Loading Souls by Dalen Buchanan
Saint Peter put together a media of the next morning at our request. Father Luke said it would both "Praise and inform" our militia, we just thought it would be really funny to show in the mess hall:
The supply sergeant woke to shouting. It was almost sunrise outside. His face was lying on the table in a small puddle of brandy and drool. He sat up with a start and looked around for his radio. He was still looking when two of his soldiers burst into the bunker bay shouting. "A bunch of trucks are gone, Sergeant. Everybody was knocked out" The sergeant looked into the bunker and saw empty shelves. The shift change would happen in a couple hours.
The Sergeant had been in this army a while and knew how military justice was served. He also knew that twenty men could not keep a secret. Claiming he would "fix it", he loaded some items in a truck and headed south. He had a brother in law with some land down there. He would lay up for a while on his bug out money.
At the shift change, a few soldiers could not be found to relieve. Most of the rest were very anxious to leave. This required some manhunts by military police to sort out. Not everyone was caught. But everyone that was caught talked. This all led to supplies, so the MP’s found there was a real problem there. There was a mole. Someone was shipping supplies to this crooked sergeant. It looked like he heisted it all with some hillbilly smugglers and snuck out in the morning after getting drunk and falling asleep.
And that sleep business … what is that about? How does a platoon of men just fall asleep? If they were gassed or poisoned then it should have shown up in the toxin screen or the gas alarm would have sounded. It was puzzling. Maybe they were all lying. But they had a mole and some smugglers to find. Those things they could do right away.
Fade away after narration with a lantern jawed MP Captain picking up his landline phone. We heard laughter and applause from our soldiers.
Saint Peter continued development of information for a few weeks after the premier of his popular sim. Most was conjectured from signal traffic and personnel actions. Probable accuracy rated high. I paraphrase a little here in the absence of exact recall;
The logistics portion of the Regime’s creaking Battlenet was dissected by the brightest techs they could find. They broke down a lot of doors in the supply corps looking for staff they thought may have done it because they had the expertise. There would be a general purge of enterprising supply sergeants and their cronies. But nobody was confessing to the right shipments.
The smugglers too, were being uncooperative. There were images of the trucks leaving, but none of them signed into the Battlenet. They scattered like roaches and got back into the hills where the satellite coverage was thin. By the time they knew to divert some assets over there, it was too late. There was no sign of eight large trucks or anywhere that would serve to hide that many trucks.
The hills were filled with riff raff who no longer fit but weren’t worth chasing. It also had a lot of subsistence nomads that didn’t pay much attention to borders. The army liked to drop in once in a while and question people they could round up in a sweep. Looking for deserters they said. More like looking for what they could steal. These people hated the army and would sometimes fire off their granddad's antique and shoot somebody. It happened every night if they tried to bivouac. Any foray into that wasteland was going to take some serious support and a little better idea of where to look.
So they kept looking for their deserters and kept investigating themselves. The army sweeps in the hills were stepped up a little, but they were sniped at incessantly. The hill people with their antique rifles were much better at disappearing after a few shots. It became costly to enter the hills. Camps were deserted before they could get there. They found no evidence of gear for a small infantry company with heavy weapons support.
Army aviation sent overflights at random times and altitudes to crisscross the hills. Other than a few more tents around the Christian villages, it looked much the same as always. The recon flights and occasional sweeps by the Army were tracked on their own Battlenet. We always knew where they were and avoided revealing our equipment or training exercises.
Overhead in fuel and parts kept up the strain on the supply corps. When the Minister of Defense called for an expedition in force to the mountains, men and materiel were shifted to the nearest base at glacial speeds. Only some of this was Saint Peter, acting as the mole. The enemy had given us a timetable. They would send a division of killers into the hills, to punish our resistance.
At least that is how I recall the intel. I was extremely busy, training up a light company of Christian militia. These formed the Home Guard. Many of them were a bit old or young for front line work. Their weapons were antiques but well cared for. They had an extensive tunnel network with firing positions, stone revetments and mortar pits to oppose artillery. Their esprit was good. Against aircraft and armor, we had the enemy’s own weapons. Saint Peter had slaved the artillery and missiles to his control. There was no better targeting computer available and he had more practical experience than anyone who breathed. The missiles in particular were much improved.
For direct action, we had a heavy platoon of the crème de la Christian. Advance trained, armed with the enemy’s best and getting Cocktail number 7 with their meals. They would obey and stay steady under pressure. We gave them the eight trucks and man portable special weapons.
A dozen more were our infiltrators. Young men who had a real aptitude for the job, led by the only elder not picked up in the sweeps, smuggler Fokin. They had performed well at the Army bunker raid and could work closely with Templars. As soon as the Army supplies were brought home, we started training them to assault the Refugee camp.
Restart subject Navarro, J
Mission debrief DT-312-3, Bookmark
Narrative feed with medium paraphrasing
The camp had several entry points. I parked near the Visitor entrance but away from the camera footprint. Rafe passed by to my left, headed for the Samaritan drop off. Etienne would be coming behind me in a minute for the Visitor entrance. That just left the camp motor court entrance. If we got in fast, the camp security network would be in our control. The motorized gates would only work for us.
My boys preceded me into the lobby. There were a dozen waiting chairs and an armored window straight ahead. Short halls led off to the left and right, ending in steel doors. The guard seated behind the glass looked up at our entrance. He hoisted a large ledger and cycled it through the pass drawer for signing. The cameras behind the glass ogled the signers but the guard hardly looked up, just checked our ID’s against signatures before triggering the staff door to his right.
Etienne and his boys had entered the lobby behind us, dressed like a farmer and his sons. One of the boys carried a bushel basket full of white onions. Obviously they were Samaritans who couldn’t find the drop off. The guard would have to sort that out. He lost what little interest he had in us.
Behind the staff door was more hallway with two locked doors on the right. No cameras covered this area. Up ahead of us the hall opened out to processing and the guard’s day room. Around the corner from that was the surveillance room. There would be about a dozen armed men this time of day.
I walked out of my Italian loafers. It’s easy without socks. My feet were encased in colloidal muscle and framed by the exo. An armored cap smoothed off the toes. Micro-knobble soles gave incredible traction. They were size sixteen double wides that had cost a lot of money to get loafers made for. I made a mental note to retrieve those shoes later.
The second door on the right was a simple keyed knob. This was the janitorial supplies room. I got a good grip on the knob and turned it through the locking mechanism. A knee on the door frame let me pull it open. Around us, the lights flickered. Etienne had attacked the lobby guard. It was too soon.
I took three quick steps into the janitor closet to a series of electrical panels. Dropping to the floor with the briefcase, I opened it up. Inside was a collection of clips and wires. These went to sev
eral panels so that Saint Peter could get in the system. I opened up the junction box and threw the main breaker. The lights and air conditioning shut off. Daylight streamed in from some high slit windows out in the hallway. It was briefly quiet. I turned the power back on. Now the security network would be rebooting. Old tube lights began flickering. I grabbed my breaching shotgun out of the briefcase and strapped it to my thigh. Four magazines went in next to it. The school tie came off.
Back out in the hallway, my boys had unfolded silenced sub guns from their own discarded briefcases. With their backs to the right side of the hall, they watched ahead toward the open area for the appearance of guards. Etienne’s farm boys entered the hall from the lobby, two handing silenced army pistols. Etienne himself gave me a Gallic shrug as he came up the hallway to stand beside me. "That man had no patience," he whispered. We began walking toward the processing station, me in my Frankenstein suit and he in his bib overalls.
Ahead of us, a counter with a red line in front of it became visible. A female guard was looking over the top of it from a desk further back behind the counter. Her eyebrows knit together for a moment and Etienne was off. He took two long strides and vaulted the counter. I used this as a cue to trot to the right and then turn right again to enter the day room. Two guards coming out were flipped back into the room by my outstretched arms. My suit jacket split up the back.
There was just a second to catalog six men sitting around cafeteria style tables drinking coffee. A couple quickly rose from the nearest table and I ran right to them, straight arming them through the air. The biceps compression split both my sleeves.
I grabbed the edge of their two meter table and flung it across the room at the four men who had found their feet and were clawing at side arms. Two of them disappeared beneath it. The other two found me right behind the table. I shocked them together and then went digging for the two under the table. They weren’t much trouble. Etienne’s boys came in to disarm and cuff them.
Subject Navarro, J
Mission debrief DT-312-3, Bookmark
Query; Subjective Primer: Skins
The first Combat Skins were sportsmen rigs, designed for extreme athletics. The swimmer versions became especially popular with scuba divers. Militaries had noticed the capabilities of sports Skins, since many sports enthusiasts were also serving. Their own antique powered armor was rigid and short range, more of a subcompact vehicle than body armor. But extreme sportsmen were spending days in Skins and recharging them with a handful of chemicals. They were faster, stealthier and cheaper to produce than walking tanks. The Skins quickly got their own R and D budget.
The old national governments got involved and arranged a little regulation, or more likely a hijacking of the tech under the guise of regulation. A sports biotech would invent some new upgrade and receive a government check for the rights. The government would rigorously test the upgrades before reselling the rights to cover overhead. We got electroreception this way, porting the short range detection of life within an electrical field to human senses. Sea cave spelunking enjoyed a renaissance with that one.
When the Templars chose equipment standards, the Skins were a source of debate. We had many civil functions, so the face needed to be uncovered and the overall shape kept to human proportions. Frightening tourists was undesirable. They started with an Ironman competition model. Swimming and running while carrying weights over obstacles was seen as a good base. Skins used striated layers of colloidal muscle, mimicking the body underneath, to add great strength and endurance. Integral exoskeleton structures relieved pressure from human joints. It was powered by chemical processes and directed by a web of artificial nerve ganglia. I had heard rumor of a man in Brazil beating a mountain gorilla to death in a cage match wearing the Ironman Skin. Crazy pendejo.
The nerve ganglia were the only controls on the Skin. When you put it on, nanobots would quickly build connections to it and your spinal column. This was microscopic and painless. Thereafter, the Skin would mimic and amplify your own movement. The nerve ganglia were modeled after a reptilian hindbrain, giving it enough intelligence to avoid damaging the host body and to compensate for injuries to the Skins. It could even speak, after a fashion, back up the spinal connection. Say you were running through a fire and burned the traction soles. The wearer would feel itching on the bottom of his feet. The interpretation of backsignals was quickly learned during orientation. Take care of your Skins and they will save yours.
For military use, Templar Skins received the electric organ, nestled in the small of the back and the size of a flattened Norte Americano football. A Chinese exchange student developed the first "Lightning Eel" rigs for the divers, giving them hunting and defense capabilities against all other aquatic life. Capable of lethal discharges and rechargeable over time, it directed current to the Skins. Electroreceptor ganglia were also scattered across the Skin's surface to give the bioelectric sense. It worked well wet or dry.
Surrounding the Skin was a thin layer of woven monofilament. Orbital looms would spin braided lengths of monoline into flexible, breathable coatings for the Skins. That it required zero gravity to assemble was wildly expensive. But the end result was a very tough outer skin that could not be easily penetrated by anything larger than a hair. Colloidal muscles required the aeration to shed toxins and heat. In compensation, they made very good padding, pulling tight on impact. Their water content made them ablative to thermal weapons. High energy transfers or head shots were needed to do any actual damage. In a real war, you relied more on the stealth of the Skins for safety or layered up with more armor. And always wore a helmet. Against aberrant civilians it was still "One Marshal, one Riot." Just like the old Texican lawmen. But a helmet was still recommended.
Subject Navarro, J
End Subjective Primer
Resume Narrative feed with medium paraphrasing
Etienne was talking to Saint Peter when I exited the day room. "Send Fokin" was all I heard. The old smuggler would be bringing his truck around to the Samaritan entrance with five boys in full soldier kit. They would link up with Rafe and secure the armory. My boys had wrapped up four guards in the surveillance room who suddenly found themselves without a locked door. Saint Peter was in the system. We owned the gates.
Etienne went into the surveillance room to connect Saint Peter to those feeds. I collected my boys near the gate to Interrogation and the Warden’s office. The keypads had new codes only we knew. I keyed it open and we slid down the short hall.
The warden was on the phone when I stuck my head in. He thought he was calling the front desk, but he was chatting with Saint Peter. I gave him two light shocks when he went for a desk drawer pistol. The boys bound him.
Ahead was the gate to the guard’s ready room and sally port. There were checked guns and riot gear in that room but none of the guards could open the lockers anymore. There would only be stun clubs and pepper spray in the hands of maybe thirty lightly armored men.
I adjusted my glasses and checked feeds from Rafe. He had gained the main armory and was working into the guard tower access corridor. Once our soldiers were in those towers, all armed resistance would be over. The other hundred guards would be sealed in their pods until we could sort them out.
Etienne caught up to me. His farm boys now held the prisoners and staff entrance. They would sweep up any late arrivals for holding. When we entered the guard's ready room with my boys aiming silenced subguns at them, the guards just wilted. They dropped their toys and allowed themselves to be herded into the day room. Our boys would sit on them while Etienne and I picked out riot helmets and bags of plastic hand ties. We were going for a walk.
The sally port opened into the lower courtyard of a two story maximum security wing. Six guards who had been locked in the yard clustered around the little window set in the sally door. They stepped away from the door when they saw our riot helmets.
As we came out, there was a beat where everyone looked at each other. Who were these t
wo guys in our riot gear? Then they started sparking their stun sticks. I grabbed an arm and used a guard as a flail on another. The stun sticks had little chance of getting past our insulation. It was a very brief battle. We cuffed them where they fell, taking care with the broken bones. I heard a kind of cheer from the cells all around. The prisoners approved of our actions, but had no idea who we were.
I had been held here with the least cooperative of the Christian refugees, men who had been separated from their families and beaten regularly for their unwillingness to record confessions. I remembered them well from ministering to my own beating injuries. They were tough for Christians. Hell they were tough for anybody. There were over a hundred of them here.
I pulled the torn suit coat off and ripped the shirt from my body. I had the Templar sigil, a red cross on a white shield, painted chest and back on my Skins. As I slowly turned with arms outstretched, the inmates saw the sign and the cheer rose to a roar that shook the building. My throat tightened. I could not find words for these men.
Etienne felt my discomfort. He pulled off his helmet and addressed the rows of cells. "I bring you the justice of the Templars. Your captivity is over. A place has been prepared for you. Step away from the doors." The roar redoubled, and then receded as the men backed further into their cells. Saint Peter took his cue and opened the cell doors.
I put my torn suit coat back on. Gaunt men came quickly down the stairs to surround us. We told them of the prisoners and militia behind the sally door. What we wanted from them was to wait here while the Templars liberated the camp. As each unit was freed, we would open gates to let them reunite with their flock. They should organize the people and obtain supplies for a short trip. Haste was advised and no revenge would be taken while under Templar justice. The beaten guards were to be placed in cells. Saint Peter would lock them in.
A few of these Christians had grown up around Templars and Garda militias. They knew the things that we could do. They would trust us to convey them to a new home. The feral smiles many sported said they knew some pain was coming for this military dictatorship. I remember having intense conversations with three of them during my previous stay, when I told them a few things to expect. They didn’t recognize me anymore.
The left quad held the hospital and motor court. Rafe’s cab and Fokin’s truck were visible, parked next to loading bays. I checked Rafe’s feed in my right lens. He was in the tower on the left. One hundred meters of open ground bisected with two wire fences were visible from his position. He had a rifle in his hands. I looked closer at that open ground and saw a large group of guards. A couple appeared to be armed. I recognized the two with shotguns from an afternoon of their attentions. One was jumpy like a rabbit; the other was a fat sergeant who used to work the street. It was just like them to take guns inside the wire.
I talked it over with my compadres. Armed men have to go, but dropped weapons were still in play. They were only shotguns. Etienne and I could play mop up if we got in quick after the shots.
Saint Peter operated the gates to distract them. The guards began to cluster at the last gate separating them from the motor court. It turned their backs to our running exit from the maximum quad. I took the right. The exo assisted me quickly to forty kph. I heard a yell over the wind noise flowing around my riot helmet. The guards were starting to turn around. The shot gunners were shouting and trying to get the rest of the guards to duck down. Rabbit fired a shot at me. I was so amped up, I could see the pellets. A quick push with my left leg moved me sideways about two meters, but one pellet bounced off my thigh, making me wheel both arms to keep from falling when the muscle tightened. The Rabbit suddenly puffed pink and collapsed like a cut puppet. The fat Sergeant looked up toward the tower for just a second and by the time he looked back our way, we were on them. I may have heard the second shot, but I was too busy clearing a path through a group of guards between me and the dropped shotgun.
Forearms in a wedge and building speed, I crashed into a mob of guards who thought they could play Red Rover with me. The speeds the exo ran me up to were deceptive to untrained eyes. I had the inertia of a bull charging. Men flew like a billiard break shot. There were so many of them, I lost momentum and stopped. I had to hammer fist my way clear of several and shock a few away from my own shotgun. Their stun sticks and sprays could find no weakness on me.
As I continued toward the dropped shotgun, two prone men were dragging at my ankles. Another repeatedly smacked his stick on the back of my riot helmet. I had had enough. Drawing my breaching shotgun, I fired a slug into the ground between my human anchors. The men recoiled backward, like the loud noise pushed them. It got very quiet. I holstered my shotgun and picked up the Rabbit’s riot gun. Etienne was picking up the Sergeant’s piece. All around us were prone men, some dead or broken. Only a dozen were still standing and they were backing up. I had lost my suit coat somewhere.
The maximum quad gate stayed open behind us and our hardened prisoners came out. I addressed the standing guards, "You will want your men back in the dog run between the fences. For their protection, I would hurry." The guards looked at the approaching prisoners. One nervously licked his lips. They began dragging off their wounded and dead. Their pace quickened the closer the Christians came.
Etienne and I stepped out to meet them. I pointed to a man I knew used to be a soldier. Etienne gave him the shotgun. I gave mine to the leader of the Christians, Deacon Humboldt. "There is the hospital. Gather your flock and what supplies you can carry over to the motor court. Start loading the four buses there. Only those who can’t walk will ride. We will be sending small children who will also need to ride. Leave these guards where they lie, we will seal them in after you pass." The Deacon had tears running down his cheeks but seemed unaware of them. He nodded and turned to see the last gate slide open.
The men’s quad waited. The walk would cool us down. Heat buildup from our run was making the exo uncomfortable. The fluid cooling was not up to this warm day. I had to take the helmet off to get some fresh air. That’s when I noticed there was a tooth stuck in my forearm. I showed it to Etienne, "Friend of yours?" He smirked and said, "Not my friends, you would have found the tooth much lower."
We walked along chuckling for a time and then stopped to look at the gate. I checked Rafe’s feed. He was climbing stairs in another tower. I flipped to Saint Peter’s feed and started checking cameras. There were two groups of guards here. A large one stuck out in the yard and maybe a dozen in the Guard hub. The arsenal in the hub was locked down, so we should be gun free here. But then, I had thought that just before the maximum yard. Another complication was that the dogs were in the run. At least a dozen stringy gray shepherds were near our entry gate.
Etienne and I had a little conference call with Rafe and Saint Peter. Targets and tactics stuff. I reloaded and put the helmet back on. We stacked at the entry gate, me behind Etienne. He said, "It is not too late, we could just shoot the dogs."
I argued, "Why treat the slaves harsher than the masters?"
Etienne gestured with a thumb, "You are just soft for these dogs. Was one of them your bitch?"
I pointed to a large male with a shredded ear. "He’s the one they all watch. Go offer him a pack of cigarettes for me."
Etienne, a big fan of old movies, snorted "I think I will do that." The gate slid open about a meter and stopped.
The dogs began flowing to the gate before it even opened, snarling, snapping jaws across just four millimeters of wire. The dogs wanted us because we were men they did not know. But we were very strange men. We wore the helmets like people they knew. We smelled like guns and strange chemistry. We could open the gate. It led to a little confusion and skittishness by the dogs. As the gate moved the nearest dogs felt their hair stand up. We built up voltage in the Skins and threw out an electrical field. The first dog to touch Etienne jumped back yowling. Two snapped at my right side and bounced a meter away. I could feel the electrical field like a second vision. The sense
was tied into my brain by the spinal connections. I could feel where it slid along Etienne’s field. I could feel the dogs moving through it. I grabbed one by the muzzle that tried for my back and gave him two shocks. He fell limp to the ground. The gate ahead opened a meter as Etienne came to it. The dogs were scattered and doing their attack runs from too far away to be a credible threat. I stepped past Shred Ear the alpha. He had a long pink tongue lying in the dust.
We sealed the dogs back in the run. Etienne said, "That’s half my charge." I told him that was better than mine. A crowd of guards were visible about sixty meters away. They could see we were alone. They could see the bright red Cross painted on my chest. We drew our shotguns to discourage overconfidence. They outnumbered us fifteen to one and they had picks and shovels from the work shed. For now, the guards milled about in clumps arguing with each other. I checked Rafe’s feed. He was in the tower, looking through that rifle sight at the crowd. Some of the guards noticed him and reoriented on this new threat. More arguing among the guards. Etienne and I started forward.
"It occurs to me this is the inmate view of the yard they’re experiencing" he said.
"I remember it well" I told him.
Twenty meters away, we stopped. "You men won’t be digging any gardens today. Put down the tools and head over to the Unit Three west door. If you must keep your tool, then I suggest you dig a suitable grave." I gestured to Rafe in the tower. These guards had seen how accurate a tower sniper could be. Tools clattered to the ground. I would bet there were a lot of trowels and makeshift knives still in that crowd, but we didn’t need to disarm them for storage. Just keep our distance and lead them to a safe place. We took up positions and gestured them along with our gun barrels.
As we approached Unit Three, I could hear a PA system doppler echo. It sounded like Saint Peter, but shut off before we got close enough to hear well. Groups of Christians were exiting the Unit from the east door. I checked Saint Peter’s feed on the Unit interior. It was unoccupied. Etienne trotted up ahead and started guiding the guards into the west door. Some of the guards looked a little froggy, but crowds of Christians were pouring out of other Units. There were almost seven hundred men under internment here. The guards decided Unit Three might be a good place to wait. We tucked them in as Saint Peter came over the outside speakers. "Brothers in Christ, assemble at the Commissary." His chosen voice is a nice tenor that makes you think of a young, earnest monk. He just sounds very honest. I’ve heard a few more of his voices for other effects, but the young monk is a favorite.
The Commissary let Samaritans give money to individual prisoners on account. They could then buy better food and sundries for a fat markup. It was a big moneymaker. It also had a large supply of food, shoes and blankets. The men were allowed a shopping spree. Saint Peter would coach them from the PA system and vid feeds. I could see them queuing up Russian style in three rows. Etienne and I holstered our shotguns. He let out a big sigh, staring at the backs of the prisoners, "Job satisfaction, frere." I knew what he meant, I just hoped those men were up to a long walk.
We headed over to the women’s gate. Almost two thousand women and kids were scattered across a wide expanse of tents and cheap wood barracks. A few hundred of the women had moved up to the fence line. Here and there, a man called through to his family. A buzzer sounded at the gate and the women backed away. It was a pure Pavlovian response that irritated me. They saw the red Cross on my chest and continued moving away to form a corridor.
I addressed them once we were in the compound, "Gather your families and wait for the men. We will be leaving through the motor court gate." Etienne added, "Where are your guards?" A gray haired woman pointed over her shoulder at a cement block building with bars on the windows and a wood tower mounted to the top. "They all went in the hub and barricaded the doors." This hub was a late add-on. The doors were not on the network. I flipped through feeds from Rafe and Saint Peter, but no view of the hub interior was available. All we knew about the women’s compound was that there were fifty female guards. They had never been seen with guns. If they wanted to sit this out in their hub, we would let them.
Etienne spoke sub vocally to Rafe in the tower a moment. He turned to me and said, "We have this. Go on over to admin and roll us up there." He slapped me on the shoulder and headed off toward the women’s hub. I really didn’t want to walk through the dogs again. Instead I’d take the long way through the hospital. See what was developing there.
****
The supply sergeant woke to shouting. It was almost sunrise outside. His face was lying on the table in a small puddle of brandy and drool. He sat up with a start and looked around for his radio. He was still looking when two of his soldiers burst into the bunker bay shouting. "A bunch of trucks are gone, Sergeant. Everybody was knocked out" The sergeant looked into the bunker and saw empty shelves. The shift change would happen in a couple hours.
The Sergeant had been in this army a while and knew how military justice was served. He also knew that twenty men could not keep a secret. Claiming he would "fix it", he loaded some items in a truck and headed south. He had a brother in law with some land down there. He would lay up for a while on his bug out money.
At the shift change, a few soldiers could not be found to relieve. Most of the rest were very anxious to leave. This required some manhunts by military police to sort out. Not everyone was caught. But everyone that was caught talked. This all led to supplies, so the MP’s found there was a real problem there. There was a mole. Someone was shipping supplies to this crooked sergeant. It looked like he heisted it all with some hillbilly smugglers and snuck out in the morning after getting drunk and falling asleep.
And that sleep business … what is that about? How does a platoon of men just fall asleep? If they were gassed or poisoned then it should have shown up in the toxin screen or the gas alarm would have sounded. It was puzzling. Maybe they were all lying. But they had a mole and some smugglers to find. Those things they could do right away.
Fade away after narration with a lantern jawed MP Captain picking up his landline phone. We heard laughter and applause from our soldiers.
Saint Peter continued development of information for a few weeks after the premier of his popular sim. Most was conjectured from signal traffic and personnel actions. Probable accuracy rated high. I paraphrase a little here in the absence of exact recall;
The logistics portion of the Regime’s creaking Battlenet was dissected by the brightest techs they could find. They broke down a lot of doors in the supply corps looking for staff they thought may have done it because they had the expertise. There would be a general purge of enterprising supply sergeants and their cronies. But nobody was confessing to the right shipments.
The smugglers too, were being uncooperative. There were images of the trucks leaving, but none of them signed into the Battlenet. They scattered like roaches and got back into the hills where the satellite coverage was thin. By the time they knew to divert some assets over there, it was too late. There was no sign of eight large trucks or anywhere that would serve to hide that many trucks.
The hills were filled with riff raff who no longer fit but weren’t worth chasing. It also had a lot of subsistence nomads that didn’t pay much attention to borders. The army liked to drop in once in a while and question people they could round up in a sweep. Looking for deserters they said. More like looking for what they could steal. These people hated the army and would sometimes fire off their granddad's antique and shoot somebody. It happened every night if they tried to bivouac. Any foray into that wasteland was going to take some serious support and a little better idea of where to look.
So they kept looking for their deserters and kept investigating themselves. The army sweeps in the hills were stepped up a little, but they were sniped at incessantly. The hill people with their antique rifles were much better at disappearing after a few shots. It became costly to enter the hills. Camps were deserted before they could get there. They found no evidence of gear for a small infantry company with heavy weapons support.
Army aviation sent overflights at random times and altitudes to crisscross the hills. Other than a few more tents around the Christian villages, it looked much the same as always. The recon flights and occasional sweeps by the Army were tracked on their own Battlenet. We always knew where they were and avoided revealing our equipment or training exercises.
Overhead in fuel and parts kept up the strain on the supply corps. When the Minister of Defense called for an expedition in force to the mountains, men and materiel were shifted to the nearest base at glacial speeds. Only some of this was Saint Peter, acting as the mole. The enemy had given us a timetable. They would send a division of killers into the hills, to punish our resistance.
At least that is how I recall the intel. I was extremely busy, training up a light company of Christian militia. These formed the Home Guard. Many of them were a bit old or young for front line work. Their weapons were antiques but well cared for. They had an extensive tunnel network with firing positions, stone revetments and mortar pits to oppose artillery. Their esprit was good. Against aircraft and armor, we had the enemy’s own weapons. Saint Peter had slaved the artillery and missiles to his control. There was no better targeting computer available and he had more practical experience than anyone who breathed. The missiles in particular were much improved.
For direct action, we had a heavy platoon of the crème de la Christian. Advance trained, armed with the enemy’s best and getting Cocktail number 7 with their meals. They would obey and stay steady under pressure. We gave them the eight trucks and man portable special weapons.
A dozen more were our infiltrators. Young men who had a real aptitude for the job, led by the only elder not picked up in the sweeps, smuggler Fokin. They had performed well at the Army bunker raid and could work closely with Templars. As soon as the Army supplies were brought home, we started training them to assault the Refugee camp.
Restart subject Navarro, J
Mission debrief DT-312-3, Bookmark
Narrative feed with medium paraphrasing
The camp had several entry points. I parked near the Visitor entrance but away from the camera footprint. Rafe passed by to my left, headed for the Samaritan drop off. Etienne would be coming behind me in a minute for the Visitor entrance. That just left the camp motor court entrance. If we got in fast, the camp security network would be in our control. The motorized gates would only work for us.
My boys preceded me into the lobby. There were a dozen waiting chairs and an armored window straight ahead. Short halls led off to the left and right, ending in steel doors. The guard seated behind the glass looked up at our entrance. He hoisted a large ledger and cycled it through the pass drawer for signing. The cameras behind the glass ogled the signers but the guard hardly looked up, just checked our ID’s against signatures before triggering the staff door to his right.
Etienne and his boys had entered the lobby behind us, dressed like a farmer and his sons. One of the boys carried a bushel basket full of white onions. Obviously they were Samaritans who couldn’t find the drop off. The guard would have to sort that out. He lost what little interest he had in us.
Behind the staff door was more hallway with two locked doors on the right. No cameras covered this area. Up ahead of us the hall opened out to processing and the guard’s day room. Around the corner from that was the surveillance room. There would be about a dozen armed men this time of day.
I walked out of my Italian loafers. It’s easy without socks. My feet were encased in colloidal muscle and framed by the exo. An armored cap smoothed off the toes. Micro-knobble soles gave incredible traction. They were size sixteen double wides that had cost a lot of money to get loafers made for. I made a mental note to retrieve those shoes later.
The second door on the right was a simple keyed knob. This was the janitorial supplies room. I got a good grip on the knob and turned it through the locking mechanism. A knee on the door frame let me pull it open. Around us, the lights flickered. Etienne had attacked the lobby guard. It was too soon.
I took three quick steps into the janitor closet to a series of electrical panels. Dropping to the floor with the briefcase, I opened it up. Inside was a collection of clips and wires. These went to sev
Back out in the hallway, my boys had unfolded silenced sub guns from their own discarded briefcases. With their backs to the right side of the hall, they watched ahead toward the open area for the appearance of guards. Etienne’s farm boys entered the hall from the lobby, two handing silenced army pistols. Etienne himself gave me a Gallic shrug as he came up the hallway to stand beside me. "That man had no patience," he whispered. We began walking toward the processing station, me in my Frankenstein suit and he in his bib overalls.
Ahead of us, a counter with a red line in front of it became visible. A female guard was looking over the top of it from a desk further back behind the counter. Her eyebrows knit together for a moment and Etienne was off. He took two long strides and vaulted the counter. I used this as a cue to trot to the right and then turn right again to enter the day room. Two guards coming out were flipped back into the room by my outstretched arms. My suit jacket split up the back.
There was just a second to catalog six men sitting around cafeteria style tables drinking coffee. A couple quickly rose from the nearest table and I ran right to them, straight arming them through the air. The biceps compression split both my sleeves.
I grabbed the edge of their two meter table and flung it across the room at the four men who had found their feet and were clawing at side arms. Two of them disappeared beneath it. The other two found me right behind the table. I shocked them together and then went digging for the two under the table. They weren’t much trouble. Etienne’s boys came in to disarm and cuff them.
Subject Navarro, J
Mission debrief DT-312-3, Bookmark
Query; Subjective Primer: Skins
The first Combat Skins were sportsmen rigs, designed for extreme athletics. The swimmer versions became especially popular with scuba divers. Militaries had noticed the capabilities of sports Skins, since many sports enthusiasts were also serving. Their own antique powered armor was rigid and short range, more of a subcompact vehicle than body armor. But extreme sportsmen were spending days in Skins and recharging them with a handful of chemicals. They were faster, stealthier and cheaper to produce than walking tanks. The Skins quickly got their own R and D budget.
The old national governments got involved and arranged a little regulation, or more likely a hijacking of the tech under the guise of regulation. A sports biotech would invent some new upgrade and receive a government check for the rights. The government would rigorously test the upgrades before reselling the rights to cover overhead. We got electroreception this way, porting the short range detection of life within an electrical field to human senses. Sea cave spelunking enjoyed a renaissance with that one.
When the Templars chose equipment standards, the Skins were a source of debate. We had many civil functions, so the face needed to be uncovered and the overall shape kept to human proportions. Frightening tourists was undesirable. They started with an Ironman competition model. Swimming and running while carrying weights over obstacles was seen as a good base. Skins used striated layers of colloidal muscle, mimicking the body underneath, to add great strength and endurance. Integral exoskeleton structures relieved pressure from human joints. It was powered by chemical processes and directed by a web of artificial nerve ganglia. I had heard rumor of a man in Brazil beating a mountain gorilla to death in a cage match wearing the Ironman Skin. Crazy pendejo.
The nerve ganglia were the only controls on the Skin. When you put it on, nanobots would quickly build connections to it and your spinal column. This was microscopic and painless. Thereafter, the Skin would mimic and amplify your own movement. The nerve ganglia were modeled after a reptilian hindbrain, giving it enough intelligence to avoid damaging the host body and to compensate for injuries to the Skins. It could even speak, after a fashion, back up the spinal connection. Say you were running through a fire and burned the traction soles. The wearer would feel itching on the bottom of his feet. The interpretation of backsignals was quickly learned during orientation. Take care of your Skins and they will save yours.
For military use, Templar Skins received the electric organ, nestled in the small of the back and the size of a flattened Norte Americano football. A Chinese exchange student developed the first "Lightning Eel" rigs for the divers, giving them hunting and defense capabilities against all other aquatic life. Capable of lethal discharges and rechargeable over time, it directed current to the Skins. Electroreceptor ganglia were also scattered across the Skin's surface to give the bioelectric sense. It worked well wet or dry.
Surrounding the Skin was a thin layer of woven monofilament. Orbital looms would spin braided lengths of monoline into flexible, breathable coatings for the Skins. That it required zero gravity to assemble was wildly expensive. But the end result was a very tough outer skin that could not be easily penetrated by anything larger than a hair. Colloidal muscles required the aeration to shed toxins and heat. In compensation, they made very good padding, pulling tight on impact. Their water content made them ablative to thermal weapons. High energy transfers or head shots were needed to do any actual damage. In a real war, you relied more on the stealth of the Skins for safety or layered up with more armor. And always wore a helmet. Against aberrant civilians it was still "One Marshal, one Riot." Just like the old Texican lawmen. But a helmet was still recommended.
Subject Navarro, J
End Subjective Primer
Resume Narrative feed with medium paraphrasing
Etienne was talking to Saint Peter when I exited the day room. "Send Fokin" was all I heard. The old smuggler would be bringing his truck around to the Samaritan entrance with five boys in full soldier kit. They would link up with Rafe and secure the armory. My boys had wrapped up four guards in the surveillance room who suddenly found themselves without a locked door. Saint Peter was in the system. We owned the gates.
Etienne went into the surveillance room to connect Saint Peter to those feeds. I collected my boys near the gate to Interrogation and the Warden’s office. The keypads had new codes only we knew. I keyed it open and we slid down the short hall.
The warden was on the phone when I stuck my head in. He thought he was calling the front desk, but he was chatting with Saint Peter. I gave him two light shocks when he went for a desk drawer pistol. The boys bound him.
Ahead was the gate to the guard’s ready room and sally port. There were checked guns and riot gear in that room but none of the guards could open the lockers anymore. There would only be stun clubs and pepper spray in the hands of maybe thirty lightly armored men.
I adjusted my glasses and checked feeds from Rafe. He had gained the main armory and was working into the guard tower access corridor. Once our soldiers were in those towers, all armed resistance would be over. The other hundred guards would be sealed in their pods until we could sort them out.
Etienne caught up to me. His farm boys now held the prisoners and staff entrance. They would sweep up any late arrivals for holding. When we entered the guard's ready room with my boys aiming silenced subguns at them, the guards just wilted. They dropped their toys and allowed themselves to be herded into the day room. Our boys would sit on them while Etienne and I picked out riot helmets and bags of plastic hand ties. We were going for a walk.
The sally port opened into the lower courtyard of a two story maximum security wing. Six guards who had been locked in the yard clustered around the little window set in the sally door. They stepped away from the door when they saw our riot helmets.
As we came out, there was a beat where everyone looked at each other. Who were these t
I had been held here with the least cooperative of the Christian refugees, men who had been separated from their families and beaten regularly for their unwillingness to record confessions. I remembered them well from ministering to my own beating injuries. They were tough for Christians. Hell they were tough for anybody. There were over a hundred of them here.
I pulled the torn suit coat off and ripped the shirt from my body. I had the Templar sigil, a red cross on a white shield, painted chest and back on my Skins. As I slowly turned with arms outstretched, the inmates saw the sign and the cheer rose to a roar that shook the building. My throat tightened. I could not find words for these men.
Etienne felt my discomfort. He pulled off his helmet and addressed the rows of cells. "I bring you the justice of the Templars. Your captivity is over. A place has been prepared for you. Step away from the doors." The roar redoubled, and then receded as the men backed further into their cells. Saint Peter took his cue and opened the cell doors.
I put my torn suit coat back on. Gaunt men came quickly down the stairs to surround us. We told them of the prisoners and militia behind the sally door. What we wanted from them was to wait here while the Templars liberated the camp. As each unit was freed, we would open gates to let them reunite with their flock. They should organize the people and obtain supplies for a short trip. Haste was advised and no revenge would be taken while under Templar justice. The beaten guards were to be placed in cells. Saint Peter would lock them in.
A few of these Christians had grown up around Templars and Garda militias. They knew the things that we could do. They would trust us to convey them to a new home. The feral smiles many sported said they knew some pain was coming for this military dictatorship. I remember having intense conversations with three of them during my previous stay, when I told them a few things to expect. They didn’t recognize me anymore.
The left quad held the hospital and motor court. Rafe’s cab and Fokin’s truck were visible, parked next to loading bays. I checked Rafe’s feed in my right lens. He was in the tower on the left. One hundred meters of open ground bisected with two wire fences were visible from his position. He had a rifle in his hands. I looked closer at that open ground and saw a large group of guards. A couple appeared to be armed. I recognized the two with shotguns from an afternoon of their attentions. One was jumpy like a rabbit; the other was a fat sergeant who used to work the street. It was just like them to take guns inside the wire.
I talked it over with my compadres. Armed men have to go, but dropped weapons were still in play. They were only shotguns. Etienne and I could play mop up if we got in quick after the shots.
Saint Peter operated the gates to distract them. The guards began to cluster at the last gate separating them from the motor court. It turned their backs to our running exit from the maximum quad. I took the right. The exo assisted me quickly to forty kph. I heard a yell over the wind noise flowing around my riot helmet. The guards were starting to turn around. The shot gunners were shouting and trying to get the rest of the guards to duck down. Rabbit fired a shot at me. I was so amped up, I could see the pellets. A quick push with my left leg moved me sideways about two meters, but one pellet bounced off my thigh, making me wheel both arms to keep from falling when the muscle tightened. The Rabbit suddenly puffed pink and collapsed like a cut puppet. The fat Sergeant looked up toward the tower for just a second and by the time he looked back our way, we were on them. I may have heard the second shot, but I was too busy clearing a path through a group of guards between me and the dropped shotgun.
Forearms in a wedge and building speed, I crashed into a mob of guards who thought they could play Red Rover with me. The speeds the exo ran me up to were deceptive to untrained eyes. I had the inertia of a bull charging. Men flew like a billiard break shot. There were so many of them, I lost momentum and stopped. I had to hammer fist my way clear of several and shock a few away from my own shotgun. Their stun sticks and sprays could find no weakness on me.
As I continued toward the dropped shotgun, two prone men were dragging at my ankles. Another repeatedly smacked his stick on the back of my riot helmet. I had had enough. Drawing my breaching shotgun, I fired a slug into the ground between my human anchors. The men recoiled backward, like the loud noise pushed them. It got very quiet. I holstered my shotgun and picked up the Rabbit’s riot gun. Etienne was picking up the Sergeant’s piece. All around us were prone men, some dead or broken. Only a dozen were still standing and they were backing up. I had lost my suit coat somewhere.
The maximum quad gate stayed open behind us and our hardened prisoners came out. I addressed the standing guards, "You will want your men back in the dog run between the fences. For their protection, I would hurry." The guards looked at the approaching prisoners. One nervously licked his lips. They began dragging off their wounded and dead. Their pace quickened the closer the Christians came.
Etienne and I stepped out to meet them. I pointed to a man I knew used to be a soldier. Etienne gave him the shotgun. I gave mine to the leader of the Christians, Deacon Humboldt. "There is the hospital. Gather your flock and what supplies you can carry over to the motor court. Start loading the four buses there. Only those who can’t walk will ride. We will be sending small children who will also need to ride. Leave these guards where they lie, we will seal them in after you pass." The Deacon had tears running down his cheeks but seemed unaware of them. He nodded and turned to see the last gate slide open.
The men’s quad waited. The walk would cool us down. Heat buildup from our run was making the exo uncomfortable. The fluid cooling was not up to this warm day. I had to take the helmet off to get some fresh air. That’s when I noticed there was a tooth stuck in my forearm. I showed it to Etienne, "Friend of yours?" He smirked and said, "Not my friends, you would have found the tooth much lower."
We walked along chuckling for a time and then stopped to look at the gate. I checked Rafe’s feed. He was climbing stairs in another tower. I flipped to Saint Peter’s feed and started checking cameras. There were two groups of guards here. A large one stuck out in the yard and maybe a dozen in the Guard hub. The arsenal in the hub was locked down, so we should be gun free here. But then, I had thought that just before the maximum yard. Another complication was that the dogs were in the run. At least a dozen stringy gray shepherds were near our entry gate.
Etienne and I had a little conference call with Rafe and Saint Peter. Targets and tactics stuff. I reloaded and put the helmet back on. We stacked at the entry gate, me behind Etienne. He said, "It is not too late, we could just shoot the dogs."
I argued, "Why treat the slaves harsher than the masters?"
Etienne gestured with a thumb, "You are just soft for these dogs. Was one of them your bitch?"
I pointed to a large male with a shredded ear. "He’s the one they all watch. Go offer him a pack of cigarettes for me."
Etienne, a big fan of old movies, snorted "I think I will do that." The gate slid open about a meter and stopped.
The dogs began flowing to the gate before it even opened, snarling, snapping jaws across just four millimeters of wire. The dogs wanted us because we were men they did not know. But we were very strange men. We wore the helmets like people they knew. We smelled like guns and strange chemistry. We could open the gate. It led to a little confusion and skittishness by the dogs. As the gate moved the nearest dogs felt their hair stand up. We built up voltage in the Skins and threw out an electrical field. The first dog to touch Etienne jumped back yowling. Two snapped at my right side and bounced a meter away. I could feel the electrical field like a second vision. The sense
We sealed the dogs back in the run. Etienne said, "That’s half my charge." I told him that was better than mine. A crowd of guards were visible about sixty meters away. They could see we were alone. They could see the bright red Cross painted on my chest. We drew our shotguns to discourage overconfidence. They outnumbered us fifteen to one and they had picks and shovels from the work shed. For now, the guards milled about in clumps arguing with each other. I checked Rafe’s feed. He was in the tower, looking through that rifle sight at the crowd. Some of the guards noticed him and reoriented on this new threat. More arguing among the guards. Etienne and I started forward.
"It occurs to me this is the inmate view of the yard they’re experiencing" he said.
"I remember it well" I told him.
Twenty meters away, we stopped. "You men won’t be digging any gardens today. Put down the tools and head over to the Unit Three west door. If you must keep your tool, then I suggest you dig a suitable grave." I gestured to Rafe in the tower. These guards had seen how accurate a tower sniper could be. Tools clattered to the ground. I would bet there were a lot of trowels and makeshift knives still in that crowd, but we didn’t need to disarm them for storage. Just keep our distance and lead them to a safe place. We took up positions and gestured them along with our gun barrels.
As we approached Unit Three, I could hear a PA system doppler echo. It sounded like Saint Peter, but shut off before we got close enough to hear well. Groups of Christians were exiting the Unit from the east door. I checked Saint Peter’s feed on the Unit interior. It was unoccupied. Etienne trotted up ahead and started guiding the guards into the west door. Some of the guards looked a little froggy, but crowds of Christians were pouring out of other Units. There were almost seven hundred men under internment here. The guards decided Unit Three might be a good place to wait. We tucked them in as Saint Peter came over the outside speakers. "Brothers in Christ, assemble at the Commissary." His chosen voice is a nice tenor that makes you think of a young, earnest monk. He just sounds very honest. I’ve heard a few more of his voices for other effects, but the young monk is a favorite.
The Commissary let Samaritans give money to individual prisoners on account. They could then buy better food and sundries for a fat markup. It was a big moneymaker. It also had a large supply of food, shoes and blankets. The men were allowed a shopping spree. Saint Peter would coach them from the PA system and vid feeds. I could see them queuing up Russian style in three rows. Etienne and I holstered our shotguns. He let out a big sigh, staring at the backs of the prisoners, "Job satisfaction, frere." I knew what he meant, I just hoped those men were up to a long walk.
We headed over to the women’s gate. Almost two thousand women and kids were scattered across a wide expanse of tents and cheap wood barracks. A few hundred of the women had moved up to the fence line. Here and there, a man called through to his family. A buzzer sounded at the gate and the women backed away. It was a pure Pavlovian response that irritated me. They saw the red Cross on my chest and continued moving away to form a corridor.
I addressed them once we were in the compound, "Gather your families and wait for the men. We will be leaving through the motor court gate." Etienne added, "Where are your guards?" A gray haired woman pointed over her shoulder at a cement block building with bars on the windows and a wood tower mounted to the top. "They all went in the hub and barricaded the doors." This hub was a late add-on. The doors were not on the network. I flipped through feeds from Rafe and Saint Peter, but no view of the hub interior was available. All we knew about the women’s compound was that there were fifty female guards. They had never been seen with guns. If they wanted to sit this out in their hub, we would let them.
Etienne spoke sub vocally to Rafe in the tower a moment. He turned to me and said, "We have this. Go on over to admin and roll us up there." He slapped me on the shoulder and headed off toward the women’s hub. I really didn’t want to walk through the dogs again. Instead I’d take the long way through the hospital. See what was developing there.
****