BAJOVNÍK: You’re asking a lot of questions. How about a question from me? How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
Khalid laughed to himself and turned away from the device. Instantaneous communication. A marvel. And now it was his. He surveyed the helm of the IF supply ship he and his crew had just raided. The room was a mess. Three corpses floated in the space, their blue IF uniforms now heavily stained with blood. The monitors and equipment at the helm were all new and flashy, but Khalid’s crew had not been careful with their aim during the firefight. There was little that could be stripped at this point and recovered. They would have to do a better job of that next time.
And yes, there would be a next time. The stolen holotable had given him good intel. The shipping lines, the position of the supply ship, everything had proven accurate. A part of him had worried that it was a trap. He had taken the information too easily. But no, the IF was as stupid and incompetent as he had suspected. And now it was all at his fingertips.
Only two of the IF crew remained alive. One of them stood stoically nearby, unflinching. Maja had a gun on the man to keep him from trying anything. Someone had broken his nose, but to the man’s credit, he defiantly ignored the pain.
Khalid gestured to the instant communicator. “What is this device called?”
“Do you want the Formics to win?” the man with the broken nose said. “We are trying to protect the human race from—”
Khalid shot the man and turned to the other officer. No, the second one was not an officer. He was a boy. Barely eighteen. An ensign, shaking he was so frightened.
“My patience is a little thin today,” said Khalid. “What is that device called?”
“The ansible,” the boy said.
“The ansible,” said Khalid, testing the word. “What language is that?”
“I … don’t know.”
“Doesn’t matter. It connects with Luna instantly?”
“Yes.”
“And I can send a message to anyone with it?”
“No,” said the boy. “It only connects with other, paired ansibles. It’s not like the nets. The IF is building a bigger network, but it’s not ready yet.”
“So who else can I send a message to?” asked Khalid.
“Other ships of our supply line. Other commanders. There are a total of twelve contacts in this network. Plus CentCom.”
“All blue bloods? Soldiers like you, I mean? IF ships?”
“Yes, sir.”
“That’s not very helpful,” said Khalid. “And rather disappointing. Can the IF track it?”
The boy furrowed his brow. “The ansible? No. We use other equipment for tracking. The ansible is only for communication.”
“If you’re lying to me, my friend over there will cut out your intestines and choke you with them.” Khalid gestured to Cleeg, the largest member of Khalid’s crew. All muscle and dirty clothes and ugly complexion. In truth, Cleeg wasn’t much of a fighter, but he looked like he could be.
“I’m not lying,” said the boy.
“Where are the transmitters?” Khalid asked.
“There aren’t any,” said the boy. “That’s it. It’s just the ansible.”
Ibrahim drew his knife. He had gathered in close with the rest of the crew, surrounding the boy. “Lie to my brother one more time.”
“I swear to you,” the boy said. “That’s it. There are no transmitters. There’s only the ansible.”
“There’s no time lag, Ibrahim,” said Khalid. “This is new tech. Put the knife away.”
Ibrahim sheathed his knife.
“What’s your name?” Khalid asked the boy.
“Ensign Rynsburger.”
“Your first name.”
“Gustaaf.”
“Well, Gustaaf, this is where you agree to help me. You do want to help me, don’t you?”
Gustaaf’s eyes shifted back and forth to the members of Khalid’s crew, who were hovering around him now, looking menacing. Maja had blood on her face, but it obviously wasn’t her own. Khalid rolled his eyes. They were all being a little theatrical.
“Look at me, Gustaaf,” said Khalid. “Not them. I’m the one you want to help. This ansible, can it be moved?”
“Yes. I know how. I help with the upgrades.”
“It gets upgrades?”
“Every four or five months. It’s always getting smaller and smaller.”
“Good,” said Khalid, “because you’re going to put it on my ship for me. Maja, Cleeg, watch him while he works. He’ll be very careful with the ansible, won’t you, Gustaaf?”
The boy nodded, cowering a little from Maja.
“The rest of you come with me,” said Khalid. He led them to the cargo bays. The ship was packed with supplies. Food, tools, raw materials, weapons. It was intended for a large shipyard in the Kuiper Belt, and it was more wealth than Khalid had ever seen in his life. The crewmembers whooped and hollered and flew off through the cargo bay like children given free rein in a candy store.
Ibrahim hung back at the entrance with Khalid. “What are we going to do with all of this?” said Ibrahim. “We can’t take this with us. It won’t fit on our ship. And we can’t fly anywhere with this ship, either. It’s slow. The IF would track us and catch us.”
“We load what we can into our ship and we run,” said Khalid. “Food and other essentials. It seems a shame, though, doesn’t it? All this wealth, and we can only take a tiny piece of it.”
Ibrahim frowned, looking troubled.
“Speak your mind, brother,” said Khalid.
“What that officer said back there,” said Ibrahim. “We don’t want the Formics to win, do we?”
“Do you think we’re the only profiteers in this war, brother? Contractors steal and swindle along every step of the process. There’s corruption from the top to the bottom. All we are is a bit more friction. Lem Jukes has made billions of credits off this war. We work harder than he does. Why shouldn’t we get ours?”
Ibrahim nodded, but he still looked unconvinced. “Perhaps. It’s just … we didn’t use to be this hard, brother. You used to hate the killing.”
“I still do,” said Khalid. “I despise it. But this is war. This is the world the Formics and the IF have created. We can let them brush us aside, or we can live like we deserve.”
“Then what will you do with that ensign once he’s moved the ansible? Kill him?”
“No, Ibrahim. You’ll do it. Because you know I’m right.”
CHAPTER 27
Deception
To:
[email protected] From:
[email protected] Subject: Boots and Battle Room
* * *
Mazer,
There are two attachments. One is for the Battle Room. A simple construction. I’ve probably erred on the side of durability. Outer-space cage fighting will soon become a popular sport. Wish I had thought of it.
Second attachment is my redesign for the Stability Boots—which Magoosa has taken to calling StabBoots or Stabs. As you’ll see from the 3D model, the boot is equipped with a triangle of rods that extend outward and anchor to the tunnel wall. So each boot triangulates. You set the anchors by flexing your toes, and withdraw the rods by relaxing your toes. This gives you greater control inside the Formic tunnels and allows you to stabilize yourself in an instant.
Magoosa climbed into our heating ducts with a prototype. It was a major workout for his toes, but the boots worked well.
This design obviously replaces the spider harness that would have gone around a soldier’s waist. The mechanics of that are just too complex. There are far too many ways a marine could get tangled up in the extending rods. And the last thing we want to do is obstruct a marine’s movements. Applying the same principle of the anchor rods to the feet works much better. Let me know your thoughts. We’ve come a long way since I suggested a tunnel cart. I wince at the idea now.
Vico
Bingwe
n pushed himself deeper into the practice tunnel, holding up his slaser and listening for the enemy. The barrel of the weapon poked through the nanoshield that hovered in the air in front of him like a pane of flexible glass. The shield moved forward as he did, expanding and contracting at the edges to conform with the ever-changing shape of the tunnel. The metal exosuit was a tight fit, but Bingwen didn’t find it restrictive. The helmet had no visor, which had taken some getting used to, but the built-in cameras worked well, affording Bingwen a wide panorama, even in the near total darkness of the tunnel.
The cargo bay was full of mock tunnels like this one—with twists, switchbacks, forks, and dead ends. Mazer and the engineers had used metal cargo crates stacked close together to create the tunnels, and they were always moving the crates around to make new and more complex tunnel scenarios. Hardened foam had been sprayed onto the cargo crates, creating random shapes and textures that resembled the tunnel walls of an asteroid. Excess clumps of foam created realistically narrow passages and gaps. Because of his smaller size, Bingwen navigated the narrow tunnels better than most cadets during the training exercises. But today the odds were stacked against him. Every cadet in the squadron was hunting him.
Bingwen had thought that his experience with the Formic tunnels in China would prepare him for this, but he could not have been more wrong. Moving through cramped spaces in zero G was much harder. Yes, it was easier to push his body along in zero G, but with gravity he had always been in control. Here, any quick movement could send him into a spin or destabilize him. To say nothing of the need to maintain his orientation. On Earth, down was obvious. Here inside the tunnels it was much easier to get lost.
Bingwen stepped forward with his StabBoots, flexing and unflexing his toes to extend and retract the anchor rods. The muscles of his feet and toes were well developed now, and moving with the boots was second nature.
He paused, listening. Had he heard a sound ahead of him? A rustling perhaps, like the sound of fabric brushing against the tunnel wall? Four cadets were hunting him, playing the Formics. Bingwen wasn’t sure where they were located, but the external mike on his helmet was sensitive.
He waited until he heard the sound again. There. Yes, definitely ahead of him.
Or was it behind him?
Sound echoed so easily inside the tunnel that it was hard to pinpoint where it came from.
Bingwen waited a minute. Then two. Nothing. Had it been a distant echo?
He advanced a step. The nanoshield advanced as well. After months of practice with the shield, it still felt strange to have hundreds of thousands of nanobots so close to his head, responding instantaneously to his movements, like an extension of his own body. It was the one piece of gear he would never get used to. Nanobots could disassemble hulmat, the hardest substance ever discovered. Bingwen shuddered to think what the bots could do to his face.
He heard a sound again. Louder this time. Close. But not the brush of fabric. This was a foot pushing off the metal floor, like a scratch of rough sandpaper. Was the Formic just ahead around the corner?
He looked behind him. Nothing.
He normally had a second nanoshield guarding him from the rear, but for today’s exercise Mazer had allotted him only one.
The Formics were closing in. He could feel them, like a noose slowly tightening. He heard the scraping sound again and this time there was no question as to where it had come from.
“Rear,” he said.
The nanoshield in front of him collapsed into a tight haze then flew down the length of his body past his feet, where it formed into a flat shield again, protecting him from the rear.
“You’re dead,” said a voice in front of him.
Bingwen looked up to see Chati pointing a finger at him, a wide grin on his face.
“A doily just blew you to itty bitty bits, Bingwen,” Chati said. Then he cupped his hand to his mouth. “Bingwen soup in Tunnel Four. Bingwen soup in Tunnel Four. All you can eat. Crackers not included.”
Below him, past Bingwen’s feet, Nak, another cadet pretending to be a Formic, appeared. “Suckered you, Bing.”
Bingwen laughed along with them, but inside he was groaning. He hated losing.
They wiggled their way out of the tunnels and met at the entrance to hold a debriefing.
“Good work,” said Mazer. “Bingwen, don’t look so glum. You had one shield. Anyone here in those circumstances would have had the same outcome.”
“Bing hates losing,” said Chati, smiling.
“I hope so,” said Mazer. “I hope he hates it so badly he doesn’t sleep at night. Because in close-quarter fighting, you only lose once. After that you’re dead. Bingwen, moving your shield to your feet in response to an approaching threat was the right move. Anything you could have done differently?”
“I should have advanced and checked the tunnel ahead first. It bent to the right just half a meter in front of me. Had I checked I could have wasted Chati.”
“Possibly,” said Mazer. “These are split-second decisions. But securing the area before dropping a defense is a good idea. Anyone else? Chati, what could you have done differently?”
“I should have brought a bowl for the free Bingwen soup,” said Chati, which earned a round of laughter.
Mazer’s face was impassive. “I know you’re having fun, Chati, but I have seen a doily obliterate a friend. There is nothing amusing about that in the slightest.”
Chati blushed. “Yes, sir. My apologies.”
They debated how to use the nanoshield when only one of a soldier’s two shields was operative. When they had finished Mazer said, “Tomorrow we rotate the tunnels. New missions, new assignments. Right now, last thing of the day, we’re heading to the Battle Room.”
There was a clamor of excitement.
“To observe,” said Mazer.
The cadets groaned. The marines on board were constantly training in the Battle Room outside the ship, and the cadets rarely got a chance to run maneuvers. Bingwen didn’t mind observing. Sometimes he learned more about strategy by watching the whole battlefield at once, than by being in the middle of the fighting with a myopic view of what was going on around him.
The cadets gathered in the observation room and watched as Red Army battled Green Army. Mazer had helped to organize the teams and designate captains when the Battle Room was first completed. Someone had started a scoring system, and individual soldier and team scores were posted periodically in the exercise room.
When the battle ended, Mazer reviewed with the cadets what they had observed. What worked? What didn’t? Why? What would you do differently?
“Why a cube for the Battle Room?” he asked them. “Why not a sphere?”
“We don’t think in spheres,” said Bingwen. “We’re planet-based. Yes, the Earth is a sphere, but we still think north, south, east, west. Left, right, up, down. We need opposites like that. We need to have the ability to say, go left, go right, go north, go south in order to use the human brain the way it’s been programmed to work. It’s hard to do that in a sphere because there is no plane of reference. Plus a sphere is simply harder to construct. A cube, with its straight lines, is much easier to build.”
Mazer’s wrist pad began to vibrate. He read the message, then addressed the group. “That’s all for today. Dismissed. Bingwen, could you stay after please?”
When Mazer and Bingwen were alone, Mazer said, “We’re wanted in Rear Admiral Zembassi’s office.”
Bingwen understood at once. Months ago Li had appointed Bingwen as commander of the cadets. Now that the ship was in the Belt, they were close enough to approach an asteroid.
“You think we’re getting orders to attack an asteroid?” said Bingwen.
“That’s my guess,” said Mazer. “Are you ready for this?”
“You can answer that better than I can.”
“You’ve seen more combat than most men on this ship,” said Mazer. “You’ve been ready for a while. It’s the other cadets I worry about.”
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They reported to Zembassi’s office. Colonel Li and a few other senior officers had already gathered. Zembassi waved his hand in the holofield and brought up a starchart of the Belt with thousands of dots of light. He made another hand movement, and hundreds of the dots turned from white to red.
“The red dots represent the asteroids we believe the Formics have seized,” said Zembassi. “We initially feared that these rocks might be missiles intended for Earth, but we have yet to identify a single asteroid on a trajectory to Earth. In fact, they seem to be going in every direction but toward Earth.”
The red dots on the screen began to move in random directions.
“The trajectories make no sense,” said Zembassi. “There’s no order. Some asteroids have coalesced into groups of four or five. Others have moved out of the ecliptic, only to change course and come back down again. Others are moving away from Earth. It’s random.”
“Why would the Formics send asteroids away from Earth?” said Li. “That’s what I don’t understand.”
“They’re feints,” said Bingwen.
The men all turned to him as if they had forgotten a twelve-year-old boy was present.
“There is a pattern to these movements,” said Bingwen. “It’s the same pattern the Formics have used from the beginning. A pattern of deception. First with Copernicus. Then with the other Parallax satellites. And now these asteroids. Everything they’ve done has been subterfuge. They seized these asteroids using miniships that we didn’t even know were in our system. That took planning, logistics, and solid intelligence on where our ships were located so that the miniships could avoid them. Even more impressive is that the Formics also had intelligence on what these asteroids are composed of. Think about it. Every seized asteroid is a known water-ice asteroid with high concentrations of silicon and other useful metals. These aren’t random rocks. These are specified targets because of their chemical composition. Note also that only one Formic miniship went to each asteroid. So no redundancies. This is an enemy that is extremely organized and extremely well informed. Nothing they do is random. If their actions appear random, it’s simply another form of deception.”