Gunship (23 page)

Rumors about the Gaiden, however, were plentiful. One popular rumor suggested that the Gaiden were reprogrammed by embedding information directly into their brains. Some spoke of grueling physical and computer training which was used to break and then rebuild the candidates. Biological experimentation with alien DNA, chemical modifications, and nanotechnology were longtime favorites of the Gaiden conspiracy theorists. Another common rumor mentioned the use of miniature hard drives grafted directly onto a Gaiden’s brain. Reilly thought this last one sounded like a load of crap for sure. Anyone with that type of technology would be selling it to the highest bidder, allowing the wealthy to buy and create their own super soldiers. As with all things, the truth lay somewhere in the middle of fact and fiction. More than likely, the Gaiden candidates were chosen for their high IQs, or a maybe a military selection test was used to identify the best recruits. Either way, the Gaiden were bogeymen long gone, lost to history and the fodder for fantasy. When a splinter group had broken away to join the rebellion, the Quorum ordered its remaining loyal Gaiden to hunt down the rebels and take them out. No survivors remained. Or so the scuttlebutt went.

Of Reilly’s crew, only Chang had ever gone under deep cover and come back out. He didn’t talk about it and they didn’t ask, but Reilly knew if he recognized this girl as a Gaiden, then he had been very deep indeed.

“Well, I guess I can’t complain about dull moments, though I’m starting to think I sure as hell would like to have a few soon. Does Ty know what she is?” Reilly queried.

Ty had lost one of his platoons in battle to an extremely adept assassin. He held himself responsible for not catching the traitor before he was able to complete his mission. Since then, the sergeant at arms had worked very hard to be able to read people well and identify any threats long before an attack occurred. Reilly knew if he suspected what the girl really was that he would try to take her out, even if she gave him a direct order not to.

Chang shook his head. “I’m not sure. He was pretty drunk, but he certainly didn’t take to her. Could have just been stress, or maybe he picked up on it, maybe not. We’ll know on Sunday. Either way, he got lucky. She could have killed him and there wouldn’t have been a damn thing I could’ve done to prevent it. But I don’t think that’s why she’s here.” He frowned again as he re-ran the event over in his mind.

“Zain wants someone on the inside with us, then. But why? Has he gotten that paranoid that he doesn’t even trust us? Or is the situation more serious than we know and he opted to send her here as extra protection?” Reilly lean on the back of a chair. “If I had known that damn mission on Vervian was going to spawn this shit storm…” Chang opened his mouth then closed it as she narrowed her eyes and stared him down. “I don’t want to hear anything more about bad luck—it’s already done, we’re already here. Now we just need to figure out how to get through it. A damn Gaiden on my ship—unbelievable—I can’t wait to see what’s next.” Reilly walked over to the corner of the wall and punched it once. A small drawer popped open at the bottom of the wall and she lifted out a silver flask, dumping a solid dose into her coffee cup before replacing it and kicking the wall closed again.

Chang looked at her thoughtfully. “Do not anxiously hope for the future and do not vainly regret what has passed. There is a reason for this. It is like the Commander said, many moving pieces all coming together, but to what end I am not certain. Do we tell the others?”

Reilly looked down. “She’ll make the cut. Unless we want to tip our hand that we’re on to her, which would put us all at risk, we’ll have to put her in the slot. That means she’ll be privy to all of our comms, what we access on the span, and the classified webs. Unless Seth is good enough to lock her out with a separate compartmentalized comms system for us—I’ll have to talk to him.” Reilly’s head came up, decisively. “We keep this between us for now. But Gunny—I want a backup plan in place. If this is a trick or if Zain has somehow become compromised and she is here to clean house, we have to be ready. Can you get what we need?”

Chang nodded grimly. “I’ll pick it up first thing tomorrow. Let’s hope she’s not in a house-cleaning mood. For all our sakes.”

—————

Saturday went by quickly. Duv and Ty were up early to see their ladies off and get started on their assigned duties before the Captain started to make her rounds. The rest of the supplies, the gear, and the cargo from Vervian came aboard to be stowed while Duv reviewed the recruit list with the Captain and went over the training regimen for the crucible. Of the forty applicants, the Captain agreed with the twenty Duv had listed, including the girl from the Iron BAR. Duv was surprised that the Captain made no remarks about their last-minute addition, instead only nodding and then asking for additional details on the course. Duv outlined the course of fire, the recon test, the force-on-force application, and the individual skill assessments. The Captain listened intently, then signed off on all of it and told Duv to send final timelines to the applicants for the next morning. She walked off towards the bridge, obviously preoccupied. He took note that she was still wearing her sidearm, something that was rare for her to do when she was on, in, or around her own ship. He sent the message out to the applicants’ handhelds with the Sunday report time and location, then wandered out to find Ty.

Ty was helping Chang and Skeeter move the final supply crates into the hold. The three of them were covered in sweat and dust from working the TORRs all day between the storage facility and the ship to offload the last of the cargo. Duv waved Ty over as Skeeter helped Chang carry some new kitchen supplies up to the common room.

Ty leaned on a nearby crate to rest, glancing out at the desert landscape around them, then back at Duv. “Yeah? What’s up?”

“You noticed anything strange about the Captain today? I mean how she’s been acting?” Duv queried.

Ty wiped his face with a bandana. “Nope, no more than usual since she’s had Zain and Macon breathing down her neck. Not to mention Roen being where her fiancé got shwacked three years ago. If it was me in her shoes, I’d be ready to pop any stranger that walked up right about now.”

Duv relaxed as he thought about that. “I guess you’re right. There has been a lot going on lately. It makes sense. Her history with this place probably has her pretty well on edge, especially with getting ready to take on some new crew members.”

Ty pushed another crate over to one side and locked it down to the floor with a couple of magnetic cargo locks. “Yep. That would do it. You know how she hates taking on new crew. I’m surprised she took so fast to Marek, but I think that’s because of him standing up with us at the BAR. She got a good feel for him in a hurry. Any new ones will take some more time. They gotta prove themselves to her first.”

“Heard that! Hope they’re ready for it—the Captain’s a tough sell. You plan on going into town tonight?” Duv asked, changing the subject as he tossed a loose tac-vest into the appropriate storage locker and closed it up.

Ty fished a large gun and a tripod out of a box and began to set them up. “Nah. I got to get everything set for the fires course tomorrow. Marek’s going to help when he gets back from pulling parts from our wreck over on platform eighteen. That’ll take better part of the afternoon, so I figure maybe we get started around sunset. Besides”—he grinned his wicked grin—“Rhonda, the blonde from last night, is swinging by later to see me. She has this thing for guns, so I figure I can show her the setup for the course, maybe go for a little ride on old Maude there and check out the firing range, put some tantalum rounds on target, maybe a little laser fire…”

Duv stared at him and shook his head. “Um, yeah, sounds very romantic, you two have fun with that.”

But Ty was already off in his own world, smiling and talking lovingly to the gas-cooled atomizer as he hooked it up to the heavy blaster mounted on the TORR and gently polished off the dust that had dared to settle on its gleaming barrel. “Who’s the sleekest, baddest, most beautiful killing machine in all this solar system? That’s you, baby! Oh yeah, definitely you! Rhonda is going to love you…and then she is going to love me! Uh-huh!”

“Okay, I’m going to go now and leave you two alone.” Duv gave Ty a funny look and then walked off to get the skills tests ready for the next day. It was no wonder the man had never had a serious long-term relationship. Really, how many women liked ammo and guns?

—————

Sunday morning started cold and dark. Of the original twenty invited, only eighteen recruits showed for the crucible. Skeeter climbed up on top of the ship to join Reilly and Duv in watching the recon-and-force-application test. The recruits had four hours to travel fifteen miles through the mountains while wearing fifty pounds of gear, navigate to a preset weapons pickup point, and then return to the ship while eliminating as many of their competitors as possible. The only rule was that there were no rules.

They were about three hours into the test when Ty returned from completing the final sets on the fires course. He joined them to check out the recruits’ progress. A large digital scope tracked all the individual participants within viewing range, while those obscured by terrain could be tracked on a holo-map with unique symbols that identified them, their current positions, and each one’s pace. So far seven were on the return leg and in hunting mode.

Ty watched as they came up on the screen one by one, cautiously cresting the hill. “What the hell is she doing here?” he demanded, pointing at the screen outraged.

Tiny had just made the ridgeline and suddenly cut off to one side behind some boulders and scrubby pine trees. She flattened herself to the ground and pulled some brush over top of her to better camouflage her position. By the time she was done, she blended into the terrain so well that it would have been hard to pick her out if they hadn’t seen her set up to begin with.

“She had a solid package in electronics, good duty report, and Commander Zain recommended her,” Duv began.

“I don’t care what she has or who recommended her.” Ty turned to the Captain. “Captain, that broad is trouble. We don’t need her on this ship or in this crew!”

Reilly glanced at Ty. “What’s the problem, Sergeant? She looks pretty good on paper and so far pretty good in the field, too.”

Ty growled, “She has a lack of respect for authority and an attitude problem. I told Duv to have her bug off. She’s a loner. I know her type. She’ll get someone killed because she’ll be too busy trying to do her own thing.”

Reilly started to reply but then leaned in to the screen. Two other recruits had crested the ridge about fifty yards separate from each other, but they were oblivious to that fact. They both moved down the hillside slowly, on guard. Two sharp cracks echoed over the hillside, and they both were marked as dead. One threw down his weapon in frustration, while the other looked in surprise at his neighbor. Reilly started to smile.

“She’s good!” Skeeter remarked, looking around with a grin. He quickly turned back to the screen as Ty scowled in his direction.

They watched as the rest of the pack behind the girl made the ridge only to be taken out by her. The sounds of shots fired put some of them on alert, but she used the terrain to her advantage and took them out one by one. The last recruit to appear managed to escape to cover behind a large rock, only to get shot a few seconds later when he attempted to flank her. Only four had outpaced her, and the gap was growing by the minute. Once she had picked off the thirteen behind her, she moved slowly out onto the lip of the ridge and set up.

“No way she makes those shots,” Ty said. “She had to hide out to get the others at close range. That’s easy work, ambush shots, like shooting fish in a barrel. The ones in front of her are eight hundred to a thousand yards right now. She’s not that good.” He crossed his arms moodily.

Marek and Chang came up to watch the progress. Reilly glanced at Chang and then away again. If the girl was Gaiden and she missed, it would be on purpose. Otherwise, those shots would be well within her ability and range.

A moment later, the three closest recruits had been marked dead. She had missed one, the recruit in the lead. Reilly noted that the round she had fired wasn’t off by much and could’ve easily been corrected. She exchanged another look with Chang and then shot a look at Ty.

“Told you she wouldn’t make them all.” Ty tried to sound smug, but it was obvious that even he was a bit impressed with the girl’s shooting skills, although he certainly wasn’t going to admit it.

“Would you have been able to make all four of those?” Reilly let the question hang in the air as she stepped to the ladder and began to climb down, leaving Ty grumbling as he walked the edge of the ship, watching the girl as she headed back to the finish. As the crew’s sniper, Ty prided himself on the fact that none of them even came close to his ability to hit a long-range target. His dislike for the girl continued to grow.
First she messes up our night out, and now she’s trying to show off at being a sniper.
It was almost as if this girl were gunning for his spot. Ty shook off the thought.

Ten recruits made it back in the required time and were allowed to continue. The others finished up and left quietly. Ty grabbed Skeeter, and together they went down to make sure the fires courses were ready. A series of weapons were set up for each recruit to qualify on. First, they would have to travel through a close-quarters combat (CQB) scenario which featured a two-story building with pop-up targets. Each recruit would have to negotiate barriers moving up to the building and then traverse several more barriers moving away from it with more pop-up targets. A grenade range, a heavy blaster range, and a sniper course with targets set at various distances rounded out the fires courses.

While the recruits rested from the first stage of the crucible, Skeeter helped Ty check the timers, cameras and electronic scoring devices. Once they were sure everything was in place, Ty called out to the kid.

“Hey, Skeeter! You want to run through the CQB course once to test it for me?” Ty tossed him a rifle. Skeeter caught it and grinned. He nodded and headed to the start. Ty gave him the signal to get ready and then hit the buzzer.