Indomitable (13 page)

“All right, we are three,” Promise said, breaking proper voice procedure. Because what was the point. “I believe this op calls for forty boots, which makes us slightly understrength. Time to head home.”

An object pierced the waves below, drawing Promise's attention. For a moment she couldn't believe her eyes. A massive wing tipped to one side and water sheeted off of it. Then there were three and they all rose together. Promise called it a small miracle. Kathy would later say it was just plain luck. Sergeant Go-Mi would tell the tale for years to come, about the time a trio of mechanized mermen leapt out of the sea, just like in the movie
Neptune's Crossing.
Except they weren't mermen at all, but real men, real flesh-and-bone mechanized Marines, flying gravchutes with simulated damage. And their siren calls were RAW-MC war cries.

“Ooh-rah,”
said Sergeant Richard Morris. His chute was teetering badly from an imaginary torn wing and damaged gravmatrix.

“Get some,”
added Private Race Atumbi in an uncharacteristically confident voice.

Good for him,
Promise thought.

“Where do we go?”
asked Gunnery Sergeant Tomas Ramuel as water sheeted off his mechsuit.

Promise and a resolute, reinforced toon of Marines growled out the response.
“To hell and back. Ua! Ua! Ua!”

”Finally, the boys have arrived.”
Promise dropped a ring around a small atoll a few klicks northwest of the main island.
“There, let's put down while we wait for our ride. I need a SITREP. What just happened?”

“I pulled the trigger, ma'am.”
To his credit, Atumbi's voice didn't so much as waver.
“I did it, ma'am. I got jumpy and gave us away. It was all me.”

“Gaawd bless, Private, didn't I tell you to keep your—”

An intruder overrode the comm, locked Promise out of command.
“That's enough, Lieutenant. I'm calling the op. A retrieval boat is en route. This op is over.”
The last face Promise expected to see appeared on her HUD. Lieutenant General Felicia Granby.

It was one thing for Promise to call the op and quite another for the general to do it for her. The mule in her kicked without thinking. “Permission to carry on, ma'am.” The words were away before Promise could weigh them properly.

“Lieutenant, you can't be serious?”
Lieutenant General Felicia Granby said.
“Girly, you're down to a reinforced toon of Marines. What do you expect to accomplish with that?”

“The mission, ma'am. We're enough.”

“Uh-huh. And your plan?”

The irony of Great-Grans's question caught up with Promise a few seconds later, because at that moment, a schematic marked
TOP SECRET
appeared on Promise's HUD.

“Ah, Great-Grans—one moment, please.”

“Take all the time you need, girly.”

Promise muted the general. Asked her AI, “Where did this schematic come from?”

“Unknown, it wasn't part of the OPLAN or in any of the mission briefs.”

“What about the RAW-MC's archives? Look under Corregidor Island or Mount Bane.”

“Stand by while I query … interesting … I just met by a very angry AI that insulted my programming and showed me the sign, as if I can't read what it says.”

“What sign?”

“It's in a classified file ringed with lockouts.” Her mechsuit's AI was trying to describe in physical terms what it had only seen in virtual space. In reality, the lockouts looked more like the annual rings of a tree. The schematic was at the center of the tree inside the pith, or the tree's heart. “It's a DACT.”

Promise rolled her eyes. “A Don't Ask, Can't Tell.” The Corps wasn't without a sense of humor. A Marine stomped past a DACT at his or her own peril, because after all, you'd been warned. Violating a DACT could get you a permanent billet inside Camp Vimerling breaking rocks for the rest of your term of service.

“This schematic didn't just appear. Someone gave us the information.” A window popped up on her HUD with a list of specific suggestions. “Well, what's the harm in at least trying?”

“General?” Promise said after taking Granby off mute.

“Still here, girly. Whatcha got for me?”

“A plan, ma'am.”

The general laughed freely over the voice-only link.
“How 'bout that. And?”

“We're going to skim the water.” Promise read the mystery bullets one by one. “We'll fly under the island's intruder net, minimum grav, and use the wind at our backs.” Promise focused on the upper right portion of the schematic, which was hard to miss because it was pulsating. There, an unmarked entrance to the mountain. The schematic said it was lightly guarded by two ANDES and easily accessible by air. “There's a rock face on the leeward side of the island. I … believe it's largely unprotected. We can scale that to the access tunnel above,” Promise said as she followed the tunnel inside the mountain, “and see where it goes.”
And see where it goes?
“With your leave, of course.”

“Climbing in mechsuits?”

“No, in skin with gravbelts for safety, ma'am.” Fifth bullet down. “Standard-issue gear does come in handy from time to time.”

“You'll be awfully light.”

“All I need is my pulse rifle and a backup, ma'am.”
And a wing and a prayer.
“All we have to do is reach the control tower and hit the little red button to end the exercise and take the W.” According to bullet six there was a little red button too.
This is insane.
“We're good to go, ma'am.”

“Is that all, Lieutenant? The ANDES may not make it so easy for you. And the island defenders know roughly where you are. You're compromised.”

“Not if you provide me with a bit of cover, ma'am.” Bullet seven had suggested she ask.
You just asked the general to break the rules,
said her by-the-book self.
No, just bend them a bit,
said her break-the-Regs alter ego,
because there's a time to follow Regs and a time to chart your own course.

“Ha—you show your true colors, Lieutenant.”

“I would never suggest that you—”

“Shut up, Lieutenant. I like
your
idea.”
Emphasis on “your,” which made Promise think it was actually the general's.
“Permission granted. I've thought for some time we needed to shake the simulation up. It's grown stale and the defenders complacent. Stay on the comm. Wait one.”

The general placed Promise on mute and commed the control room located inside Mount Bane. A second window opened in Promise's HUD, and the face of a young man appeared. He looked competent and wore the single inverted gold V of a lance corporal (not to be confused with the single flat stripe, or “runway,” of a PFC). His eyes widened with recognition, causing him to sit up straight as a board.

“
Good morning, General Granby. How may I help the general?”

Promise noted the one-way feed. He couldn't see her.

“Victor Company has suffered crippling casualties in today's exercise and has been asked to return to base. We won't reset the op for at least an hour. Please stand down the mountain and get something to eat.”

The lance corporal didn't seem surprised, but his disappointment was obvious.
“Aye, aye, ma'am. That's too bad. We were looking forward to squaring off against Lieutenant Paen. After what she did to the Lusies on Montana, well, we thought this one might get interesting.”

“Me too, Lance Corporal. We all have our off days. Lieutenant Paen is no different. She'll just have to try again, perhaps sooner than later, mmm? I hope it's the former. I'll leave you to it, then.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“General Granby, out.”

The water below was choppier and Promise could see a coral reef as they approached the atoll.

“There,”
Granby said.

“Thank you, ma'am.”

“Don't thank me yet. Deal with the private who blew your op and teach him to keep his finger off the trigger.”
Granby cleared her throat.
“Mount Bane no longer expects you. So you'll have the element of surprise. Don't blow it.

“I didn't tell the lance corporal you were ordered to stand down. Merely that you were asked to call it a day. You're not the only one getting schooled today. In war, Marines often see what they want to see and end up misreading the battlefield. The Corps does a good job of teaching us to look for the enemy in hiding, not so the enemy in plain sight. If the lance corporal is sharp, he's going to figure out something is amiss. Hopefully not too soon. Lieutenant, a suggestion?”

“By all means,” Promise said.

“You'd best hurry before he pushes the green button and blows you away. You are to use every advantage at to your disposal to take the installation and secure the control room. That's an order.”
The general smiled.
“And Lieutenant, be brilliant. Granby, out.”

 

Sixteen

APRIL 24
TH
, 92 A.E., STANDARD CALENDAR, 0559 HOURS

REPUBLIC OF ALIGNED WORLDS PLANETARY CAPITAL—HOLD

PUGILIST SEA, CORREGIDOR ISLAND WARFARE TRAINING CENTER

“This place crawls.”
Sergeant
Richard Morris sounded teed off.

From his tone of voice, Promise didn't have to guess what he was actually thinking.
Lieutenant, back at the firing range, I told you so.

“Or at least it will when those things reactivate,”
Morris added a moment later, gauntlet pointing at the ledge above.

Promise turned to look at Morris and punched him in the shoulder plate a bit harder than she'd planned to. The sergeant lost his balance and fell over in the wet sand.

“Sorry, Rich. I didn't think you'd topple so easily.”

Morris lay on his side, laughing, in a sandy depression ringed by one-and-a-half-meter-tall greenie.
“Thanks a lot, ma'am.”
He started choking on his laughter. “
I needed that.”

Beside Morris were Promise and Lance Corporal Kathy Prichart. Kathy's rifle was up and tracking. Promise's HUD was zoomed to nine-times magnification. At their backs lay the beach with the sound of rolling surf. The remaining points of Victor Company were submerged in a nearby tidal pool, roughly thirty meters away. The pool was shallow enough that Gunnery Sergeant Ramuel had had to sit down to fully submerge, legs straight out in front of him. He'd nearly mutinied when Promise split the remains of Victor Company into two understrength toons of three points each—Alpha and Omega—and left him behind.

“Because we started this op and we're going to finish it too,” she'd said.

“And how are we supposed to topple them?”
Morris asked as he took a knee in the sand and brushed off his gauntlets.

Up ahead lay Mount Bane's leeward face. Reaching the ledge above meant a near-vertical climb while two ANDES stood watch. The ledge was sizable, perhaps large enough to accommodate a small shuttle or VTOL, though Promise wouldn't have tried a landing, not with her meager piloting skills. According to the mystery schematic on her HUD, an access tube emptied onto the ledge and back-flowed deep inside the mountain fortress. Promise's HUD calculated the distance from the ground to the ledge—130 meters—and then calculated the safest route to the top, which zigged a good bit and zagged across half again as much rock, all angles and faces. There was no way she was climbing that in or out of mech.

“The ascent is impossible, ma'am.”
Now Morris sounded ticked off.

“Pull out your gravbelt, Sergeant.” Promise removed hers from one of her mechsuit's side compartments. Two interlocking plates formed the belt's thick rectangular clasp.

“Bond, establish a link and make it rise.”

“Aye, aye, ma'am.”

The belt rose on a cushion of countergrav, and floated out of her hands. “We're going to strap these on, and make ascent.”

“And leave our mechsuits behind? With respect, ma'am, you've got to be kidding.”

Promise read something in Morris's jacket about his fear of heights. Perhaps he was rattled. Phobias did that sort of thing, even to veteran operators.

“Well, Sergeant, your belt can't handle your weight and your mechsuit's too. You could try to jump the cliff. A full boost might get you there. Though you'll probably signal our position to every ANDES on the island. You could free-climb the ascent. But I wouldn't try it. Got another idea?”

“How do you plan to deal with the ANDES once you scale the face?”
Morris asked.

“Mr. Bond, would you kindly explain that to the sergeant?” Promise slaved the company battlenet to her HUD so her boots could watch Bond's presentation.

“Yes, ma'am.”
A window opened on Promise's HUD and a full-body avatar of her AI appeared to the side, standing at attention. Balding and well into his sixth decade, Mr. Bond wore a thin monocle and tan utilities. Her AI nodded sharply at her and motioned to the left. On cue, a large whiteboard and a tray of markers appeared. Bond chose blue and set to work.

“What am I looking at, ma'am?”

“The answer to your question, Sergeant,”
Bond said as he wrote,
“is quite elementary. These are Mount Bane's access codes.”

“Access codes?”
Prichart, Morris, Go-Mi, and the gunny said in unison.