Chapter 595: Stock Car Race

"Everything you know is wrong." - Al "Wyrde", Spanker of Witches

General Trucker had to admit, it had been a long time since he had been on a dropship that was this empty.

Normally there would be his aides, his adjuctants, his subordinates, their assistants, a few MP's mixed in, at least one Confed Intel Agent, and a smattering of high ranked officers and senior NCO's.

This time, he was alone.

His implant had ID'd the brutal looking dropship as an old UD-4A3 Cheyenne, a design dating from around the Glassing. A strictly utilitarian vehicle designed for troop drops and close air support. He had sat down on the bench seat in the back, where normally two platoons would be seated for deployment.

At one point the dropship's eVI asked him if he wanted to see The Fires ofBuenos Aires as the dropship passed by on its way to docking. Trucker had shrugged and said 'why not' and the eVI had produced a crisp and clear high resolution 2.5D hologram.

The ship was massive, even by Space Force standards. Nearly fifteen kilometers long, a kilometer in diameter. Gunports and missile system hatches dotted the entire vessel. Lights blinked, flashed, or held steady across the hull. Trucker had seen multiple docking bays on the approach as well as the massive engines that burned with a sullen baleful smouldering fire.

The startling part was the cluster of domes and cathedrals on the aft end, the baroque architecture, and the symbolism that he could make out in some of the sweeping and brutal lines of the warship.

The hologram put up the data. A heavy cruiser, commissioned Pre-Glassing from the Trans-Plutonian Spaceyards. Trucker had to admit, it was impressive with its list of conflicts and battles. From the opening of the Second Colony War that took place at the same time as the opening of the First Terran/Mantid War, to the Mar-gite War, to the Blackhammer Cluster War. It was accompanied by destroyers, frigates, and light cruisers on the warship side as well as tender vessels.

The crew of all of the ships were part of a fraternal order, one of the ancient Martial Orders from the days of the Terran Imperium.

Finally the dropship had moved through the permeable forcefield that held in the atmosphere but allowed ships through, gently set down in the landing bay, and went through shutdown. There had been a few moments of quiet then the back ramp lowered.

Trucker picked up his dufflebag and suitcase and headed down the ramp, feeling slightly foolish in his Dress Uniform.

The troops at the bottom were in two ranks of eight, all with the heavy magac rifles the Martial Orders used, in utilitarian battle dress. At the far end was a massive figure in Imperium Era armor standing next to a narrow faced thin human male in an archaic dress uniform.

Trucker felt foolish moving down the ramp and between the two ranks, which stayed silent and motionless. His datalink kept throwing errors on the ID's of everyone so he shut down the ID app before he was halfway through.

When he stopped in front of the duo he dropped his duffle and saluted, fingertips to brow.

The one in power armor smashed a fist against the opposite pectoral. The one in the dress uniform merely nodded.

"Welcome aboard, General Trucker," the dress uniform one stated. "I am Admiral Rojos," he gestured at the one in power armor. "Lord Knight Nkaba, Lord Preceptor of the Sons of Murdered Terra Martial Order," the Admiral paused a moment. "We are willing to take you to the Telkan System so you may see to your duty."

"Thank you, Admiral, Lord Knight," Trucker said, feeling slightly off balance.

"We will assign a Lancer to you as your guide and aide," the Admiral said. He made a motion and a young appearing human male moved forward, bowing slightly. "Lancer Gonzales."

"A pleasure to meet you, General," the man said.

As the four crew members of the dropship moved out of the landing bay, it struck Trucker suddenly that this was the most humans he'd seen in one place since the Great Die-Off.

"If there is anything you need, General, do not hesitate to have Lancer Gonzales alert us," the Admiral said.

A dismissal if Trucker had ever heard one.

The two high commanders turned and walked away, Trucker following them. He'd dealt with the Martial Orders before, they were always brusque and wasted few words.

"I'll guide you to your quarters, General," Gonzales said. He picked up General Trucker's duffle bag. "If you'll follow."

Trucker stayed silent as they moved to the lift, then through the twisting corridors of the massive vessel.

He had to admit to himself, he had expected dim corridors, with age blackened metal, sparks, hanging wiring, all pointing at an ancient ship barely holding together.

Instead, everything was scrubbed, painted, brushed, and tightly maintained. The corridors were well lit, wide enough for a rank of power armor to pass down the middle of the hallway with room on either side for crew members to get out the way. The stenciled markings were crisp and unfaded, and once they passed a crew member applying a new stencil to the wall to warn that the pipe above the stencil was high pressure.

The room that the Lancer led him to was small, but well put together. A bed that folded up, same with the desk, a fresher that would extrude from the wall. Trucker had been on enough space vessels to know that despite the small size, space was at a premium even on a vessel the size of the one he was now on, which made the quarters practically lavish.

When he went to unpack the Lancer surprised him by taking over. Putting things away in the retractable wardrobe, closet, and dresser. The few knicknacks that Trucker had were left in the suitcase, then the duffle and the suitcase strapped away.

Trucker listened half-heartedly to the explanation on meals, where the dining halls were, and how to summon Lancer Gonzales if Trucker needed anything.

He knew he should have been more attentive, but he just couldn't seem to muster up what was an almost physical effort.

When the Lancer left Trucker moved over to the embedded fridge, opening it and finding that there was actually narcobrew in it. He got himself one, stripped out of his dress uniform, and laid on his bunk, staring at the ceiling, and sipping at the narcobrew.

It's two weeks to Telkan, he thought to himself. Just two weeks.

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For the first week, Trucker stayed largely in his room. A quick request and the Lancer brought his meals, usually from the Junior Officer mess. Twice he turned down an invitation to the Captain's Mess Table, then he was largely left alone.

He passed his time reading up on the TO&E of 1st Armored Division, as well as the new 1st Telkan Armored Division, which would be flagged only a few days before Trucker reached the system.

He didn't bother wondering too deeply which one he was going to be assigned to. There was no way of knowing until he got there.

Eight days in, he'd gone to get something to eat in the middle of the night, only to run into two living legends, Biological Apostles of the Digital Omnimessiah.

For all their attempts to look just like normal people, their presence was like a burning fire just sitting at the table with them.

Trucker took back to staying in his room.

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Two days out from the Telkan system and Trucker was awoken by the smell of brimstone, sulphur, and, weirdly enough, burnt hydrocarbon exhaust.

He sat up immediately, reaching for his service pistol, only to have someone shove a narcobrew bottle into his hand, surprising him with the bottle's cold surface.

Sitting up all the way, Trucker looked to where the extendible chair was set across from the bed.

There sat the short, thick bodied matronly figure of the Lady of Hell's disguise.

"Done feeling sorry for yourself?" she asked, reaching into her breast pocket and pulling out a pack of cigarettes.

"I wasn't," Trucker said.

She shook her head. "Don't lie. You look like Patton when World War Two ended and he didn't have anyone left to kill," she said, giving a short snort. "Soldiers feel sorry for themselves in a different way."

Trucker looked around and heard The Detainee click her tongue. When he looked at her she was holding out a tin of chewing tobacco. The main body of the canister was thick waxe cardboard, the top was tin with stamped letters and numbers that Trucker knew was one of the ancient Terran languages but not one that he knew.

"Here, figured you could use a real can of dip," the Detainee said.

"Uh, thanks?" Trucker said.

The Detainee shrugged. "No charge," she handed him an empty bottle. "Here, don't spit on the floor, it's disgusting."

Trucker shook his head, then packed his lip while the woman, dressed in a charcoal gray suit-blouse/skirt combo, went through the ritual of packing her cigarettes, turning over a lucky, and lighting her own.

"You're a week from boots on the ground on Telkan," the Detainee said.

Trucker nodded.

"You're wondering when I'm going to come for your soul," the Detainee said.

The smoke she blew out of her nostrils smelled of rusted iron, fresh hot blood, and sulphur.

"Yes," Trucker answered.

"Today," she said. She smiled, a terrible cold thing. "I have been carrying out my side of our bargain, Manuel Garcia Trucker, it is time for you to begin carrying out your side."

Trucker closed his eyes for a long moment, then opened them. "All right."

"No request for proof? Impressive," the Detainee said. "Let's get down to it then," she pulled a short strip of paper out of her pocket and handed it to him. "Go to that cyberclinic aboard the ship. The doc there is going to do some work on you before I will tell you much more than I need you for the operational plan."

"What is the plan?" Trucker asked.

She shook her head. "Not as long as you have a standard datalink and SUDS interface," she said. "Our opponent is more powerful even than I am, he just does not have the system mastery I have acquired."

"All right," Trucker said. He glanced at the sheet, saw the number, memorized it, then crumpled it up and popped it in his mouth.

"Good," the Detainee said. "You'll be having your eyes replaced, your command cortex interface replaced, your datalink swapped out, and your SUDS stack will have its signal input/output hardware physically disabled."

Trucker nodded.

"The design is my own. All of it," she said. "Don't worry, you won't be the only one getting this treatment."

Again, Trucker just nodded.

"Once you've got the new hardware, I'll be briefing you a little more in-depth," the woman said. She leaned forward, her gun metal gray eyes intent. "This is going to be the biggest challenge you have ever faced. There will be no reinforcements, no air or orbital or artillery support, extremely limited assets, entirely in hostile territory, with an opponent who outclasses us in a myriad of ways."

"I understand," Trucker said. He'd gotten those kinds of briefings before.

"Not yet, but you will," the Detainee said. She exhaled smoke, filling the room with it.

When it cleared, she was gone.

-----------

He had to admit, the new datalink felt strange. The eyes felt realer, almost... wetter... some how. His skulljack interface had been replaced and he could almost feel it, like it was coiled around his cortex. He felt strangely disconnected from something, like there was speech or music that had been a background noise all of his life and was now missing.

The lights in his room flickered and dimmed slowly to darkness. He could smell brimstone and rusting iron before the lights slowly brightened enough to see the short woman in front of him.

"Now you can be read in," she said. She dug in the lower pocket of her waist and pulled out eight inch-thick steel balls and one black glass one. She showed them to Trucker with a flourish, then set them on the table. The black glass went in the middle, the silver around them.

"Touch your forefinger to the glass one," she ordered.

Trucker felt it scan his fingertip, then, when he removed his finger, a light flickered and a hologram appeared above it.

"I've never seen something like this," Trucker said, looking at the menu. "Confederate Intelligence?"

She shook her head. "No. Standard tech, I just used it in different ways. It's a completely secure distributed data network that can connect with your datalink and your in-skull RAM system."

She pointed her finger at it and ran through the menus until she got to the personnel files.

"These will be the people you will be working with, their records, abilities, the equipment they'll have access to. Look it over, make suggestions, tell me where the data is wrong or incomplete," the Detainee said.

Trucker looked at the list of names and shook his head.

"Won't work for two of them," he said.

The Detainee frowned. "Why not?"

He reached out and touched one name. "She's on of my victims. A necromancer brought her back to life."

The Detainee shrugged. "I can get around that."

Trucker shook his head. "Maybe. I don't know. But the second one, no way he'll work with me."

The Detainee frowned. "Why not?"

"Because of her. He already told me, the next time he sees me outside of duty, he'll kill me."

Above the circle of marbles the one eyed human stared balefully out at Trucker, almost accusingly.

The Detainee smiled. "We'll see about that."