It was another practice session.
The X-Com combat teams had to learn to integrate their tactics with the new Heavy Weapons Platforms. Unfortunately, even with the Chinook helicopter holding bays cleared out, Base Avalon simply did not have enough space for such training purposes. Instead, everything had to be shifted up to the island surface.
Unable to participate, Ivan and Wolf were relegated to spectators. However, this was easier than ever, with the integration of some parts of the newly-understood alien technology. Presently, they were seated before a bank of liquid crystal displays. A pair of monitors were linked to each of the two HWPs, providing a real-time update of the critical internal systems of each machine, as well as a camera view. For this mock battle, one HWP had been fitted with a G.E. Minigun, and the other mounted an 8-shot Mistral antitank rocket launcher.
Micro-circuitry embedded in every suit of X-Com armour monitored the heart rate of each soldier, linked to a tiny radio transmitter independent of the combat communications net. Operating in the HF frequency range, its function was two-fold: it would show the status of every soldier, and would also provide a remote commander with the location of every soldier at any given time. This tactical data showed up on another set of monitors as a truncated ECG graph next to a name.
To prevent this from being used by the enemy, complex software hardwired into the transmission unit forced a frequency hop in the HF band every few seconds. A direct result of this was that each suit of armour had to be kept prepped with information on a pre-selected band of hops, so that armour and base command could be kept in sync. Three tiny 9-volt lithium cells provided power enough for the entire transmission array, and an operational lifetime measured in months.
Programmed into a powerful set of 16 computers linked in a Beowulf cluster was a virtual layout of the island surface. On a special 2 meter wide plasma TV screen, this was shown from a bird's eye perspective, accurate down to the last tree, bush, and rock. Each soldier's radio signal was marked by a flashing, coloured light - cyan for Team Shark, crimson for Team Rattler. Above each light was the soldier's name.
This was completely appropriate, as in this mission, Team Shark was playing X-Com, and Team Rattler was playing the aliens.
As they watched, the marker standing for Drake moved a few meters to his right, then quickly moved back left again as Team Rattler's HWP caught sight of him. Dieter was piloting that monster, and a quick trigger finger sent 'bullets' flying at his target. The ammunition counter on the G.E. Minigun dropped at an unbelievable rate; it was capable of discharging 6000 bullets a second, after all.
Dieter panned the volley around where he thought Drake was hiding for a while. The HWP driver quickly realized that his ammunition was being depleted too quickly, though, and he eased off the trigger.
But it had been enough.
The MILES training system was like a high-tech version of paintball, using low-powered lasers. Each weapon was mounted with a laser projector, and each soldier wore a laser receiver. Whenever a laser hit a receiver, that counted as a hit.
Drake's receiver calculated that he had been hit by the Minigun numerous times, enough to have cut him into little bite-sized pieces if they had been real bullets. It sent a signal back to base, where the control console in front of Wolf beeped urgently.
The marker denoting Drake on the plasma screen flashed once, brightly, then turned dark gray. A moment later, the comm-net came to life.
"Man down, man down," came Drake's disappointed voice. "Damned."
Up on the island surface, Dieter heard Drake's announcement and crowed. First kill to him! Twitching his finger on the control joystick, he inched the HWP forward as Ishiyama and Ricardo advanced on either side of the machine.
To control the HWP, Dieter had had to sacrifice much of his personal combat ability. The actual control unit was strapped to his back, weighing in at a hefty 12 kilos. A band of wires trailed out from its left side, linking to a small gamepad-like device that took up all the space on his left forearm. Holding the arm awkwardly in front of his chest, Dieter manipulated the HWP with a joystick that popped up from the electronic bracer.
To help guide the HWP, Dieter wore a half-headset. This was a small, rectangular box attached to a headband. The device contained a miniature TV screen inside, which showed the HWP's sighting perspective, and also had a drop-down communications mike. This was supposed to let Dieter keep his peripheral vision on the left, and let him concentrate on the HWP control at the same time.
The reality was very different: the split vision was extremely confusing, and Dieter found himself closing his left eye to give all his attention to moving the HWP. Worse, the headset was heavy, and he could already feel his neck muscles complaining.
With so much weight and with his attention so divided, Dieter was meant to be kept out of actual combat. To that effect, he only had a 9mm Browning Hi-Power pistol in a hip holster.
Flexing his cramped fingers and ignoring his hurting neck, Dieter went hunting for another target.
Back in the Control and Command Centre, Wolf noted with satisfaction that Team Shark was putting up a good fight despite having lost their squad automatic weapon. Ishiyama had chosen to split up Team Rattler into three sub-sections, personally advancing with his HWP from the front, and trying to bracket Team Shark from either side.
Currently in-charge of Team Shark, Monique had clearly anticipated this. She had hunkered down with her team in a small ditch, waiting to ambush one of Team Rattler's flankers. Drake had gone out with another trooper to scout, and while he been taken out, Lance-Corporal Andrea Lee had brought back valuable information.
Ishiyama seemed to have forgotten that Team Shark also had a HWP. Led by Leo and two others, the left flank suddenly vanished as Monique's powered-down HWP suddenly came back to life and blazed two rockets into their midst.
As a chorus of 'man downs' echoed through the comm-net, Ishiyama turned two LAWs on the enemy HWP. It turned that he had just been waiting for Monique to show her hand, and the computer painted the HWP deader than dead.
In return, Monique charged Ishiyama. A furious firefight ensued, with Dieter losing his cool and randomly hosing down the terrain. As his ammo counter clicked empty, he happily dropped the expensive transmission equipment to the soil, pulled out his pistol, and went charging head-long into the fray.
Enthusiastic, Wolf had to admit. And he got quite good results, too.
Stuffed in the back of battle, no-one had quite remembered that Dieter had been armed, too. He managed to sneak into the back of Team Shark, and had 'shot' two members before Hans got the same idea and went hunting with his own pistol.
"Exercise cut," Wolf barked into the mike. "Repeat, exercise cut. That's enough, boys and girls."
The acknowledgements filtered in, and the teams broke up and started returning.
"Not bad," Ivan remarked, looking at the score. Team Rattler had won by a slim margin, with four members 'dead', and two more damaged.
"Yes," Wolf agreed. "I expected Team Rattler to win by a bigger margin, but Monique has distinguished herself this time."
"Da. I think we should buy her a drink."
"Or maybe an extra helping of the cafeteria protein slop. She seems to like it."
They chuckled at that, and went to meet the teams for debriefing.Some time later, after stowing away the bulk of their equipment, the X-Com combat teams broke for some lunch. The XCRs were so well-built, the new recruits had taken to them like fish to water.
"We will begin fielding plasma guns from the next mission onwards," Wolf told them. "There are only four plasma weapons, so each team will take two. Moira assures me that we have enough ammunition packed away, but do not get carried away - depending on the situation, collateral damage can become a very big, and very expensive, factor."
"Meaning, do not shoot anything that you absolutely do not have to," Hans wisecracked to one of his fellow team members, a French woman named Sandrine Veurill.
"I understand English, monsieur." She spared him a wry smile. Her French accent put a pleasing, exotic lilt to every word she spoke.
"And I speak French," he said proudly. "Voulez vous coucher avec moi, ce soir?"
Sandrine rolled her eyes. "Please, that is very bad French. And you heard it off that merde song, non? Anyway, I do not think you should use a plasma gun."
"Why not?" Hans was just slightly pricked.
As they filed away to respective tables after getting their meal allocation, Sandrine grinned and told him. "Dieter told me why. During the exercise, you fired off an entire magazine - and missed him."
"Yeah, well," Hans squirmed uncomfortably. "It was ... you know, hectic, and I ..."
"You were shooting at Dieter from behind," she interrupted. "From about seven meters away. I checked the combat recordings - your hit rate was about 10%."
"What can I say to that?" Hans shrugged helplessly. "To be perfectly honest, I hate guns."
"You what?"
"I hate guns. In fact, I'm terrified of them. When I was nine, I saw one of my friends die in a robbery."
"Merde. I am sorry, Hans. I did not know." Sandrine reached out and put a hand on his arm, as Hans stared off into space, looking at something only he could see.
"It was at that candy store, right off Main Street. The guy came in with a shotgun, demanded the shopkeeper open his cash register. Me and Angie, we ran and tried to hide in an aisle. The guy saw the movement, didn't think, didn't blink, just opened fire.
"Jesus, I remember seeing Angie lying on the floor. Her whole chest was gone, just one big, bloody hole and shreds of flesh holding her arms and legs and head. She was only seven, Sandrine. That creep was high on drugs or something and just shot her."
Shaking himself, Hans stuck a spoon in his protein mix and stirred it around aimlessly. "I joined the military out of ... what, I don't really know, some sense that somehow I could prevent something like that from happening again.
"But you know what? It didn't work out. I was so scared of handling the M-16s in basic training, my officers nearly booted me out. Eventually, I scraped through, and straightaway got transferred to a desk job.
"Then this X-Com thing came through. I heard about all the new technology they had to play with, and I just had to come and see; call me a geek, but it's true." Hans chuckled self-deprecatingly. "Thing is, I really would have been much happier getting assigned to X-Com as a techie, instead of a combat trooper. But this was the only opening available, so I took it anyway. Just so I could see and play with the new toys."
He lifted a spoonful of soup to his mouth, sampled it, and was pleasantly surprised. "That's really quite nice. Sort of sweet corn, chicken-y flavour."
"You have not spoken to Wolf, to get a transfer, say, to Materials? A special consideration just for you?" Sandrine ventured tentatively.
"Yes, but I was refused. I'm the only one who went through that HWP driving course, other than Dieter, so that makes the two of us the only qualified operators around. I'm stuck in this role for at least 3 months, since that's the absolute shortest that they can bring in another HWP driver."
Hans spread his hands in a helpless gesture. "Of course, I could always get out of this outfit, but that would mean I'd have no more new toys to fool around with."
Sandrine sighed inwardly. She had no idea how to help Hans, really. She was a soldier, not a counselor. "I do not know what to say, Hans. Maybe we should change the subject?"
"OK. What would you like to know?"
"What did you do before the military?"
"I did four years at the Rochester Institute of Technology, way up in New York. Then I went to Berkley, California, and got my doctorate in robotics. Joined the military after that."
Sandrine stared at him. "You are a doctor?"
"Of philosophy." Hans smiled. "Surprised?"
"Tres bien. Your degree is wasted in the army, non?"
"Sort of. After basic training, I got shipped all over the shop. Seems like the U.S. Army never has enough chief clerks to go around. I've done mostly logistics co-ordination, and they try and certify us once a year on the M-16. I just make it most days."
"Your parents must have been furious."
Hans laughed. "They've never been able to stop me! Anyway, the pay here is quite good, and my dad thinks I'm still in Fort Bragg or somewhere, with some nice pips on my shoulder."
They ate in silence for a while, listening to the rest of the troopers bandy around. Finishing his protein mix, Hans frowned and looked around.
"Is this it? Only soup?"
Sandrine looked up from her own mix. "Oui. This is the only thing the cafeteria serves. You can get beer when you are off-duty and only between eight and ten in the evenings. And this is not soup; it is a specially designed protein/carbohydrate mix to guarantee the proper daily calorie intake. Didn't you read the briefing manual on the way here?"
"No," Hans admitted. "I could do with some fibre, though. Some lettuce or spinach would be nice. This protein mix is not bad, but I'm still hungry."
Monique passed by just then, and overheard. "You will get used to it. In the meantime, go to the cook and tell him Monique sent you, and recommends some emergency rations just to help you get used to the situation."
She winked and left.
"Monique? She is one of the original team members, oui?" Sandrine observed.
"Don't care about that! If she can get me some extra food, I'd quite happily let her shave my head, wax my eyebrows, and use me for a surfboard." Hans left to see the cook, and came after a short while. He held up a couple of packets of Meals-Ready-To-Eat; the MREs were labeled bangers and mash.
"Already heated up," Hans reported happily. "Seems that some of our British friends brought over their MREs during assignment."
It was a well-known fact that British MREs were far more edible than their American counterparts. Even Sandrine had to grin and acknowledge that. She batted her eyelashes seductively at Hans. "Well, then, Monsieur Hans, why do you wait? Must I give you an invitation to dinner?"
They laughed as they broke open the MREs and tore into them enthusiastically, much to the envy of some of the watching soldiers. Nearby, one of the new soldiers, another French man by the name of Louis Marcelle, was showing off his manual dexterity to a couple of pals.
Louis had stood up, and jammed a pair of spoons into his pockets. With breathtaking speed, he whipped them out simultaneously, spun them around his fingers and pointed them at an imaginary alien. He twirled the spoons around his fingers again, then put them back neatly in his pockets, to the sound of applause from his audience.
"That was quite amazing," Hans commented. "Do you know the guy?"
"Non." Sandrine shook her head. "Louis is DGSE - Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure, the French Secret Service. I do not like him."
"Why not? Seems like a nice guy."
"He feels ... wrong. Like, he smiles, but his eyes never smile."
Hans thought about that. It did not make any sense to him, but everybody was entitled to their own opinions. "Whatever you say."
Sandrine frowned. "I cannot explain it, Hans. Louis is ... a very dangerous man, not just to his enemies, but also to his friends. There are many rumours about Louis."
"Alright, alright, keep your hat on. Now you know a bit about me, what about you?"
"Moi? I joined the French military to help my family. The Veurill family is not rich, we live in a small village in Normandy. My father is a butcher, and my mother teaches at the village school. My parents have five children, including me, so we all work to help."
"What were you doing in the army then?"
"I used to do work like Monique. Medical work. I went on duty in Kosovo, as a combat medic. It was very strange, to shoot at people and try to kill them, then take out your medical equipment afterwards and try and save those that have just tried to killed you."
"I can imagine!"
"Anyway, after Kosovo, my father objected and said things were too dangerous for a woman. So, I got a transfer back to France, and worked as a border guard - you know, walking the trains to check passports."
She blew her hair out of her eyes. "It was very boring. Mostly tourists. Only once, somebody tried to sneak into France, illegal immigrant from ... Romania, or maybe Hungary, I think. We found him hiding in the train toilet. He took a pipe and tried to attack my patrol, so I hit him with my gun. He got up, tried again, and would not stop even when we shouted at him. I got tired of it, so I shot him."
Hans dropped his spoon. "You shot him?"
"Oui." Sandrine shrugged. "In the legs."
"In the legs?"
Frowning at him, she nodded. "Oui, in the legs. What are you, a parrot?"
"What did your officers say?"
"Nothing. He was clearly aggressive, so I had to keep him down."
"By shooting him."
"Mais bien sur! By shooting him. In the legs," she added, looking thoughtful. "Only two months in hospital."
"Jesus Christ!" Hans could not believe what he was hearing.
"What is wrong?"
"You shot somebody! You ... a girl, shot somebody!"
Sandrine's mouth formed a grim line. "It was a job, Hans. Girl or not, it was my job, so I had to do it."
"Whatever happened to girls and sugar and spice and everything nice?"
"Not me." Sandrine resumed eating, and the conversation died off.
* * *
"So can you do it?"
"I don't know," Sadatoshi Gassan admitted. The clean-shaven, middle-aged Japanese man frowned and rubbed his hands over his chin.
He eyed the opened package before him. Within it lay a hilt of the purest ivory, carved to resemble an oriental dragon. Next to it were two bars of a silvery metal he had never seen before, each fully a meter in length. Most curious of all, next to these items was a tiny lump of ... something, that glowed a fiery orange, visible even in the bright afternoon sun in Nara Prefecture, Japan.
The hilt was intimately familiar, but Sadatoshi ignored it for now. He picked up the metal, and examined it. He noted its strength and resilience, and the eerie smoothness of its surface. Flawless in every sense of the word, and quite the lightest he had ever held.
Setting the metal aside, Sadatoshi picked up the hilt. He held it up to the light, marveling at how life-like the carving of the dragon was. At the right angle, it seemed ready to leap off the hilt and sink its vicious fangs into flesh, its eyes aglow with superhuman intelligence and menace.
"This is ... quite amazing." Sadatoshi remarked. "I think that, perhaps, I have seen it before ..."
"You should have." The black man replied. "It was one of the originals made by your ancestor, Gassan Sadakazu, back in the early 1900s."
Sadatoshi's eyes lit up. "Ah, yes! I remember! My father showed me pictures of it. It was one of the very first katanas made for the Imperial Household ... but how did you get hold of it?"
"That is not important. My client paid a great price for the weapon."
"I would imagine so! Such a katana would now fetch over ten million yen - over 80,000 U.S. dollars."
"That much?"
"Oh, yes. Kenichi Inami, of the Tokyo dealership Japan Sword, has a 13th century sword, worth over 35 million yen."
"That is, what, about 300,000 dollars?"
"It is a priceless treasure. A national treasure."
"I'm sure. But what about this piece? Can you do it?"
Sadatoshi frowned. "It would be a great honour to work with a blade that the master Gassan Sadakazu himself worked on so long ago, but although this metal will definitely hold the edge, the other modifications you want are very complex, very difficult."
"My client trusts only your work. He said that you were the only one qualified to work on it."
Sadatoshi waved away the praise. "There are about 80 smiths today, in Japan, who make swords the traditional way, like me. I am not unique."
"But you are the very best."
The Japanese man scratched his forehead without answering. He turned a sharp gaze on the man before him. Dressed in a black business suit - never mind the humid heat of the Japanese summer in Osaka - he spoke with a very strong American accent. His face was lean and strong-jawed, and there was no hint of weakness in his eyes.
Sadatoshi shivered. A killer's face, if there ever was one.
In turn, the man stared unflinchingly at Sadatoshi, daring him to look away first.
Sadatoshi Gassan was not a weak man. He came from a lineage that went back for more than 800 years, to the Kamakura period, when Buddhist monks in the ascetic Shugendo sect needed swords to protect their disciples on holy mountains, such as the eponymous Mount Gassan, one of the three Dewa Sanzan peaks in present-day Yamagata Prefecture, northern Japan.
It was a strong and honourable bloodline, for Sadatoshi's late father, Sadaichi Gassan, had been named a Living National Treasure in Japan, for his prowess in the ancient arts of swordmaking. It was a precious knowledge handed down from generation to generation, as Sadatoshi had learned from his father, so, too, had Sadaichi learnt it from his father before him.
Sadatoshi was of the fifth generation of swordmakers from the Gassan school, ever since it had relocated to Osaka in 1830. Although he dearly wished to be named a Living National Treasure like his father, Sadatoshi was, admittedly, far more interested in making outstanding blades that would last centuries. The Japanese sword was a marvelous heritage that was part of the true spirit of the Japanese people, and for many, to be part of such a legacy was to partake of immortality.
But this man ... he frightened Sadatoshi like no other.
Trying to conceal involuntary shudders, Sadatoshi turned away to examine the materials before him again. He could not help noticing that the black man smiled as he did so - it was not a pleasant sight, and if it was at all possible, his blood froze even harder.
"My client will pay you one million U.S. dollars."
Sadatoshi had to raise an eyebrow. "That is a lot of money. Far above the actual value of the sword itself."
The man shrugged. "That is amount I was ordered to quote for your work."
The money was good incentive, certainly, but as far as Sadatoshi was concerned, the decision had already been made. Any swordsmith would have killed to work on one of the original Imperial Gassan blades, and if he managed to equal - or even surpass! - his ancestor's immaculate work ...
The prestige that would win him would be incalculable.
"Very well. I will do it."
"You understand that there is a non-disclosure agreement to be signed when you undertake this project?"
Sadatoshi was insulted. "Sir, commissioned pieces are usually collectors who are very particular about their privacy. Even without the confidentiality order, neither I nor my apprentices would reveal any names."
The man held his hands up in a placating gesture. "Just getting the paperwork out of the way, Sadatoshi-san. It's part of my job. I meant no disrespect. If any offense was taken, please accept my apologies.
"How long will it take?"
"In Sakurai, here in Nara Prefecture, I have five apprentices at the smithy." Sadatoshi ran through the figures in his head, factoring in the commitments he already had. "I would say, about 15 months?"
The black man did not even blink. "Too slow."
"What can I say? I have other commitments, too. And to make this sword the old way, the traditional way, and add in all your modifications ..."
Eyes gleaming, the man leaned forward. "Drop all your other commitments, Sadatoshi-san. If you finish this assignment within three months, my client has authorized me to pay you five times that amount."
Sadatoshi rocked back on his heels. There were no words to say.
"I'll be back in three months then, with your five million dollars." Dennis Drakemore grinned. "A pleasure doing business with you."