Nanotroopers Episode 22: Epilogue Read online

UNIFORCE Headquarters

  The Quartier General

  Paris

  July 1, 2050

  0815 hours

  UNSAC brusquely called the briefing to order and glared at her audience. Evelyn Lumumba had been UN Security Affairs Commissioner for nearly a year now, an ebony-black Cameroonian woman of striking beauty, with fierce warrior eyes and bristly conical hair, adorned by an ivory and bone hairpiece that rattled when she turned her head.

  She was joined by General Jake Argo, CINCQUANT and General Mahmood Salaam, CINCSPACE. Vidconning in from Mesa de Oro was General Wellman Kincade. UNSAC had convened the briefing to review some troublesome intelligence and to make a decision that was staring them all right in the face. It was a decision that no one wanted to make.

  “I suppose there’s no way to avoid this,” Lumumba said. “Jake, you’re sure of your sources? No other interpretation is possible?”

  Argo shrugged, running a hand through his blond buzzcut. “My Q2 shop believes the residual survivors of Red Hammer have made some kind of alliance with elements of the Chinese Peoples’ Liberation Army. You see the raw data in front of you—“Argo indicated reams of text, interspersed with still and vid imagery, floating like bad dreams in the air around UNSAC’s office. “Any intelligence—any signals—can be interpreted in different ways. But the probabilities all point to an alliance…and SOFIE thinks so too.” SOFIE was the AI that ran analysis for UNSAC.

  “What about all these decoherence wake signals we’re seeing at Paryang?” Lumumba challenged Argo. “Your own 1st Nano people just finished a mission—Himalaya Strike. Paryang…and Red Hammer…were supposed to be kaput.”

  Argo knew this would come up. “It’s true…there’s probably one of those Sphere devices buried under all the rubble.”

  “And now it’s talking with something on Europa,” said Salaam. “What’s that all about? Another sphere? Officially, we’re calling the anomaly an icequake on Europa. But that’s just a cover for ‘we don’t know what the hell it is.’ The name EUROTOP covers all possibilities without revealing just how little we know.”

  Kincade piped up from Mesa de Oro. “This new alliance—what was the name you gave us, Jake--?”

  Argo consulted some notes. “Our sources say this alliance has been referred to, at least in signal intercepts, as Soldiers of Harmony…I can’t pronounce the Chinese. “

  Kincade warmed to his point. “My read of the intercepts is that this new alliance wants to maintain and secure this new comm link so they can get their grubby little mitts on alien tech and boost China’s military powers. CINCSPACE mentioned some kind of secret scientific expedition.”

  Salaam agreed. He fiddled with some buttons on his wristpad and new imagery materialized in front of them. “This was taken two days ago…the Tiangong IV station at L2. Gateway had some engineers at a conference over there and they snapped these shots when nobody was looking.” The imagery zoomed in to show a large ship attached to the station’s space dock, a ship that bore a strong resemblance to a kebab skewer. “She’s the Shen Feng Hexie…Divine Wind of Harmony. Her captain is a veteran spacer…Xi Kai-ling, we believe. By the way, Shen Feng boosted away this morning. Gateway did a quick plot on her trajectory…it’s a speed run to Jupiter all right. If she stays on this course, she’ll be at Jupiter in about four months. Those are plasma torch engines at the ass end of the main mast, by the way. Latest Chinese design. We can’t match it…yet.”

  Lumumba settled back in her seat, her bone hairpiece rattling. “Well, as I said, there’s no real way to avoid this. We’ve got to mount an expedition ourselves…we can’t let the Chinese or this alliance grab anything from Europa that could put us in a squeeze. Options, gentlemen?”

  Mahmood Salaam had been CINCSPACE for only a few months, but he prided himself on coming to briefings with UNSAC prepared. If you didn’t, the Cameroonian beauty had a reputation of eating unprepared briefers for breakfast.

  “We’ve got an old cycler ship at Station P…that’s Phobos Station, undergoing refit now. It’s the budget, as usual. Slow going. We’re trying to turn Archimedes into a deep space ship for missions beyond Mars. With enough money and manpower, we could finish the refit and launch her…and probably get to Europa around the same time, or possibly before the Shen Feng. But it’ll be dicey…I can’t make any promises.”

  Lumumba said, “I don’t need promises, Mahmood. I need results. I’ll get with the SG. We’ll find your money. Just scrap together a crew and get that ship finished. Kincade, you had something?”

  Wellman Kincade had pinged in from Mesa de Oro. “This should be a joint mission, Quantum Corps working with Frontier Corps. I’d like my 1st Nano commander, Major John Winger, to represent Quantum Corps.”

  Lumumba frowned. “Isn’t Major Winger the trooper who was slammed by Config Zero at Paryang, turned into a zombie?”

  Kincade winced. “Angel is the preferred term, Madam Commissioner. And yes, Major Winger is a para-human swarm entity…in fact, he’s with me here now.” The view of Kincade widened momentarily to show a lean face and grim visage. The swarm that was Winger seemed tight and well-configged…no obvious edge effects.

  “Good morning, Madam Commissioner,” Winger said. “I’d like very much to be part of this mission.”

  Kincade cut in. “The Major brings some real experience with these Bugs to the table. He was on the Himalaya Strike mission and has spent more time around Paryang than anyone else. We need his knowledge and experience on the mission.”

  Lumumba was thoughtful. Her eyes narrowed as she studied the vid of Winger closely. She couldn’t see any differences. “Mahmood, would Frontier Corps have any problem with this…hosting an angel as a regular member of the crew?”

  Salaam knew enough to avoid obvious conflict on the matter. When UNSAC had already made up her mind-- “Not at all, Madam Commissioner. Frontier Corps has been using angels on cycler ships and corvettes for months now…generally with good results.”

  “Then it’s settled. Jake, you and Kincade get with Salaam after this briefing. Work out a crew and a schedule to finish Archimedes’ refit. The Chinese have already launched. If they get to Europa first, we may be facing an alliance with something we can’t fight or compete with. I’m calling this mission Jovian Hammer. Get your asses out there and make sure Soldiers of Harmony has nothing to show for their efforts.”

  In unison, the three officers saluted. “Yes, Madam Commissioner.”

  “And I want briefings on progress daily,” Lumumba added.

  On Approach to Phobos Station

  September 8, 2050

  1120 hours (Earth U.T.)

  Half an hour after everybody was through bitching and moaning and had gotten themselves secured and strapped in, Wellington’s pilot, Lieutenant Gallois, punched up the departure program on the ship’s computer and counted down the last seconds before separation.

  “Five…four…three…two…one…bingo!”

  There was brief shudder and lurch as Wellington’s thrusters fired to make a positive separation.

  “Wellington away…”he announced. Seated directly behind the First Officer on the command deck were Johnny Winger and Al Glance. Both watched through the forward windscreen as the gaping mouth of Da Vinci’s forward docking ring receded into the distance. From two kilometers off, when Gallois had stopped their motion and re-oriented Wellington for de-orbit, the great cycler ship looked like a massive bird soaring off into the heavens. Da Vinci never slowed into orbit around any planet on her itinerary. Her trajectory took her scooting by Venus, Earth and Mars on a repeating loop around the Sun every sixteen months, an interplanetary bus line making endless trips through the void. It was up to little ships like Wellington to get people and supplies up and down to the huge cycler ship.

  Gallois counted down the moments to the initial burn that would start Wellington on her long curving descent into the atmosphere
of Mars. Like a big rock, she would skip first off the top of the atmosphere, then on each succeeding trip around, she would bite deeper and deeper into the air, slowing down on each pass, adjusting her path, until her velocity had dropped enough to glide out of the atmosphere for good and resume her orbital chase of Phobos station.

  That, at least, was theory behind Frontier Corps aerobraking maneuvers.

  “Ten seconds to PDI,” the First Officer announced. He checked over his console: track, engine status, attitude…everything seemed ready. “Get ready for a major kick in the ass—“

  The burn, when it came, made Wellington shake and shudder like a wet dog. Johnny Winger felt the acceleration build up rapidly. After a few weeks of microgravity, the ship’s descent felt like an elephant had planted its posterior right on his chest. He struggled to maintain a solid config and forced a sideways look at Glance in the next seat.

  The nanotrooper was exhaling out in quick, forced breaths, as they had been trained. He met Winger’s eyes and grunted back.

  “Major…remind me to…put in…for a…transfer…when we get back….”

  Gallois watched the trajectory plot on his board carefully as Wellington began her first aerobraking approach to the upper reaches of Mars’ atmosphere. The plot showed several lines, indicating nominal and actual course, all converging on an actual window in space, the entry point, where the shuttle would take her first big bite into the atmosphere, slowing the ship down for subsequent passes.

  For the next ten hours, the shuttle made numerous passes through the upper atmosphere of Mars, biting deeper and deeper with each dive, twisting and phasing her exit back into space so that her orbit was changed bit by bit. In time, she had made up the thousand kilometer distance to Phobos Station. When the faint shadowy outlines of the complex first appeared on the monitors, drifting serenely above the tortured surface of Phobos itself, Lieutenant Gallois startled Winger and Glance from a drowsy stupor as Wellington made a sharp series of burns to match velocity with the station.

  “Half an hour, gentlemen. Fasten your seatbelts. We’ll be docked in no time.”

  The approach went off without incident. Twelve hours after departing the Da Vinci, the mottled gray and tan crescent face of Phobos had come nicely into view.

  “Looks like a rock pile to me,” Al Glance noted.

  “Or a potato with cancer,” added Gallois. “That blip of light over the terminator…that’s your new home for the next few months…Archimedes… and Phobos Station. We’ll be there in about twenty minutes.”

  Gallois was busy setting up for last minute maneuvers, tweaking Wellington’s alignment for her final approach. “She may not look like much but Phobos is an important midway point for Mars. From up here, we can get into and out of Mars orbit pretty easily and you’ve got one hell of a view below. The astros say she’s losing altitude fast and should impact the surface in a few tens of thousands of years.”

  The approach to Phobos Station went off without a hitch. In loose orbit around the moon, the station was an oddball assortment of cylinders and spheres, hung on trusswork-like structure like grapes on a trellis. A few hundred meters away, Archimedes floated serenely oblivious to the fantastic vista around her.

  Glance studied the ship through the nav scope. “She looks like a kebab skewer.”

  Gallois beamed. “True, she ain’t much for the eyes. But she did yeoman duty as a cycler for five years, ‘til Da Vinci came along. Venus, Earth and Mars, around and around. Not the most exciting duty I ever pulled but she was a good ship and we had a good crew.”

  Presently, Archimedes and Phobos Station hove into view, hovering over the gaping Stickney Crater end of Phobos. The one-time cycler had been designed with a long central mast off of which hung cylinders and spheres, a quad of propellant tanks stuck on the aft end above radiation shielding and her plasma torch engine bay.

  “She’s the only thing around here that could make the trip out to Jupiter in less than a year. We don’t have a lot of deep-space ships in the vicinity.” Gallois gently maneuvered Wellington toward a docking port below the nose of the cycler’s command and control deck. Soft dock was an almost imperceptible bump, followed by the staccato firing of the capture latches.

  “Hard dock,” Gallois announced. “Let’s get to work, folks. We’ve got a lot of work to do and not much time.”

  First Nano, Bravo Detachment scrambled aboard the cycler ship and stowed their gear while Johnny Winger and Al Glance made their way to Phobos Station itself. They found their welcoming committee in the crew’s mess, beers in hand, while spectacular views of the Valles Marineris turned below them.

  UNISPACE Captain Francisco Stella would be in command of the transit ship Archimedes during the entire Jovian Hammer mission. Stella was heavy-set, thick black hair and a moustache to match. He waved Winger and Glance over, ordered another round and introduced the others. Most were Station crew. One was Lieutenant Julian Freeman.

  “Freeman’s my second in command, Major,” Stella was saying. He started to pat the Lieutenant on the back but his hand stopped in mid-flight, almost as if it had encountered an invisible barrier. “Fresh out of the Academy, he is…got a few missions under his belt. I’m looking forward to putting the Lieutenant through his paces.”

  Winger stuck out his hand. Freeman was a slight, pale, man, almost ghostly in appearance. He smiled faintly, his hand slipping into Winger’s a bit uneasily. Winger tried hard not to react. It wasn’t that the Lieutenant had a fishy kind of handgrip. It was more like something made out of felt, almost like an old sofa cover. It was hard to describe. Later, when they compared notes, Al Glance would call it “a handshake that felt like a tennis ball slobbered on by my dog.” Winger figured that was as good a description as any.

  The two angels shook hands, sizing each other up in a way that more solid human beings could never have imagined.

  Nice config, huh…you got anything for a processor, slimeball?

  But no words were actually exchanged.

  Stella was proud of his ship. “She’s a beauty, isn’t she? Been under wraps the last six months, full-scale conversion and renovation. All the latest systems…nav, propulsion, hab spaces, you name it. We’ll get you Quantum Corps guys to Jupiter and back in fine style.”

  Johnny Winger studied the kebab skewer of a ship. She looked just like what she was: an old cycler pulled out of mothballs and cobbled together with new stuff. “Doesn’t exactly turn me on, Captain. That big sausage stuck on the front end…that’s our submersible ship?”

  Stella was unmoved by Winger’s comments. “That big sausage, as you so unjustly call it, is Trident. Once we’ve made orbit around Europa, that little gem will take you down to the surface…and below, into the Europan ocean, we hope. To look for anything nasty down there…like the Chinese.”

  Winger decided to cut the pleasantries short. “Captain, my people need to be briefed on everything. Both ships, all their gear, procedures, safety, security, the works. The sooner we get started, the better.”

  “Of course, Major. Follow me.” Jeez, even angels can get a burr up their ass.

  Stella led them on a detailed tour of Archimedes and Trident. Archimedes, the larger transit ship, was a Frontier Corps space raider corvette. Three decks, Command and Control, Hab and Crew and Service and Support, were spheres strung like onions on the kebab skewer that was the ship’s central mast. Stella brought them up to date on changes and advances.

  “The trip out to Jupiter will take about three months…we’ll be burning the plasma torch engines most of the way, so we’ll have some gravity…about half a g, maybe. You’ll have plenty of time to brief the mission and practice tactics…she’s got a fully-capable sim tank for wargames and such.”

  The smaller ship was Trident, the Europa lander/submersible. Trident was docked to Archimedes’ forward docking module and looked like a sausage on a plate, as Winger had observed. The sausag
e was the submersible itself, divided into A through G decks, with an ANAD borer at the front and treaded tracks spaced circumferentially around the ship’s outside surface. Trident was mounted on her lander base and platform, which would carry the ship to and from Archimedes, and more importantly, would hopefully deposit the lander on the surface of Europa to begin her mission.

  Stella led Winger aboard the lander. It was cramped for a Detachment-sized crew plus her Frontier Corps pilots.

  “She’s capable of rolling off the platform, boring her way through the ice, up to several hundred kilometers thick, then heading off through Europa’s subterranean ocean at depths of up to three kilometers. The pressure hull’s not rated for any deeper dives than that.”

  Winger tried out the commander’s seat on B-deck, flexing the joysticks, tracing fingers over multiple keypads. “Your exec…he’s an interesting fellow. Been with Frontier Corps long?”

  Stella shrugged. “Freeman? Don’t know that much about him really. He came from the Academy highly recommended. A little green, maybe.”

  “Seems creepy, if you ask me,” Winger observed.

  “All the embeds are like that,” Stella said. He showed Winger the panel for operating Trident’s borer. “You know how it is…they like to show off. Got that embedded ANAD system inside…guys like that think they’re invincible. But he’s checked out okay on the equipment. That borer, Major…Freeman can play it like a piano.”

  Winger was familiar with the concept from several missions over the past few months, aboard geoplane Gopher. “Maybe it’s that Academy look…I’ve seen it before. All book learning and no smarts.’

  The briefing tour went on for another hour, then Winger begged off and retired to his quarters in Phobos Station’s barracks…in reality, a small cylinder at one end of the complex.

  “I need to set up a schedule for my troopers,” he told Stella. “We got a lot of outfitting to do as well as training to keep up. And we’ve got to get our own ANAD systems configured and ready to rock and roll.”

  Stella understood. “Major, there’s an old Frontier Corps tradition here at Phobos Station…midnight at the bar, officers’ mess compartment. We all buy drinks and tell lies after a long day at the docks. Cycler captains and shuttle pilots, dockhands, engineers, shop techs, everybody comes. Newbies and rookies do the buying.”

  Winger smiled. “That would be me, I believe. Very well, Captain, I’ll honor Frontier Corps traditions and see you at the bar at midnight.”

  Winger had settled in at his desk, rummaging through personnel files on his slate, when Doc II chimed in.