The Valhalla Call (Warrior's Wings) (7 page)

“Oh?” Sorilla asked, keeping her tone neutral. She knew that her mind and body had done some strange things with the new implants. They’d never been designed to work quite the way they worked for her.

“As you know, your implants are an experimental generation that was designed to use your nervous system to send messages across your body network,” the doctor started. “The system appeared to work fine and didn’t interfere with your body because we adjusted it to run on different frequencies from what your body normally used.”

“I know, I read the brief.”

“Of course. Well, it appears that your brain has begun to intercept and interpret those signals anyway. That’s why you’ve begun showing more sensitivity to gravity changes, for example.”

“I know, doc, I reported most of this, remember?” Sorilla reminded him with an easy grin.

She was no expert in medical processes, but she knew her own body and implants.

“Yes, well, we’ve confirmed a lot of what you supposed and found some other interesting things,” he said. “Now that your mind is interpreting signals from the implants, it’s begun to move past just the gravity sensors. We’re showing that your reflexes are heightened, hand-eye coordination is at least fifteen percent over your previous top scores, and you’re actually starting to show almost precognitive abilities in some narrow traits.”

Sorilla snorted. “You’re saying I can see the future?”

“No, not even remotely,” the doctor laughed, “but your brain is actually reading messages sent to your HUD before your eyes get a chance to see them. In our tests, you’ve begun to actually act on information as much as a full second before you should even be registering it. I’m concerned that these changes may become a detriment, however, if your brain becomes unable to filter the information being sent by your implants.”

“Not seeing much of a downside so far, other than having to fight to keep my lunch down when we go into jump space.”

“Unfortunately, we’ve run into serious issues with others who received the same implant suite,” he told her. “Most of our early candidates began to suffer with uncontrollable motion sickness, headaches, and other minor symptoms that forced us to cycle them off deployment and remove the implants.”

“Most?” she asked dryly.

“You’re the only candidate left using the neural transmission technology. We have to change it all back to Near Field Radio-based transmissions,” he admitted.

Sorilla grimaced. That certainly didn’t sound great for her, but the fact was that despite some increased sensitivity to gravity fields and, yes, jump sickness, she was largely doing fine. “So what are you saying, just to be clear?”

“We’ve recommended that you have your implants removed and replaced with NFC alternatives.”

“How long will that put me out for?”

The doctor shrugged. “Not long. The implants can be adjusted using minimally invasive techniques. Say, two weeks.”

“Doc, I’m slated to begin mission training tomorrow for a mission that
starts
in a couple weeks.”

“You would be replaced on the lists with the next candidate.”

Sorilla shook her head. “I’ll keep my implants, doc.”

“Lieutenant, I don’t believe you understand…”

She cut him off. “I get it. Motion sickness, headaches, and so on. Except that I don’t get headaches, and I’ve been able to control the increased jump sickness. Unless you’ve got something solid to make me reconsider, I’ll keep my implants.”

He started to speak again, but this time a voice from the door cut him off.

“The lady made her choice, doctor.”

Sorilla jumped, shifting to stand at attention instantly as she recognized the voice and face.

“At ease,” General Graves said as he stepped into the room. “And you can go now, doctor.”

“General, I am going to lodge a protest. This implant suite has been considered obsolete and a danger to its users for almost a year now.”

“It’s the most advanced and secure system anyone has ever developed, doctor,” Graves said flatly. “As long as the lady says so, she keeps them, until and unless they start to negatively impact her performance.”

“Yes, General.” The doctor grimaced, leaving the room with obvious reluctance.

When he was gone, Graves turned back to Sorilla. “Don’t mind him. He was hoping to keep you around for a few months. They’ve been trying to figure out why you didn’t reject the implants the way others have.”

“Cutting them out of me seems a funny way to study their impact on my brain, if you ask me.”

Graves smiled slightly. “It’s been made clear that you’re a field op, Sarg—sorry, Lieutenant. The only way he could manage the pull to keep you off Task Force Five and out from under Brooke’s command was to pull a medical override.”

“Great. So he wants a lab rat.”

“Precisely.”

Sorilla grimaced. “He can go…
enjoy
himself, General. I’m fit and ready for duty.”

“So you are, Lieutenant,” Graves agreed, ignoring her obvious near slip and close catch of her language with some amusement. He was a Special Forces brigadier, he’d heard worse than she could throw out, but he didn’t say as much because, as an officer, now he knew that she would be expected to police her own language, around the brass at least.

It was funny, really, there were so many things a sergeant could get away with that a lieutenant had absolutely no hope of even attempting.

“Well, since you’ve passed your medical, I have a new set of clothes for you try on.”

“Sir?”

“Come on, Lieutenant, you’ll like this. I promise.”

*****

Chinese Warship Feng Lau

En Route for Hayden

Major Washington shifted uncomfortably in his seat, resisting the urge to get up and float around. The Chinese ship wasn’t built to accommodate men with his body type, and that was being generous about it.

Oh, he knew that the idea that the Chinese were all small men was more than a bit of a myth. He’d met more than his share of towering brutes from that country; it did have almost ten billion people after all. Life extension technology hadn’t been a boon there, not as far as quality of life went.

The Chinese didn’t build with comfort in mind in the first place, not for the rank and file at least, and so being larger than their average recruit left him cramped and fidgeting as they made their way from the Centuri jump point toward the Hayden one.

Unfortunately, there just weren’t any ships available in the Solari Organization at the moment. Everything was either deployed or being slagged down for recycling into one of the new class of ships, and every single one of those was spoken for at the moment.

That left the Chinese and the Russians with some spare tonnage, but unfortunately, the Russians didn’t have anything they were willing to dispatch out to Hayden.

Ton rather thought that they were bringing all their ships in for the same reason as the Solari Organization had. There were rumors of the Russians signing on fully with SOCOM, rather than the commercial and scientific partnership that had been running so far. If that was the case, Ton expected that total tonnage was about to go up by a third at least and maybe they’d be able to move some stuff around again.

Until then, however, he was stuck in a Chinese tin can with a bunch of other men who needed their space at the best of times.

“God damn it, are we there yet?”

“Jenks, if you ask that question one more time…” Ton growled.

“You’ll what? Turn the ship around?” Sergeant Micheal Jenks asked, chuckling.

“No, I’ll lighten it by about 230 pounds,” Ton growled. “Might get us there quicker. Not that you’d care in that case.”

Jenks shut up, and beside him he could hear Crow snicker slightly.

“Don’t know what you’re laughing at, Crow,” he told the younger man. “I recall a certain butter bar who couldn’t talk for stammering back in the day.”

“Between you taking an alien pulse blast for me and the Sarge kicking my ass afterwards,” Crow snorted, “I grew up. Good to be working with you again, by the way. We didn’t have much time to get reacquainted before they shoved us on this tin can.”

“That we did not. I heard your team had a helluva ride last time out?”

Crow shook his head. “We were on the Hood when she got cut in half, so you could say that. Most of us lived; that’s better than the Skipper got.”

Ton nodded. He’d read the reports of course. That was an ugly situation, but the fact that as many people lived through that battle as did was a testament to Captain MacKay and her crew’s skills. He just hoped no one had to pull anything like that while he was riding their ship. It didn’t sound like a fun time.

*****

USV Terra

Outer Hayden System

“The taskforce has been positioned, sir.”

“Thank you, Captain,” Fairbairn said, not looking up from his desk work. “Do we have an ETA on the enemy fleet’s arrival yet?”

“40 hours, Admiral.”

Fairbairn nodded. “All right, I suppose that there isn’t much more to do but wait.”

“Yes, sir,” Pierce replied. “I’ve stood the ships down from high alert, let the men get some food and rest before action.”

“Very good, Captain, just be sure that we’re back to general quarters in 35.”

“Aye, si—”

Pierce was cut off by an alert, and he turned on his heel.

“Captain?”

“Gravity alert, sir. Something is coming through the jump point.”

Fairbairn jumped to his feet, forgetting his desk work in a hurry. “Are they here early?”

“No way, no possible way they could have cut that much time off transit, sir. This is probably another message from The Sadler,” Pierce said calmly, already walking toward the bridge. He discreetly keyed open his com without pausing and hissed into the device, “This is the captain. I want us back to general quarters.”

“Aye, Captain. Sounding general quarters.”

A second alarm blocked out the first as Pierce hit the main transit corridor, forcing himself to walk and not run around the curving path that led to the bridge. He stepped onto the bridge twenty seconds later and straightened his uniform before speaking.

“Talk to me.”

It was an order, not a request, and everyone knew it.

“We have telemetry from a gravity probe, sir.”

Pierce let out a sigh of relief. “No other signals?”

“No, sir.”

“Excellent. Stand down from general quarters.”

“Yes, sir, standing down general quarters.”

“Get the data from that probe and direct everything marked Priority Three and higher to my workstation.”

“Aye, Captain.”

*****

The replay of The Sadler’s last moments went by again as the admiral stared at the screen, fingers numb as he reflexively rapped them on the desk.

“Do we have a count?” he asked sickly.

“At least another 80 warships, sir,” Pierce said. “We had a chance against 45, given the ambush. Against this? Not even if God was rolling the dice.”

Fairbairn nodded reflexively, though he’d barely heard the response. He already knew that TF7 didn’t stand a chance against a force like that. He was just shocked that the enemy even
had
that many ships to send out this far. The logistics of sending even a force the size of TF7 a few jumps from Earth was formidable; they probably wouldn’t be able to do it at all without the local resupply from Hayden’s orbital habitats and growth.

This was a force many times their size, and it was certainly farther from their home than the Earth was from Hayden. Human ships had explored outward dozens of jumps and found no sign of civilization. That meant that these people, if that was what he should call them, had sent a massive fleet farther out than humans could even consider.

I suppose we’d best test their resolve, then…
Fairbairn thought grimly,
and their range.

“Captain, I think we’d best break out the pulse generators.”

Pierce nodded slowly, hiding his wince. “Yes, sir.”

“Order the Canada to mobilize and bring us to jump readiness,” the admiral said, checking the time. “We’ll go through the jump point in ten minutes.”

“Aye aye, Admiral.” Pierce grimaced, but didn’t hesitate.

“I’ll dispatch new orders to the remaining ships.”

“With respect, Admiral,” Pierce shook his head, “I strongly suggest that you shift your flag to the America.”

“I’m not running from my duties, Captain,” Fairbairn growled.

“I’m suggesting you stay and
do
your duty, Admiral,” Pierce countered, face a stony mask. “You’ll have nothing to do with the Terra and the Canada on the other side, but there will be plenty for you to do here, sir.”

Fairbairn glowered at him but couldn’t marshal much of a response beyond throwing an infantile tantrum and saying, “But I wanna stay here.” He took a deep breath and nodded. “Very well, Captain, you have command of the detachment. Do try to bring your ships and crew home.”

“My very second highest priority, Admiral.”

Admiral Fairbairn nodded as he got up to gather his things and staff. He didn’t need to ask what the first priority was. That was self-evident.

*****

SOPCOM, Los Alamos

“New standard issue, just for your team,” Graves said, gesturing to a table in front of her.

“My team?” Sorilla cocked her head, shooting him a glance as she walked over to the table and looked over the array of kits laid out on it.

“Haven’t been briefed yet?”

“No, sir.” She shook her head.

“You will be, probably on the Alamo.”

“Yes, sir,” Sorilla nodded, picking up the Metalstorm pistol that she recognized.

The compact weapon fired half-inch rounds from two over- and under-barrels at rates of up to a million rounds per minute. Granted, it could only hold fifty rounds in the weapon at any given time, so there was no possible way to hit that theoretical limit. In practice, it meant that she could hammer a target with up to fifty rounds so quickly that every shot would be on target before the recoil of the first one hit her arm.

It was a precision weapon that doubled as a small artillery piece, and since it was a Metalstorm configuration design, there were no moving parts in the entire thing. Even the trigger was a simple pressure flex material that didn’t move, not that she needed to use it. Her implants could tell the weapon to fire directly if needed.