Indomitable (34 page)

“Thanks, Grans. I really can't say that enough … taking Sephora in and all.”

“I'll put her to work while you're away. Stay sharp.” Grans looked like she wanted to say more before she threw a sideways glance at Sephora.

Promise nodded and smiled. She and Victor Company were headed to the planet Sheol, which in the ancient Hebrew meant Hell as an actual place. There was no point worrying the girl any more than she already was.

The Marine Corps had a saying that was as old as the Corps itself: “Where do we go? To hell and back. Ua! Ua! Ua!”

Indeed.
Promise looked at her new captain outside Grans's house and frowned.
Well, I'm on my way.
As she headed for the door, Otis walked up beside her and nosed her leg.

“You better stay here, boy. I know exactly what you'll do if I let you out.”

 

Forty

MAY 21
ST
, 92 A.E., STANDARD CALENDAR, 0917 HOURS

REPUBLIC OF ALIGNED WORLDS PLANETARY CAPITAL—HOLD

NEVERFAR MANOR

Promise hesitated at the top
of the steps of Grans's house, and took the grounds in one more time. She closed her eyes and inhaled the scent of the forest and grasses. Not far away, Victor Company was hot-walking their mechsuits up the ramp of a dropship, and humping gear like stevedores, their nostrils filled with pungent, hot tarmac smells.

They've got this. Besides, they've got Captain Yates now. They don't need me anymore.

A battalion-level deployment meant a lot of gear, which was why Charlie BAT had been assigned several dropships to accompany them to Sheol. Much larger than even an assault-class LAC, the large conical craft were designed primarily to ferry equipment and manpower from a parking orbit to a planet's surface. Promise had signed off on Victor Company's requisitions before she'd departed for Guinevere, and if the other companies in the battalion were deploying with as much gear, well, the battalion was gutted up, loaded for bear.

Snap out of it, P. You're an officer. Stop sulking and Marine up!
A part of her just couldn't.
Even my AI could hump my gear up the ramp if it had to.
That made her feel about as worthless as an unloaded weapon.

The Republic's Artificial Corporeal-Sentience Edicts strictly regulated what AIs could and couldn't operate in the RAW Fleet Forces. They prohibited nonbiological intelligences from being fully autonomous. As long as they were slaved they were fine. AIs were prohibited from controlling assets critical to the Republic's daily functions and survival, on the military
and
civilian side. For the most part, Promise couldn't disagree, particularly when it came to prosecuting wars. War fighting was a human enterprise and tech was there to help you kill more of the enemy, not to decide which enemies to kill.

One paragraph in particular summarized what the branches Navy, Marine Corps, and Sector Guard, plus the planetary militias, the intelligence community, and local law enforcement, could and could not do with their AIs. The RAW Fleet Forces called them the “Can't-Do Edicts.”

Artificial Intelligences may not:

1.   Exercise autonomous control over the nets.

2.   Independently operate any craft larger than an assault-class LAC, and only then as a matter of last resort, for a finite period of time, providing all human pilots are incapacitated or otherwise not available.

3.   Command any unit—ground-, sea-, or space-based—capable of delivering a nuclear payload.

4.   Independently man remote outposts or orbital platforms.

5.   Issue orders for drones and remotely piloted platforms.

Essentially, AIs couldn't do jack without a jane's retinal scan and verbal say-so. Which to Promise's thinking begged the question:
Why have them at all?

The Marine Corps had managed a single exemption on the nuclear question: semi-autonomous AIs for their mechsuits. Because the fiscal argument for them as a force multiplier had far outweighed the risks of using them in theater. And even mechanized Marines still needed presidential approval to deploy nukes. Even a “full-throat” AI could be tethered to a loyalty protocol, but all the Corps had gotten were Semi-Autonomous Reasoning Grunts. SARGs. Without them, the Corps would have had to bolster its ranks by a factor of ten, and specked down their armor.

The truth was that she needed her SARG to monitor the nets, track hostiles, access damage to her mechsuit, make on-the-march repairs, ready weapons (and sometimes, yes, even fire them for her), monitor her vitals, fly whiskers, and attend to myriad other details that all had to run perfectly in the background while she gave orders and stroked the trigger of her wep. In. Real. Time.

Tell that to Senator Oman and her Neo-Isolationists and see if the woman doesn't cream her skivvies.

Mr. Bond was more than just her AI-assist, Bond was safe and reliable, her danger maker with a massive upside.

Until she bought it, Bond remained a critical part of her armor, and extremely capable on its own. Still, there was no way Promise would ever trust Bond to cold-walk her armor. Marines just didn't do it as a matter of principle. Her mechsuit was hers. Bond wasn't even the copilot. An arm maybe, with mad killing skills. End of story.

Promise reached the bottom stairs as the front door banged closed behind her. A blur of a dog bounded around her legs and across the grass.

“Otis! Get back here.”

She cupped her hands. “Captain, he's friendly…”

Captain Sasha Yates tried to sidestep the dog and ended up being knocked to the deck, facedown, instead. The first order Promise heard her CO give was a one-word scream.

“Help!”

 

Forty-one

MAY 21
ST
, 92 A.E., STANDARD CALENDAR, 0922 HOURS

REPUBLIC OF ALIGNED WORLDS PLANETARY CAPITAL—HOLD

NEVERFAR MANOR

“Otis, you filthy mongrel,”
Promise shouted as she ran toward the captain. Pulling Otis off Yates proved impossible given his size. The slap on his backside did the trick. She hit him a lot harder than she'd intended to, which sent the beast yelping back toward the house and out of view.

Yates rolled over, her hand over her eyes to block the sun. “Thanks a lot, Paen.” They weren't in uniform but common courtesy still ruled the day and omitting Promise's rank like that was at the very least rude. Still, Promise figured the captain had just been assaulted by a mongrel, so she cut Yates some slack.

“Ma'am, I'm terribly sorry about this.”

Yates ignored Promise's hand and pulled herself up. Her clothes were stained with grass, mud, and drool. The fabric over her thigh was torn; the pants were a complete write-off. “I hope the bastard is happy.”

“Lieutenant Paen.” Yates assessed her clothing with disgust. She looked upward and then at Great-Grans's house before turning to face Promise. “It isn't every day one gets invited to a general's home. I had hoped to say hello.”

This day can't get any worse.
Promise thought of several things to say in reply, and not one of them was going to defuse the situation.

“Ma'am, I'll replace your clothes. I must have left the door cracked open.”

But that wasn't what the captain was aiming for. Promise hadn't even considered the setting they were in, and she should have. Had Grans? The wall of trees and the fortified home, the artillery piece and the car on the pad with the general's last name on the rear plate—all of it spoke to the general's war-hawkishness like a smartly canted beret. Otis had certainly made a statement. The grounds could not have been hotter.

Captain, would you care to pick me up at Grans's house on your way back to Mo Cavinaugh?
Why hadn't she seen it before? Great-Grans had made some calls and taken care of everything. Yes, the general certainly had. And Grans hadn't come out to meet the captain either. That could only be taken one way. Yates was probably wondering how Promise had pulled it off in the first place. If she was trying to put the captain in her place by showing off a powerful benefactor, she'd just succeeded marvelously.

Yates crossed her arms. “Do you have anything to say to me?”

“Ma'am, my … I guess you'd call her my little sister … she needed a place to stay while we deploy. The general has plenty of space.” Carefully put, that. Promise made to say more and then realized she was probably better off leaving it at that.

“Indeed.” Yates turned toward the aerodyne as a large cloud rolled across the sky and cast its shadow over them. A bird called from the trees and then another answered it. Yates opened the door and got in. “Coming?” Promise could see the gold in Yates's eyes.

“We have a tight schedule. We'll talk on the way.” The aircar's door slammed shut.

Promise should have entered first as the junior officer present. She walked around the aircar and entered from the other side. As she settled into her seat, she felt the cold frame of her GLOCK press against her side. The general had insisted she bring it, much to her surprise.

“Bring your senior with you,” Grans had said over the vid comm. Promise had contacted Granby about what to do with Sephora. She'd dialed and hung up three times before letting the comm go through, because asking the general for such a huge favor was outlandish, right? Yes, Granby had told her to reach out if she needed anything. Wasn't that what people said in the moment? She had gone to hang up a fourth time when the general appeared on-screen and recognized her immediately.

“Lieutenant Paen. This is a pleasant surprise. What brings you my way?”

They'd talked a good five minutes about Promise's career. The general was up to speed on a number of matters. Her recent vacation. Her near brush with death and detention on Kies Tourosphere. Her demotion, which was exactly what Granby had called it. They'd talked about Sephora, and the general hadn't blinked. “Why don't Roman and I take her in while you're away? Get her on her feet until you return.” Then Grans mentioned her senior and told her not to show up without it.

How did she know about that? Well, how did she know about the rest of my escapades? Great-Grans knows all.

“Aye, aye, ma'am,” Promise said with a smile. “Gladly.”

“My mother gave me my first weapon too,” Granby said. “Nothing like yours, though. When it comes to firearms, I'm always game for show-and-tell.”

“I look forward to it, ma'am.”

Now she was in an aircar with her new CO. Swapping stories and antique firearms with the general would have to wait for another time. Time. It always came down to that. Her GLOCK was in every way a weapon displaced by time, and as much as Promise cherished it, she was never quite at ease in its presence. She'd inherited the GLOCK as a child, though at the time she hadn't known it. Quite suddenly, her mother fell ill, and by the following winter she was gone. Her death left Promise with an emotionally distant father, and a small box of things meant for her. Except her father hid the box in the attic and refused to talk about his pain. Years later, Promise found the GLOCK by accident while looking for something else. She recognized the rough-hewn trunk instantly. At the bottom she found her mother's pistol.

Her father went to his grave never knowing she'd found it. He was murdered during the raids on her homeworld, before the RAW Fleet Forces had neutralized the pirate threat operating in the sector. She ran to the Corps to start anew.

The GLOCK was all Promise had left of her mother's things. And to this day, it continued to steal her out of the present, either by displacing the present with memories of a past she'd just as soon forget, or by distracting her with questions about a future that would never be. A future with a mother.

Stop wallowing in the past, P. Focus on the here, now. Focus on your new captain. She's already angry enough with you.

*   *   *

They were now over
water, more or less pointed toward Joint Spaceport Mo Cavinaugh, when Yates shifted in her seat. “I must confess, Lieutenant, I am at a bit of a loss for words. This situation is … unique. What am I supposed to do with the trenchant Lieutenant Promise Paen?”

Trenchant?
Promise hadn't been called that before. She wasn't even sure what the word meant. Impetuous? Yes, she'd been called that and honestly owned the word. Headstrong, prone to rush in? Yes, and yes. A Marine who preferred direct action. Yes, yes, and yes.
But not …

“You're the savior of Montana,” Yates said, which only made matters worse. “A decorated Marine. Until recently, the CO of Victor Company. I was not privy to what happened prior to assuming command of Victor Company. I was only told to report for duty and that you'd be staying on as my XO.” Yates gave her a piercing look. “That about sum it up?”

“Yes, Captain,” Promise said.

“What happened was classified.”

Promise nodded.

“But, I'm sure you have some thoughts on the matter. Off-record, of course.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

Yates clicked her tongue. “Lieutenant, this isn't going to work if we don't get past simple yeses and noes. I know you can't tell me some things but surely you can tell me
something.
”

She was already in enough trouble with the RCIA. Talk now and she might inadvertently hand Agent McMaster another reason to come after her.
Keep your mouth shut, P.
No doubt the colonel wanted to get on with their mission instead of dealing with a pissing match between the Marine Corps and the intelligence community. He didn't need a personality conflict between one of his company captains and that captain's lieutenant. Now Halvorsen had both. His opinion of her was already dangling by a much-frayed thread.

“I'll understand if you don't want me as your second-in-command,” Promise said a moment later. “I'll ask the colonel for a transfer when we land.”