Postal Marine 1: Bellicose (8 page)

“A sign of the times, perhaps.”

Khaooldro
Gojoneddus, that's what she said her name was. Isn't that an ancient way of saying glorious revolution?
“Your name isn't Khaooldro, is it? Who are you, anyway?”

“A concerned citizen,” she said.

Bophendze awoke. He tried to lift his head, but winced at the pain. He could not turn his head. He reached up and felt a rigid collar on his neck that was keeping him from turning his head. Within the limited range of his vision, he thought he was on a shuttle.

“Hello?” he said. His voice cracked, barely more than a whisper. He breathed deep then let out a loud moan.

“He lives. Give me a beat, Bophendze.”

Soon after,
Angel
stood over Bophendze, looking straight down at him. “You can still see, right?”

“Barely. Where am I?”

“We're about two cycles out from the orbital. You took one hell of a beating. I'm surprised you're still alive.”

That makes two of us. Why not just throw me out of the ship?
“What happened?”

“Somebody is trying to tell you they don't like you. The ship has basic medical facilities, but the doctor there thought you should be taken to the orbital. You're going to need a little re-constructive surgery.”

Re-constructive surgery? Were they wearing their battle armor when they beat me?
“I know who did it. They put a sack over my head, but I know—”

“Too late.
Chrachen
's finished the investigation. The official report finds that there is no conclusive evidence of the identity of any of the perpetrators.”

“No! Corporal
Makaan
spoke to me after they beat me. I know it was him.”

“During the time of the beating,
Chrachen
said
Makaan
was with him. They were in a staff meeting with all the team leads. It would be your word against that of every non-commissioned officer and
Chrachen
himself. Had you fought back, you might have hurt somebody enough to leave evidence. But nobody even looked like they broke a nail.”

“I couldn't. As soon as the sack was over my head the beating started. It's nice to know the entire cadre want me gone. Maybe I could get a transfer.”

“To get a transfer, you'd have to prove deliberate, continuous aggression against you. If you're right and
Chrachen
's in on it, I don't think they're going to allow your to prove that.”

“Having my face beat in is not deliberate aggression?”

“You have a lot to learn about the Marines. On ship, the captain is like a god. You can lay odds that he let you get beaten to prove a point. He's not pressing the investigation, just the same as
Chrachen
is covering it up. It's not hard to cover up something like this. Marines get into fights all the time.”

“Then why didn't they just kill me?”

“To be honest, I don't know. Maybe they're hoping you'd do them the favor. They're
anthorph
s, so it's hard to figure them out sometimes.”

“I've heard that term before. What is an anthorph?”

“Genetically enhanced humans, except they've bred themselves into a bona fide species. They get recruited into various militaries because they tend to be stronger, faster and more aggressive than normal humans. I'm surprised you've never heard of them before.”

“That makes two of us.” His vision improved. The light overhead steadily brightened, hurting his eyes. He tried to lift his arm to block the light, but the arm could not reach that far.

“The light's too bright.”

Angel
stepped away, then returned. “I'm putting this cloth over your eyes. These are the combat night lights. There's nothing dimmer short of turning them all off. As much as I know my bird, I can't get around in the shuttle with the lights completely out. Like I said, we're still a few cycles out. There's a surgeon at the orbital, he should be able to get you back to normal. The good news is you'll be off the
Spaka
for a few months to recuperate. You know, I thought it was a light-hearted joke that they started calling you Scitan after the hangar shooting.”

“Why? What's it mean?”

“It means dung-eater on
Johor
.”

“I feel like I have been singled out since I got to the
Spaka
.”

“Maybe so. Sometimes the infantry picks a runt out of the litter to torment. Just rest.”
Angel
walked away.

Bophendze closed his eyes, but could not go to sleep right away.
I wonder if the surgeon will be Ramford?
“
Angel
, did they at least change me out of my greasy uniform?”

Angel
yelled back, “No. Stuff stinks and the scrubbers couldn't purge the smell. I'm going to have to air out the shuttle for a week just to get rid of it.”

Bophendze sighed.
That means I should have both the implant and the quid chit. If Bingaffles Ramford is the surgeon, maybe I can persuade him to do the operation. Then maybe I can get some payback.
Finally relaxed, he fell to sleep.

Maijoi, Sirom N.M.L.
Sirom was asked two months after his meeting with
Bowdoin, Dorsey
Lord Dorsey Bowdoin for the simulation data for the Trial. Over the next year, he fumed as the
Manticore
-Class Trial was delayed. Even during the journey to
Ŝipfarejio
(The Barns) the Imperial Navy's Headquarters, Sirom was beside himself with anger. Finally, a year after Sirom's last meeting with Bowdoin, the trial was about to be underway.

Lord Bowdoin was the Trial's judge. Sirom suspected Bowdoin supported the Cel-Tainu design, despite a lifetime of friendship with Microdyn. He tossed aside the loyalty and friendship of Microdyn to join who he thought would be the winning team. Sirom had long wondered what the price of honor was, but knew better than to confront Bowdoin. The entire process was stacked against
Organization!Macrodyn Tectronics Universal
Microdyn. Sirom did his best not to pace the conference room waiting for the Cel-Tainu representative. Bowdoin would even allow Cel-Tainu to disgrace him by arriving late.

A cycle later,
Ryante, Bertin
Ryante Bertin arrived. He was flanked by four employees.

Sirom spoke up immediately. “Hold on. We're not supposed to bring an entourage. That is explicitly called out in the simulation terms.”

Bowdoin looked at the entourage then back at Sirom. “Four is hardly an entourage. Had you asked, I would have told you that you could bring up to six without it being an entourage.”

Besides, two of them are bodyguards.

Sirom looked carefully at the four that accompanied Ryante. None of them looked like they were capable of a firefight.
Are you sure?

At some point, you are going to have to trust the insights of an artificial intelligence. I am far more capable than you are in picking up on things.
A faint halo appeared in Sirom's vision outlining two of Bertin's non-entourage.

Sirom pointed at the men Smee had outlined. “Bodyguards? Ryante, did you think I was going to shoot you?”

“I'm sorry, Mister Maijoi, did I give you leave to call me familiar? I've had several threats on my life. I don't go anywhere without some protection. How could you even think me capable of assassination?”

Sirom tried to find the words. Smee took over. “When the Macrodyn
Manticore
destroys yours, who knows what you're capable of. Especially after the process has been stacked in Cel-Tainu's favor.”

Bertin laughed. “You really are delusional, ‘Prophet.’ I have every confidence that our design will prevail.”

Smee continued to speak in Sirom's place “Is that because you've had a year to run private simulations against our design? A chance to find the weaknesses.”

Smee detected the subtle shift in Bertin's face, something that might have been picked up by a trained human expert. Smee's attack cut through the veneer of class etiquette, which the likes of Bertin relied upon to cover his unethical actions. Frauds who know they can't win will use society to cover their actions. Bertin was such a man.

“How dare you.”

“I dare, Mister Bertin, because it is clear this process has been rigged in your favor. No offense to Lord Bowdoin, who is clearly surprised by this revelation.” Smee sought to give Bowdoin coverage to his own culpability. Sirom had complained before that data on the Macrodyn Manticore had been given to Cel-Tainu. For Cel-Tainu to have the data, Bowdoin had to give it to them. “I've taken the liberty of bringing to the Trial a recent revision to our design. My information says you provided your data only last week. So, the rules are only properly served if we can bring our update.”

Bowdoin frowned. “Mr. Maijoi is right. He can submit revised simulations.”

What are you doing, Smee? There are no revised simulations.

Relax. When are you going to learn to trust me. After all, who designed the ship? I have the complete designs in my memory. Besides, when you were putting together the simulation, I added an obvious design flaw. It was something that Cel-Tainu could discover and tweak their design against. All I have to do is comment out the block of code that implements the flaw in the design, and our
Manticore
will thrash theirs.

How can you be so sure?

Remember when your communications team picked up the Cel-Tainu design that they submitted? I had a chance to look at the design. There was an obvious flaw, beyond its having the flight characteristics of a lump of
senrima
dung. All I did was tweak the simulation code of our
Manticore
to feed into that flaw. I made their flaw a strength. Unless I missed my calculation, they will have accentuated that flaw to exploit the one I coded in.

That's evil.

That's business. You need to give up your chimera that business is a noble enterprise. Maybe at the shopkeeper level. But, you can't keep a two-thousand year-old corporation in business without a little underhandedness—or a lot of underhandedness. Why else would you call your corporate spies your ‘communications team?’

Bowdoin spoke. “Fine. Sirom, I'll give you a cycle to produce your simulation. Then the Trial will begin,”

Smee let Sirom take over. “I just need a few beats with the data we submitted. The changes weren't that significant.”

“You really are full of yourself. Do you really think you can change the simulation from your memory?” Bertin said.

Sirom smiled, though he was not entirely sure it was he who flexed the muscles. “What difference is that to you? I'm The Prophet, don't you know? If I can't change it from memory, then you'll have little difficulty in the simulation. Does that sound about right?”

Bertin threw his hands up. “If a sound thrashing is what it takes to get you to stop being called The Prophet, then so-be-it.”

Sirom was given access to the simulation control room. They sat him down at one of the more private terminals. In a little over six beats, Smee had accessed the simulation, located the planned design flaw, and commented it out. He then proceeded to input a bunch of needless comments to conceal just how easy it was. Smee added an escape clause that would revert the changes after the simulation began. If anybody tried to analyze the design after the simulation started, they would be left wondering. Satisfied, Smee stood Sirom up and spoke. “I'm finished. Can we proceed to the Trial?”

How dare you take over my body.

You didn't know I could do that?

I suspected you could. But, I didn't think you would be so insolent to actually do it in front of others.

Oops. You didn't seem to mind when I interrupted your limp-wristed complaining a few beats ago. You can thank me later.

The group moved to the Trial's viewing room. The Naval High Command used the viewing room to review battles as part of its after-action process. In most cases, it was a gag reel of opposing force fleet failures against the Imperial Navy. Only rarely did the Navy have real opposition that merited a true after-action review.

Sirom and Smee listened to a quarter cycle of speeches by admirals and bureaucrats about the importance of the
Manticore
-Class. The next generation of battleship. Harbinger of a foundational redesign of all martial shipping. A paradigm shift that will reverberate to all human interstellar shipping. Blah. Blah. Blah. Smee saw through the posturing. All the while. Bertin of Cel-Tainu looked smug. The fix was in.

The Trial started. Each side brought its own fleet designed with ten of its prototype battleships as its core. The supporting fleet would be designed to conform to standard fleet practices. To that end, each side was awarded one-million points to buy ships for its fleet. Different ship classes had different point values based upon the class' combat characteristics.

As Sirom promised Lord Bowdoin, the Macrodyn fleet comprised more third-generation cruisers than was standard practice, but within the rule's parameters. With the points saved by doing so, Macrodyn bought additional fourth-generation battle cruisers. The Macrodyn fleet included auxiliary ships, which were common to fleets and often a prized target. In violation of the Trial rules for standard fleet practices, Cel-Tainu did not bring auxiliaries. From a straight statistical analysis, the Cel-Tainu fleet was much more capable.

Except, Smee knew how the AI running the simulation would think. He watched gleefully as the two fleets inched toward one another, each side traveling a simulated few percents of a speed of light. The AI playing Cel-Tainu's fleet would play the long game and gravitate toward the jump ship and auxiliaries. By taking away the opponent's $R^{3}$— Resupply, Repair and Retreat —capabilities, a fleet commander had a decided advantage in protracted campaigns. Smee thought of them as attractive distractors. The Cel-Tainu fleet was short-term designed, so the AI playing Macrodyn's fleet was able to focus on its primary objective, destroying the Cel-Tainu
Manticore
s.