“So, what do we all know of the new recruit?”
If one could see it physically it would seem to be a bunch of floating heads in empty space in a circle. Of note were three American men; three Brits, two men and one woman; and a Russian woman. Behind the lot of them were a group of individuals that were only half formed, apparently still being compiled from the extremely fragmented memory archives of the ship’s computers. It was one of the British men who spoke first.
“Who the hell cares; when am I getting a tank?!” yelled out one of the Yanks.
“Typical,” the Russian pointed out. “Antaeus, mute P.H. Patton until further notice.”
“Wha…” Patton began, only to be cut off by a ‘BLEEP’.
“Acknowledged,” came a feminine voice from nowhere.
“Thank you, cruiser. Patton, you join in again when you have something constructive to say,” the Russian woman, who had the name Korolev over her head, remarked. Apparently Patton had plenty to say but none of it could be heard, his mouth simply moving and his digitized face turned an interesting shade of red despite the lack of need for oxygen during his now muted tirade.
A heavily scarred American was the next to speak up. “Well, the kids a fighter, that’s for sure. Seems he broke the Captain’s arm with one strike.”
The English woman then spoke up, “And then got himself shot.”
An as yet silent man, wearing glasses, spoke up to the very first speaker. “Hey, Sinclair, you got any service files on this guy?”
“As a matter of fact I do, Kroker, but they are reserved for myself as second in command of…”
“Okay, got ‘em.” Kroker interrupted. Windows of information came up in front of everyone showing two pictures, one of a man about thirty, the second of a man about fifty.
The English woman looked over at Patton. “Are you going to behave if I un-mute you?” He just glared at her without any real heat. “I’ll take that as a yes. Antaeus, cancel mute.” She was acknowledged with another ‘BLEEP’.
“Thank you, Borden,” Patton acknowledged then turned to glare at Korolev, “at least one of you knows how to act like a lady.”
“Oh stuff it Patton. I’m no lady,” Borden bit back.
Patton seemed unfazed as he ploughed on. “So, is this boy one of the cavalry?”
The last member of this motley little crew joined in, “Seems more like one of the infantry. Special ops stuff. Seems sort of like you, Kroker.”
“Naw, he’s a jock with a good right hook. Though lookee here, looks like he was in the battle that had Ransom join our little brotherhood.”
The scarred man grinned at that. “Good. Nice to see someone made it away from that.”
Sinclair sighed at the insubordination of this lot. “Kroker, you really shouldn’t be going through the personnel files of others. It is against regulations.”
“What are you going to do, court-martial a dead guy?” Kroker seemed positively smug.
Sinclair just sighed again. He was powerless unless the Captain acted on all this. “Well at least let’s take a more detailed look then. Close combat specialist… infiltration and elimination… no body count?”
“The boy’s a pansy?!” Patton yelled.
Korolev piped in, “If you count knocking out almost a thousand men over six years of field service a ‘pansy’ without any wounds worse than…” she stopped in shock.
Kroker, however, burst out laughing, “…a stubbed toe!” His head fell to the side as he laughed so hard. Everyone’s shock at the record changed to mild shock at Kroker’s continued shenanigans. The hacker was always doing things like this, but this was the first time he made himself start ‘rolling on the floor, laughing’.
Things started to break up at that point. Borden, Patton, and Ransom lost interest as Ranma seemed to be a minimalist in destruction. He didn’t fill in where they cared. Korolev was decently impressed, though she wouldn’t admit it, but logged off to prepare for the next mission, which was due to commence within the hour. Madsen, the British sniper, also left to prepare, having been forwarded special instructions for the next mission. That left the just recovering Kroker and Sinclair. Oddly enough, it was Kroker who spoke first.
“Good, they left. Sinclair, have you seen this link?”
“That’s for Captain’s use only, Kroker. Of course I…”
“Got it,” Kroker interrupted.
Sinclair let off another sigh but didn’t try to punish the subordinate. Instead he actually came closer to see what Kroker had found. The picture showing was not what he expected. “Who’s that, Saotome’s daughter?”
Kroker’s grin became more pronounced. “Nope. According to this, that’s Saotome.”
Sinclair could only gape between Kroker smug mug and the picture. Saotome was forty-eight years old, twenty-eight when last in service, and a rather well built man. The figure in the photo was ‘well built’ but was not a man, nor was she pressing fifty or even thirty. Instead it was a busty, redheaded, teenaged girl. But the time stamp indicated that the picture was taken an hour before Saotome’s last mission twenty years ago.
Ranma was headed for the staging area. He had a feeling that he would be getting wet in this next mission and so had already changed forms. He walked pass a terminal, seeing the usual picture of a globe with a dagger saying “Pugio in Averso Belli”. Heh. “Weapon to avoid war” indeed. That’s what he thought he was. Instead he had been played a fool, again. And now he was siding with the person who did it to him the most as a kid. But there were more important things than stupid childhood rivalries to think about.
Ranma heard a wolf whistle come from a speaker next to the monitor and turned to see a man’s head floating on the screen. “Well, if you aren’t one fine thing.”
“What do you want, prick,” Ranma snapped back. She had become disgruntled with people hitting on her in this body for the last forty two years. Whoever said beauty was a curse had no idea.
“Ouch. A guy can definitely feel that old geezer attitude coming out of that hot little bod of yours if he knows what’s underneath. Don’t worry, Saotome, I’m just making introductions and confirming something I read. Name’s Kroker. I’d shake hands, but I seem to be a little lacking at the moment.”
Ranma stared at the screen for two seconds in silence before replying. “What are you?”
“You ever hear of soulcatcher?” A shake of the head. “Didn’t think so. Basically, the American military came up with these chips planted at the base of your skull that were capable of downloading your entire personality so that you could be used and reused over and over again. Pretty cool stuff, actually. Only problem with it was that it would turn your grey matter into black matter.” Ranma’s face grimaced. “Yeah. So they decided that the best thing to do was to put it on active servicemen and only have it trigger when brain function began to shut down. As such, no wasted manpower and no legal issues with killing soldiers. If you’re going to die anyway, why not use it to cheat death again and again?”
“So you’re the downloaded brain of some dead guy?” Ranma was a little disturbed by this.
“Like I said, personality. All it can actually get it short term memory, decision making processes, limited skill set, speech patterns, and self image. Everything else is lost. There’s only so much that early twenty-first century, secret, military technology can do. Anyway, I’ll be seeing ya on the battle field.”
“How? You’re a computerized brain?”
Kroker’s grin reminded Ranma of his own in the mirror when he was younger. “You’ll see.” And then he was gone, his image replaced by the ship’s coat of arms.
“Arrogant prick.” Ranma turned around and kept walking.
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(Posted Sat, 20 Mar 2010 02:43)
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