Sector 12 and the Art of Burning

By Joseph Kainz

When you’re a Frontier Corps Ranger in Sector 12 there’s always plenty of work that needs to be done. In your role as soldier there are paramilitary groups to fight and alien agencies to fend off. As a scout and spy you need to stay alert for signs of attacks on human space. As an operative you must do whatever you can to persuade the alien governments of The Other Side to leave Frontier Corps alone. Fortunately Rev (sometimes called Red, Rubicon, Rab and other names he doesn’t care to repeat,) is good at multi-tasking. Especially because he has an additional duty- a secret mission from Frontier Corps. Recent events on the planet Acan have given him a potential lead, and he’s determined not to let the trail slip away this time. He will need that kind of focus, because there’s a new player in Sector 12, an anti-Ranger paramilitary group with powerful backers. They’ve just finished devastating the Rangers in Sector 13 and now they’re looking for fresh victims and new victories.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Jan 18, 2018
• ISBN: 9781483478487

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KAINZ

Copyright © 2018 Joseph Kainz.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of both publisher and author, except in the case of brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

ISBN: 978-1-4834-7849-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4834-7848-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016900770

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Lulu Publishing Services rev. date: 01/09/2018

Books by Joseph Kainz

In the Shadow of the Nasilene

Sector 12 and the Art of Dying

Sector 12 and the Art of Falling

Sector 12 and the Art of Burning

For the Burning Hand

PROLOGUE

The alert chime of my comm startled me. Considerably. This was primarily because: A. No one was supposed to know I was even in this system, much less be able to comm me, and 2. My comm was set on silent mode- nothing in or out except emergency transmissions.

My bemusement was intensified by my current situation. To whit: dangling from a secure comm tower at a Thiray black site. Not the best place to talk.

Rel? I need to talk to you.

Jack? Did you jec my fucking comm open?

Yes Rel. Because I need to talk to you. His tone oozed patience and condescension. The prick.

You can’t just go around jeccing other Rangers’ comms!

I wouldn’t need to jec your comm if you would answer once in a while!

Okay Jack. 1. My comm was shut off because I’m in the middle of a sensitive mission, and by jeccing it open you’ve alerted the authorities, probably getting me killed the process. So thanks for that. B. I’ll stop blocking you when you stop being an asshole!

Alarms were really going off by the way, I wasn’t fabricating that to make him feel bad. They were silent, but I was able to detect them with my Star. Fortunately I hadn’t just been venting my frustration at Jack, I had also been ruthlessly ripping the data I needed from the tower (now that stealth and subtlety were no longer options.) I had what I needed (hopefully.) Time to go.

I unclipped my tether and began climbing down, leaping from support to support. That was less reckless than it seemed given that I was wearing a zeegee harness. It wasn’t strong enough to completely zero out gravity but it reduced it substantially, making climbing both up and down a whole lot safer.

Whatever Rel. Just listen to my message and I’ll leave you alone. Frontier Corps said this was a priority alert so I need to make sure everyone hears it.

Shit, here came the guards. Not only had they reacted quickly, they were fully turned out, carrying what looked like multi-stunners and flechette guns. If they set those for maximum dispersal this wasn’t going to be much of a fight. (If only there had been some way to avoid having to fight them in the first place.)

The alert is sector-wide. A new group has entered and is actively hunting Rangers. Frontier Corps wants everyone to be on alert.

Didn’t take them long to spot me. Or to begin taking aim. In desperation I tried to drop a longer distance to throw their shots off. Missed grabbing the next strut by inches. Fell the rest of the way off the tower.

In response the senior Rangers have decided that everyone should operate on the buddy system. His voice became almost smug, with a strong undercurrent of sarcasm. Unfortunately no one wanted to partner up with you for some reason.

The zeegee harness could only lessen the impact so much. I twisted, landing on my feet and turning it into a roll. It helped, but not sufficiently. A swift sharp pain shot through my left knee, and a lesser version hit my right. I collapsed.

That being the case we won’t be able to provide you with a battle buddy. Was it my imagination or did he now sound slightly speculative? Calculating maybe? Unless of course you can help us reach any of the Rangers who aren’t responding.

Flechettes slamming into me, ripping into my back, my legs, my ass. Seems like I get hit more and more often these days. Once I seemed to be able to dance away from shots. Oh, they got me pretty frequently but nothing too severe (most of the time.) I could dodge, move quickly, make them miss. Not anymore. My cybernetic tentacle arm is heavy, the joints in my legs are just about shot, I’m generally slowing down.

For example, do you know where Hundivenga is?

No I grunted. It came out less like a word then an expression of pain. (Which was accurate.)

Once you realize you’re slowing down a lot of the arguments against armor start to look less substantial. The light shit I was wearing wasn’t enough to stop the flechettes cold (not at this range) but they did minimize penetration. Even sealed the wounds automatically so I wouldn’t exsanguinate. Thank Lady Justice for all those concussions too, because they had finally convinced me to start wearing a helmet pretty much all the time. That saved my life, and not just from the flechettes.

What about Masing?

No.

My helmet had a basic HUD built into it. Usually it just showed me the feed from the integrated forward visual sensor, but I could throw other data up there as well. That’s how I saw the four guards closing in on me from the south. Another few steps and they’d be able to come around the corner and punch right through my armor at point-blank range.

Keo?

They got her.

At this point you’re probably wondering about the origin point of the feed that let me see those guards sneaking up on me. It came from the truck of course. Didn’t I tell you about the truck?

Who got her Rel? Details man.

Someone tracked her down after her surgery. I don’t know who, but she’s gone.

The fact that I’d snuck into the facility and planned to exit just as stealthily did not keep me from having a contingency plan in place. Far from it. I’d jecced one of their trucks on the way in, just in case. Thrown a few necessities in the back and had it standing by, ready to go. I’d sent a signal activating it the moment Jack blew my op.

Right Rel. Right. He made a disgusted sound. What about Pereyra?

Haven’t seen him.

The truck burst into motion, accelerating rapidly, then drifted sideways and slammed into the guards, pinning them between its side and the building they were using as cover. (I may have disabled a few safeties.) Their screams were cut short very quickly, and incoming fire slackened for a moment. These guards were well-trained but most of them likely hadn’t seen much in the way of blood or combat. It was a hell of an introduction.

His timbre changed ever so slightly. (Or was I imagining it?) Nichols?

Garmash told me he was on some sort of secret mission for Frontier Corps. Very hush hush.

This was my chance. The truck whipped around the corner and I pulled myself up into the bed. (Thankfully the thing could pretty much drive itself with only minimal commands. Those I could give from back here using my Star.) My entire backside felt like it was on fire, but I popped some pain meds and ordered the truck to make a break for it.

Interesting. When’s the last time you spoke to Garmash?

Been a couple years I guess.

The enemy fire picked back up, but I’d chosen my escape truck carefully. The flechettes plinked off the sides like pointy rain. A quick surge to the counter-grav boosted me over the fence and I was out.

Damnit Rel, can you at least try to be a professional?

Fucking shit Jack! I was doing an awfully good imitation until you blew my op and got me fucking shot!

Perimeter defenses immediately acquired the truck and a salvo of missiles fired. They weren’t taking any chances on me escaping. Imagine their surprise when all the missiles immediately flew straight up instead of blowing me to smithereens. (I pictured it at the time. Made me chuckle, which act I immediately regretted given the pain that rippled through my backside.)

Someone must have screwed with the missile software. Very clever, whoever it was. Unlike the launcher’s targeting systems the missile software would have lain dormant until right before launch, so the tampering would have been unlikely to be detected by normal operations.

Fine, whatever Rel. What about Hayes?

Retired.

Groaning, I levered myself up on my side. Laying like that hurt but less than letting my back touch the bed. Reaching up I clamped myself in place with my tentacle. I couldn’t hold myself completely still but I could keep from tumbling around the truck as it took the pre-programmed evasive maneuvers during its flight. That was good because my precautions had only been able to go so far without risking degrading my stealth operation. I had a lot of work to do quickly.

What? I haven’t heard anything about that.

What the fuck was I supposed to say to that? I contented myself with an eye-roll and kept working. Using my Star I scattered viruses and malware liberally in my wake. Law Enforcement comms, surveillance and security systems, emergency help lines- I had a present for everybody.

I couldn’t shut it all down but I could temporarily muddy the water, create enough chaos that my programs would get away with deleting any form of communication that might be a reference to me. At least for a little while, before they woke up their specialists and started purging their systems. (Night ops are really the best. Very few civilians want to pay their specialists to just sit up all night in case an emergency occurs.)

Jack emitted something like a strangled growl. Why wouldn’t Hayes have told us Rel? How long ago did he retire?

It was right after the Triplipsis thing. Guess it shook him up. I kept my voice as innocent as I could (which wasn’t saying much. I’m a terrible actor.) As for why he didn’t tell you Jack, I really couldn’t say. Although, now that I think of it, one possible motivation does spring to mind. It could be because he realized what an asshole you are.

No way to completely shut down their response unless I wanted to totally crash their LEO Net. Pretty good chance I could pull that off (at least for a time) but I wanted to save it as a last resort. Total collapse meant no one would be able to call for help or report crimes in progress. Still, I almost regretted my decision as a patrol vehicle fell into pursuit behind me.

Another sound of irritation echoed over the comm. Alright fine Rel. Be that way. I’m still duty-bound to at least brief you. The threat I referenced earlier is a group calling themselves the Star Stalkers.

That’s a really stupid name Jack.

I didn’t come up with it! Shut up and listen!

Didn’t want to burn those LEOs down for just doing their job, so I infiltrated their net and inserted a fake crime report. Gang violence in progress, this vehicle the closest responder. Almost didn’t draw them off though. I had to add the use of firebombs to the situation before they finally diverted. The Thiray must have quite a bit of influence with the locals.

Primarily human group. We don’t have full details on their motivation but they seem to blame Frontier Corps for the plight of humans out here. Don’t have the strength to attack The Wall directly so instead they’ve chosen to focus on us Rangers.

So far so good. I was about halfway to my prepared exfil point. I continued to futz the systems of my pursuers.

They see us as the worst kind of traitors and Machiavellian agents. Believe we manipulate a lot behind the scenes here and are responsible for a great deal of human misery. In their mind humanity’s lot will improve if they are able to eradicate us.

Damn. A new vehicle in pursuit. Not a LEO this time. Low-profile, high-performance. Probably a Thiray agent (or agents.) But how had they found me so quickly? I was certain I had kept anyone from calling in my position.

Needless to say their treatment of any Rangers who fall into their hands is far from merciful. They boast of the agonizing deaths they’ve inflicted. Even display corpses as trophies whenever they can.

Now that sounded familiar. No time to reflect on it though. Taking care of this pursuit vehicle wouldn’t do me any good until I figured out how they had tracked me down so I could keep anyone else from doing the same.

The group originated in Sector 13. The Rangers there didn’t recognize the threat quickly enough, which is why we don’t have a lot of specific information on the group. We know they have a couple of dozen ships in our sector, at least, and the manpower to crew them. Everything after that is speculation.

It was the comm signal! Jack’s fucking damn bullshit comm signal! The signal had military grade encryption so they couldn’t listen in or extract any usable data, but the very size and complexity of the transmission was a dead give-away of the presence of a high-level professional. All they had to do was follow it right to me.

We do know that what they had at hand was enough to let them devastate the Sector 13 Rangers. They took out nearly half of them in a single stroke. After that they ruthlessly hunted down as many of the others as they could find. Frontier Corps won’t give us exact numbers but all our sources say there can only be a handful of Rangers left in Sector 13, most of them in hiding.

I winced as I rolled over and levered a case open. What do you mean by ‘single stroke?’

Just that. He sounded smug, like my question was some sort of concession or victory. They launched a large-scale assault on a meeting held by the Rangers. The smugness suddenly vanished. No Rangers survived.

You mean they had an actual physical meeting instead of just using telepresence or a comm conference? I brought the disposable launcher up and pulled the trigger. The vehicle behind me vanished in a ball of plasma. That might just be the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard, and I have to listen to you yammer on all the time, so that’s saying something. I dropped the spent casing and let myself fall back on my side so I could resume jeccing in less horrifyingly agonizing pain comfort.

Damnit Rel! Do you want this information or not?

Not if it means listening to you.

Finally. My truck slowed and neatly slid into a parking spot, nice as can be. I muttered a litany of expletives as I pushed a couple cases out of the bed and sent them crashing down onto the ground. Legs weren’t working so good anymore so I had to pull myself out of the bed by my arms, winding up falling atop the pile of gear. You can imagine how much fun that was.

We suspect the Star Stalkers must have some sort of support from a governmental agency. His voice was cold now, his words coming clipped and fast. Two Rangers have already been killed in this Sector despite knowing the threat existed, so it is likely the enemy has resources of some kind beyond a normal paramilitary group. At the very least they must have implicit permission to operate in certain areas because there are no signs of local crackdowns on them.

The truck I pulled myself towards was an older model, comfortably but not spectacularly worn. Nondescript but not tellingly so. Dark green, eight years old, chosen carefully as the seventh-most popular vehicle type in the city. A splendid vehicle for a covert extraction. (Now if only those cases would jump right up into the bed themselves.)

Would my legs work for a brief period? Not really, but I could lever myself up onto the bed, then reach down and pull stuff up. (That still felt like torture, but it was possible.)

At this time we don’t have much data in terms of enemy dispositions or intentions. They have been spotted in multiple sub-sectors but no pattern has been detected so far. It is possible the enemy has minimal intel on this sector and is working to rectify that while at the same time hunting us whenever possible.

There. All loaded. Now there was just the problem of my old truck. Pretty good chance I’d left some evidence in there. (Blood for example. There was probably some blood.) We couldn’t have that. A single command sent the truck smashing full-speed into a nearby shop. (Okay, maybe I disabled a lot of safeties.) Then it was just a matter of chucking incendiary charges inside until the whole place went up, truck and all. (Those bastards could kiss the best Thiray restaurant in town good-bye, and my ass while they were at it.)

At the same time we can’t rule out the possibility of an over-arching plan or strategy. All evidence will be processed by the senior Rangers and their analysis and conclusions will be disseminated with alacrity. Rest assured this is our top priority.

Oh, I felt real reassured. Just one thing left, then I could leave. I opened up another case and made a few adjustments to its contents.

All Rangers are ordered to stay with their battle buddy at all times. Obviously he was reading off some sort of memo. Lazy sham artist. Dispersion is encouraged to maximize survival. In case of encounter Rangers are ordered to conduct retrograde with all available speed while at the same time gathering and reporting all possible intelligence on the enemy. If casualties should occur…

Jack, are you sitting up on satellite Golf Uniform 387? I interrupted.

He growled at the interruption, then calmed himself and became superior once again. Of course not Rel. Unlike you some of us don’t need to use access bypass for every little thing. I’m perfectly capable of access routing through the satellite without having to be anywhere near it.

Damn. Then this farewell won’t be anywhere near as permanent as I might have hoped. I activated my device.

What the hell are you talking about? Jack demanded.

Funny story about missiles. They’re pretty dumb. They have to be. You don’t want your ammo to get too expensive (or asking too many questions.) Besides, in order to be less bone-shatteringly idiotic intelligent they need a lot of support. Failsafes, contingency programs, cross-check procedures, database access and the like. All of that takes up space, and the folks who buy missiles tend to prefer a bigger boom over a smarter delivery system.

This means that it’s not too hard to convince a missile to do something stupid, if you have access to its hardware and software. Just redefine a few key variables (like say, gravitic vectors and what an incoming missile looks like.) Do that and you can convince a missile (like say a surface to space counter-missile) to attack just about anything with an energy signature (perhaps say a city’s primary surveillance and communication satellite. Hypothetically speaking.)

Bye Jack. The explosion up in orbit was tiny, but still kind of pretty. The silence was gorgeous. Almost distracted me from the crippling pain. Almost.

CHAPTER 1

In the normal course of events gathering intel is the easy part of the job. As a Ranger you mainly worry about threats to Frontier Corps and threats to general humanity out here. That simplifies things quite a bit.

Frontier Corps has The Wall, and that’s a tough nut to crack. Might just be the largest heavily fortified section of known space. Takes a significant mobilization to pose a threat to something like that, and those are hard to conceal fully. A massive advance in weapon technology might do that too, but neighboring governments are going to catch wind of it pretty quickly, and after that secrecy is significantly degraded.

General threats to humans are of course much more diverse out here in The Other Side, especially since our species is a minority here, trying to make our way in a seething cauldron of alien polities. Fortunately the bulk of predation on humans tend to come from criminals and criminal organizations. (And politicians and governments of course, but I repeat myself.) Security is not really a watchword for these folk.

On the whole then Rangers don’t really spend all that much time or energy on the whole ‘spy’ aspect of the job (no matter what a lot of people say.) There’s really no need. Besides, trying to give Lady Justice regular tours of hostile lands is a full-time job all on its own, so there’s plenty to do on the soldier/scout/operative/peace officer side.

Things don’t always stay normal though. Needs change. (More importantly, orders change.)

The technical term is dynamic zero-sum competitive intelligence infospace. (Granted that’s just a string of nigh-meaningless words, but doesn’t it sound impressive?) The basic idea is that you need to gather intelligence on your enemy (or, more likely, enemies) without overextending yourself. Not just in terms of exposing yourself to a terminal case of death (although that certainly is a concern) but in terms of what you reveal through your own intelligence gathering.

Intel is a fluid concept, and there are many ways to gather it. Lots of people think that intel directly equals ‘secrets’ but that’s not precisely true. Lots of things are secret, and for various reasons. Other pieces of data are not necessarily secret as such, they’re just unknown. What truly matters isn’t the specific information or its precise classification but the picture that is revealed as a result.

In that sense intel gathering can be perilous if you’re trying to keep your opponent from learning about you while simultaneously ferreting out his weaknesses. The very methods and questions involved in seeking information can reveal a lot about your own side (if you’re not very careful.) Focusing shows what you’re concerned about (and hence possible weaknesses.) Questions asked reveal what you don’t know. Questions unasked reveal what you do (if they’re questions you obviously should want to know the answers to.) Very tricky stuff.

Trying to navigate these perilous waters one can find oneself in, shall we say, unusual circumstances. Situations one normally wouldn’t approach within orbital scan range. Uncomfortable, disturbing and quite possibly lethal positions.

Which is all build-up to allow me to segue to the fact that this particular tale starts with me standing naked in a mob boss’ mansion while flunkies scanned and patted me looking for sub-dermal weapon implants. (I just eased you into that one with all the grace and subtlety of a planetary collision, eh?)

In fairness I wasn’t actually completely naked. Oh, I didn’t have any clothes on and I can’t really count my cybernetic arm as raiment. Besides they had clamped a power leach on it, so the thing barely had enough energy to move (very, very slowly.) Nor can I classify my Star as clothes, much as I love it in all its digital subversion goodness. (Not only is it also an implant, but clothes don’t self-destruct if you try to remove them.)

This was a world of methane-breathers though, so they’d allowed me to keep my rebreather on. Didn’t want me to asphyxiate before I made my pitch to the boss. (That’s not to say they didn’t scan it thoroughly for additional power sources and the like.)

Once they were certain I wasn’t carrying any weapons they gave me a robe and escorted me to their chief. On the way there I looked around curiously, making no effort to hide my interest. This either was going to work out or it wasn’t. Either way my attitude and actions couldn’t do much to hurt my situation.

Never been in a Fiebers’ base before. (I’ve blown one up, but there wasn’t much worth looking at after I was done with it.) About what I’d expected, honestly. Less opulent than the stories but much more decadent than most crime dens. (The average criminal place of residence is filthy. Believe me, I possess the requisite life experience to testify to this phenomena.)

More interesting to me was the armament of the various Fiebers we passed. I hadn’t been quite certain I believed it, but they genuinely all seemed to be armed with non-projectile weapons, mostly of the sharp variety. No guns of any kind.

In one sense I suppose it was a reasonable security precaution. Fiebers are pretty physically intimidating. Tough, strong, stable, lots of arms to strike with. There aren’t many species that are going to win a knife fight with a Fieber (or a sword fight, or a pike fight etc. Damn they had a lot of weird shit in here.)

The perimeter guards had guns of course, and I was certain there was a substantial armory somewhere in this place. A visitor wouldn’t be able to access either though, so he’d have no chance to snatch a weapon to give him an edge. Anything he was able to get ahold of would only serve as a one-way ticket to a melee.

Truthfully that was probably the main point. Fiebers have a thing about melee combat. Some sort of cultural hang-up. Oh they use guns. They’re not stupid. They just sort of resent the necessity and try to work around it whenever possible. Trial by combat, ritual sparring, dueling, and the like. This was a rather logical extension of that preference.

Not that they didn’t enjoy the intimidation opportunities to be found under the system. Every Fieber who caught me watching him made certain to flourish his weapon menacingly. Every last one. It was actually a mildly fascinating example of group-think.

Their chief was a big one, even by Fieber standards. Even if he hadn’t been sitting behind a huge desk (see? What do I always say? People are fucking weird about desks) there wouldn’t have been any question as to who the boss was. He clearly had the ability to beat just about anybody in the room, but there was something about the way he surveyed me that made me suspect brute force wasn’t his sole qualification.

Welcome to my home little human. What offering do you bring me? My Star did a good job translating, rendering not only the edge of laughter in his voice but also the insincerity and disdain. It’s an impressive device.

No offerings. I do however have information that would be of some value to you, and what I want in exchange will cost you very little.

A roar of laughter came in response. They do not lie when they call you crazy. Without pause he flicked over to dead serious. Perhaps I should cure you. Permanently.

The treatment might prove more expensive than the disease, but you must do what you think best. It would however deprive you of the information I am offering. Extensive run-downs of Mikai Carac. Personal details of all personnel, financial mapping and a guide to resources and bases of operation.

Hmm. You have done some research. Mikai Carac has been an irritant of late. If the information is thorough I might even be persuaded to spare your life. What is your price?

Some time ago one of your men sold some information to the Thiray. He testified as to the qualifications and trustworthiness of a group called the Star Stalkers. However at the time the Star Stalkers had a minimal presence in this sector and had never visited this sub-sector, so your man shouldn’t have known anything valuable about them. Not personally anyway. All I want is to know where the data originally came from.

He rumbled in thought. Perhaps we can reach some sort of arrangement after all. A much smaller Fieber approached and whispered in his ear for a few minutes. The chief listened, then showed his fangs in an expression that was not a smile. Or perhaps not.

I have a counter-offer for you. Give me the information you hoped to bargain with and I will allow you to leave with nothing more than a beating. His tone left little doubt as to the intended severity of said thrashing.

Now it was my turn to laugh. Sold more than the information to the Thiray eh? In that case I have no further business here. If you’ll excuse me.

At a gesture the goons in the room drifted into a loose circle around me, blocking my exit. There’s nothing to keep us from acquiring what you know, one way or another.

Of course it would come to this. Stupid predictable criminals. Always wanting something for nothing. I sighed. Of course there is. I’m rather offended you think I just walked in here off the street. When I acquired the information on Mikai Carac I also took the time to compile a similar file on your group. If I don’t return a program will eventually comm Mikai Carac and the local LEOs. I have a feeling they’ll both find the transmission very interesting.

A weak bluff.

Except that I provided a sample of my work in order to get this meeting. A few meaningless but difficult to obtain secrets regarding Mikai Carac. Ask your stoolie who set this up whether I could have done what I’m claiming.

After another brief conference of whispers the chief sat back up, his disdain still intact but now edged with a tiny bit of concern. "Typical scheming of a bumiger."

Bumiger is a word that’s a bit difficult to translate. Directly it means ‘false warrior,’ but that doesn’t quite capture its full meaning. A better translation might be ‘one who tries to fight by cowardly means" or ‘he who manipulates anything and anyone to fight on his behalf instead of engaging in personal combat.’ More archaically ‘digital warrior’ or ‘paper soldier’ might be appropriate too. Among Fiebers it is one of the worst insults possible.

Not that I gave a fuck what they thought. So as I said, I’ll be taking my leave.

No you will not! he thundered. "We will wring you dry. By the time we are done with you not only will we have the information you sought to sell us but you will have relinquished that which you tried to blackmail us with. Your bumiger conniving will do little for you here in the world of true warriors.

Torture? They were threatening me with torture? A bunch of assholes running around proud that they were able to carry knives and only cut themselves once a day or so? Who the fuck did they think they were dealing with? I’m going to have to kill a whole bunch of these assholes, aren’t I? I muttered to myself.

Not listening, he was still rambling on. You dare stand there and threaten us! Without your mechanical supports you can barely walk! Your disfigurement shows you to be weak and you make it worse by not even having the sense to be ashamed! Staggering strut, burnt head, crisscrossed marks of shame! Our people have the ability to read the stories told by scars, and yours scream of weakness and dishonor!

My people have no such ability I responded calmly. To us these scars mean that I’m bad at dodging. I feigned looking thoughtful. Although I suppose they also do show me to be bad at dying. I laughed, a long wracking laugh that eventually became a cough. Seriously though, I don’t need any special ability to figure out how stupid you are. After all, you actually think I came in here unarmed.

No more bluffs! No weapon could pass through our screening! Sei… he suddenly stopped talking and clapped hands over his ears as every comm in the room began emitting ear-splitting shrieks.

It seemed to induce a substantial degree of discomfort in everyone who could hear it. I wasn’t among that number of course. The implants that replaced my original ears (after they were burnt off/blown out) are lacking in a lot of ways. Things just don’t sound the same anymore. Not organic, not natural. Slightly synthesized. Just a little artificial.

On top of that listening isn’t quite as automatic as it once was. It’s not as if I have to really concentrate, it just isn’t quite as instinctive as it once was. The closest comparison I can make is the difference between seeing and reading. You don’t have to think about seeing, about making your eyes focus and distinguish things. Reading is almost as automatic, until you’re tired, or dealing with something complicated, or what have you. See where I’m going with this? That’s how the way I hear now feels compared to my old sense.

One good thing about audio implants though. You instruct them not to transmit a sound and they don’t. Everyone around me was busy covering their ears, smashing comms and the like. Not only did the screeching sound not bother me, it didn’t even serve as a distraction or keep me from listening to my surroundings. (The siren-esque noises were blocking a lot, but my implants were just refusing to transmit that particular sound, not everything. Anything else that could be heard made it through.)

It only took them a minute or so to destroy all the comms in the room. (If you want something smashed Fiebers are ideal agents.) Seize him. Rip that pitiful metal arm off and see how superior he feels then!

I think I upset him somehow. Not quite certain sort of faux pas I committed this time. I’m always causing people to become very emotional. No idea why it keeps happening. Guess I’m just not a people person.

Shame really. If he’d been thinking clearly he might have noticed that my cybernetic arm was far from disabled. Static clamps are pretty worthless against slightly morphic material. My arm had slowly become thinner and the power leach had slid right off.

Nor had he noticed that I’d made a few other adjustments in the brief window their preoccupation had given me. (I suppose you could argue that the audio assault I’d launched had understandably degraded his powers of observation, but I would counter that someone with so much warrior pride shouldn’t be so easy to distract.) What I’d done was fairly subtle but I think real professionals would have caught on much quicker.

They’d done a very thorough scan of my rebreather, as I said. So they noticed it included an extension hose. It didn’t arouse any concern. Nor did the rebreather’s contents. Highly compressed atmo reserves are normal, and in my case a necessity if I was to stay alive on this planet. Naturally they’d checked the atmo contents. Primarily oxygen with a smattering of other gasses (very few humans breath pure oxygen. I don’t myself normally, although I sometimes make an exception for combat situations. The energy boost can be useful in those circumstances.) Normal. Nothing dangerous.

The only thing they missed completely was the rock imbedded in the rebreather’s interior. That was excusable. It wasn’t anything special. No power source, no special chemicals, not even sharp. Just a lump of rock. Far less dangerous then my arm (and even my arm wouldn’t let me go one on one with a Fieber armed with knives.)

At the end of the day what is a weapon though? What makes something dangerous? One of my drill sergeants used to say there are no dangerous weapons, only dangerous people. (Clearly he’d never seen a rotary plasma cannon.) Now mostly I think he was full of shit, but I also am of the opinion that if you’re using an object to kill people that’s more or less the end of the discussion regarding whether it should be classified as a weapon.

My right hand held the far end of the extension hose, pointing it at the chief. I toggled the release and a controlled burst of atmo blasted out. Nothing happened of course. The goons weren’t brilliant but they’d thought to check if any of the gasses would have an adverse effect when mixed with methane. They didn’t. A few of them combined with the methane but there was no noticeable effect. All I’d done was briefly oxygenate a small portion of the room, inject a small cloud of oxygen that was drifting and dissipating away from me.

Then my left hand came up as I lowered the hose. The metal tendrils that serve me as fingers snapped against the rock they held firmly. Once. Twice. Three times. Click. Click. Click. Sproof. A tiny spark shot out.

The chief screamed in shock and agony as he abruptly caught fire. His lackeys responded quickly, drawing weapons and charging me. The resulting clash didn’t last very long. Turns out they’d brought knives to a flame-thrower fight.

Oftentimes people analyze intelligence improperly. It’s certainly understandable. Our nature compels us to look for patterns, to try to make sense of our surroundings. That’s how we process and interact successfully with reality.

For many that means looking at the data you have, formulating the best possible hypothesis that fits the data, then trying to find a place within this paradigm for every fact, conjecture and report. Oh, there may be competing theories at first, but eventually one will begin to supersede the others, and information that supports it will be seen as more useful or reliable. Given the paucity of data frequently available in these scenarios it is unlikely directly contrary information will ever be found (reliable information that is- you’ll always be able to find someone to spout insane ramblings at you in exchange for money or attention.)

Although natural, this is backwards. Skilled analysts know that the data that doesn’t fit with the rest can sometimes be the key to the whole puzzle. They believe that intel that reveals an assessment to be wrong is in some ways the most valuable, since it contains the greatest amount of previously unknown information. Regardless, my overall point is that if you’re trying to learn something, you could do a lot worse than attack data you totally don’t understand head-on.

That’s what had led me to this point. The Thiray assault on Acan hadn’t made all that much sense to me. Oh, I understand power politics (occupational hazard) and it hadn’t taken much research to get a handle on the Thiray’s particular flavor of that toxic beverage. Border provocations, incident generation, false paramilitary groups and the like are all part of a very old methodology used to blur and eventually erase said borders in order to rewrite them more favorably.

But why Acan? The Phillipe had a number of colonial worlds along their border with the Thiray. Distance was more or less irrelevant. The border is defined as the mid-way point between claimed worlds, and Celeritas Drive makes the difference negligible anyway.

Nor did location seem relevant, economically or strategically. Acan lies on a few minor trade routes that primarily exist only to serve colonial worlds. In this it is far from unique. By contrast the Phillipe do have some colonial worlds on more lucrative trade routes, and several are just as open (defenses-wise) as Acan was. Many of those also