over there." Gibby pointed to a tangle of fibers dimly seen in the murk. Faint flashes of electrical activity backlit the dense canopy. He zoomed in for a closer look, navigating ANAD carefully through the dangling projections.
"The truth is--" Gibby went on, "HNRIV could config itself to look like any of these structures--a dopamine cluster, a cell vesicle, axon chains, anything--and I'd never know it. We don't have the time or the resources to recon everywhere."
"So what do we do?" Barnes asked. She was peering warily out the van's windows, as Deeno drove them across the rain-slick tarmac of the airport toward the Quantum Corps hyperjet. "What can we do?"
Gibby shrugged. "Wait 'til he comes around. Watch him closely for a while, see if he's acting normally."
"Normally? None of us acts normally these days," Barnes said. "What the hell is normal?"
"I'm sure the Major'll want to do a full neural function test back at Table Top.”
The van jerked to a halt. Moments later, the rear door slid open. The 2nd Nano troopers peered in…the ones who were left: Bright, Menendez, Wride. That’s when they saw Lieutenant Delforza. They stiffened.
"Well…what the hell happened? We left that complex before putting it out of commission. We didn’t finish the mission.”
“Your Lieutenant didn’t make it,” D’Nunzio hissed. She had already covered up the Italian officer’s body with a loose poncho. “We had to do an insert on Wings here…he was swarmed with HNRIV.”
“What about the Red Hammer complex…we can’t just leave it.”
“Oh, I can fix that,” Deeno said. “We left a small force of replicants…not the master, just barebones bots…inside. All I have to do is send a signal—“ She nodded to Gibby, who pressed a button on the IC panel “—and the place’ll burn like the inside of lightning bolt.”
Though no one could see anything, out past Kuluba Hill on the other side of the Niger River bridge, Banikaiyan Mountain was burning inside. Deep underground in the bowels of the Red Hammer compound, the remaining ANAD bots received Gibbs’ signal. The signal instructed the bots to execute a max rate replication program. Moments later, as the bots slammed atoms and multiplied in exponential overdrive, a small supernova hot ball of light materialized in the basement and began expanding. In less than an hour, the swarm would occupy every available cubic centimeter of space in the compound, wrecking the facility and obliterating everything inside, including any unsuspecting occupants, and residual HNRIV mechs. After that, with no more structural support from its outside walls, the Red Hammer facility would implode of its own weight and Banikaiyan Mountain would forcibly reclaim the space it had once occupied.
Nothing but crushed rubble would remain.
Barnes and Gibbs filled the 2nd Nano troopers in, as the rest of the Detachment began transferring gear to the jet. Its cargo hold was a cavernous open space, its nose swung wide like a gaping whale, ready to devour anything stuffed inside.
D’Nunzio bent down to study the tense, pale face of Johnny Winger.
The best they could hope for was that Gibby and ANAD had rooted out all the HNRIV mechs. Still, there was a chance they hadn’t and Winger would have to be kept under close observation.
When a trooper got infested like that, Major Kraft couldn't just throw him back into the fight. You had to be sure.
Detachment Alpha and 2nd Nano spent a few minutes putting together notes for a joint after-action debrief. Sergeant Adam Bright was now the ranking trooper.
“We couldn’t have done it without you, guys,” Bright told them. “Cadets or not, my report will indicate you’re more than ready for action.”
“And to think we haven’t even graduated yet,” Mighty Mite Barnes sniffed. “Maybe we can substitute this mission for some of that calculus I can’t figure out.”
The Quantum Corps hyperjet was airborne and winging its way over the darkened west African desert in less than an hour. In sick bay, Johnny Winger twitched and mumbled for much of the flight, silently watched by a rotating shift of Gibbs, Barnes, D'Nunzio and Nguyen. Barnes pressed cool rags to his face and forehead; his skin was clammy though the bedscanner showed no fever.
What are you seeing in there, Cadet Winger? What's happening inside that head? What nightmares are raging between those watery blue eyes?
Gibbs and Barnes worked up their own after-action report and, after several hours of rehashing the incident, pronounced themselves satisfied the report reflected what had happened as accurately as they could make it. Gibby squirted it to Table Top in a burst off the nearest satellite and went aft to the galley to find something cold to drink.
It was going to be one of hell of a debrief back at Table Top.
“Graduation Day”
A week later, after another ANAD medbot sweep through the corridors of his brain, and some intensive rehab, Johnny Winger was pronounced fit to go by the medics at Table Top. He stood proudly at attention in the ranks on a wind-swept early fall day at the base parade ground, Drexler Field. The sky was blindingly blue and bright, but occasional flurries drifted down of the nearby Buffalo Range and leaves swirled across the manicured lawns as the ceremony proceeded.
Jamison Winger was in the stands, full to bursting with pride, as his youngest child was ordered out of the ranks and marched smartly front and center to stand before Major Jurgen Kraft and the base commander, General Kincaid.
Deeno D’Nunzio, still at attention in the ranks, couldn’t resist a quip to Buddha Nguyen, who stood rigidly at attention right next to her.
“Jeez, you’d never know the Wingman had bugs in his brain a week ago. Still a bit unsteady but at least he can walk.”
Nguyen smirked quietly. “Takes more than a few Red Hammer mechs to keep a good atomgrabber down. The Major still can’t believe—“
“QUIET IN THE RANKS!” The Cadet Top Sergeant, a real badass named McGuirk, boomed out from the front of the assembled troopers.
All eyes focused on Johnny Winger and Major Kraft, at the head of the gathering.
Winger saluted Ironpants smartly. Kraft pulled out a small box, black velvet backing inside. There were two medals lying on the velvet.
“The first award goes to Cadet John Winger for exceptional courage beyond the call of duty and extraordinary actions pursuant to a mission critical to the security of a valued ally…namely the Republic of Mali. This is the Legion du Merit, with oak leaf clusters—“ Here, Kraft leaned forward and draped the medal on its chain around Winger’s neck.
The two of them saluted. Applause rippled through the crowd in the stands.
“The second medal here—“ Kraft withdraw a gold atom pin from the box and held it up, “is an important step in the career of any atomgrabber. As commanding officer of 1st Nanospace Battalion, I hereby award Cadet John Winger the atom pin and swirls of a 2nd Lieutenant in the United Nations Quantum Corps. Mr. Winger has successfully completed all requirements and is hereby declared a graduate of nog school and a commissioned officer in this august unit.” Here, Kraft pinned the atom and swirls on Winger’s chest.
The two saluted again.
In the stands behind, Jamison Winger received backslaps and hugs from Johnny’s sister Joanna and his brother Bradley.
“Congratulations, sir—“
“A great day for all—“
“The little scamp finally did it,” Brad muttered.
Mr. Winger shushed him. “That’s enough of that---it’s a proud moment for all of us—“
As per long-standing custom at Table Top, once all the commissions had been awarded, a small band played a smart victory march, and the troopers paraded before the stands. At the end of the march, a small tightly controlled swarm of ANAD bots was released from a containment capsule at one end of the field. The swarm swelled into a visible flickering fog, rising quickly in the gusty air and forming a faint likeness of the Quantum Corps emblem in the sky over the field. The likeness stayed in position against gusty winds fo
r a few minutes, hovering on its picowatt propulsors, then was commanded to disperse to the mountains.
Major Kraft came over to shake hands with the newly-minted officers and troopers.
“Son, you did something special over at Banikaiyan. The Malians are grateful. UNIFORCE is grateful. And just so you know, the adventure’s just beginning. Nobody knows where all this is going. We’re making up the rules as we go along. But I do know one thing, son: small is all”!
Winger, Barnes, D’Nunzio and the others were gathered around the Major.
“Major, what’s our next mission?” Barnes asked.
Kraft fiddled with his black forest of a moustache. “There’s scuttlebutt on the wire that you’re going back to Mali, Sergeant. Nano-forensics on the HNRIV outbreak…and what’s left of that Red Hammer facility.”
“Ah, Mali—“ said D’Nunzio, as she fingered her new sergeant’s stripes. “—what’s not to like…flies, fleas, backed-up sewage in the streets…garden spot of the universe.”
“Yeah,” said Barnes, “that’s where I want to take my next liberty call.”
Kraft had turned suddenly serious. “Enjoy home cooking while you can, troopers. You’ll get your wish soon enough.” He didn’t yet know it, but a new adventure for the atomgrabbers of 1st Nano was even then blowing up in the red desert hills north of Bamako, a mission that would tax the skills and wits of the newest troopers Deeno and Mighty Mite in every