The Expansion Box Set, page 4
part #1 of The Expansion Series
Brandt’s expression showed that she thought that was bullshit of the highest order, but it never paid to call out people when you didn’t know who they were or who they reported to.
“Have you told anyone else what you think you saw?”
Brandt thought. Lying would be pointless and counterproductive, so she told the truth.
“I discussed it with Paterson. He saw the same thing.”
“Do you think Santana is a hero?” the operative asked, eyes still down to the pad and startling her with the change of direction.
“What they hell is your problem?” Brandt snarled. “Of course he’s a goddamned hero. Get a grip. Why wouldn’t he be? He died stopping that bomb from going off and now you want to do what? A post-mission performance evaluation? Go to hell.” She stood, pulling the sensors from her hands and tangling in the legs of the chair. As she untangled herself, she winced and clasped a hand to the fused wounds in her side that still hurt.
“I think he’s a hero,” the operative said quietly, stopping her in her tracks. “I just wanted to be sure that you all thought that too.”
Their debrief took them late into the night, and Brandt was sober again by the time the surviving members of her squad had been through the same questioning. Their wheel, Torres, had fallen asleep across two chairs in the briefing room. He was curled up like a kid and she had ordered the others to pipe down so they didn’t wake the young officer.
He’s been through enough, she thought. Last thing he needs is more hazing from these jerks.
In the end he was woken with a start anyway, as Chief stalked in without warning to startle them all to their feet.
“Stand easy,” he told them quietly, respectful of the hour and how long they had been on their feet. “I have your orders. Ensign Torres, Petty Officer Class Two Brandt, Seaman Paterson: you are on a shuttle back to Earth departing in twenty. Your kit has already been cleared out except your suits and stowed aboard. You three,” he said as he turned his attention to the three surviving seamen, “you will join other squads to replace sickness.”
“Chief,” Brandt said, her voice loud and confident, “with respect, why are we being benched when there’s still work to do here?”
Chief looked at her, his mouth forming a shape like a rumbling volcano about to erupt, but he calmed and answered her interruption with civility.
“You are not being benched,” he told her. “You have been tasked with escorting a science team back to Earth and then you will report to OTA Colima. And don’t ever ‘with respect’ me again.”
Brandt opened her mouth to respond but no words came out. She shut her mouth again and opened it as though she had changed her mind, but the look on Chief’s face made it clear that she should say nothing. She glanced at Paterson, his own eyes willing her to shut up and take it, because it looked like she was being given exactly what she wanted.
Officer Training Academy? she thought. But I only put that in my last appraisal as a potential career move. I haven’t even applied.
They walked back to the barracks in a daze. The two seamen were grumbling about being reassigned and asking Paterson why he got to go home. Paterson ignored them, as did Brandt and the ensign.
They climbed into their armor suits in silence, using the buddy system to secure the individual parts in a group of three and ignoring the sullen looks from the other grunts on their way to new accommodation for the next eighteen months. True to Chief’s word, the rest of their personal kit was gone. Two petty officers arrived and issued them with new weapons, this time their standard carbines as well as new pistols, and handed over the spare magazines which were clipped into place on the outside of their armor.
“Orders from the admiral,” one said, handing over a communication module to each of them, which clipped onto their left forearms.
“The admiral?” Torres asked, his small features looking lost at sea from inside the gunmetal gray suit. They looked down to their orders in turn.
“OTA Colima,” Torres said quietly. “Lieutenant’s course. But I’m not due to take that unless I sign on for another five years. I’ve only served one.”
“Same for me,” Brandt said, her eyes wide in shock. She turned her forearm over, the display flipping upside down to show the others her orders.
Torres whistled softly.
“Fast track?” Paterson asked.
“Yeah,” Brandt said in shock, turning the screen back to her. “But I have to sign on for life if I do that. What about you?”
Paterson showed his own orders. A full scholarship to any college of his choosing, sponsored by the UNPF.
“I get to go to college, paid for by the UN, apparently.”
Brandt’s eyes narrowed.
“Does this check five-oh to you?” she asked, asking if the others thought something fishy was going on.
“You mean that the three of us survive something and end up getting everything we want when the others have to go back to work? Yeah. Something ain’t right,” Paterson agreed.
“Who cares?” Torres asked. “Earth chow and no more rations. Promotions for us. You get yourself free college place,” he added to Paterson. “I say we don’t look too hard at it.”
4
Lunar Departures
“You Brandt?” the helmetless man in the last generation powered armor asked as they approached the shuttle. Brandt glanced at the young officer, almost annoyed on his behalf at being ignored now that she was facing the realistic prospect of being a wheel in some other unit soon.
“Yeah,” she said. “This is Lieutenant Torres.”
The man looked to Torres, the single star and his very young face not matching up with the rank she had just given him.
“Well alrighty then,” he said with an unconcerned smile, his southern accent almost mocking in its informality. “Looks like you’re the security detail’s security detail.”
Her face must have registered confusion as he explained further.
“We’re with Hyper,” he said, indicting two other men in similar armor. Their weapons were the same as the ones the UNPF issued, only they weren’t stenciled with the same markings and appeared well worn. The two other men looked at them like cats watching mice. “We’re dropping planetside, and we get off with the eggheads.” He jerked his head over his other shoulder at the science team who were fussing over two large black cases they moved on repulser jets. They tapped at the interactive screen on the lid of one as it moved, chattering away to each other in intense murmurs.
Brandt had heard of Hyper. They had all heard of Hyper. They heard they were developing tech faster than the combined territories were. The Hudson-Yu Progression & Research group, or HYPR, was a multi-national business with manufacturing and research plants in all of the four territories.
“Well, anyways,” the man said. “The name’s Horne. Your gear is already stowed, so grab yourself a seat.”
The engines started and the cargo ramp closed. They must have been waiting for the three UN personnel. They sat, stowing their weapons by the numbers and strapping in before they put their helmets on and pressurized their suits to see the world via the HUDs inside their visors. Cruel, mocking laughter was fed to their ears from the sensors and speakers, and they looked at the three private military contractors who were lounging in unassigned seating still with their helmets off and strapped to the hooks on their belts. They clearly found the adherence to protocol to be funny, just like the wasters in school who mocked the smart kids for trying hard and doing their homework.
Something about their demeanor made Brandt angry, but whether it was their arrogance or just the fact that they seemed sloppy and undisciplined she didn’t know. She sat back, her visor mirroring to the command she tapped into her forearm communication and control unit, and waited for the journey to end.
About an hour in, she woke, her mind taking a few seconds to adapt and tell her where she was. She recalled, with horrifying clarity, recent events before she recognized the sounds that had brought her back to consciousness.
It was panic. Controlled panic with low voices but it was still panic.
“We’re losing him,” one of the scientists complained as he tapped furiously with two fingers on the control screen of one of the black crates lashed to the deck.
“Increase to three-sixty and go again,” said another.
“No response. Charging again.”
A dull noise sounded from inside the crate.
“Rhythm,” another one said. “It’s weak.”
“Twenty cc’s epinephrine,” said the lead scientist, his one hand held behind his back as the other gripped a safety handle on the bulkhead.
“Rate increasing… back inside normal parameters… holding.”
They seemed to relax, having averted whatever disaster had challenged them. Brandt unclipped herself and stood, taking two paces toward the scientists until Horne and his two cronies rose to block her path. One of them, she now saw, had a small, black case cuffed to his left wrist.
“Can’t let you do that, Chief,” he said apologetically, his face showing reluctance and deference but his eyes not smiling to match.
“Stand aside, civilian,” Brandt said, hoping to bully her way past with the loudspeaker of her suit making her sound bigger.
“Not going to happen,” Horne answered equably. “You have your orders. I have mine. And mine say that nobody touches those crates or those scientists. Stand down, please.”
Torres and Paterson both rose to flank Brandt as soon as the stand-off began, but even she had to admit that the three private military contractors had the edge even without their helmets on. Nobody had drawn a weapon, nobody had even stood up to their full height yet, but the impasse was palpable. It was like when two predators met in the open back on Earth, and instead of fighting and risking injury or death they did their best to look intimidating and scare the other one off so that they thought tangling with them was more hassle than it was worth.
“Come on, Brandt,” Paterson said. “Don’t let the toy soldiers piss on your boots.”
Brandt allowed him to pull her back, glancing over Horne’s shoulder at the nearest of the black crates and the unconcerned scientists ignoring them.
“That’s right,” crooned one of the men behind Horne, making the man roll his eyes with embarrassment, “y’all go ahead and run along now.”
“They’ve got people in there,” she said to her friends. She had opened a private channel to their suit designations and spoke privately thanks to the sealed armor. “Injured people. That was a resuscitation they just did.”
“Who do you think it is?” Torres asked.
“I don’t know,” Brandt answered, “as far as I knew all the terrorists were dead. Same as our guys.”
“Well, we ain’t gonna figure it out,” Paterson told them as he tapped at his own module to increase the internal heat by a few degrees to help him sleep. “May as well just enjoy my last goddamned ride in space.”
Their re-entry was rough, like it often was, and this time not even Paterson could sleep through it. The shuttle made more noise when inside the Earth’s atmosphere, and the high-pitched chirping whistle of the singularity-driven engine was audible through their sensor feeds. Brandt was torn between keeping their communication secret and getting out of the claustrophobic helmet, and in the end her need for freedom won. Unclipping the hissing helmet away from her bulky suit she dialed in the communication device to the ship channel.
“Roger,” crooned the pilot. “Approach vector one-six-eight on descent, requesting docking platform.”
“Lunar four-eight-four, you are cleared for landing pad nineteen. Confirm?”
“Confirm pad one-niner, ETA six minutes. Four-eight-four standing by.”
Brandt caught the eyes of Ensign Torres, holding up all of the digits of her right hand and her left thumb. He nodded back, elbowing Paterson and showing him six fingers. He nodded, unclipping his helmet and wiping his damp face. The higher temperature he had set was marginally too much for the suit to recycle. That was a flaw with their armor units—nobody ever stayed cool and calm when in a fight and Peterson had been warned more than once about messing with the settings on his armor.
They waited, eager to get out of their suits. Unfortunately, they’d have to be at their end destination before stripping off the heavy plates again otherwise they wouldn’t be able to carry them.
The shuttle banged down, gas struts creaking as their landing gear compressed, and the tail ramp lowered with a metallic whine. Two teams of white-coated personnel waited, and the team onboard rushed their black crates down the ramp to each team as one gave a verbal report.
“This one coded four hours ago,” he said. “Stable now but we need to prep for surgery right away. Is Doctor Hamada here yet?”
Brandt unclipped to stand, hoping to wander around outside for at least a minute before they had to take off again, but Horne stopped her with his right hand. His left was behind his back carrying the same case she had seen earlier cuffed to his wrist.
“Sorry, Chief,” he said, deliberately inflating her status in another attempt to disarm her. “This is a restricted area. Hyper personnel only.” He walked backward down the ramp, a cocky swagger in his steps as his boots hit solid ground and the tail ramp whirred up again. Before his face went out of sight, he winked.
“Argh,” Brandt said in exasperation. “Screw those guys.”
Any answer was cut off by an announcement from the pilot.
“Taking off for the American territory now, ETA seven-nine minutes.”
Brandt sat back, trying to force the unanswered questions out of her head.
The shuttle landed at OTA Colima, the UN American Territory’s officer training academy in Mexico, and the wall of heat hit them before the ramp had even fully descended.
All three of them tapped at their suit controls to manually change the internal temperature. The software that detected and adjusted it took somewhere between a minute and roughly four months to catch up.
“Looks like this is you two,” Paterson said with a sad smile. He offered his hand to the young ensign, the boy who was soon to become Lieutenant Torres, and shook it warmly. “You were a good wheel,” he told him. “You didn’t get in the way.”
“Asshole,” Torres said warmly, smiling at the man who had been in battle with him for the first time, no matter how brief it had been. Torres checked his holstered weapons, hoisted his bag, which was almost the same size as he was, and walked down the ramp into the scorching sunlight. Brandt turned to Paterson and looked hard into his eyes.
“Go get your degree, and do something useful with it,” she told him. “Maybe invent something awesome and retire.” In answer, he stood to attention and saluted in a fashion she thought sarcastic.
“Ma’am, yes ma’am,” he said, half in jest.
“Asshole,” she said as she hugged him and clanked their armor together.
5
Sapporo Mountains, Japan
The science team left the landing pad before the shuttle had even taken off again as the man in charge barked orders. Doctor Hamada, unusually tall for a native of the island they were on, headed up the bioengineering division at what had once been the Yu Foundation headquarters, but was now the research center for the Hudson-Yu company. A medical doctor by trade, a gifted surgeon and leader in the development of neurologically controlled prosthetic limb replacements, his work had long been submerged in the murky world of weapons and cybernetics enhancement research.
“The human body is a remarkable thing,” he said to the team pushing the hovering crates along in his wake as he strode purposefully ahead. “It is capable of surviving the most horrific injuries, but even I cannot repair the damage if you do not hurry up.” His last words descended into a snarl at the doctors and technicians bustling along behind him. He said nothing more as glass and steel doors hissed open ahead of him at the command of a uniformed and armed guard behind them. He stripped off his white lab coat as he walked and dropped it on the ground knowing that someone else would pick it up, have it cleaned and restored to the closet in his office along with all the contents of his pockets finding their neat way to his antique desk.
He walked through another set of doors to his right, these opening automatically as the crates and the teams pushing them went straight ahead through another opening. He stopped, stepping out of his clothes unashamedly as he was handed a clean set of scrubs, which he stepped into with practiced ease.
Slipping his feet into a sterile set of rubber shoes, he scrubbed-in, working his hands and forearms meticulously but quickly. Standing and shaking his hands dry he put both arms into a machine that sparked to life and blasted the skin with light particles, before backing through a manual set of doors with his hands held clear of his body. He turned and had sterile gloves placed over his hands and a mask looped over his ears.
“I think something classic today,” he said amiably to a technician in full surgical get-up. The young man turned and tapped at the icons on a screen and the speakers built into the walls began to play music. As the haunting tones and repetitive thudding beat of the twenty-first century dance music filled the room, Hamada smiled beneath his mask and bobbed his head appreciatively. “Nothing like the old school for a job like this,” he said. “Now, who do we have here?”
The black crate, scrubbed clean with charged light beams and devoid of the team that had escorted it from the surface of the Moon, floated toward him.
“Massive limb damage,” another doctor said as she read the facts from the screen of a datapad held in front of her by another surgical assistant. “Pressurized damage to skull and scans indicate some kind of spinal swelling in the lower thoracic.”
