Viewpoints critical, p.28
Viewpoints Critical, page 28
After swallowing a mouthful of bagel burrito, dejahn nodded, then took a sip of coffee, bitter. One thing formulators didn't do well, along with tea and chocolate.
"Well?"
"Was a time when special ops meant guys with guns dropping on chutes into jungle," replied dejahn. "Some ways, more honest."
"Honest? Strange word, think you?" Meralez brushed back mahogany hair too short to move.
"Strange?"
"Snuffed is snuffed," replied Meralez. "Back then, it was lead, steel jackets, osmiridium, metal projectiles at high speed. Now, we're using J-wasps, S-wasps, scroaches, scowls, biogators, snators. They're using phonies stuffed with ultra-ex, semiclones with biopaks. We text envirosave, and they text reclaiming their heritage and defeating imperialism. Some of us get snuffed, and some of them do. Back a century, it was the same. Any more honest then than now? Don't think so. Back then, the officers ordered. The senior ones lived, the junior ones died like techs, and lots more techs died than now."
For a moment, dejahn considered her words. They were hers, what she thought, and that was good.
"The senior officers, brass balls and iron tits ... all the same," snorted Castaneda.
"All the same, what? " A cheerful laugh followed the words. Castaneda looked up. So did dejahn.
Vielho stood there, then set his tray down and slid into the vacant space beside Castaneda. "Anytime you're talking balls and tits, Castaneda, got to be worth listening to." He grinned disarmingly, then took a swallow of his tea.
So far as dejahn knew, Vielho was the only tech who drank tea. Or what passed for it. Then, Casimir was the only other person dejahn knew who drank it for breakfast. Where dejahn's brother had picked it up . . . who knew? Casimir couldn't even explain, but he also couldn't explain why he liked teaching.
"Just jawing about officers. Little good that does."
"Better than holding it inside." Vielho sipped the tea.
"You ever think about being a teacher?" asked dejahn.
"Me?" Vielho laughed. "No way. Got as much patience as a scroach seeking a Seasie. Why?"
Dejahn shook his head. "Just wondered."
VI
0750. The briefing was in the techs' mess. All the briefings took place there. Dejahn didn't want to be late, slipped into the spot at the table beside Meralez. She didn't look at him. He returned the favor by looking straight ahead.Chihouly lumbered in, glanced at dejahn and Meralez, and gave dejahn a knowing headshake. Dejahn shrugged.
0801. Major Delles stepped out into the small open space in front of the twenty techs. All stood and stiffened.
"Carry on." Delles gestured for them to sit.
With the others, dejahn settled in, waiting to hear what Delles had to say. He wouldn't like it. Briefings meant trouble ahead.
Delles cleared his throat, then straightened his shoulders. His poopsuit had creases, and the gold oak leaves on the starched collars glistened.
Dejahn was just happy to have enough clean suits.
"Power is the key to any advanced technology. Even biotech and biowar require large amounts of power. In this sector, the Seasies are still relying heavily on old-style power plants. In particular, they have a large magnetodynamic coal plant, the Tanshu Two. This mission is to bring down the plant. We'll take out the cooling systems, then the security lines, and finish up with a double, an ultra-ex powered EMP, then red goo for the coal itself. The satellite team will be handling the biobirds for the EMP and goo. We get the dirty work first."
A power plant? That sounded like the beginning of something, something dejahn wasn't sure he'd care for. The only reason the Seasies hadn't gotten rid of the old-style coal plants was that the costs were sunk. Spec-ops would be doing them a favor . . . unless a short-term power shortage happened to be necessary for some other reason. Like a sectorwide push in another few days.
He couldn't help but turn toward Meralez.
They both nodded, but so slightly that the major didn't notice, then returned their eyes to the presentation. The mess had darkened, to enhance the holo image of the target, a hulking industrial dinosaur that might have come from a hundred years earlier in NorAm.
"... water intakes are standard bioscrub . . . strike team three has already planted z-clambers . . . intake volumes are down 15 percent..."
The major droned on, and dejahn managed to catch what he needed to know, and that was that most of the techs would be on late-disengagement. Another sure sign of trouble.
The last power plant image vanished, replaced by three lists. "Check for your assignments here."
Dejahn checked. He had the main pod, but it didn't say what he'd be handling.
". . . any questions?" the major finally concluded. "Why the late-disengage, sir?"
Dejahn didn't see the speaker, but it sounded like Chihouly.
"A number of the targets require higher than normal acquisition ratios, and that requires greater tech presence and persistence than can be obtained through late-stage free-ops.
"Any other questions?"
No one spoke. There wasn't any point to it, not after the major's last answer.
"Duty stations will commence at 0900. Dismissed." The techs all rose, stiffened, and stood while the major departed. That left thirty minutes to kill. Dejahn got some coffee. When he looked around for Meralez, she and Castaneda had left. He sat back down.
Chihouly sat at the next table. Neither one said a word.
Finally, fifteen minutes later, dejahn got up and tossed the disposable mug into the reformulation bin and walked toward the pod.
Meralez was one of the first into the pod, after Vielho, and dejahn was right behind her. Suares followed dejahn. Esquival and Chihouly were behind him. The OpsCon was Captain DiLayne. Narrow-faced former tech, she'd come up the long way and never forgotten.
He dropped into the third seat, and linked. Tech dejahn.
Accepted. Flash background: S-wasps. Five swarms, seeded minus three months, advanced growth, designed to inject superconductives into critical components, relays, and certain bloc units. Power plant Tanshu- Two. See plot.
Disorientation. Another mosaic view, with tiny lines everywhere, the result of compound eyes with enhanced resolution. All he could "see" were trees and an open field—no—what looked like a big flat pond, maybe an abandoned rice paddy, or a fish farm—the Seasies still preferred real-enviro food.
Because the view was so distance-short, dejahn checked the mental side-view, noting the swarms' progress from where the nests had been seeded weeks earlier. Another thirty minutes, according to the schedule.
Swarm one was flying ahead of schedule. A vague image of a black spider and a sticky web slowed them.
He checked the sidescreens. The rest of the spec-ops vectors were well ahead. They should be.
Interrogative status? came from DiLayne. On schedule. Green.
He had to keep a tight rein on the swarms, even so, holding them back because the early units were slower than on the schedule.
Even so, the first S-wasps hit the sonic screens, flared into chitinous fragments. Minuscule needles pinged on his brain, and he created the image of sweet raw meat. Had to hold back the S-wasps until the scroaches and snators dealt with the guards and screens. Shouldn't be that many screens around an old power plant, even one that generated some six hundred megawatts.
Screens down. DiLayne's reminder came after dejahn had already vectored his swarms toward the control centers.
From one composite image—swarm two—he could see/sense a handful of technicians in white singlesuits scrambling for cover, diving away from the S-wasps. A second image was a bank of equipment. He targeted the S-wasps into the vulnerable crevices there.
His whole body convulsed. A sonic net—internal—had wiped out swarm five.
His eyes burned, and the side-plot was getting faint. Interrogative swarm status?
Operative units at 61 percent. . . 57 percent. . . 52 . . .
There was no automatic disengagement under a late disengage.
...49...
Disengage! Disengage!
His whole body convulsed with the shock. Then, he could feel his lungs laboring in the darkness. He'd stopped breathing for a few moments. Close . . . too frigging close . . .
His breathing slowed. His poopsuit was soaked, his back stuck with sweat to the sensie-seat, and he stank with fear-sweat as he eased off the mesh linkcap.
All he could do for a time was sit and breathe.
No one even looked in his direction in the dimness, even as bodies rushed past him. He shook his head and looked to his left. Suares lay limp in the sensie-chair—scarlet-flared. He wasn't breathing. He wouldn't, not ever, dejahn knew. Brain-fried.
Meralez was kneeling beside Vielho, but her words made no sense to dejahn. Vielho's body kept twitching, and he screamed silently, as if his vocal cords had been ripped out of his throat.
A med-tech appeared with a porta-gurney, moved around Meralez, and slapped a trankmask on Vielho. The medic never looked around as he strapped Vielho into the gurney, ignoring the other techs.
"Techs . . ." said the major from the ops station.
Dejahn knew what DiLayne meant. He stood, moved toward the pod exit, then touched the pad.
Tech dejahn . . . released, duty status green.
He followed Esquival out into the passageway. She didn't look back. Neither did he.
Late-disengagement. Suicide mission.
VII
Specialist biofeedback is required for optimal efficiency in special operations. Incomplete or null feedback impairs biounit response and efficacy in direct relationship to the total number of discrete units under operator influence and the neural complexity of the individual unit. . .SPEC-OPS 1421.45 DARPA
VIII
What could he do? Dejahn didn't know. Maybe nothing. Looked around the techs' mess. He was the only one there. Coffee, ersatz shit... it was cold. Nothing worse than cold, bitter, pseudocoffee.Bullshit, dejahn. Lots worse things. Just scared that it might happen to you. He pushed the thought away. Finally, he stood, shook his head.
He took the longer passageway. Softboots scuffed on the deck, almost silent. Everything was muffled and damped in the station. Missed real sunlight. Missed lots of real things. Sick bay was at the end, south end, he'd heard. Who knew when you never saw the sun?
He stepped inside sick bay. Duty med-tech just watched. Watched close.
Vielho lay in the second bay, in a medsack that surrounded all of his body. Only his face was exposed. His eyes were open, and his chest rose and fell.
A long moment passed, before dejahn spoke. "You'll be all right. You did
a good job." Was that right? Who the frig knew? "Vielho . . . I'm here . . . dejahn."
There was no response. The blank eyes did not move, did not blink.
Dejahn looked around the cubicle, located a stool. He pulled it over and sat where Vielho's eyes could see him, if they could see.
Finally, after another ten minutes, the silence pressed in on him. So much that he had to say something. Anything.
"Vielho . . . you know . . . you remind me of my brother. He's younger. Not much, two years. He's a teacher . . . some out-of-the-way place, Es-calante . . . he's like you, always had something pleasant to say . . . That's why I asked about the tea. He drinks tea. You know, one time, when we were moving the herd . . . yeah, the old man still handles sheep the old way . . . Casimir found one of the ewes had dropped twins late . . . never found their mother ... he bottle-nursed 'em until they were old enough to go with the others . . ." Dejahn didn't know why he'd told that story, or the one after it.
Finally, maybe an hour, maybe two, later, he got up from the stool and leaned over and put two fingers on Vielho's forehead. "Hold tight. . ."
Outside sick bay, he thought he saw Meralez in the passageway ahead, and he took the one to the left, that went back to the mess, not that he was hungry. Most times, he would have been glad to see Meralez.
Not this time.
IX
Major Delles surveyed the techs seated at the tables in the mess. This time, more than ten chairs were empty. One would have belonged to Suares, another to Vielho .. . and Chihouly. Too many names for one lousy obsolete power plant.Meralez had seated herself at one end of the single long table, with Castaneda on the other side. Dejahn hadn't tried to get close on the other side. He'd just taken the last seat near the bulkhead table.
"This is the big push." Delles smiled enthusiastically. "What we have planned here will upset the Seasies' economy for a decade or more, not to mention crippling their efforts to match us in biowar capabilities. What we're doing is just a small part of an overall coordinated program . . ."
An overall coordinated program? More like another frigged-up mess where nothing would go like planned, and a whole bunch of techs would get dis-shock or brain-fried.
". . . it's taken some time to identify the critical targets, and not all of them are obvious, but all are critical to the sectoral economy ..."
Just tell us what they are, thought dejahn. Skip the enthuse shit.
"... Lumut is critical to the development of the next wave of warm-water bioconversion systems . . . Targets will be the power systems, the membrane formulation complex, all comm-links, and the potable water system, as well as all humint armed units . . ."
Turn the place into a wasteland, just like they did with Cascadia Coast. . . and make sure no one's left who can explain what happened. Margot had been in Cascadia, just visiting. And dejahn had applied for spec-ops the next week.
". . . all the biounits are in place and registering green . . ."
As if you'd tell us about those that aren't.
"... We'll be using the main pod for the heavies, and two and three for the aux biounits. Here are the pod assignments."
The holo image appeared in the air beside the major. One of the names under pod two was dejahn.
Frigging support. It didn't help that Castaneda was assigned to the main pod. He forced a smile. At least, Meralez was in pod two with him. Not that she'd ever been other than polite to him, but even that helped.
"Any questions, Techs?" Delles barely paused before adding, "Dismissed. Operation begins at 0900 local tomorrow."
Dejahn stood.
Meralez walked by him, as if she would not speak to him. He nodded, deciding against smiling.
"I saw that. With Vielho. You're not so cold. Not like people think." She flashed a quick smile, almost secretive, before her face turned just tech-pleasant.
Cold? He kept to himself, but he wasn't cold, was he?
X
0849. Dejahn stood outside pod two. He didn't like being early, but he liked being late even less. In front of him, Esquival stepped forward, extending her hand. As she did, dejahn was aware of someone behind him—Meralez. He wanted to look back. He didn't.Then it was his turn. He extended his hand to the sensor. Tech dejahn.
Entry granted.
He slipped into the dimness. Captain DiLayne was Ops-Con again. That figured. Delles would take the main pod. Pod two was smaller, with only four sensie-seats. Dejahn took the second seat, and watched as Meralez stopped beside the third. He smiled at her through the dimness, but only for a moment. She only nodded.
He eased the mesh linkcap into place, then settled himself. Tech dejahn.
Accepted. Flash background: Snators—bioexplosive. Clutches implanted in five locales, activated at thirty-six minus. Links confirmed. Five targets—all broadband nodecasters. See plots.
The good news was that his targets weren't people, but the bad news was that he was riding herd on reptilian bioexplosives almost as deadly as ultra-ex. He'd need careful timing for the disengagement.
The five plots displayed the snators, all arrayed around Lumut, each less than three thousand yards from the target. Each had been sent in with a biogator weeks or months before, little more than a programmed bioblastula with accelerated growth patterning. That kind of planning was something dejahn didn't want to think about.
Interrogative vector status? snapped DiLayne.
Snators green, standing by for release.
Release at will.
He didn't need any more urging. The first group of snators left wakes, so energetic was their water entry. The odor of decaying meat permeated that link.
No smell through the sensie-links? Dejahn snorted to himself, even as he blocked the decay odor and the snators slowed, their snouts turning from side to side, as if puzzled by the change, but they kept swimming downstream.
The second attack group had begun to slide through the marsh and reeds toward the nodecaster on the low hillock to the south. The last three hundred yards was across what amounted to mowed lawn, and dejahn would have to sacrifice one of the snators to take out the sonic electric gating to the lawn—it might have been a cricket field or pitch, whatever they called it.
Group three had a curving path through the public gardens, exposed most of the way. That worried dejahn. Gatorlike creatures in the gardens would certainly attract some attention, but then, if need be, he could push them into a run, and snators could make speed.
Four and five had near-direct water routes, with only the last few hundred yards exposed, but five had to cross a side road, supposedly with low traffic.
He flicked from image to image, flickering from snator to snator so fast that twice the integrator blanked. The snators' binocular vision was clear, and there wasn't much color. He wanted to get a better and quicker personal sense of locale matched with the plot map, but he forced himself to slow down.
He did have another thirty standard minutes, and the snators were fast.
Group five was running ahead, but dejahn didn't see that it mattered. Better ahead and clear than on-sched and facing opposition.
Group three was already on target, less than sixty yards below the node-caster concealed in an artificial rock cliff slightly north of the center of the gardens.
One of the local patrollers was also there, and she had a stun-rifle out, leveling it at the lead snator. Dejahn dropped the third snator into limited freehunt, because its reactions and impulses were far faster than his through the links.
