TS6 - Chapter 11

Wind whipped through Kat’s hair as she stood atop the viewing platform, the smell of ash and burning ozone burning her nose as she squinted into the distance.  Whippoorwill snorted at her side, shaking her head even as her pink hair was blown back and forth.

“Just use your smartglass Kat,” Whip said, her eyes unfocused as she followed her own advice.  “Security made us set up about a league from all the fun.  You’re not going to be able to see anything with just your unassisted eyes.”

“I don’t know,” Kat replied.  “My eyesight is pretty good.  Not nearly as sharp as my hearing, but I can sorta make out the hover tanks running through the obstacle course.  I’m sure that I’m missing plenty of the fine details, but there’s enough that I can track what they’re doing.”

“I’ll probably have to switch to my smartglass when it comes time for the weapons tests,” she relented.  “It doesn’t feel natural to try and judge the new models’ effectiveness through nothing but recordings.  I wish we could be a little closer.  You can ever know how impressive one of those tanks is until you actually feel the pressure waves when it fires its main cannon.”

“Not happening,” Heather interjected.  “I shouldn’t have even let you come out to a firing range where we’re doing live munitions testing.  I genuinely wonder sometimes if you’ve managed to develop some sort of mind control skill from your time in the tower.  This is an absurd risk.  One traitor spinning their gun turret and all of us could be a meat puree in a matter of seconds.”

Kat felt her mouth quirk up into a smile.  In the distance one of the hover tanks was weaving agilely in between a series of poles all while the kinetic repeaters on its hull fired continuously, drawing a constant cloud of smoke and debris from around their designated target.

“What traitor?”  She asked.  “From what I’ve seen, both your security forces and the 3445 have been pretty immaculate about weeding agents out of their ranks.  Honestly, I don’t even know how someone would infiltrate the 3445.  They don’t really interact with anyone outside of our facility and most of them distrust every corporate entity other than our security teams ever since they were put into that forced labor camp.”

“And that’s why they get the best toys,” Heather agreed, her expression hard to read.  “We do weekly loyalty screens and the scientists have given us some interesting toys to study pupil contraction, heart rate, and sweat content while we interrogate our guards, but even with all of that I can’t disagree that the 3445 is slightly safer.  I think fanatical is the better word.  Still, I’ve been working with Davis Stoller for over a year now, and that man is something more than a professional.  If he managed to let an agent slip into his ranks, it just means that the quality of the teams coming after us is absurd.”

“We monitor our employees' families, banks, gambling, and drug habits,” she continued.  “There’s no way for them to develop a debt or end up with someone having serious leverage on them.  You shouldn’t even be able to bribe them without us being able to trace the money.”

“Or so we thought,” Heather finished with a shrug.  “It looks like the Haupt defector secretly adopted the children of a friend that died during his security training.  He was using a third party to launder part of his pay and turn it into physical credits that he would hand deliver to their mother.  Unfortunately, he was trained well enough that Davis’ people weren’t able to follow his tracks.  It seems like the masterminds behind the assaination were better.  The entire family had been fed a slow acting poison.  Shortly after the attempt was made on Shareholder Haupt’s life, they were delivered the antidote.”

“Millennium?” Kat asked, the word rancid in her mouth.

“Either that or one of the other megacorps has invented some new high end encryption breaking gear and no one has found out,” Heather replied.  “That plus a lot of field agents and computer processing power might have been able to put together what was going on with the agent, but even then I’m skeptical.  Davis trained his people well, and the traitor did a very good job hiding his trail.  I know it’s taking the easy way out to just throw my hands up and blame aliens, but-”

Heather shrugged, both of her metal hands glinting in the sun as she pushed them up over her head.

“Aliens.”

Kat rolled her eyes.  In the distance, the hover tanks began firing their main cannons as they continued to skid in an evasive pattern.  After a little over a half second, the steady thump of the heavy weapons reached her.  Through her enhanced hearing, Kat could hear everything from the steady drone of the crude anti gravity generators to the whine of the guns’ rapidly recharging capacitors.

“Aliens,” Whip agreed, a half smile on her face.  “Honestly though?  Who else would it be?  The rest of the corps want your money.  You being dead doesn’t get them your money.  Why would they bother wasting the time and resources on killing you?  If I were them and I invented some sort of esoteric supertech, I’d use it to break into your labs and download data instead.  The only people that actually want you dead are the aliens, so I’m inclined to blame them.”

“Speaking of which,” Heather began, her eyes flickering upward to the cloudless sky.

“He should be here in just a bit,” Kat said.  “Estimated time of arrival was 2:45 central time and it’s 2:40 right now.  Still time for the weapons crews to spool up a couple more tests so that there is a large enough exotic energy signature that Dorrik can plausibly deny detecting the landing.”

“Kat,” Whippoorwill hissed, tapping her arm.  “They’re starting on the shield tests.  I think you’re going to actually need your smart glass for this.”

With a sigh, Kat flipped down her smart glass.  A couple twitches of her left eye brought up the drone feeds from the firing range.  Unsurprisingly, the targets were torn to shreds.  Evidently, the repeaters on the tanks had managed to land every shot in a one pace radius even while going through the entire obstacle course.

A pair of scientists nervously wheeled out a dolly covered in electronics.  Once it was in the center of the firing range, one of them began driving spikes into the cement while the other fiddled with the equipment.  A minute or so later, a semi translucent hemisphere of energy popped into being around the machinery.  With a distant shout, the two engineers jogged away, clearing the range.

Electric motors whined, barely audible even with Kat’s absurd hearing as one of the tanks rotated slightly, lining up its main cannon.  It fired, and Kat winced as the usual explosive thud from a successful hit was replaced with a half second of squealing static as the shield overloaded and failed.

The drones swooped in, giving her team a close up of the warped and shattered concrete where the combination of molten metal and plasma had drilled a circle into the ground around the shield generator.  Inside, the floor was untouched, but the equipment itself was shooting sparks and a steady plume of oily black smoke.

Whippoorwill clicked her tongue.

“I wouldn’t want to be stuck in an armored car with that thing after taking a tank shell.  We’ll have to look at the replay of the footage, but it sure looked like the generator actually spat some shrapnel after the power surge overwhelmed it.  Using something like that would be like sewing a hand grenade to your back.”

“I think I’d prefer a hand grenade to actually getting hit by one of those tank cannons,” Kat replied.  “I’ve seen them turn armored vehicles into tinsel.  I’d rather deal with a little shrapnel and smoke than have a magnetically accelerated tungsten rod turn me into strawberry jam.  Plus, this test was mostly about shield output.  These models wouldn’t be put anywhere near an actual unarmored human.  Those are coming next.”

As if on cue the two engineers began pushing out another wheeled apparatus.  This one had a crash test dummy with a heavy vest covering its torso.  Kat could make out the circuitry and lights adorning the portable shield generator, but she didn’t have the slightest idea what the workers were doing as they fiddled with the apparatus, fine tuning it while a trio of maintenance workers cleaned up the larger, damaged shield generator.

Three minutes later, everything was set and ready to go.  The workers jogged away to clear the firing range, and the same tank that had fired at the previous target floated forward a couple dozen paces.  On the front of its hull, one of its repeaters slid out of its housing tracking the translucent shield bubble for a couple of seconds.

Then, at a barked command, the tank opened fire.  Rather than the blistering hail of bullets that usually came from the vehicle’s weapons, the repeater fired one shot per second.  Kat didn’t need to look up the specifications to know that each bullet slightly outperformed a .50 caliber rifle.  Although that level of firepower wasn’t anything revolutionary, the fact that each tank mounted a half dozen of them in addition to a laser point defense suite turned the vehicles into something akin to hovering fortresses.  The fact that each of the guns fired faster, longer, and more accurately than conventional weapons, all while being aimed by automated systems turned each hover tank into the equivalent of at least a couple companies of ordinary soldiers.

Kat felt her lips pull back into a toothy smile.  As impressive as the new models of tanks were, they weren’t the star of the show.  The shield vest occupied her entire attention.  Each shot sent the dummy swaying backward, but the shield held firm.  Finally on the fourth round it shattered into motes of light and heavy black smoke began to pour out of the machinery.  A second later, the equipment itself burst into flames.

“That isn’t ideal,” Heather said with a hiss of indrawn breath.

It’s not as bad as you’d think,” Kat responded.  “True, I don’t think we want the equipment actually bursting into flames after it’s overwhelmed, but expensive machinery that destroys itself if overused?  Well, that sounds like expensive machinery that you’re going to have to purchase over and over again.”

“And it’s not like the true elite will be willing to go without,” Whip chimed in thoughtfully.  “If their guards can take two or three direct hits without even testing their armor, that is going to do wonders for survivability, even if the full vest versions of the shield require some sort of exoskeleton and frequent recharging with a mana conversion tool.  Even a couple squads of heavies that can shrug off enemy fire is a game changer.”

“And there is the model for the rest of us,” Kat said, nodding toward the engineers dragging out another dummy, this time with a metal bracer.  “This one should have batteries rather than a direct mana conversion, but the teams down at the lab assure me that it can take at least one shot before dissipating.  Hopefully it won’t have any of the more festive responses to being overloaded that we’ve seen so far today.  There are ways to work around explosions and fire with heavy armor and vehicles, but if I’m about to strap something to my arm, I’d prefer it to not do more damage than the bullet it stopped.”

Out on the firing range, the workers jogged away from the dummy as a soldier in an Apex battle suit stomped out toward the target with a conventional rifle clipped to the back of his armor.  After all, it hardly made sense to test the limits of the armbands if it would only survive one shot from a heavier weapon.  Multiple smaller gauge bullets would give a much better benchmark.

Before the security officer could open fire, a flash of green light washed over the field and a smile lit up on Kat’s face.

“He’s here!”  She said happily, shielding her eyes as she looked up at the sky.  A stubby shuttle, held aloft by four stubby wings, each of which had a circle of glowing energy on its underside, lowered itself from the sky toward the testing range.

Heather began barking into her communication piece, calling out to the heavy transports they’d used to bring the hover tanks out to the testing range.  One of the big semis rumbled into motion, driving toward an unoccupied stretch of concrete.

The shuttle lowered itself rapidly, extending struts and landing with a crunch and a wind as its anti-gravity engines spooled down.  A couple seconds later, a hatch popped open on the top of the vehicle and Kaleek climbed out, large dark goggles over his eyes and a pack of some sort strapped around his waist.

“HALL OH KAT!” He shouted, strange pauses between each syllable as he struggled with english. “I AM FUN TIME EARTH!”

She rolled her eyes, hopping down from the viewing platform and letting Levitation catch her as she lowered herself toward the ground now that Kaleek’s shuttle had successfully landed.  She broke into a jog, quickly closing the distance between them.

“Hello to you too Kaleek,” Kat called back.  “It’s good to see you in person.”

The desoph frowned, cocking his head to the side as he stood atop his shuttle.  “TALK SLOW PLE EZE.  TONGUE NEW BAD.”

“Just use your translator Kaleek,” She said, shaking her head.  “I hate to say it but your English could use a little work.”

“USE WHAT OBJECT THING?” He asked, giving Kat a massive thumbs up.  His whiskers vibrated slightly with barely restrained mirth.  She only squinted in reply.

Kaleek burst into laughter, digging into the pack cinched around his waist to pull out a square of metal on a lanyard that he quickly draped over his neck.

“You do realize that I’m supposed to be someone with gravitas, right?” Kat asked with a sigh.  “There are hundreds of employees around that we had to swear to secrecy with non disclosure agreements that include vivisection and immolation clauses to cover up your landing.”

“Yep,” Kaleek replied, his voice immediately modified by the translator around his neck.  “I made sure to bring gifts for all of them too.  I’d be a bad guest showing up without something to show my appreciation.”

Once again he started rummaging in his pack.  A couple seconds later, the desoph pulled out a metallic wafer the size of Kat’s thumbnail and tossed it to her.

“Catch,” he said.  “I’ve got about a thousand minaaq fish in a tank in my hold.  Each one of them goes for a week of a standard laborer’s salary.  Absolute delicacy.”

“More importantly,” he continued, his sly tone obvious even through the translator, “I have two matriarchs in there as well.  So long as we can get the pH and oxygen content right on one of your lakes, we can start farming them here.  Then the four of us can enjoy them whenever we want.”

“Not Dorrik though,” Kaleek finished, a satisfied grin on his face.  “He’s too much of a stick in the mud.  Instead we should just eat the minaaq in front of him to rub it in.”

“Do these min- fish even taste good to humans?”  Kat asked.  Behind her, Heather and Whippoorwill were jogging to catch up.  “I really don’t know much about desoph physiology, but I would assume that whatever you have instead of taste buds works differently.  I don’t want to promise my crews a delicacy only for it to taste like motor oil or something.”

“That’s the joy of minaaq,” Kaleek said excitedly.  “The fish have a mildly psychic residue that directly impacts the pleasure centers of the person eating them.  Mechanical analysis has revealed that they basically taste very slightly of salt and nothing else.  For a person?  They always taste like the best thing you’ve ever eaten alongside a mildly euphoric rush.  Some of the less sophisticated stellar nations actually classify them as a narcotic which is hardly fair.”

“Wait,” Kat stopped him, raising one hand with her palm out while the other pinched the bridge of her nose.  “Did you just smuggle psychic drugs onto my planet?”

“They aren’t drugs,” Kaleek replied.  “They’re fish.  It’s not their fault that their breeding, transportation and consumption is regulated by bigots.  Think of the fish Kat.  They never asked for this.”

“Are we breaking the law again?”  Whip called out.  “Things have been kind of boring since Kat became a shareholder.  Outside of the jerks trying to kill us, everything else is more or less legal if Kat wants to do it.  It takes some of the thrill out of clandestine operations if your girlfriend can just say ‘it’s fine’ when you get caught by security officers.”

Kaleek shook his head, flashing a bright smile at the three of them.

“Unfortunately,” he responded.  “My plan is to repeat that strategy.  Once a human ascends, they get to define the initial laws on your planet including import and export restrictions.   If Kat were to win, she could simply make minaaq breeding and sale legal.  I can assure you that doing so would lead to your planet immediately becoming a desoph vacation hub.”

“Also,” he continued smoothly.  “You must be Whippoorwill.  Kat has said a lot about you, and so long as you bribe me liberally with local food and drink, I will be happy to tell you all of it.”

“What kind of food and drink should I start with?” Whip asked instantly, her eyes narrowing.  “I have no idea what secrets you hold, but I need to know them immediately.”

Kat chuckled, shaking her head as Kaleek jumped down off of his ship.  In the distance, a mag rifle cracked and a shield whined as the field testing went on without them.

“Kat told me about an intriguing concept that she called ‘sushi,” Kaleek replied.  “I don’t know all that much about it, but some of the first contact team’s reports on Earth’s culture and cuisine have been intriguing.”

He leaned forward, a furry paw shielding his muzzle from Kat as he continued talking to Whip in a loud stage whisper.

“That’s actually why I brought the minaaq.  I wanted to see if your local chefs could incorporate the minaaq into your race’s seafood.  With any luck, they’ll manage to come up with some sort of delicacy that will bring in tourists from light centuries away.  After all, the primary export of most new worlds in the Consensus are unique cultural experiences.  If you can manage to put together a compelling brand, all three of us are set for life.”

At Kat’s side, Heather sputtered.

“Are you honestly trying to put together a nefarious plot to turn Earth into some sort of psychedelic sushi drug den?”  She asked incredulously.  “Honestly.”

Heather reached up with a metal hand, brushing back her short cropped hair.

“I don’t know what I expected,” she said, voice resigned before turning and pointing an accusing finger at Kat.  “After all, he’s your friend.”

Kat smiled.  She couldn’t help herself.  The constant stress of trying to climb the tower as fast as possible was starting to wear on her.  Every night she had no choice but to risk herself over and over again as she raced against Mr Jackson’s unseen influence.

Now, with both Kaleek and Dorrik here?  Everything felt right.  There was no guarantee that things were going to be good let alone perfect, but with all three of them working together, she couldn’t help but feel optimism swelling inside her chest.

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