Border wars, p.3
Border Wars, page 3
part #8 of On Silver Wings Series
The Lucian's disturbingly featureless face somehow managed to convey his appreciation of that statement with a visceral clarity. Several of those looking on shuddered slightly, chilled by the realization of just how eager the Lucian was for a good fight.
Of course, several of the members of the Fifth looking on were shuddering with a matching glee of their own.
Like knew like.
"It would have been a glorious fight if the Parthalian forces had been able to hold the orbitals," Kriss said with a determined tone. "We could have stretched that fight out for months, testing ourselves against the Colonel's forces under her direction."
"She wouldn't have been in charge, not back then." Strickland shook his head, "but I'm sure it would have been a fight the for the ages. Valkyrie did kick the Alliance forces out of the system, though, so I suppose we'll never know."
"Never say never, human."
*****
Amher shook his head, "That toy will never do you any good against the beasts, not even the lesser filth. If you should encounter the Grey-Faces, they'll make you eat it if you tried to use it against them."
Sorilla sighed, "It is what I could find. I will make do."
The man hesitated, considering silently for a time before he gestured to her while he climbed to his feet.
"Come," Amher said, "We can do better... but I cannot offer it for free. Can you pay?"
Sorilla widened her eyes, nodding as she made a show of nervously getting to her feet. "I can pay, I swear but I only have so much on me. I can get more. I just don't carry much on me."
"Wise," Amher said, gesturing her to a back room. He opened the triple locked and bolted door, and turned on a light. Sorilla didn't have to fake her surprise when she laid eyes on a room filled with Alliance military tech.
"Allah forfend," She whispered, not having to put any fake shock into her tone, "Those are the aliens' weapons! How?"
"Infidels and beasts have similar flaws," Amher spat, "A love of material goods, their worth only to spend in this life and with no thought to the next. They sell us the means of their own destruction."
Sorilla nodded dumbly, though she rather thought that Amher was being rather naive if he really believed that. The weapons she was seeing were impressive, no question. If she were right, in fact, she was looking at gear that should only be available to Alliance Service, not even their civilian.
Once again, weapons that she had been assured should not possibly be able to get into non-approved hands were turning up in decidedly non-approved hands.
Sorilla carefully scanned them all with her implants, seeking out the visible security identifiers so that the Alliance could start backtracking where the weapons had been sourced... in theory. In truth, she was expecting them to be untraceable, the same as the weapons on Arkana.
Someone in the Alliance is working deeply against them, Sorilla knew. Whoever it was had to be connected as hell. The designs for the top line weapons she was looking at were of course classified to the highest level according to the information from Kriss and Sienel had been willing to let her in on.
Amher crossed the room, picking out a small Alliance blaster, the sort of thing a human force might issue to officers rather than the type of weapon Sorilla herself would prefer. She kept an awed look on her face, however, when he extended it to her, and accepted the weapon with something akin to reverence.
"I did not realize we had captured so many of their arms," She said softly as she turned the pistol sized weapon over.
Amher snorted, "We traded for them with the beasts."
Sorilla made herself look up in surprise, "Why would they offer their enemies such things?"
"As I said, like all infidels they are more concerned with the material than the divine," Amher said simply, "It was a mere matter of discovering what it was they desired from us. We have been preparing for the Jihad ever since, secreting away stores like this."
Sorilla nodded, figuring that was probably half true. It was the other half that made her investigation of some seriousness, however. It was unlikely that anything the locals could dig up was truly of value to the Alliance people selling them weapons. Far more likely was that the people handing weapons out wholesale had another motive. Something like causing trouble in the border worlds between the Alliance and SOLCOM would inevitably spill over, quite possibly into another shooting war, and neither side was ready to deal with that at the moment.
She didn't know if that was the intent, or merely a side effect of the actions, but in the end it barely mattered.
"How much?" She asked softly, putting hesitance into her tone.
"Six months' supply," Ahmed said firmly, "I'm making an exception for you as it is, I can do no better."
Salt, less than a kilo, Sorilla thought, almost choking at the 'price'.
Certainly, she knew that here on Allahu salt was so rare that its worth was far more than its weight in gold, but it was still ridiculously cheap.
"I'll have to fetch my supplies," She handed the weapon back, "I can return tomorrow?"
"That will be fine," Ahmed set the weapon back on the shelf with the others before leading her out of the room.
The rest of the brief conversation was meaningless politeness, and Sorilla escaped to the exterior chill shortly thereafter. She hiked her way out into the cloaking darkness, making certain that she wasn't followed, and swiftly found her way back to the waiting APC.
The hydraulics hissed shut as she pulled the local garb from her torso, exposing lightweight carbon and ceramic armor beneath as she took an offered seat under the heater before looking around to everyone.
"You all get that?"
"You mean the armory SOLCOM would cheerfully kill to acquire?" Strickland asked dryly, "Yeah. We got it."
"Did you scan any serial numbers?" Kriss asked grimly.
Sorilla shook her head, "No. They're not civilian issue, that much is certain. They might be covert military, by your description, but considering what we found on Arkana?"
Kriss gestured in the affirmative. He understood well what she was implying, "Do we raid the house?"
"No," Sorilla shook her head, "Ahmed isn't the problem. Leave him his armory, you can play games with him and his sort later, I'm sure your Sentinels won't mind the practice. We want the suppliers."
Kriss chuckled, a rasping sound that felt violent somehow, "Agreed. So, you will go back and buy the sidearm then?"
"Yeah," Sorilla said, "Crack out a kilo of salt. We'll confirm our suspicious off that, and I'll tag Ahmed. Someone is playing a dangerous game out here, and it's going to blow in someone's face. I'd rather it not be ours."
*****
USV SOL
Admiral Ruger examined the recordings lifted from the Colonel's implants, knowing that he was really just burning time as he did so. They had a small army of people doing exactly what he was doing, and they were better at it than he was, but he couldn't help himself. The SOLCOM computer had identified and tagged all the weapons in the armory and he found himself perusing the list while holding back the proverbial drool.
"What I wouldn't give to get half those in the labs back home," He admitted ruefully.
"Sister might be able to smuggle a couple out for us," Mattan said, "but it's not a mission priority."
Ruger sighed, "Don't I know it."
He was a research track man, military core to be sure, but research all the same. The tech he was seeing included several items that hadn't turned up in the war, and his brain itched at the idea of getting them torn down and spread out across a diagnostics bench.
Unfortunately, that was likely not in the cards for the current mission.
"I wonder what they're trading for those weapons," He said after a moment's thought, "to be willing to sell one for a kilo of salt?"
"The world is salt poor," Mattan shrugged, "If it were a hot planet, I doubt the colony would have survived this long as it is. We've scanned significant salt deposits, but they're mostly buried under the glaciers at the moment and the melting phase the world has entered has flooded the few salt planes in the inhabitable region with fresh water."
"I know all that, I've seen the same scans, it's just... mind boggling."
"Value is subjective," The grizzled Special Forces Brigadier said simply, "I've seen people value feathers over gold, bullets over water, and the reverse to both. You can't judge without understanding the local context."
Ruger snorted, "like trading beads for Manhattan Island, I guess."
"No, actually not like that at all." Mattan corrected, "Manhattan was sold to the settlers by a tribe that didn't actually control the island. That was as if someone bought the Brooklyn bridge from one of those con men back in the day, and actually managed to make the sale stick despite it being stolen goods."
"What happened to the tribe that did control Manhattan?" Ruger asked, curiously.
"Wiped out, mostly before the sale by disease, but the settlers pretty much finished the job afterwards when the survivors complained," Mattan shrugged. "A few descendants survived into the twentieth or so, as I recall, but I don't think anyone tracked them past that."
"Jeez," Ruger grimaced, "Aren't you a bucket of cheer."
"If someone sold you a piece of history that wasn't filled with greed, treachery, and slaughter... you got a phony bill of sale," Mattan shrugged, "There are no heroes, Admiral. History is bloody proof of that, as much as we try to tell ourselves differently. The original fairy tales got it right, don't believe the Disneyfication of history."
"For someone who lives by the motto 'to free the oppressed', you're a right gloomy shit, General."
*****
Chapter 3
Hayden Sub-Continent
Jerry's light electric flitter landed easily on the concrete pad the Sarge had set up on her claim, nudging his passenger awake.
"We're here, Cash," He said easily as the bigger man shook himself awake.
"Oh? Sorry, dozed off," Cassius said as he blinked away the sleep.
"Don't worry about it, it's a long flight. I dozed a bit myself," Jerry admitted. "Computer handled most of it."
Cassius Aida nodded as he popped open the door on his side and looked around at the jungle that surrounded them. Trees rose up all around them, reaching for the sky a hundred feet over their heads, filtering the sunlight that reached down to them to a fraction of what it had been on the sections of the main continent he'd seen.
"Looks wild," Cassius said as he hopped out, boots planting down on the concrete slab with authority.
Jerry nodded as he dropped out the other side and ducked under the wing to reach the cargo compartment of the flitter.
"You could say that," He laughed easily, "Other than a few sampling missions back before my day, in fact, your daughter is one of the very first humans to set foot on the sub- continent. My students love her for it, since her spread here means we can run more field trips and check out even more unknown organisms instead of just studying what was already discovered."
Cassius smiled, "I expect she enjoys that."
"She doesn't know," Jerry answered, popping the hatch and pulling out his hunting rifle, slinging it over his shoulder. "I've been running most of those classes since she left, and she hasn't been back yet."
Cassius nodded, pointing to the rifle, "We need one of those?"
"It's a good idea," Jerry confirmed, "Not too many locals can digest human DNA, but most of them don't know it. Come on, I'll show you the Sarge's spread, pretty sure she'll have one there for you."
"I'd be shocked if she didn't," Cassius laughed,
Jerry grinned and buttoned down the flitter before gesturing to a path cut in the jungle and leading the bigger man off. They followed the curving path, noting a couple of Sorilla's bots as they trimmed back the jungle and generally tended the path as they walked past.
Cassius eyed the bots curiously but didn't say anything as they made their way. The path opened up to a cleared section of a hilltop, hundreds of meters tall, with a view of the ocean just a short distance off.
Cassius whistled, "My girl knows how to pick em."
"It is a stunning view," Jerry nodded, gesturing to a building that was built into the side of the hill. "That's Sarge's biv, come on."
"Biv?" Cassius laughed, "That's bigger than my hacienda back home."
"Wasn't the last time I was here," Jerry said, pointing out the automated fabrication units, "They've been busy. I'll have to check and see if everything is running proper and doesn't need any maintenance."
"How many of those things did Sorilla buy?" Cassius asked, having an idea how much a decent MOFAB cost on Earth.
"Never managed to count them," Jerry said honestly, "Too many moving too fast. I know she's got a couple swarms working over yonder on something too, though, so a lot?"
Cassius shook his head and the pair made their way into the newly minted structure that had grown up from the hill and jungle since Jerry's last visit. They found the door security waiting to be activated, but Jerry left it in standby mode. It wasn't like anyone would be coming out this way to steal anything anyway, and he rather pitied any who might try since the Sarge had secured her more valuable items with rather more serious security than a passcode.
As he expected, however, she had a small selection of weapons in a simple lockbox near her bunk. He fetched the keycard from where he knew she'd left it for him and popped the lock, kicking the door open.
"Grab what you feel comfortable with," He told Cassius, "and I'll show you around, give you a bit of a crash course in Hayden fauna. Lots of unknown animals out this way, though, so keep your head if you go wandering about, you hear?"
Cassius pulled an old MILSPEC rifle, one that had been surplused at least fifty years earlier if Jerry's hunch was right, and casually cleared the breach before grabbing a hefty magazine with a full load and slapping it into the receiver.
"Not my first walk in the park, son," Cassius said, as he took up a handful of other mags. "take point, I'll follow your lead."
"You got it, Sir, let's see what's out here," Jerry grinned.
He had a feeling he was going to like the Sarge's dad.
*****
God is Great
Amher had kept up his end of the deal and seemed happy when she tipped him with a full kilo of salt, not asking for the excess to be returned. It would keep his family going for at least another month beyond the six he'd asked for, likely more if they weren't really stressing themselves too hard.
The alien sidearm was resting comfortably on her belt as Sorilla took her leave from the man who had turned out to be simultaneously outcast, gun runner, guerilla slash terrorist, and family man. She was well familiar with how complicated things could get in a war zone, however, so Sorilla didn't concern herself too much with the complexity of the lives around her.
She wished them the best of luck, knowing that they would need it against the Alliance. For the moment they were considered little more than a training opportunity for the Sentinels, and she hoped for their sake that lasted a long time. If the Alliance took the insurgents seriously, the relatively calm planet wouldn't be recognizable within a month.
"Got the gun," She said as she walked away from the hand - built hut, "tracker is placed. How is the signal reading?"
"Five by five," Strickland's voice in her ear said, "We're all good on this side."
Sorilla nodded, "Then it's a waiting game."
"We do not have time for any waiting games," Kriss' gravel filled voice interjected. "Those weapons are a threat to Alliance Security. We should not leave them loose."
"The weapons aren't the threat, and you know it," Sorilla countered, "The threat is whoever has the resources to make them. Raiding Amher won't get you anything, and it might close our window. We wait."
No response was forthcoming from the Lucian, effectively ending the conversation as Sorilla turned to the south.
"I'm moving to the next delivery location," She said, "Shadow my position."
"Roger that," Strickland said a moment later. "APC moving out."
Sorilla nodded to herself, wrapping the cloak around her a little tighter as she shivered slightly in the chilled wind, leaning into her walk as she set out down the rough - hewn road that would lead her on to the next destination of her delivery mission.
She'd made a dozen similar deliveries before meeting Amher and would make that many again unless something broke for them soon. She thought back to the people on the much warmer world of Arkhana, and rather wished that she were back there. Things had been much more straightforward there, the more coherent culture making things easier.
Damn religious reformations and the chaos they bring.
Islam and Christianity were brothers of the Book, but they were like oddly twisted mirror images of one another, at their best and worst. As someone who'd spent a long time studying both, specifically how they reacted to external and internal stressors, Sorilla had often marveled at how much they had in common... right up until they didn't.
It's going to be a long walk, she thought, blinking her implants active and opening a research overlay as she trudged along. May as well get some work done.
*****
USV SOL
"Tracker up and active," A lieutenant said as the op-screen showed the hut that was the location of the tracker, and another showed the APC, while a third was following the Colonel as she made her way along the rough - hewn road that threaded through the mountainous region of the planet, heading for the next community.
Ruger's eyes were on the first screen, and that little unassuming hut that held a small armories worth of Alliance weapons.
He'd dearly love to launch a shuttle with a Tac-Team and scoop up the whole lot, but that was right out for various reasons. Not the least of which being the Alliance ships in orbit, particularly the Parithalian Battleship that was their escort while in Alliance space.
