Authors: Mark Kalina
The
colonel said nothing, tried to school his expression, failed, letting a look of
shocked amazement cross his face, then tried to school his features again.
"I
imagine this is all a bit confusing, Colonel," General Bannerman said, "but
I expect you'll be able to adapt and carry out your mission. In fact, my aide's
subordinates should be arriving shortly to help clarify the situation... for
you as well as for some other people."
General
Bannerman glanced over to where Major Hafez stood, looking down, watching his
military-grade wrist phone.
"Yes,
General," Hafez said. "I expect them shortly. They've been waiting
for our arrival just a few kilometers up the road. I believe I see their
vehicle now."
"Good,"
Bannerman said.
A
white UEN van was driving onto the concrete apron, and the three officers
waited till it pulled up. Behind it was a second, identical van. The doors of
the first van opened and two men in plain civilian clothes exited, followed by
four Peace Force soldiers in light combat armor, with their compact Beretta
AR-250 combat rifles held at the ready and their black-shaded helmet visors
down, concealing their faces to the chin.
Between
the soldiers stood another man in civilian dress. He was a rotund, balding man,
older, shorter and softer looking than the Peace Force soldiers or the
plain-clothes UEN agents, though his suit was of a much finer and more
fashionable cut. His features showed outraged shock and no small measure of
fear.
"Mr.
Fitzmorton," General Bannerman said, looking at the civilian.
"Who
the fuck are you? Do you have any idea who I am?" the civilian said, his
tone growing more belligerent as he spoke. "You think you can send some
UEN soldier-boys to come into my office and man-handle me like this? I'm the
fucking Regional Secretary-Treasurer of the fucking International Laborers'
Union of fucking North America! Who the fuck do you think..."
"Please
be silent, Mr. Fitzmorton," Major Hafez said, "or I will have you
shot and send my men to collect your subordinate."
"You
fu..." Fitzmorton's voice fell silent as he met Hafez's eyes.
"Now,
then, Mr. Fitzmorton," Bannerman said. "My name is General Bannerman,
and you are in a position to help the vital interests of the UEN and the
welfare of all of humanity. We, that is, the UEN, are going to need skilled
workers, Mr. Fitzmorton. We need several hundred patriotic transportation
infrastructure workers to enlist in the Peace Force. And you are going to
provide them for us. Obviously, we all understand that your cooperation isn't
in doubt. Is it, Mr. Fitzmorton?"
"You
can't..."
Hafez's
pistol was in his hand, leveled casually at Fitzmorton's face.
"I
don't care who you are," Fitzmorton said. "This isn't some
third-world piss-hole where the UEN is the only law. You can't do this. I know
people. I..."
"Is
this man's subordinate a viable option, Major?" Bannerman asked, as the
civilian's tirade grew more intense.
"Yes,
sir. Quite viable. We have him in the second van."
"Very
well, Major," Bannerman said, nodding.
"I
know fucking Federal senators, you hear me, you UEN fucks?" Fitzmorton was
shouting. "I can get you all thrown in jail and gang-r..."
The
sound of Major Hafez's pistol going off wasn't very loud across the open space
of the apron. Fitzmorton fell to his knees. Blood spouted in two brief
fountains, from his right eye and a hole in the back of his head, and then he
fell forward onto his face. His body convulsed for a while and then was still.
Bannerman
looked down at the corpse with an expression of distaste. The Peace Force
colonel's face was slack with horror.
Two
of the visored Peace Force soldiers took hold of the corpse's feet and began to
drag it away, leaving a smear of red blood on the concrete.
"I
do hope the next Regional Secretary-Treasurer will be more cooperative,"
Hafez said mildly, holstering his pistol and looking over at the second van.
"My
god!" exclaimed the colonel, looking at General Bannerman with an
expression of desperation. "You... you just.... But... but why, sir? The
gate is shut down. It can't be opened from this end. The Arcadians control the
timing of any opening, and the total traffic they allow doesn't even saturate
the remaining infrastructure."
The
general looked at Major Hafez, and the major looked up at the colonel.
"That's
right, Colonel," the major said, with a cold smile, "we can't open it
from this end. And the Arcadians don't have the power facilities to keep it
open for very long, or to open it very often. No nuclear power, you see, and no
fossil fuels; they have to build up power in jury-rigged capacitors fed from
solar power stations. It's actually quite a clever solution, given what they
had to work with...."
The
colonel tried to meet the smaller man's eyes, but blinked and looked away.
General Bannerman couldn't really blame him, though; meeting Major Hafez' eyes
was like meeting the eyes of a serpent.
"Don't
concern yourself with that, Colonel," the general said. "All you need
to do is get these rail lines back into condition to take what's coming. When
the time comes, we'll be moving several divisions of Peace Force troops. Your
only job is to make sure the rail lines can carry the load."
"Divisions?"
the colonel said, as the implications dawned. "Yes sir," he snapped,
saluting again.
"And
Colonel?"
"Sir?"
"This
is, as I said, a class three priority. So if this leaks to the media, or the
global data-cloud... or if the lines can't take the troops when the time
comes.... There will be no second chances. Not for your career in the Peace
Force... and not for anything else. Do you take my meaning?"
"Yes
sir," snapped the colonel, keeping his face utterly without expression.
The
Induction Day ceremonies had a lot of the feeling and character of a
celebratory fair. There were people wandering about, looking at the exhibits
and displays. There were Defense Force officers and NCOs, dressed in their
sharpest and most impressive tan-and-black uniforms, giving demonstrations.
There were vendors selling food and drinks... and hats for anyone who'd
neglected to bring one; the red-orange sun was huge and fierce in the cloudless
indigo-blue sky.
Cal
thought it was a fraud. Like all of the inductees —recruits conscripted
for their more-or-less mandatory term of service— he had no real choice
in the matter. Not unless he wanted to be an "opt-out," a social
outcast who refused to do his stint in the Defense Force. So it wasn't much of
a celebration as far as he was concerned.
Of
course, a lot of the recruits looked excited or eager. Cal tried to capture the
feeling of excitement that he'd sometimes managed to feel in the prior months,
as his term of Defense Force service had grown closer and closer, but it was
elusive. The festival atmosphere felt pretty thin to Cal, and the rows of
Defense Force buses —the exact same make as the school bus he'd ridden to
school in every day, but painted in Defense Force tan— waiting to take
the inductees to the training bases loomed like a dark sand-storm cloud at the
edge of the festivities.
His
mother and sister were with him. Annie looked like she was enjoying herself,
peering wide-eyed at the Aerospace Corps display. She was two years from her
own induction; sixteen E-years old and looking way too grown up for Cal's
comfort in her sleeveless summer vest and cut-off shorts. She was getting
looks, too, with her short-cut dark-blonde hair and her deeply tanned limbs.
As
for his mother... she looked like she always did; you could see the family
resemblance; the same dark eyes as both her children, and roughly the same cast
of features, though she didn't have the blond hair that Cal and his sister did,
or the height, and her skin was a shade darker than her children's. Her
expression was the same as usual, too; simultaneously bored, put upon and
worried. If he stayed near her, her anxiety would be worse, though... and so
would his. It was best to keep his distance.
Cal
didn't bother with the Aerospace Corps kiosk. The Aerospace Corps ran the space
program and also operated the sleek, ultra-stealthy "ghosts,"
advanced, variable geometry combat-reconnaissance planes. Unlike the one and
two man fighter aircraft of the past, "ghosts" were relatively large
planes, carrying crews of four or five elite specialists who managed arrays of
advanced sensors, stealthy "parasite" drones and stand-off laser
weapons. Though they were potentially supersonic, "ghosts" spent most
of their time gliding without power in the high, thin upper atmosphere, spying
on the ground below as they hid in plain sight from ground based thermal
sensors and anti-aircraft laser batteries. Air combat between hostile
"ghosts," on those very rare occasions that it happened, tended to
have more in common with submarine warfare than with the air combat of the late
20th and early 21st century. The days of "dogfighting" were long gone,
banished by modern laser weapons; modern air combat was all about each side
patiently seeking to track the other and set up an attack without being
detected themselves. Not that there'd ever been much in the way of modern air
combat, outside of theory and simulations.
Still,
the Aerospace Corps was a very prestigious service. On the other hand,
Cal knew damn well there'd be no place
for him in it. You had to have gold-tier academic marks in advanced math and at
least two of the sciences just to make it into evaluation for the Aerospace
Corps. Cal's indifferent academic record ruled that right out.
The
Armored Corps display drew his attention, though. Apart from the obligatory
kiosk, with its laser-projection display and troopers and officers in full
uniform, there was a fully functional Type-51 Mark IIIb "War-Hammer"
tank on display. The tank dwarfed the display table; dwarfed everything around
it, really.
Almost ten meters long —not
counting the long barrel of its main gun— just over four meters wide and
just about three meters tall to the top of its turret, it was a huge mass of
smoothly angled, faceted armor and projecting weapons, all dominated by the
long, sinister tube of its main gun.
Inductees
and visitors crowded around it as close as the rope barriers would allow, and
its crew sat in their open hatches, taking questions and talking to the crowd.
Cal didn't bother crowding in, but the sleek, armored mass of the tank was...
neat. Over the years, he'd read and watched a lot about the Arcadian Defense
Force Armored Corps and its tanks, even before he's gotten old enough to give
serious consideration to how he wanted to spend his years of mandatory Defense
Force service
The
Type-51 was a Nihonjin design, not cutting edge anymore, but not obsolete
either. Besides which, the Mark IIIb "War-Hammer" was thoroughly
upgraded compared to the original Type 51. Like most modern tanks, it rode on
closely spaced, articulated multi-module tracks; four track units, two per
side, could pivot to hug the terrain or turn the tank on a dime. The track
units held up the low-slung hull, atop which perched the huge, low,
wedge-shaped turret. With a multi-fuel-cell power pack and its articulated
tracks, the War-Hammer could put a dune buggy to shame, or break open highway
safe-speed limits.
The
tank bristled with weapons and sensors, but the effect was focused rather than
chaotic. The main gun was the iconic 41 megajoule electrothermal-chemical
kinetic cannon, but the tank carried a lot more than just the main gun. Four
automatic smartguns projected from little, armored ball turrets set on the edges
of the big main turret. The slightly larger dome of the anti-missile close-in
"Metal Storm" projector perched at the rear of the main turret.
Almost-hidden panels on the sloping sides of the turret concealed defensive
micro-missile batteries and similar panels at the back of the turret covered
the sensor drone launch bays.
The
tank crew, three men and one woman, sat with their heads and shoulders up, out
of their hatches. They were dressed for the event in neatly pressed Defense
Force tan uniforms instead of the fire-resistant jump-suits they would have
normally worn. Their features were anonymous with the high-tech-looking visors
of their data-interface helmets down. The driver's hatch was off to the side in
the hull, in front of the turret; a bit archaic, since most cutting edge tanks
put the driver into the main turret. The commander, gunner and sensors operator
sat in hatches on the main turret, each with the manual controls for their
associated auto-smartgun deployed, though Cal knew that it was very rare for a
tank crew to control the automatic weapons that way.
The
tank was displaying a smooth expanse of Defense Force tan on its smart-paint
coat, but Cal knew that the smart-paint layer could be programed to display any
color or pattern; even to match the colors of the surrounding terrain, almost
in real time. The tank was seventy-five tons of fast, heavy armored firepower;
lighter than most of the latest generation of tanks, but still fit to take on
any of its rivals.
And
since there was literally zero chance for him in the Aerospace Corps, Cal
thought that, all in all, the Armored Corps would be a pretty good bet. The
same lack of school marks that precluded even a chance at Aerospace made the
Technical Corps a long-shot, and the one thing Cal knew he did not want to
spend the next two E-years doing was operating an infantry combat frame in the
Infantry Corps... or even worse, just carrying a rifle in the Auxiliary Corps,
assigned to Refugee Patrol. Compared to that, spending two years in the Armored
Corps would be a treat. After all, Refugee Patrol was probably the only really
dangerous job in the Defense Force these days, and as long as the Defense Force
controlled the Tannhauser gate back to Earth, there wasn't much chance of that
changing.