Frozen Fire Read online

  “That sounds like an awful lot of disdain,” Samuels observed neutrally. “Why risk your life to protect people you dislike so much?”

  “First off, I don’t dislike people,” Xi replied as Elvira navigated a five-meter-wide fissure in the ice, carefully extending her legs and rotating the mech across the divide. The planet’s surface was covered with such crevasses, crisscrossing hither and thither at seemingly random angles as the gravitational interplay between Shiva’s Wrath and its parent gas giant constantly compressed and stretched the world’s surface. “I dislike stupid people sucking off others while simultaneously judging them and, even worse, I hate bad ideas.”

  “Is that why you came to call a prison cell ‘home’ by the tender age of fourteen?” Samuels asked. “Not many people, even on the relatively authoritarian world of Terra Han, find themselves in max-sec before they’ve finished puberty.”

  “Puberty? At Fourteen?” Xi snorted. “Have you looked at me, lady? I had more curves at thirteen than an extreme drift-racing track.”

  Samuels laughed. “Fair enough. But that doesn’t explain how you ended up behind bars.”

  “I thought you were here to document the battalion,” Xi said irritably.

  “I am,” Samuels agreed, “but this battalion isn’t made of machines and weapons. It’s made of men and women, many of whom, like you, willingly chose to join military service instead of serving out their criminal sentences. As something of a scion for your unit, I thought an individual character bio of Captain Xi Bao, data criminal and information-thief-turned-mech-Jock, would be a good place to start my documentary.”

  Xi gritted her teeth. “I’m a data criminal, sure, but I never stole anything.”

  “That’s not the way Terra Han’s judiciary saw it,” Samuels challenged. “They gave you a thirty-year sentence, one which would probably take you beyond your natural childbearing years, for stealing and broadcasting sensitive information across the data nets.”

  “That information wasn’t stolen,” she growled, “but yes, I did broadcast it.”

  “How can you say it wasn’t stolen?” Samuels asked, and only then did Xi recognize the combative tone in the woman’s voice. She had been so gradual in her lead-up to it that Xi hadn’t even noticed, but now it was clear: she was being grilled.

  Xi took a steadying breath. “The information I broadcast was government-collected statistical data on behavior patterns and their associations with multiple individual traits. Some of those traits were genetic, some had to do with individual social experiences, and some had to do with hormonal interplay with certain neural structures in the brain. The reason I didn’t steal it…no, the reason I couldn’t have stolen it, is simple: it was government-funded research, conducted using tax money. It belonged to us, not them, and the simple fact that they threw me in jail for shedding light on that information was all the proof one needs to know that my world’s government does indeed view itself apart from the citizenry. That was the main point of my broadcasting the data.”

  “You stoked a lot of hatred with that data release,” Samuels said sympathetically, though the sentiment was not directed at Xi. “Racial and sexual discrimination, ethnic violence, even several suicides were directly linked to your data release.”

  Xi shrugged with forced indifference as the last of 2nd Company traversed the icy chasm, though some required the aid of Gym Cricket, a multi-purpose non-combat mech that could create thirty-meter-long bridges in seconds. “I didn’t cause any of that violence or hatred, and no sense in retrying the case. The government found me guilty. I served my time there before serving here. My sentence has been commuted and record expunged. If you’re looking for some kind of daytime drama to create, go find it somewhere else. If you want to keep talking to me, then let’s talk about 2nd Company and what we’re facing right here on Shiva.” Xi turned back to her console.

  “Maybe you didn’t cause the violence,” Samuels allowed, “but you certainly fueled it.” The reporter completely ignored Xi’s attempt to end the conversation. The two women waited in uncomfortable silence. The reporter knew that the tension would grow.

  “I’m not responsible for their hatred,” Xi replied matter-of-factly, “and I’m not responsible for a society that self-destructs by choosing to coddle and shield itself from some of the harsher truths of the human condition. Some truths are nice to hear, others not so much. But instead of suppressing the flow of information which makes us feel bad, why don’t we push it out there as hard and as fast as possible so we can collectively figure out how to deal with it? You’re a reporter.” she snapped, making angry eye contact with the blonde woman. “You, of all people, should know the answer.”

  Samuels’ expression remained impassive, and she stayed silent for a moment while her hand-sized hover-drone recorded every second of the conversation.

  Xi shook her head in disappointment. “Do you know what Thomas Jefferson said about an informed populace?”

  “Tell me what he said.” Samuels’ eyes flashed with a peculiar, intense look.

  “He said ‘a well-informed populace can be trusted with its own government,’” Xi replied, having long-since burned those words into her brain. “But those words weren’t what he was really saying. They were a negative image of his true message, which was this: an uninformed populace absolutely cannot be trusted with its own government. I was informing the public with my data release, whether they were going to like what I showed them or not. I’m not the enemy here. The real enemies in my criminal case are the institutions which think they get to decide what information is or isn’t fit for public consumption. I broke the law, and I knew I’d be punished for it, but I did it anyway in part because I thought that the information I was putting out there was important and needed to be understood. Not because I agreed with what it suggested or represented, or because I thought it would lead to a particular outcome, but because I always, always,” she repeated emphatically, “think that more information is better than less. My government threw me in jail because they disagreed, and I can’t really blame them for dropping the hammer on me since I disrupted their plans.” She shrugged. “The real problem in my case, Ms. Samuels, is the media that failed—and continues to fail—the people who depend upon it to present all of the facts so that we, the people, can make up our minds. You and your ilk waited for me, some random, fourteen-year-old girl, to throw myself on the proverbial grenade before you swooped in and spun the facts to suit your preconceived narratives.”

  Samuels’ expression was flat, like the icy landscape before them, and for a long moment, she sat in silence before deactivating the recording drone. “Thank you, Captain Xi,” she said neutrally before exiting the cabin.

  The next few hours passed by in relative silence as the column rolled toward a nearly-vertical mountain looming fifteen kilometers above the ice-field around it.

  “Alpha Site secured, Colonel,” Captain Xi reported precisely on schedule. “The facility is ready for the infantry.”

  “Copy that, Elvira,” Jenkins acknowledged. “Sergeant Major Trapper, you’re ‘go’ to secure the facility.”

  “Roger,” replied the grizzled Tim Trapper Sr., whose no-nonsense approach stood in stark contrast with his son’s more relaxed style. “Moving in.”

  Roy’s tactical plotter showed a stream of icons emerging from the APCs—advanced personnel carriers—which bore Trapper’s PDF troopers, all of whom had come from Terra Han. The Terran Armor Corps had only a handful of active infantrymen, most of whom were near-retirement and too high-ranking to warrant deployment as Pounders. So Sergeant Major Tim Trapper, Sr. was one of the few long-serving Armor Corps infantrymen present on Shiva’s Wrath, with the rest of the veterans working to train an entire regiment of fresh recruits back at Armor Corps HQ on Terra Americana. But most of the recruits, like these PDF troopers, would come from Terra Han for a variety of reasons.

  Uniquely in the Terran Republic, Terra Han was an Earth-class world. Its gravity was on
ly six percent above Earth norm; its atmospheric content was nearly identical save for CO2 levels of 4,000ppm, which was four times Earth’s pre-FTL levels in the mid-twenty-first century; and, most important of all, it featured an axial tilt and mean temperatures that supported icy polar caps and Earth-like seasonal changes on much of its surface. Combined with its population of one billion humans, five times that of the second-most-populous colony, Terra Americana, this made Terra Han prime recruiting ground for the rebuilding Armor Corps.

  Sergeant Major Trapper directed his people into the mouth of the subterranean facility, which bored straight into the side of the towering mountain. Without the forces of tectonic instability, erosion from weather, or tides lapping against the base of the rocky prominence, the mountain had stood unmolested for hundreds of millions of years. The sea of ice stretching out in all directions was less uniform near the base of the mountain, but Durgan Industrial Enterprises (DIE) had cleared several approach paths using a combination of careful orbital strikes and heavy equipment several decades earlier.

  Two minutes after deploying from the APCs, Trapper reported, “Main facility secure, Colonel Jenkins. All internal monitoring systems read five-by-five. I’m sending four platoons to investigate the mining tunnels.”

  “Good work, Tim,” Jenkins acknowledged. “Arrange a detail to finish securing the rest of the facility and rejoin the column once you’re satisfied. We need to secure the other three facilities.”

  “Roger, sir,” Trapper acknowledged, and to Jenkins’ surprise, the venerable warrior emerged from Alpha Site’s massive, iron-walled cave mouth four minutes later at the head of half the troopers he had led inside. “My people will conduct visual inspections to confirm the site’s integrity, after which they’ll reinforce the entry point.” Trapper’s people filed into the APCs, with the sergeant major’s boots the last off the ground. As soon as he regained his APC, he reported, “Ready to roll, Colonel.”

  “1st Battalion,” Jenkins called over the command channel, “proceed to the Beta Site.”

  Three hours later, the Beta Site and Charlie Site had been secured, and the column had nearly reached the Delta Site.

  But before they arrived, Roy’s tactical board lit up like a Christmas tree. “Multiple contacts, Colonel,” Styles remarked, and Jenkins leaned over the technician’s shoulder to get a better look at the confused stream of data. “I’m reading Jemmin forces surrounding the facility,” Styles reported tightly.

  Jenkins set his jaw. “1st Battalion, hold position.”

  The column came to a halt a few seconds later, during which time Styles worked to parse the data feeds, “They must have been using some kind of stealth systems, Colonel. It looks like they intentionally deactivated them as we approached.”

  Jenkins saw no fewer than eight vehicles, each at least twice the size of Roy, arrayed in front of the Delta Site’s cave-mouth entrance. Each of these four facilities was a fully-automated, deep-mining operation funded by DIE. They extracted ultra-rare minerals, which were remotely-transported twice-a-year off the surface and collected by DIE transports for return to the Terran Republic.

  “What are the Jemmin doing down a DIE mine shaft?” Jenkins wondered aloud.

  “Can’t be for the minerals,” Styles mused. “Word is they’ve already mastered deep-core mining of all but the largest gas giants. Running remote operations like this one are inefficient by comparison.”

  “And the other three sites’ cargoes are just sitting there,” Jenkins agreed, “waiting to be collected.”

  “There’s either something other than minerals being extracted down there,” Styles suggested, “or the Jemmin are here for something from the facility itself…but what would they need with our relatively primitive tech?”

  Jenkins grimaced. “Things look like they’re about to get interesting.”

  Styles’ board lit up again. “I’m receiving an incoming transmission from the Jemmin, Colonel.”

  “Let’s hear it.”

  3

  Keeping the Peace

  “Greetings, human paramilitary forces,” greeted the Jemmin’s auto-translated voice, which somehow seemed even colder and less…well, human, than the Azure Spire’s commanding officer during their brief jaunt through the Nexus System. “This location is under quarantine by the authority of the Illumination League Peacekeeping Force. Do not encroach while we secure the area in accordance with ILPF protocol.”

  Jenkins turned to Styles. “Get General Akinouye on the line. I don’t like the sound of this.”

  “The Bonhoeffer’s currently repositioning, sir,” Styles replied promptly. “I haven’t been able to establish a real-time secure P2P for about eleven minutes.”

  Jenkins bit his lip irritably before gesturing for Styles to put him on with the Jemmin. “This is Colonel Lee Jenkins, commanding officer of the Terran Armor Corps forces currently deployed on this world. We are here under lawful writ in accordance with both Terran Republic sovereignty and pursuant to Sol’s colonial recognition of the Terran colonies. We are thereby permitted to transit within Solar space, to conduct exploratory operations while doing so, as well as to extract and utilize essential resources from any territory which the Illumination League recognizes as under human domain. Acknowledge.”

  “Your transmission is acknowledged, Colonel Jenkins,” the Jemmin replied, and something about its tone and cadence set Jenkins on edge. He doubted that effect was unintentional on the Jemmin’s part. “We are here under the authority of the Illumination League Peacekeeping Directive, which subordinates parochial concerns whenever conflict arises with the sub-directives of member nations. Do not encroach until we have secured this facility and returned to our mobile command center, at which time you may carry out whatever lawful operations you see fit. Acknowledge your compliance with this directive.”

  Jenkins gritted his teeth in anger. They were here to meet representatives of a hitherto-unknown alien species, and that meeting was supposed to be facilitated by the Vorr—who the Jemmin had just shown the door after a short-lived exchange of fire that had killed at least three warships.

  For all he knew, the Jemmin had the alien representative cornered in Delta Site.

  But he had no options. The only potential moves left to him required General Akinouye’s support, and the general was currently unavailable due to the unstable situation unfolding in orbit.

  “Transmission acknowledged,” Jenkins replied bitterly.

  “Acknowledge your compliance with the previously-transmitted directive,” the Jemmin repeated forcefully.

  Before Jenkins could reply, the P2P light flickered to life, signaling he had just re-established contact with the Bonhoeffer. “Stand by, Jemmin Peacekeepers,” he said and quickly switched over to General Akinouye’s direct line. “General?”

  “I’m here, Colonel,” Akinouye replied. “We don’t have much time, though. The shooting has stopped, and the Vorr are withdrawing to the gate, but the Jemmin are trying to push us off overwatch. It’s taking some fancy flying just to keep us from bumping into the bastards.”

  “Sir,” Jenkins urged, “I need you to invoke Terran sovereign military authority in dealing with the peacekeepers here. We’ve secured three of the four DIE facilities, but Jemmin peacekeepers occupy the fourth and they’ve assumed a hostile posture.”

  “Shoot me the details,” Akinouye commanded, and Styles did precisely that while listening in on the conversation. A minute passed as the general silently examined the data. “I’ll do what I can, Colonel, but our efforts up here haven’t been very successful. I wouldn’t expect them to budge a centimeter until they’ve had their way with that facility…and we didn’t come here to start a shooting war with the Jemmin. Is that clear?”

  Jenkins was disappointed, but kept it from his voice as he replied, “Crystal, sir.”

  “Put me through to the Jemmin commander on the ground,” Akinouye ordered, and soon he was piped directly through to the ILPF commander.

&nbs
p; “Good work on those cans, Podsednik,” congratulated Chief Rimmer. “I’m glad you fought to get assigned to my drop-deck. The Corps needs more people like you.”

  “Thank you, Chief,” Podsy acknowledged, having never been good with compliments. Or formal military interactions, for that matter.

  He had found a home with Jenkins’ battalion, which was filled with misfits and ne’er-do-wells like himself who liked to stretch the bounds of military discipline to the breaking point. Up here on the Bonhoeffer, the culture was a lot colder and less fluid. He would have to do something about that since it would be his home for at least the next six months as he fought to get up-to-speed with his prosthetics in what little downtime was available to him.

  “Chief,” Podsy ventured, “my people are heading back to their racks, but I was hoping you’d help me out with something.”

  “You’re not tired?” Rimmer quirked a brow in both amusement and challenge.

  “Of course I am, sir,” Podsy replied with a weary, lopsided grin, “but I want to make sure we stay as far ahead of the curve as possible. The Vorr didn’t come down here for no reason, and the Jemmin didn’t open fire on them because they thought it would be fun. They were fighting over something, and I’m guessing it’s going to be well below the icy crust of Shiva’s Wrath. I’d like your permission to use your sensor feed access so I can scour the surface for signs of whatever it was they’re looking for down there.”

  “You can’t use your own access?”

  “I could, but your access includes streams unavailable to me,” Podsy explained. “We know Vorr technology isn’t all that dissimilar to our own, but Jemmin gear works on entirely different systems. I can track Vorr activity on my access codes, but not Jemmin, and,” he added pointedly, “I can’t redirect any active scanners on my authority. But you can with yours.”