V.
Thursday before breakfast, deJahn had to shower. Sometimes, dreams were almost as bad as infiltration spec-ops themselves. Even flying the scowls with the scroaches following had been bad enough. He needed a long shower, but water was one thing a forward base had. Surrounded by it. He dressed deliberately. He still had enough clean poopsuits. He’d finally reclaimed enough fresh ones for the days ahead.
He felt cleaner, for the moment, before he headed down the passageway to the tech mess and breakfast. Softboots whispered on the deck. Hard to believe that fifty yards up through the overhead was what looked like marsh and reeds in the river delta.
Tech mess was an oval room with five tables and dispensers and formulators. He tapped out his selections on the formulator, then set them on the tray, and carried the tray to the table where Meralez and Castaneda sat. Castaneda was the butch that Meralez fronted being.
Castaneda gestured. “Look like shit, deJahn.”
“You, too, Castaneda.”
“All of us look like shit, all right?” Meralez laughed. “Good thing nothings up but surveillance today.”
DeJahn liked her laugh. Warm, sort of sexy, not in-your-face.
“You’ve got a thought-look,” Meralez suggested.
After swallowing a mouthful of bagel burrito, deJahn nodded, then took a sip of coffee, bitter.
One thing formulators didn’t do well, along with tea and chocolate.
“Well?”
“Was a time when special ops meant guys with guns dropping on chutes into jungle,” replied deJahn. “Some ways, more honest.”
“Honest? Strange word, think you?” Meralez brushed back mahogany hair too short to move.
“Strange?”
“Snuffed is snuffed,” replied Meralez. “Back then, it was lead, steel jackets, osmiridium, metal projectiles at high speed. Now, we’re using J-wasps, S-wasps, scroaches, scowls, biogaters, snators.
They’re using phonies stuffed with ultra-ex, semiclones with biopaks. We text envirosave, and they text reclaiming their heritage and defeating imperialism. Some of us get snuffed, and some of them do.
Back a century, it was the same. Any more honest then than now? Don’t think so. Back then, the officers ordered. The senior ones lived, the junior ones died like techs, and lots more techs died than now.”
For a moment, deJahn considered her words. They were hers, what she thought, and that was good.
“The senior officers, brass balls and iron tits… all the same,” snorted Castaneda.
“All the same, what?” A cheerful laugh followed the words.
Castaneda looked up. So did deJahn.
Vielho stood there, then set his tray down and slid into the vacant space beside Castaneda.
“Anytime you’re talking balls and tits, Castaneda, got to be worth listening to.” He grinned disarmingly, then took a swallow of his tea.
So far as deJahn knew, Vielho was the only tech who drank tea. Or what passed for it. Then, Casimir was the only other person deJahn knew who drank it for breakfast. Where deJahn’s brother had picked it up… who knew? Casimir couldn’t even explain, but he also couldn’t explain why he liked teaching.
“Just jawing about officers. Little good that does.”
“Better than holding it inside.” Vielho sipped the tea.
“You ever think about being a teacher?” asked deJahn.
“Me?” Vielho laughed. “No way. Got as much patience as a scroach seeking a Seasie. Why?”
DeJahn shook his head. “Just wondered.”
VI.
0750. The briefing was in the tech mess. All the briefings took place there. DeJahn didn’t want to be late, slipped into the spot at the table beside Meralez. She didn’t look at him. He returned the favor by looking straight ahead.
Chihouly lumbered in, glanced at deJahn and Meralez, and gave deJahn a knowing headshake.
DeJahn shrugged.
0801. Major Delles stepped out into the small open space in front of the twenty techs. All stood and stiffened.
“Carry on.” Delles gestured for them to sit.
With the others, deJahn settled in, waiting to hear what Delles had to say. He wouldn’t like it.
Briefings meant trouble ahead.
Delles cleared his throat, then straightened his shoulders. His poopsuit had creases, and the gold oak leaves on the starched collars glistened.
DeJahn was just happy to have enough clean suits.
“Power is the key to any advanced technology. Even biotech and biowar require large amounts of power. In this sector, the Seasies are still relying heavily on old-style power plants. In particular, they have a large magnetodynamic coal plant, the Tanshu-two. This mission is to bring down the plant.
We’ll take out the cooling systems, then the security lines, and finish up with a double, an ultra-ex powered EMP and then red goo for the coal itself. The satellite team will be handling the biobirds for the EMP and goo. We get the dirty work first.”
A power plant? That sounded like the beginning of something, something deJahn wasn’t sure he’d care for. The only reason the Seasies hadn’t gotten rid of the old-style coal plants was that the costs were sunk. Spec-ops would be doing them a favor… unless a short-term power shortage happened to be necessary for some other reason. Like a sector-wide push in another few days.
He couldn’t help but turn toward Meralez.
They both nodded, but so slightly that the major didn’t notice, then returned their eyes to the presentation. The mess had darkened, to enhance the holo image of the target, a hulking industrial dinosaur that might have come from a hundred years earlier in NorAm.
“…water intakes are standard bioscrub… strike team three has already planted z-clambers… intake volumes are down fifteen percent…”
The major droned on, and deJahn managed to catch what he needed to know, and that was that most of the techs would be on late-disengagement. Another sure sign of trouble.
The last power plant image vanished, replaced by three lists. “Check for your assignments here.”
DeJahn checked. He had the main pod, but it didn’t say what he’d be handling.
“…any questions?” the major finally concluded.
“Why the late disengage, sir?”
DeJahn didn’t see the speaker; but it sounded like Chihouly.
“A number of the targets require higher-than-normal acquisition ratios, and that requires greater tech presence and persistence than can be obtained through late-stage free-ops.”
“Any other questions?”
No one spoke. There wasn’t any point to it, not after the major’s last answer.
“Duty stations will commence at 0900. Dismissed.”
The techs all rose, stiffened, and stood while the major departed.
That left thirty minutes to kill. DeJahn got some coffee. When he looked around for Meralez, she and Castaneda had left.
He sat back down.
Chihouly sat at the next table. Neither one said a word.
Finally, fifteen minutes later, deJahn got up and tossed the disposable mug into the reformulation bin and walked toward the pod.
Meralez was one of the first into the pod, after Vielho, and deJahn was right behind her. Suares followed deJahn. Esquival and Chihouly were behind him. The OpsCon was Captain DiLayne.
Narrow-faced former tech, she’d come up the long way and never forgotten.
He dropped into the third seat, and linked. Tech deJahn.
Accepted. Flash background: S-wasps. Five swarms, seeded minus three months, advanced growth, designed to inject superconductives into critical components, relays, and certain bloc units.