17.
"Alright you miserable weasel bothering fuck twats, time for you to start earning your keep. At long last I may add" Sergeant Gumelar animatedly paced at the front of the briefing room. "We have a Lanark-Horishmo co-owned probe crash landed on Europa. Intel identifies it as a pirate action, with three hostiles located close to the crash site, armament unknown. We are the closest intervention ship and you have been invited to tender for the recovery of the probe and nullification of the pirates. ETA is four hours and twenty three minutes. The AI has requested that formal tenders be submitted within two hours and fifty seven minutes." she stared at the three marines in front of her, "Well what are you waiting for people? MOVE MOVE MOVE"
"Alright you miserable weasel bothering fuck twats, time for you to start earning your keep. At long last I may add" Sergeant Gumelar animatedly paced at the front of the briefing room. "We have a Lanark-Horishmo co-owned probe crash landed on Europa. Intel identifies it as a pirate action, with three hostiles located close to the crash site, armament unknown. We are the closest intervention ship and you have been invited to tender for the recovery of the probe and nullification of the pirates. ETA is four hours and twenty three minutes. The AI has requested that formal tenders be submitted within two hours and fifty seven minutes." she stared at the three marines in front of her, "Well what are you waiting for people? MOVE MOVE MOVE"
Gumelar
smiled as the three marines got in each other's way as they attempted to exit
the briefing room. It felt good to finally see how they'd perform under a real
scenario. A scenario she couldn't have planned better herself. A gentle clean
up operation. Any luck the pirates would put up some resistance, see how the
marines react to that, but not so much resistance as to threaten any real
damage to the drones or tac-suits.
Mason had
shot off in the direction of the machine shop, presumably to get the polymer
synthesis facility warming up for her little plastoid army. Sully headed
towards drone control at a jog, with Fuller easily keeping pace.
"This is
my big chance Sul" the big marine declared "Reckon I can tender under
you and Mason, show that I've got it when it really counts. Reckon Gumelar will
give me another shot when she sees me operate in real life"
"You
think?" Sully asked, slowing down a little - it didn't take long for him to
start to get out of breath. "And even if you do win the tender, which you
won't as I have this one covered, but say you did, do you really want to turn
things around with Gumelar?"
"Would
make for a slightly less unpleasant final voyage even if she sticks with the
plan of giving me the boot. Plus I just once want to knock that slightly
condescending smirk off her face. You know the one I mean? The one that says
'always knew you were a failure', can't stand it"
"I know
the one alright. Probably deliberate of course, honed over the decades to annoy
recruits into better performance"
"Well it
works" they'd reached the hatch to the drone control room, Fuller ducking
to make his way through, Sully close behind.
"Hi
guys" Brook was already in the room, leaning against the central data
projector.
"Hey
Brook" the two marines chorused "What you doing here?" Sully
added as he began calling up drone specs, blueprints and technical details
scrolling in the air in front of him.
"Just
some general maintenance, you know, the usual"
"Uh-huh.
Nothing to do with being nosey then?" Sully briefly turned to her, raising
his eyebrows, before returning to the data displays.
"What?
Me? Never" mock indignation "But being as you mention it, was is the,
er, tender?"
"Pirates
have crashed a LH probe on Europa" Fuller answered from across the room,
his own display of various drones orbiting around his head, as he manipulated
potential load outs with quick hand gestures.
"Wow,
your first proper job. My little marines are all grown up!"
"And
we're gonna show Gumelar a thing or two" said Fuller, dragging an image of
a large ballistic weapons pod onto a small drone. The projection flashed red
and the big marine cursed under his breath. "Getting the weight balance
right for VFM is a predictable pain in the arse though. How you doin'
Sul?"
"I got a
trick or two up my sleeve" Sully was working on the basis that Mason would
go for the same setup she'd run on Hebe, the six lightly armed plastoids. He
had their weight and cost spec pinned to one side of the projection in front of
him, enabling to contrast his own possible load outs.
"Is, er,
Gumelar tendering for this one?" asked Brook.
"Nope,
it's all ours" replied Fuller "She wants to see how we measure up.
Plus we only have the three drop ships, so we can't all tender anyway".
The marines wouldn't find out who won the tender to the last moment as the AI
used complex algorithms to compute its preferred option. This meant that all
marines tendering would load up on a drop ship each with their packs, but only
the victor would be launched.
Brook
frowned, scratching her forehead with the end of granddad's crowbar. Was this
the real reason Gumelar wasn't tendering, or could it be part of a wider plan
to do with the ship AI? She hadn't had time to do any more investigation, but
something didn't feel right here.
"Do you
guys trust Gumelar" asked Brook after a few moments contemplation.
"Odd
question" Sully stopped his work with the data projector and turned to
face Brook. "What do you mean?"
"You
think she'd ever put you in danger?"
"Er,
that's kind of her job. We are marines, danger is sort of what we do"
"You
don't think she'd betray you?"
"Betray? What in the solar system are you
on about Brook?" Sully looked a combination of surprised and confused.
"Sorry
Sul. It's just, it's difficult to explain, something just isn't right with Gumelar"
"A lot
isn't right with Gumelar, she's a nasty bitch, but I am at least confident that
she is our nasty bitch"
"I
guess" Brook looked down "Just, just be careful on this tender.
Please"
"Sure"
Sully playfully gave Brook a punch on the arm "You cool?"
"I
guess" Brook attempted a smile.
"In any
case, Sully's gonna be safely tucked up on board while I run the tender"
Fuller had his back to them on the other side of the room, but had obviously
been listening.
"You
wish big man, you wish" Sully returned to his display, leaving Brook to
ponder.
She wasn't,
however, able to ponder for long, interrupted by the large airlock through to
the drone store starting to cycle.
"Visitors"
remarked Fuller, although continuing with his tender procedure.
Brook did a
quick mental calculation of who was where on the ship to work out who it would
be coming out of the airlock. Her shoulders sank when it became obviously who
it was going to be. A light above the airlock glowed green and the hatch
opened. Out stepped Si.
"Afternoon
meat-heads, oh, and a groupie" he sneered at Brook as he started to remove
his vac-suit.
"You are
always welcome to remove you vac-suit on the other side of the airlock you know
Si" Brook replied icily.
"And to
what do we owe the pleasure of your company?" Sully interjected before the
tension between Si and Brook could intensify any further.
"Had to
make my ladies pretty for our guests. Now I can relax and watch while you fuck
up the tender"
"Guests?"
Sully looked up at Si.
"Yup.
What? You didn't know?" now both marines and Brook were looking at Si
questioningly. He smiled, enjoying the sensation of having knowledge that they
weren't privy to.
"Didn't
know what?" asked Fuller.
"The
other ship. It's further away from Europa than us, but is coming in hard. You
weren't expecting an easy tender were you?"
"Other
ship? Gumelar never said anything 'bout no other ship. Shit" Fuller wasn't
happy at the extra competition. It was rare given that there weren't all that
many intervention ships in a lot of space, but if two or more were within
feasible distance of a tender, then both or all would be invited to bid.
"That's odd"
Brook had locked a questioning gaze with Sully.
"Gumelar
probably didn't know" Si shrugged "The other ship was doing its best
to stay hidden, not transponder or radio signal. Even our own ship AI was
denying its existence till I ran an extra scan or two. You can't get a drive
signature that large past me. Gumelar maybe, but not me"
"Why
would our ship AI not notice it?" Brook had to swallow her pride in
lowering herself to ask Si a question.
"Noticing
it and deeming in worth the effort to share the information with us meat sacks
are two different things in the AI's mind" another shrug "Now if
you'll excuse me, I gotta go settle in for this evening's entertainment. You
reckon the culinary drone can do popcorn?" The hatch out of the drone
control room swished open and Si climbed through into the rest of the crew
quarters.
“I don't like
this guys. Another ship that no one told us about?" Brook hugged herself
in nervous thought.
"Nah,
Gumelar probably knows all about it. Just wants to see how we react" Sully
reasoned. "Could even be a bonus for us if Mason still doesn't know"
he returned to his data displays.
"Fuck
Mason. We're up against other marines. They're probably fully accredited as
well, think we were the only ship running trainees this time out. The AI factor
that kind of shit in to the VFM?" Fuller spoke quickly, now facing away
from his displays and towards Sully and Brook.
"It's
probably in the algorithm somewhere. No point fretting though" Sully
replied "Sounds like we're the closer ship and if they're burning as hard
as Si said, then we have a big advantage in initial energy cost. In fact,
sooner we get submitted, sooner AI tells those other pricks to stop shitting
fuel and leave one of us to get on with it"
"Why
would they burn so hard for a simple clear up op?" Brook wondered aloud.
"What
you know about 'simple'?" Sully asked with a slightly bemused smile.
"I've seen you and simple, it normally involves that sodding
crowbar"
"Ok, I'm
not a fancy expert in marine operations, but you got to wonder where the VFM is
in them trying to get here so quick when there's already a closer ship, given
that the margins on a probe recovery can't be all that massive in the first
place"
"Margin? You some kind of AI economist
now?" Sully attempted to deflect.
"She has
a point though" Fuller chipped in, both he and Brook now looking at
Sully.
"Why you
staring at me? Who knows what the other ship is up. Even if there is another ship, it could just be Si yanking our chains.
All we know is that we have to deposit our tenders in..." quick flick of
eyes "less than an hour. So if you'll leave me out of your little
conspiracy theory, I got a tender to win" and with that he emerged himself
again in the data display.
Brook and
Fuller stood in silence for a few seconds.
"I
should, er, probably get back to it" Fuller pointed a thumb behind himself
at his data projection.
"Sure, I
got places to be anyway" Brook lied. She didn't have anywhere else to be,
with engineering duties assigned to the drones and the still moping Phelps. The
plan had been to investigate Gumelar's evil plan a bit more, but with the
upcoming tender, she wasn't sure how best to proceed. The other marines
wouldn't thank her for exposing the Sergeant while they had their bums hanging
above Europa in the drop ships.
Slowly
walking down the corridor away from drone control her thoughts turned to Si. He
was still sort of a suspect, even if whatever was going on felt more like
Gumelar's MO. She pinged a location request to the ship AI for him, see what he
was up to. The ship plan that came up in her iris augment showed him being down
in the crash-vats. Made sense, he'd probably want to have his space-drones (or
'ladies' as the sexist berk insisted on calling them) out and about with the
other ship around; it being standard practise to control the drones from the
relative calm and safety of the vats.
It was always
a sort of a drone-controller willy waving contest whenever two intervention
ships came close to one another. Controllers that would not formally be in a
combat situation (intervention ship on ship combat was exceedingly rare given
how costly it was) would do the modern equivalent of joust. Drones would dart
around the ships, performing complicated manoeuvres, often in formation, while
the two controllers would try and put each other off with their hacking and
subversion skills. The ultimate prize was to "flip" or gain control
of a rival's drone and would assure substantial bragging rights. To Brook, it
all seemed terribly childish, but each to their own. She shrugged.
A contact
request popped up in here iris augment. Before she could accept or reject it,
Si's gurning face popped up in front of her eyes, causing Brook to
recoil.
"You
looking for me?" he asked.
"Ugh,
how did you over-ride my communicator augment? And how do you know that I
pinged a location request?" Brook spoke out loud in her annoyance, rather
than sub-vocalising it like most people did with iris to iris
communication.
"Why ask
questions you aren't intelligent enough to understand the answers to. What did
you want? I'm a busy man" he asked irritably.
A thought
occurred in Brook's head.
"You
know what Si?" she asked, a smile at the corners of her mouth "You've
pretty much just answered it for me"
"What
the hell you on about?"
"Why
asked questions that you aren't intelligent enough to understand the answer
to?" Brook replied.
Si just
scowled, then his picture blinked out of her vision, communication link
broken.
The number
two suspect just made it back up to top spot. Si had the ability and the
arrogance to try something as audacious as hack the central ship AI. It must
also be how he found out about the other ship before the rest of the them.
Probably all some kind of power trip for him.
Mind you,
breaking through a wall to the AI hub, was that really Si's style? Wasn't that
just a bit too, well, hands on for him? Gah!
Something still didn't sit right. Brook scowled, causing the approaching
Billington to jump, emitting a small mewing noise.
"Oh,
sorry Billi...ington, didn't see you there"
"That is
ok, Brook. Is everything well, with you?" Billington attempted to regain
his composure, a hand smoothing down his comb over.
"Yeah,
I'm alright, er, thanks" Brook went to move past him.
"You
should not let Si bother you so much"
"Sure,
good advice. I gotta go do, er, engineering, er, stuff" Brook headed off
down the corridor, an uncomfortable feeling in her stomach.
Billington
watched her go.
He smiled.
No comments:
Post a Comment