Spec-Ops

I.

1559. Khorbel deJahn slid into the dim pod, sensies flicking to Duty OpsCon. “Up-what, sir?”

“You’re last, Tech deJahn. Chimbats,” replied the major. “Nu-type. Seasies haven’t seen. Take over from Hennesy. Third seat.”

Leastwise, no scroaches. DeJahn link-pulsed.

Hennesy blinked, unlinked, and stood. “You got it, deJahn.”

“Got it.”

Hennesy had left the sensie-seat hot, damp. DeJahn wiped it with the cloth he always brought.

Still hated taking over a hot seat. Leastwise, he was beside Meralez. Her eyes were open, link-blank.

Sexy eyes when she was in her skull, not like now.

He pulled the thin mesh cap into place over his short mil-cut hair. Made sure the contacts handshook, blanked his thoughts, and settled into the link. Tech first deJahn.

Accepted. Flash background: Chimbats. Three families, each of twenty-five units. Target: any personnel at biointerdict station beta-four. See plot.

Firsties were just chitterings, light-darts in blackness. Be a while before the biogator expelled the chimbats from the pouch under its ridged back. Side-mind went to the back plot, illuminated only in his thoughts. Green blips were the gators, swimming upstream after a tidal boost. Red blip was target—

Seasie biointerdict station. An hour plus to release.

DeJahn hated pre-release. Babysitting chims just in case the vector got zapped. Seasies weren’t going to see gators in one of a dozen canals and muddy streams, not the main river channel.

He might have slept in the dark pod. Would have slept, except for the majors overscreening and the checks. Time passed. Slowly.

DeJahn stifled a yawn, compared closure rate once more. Ran a complete monitor on the

bioindicators, then reported. 1630. On course, on target.

Stet, Tech deJahn.

More dark and quiet time. Time where his thoughts, behind the link, lingered on Meralez. Good body, better voice. Reminded him of Margot. Probably not good. Wished Meralez weren’t pseudo les-butch. Could be a front. Keep the tech types from pawing. Hazard of spec-ops. Had to find ways to remember who you were. Sex and women helped. Did men help the female techs? Or not? That why so many women partnered with other women?

More time passed in darkness. More chitterings as the chimbats got restless, their soporifics wearing off. Screen checks came, went.

Ten to release, Tech. Request acknowledge.

Stet. Ten to release. DeJahn hated the obvious. Major knew he was ready. Linked, wasn’t he?

Mil-type reduns still plagued pros like him.

Chitterings increased. Chimbats getting restless as the sops wore off.

Five to release.

Stet.

The chitterings were almost as bad as the scuttling and scrapings that came with the scroaches, and the smell…Tech ops said there wasn’t sensie smell. Spec-ops techs knew better.

Stand by for release. Release… now!

Disorientation. Always that. Hundreds of sound-sights flashed through the integrator before settling into a shifting mosaic as the chimbats fanned out, spreading wings, pulsing the terrain, receiving sound images.

Backwater canal below, hard to judge but no more than thirty feet wide. Grimy gray-brown surface showed the wakes of the gators. No sonic-visual on the gators. They weren’t designed that way.

Water blocked most of the bats’ sonar return.

DeJahn squinted to focus the image. Wasn’t a real squint, but the sensie-link equivalent. Trees slumped bedraggled limbs into the water on both sides of the canal.

He checked the mind sidescreen. Target was six thousand yards at zero seven one. Chimbats were sweeping across the water, scooping up insect fuel, following the canal at zero-four-four. Another two thousand, and he’d have to nudge them right.

Gators had fallen behind, following the canal. They would for another thousand yards, then would take the cross canal. No one had told deJahn, but there was a soarer-boat patrol base on the east side of the delta. Each gator could take out one, maybe two, of the boats. Boats gone, or fewer of them, and there’d be a chance to bring in the dreadnaughts—the salties. Handful of them, and there wouldn’t be a patrol base. With the rivers in spec-ops’ hands, be an open vector lane for all the ricelands in the area, and the J-wasps could immobilize the quantum wetworks at Chuo-Klyseen.

DeJahn forced his mind back to the chimbats. They needed to follow the overgrown path to the right… more right. He exerted the pressure of danger to the left, and the lure of food, big juicy mosquitoes to the left. Heat built around him. He had to ignore it, center the chimbats on course toward the target.

Thirty-two hundred and closing. That was a quick link-flash to the major, to keep him from sending an inquiry while deJahn was setting up the attack.

Nineteen hundred yards, and all the chimbats “saw” was trees and insects, and the “brightness” of water in places from an afternoon rain.

The trees vanished, replaced by paddies that didn’t hold rice, or water, except for the thinnest layer, but various electronic and biosensors. Beyond the paddies was the interdict station. It didn’t look like much, not in the sensie-integrated mosaic in deJahn’s mind, just a gray square on an artificial square bluff seven yards above the soggy soil of the delta. Four thatched huts—the kind no one had lived in, even in Seasia, in generations—set around a graveled courtyard. Gravel? In a delta? Chimbats’ sonar showed the harder composite walls that supported the bluff edges, and the mix of steel and plastic hidden under the pseudo thatch.

Pseudo bats, pseudo thatch, pseudo bluff… frig! Was anything real?

The mission was real.

DeJahn exerted pressure, creating the sense and image of insect prey just below the roofs of the pseudo thatch.

Chimbats angled down, wings near-silent, fangs filled with solvent and venom.

Light! So brilliant that deJahn’s eyes boil-burned in their sockets.

Except it wasn’t light. Sound! That was it. Screaming sound, blinding the chimbats. Feedback blasted through him. Felt like his eardrums were bursting, and long needles lanced through his eyes, coming out the back of his skull.

Frig! Major’d said the chimbats were new types…

Blackness wiped it all away.

An alarm buzzed… sawing into him. It buzzed again.

Somewhere, something nagged at him, telling him to wake up… but he could sleep in, couldn’t he? Sunday morning, wasn’t it?

Tech deJahn… trigger recovery sequence… Recovery sequence…

Recovery sequence? His thoughts were sluggish. He had to do something… didn’t he?

Recovery sequence? A chill ran up his spine. Recovery one! Recovery one!

Link one… link two…

After a moment, or several, deJahn could feel the barriers dropping. Persona segmentation was frightening—but it had saved more than a few spec-ops techs from biobacklash syndrome… or worse.

He blinked. He still couldn’t see. Vision was usually late to return, but he didn’t like being in the dark.

Interrogative status?

Reintegration seventy-one percent complete.

What was seventy-one percent of a tech? He wanted to laugh. He forced his teeth together.

The blackness began to evaporate, and holes appeared in it. One hole showed the recovery medtech looking from the porta-console to deJahn and back again. Another hole showed the dark greenish gray bulkhead of the spec-ops pod.

After a moment, deJahn blinked, then coughed. “Think I’m back.”

“He’s green.” The medtech’s voice was bored, almost disappointed. He stood, nodded, and replaced the porta-console in its case before leaving the pod.

“Just sit there for a while,” ordered the major.

DeJahn glanced around the pod. All the other sensie-stations were empty. He supposed that was good.

Then the shudders began.

It took fifteen minutes before deJahn was ready to stand. He must have been the last. Or the only idiot who hadn’t disengaged fast enough.

He looked at the major. The officer’s cold green eyes showed nothing.

“Thought you said these chimbats were new. They were ready for them.”

“They were new. Some of them got through. About half the station’s inoperative.” The eyes softened, into mere green glass. “Get some rest, Tech. You’re off schedule tomorrow. Check with med on Monday.”

“Yes, sir.” DeJahn took two slow steps to the pod exit station, pressed his fingertips on the pad.

Cleared to depart. Status amber… off duty, pending medical. The exit irised open.

DeJahn took a step into the passageway outside the pod. Each step was deliberate. His balance felt off. Could be the beating his ears had taken.

His poopsuit stunk. Sweat and everything else. Biofeedback was hell on a tech’s personal system, no matter what the newsies said. Especially when your vectors got blasted before you disengaged.

He needed a shower and something to eat. There were still holes in his vision.