Ephialtes (Ephialtes Trilogy Book 1) Read online

  “Sure. It’s not important.”

  Kostovich once again scanned through the lists of uninteresting low-level government communications.

  “Your Pop-Tarts have arrived,” said his terminal.

  “Oh, yes they have,” said Kostovich, grinning broadly. “Pop some in, would you?”

  C H A P T E R 3

  Welcome Home

  Sliding his hand down the rail as he went, he moved in descending circles down the helical staircase. He reached the bottom and strode across to the bar. It was nearly empty now, as he liked it. By Artificial Earth Time it was past 2:00am. He pulled a seat up at the bar and punched a command into his coms device. A robot arm mounted on rails in the ceiling behind the bar glided smoothly past him, its speaker emitting, “Coming right up, sir,” as it went. The arm quickly and without error grabbed a shot glass and placed it on the bar, then turned to grab a bottle. It whisked the bottle to the glass at great speed then instantly slowed for the pour. As soon as the drink was poured the speed increased dramatically as the bottle was placed back on the shelf. The arm returned. “This first drink today is complementary as part of your trip. Subsequent drinks will be charged to your account. A maximum of five drinks is allowed in any twenty-four hour period. Enjoy yourself, and drink responsibly.”

  “Screw you, pal.”

  “Have a nice day.”

  He took a sip of the drink and winced a little. At the other end of the bar a solitary older guy was lost in his comdev, prodding the screen and issuing the occasional whispered voice command. He looked up and, after a pause, put the comdev in his pocket. Grabbing the beer in front of him he stood up, half falling from his chair. He sauntered up the bar. “Hey, friend,” he said.

  Bobby Karjalainen half-turned to him and offered a forced, thin smile. “Hey,” he said. The man sat himself down next to Karjalainen and stuck out his hand expectantly.

  “Name’s Mike, how’re you doin’?”

  Karjalainen took the hand and shook it. “I’m doin’ good,” he said.

  “Ain’t seen you down here before. Thought I knew just about everybody on board.”

  Bobby shrugged. “Been in my room mostly, or the gym.”

  “That would explain it!” Mike said, too loudly. “You won’t be catchin’ me in no gym!” He grinned at his remark and, from politeness, Bobby smiled back. “So you’ve been holed up in your room, eh? That’d drive me crazy. I have to get out and talk to people. I’m just about stir crazy already. I’m lookin’ forward to pullin’ in tomorrow. I hate these trips, I really do.” Bobby took a sip of his drink. Mike continued. “What can you get up to in your room all day? Beats me how you could do that.”

  Bobby placed his glass on the bar. “Well, you know. You’ve got the VR, music, enhanced sleep. Kills the time,” said Bobby.

  Mike gave him a sidelong look. “Beats me. I have to get out and talk to people. Can’t stay cooped up. I hate these trips.”

  “You travel a lot?”

  “Yes, sir, business. This is the third time I’ve made this trip in twenty-five years. Imagine that! I’ve pissed three years of my life away, floating through space.” For a second he looked genuinely saddened by the thought, but soon picked up. “At least they pay me well for it! I guess it put the kids through school, anyhow.”

  “That’s a way to look at it.”

  “How about you? First time out?”

  Bobby drew a breath. “I’ve been out once before, going the other way. But I’m on my way home now.”

  “Way home? You’re a Martian?”

  “I’d have to say I am. And I’m going home, if you want to drink to that.”

  “To home,” said Mike, raising his glass.

  “To home,” Bobby echoed.

  Mike took a deep gulp of his beer. “So what you been up to on the old home planet?”

  Bobby looked Mike in the eye. “I’ve been serving my country.”

  Mike took a second to process the information. “The Army? Let me tell you right off, I got nothing but respect for you guys. Nothing but respect. Some of these protesters, well, it makes me sick. The only reason they can parade around with their fancy-dan nonsense is because of guys like you. Where’d you serve? London? LA? I did a year myself, as a reservist. Mainly from home, you understand, but I get it. The discipline, service, honour.”

  “Lahore.”

  Mike fell silent for the first time and glanced around the bar as if a script boy would be there to whisper his next line to him. “Lahore?” he said, cautiously. “That had to be pretty rough, right?”

  Bobby frowned. “Yeah, it was rough alright. But we’d trained for it. We knew the risks going in.”

  “Well, I take my hat off to you, sir. I do really.” Mike searched for something else to say. “Can I get you another drink?”

  Bobby looked at Mike. “Sure.”

  Mike called out to the robot arm, “Bar keep! I’d like another beer over here and . . .”

  “Whisky.”

  “And a whisky for my friend.”

  The robot arm zoomed up the bar. “I’m sorry, sir, but we are not allowed to serve you any more alcoholic drinks; today’s limit has been reached.”

  Mike leaned toward the arm. “Now you look here, this is a war hero and we want our drinks, okay?”

  “I’m sorry sir. Would you like to file a customer services incident report?”

  Bobby cut in. “Could I have a beer and a whisky?” he asked.

  “Of course, sir, coming up.” The arm whirred off to prepare the drinks.

  “See that!” Mike cried. “Even the machines have respect for a war hero!”

  Bobby smiled and shook his head. The arm placed the beer and whisky on the bar in front of them. “Your account has been debited. You have two drinks remaining for the current period. Enjoy yourself, and drink responsibly.”

  Mike grabbed his beer, thrusting it toward Bobby. “To drinking responsibly,” he said, with a slight slur in his voice.

  “To drinking responsibly,” Bobby answered.

  After taking swigs they sat in silence for the next few seconds, Mike toying with the edge of a bar mat. He glanced up at Bobby. “What was it like?”

  “Lahore?”

  Mike seemed ashamed now at having asked the question. “Yeah, Lahore.”

  Bobby pulled himself back in his seat, tilting his head to one side as he searched for an answer. “It was rough. Like they said. But we held on to it. And some of us got medals, too.”

  There was a pause, then Mike said, “We’re all very proud of what you guys did. I mean,” he struggled for words, “. . . thank you. Thank you for your service.”

  Bobby nodded. “It shouldn’t have happened that way, but,” he paused, “. . . but we did all we could and we made it in the end.”

  “People actually died, didn’t they?”

  “They did. We lost thirteen squads, thirteen commanders. Worst losses of the entire war.”

  Mike’s mouth fell open.

  “Thirteen?” he repeated, dumbfounded. “My God . . .”

  “Twelve mechs to a squad, with the command drone. You don’t want to be losing a hundred and fifty tactical fighting units in the biggest battle of the Fourth World War, but what can you do? War sucks, huh?”

  Mike was still staring. “But the people. Thirteen. They said it was four in the bulletins.”

  Bobby smirked. “Well, you know. The first casualty of war and all that. Anyway, we held onto Lahore, and you know the rest. Peace with honour.” He offered up his glass. Mike chinked his against it.

  “Peace with honour,” he said.

  Mike shuffled in his seat and studied the drinks behind the bar as if he had never seen them before. “You know,” he said, “I’m a bit of a history buff. Military history, that sort of thing.” Bobby looked at him quizzically. Mike continued. “That’s what I read, mostly. I’ve read hundreds of books about that stuff, especially the world wars, one, two and three. And of course I’ve been following t
his one, your one, in the news. Different to being there, I guess. How about you? Do you read that stuff?” he asked.

  “Not really,” said Bobby. “We did a little in training, studying tactics, strategy and so forth, but I’m not much of one for history.”

  “It’s really interesting,” said Mike. “It fascinates me.”

  Bobby sipped his drink.

  “I was a big supporter of the Commander Program, you know? A lot of people didn’t like it but I knew it would be good, I knew it would work and I knew it would be worth it. I think we lost our way with the drones. We lost something, you know what I mean? It made war too easy. Everyone was far too willing to reach for the military option when there were no risks involved. It made war, somehow,” he struggled to find the word, “. . . dishonourable. Apart from this last war, do you know when the last time the USAN, or even the old USA as it was then, last deployed human soldiers on the battlefield?” Bobby shook his head. “It was 2087, WWIII. That was the last time until this one, a hundred and fifty years without a single live soldier deployed on the field of battle. Even in the civil wars it was all drones on the battlefield. The Battle of Seville was actually fought in sheds in Kentucky.” Bobby nodded. “So I take my hat off to you guys. That takes some balls, to do what you did.”

  “We just did what was asked of us,” said Bobby. “I’d have been just as happy to have sat in an air conditioned shed in Kentucky than have had my ass shot off in Lahore. I just felt like I should give something back. The old country asked people to serve, so I did.”

  “What was it like in the Commander Program?” Mike asked.

  “It was okay, I guess,” Bobby replied. “We did all the standard training in the sims like regular soldiers, and then some field training on top. Training with the mechs suits was pretty rough.”

  Mike cut in, “Mech suits?”

  “Yeah, the command drones. They’re the same as the drones in your squad but with less ammo to allow space for you to be in.”

  “How many drones to a squad?” asked Mike, even though he knew the answer.

  “Twelve, including the command drone. Each squad is eleven drones and one commander. The drones can all act autonomously, but can follow direct orders from the commander. If the commander is injured or incapacitated, control of the squad will fall back to remote pilots based outside the theatre of operations. But all the while you’re in the field the squad commander has total operational control. The whole point of the program is that an operational commander there in the field, with direct personal experience of what is happening, is better placed to make situational judgements than someone sat maybe three thousand miles away. There’s no substitution for actually being there on the ground.”

  “But the risks are,” Mike paused, “unbelievable. And you volunteered. Incredible.” Bobby smiled. “Someone had to do it.”

  Someone may have had to do it but it needn’t have been Bobby. He was born a hundred and forty million miles away, and with his family connections he could easily have remained out of it. His father Jack had been mortified when Bobby told him he had volunteered, and had threatened to disown him. In truth Jack was terrified about what might become of his son, but he masked that feeling with anger, casting Bobby out of the House of Karjalainen and pulling his younger son Anthony even closer.

  Bobby had always been the most difficult of the two boys, in trouble at school, in trouble with girls, in trouble with the police, but his easy smile and winning ways had always managed to get him through. When he was younger his sheepish grin and ‘what the hell’ shrug worked on his father too, but as he got older Jack Karjalainen became increasingly immune. He still loved Bobby but found it harder and harder to let him know it. Maybe that’s why Bobby volunteered; to get a reaction out of his father. And maybe it worked, but Jack Karjalainen would never admit to it.

  “Incredible,” Mike said to himself. “Can I get you another drink?”

  “I don’t think you can,” Bobby said, and then to the machine, “Hey, barkeep. Same again here.” The robot arm performed its whirring magic, finishing with its weary message about drinking responsibly.

  Mike grabbed his new beer and took a sip. “What did it feel like?” he said.

  “Feel like?”

  “Yeah, what did it feel like, the fighting?”

  “It felt like the sims. You’ve played the sims right? Mech Azimuth 4 and all those? It feels just like that, but with hard work and no resets.”

  “Yeah, but, I mean . . .”

  “What?”

  Mike took a breath and searched for the words. “I mean in an actual battle, firing actual weapons at actual people?”

  “Yeah? Well,” said Bobby, “they were trying to kill me, and they had volunteered to be there just like I had. They knew the risks; so did I. I guess it felt good.”

  Mike laughed. At first a nervous giggle, but then a full-throated belly laugh. “You hard-hearted son of a bitch,” he said. “You’re a cold-blooded killer!” He laughed again. Bobby laughed a little too. It wasn’t quite true, what he had said, but it sounded good to the fans and the war buffs, and it put them off the scent of how he really felt.

  “I guess so,” Bobby said, “I guess that’s what made me an effective soldier.”

  “I guess it did,” Mike replied.

  Bobby downed his remaining whisky. “I’m turning in now, Mike. It was good to meet you.”

  “Well,” Mike said, “before you go I’d like to make a toast to the returning hero.” He raised his glass. “To . . .” He paused blankly. “I’m so sorry, what was your name again?”

  “Karjalainen. Bobby Karjalainen.”

  “Yes! Yes, I knew I knew your face. Goddamn! Great book. Great book.” Mike grabbed Bobby’s hand, shaking it vigorously as he continued. “To Bobby Karjalainen, and all those like him, to whom we owe our freedom, and because of whom we can sleep safely in our beds at night. Chin chin!” Bobby clinked glasses with him, though his own was empty. Bobby slipped from his stool and made to leave but Mike grabbed his shoulder. Bleary-eyed, Mike looked straight at Bobby and said, with all the sincerity he could muster, “Welcome home, Bobby. Welcome back to Mars.”

  The port was sparsely populated. Flights from Earth arrived only every two years. For most of the time the space was used for warehousing and the staff on duty today were security personnel from the main USAN base at Marineris. They knew exactly who was coming and they knew exactly what they were bringing with them. Every milligram had to be accounted for on the flight and, in addition to the exorbitant cost, a thorough medical and psych exam was necessary before anyone could be cleared for interplanetary flight. The cost would have made the trip off-limits to Bobby but the army picked up the tab both ways; as a volunteer for the military on the way out and as a war-hero on the way back.

  On finishing his final tour Bobby had been paraded as something of a poster boy back in the USAN. His easy smile looked as good on the bulletins as it did on the posters, and he maintained enough gravity to make his flip and scripted answers to the tougher questions (tougher, but not tough. No one in the media would be dumb enough to ask an actual tough question) seem weighty and considered. He had consented to a ghost-written book, Return of the Warrior, about his experience in the Commander Program. The only part people were interested in was the Battle of Lahore. Bobby signed off on the book, even though it bore scant relation to the events it depicted. It had been jazzed up into an adventure story with just enough true horror and grit left in to make it seem serious and worthy. In reality it was a trashy and jingoistic thriller to be chosen above others because of the words ‘true story’ (in fact, ‘The Explosive True Story!) and the picture of Bobby looking suitably determined and heroic on the cover.

  Bobby had ridden his fifteen minutes expertly and had enjoyed every moment. He’d been on seven different chat shows across four countries and had spoken at two prestigious universities. The rock star life had been great, but the travelling and the easy availability of
admiring women had eventually come between him and Askel.

  After initial training Bobby had served two outstanding virtual tours out of the famed ‘Kentucky Sheds’. It appeared he was preternaturally gifted at remotely piloting attack mechs and drones, and he had an unusually well-developed sense of tactics and strategy.

  His prodigious skills had not gone unnoticed and when he volunteered for the newly announced Commander Program he had been snapped up immediately.

  As one of the first volunteers Bobby had been in the Commander Program more or less from the very beginning. His training group had worked closely with Helios Matériel Corporation, one of the top military contractors, in developing the command drones. Initially these had been adapted standard drones with little or no ammo. Important systems had been moved about the chassis in order to make room for someone to sit inside. This worked out okay in initial VR training but in field trials the problems became more and more apparent. The command drones were underpowered, under armed and under armoured. When it became clear that no amount of rejigging was going to solve the problems, Helios brought in their second most senior designer and briefed her to rebuild the design for the command drones from scratch. Her name was Askel Lund.

  Bobby worked closely with Askel. He knew what was needed and he was always keen to test prototypes on the training grounds. Bobby was a passionate advocate for the command drones to be armed. Initially it had been thought that with the firepower of eleven battle drones at his or her disposal there would be no need for the command drone itself to be fully armed. Bobby knew that in a tight-spot the command drone would need to defend itself, maybe even using manual controls.

  He knew too the value of armour. The Commander Program had been sold as a glorious return to the days of ancient warriors, risking their lives in honourable battle for the greater good. Some of that made sense to Bobby, but he didn’t think solders should be throwing their lives away as a sop to some crazy ideas about honour and valour that were centuries out of date. Death on the battlefield was a possibility; it didn’t have to be a duty.