I untangled myself from the bedsheets that were pooled at the foot of the cot. Pulled on a tanktop and walked to the view-port in the bulkhead. There was nothing to see out there except another anonymous sector of deep-space. We were in what had once been known as the Quarantine Zone; that vast ranch of deep-space that was the divide between us and the Krell Empire. A holo-display above the port read 1:57:03 UNTIL DROP. Less than two hours until we reached the assault point. Right now, the UAS Bainbridge was slowing down – her enormous sublight engines ensuring that when we reached the appointed coordinates, we would be travelling at just the right velocity. The starship’s inertial damper field meant that I would never be able to physically feel the deceleration, but the mental weight was another matter.
“Get dressed,” I said, matter-of-factly. “We’ve got work to do.”
I tugged on the rest of my duty fatigues, pressed down the various holo-tabs on my uniform tunic. The identifier there read “210”. Those numbers made me a long-termer of the Simulant Operations Programme – sufferer of an effective two hundred and ten simulated deaths.
“I want you down on the prep deck, overseeing simulant loading,” I said, dropping into command-mode.
“The Jackals are primed and ready to drop,” Riggs said. “The lifer is marking the suits, and I ordered Private Feng to check on the ammunition loads –”
“Feng’s no good at that,” I said. “You know that he can’t be trusted.”
“‘Trusted’?”
“I didn’t mean it like that,” I corrected. “Just get dressed.”
Riggs detected the change in my voice; he’d be an idiot not to. While he wasn’t exactly the sharpest tool in the box, neither was he a fool.
“Affirmative,” he said.
I watched as he put on his uniform. Riggs was tall and well-built; his chest a wall of muscle, neck almost as wide as my waist. Hair dark and short, nicely messy in a way that skirted military protocol. The tattoo of a winged planet on his left bicep indicated that he was a former Off-World Marine aviator, while the blue-and-green globe on his right marked him as a paid-up Gaia Cultist. The data-ports on his chest, shoulders and neck stood out against his tanned skin, the flesh around them still raised. He looked new, and he looked young. Riggs hadn’t yet been spat out by the war machine.
“So we’re being deployed against the Black Spiral?” he asked, velcroing his tunic in place. The holo-identifier on his chest flashed “10”; and sickeningly enough, Riggs was the most experienced trooper on my team. “That’s the scuttlebutt.”
“Maybe,” I said. “That’s likely.” I knew very little about the next operation, because that was how Captain Heinrich – the Bainbridge’s senior officer – liked to keep things. “It’s need to know.”
“And you don’t need to know,” Riggs said, nodding to himself. “Heinrich is such an asshole.”
“Talk like that’ll get you reprimanded, Corporal.” I snapped my wrist-computer into place, the vambrace closing around my left wrist. “Same arrangement as before. Don’t let the rest of the team know.”
Riggs grinned. “So long as you don’t either –”
The cabin lights dipped. Something clunked inside the ship. At about the same time, my wrist-comp chimed with an incoming priority communication: an officers-only alert.
EARLY DROP, it said.
The wrist-comp’s small screen activated, and a head-and-shoulders image appeared there. A young woman with ginger hair pulled back from a heavily freckled face. Early twenties, with anxiety-filled eyes. She leaned close into the camera at her end of the connection. Sergeant Zoe Campbell, more commonly known as Zero.
“Lieutenant, ma’am,” she babbled. “Do you copy?”
“I copy,” I said.
“Where have you been? I’ve been trying to reach you for the last thirty minutes. Your communicator was off. I tried your cube, but that was set to private. I guess that I could’ve sent someone down there, but I know how you get before a drop and –”
“Whoa, whoa. Calm down, Zero. What’s happening?”
Zero grimaced. “Captain Heinrich has authorised immediate military action on Daktar Outpost.”
Zero was the squad’s handler. She was already in the Sim Ops bay, and the image behind her showed a bank of operational simulator-tanks, assorted science officers tending them. It looked like the op was well underway rather than just commencing.
“Is Heinrich calling a briefing?” I asked, hustling Riggs to finish getting dressed, trying to keep him out of view of the wrist-comp’s cam. I needed him gone from the room, pronto.
Zero shook her head. “Captain Heinrich says there isn’t time. He’s distributed a mission plan instead. I really should’ve sent someone down to fetch you…”
“Never mind about that now,” I said. Talking over her was often the only way to deal with Zero’s constant state of anxiety. “What’s our tactical situation? Why the early drop?”
At that moment, a nasal siren sounded throughout the Bainbridge’s decks. Somewhere in the bowels of the ship, the engines were cutting, the gravity field fluctuating just a little to compensate.
The ship’s AI began a looped message: “This is a general alert. All operators must immediately report to the Simulant Operations Centre. This is a general alert…”
I could already hear boots on deck around me, as the sixty qualified operators made haste to the Science Deck. My data-ports – those bio-mechanical connections that would allow me to make transition into my simulant – were beginning to throb.
“You’d better get down here and skin up,” Zero said, nodding at the simulator behind her. “Don’t want to be late.” Added: “Again…”
“I’m on it,” I said, planting my feet in my boots. “Hold the fort.”
Zero started to say something else, but before she could question me any further I terminated the communication.
“Game time, Corporal,” I said to Riggs. “Look alive.”
Dressed now, Riggs nodded and made for the hatch. We had this down to a T: if we left my quarters separately, it minimised the prospect of anyone realising what was happening between us.
“You’re beautiful,” he said. “You do know that, right?”
“You know that was the last time,” I said, firmly.
“You said that last time…”
“Well this time I mean it, kemo sabe.”
Riggs nodded, but that idiot grin remained plastered across his face. “See you down there, Jenkins,” he said.
Here we go again, I thought. New team. New threat. Same shit.
BY GREG BEAR
Hegira
Beyond Heaven’s River
Psychlone
Strength of Stones
The Wind from a Burning Woman (collection)
Corona
Songs of Earth and Power
Blood Music
Eon
The Forge of God
Tangents (collection)
Sleepside Story
Queen of Angels
Eternity
Anvil of Stars
Bear’s Fantasies (collection)
Heads
Moving Mars
New Legends (anthology)