The Ghost Brigades (12 page)

Out of the corner of his eye, Jared saw Seaborg slowly reach toward his Empee. ::Wait,:: Jared said. ::We're still in their peripheral vision. Wait until we're behind them.:: The two soldiers edged forward, putting Jared and Seaborg behind them; Seaborg nodded to Jared. They silently unslung their Empees, stabilized as best they could, and sighted in on the backs of the soldiers. Seaborg gave the order; bullets flew in a short burst. The soldiers stiffened and fell.

::The rest have Yukawa and Berkeley pinned down,:: Seaborg said. ::Let's get cracking.:: He set off. Jared was amused at how Seaborg's take-charge spirit, so recently dampened, had suddenly returned.

Ten minutes later, Yukawa and Berkeley were down to the last of their ammunition, and Jared and Seaborg caught sight of the remaining members of the 13th. To the left of them, eight meters below, two soldiers were camped behind a large fallen tree; to the right and about thirty meters forward, another pair were behind a collection of boulders. These soldiers were keeping Yukawa and Berkeley busy while the fifth soldier quietly flanked their position. All of them had their backs to Jared and Seaborg.

::I'll take the ones by the log; you take the ones at the boulders,:: Seaborg said. ::I'll tell Berkeley about the flanker but tell her not to get him until we get our guys. No point giving ourselves away.:: Jared nodded; now that Seaborg was feeling confident, his planning was getting better. Jared filed that datum away to consider later, and moved to steady himself in their tree, putting his back against the trunk and hooking his left foot under a lower branch for additional support.

Seaborg moved one branch lower on the tree to get around a branch that was impeding his sight line. The branch he stepped on, dead, cracked loudly under his weight and collapsed, falling out of the tree in what seemed the loudest possible way. Seaborg lost his footing and grabbed wildly at the branch below where he had stepped, dropping his Empee; four soldiers on the ground turned, looked up and saw him dangling there helplessly. They raised their weapons.

::Shit,:: Seaborg said, and looked up at Jared.

Jared fired in automatic-burst mode at the two soldiers at the boulders. One seized up and fell; the other dove around the boulders. Jared swiveled and fired on the soldiers at the log; he didn't hit anything but unnerved them long enough to switch his Empee to guided-missile mode and fire at the space between the two soldiers. The simulated rocket peppered both with virtual bits of shrapnel. They fell. Jared turned just in time to see the remaining soldier at the boulder lining up her shot. He launched a guided missile at her as she pulled her trigger. Jared felt his ribs go stiff and painful as his training suit constricted, and fumbled his Empee. He'd been shot, but the fact he didn't drop out of the tree told him he was still alive.

Training exercise! Jared was so pumped full of adrenaline that he thought he might pee himself.

::A little help here,:: Seaborg said, and reached over with his left hand for Jared to pull him up just as the fifth soldier, who had circled back, shot him in the right shoulder. Seaborg's entire arm stiffened in its suit; he let go of the branch he was dangling from. Jared grabbed at his left hand and caught him before his fall had gained momentum. Jared's left leg, still hooked under its branch by the foot, strained painfully from the additional load put on it.

On the ground, the soldier lined up his shot; virtual bullets or not, Jared knew if he were shot the stiffening of his suit would make him drop Seaborg and probably fall himself. Jared reached over with his right hand, grabbed his combat knife and threw hard. The knife buried itself in the meat of the soldier's left thigh; the soldier collapsed, screaming and pawing gingerly at the knife until Berkeley came up behind him and shot him into immobility.

::The 8th wins the war game,:: Jared heard Brahe say. ::I'm relaxing the training suits now for everyone who is still frozen. Next war game matchups in thirty minutes.:: The pressure on Jared's right side was suddenly and considerably relieved, as was the stiffness of Seaborg's suit. Jared hauled him up and then they both carefully picked their way to the forest floor to retrieve their weapons.

The unfrozen members of the 13th were waiting for them, breaking off from their squad mate, who was still moaning on the ground. ::You fuck,:: one of them said, getting directly into Jared's face. ::You threw a knife into Charlie. You're not supposed to try to
kill
anyone. That's why it's called a war
game
.::

Seaborg jammed in between Jared and the soldier. ::Tell that to your friend, asshole,:: he said. ::If your friend had shot us, I would have dropped eight meters without any way to control my fall. He didn't seem particularly worried about
me
dying as he was lining up his shot. Jared knifing your friend saved my life. And your friend will
survive
. So fuck him, and fuck you.::

Seaborg and the soldier sized each other up for another few seconds before the other soldier turned his head, spat on the ground, and walked back to his squad mate.

::Thanks,:: Jared said to Seaborg.

Seaborg glanced over to Jared, and then to Yukawa and Berkeley. ::Let's get out of here,:: he said. ::We've got another war game.:: He stomped off. The three of them followed.

On the way back, Seaborg dropped back to pace Jared. ::It was a good idea to use the trees,:: he said. ::And I'm glad you caught me before I dropped. Thank you.::

::You're welcome,:: Jared said.

::I still don't like you much,:: Seaborg said. ::But I'm not going to have a problem with you anymore.::

::I'll take that,:: Jared said. ::It's a start, anyway.::

Seaborg nodded and picked up his pace again. He was silent the rest of the way in.

 

“Well, look who we have here,” Lieutenant Cloud said, as Jared entered the shuttle with the other former members of the 8th. They were on their way back to Phoenix Station for their first assignments. “It's my pal Jared.”

“Hello, Lieutenant Cloud,” Jared said. “It's good to see you again.”

“It's Dave,” Cloud said. “Done with your training, I see. Damn, I wish my training had just been two weeks.”

“We still cover a lot,” Jared said.

“I don't doubt that in the least,” Cloud said. “So what's your assignment, Private Dirac? Where will you be headed?”

“I've been assigned to the
Kite,
” Jared said. “Me and two of my friends, Sarah Pauling and Steven Seaborg.” Jared pointed at Pauling, who had already sat down; Seaborg had yet to get on the shuttle.

“I've seen the
Kite,
” Cloud said. “Newer ship. Nice lines. Never been on it, of course. You Special Forces types keep to yourselves.”

“That's what they tell me,” Jared said. Andrea Gell-Mann came on board, bumping Jared slightly. She pinged an apology to him; Jared looked over and smiled.

“Looks like it's going to be a full-up flight,” Cloud said. “You can sit up in the copilot's seat again if you like.”

“Thanks,” Jared said, and glanced over to Pauling. “I think I'll sit with my other friends this time.”

Cloud looked over at Pauling. “That's entirely understandable,” Cloud said. “Although remember you owe me some new jokes. I hope in all that training you did they gave you some time to work on your sense of humor.”

Jared paused for a minute, recalling his first conversation with Gabriel Brahe. “Lieutenant Cloud, did you ever read
Frankenstein?
” he asked.

“Never did,” Cloud said. “I know the story. Saw the most recent movie version not too long ago. The monster talked, which I'm told means it's closer to the actual book than not.”

“What did you think of it?” Jared said.

“It was all right,” Cloud said. “The acting was a little over-the-top. I felt sorry for the monster. And the Dr. Frankenstein character was something of an asshole. Why do you ask?”

“Just curious,” Jared said, and nodded toward the seating compartment, which was now almost completely full. “We all read it. Gave us a lot to think about.”

“Ah,” said Cloud. “I see. Jared, allow me to share with you my philosophy of human beings. It can be summed up in four words: I like good people. You seem like good people. I can't say that's all that matters to everyone, but it's what matters to me.”

“That's good to know,” Jared said. “I think my philosophy runs the same way.”

“Well then, we're going to get along just fine,” Cloud said. “Now: Any new jokes?”

“I might have a few,” Jared said.

“We'll talk out loud here, if you don't mind,” General Szilard said to Jane Sagan. “It makes the waitstaff nervous to see two people staring intently at each other without actually making any sounds. If they don't see we're talking, they'll come over every other minute to see if there's anything we need. It's distracting.”

“As you wish,” Sagan said.

The two of them sat in the general's mess, with Phoenix spinning above them. Sagan stared. Szilard followed her gaze.

“It's amazing, isn't it,” he said.

“It is,” Sagan said.

“You can see the planet out of any portal on the station, at least some of the time. But no one ever looks,” Szilard said. “And then you come here, and you just can't stop staring at it. I can't, in any event.” He pointed to the crystal dome that encased them. “This dome was a gift, did you know that?” Sagan shook her head. “The Ala gave it to us as we built this station. It's diamond, this whole thing. They said it was a natural diamond that they carved out of an even larger crystal they hauled up from the core of one of their system's gas giants. The Ala were amazing engineers, so I've read. The story might even be true.”

“I'm not familiar with the Ala,” Sagan said.

“They're extinct,” Szilard said. “A hundred fifty years ago they got into a war with the Obin over a colony. They had an army of clones and the means to make those clones quickly, and for a while it looked like they were going to beat the Obin. Then the Obin tailored a virus keyed to the clones' genetics. The virus was initially harmless and transmitted by air, like a flu. Our scientists estimated it spread through the entire Alaite army in about a month, and then a month after that the virus matured and begun to attack the cellular reproduction cycle of every single Ala military clone. The victims literally dissolved.”

“All at once?” Sagan asked.

“It took about a month,” Szilard said. “Which is why our scientists estimated it took that long to infect the entire army in the first place. With the Alaite army out of the way the Obin wiped out the civilian population in short order. It was a fast and brutal genocide. The Obin are not a compassionate species. Now all the Alaite planets are owned by the Obin, and the Colonial Union learned two things. One, clone armies are a very bad idea. Two, stay out of the way of the Obin. Which we have done, until now.”

Sagan nodded. The Special Forces battle cruiser
Kite
and her crew had recently begun recon and stealth raids in Obin territory, to gauge the Obin's strength and response capabilities. It was dangerous work since the Obin were unforgiving of assaults, and technically speaking the Obin and the Colonial Union were not in a state of hostilities. Knowledge of the Obin-Rraey-Eneshan alliance was a closely guarded secret; the majority of the Colonial Union and the CDF were unaware of the alliance and its threat to humans. The Eneshans even maintained a diplomatic presence on Phoenix, in the Colonial capital of Phoenix City. Strictly speaking, they were allies.

“Do you want to talk about the Obin raids?” Sagan said. In addition to being a squad leader on the
Kite,
she was the ship's intelligence officer, charged with force assessment. Most Special Forces officers held more than one post and also led combat squads; it kept the ship rosters lean, and keeping officers in combat positions appealed to the Special Forces' sense of mission. When you are born to protect humanity, no one is above combat.

“Not now,” Szilard said. “This isn't the place for it. I wanted to talk to you about one of your new soldiers. The
Kite
has three new recruits, and two of them will be under you.”

Sagan bristled. “They will, and that's a problem. I had only one hole in my squad, but I have two replacements. You took one of my veterans to make room.” Sagan remembered the helpless look on Will Lister's face when his transfer order to the
Peregrine
came through.

“The
Peregrine
is a new ship and it needs some experienced hands,” Szilard said. “I assure you there are other squad leaders on other ships just as irritated as you. The
Kite
had to give up one of its veterans, and as it happens I had a recruit I wanted to place under you. So I had the
Peregrine
take one of yours.”

Sagan opened her mouth to complain again, then thought better of it and clammed up, stewing. Szilard watched the play of emotions on her face. Most Special Forces soldiers would have said the first thing that came into their heads, an artifact of not having social niceties banged into their head through a childhood and adolescence. Sagan's self-control was one of the reasons why she had come to Szilard's attention; that and other factors.

“Which recruit are we talking about?” Sagan said finally.

“Jared Dirac,” Szilard said.

“What's so special about him?” Sagan asked.

“He's got Charles Boutin's brain in him,” Szilard said, and watched again as Sagan fought back an immediate visceral response.

“And you think this is a
good
idea,” is what eventually came out of her mouth.

“It gets better,” Szilard said, and sent over Dirac's entire classified file, complete with technical material. Sagan sat silently, digesting the material; Szilard sat, watching the junior officer. After a minute one of the mess staff approached their table and asked if there was anything they needed. Szilard ordered tea. Sagan ignored the waiter.

“All right, I'll bite,” Sagan said, after she was done examining the file. “Why are you sticking me with a traitor?”

“Boutin's the traitor,” Szilard said. “Dirac has just got his brain.”

“A brain that you tried to imprint with a traitor's consciousness,” Sagan said.

“Yes,” Szilard said.

“I submit the question to your attention once more,” Sagan said.

“Because you have experience with this sort of thing,” Szilard said.

“With traitors?” Sagan asked, confused.

“With unconventional Special Forces members,” Szilard said. “You once temporarily had a realborn member of the CDF under your command. John Perry.” Sagan stiffened slightly at the name; Szilard noted it but chose not to comment. “He did quite well under you,” Szilard said. This last sentence was a bit of an ironic understatement; during the Battle of Coral, Perry carried Sagan's unconscious and injured body over several hundred meters of battlefield to get her medical attention, and then located a key piece of enemy technology as the building it was in collapsed around him.

“The credit for that goes to Perry, not me,” Sagan said. Szilard sensed another play of emotion from Sagan at Perry's name, but again left it on the table.

“You are too modest,” Szilard said, and paused as the waiter delivered the tea. “My point is, Dirac is something of a hybrid,” he continued. “He's Special Forces, but he may also be something else. I want someone who has experience with something else.”

“‘Something else,'” Sagan repeated. “General, am I hearing that you think Boutin's consciousness is actually somewhere inside Dirac?”

“I didn't say that,” Szilard said, in a tone that implied that perhaps he had.

Sagan considered this and addressed the implicit rather than the expressed. “You are aware, of course, that the
Kite
's next series of missions will have us engaging both the Rraey and the Enesha,” she said. “The Eneshan missions in particular are ones of great delicacy.”
And ones I needed Will Lister for,
Sagan thought, but did not say.

“I am of course aware,” Szilard agreed, and reached for his tea.

“You don't think having someone with a possibly emergent traitorous personality might be a
risk,
” Sagan said. “A risk not only to his mission but to others serving with him.”

“Obviously it's a risk,” Szilard said, “for which I rely on your experience to deal with. But he may also turn out to be a trove of critical information. Which will also need to be dealt with. In addition to everything else, you're an intelligence officer. You're the ideal officer for this soldier.”

“What did Crick have to say about this?” Sagan said, referring to Major Crick, the commanding officer of the
Kite
.

“He didn't have anything to say about it because I haven't told him,” Szilard said. “This is need-to-know material, and I've decided he doesn't need to know. As far as he knows he simply has three new soldiers.”

“I don't like this,” Sagan said. “I don't like this at all.”

“I didn't ask you to like it,” Szilard said. “I'm telling you to deal with it.” He sipped his tea.

“I don't want him playing a critical role in any of the missions that deal with the Rraey or the Enesha,” Sagan said.

“You'll treat him no differently from any other soldier under your command,” Szilard said.

“Then he could get killed like any other soldier,” Sagan said.

“Then for your sake you'd better hope it's not by friendly fire,” Szilard said, and set down his cup.

Sagan was silent again. The waiter approached; Szilard impatiently waved him off.

“I want to show this file to someone,” Sagan said, pointing to her head.

“It's classified, for obvious reasons,” Szilard said. “Everyone who needs to know about it already does, and we don't want to spread it around to anyone else. Even
Dirac
doesn't know about his own history. We want to keep it that way.”

“You're asking me to take on a soldier who has the capability to be an
immense
security risk,” Sagan said. “The least you can do is let me prepare myself. I know a specialist in human brain function and BrainPal integration. I think his insights on this could be useful.”

Szilard considered this. “This is someone you trust,” he said.

“I can trust him with this,” Sagan said.

“Do you know his security clearance?” Szilard asked.

“I do,” Sagan said.

“Is it high enough for something like this?”

“Well,” Sagan said. “That's where things get interesting.”

 

“Hello, Lieutenant Sagan,” Administrator Cainen said, in English. The pronunciation was bad, but that was hardly Cainen's fault; his mouth was not well formed for most human languages.

“Hello, Administrator,” Sagan said. “You're learning our language.”

“Yes,” Cainen said. “I have time to learn, and little to do.” Cainen pointed to a book, written in Ckann, the predominant Rraey language, nestled next to a PDA. “Only two books here in Ckann. I had choice of language book or religion book. I chose language. Human religion is…”—Cainen searched his small store of English words—“…harder.”

Sagan nodded toward the PDA. “Now that you have a computer, you should have more reading options.”

“Yes,” Cainen said. “Thank you for getting that to me. It makes me happy.”

“You're welcome,” Sagan said. “But the computer comes with a price.”

“I know,” Cainen said. “I have read files you asked me to read.”

“And?” Sagan said.

“I must change to Ckann,” Cainen said. “My English does not have many words.”

“All right,” Sagan said.

“I've looked at the files concerning Private Dirac in depth,” Cainen said, in the harsh but rapid consonants of the Ckann language. “Charles Boutin was a genius for finding a way to preserve the consciousness wave outside of the brain. And you people are
idiots
for how you tried to stuff that consciousness back in.”

“Idiots,” Sagan said, and cracked the smallest of smiles, the translation of the word in Ckann coming from a small speaker attached to a lanyard around her neck. “Is that your professional assessment, or just an editorial comment?”

“It's both,” Cainen said.

“Tell me why,” Sagan said. Cainen moved to send files from his PDA to her, but Sagan held up her hand. “I don't need the technical details,” she said. “I just want to know if this Dirac is going to be a danger to my troops and my mission.”

“All right,” Cainen said, and paused for a moment. “The brain, even a human one, is like a computer. It's not a perfect analogy, but it works for what I'm going to tell you. Computers have three components for their operation: There's the hardware, there's the software, and there's the data file. The software runs on the hardware, and the file runs on the software. The hardware can't open the file without the software. If you place a file on a computer that lacks the necessary software, all it can do is sit there. Do you understand me?”

“So far,” Sagan said.

“Good,” Cainen said. He reached over and tapped Sagan on the head; she suppressed an urge to snap off his finger. “Follow: The brain is the hardware. The consciousness is the file. But with your friend Dirac, you're missing the software.”

“What's the software?” Sagan asked.

“Memory,” Cainen said. “Experience. Sensory activity. When you put Boutin's consciousness into his brain, that brain lacked the experience to make any sense of it. If that consciousness is still in Dirac's brain—
if
—it's isolated and there's no way to access it.”

“Newborn Special Forces soldiers are conscious from the moment they are woken up,” Sagan said. “But we also lack experience and memory.”

“That's not
consciousness
they're experiencing,” Cainen said, and Sagan could sense the disgust in his voice. “Your damned BrainPal forces open sensory channels artificially and offers the illusion of consciousness, and your brain knows it.” Cainen pointed to his PDA again. “Your people gave me a rather wide range of access to brain and BrainPal research. Did you know this?”