she said, standing. “Don’t you people have rules about that kind of thing?”

Exactly the response he had anticipated.

“Rules that can be modified in-field if necessity arises.” Among other things, the necessity to get this exceedingly dangerous woman away from his back before she could follow through on her strong impulse to shoot him.

His mind raced, sequences and prospects competing for his attention. What he was contemplating was not done anymore, as it resulted in disaster more often than reward. The last few attempts had been confined to the work of veteran Theorists, and a string of failures had resulted in the deaths of dozens, and on one occasion—the infamous Lannit raid—several hundred had died. People, that was, not Outers. However, the successes had been the greatest bounties of any raids. It was the ultimate in risk/reward, and his best chance to impress the Guild.

“We’re going for a multi-strike,” he told Kerbin. “For that, we need to each scout a half dozen sites over the course of the next twenty-one days. We need to set up a remote comm—”

“You’re kargin’ joking with me!” Kerbin hurled the ration bar at Seg’s feet.

“Do I make many jokes, Squad Leader?” Seg asked, his tone even. “Remember when I said you’d get the opportunity to make up for that trophy caj fiasco? Here it is. In any event, I trust your operator to set us up with a long-range signal system that will evade local detection. You’ll guide to the targets I vector you on, make the local sampling required, then we’ll meet and intrans back to the world.”

“No, we will not,” Kerbin said, jabbing her finger into Seg’s chest.

The troopers, who had grown used to their squad leader’s spats with him, were perking up and taking notice. For their benefit, he kept his temper. When it came time for the Question, the formal Guild inquiry at the end of the mission, he would not have witnesses accusing him of emotional outbursts. Unortho but logical, that is what they must say.

“This is what we’re doing. I have operational control here. Every order you give,” he stepped closer to her and lowered his voice, “is an order I allow you to give. But consider this: if it works, all of you will make enough to retire on. Off one mission.”

Behind her dark eyes, Seg could see the wheels turning. Nothing motivated troopers like money. Nevertheless, Kerbin was career military; it would take more than greed to win her.

“Consider this, as well,” he pulled up the holographic map overlaid with the Guild’s suggested vita hot spots, “on foot, as we are now, we are limited to the following sites.” He pointed to six, glowing red dots. “But by water we could feasibly survey at least twice that, maybe more, including the biggest two, here and here.”

“By water? How in the name of the Storm are we going to arrange that miracle?” Kerbin dug out a piece of ration bar that was stuck between her teeth, then sucked it off her finger.

“Not
we
, squad leader…me. You and your troops possess no cultural training beyond minimal survival skills. I will take only my bodyguard and charter a vessel—”

“You’ll what?” Kerbin let out two loud barks that were her equivalent of laughter. “Cultural penetration without us to cover you? You’re insane, Theorist. First mission and already cracked.”

Seg continued, unfazed by her disrespect. “When we are finished here, I will send a comm to the world with a list of the necessary cover elements. We’ll travel over land together, as far as here,” he pointed to the map again, “where we’ll wait for the next warp window. Once I have the necessary equipment, we’ll part ways–you and the squad will head to this inland site first,” he indicated a red dot, “and Manatu and I will take appropriate cover roles and travel to this river port settlement to secure transport.”

“Too dangerous,” she said, shaking her head, all traces of merriment gone. “I don’t care if you
are
the Guild’s wonder boy; our job is to stick close to you when you infiltrate and be ready to pull you out if things get ugly. What you’re proposing—transit with Outers on a waterborne vessel, with a single trooper—is beyond unortho. Without a full squad to cover you, you could blow this mission for all of us and get yourself killed in the process. Not to mention, if anything happens to you, it’ll be my guts on the table.”

“Regardless, this
is
what we’re going to do.” He gave her a long, thoughtful appraisal. Her apprehension was small-minded but not unreasonable. Theorists were trained to blend with Outers of all descriptions but even the best sometimes found themselves compromised. “I will make sure to note your concerns and your formal
disapproval
of my decision, Squad Leader.”

That seemed to appease her but her jaw remained set. “I want a worst-case scenario back up plan,” she said, after a moment’s contemplation. “If we lose comm, I am not risking my squad by traipsing all over this insect-infested water hole looking for you.”

A reasonable precaution, and one he had not considered. Seg performed a quick calculation of distance and time, then zoomed in the holographic map to an area on the other side of the mountain range they were camped against. “We’ll set up a rendezvous point. In the unlikely event that something should run afoul, we’ll meet here,” he pressed a button to mark a spot on the map, the coordinates jumping to the foreground as he did so, “in 21 days—the mission deadline.”

“I won’t wait a minute longer. You don’t show before sundown, we leave your tender ass behind. And I want all this on record.”

“I assure you, I’ve made note of
everything
we’ve discussed.”

Kerbin’s face twitched slightly at that. She sized him up for a moment–Seg knew she was assessing the threat implied in his statement.

“Fair enough,” she said, after chewing on the offer. “It’s still insane. Totally unortho. But I’m sure you’ve already thought of that.” She stepped closer, her voice low and prodding, “I don’t have to tell you that if you karg this up, changing the rules as you go, making things up as it suits you, you’ll be the joke of the Guild, the laughing stock of the World. Lannit made a mess but he was an experienced field Theorist, his risk was based on a career’s worth of successful missions. The People still speak his name with a grain of respect. You? First time extrans?” A low, menacing chuckle. “They’ll invent a new word for
disgrace
to describe the depth of that kind of failure. You make it back alive after that and you’ll wish you didn’t. They won’t just strip you of your title and hold you up for the World to see just what happens when People turn their back on orthodoxy, they’ll also make sure you live a long, long time in the worst misery possible and that every day will be a humiliation, that every day you will be reminded of your mistake.” She broke away, her tone shifting back to a more casual air, “But, like I said, you already know that, don’t you?”

Seg stared through Kerbin before speaking.

“My last teacher said I’d either make a large impact or be the victim of one.” His face was immovable but he wondered if Kerbin could see through the facade.

Her words were true, entirely true. His plan was insanely ambitious. Injury or death, those possibilities were vastly preferable to the fate that awaited him should he fail and live to tell of it.

There was also the terrifying prospect of traveling on water. Something he refused to dwell on.

But it was all right in front of him, and he couldn’t let a world and an opportunity this rich go to waste. Maybe he was overstepping his bounds here, and maybe he was getting too ambitious for a barely-released Theorist.

Segkel Eraranat, Selectee for Field Research, youngest Theorist to ever hold the position
, he imagined the newsfeed would say one day. Youngest and boldest. Fear and thrill wrestled in his stomach. Thrill won easily.

“Get to work on the communications,” he ordered.

With the squad settled in for the evening, except for two troopers standing watch, Seg finally had the opportunity to review the data from the Shasir priest without being disturbed. Always the same stories, world after world–the conquerors and the conquered. Though the story of this world was no different from a hundred others he had studied during his time training at the Guild, this time the details mattered, not simply for good grades but for survival,.

Coming from the brain of the Shasir, the facts would be slanted in the direction of his kind but that’s where training came in.

A hagiocracy, a society governed by holy men, with three races and four classes. From top to bottom: Shasir, Damiar, Kenda and Welf. Easy enough, though there were a legion of sub-classes within each, to be sure.

The Shasir’s home territory was on the opposite side of the planet; they were old hands at the game of world conquest. In areas such as this, inhabited by primitives, they simply announced themselves as gods upon arrival, then smothered any resistance with their vastly superior weapons and technology, which they passed off as ‘magic’. Food, labor, natural resources, all were easily extracted and exploited once the population was suitably awed.

The Damiar were a sub-set of the Shasir, a class of nobles set up to act as liaisons to the holy men and gods. Bestowed with power and privilege, they looked after the practical, hands-on business of running an empire.

According to the data from the priest’s brain, this technique had worked well elsewhere but when they had arrived here they ran into an obstacle: the Kenda.

The Welf were largely peaceful, uneducated and agrarian. They were naturally inclined toward belief and superstition, and had been subdued and seduced easily by these new gods and their magic. But even with a Welf army, the Shasir made little or no progress against the independent and seafaring Kenda, who had the clear advantage of geography and experience. Shasir boats, designed for ocean crossings, were large and slow, unsuited for the many inlets, rivers and tight channels their foes had spent generations navigating, and the Welf, who had their own unpleasant history with the Kenda, maintained an unshakable fear of the open water. The conquest was a near disaster.

Until the airships had been constructed and launched.

Shasir technology, from everything Seg had read and observed, was rudimentary compared to that of the People, but on this world, against enemies who were unprepared to defend against even a simple air assault, it was more than sufficient. The Kenda fell and the gods reigned.

“Clever,” Seg muttered, as he read on about the Shasir’s unification process.

Kenda who accepted the Shasir’kia as their gods and agreed to live under Shasir rule, were allowed to keep their boats and engage in trade and commerce on the water, according to Shasir law, which was enforced by the Damiar Judiciary. A ploy to make the high-spirited rebels believe they maintained their freedom, which, for the most part, was successful. Those who refused the Shasir’s offer, or broke their laws, were executed publicly, as their boats burned before their eyes.

Unification included everything from religion, to language, to currency, and law.
S’orasa
was the Shasir name for this planet and
S’ora
the official language, to be spoken by all. Another piece of good fortune, as no further language sampling would be required. (Though, should he encounter other languages, Seg would be sure to collect samples for study.)

Likewise, all four classes were humanoid with no extreme genetic mutations. The Guild had spent decades perfecting cultural infiltration. On worlds where they could not physically blend with any Outer groups, Theorists would return home for a session of surgical body modification, then return to the recon. An extra expense, but direct contact with Outers was invaluable. Only rarely were all Outers so physically different that infiltration was unfeasible, in which case recon was conducted from a distance.