Vendetta Protocol Read online

  “No, sir. I was carrying a full load and had forty percent of my cannon ammunition available.” I took a breath. “I rammed the commander’s aircraft after I fired six missiles in a shooting solution with a kill probability of ninety-three percent and none of the missiles found their mark.”

  Bussot laughed and shook her chin-length hair. She did that a lot around senior officers and, I assumed, at the officers’ club, too. “Maybe I’m just a better pilot, Trainee.”

  “You had a chance of one-eighth of a percent to evade all six missiles at that speed. That’s either incredible luck, or the whole damned simulation is rigged against the students,” I said.

  LeConté’s smile faded. “Is that an accusation?”

  “Only that the training is unfair in that situation, sir.”

  Bussot snickered. “War is unfair, Trainee.”

  It took everything I had to not deck her right then and there. What does she know of war? A few high-altitude skirmishes with pirates did not make her an expert on war. “Respectfully, ma’am, weapons systems tend to work the way they were designed to fight—they’re not programmed to ensure that lessons are taught.”

  I saw her stiffen out of the corner of my eye, but the commandant raised a hand toward her. “Commander Bussot? Would you give us a moment?”

  “Certainly, sir.” She smirked at me on the way out.

  Bitch.

  <>

  The door closed behind me, and the commandant shook his head. “You’re making this a habit, Kieran. The more you antagonize her, the worse it’s going to get.”

  “Her training program is unrealistic and serves no purpose other than to build the ego of her and the whole aggressor squadron, sir.” I shook my head. “That’s not how war works.”

  He stared at me for a moment. “Crawley shared your history with me, Kieran. From that, I can see why you’re constantly challenging the instructors and the doctrine. Frankly, we need more people to think and act like you do. Here, I can provide you some cover and keep Bussot and her cronies from preventing your graduation. Out there, I’m fairly powerless. You’ve got to play the game sometimes.”

  I nodded, but I knew the truth. I’d never played the game in my life. Either of my lives. “I understand, sir. It’s just that tactically, everything is wrong.”

  “Enlighten me.”

  That was the problem. “Sir, I can’t enlighten you. I know that something is wrong with the way we fight, but I don’t know specifically what it is. Fleet and the TDF are both wrong. I can’t explain it. I haven’t recovered those pieces yet.”

  When I’d been walkabout, meeting a sleeper left most people wondering only who I was and not what I was thinking. I’d finally recovered my memory but wasn’t able to talk about it, which left me on the outside of most conversations. On another planet and fully integrated, I was lonelier than when I’d walked out of the Integration Center more than a year before.

  “The instructors, and your peers, are concerned that you’re too quiet and too serious.”

  I wanted to laugh. “I’m the oldest trainee by six years, and I’m married. I thought maturity was something like a virtue.”

  He laughed. “Yes, that’s true. I couldn’t give a damn about your personality quotients. I want you to be a competent pilot and tactical commander. That’s where Fleet officers need to excel. Having the situational awareness to fly an interceptor and coordinate ground forces makes you able to provide better close air support, not step in for a Terran Defense Force unit and guide them to mission accomplishment.”

  “Helping the TDF to anything from the air requires initiative, and the TDF doesn’t believe in that. From the air, we can seize the initiative and make decisions that can help drive the TDF forward, but they have to give up their ‘finite control’ bullshit. Until that happens, the Fleet requirement to understand and fight ground operations makes no sense. The TDF won’t listen to us.”

  “You can’t tell the Terran Defense Force how to do their job, Kieran.” The commandant smoothed back his dark hair. There were touches of gray at the temples. Given genetic mapping, I wondered exactly how old he was. “Our mandate is to provide what support we can when the scripted TDF maneuver plan fails.”

  “Because they failed before?”

  He snorted. “In a big way, but we call the Battle of Libretto a success. That’s another story. Look…” He waved away whatever he’d wanted to say. “You have a decent aptitude for air combat maneuvering and an excellent understanding of ground forces operations. I want you to level the two out by actually trying to be a fighter pilot for a change. It helps to learn a little more about those around you.”

  “I’ll try, sir.” There was no way in hell I was going to fall in with them. But a little fact-finding wouldn’t hurt. Maybe there was a way TDF and Fleet could work together in this environment where initiative didn’t exist. In my time, the armed forces had been able to do just that. I needed a tool. Something very particular. Something very old. “Is there anything else?”

  “Don’t ram any more aircraft, even in the sims. One day, you might have to fly your way out of a situation instead of giving up in frustration and taking matters into your own hands.” He smiled. “Doing otherwise makes you fly a desk, son. Don’t go doing anything like that.”

  “And Commander Bussot, sir?”

  “After this exercise is over, I’ll talk to her and check the sim logs. I’m guessing you’re right about the programming, but launching an official investigation right now would keep you out of flying, and Crawley doesn’t want that. It wouldn’t surprise me if your instructors were cheating, either. They talk about their kills like they earned them in combat.” He shook his head with palpable disgust.

  Lily? Look up the commandant’s service record, will you?

  <>

  Is that going to stop you?

  <>

  “One last thing.” A hint of smile returned to his face. “Bussot has a nasty tendency to turn right in a dogfight, and altitude isn’t always her friend.”

  “Inside information, sir?”

  “Institutional knowledge. The kind of thing you get from talking to others. I suggest you stop worrying about your test average and do more of that.”

  The unisex locker rooms were almost empty by the time I made my way downstairs from the commandant’s office. I found my two-meter-tall wall locker and keyed in my combination. The doors opened, and a small bench unfolded. Getting out of my flight gear took forever. Even for the simulated missions, we wore the full anti-G compression suit with exposure-suit add-ons. I felt like a balloon in the damned thing, and it weighed enough that without genetic mapping, I wouldn’t have been able to carry the thing at all on Earth. Flying on other planets definitely had its challenges. Ducking my head down through the hard suit ring, I worked my way out of the suit’s rear zipper. As the cold air hit my back, I paused and stretched.

  <>

  I thought about staying hidden in the suit but knew it wouldn’t work. I pulled off the top and, bare chested, opened my eyes. Bussot stood in front of me, clad in only her gray underwear. She had the body for it, and I made it a point to look at her eyes.

  “Ma’am.”

  “You’re right about the probability factor. The point of that exercise was to have no aerial or ground survivors. The ground force won because of what you did.” She chewed on one side of her lower lip. Admitting even a shred of truth seemed to hurt her. Her blue eyes were at once innocent and aggressive. Everything about her screamed danger. Even if I had been single, I wouldn’t have taken the bait. “I’m concerned about your unwillingness to follow combat doctrine, Roark.”

  “I’d rather have a chance to survive, ma’am.”

  “It’s not that simple in combat.”<
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  Don’t I know it. Then again, she’d never had a soldier die in her arms or watched helplessly as her soldiers died beyond her reach. “Maybe it is, ma’am. I’d rather make sure my people come home with all of their fingers and toes than know that I accomplished a mission that looks good on someone else’s evaluation report.”

  She frowned. “I don’t think you understand how serious this business is, Kieran.”

  First-name basis.

  <>

  Then get me out of this, Lily.

  <>

  “Ma’am, I get it. I really do. I just want a fair shake.”

  The speakers in the locker-room ceiling clicked to life. “Trainee Roark, you have a vidcall in booth three.”

  I tried not to let surprise cross my face. Lily was pretty damned amazing, thanks to Berkeley’s programming.

  “You’d better get that.” Bussot smiled. “Will you be joining the trainees at officer’s call tonight?”

  “My presence has been requested, yes.”

  “Good. Ramming my aircraft means you have to buy me a drink.”

  Are you fucking serious? I wanted to show her my wedding band, but I let my face go blank and coldly said, “We’ll drink to fair training assessments, then.”

  She turned and walked away.

  <>

  Good. Maybe once she gets the hint I’m not going to make a pass at her, she’ll take me seriously as a pilot. I went to booth three and touched the screen. A retinal scanner snapped a picture of my eyes, and the terminal unlocked with a pleasant, smiling icon asking if I wanted to place a real-time call. There were some luxuries to Fleet service.

  “Call home.” I waited as it connected. There was no answer. Through the video connection, I stared into the small office Berkeley and I shared in our Esperance home. The books on the shelves were more for me than her, and I wanted to be there, sitting in the afternoon sun, reading with my wife. I could imagine her asking me about all of the different slang terms from Elmore Leonard or if Stephen King was really that sick and twisted. We’d had a hell of a year since she saved my life, only to wind up separated again. When I told her that separation was part of military life, Berkeley smiled and shrugged. She’d known all along, but it wasn’t easy for either of us.

  I keyed off the video connection with a sigh. We hadn’t talked in a couple of days. I knew she was busy with school and research, but I missed her. Seeing the house made it all the more real that I was sixty million miles away. At my locker, I finished getting out of my flight suit, threw on a clean one devoid of rank and patches—appropriate for a trainee—and closed the locker.

  Bussot truly scared me. Her directness and brutality reminded me of Mally, as if my guidance protocol had survived and managed to find a body and had come back to torment me. I laughed at the thought as I stepped out into the main passageway. I imagined I could smell the Pacific on the breeze. It would be two years before I’d get the chance to surf off Sunset Beach again.

  Lily? Please notify Berkeley I’ll be out late tonight, I love her, and I’ll call her tomorrow.

  <>

  Twenty-seven minutes later, Berkeley replied, Have fun. I love you.

  It was enough for me. We’d been through too much to underestimate the little things, especially reminding each other that love could cross just about any distance.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Fog shrouded the Hokkaido Shrine as the bonshō rang and ushered in the morning crowd. The hollow sound from the great bell resonated deep in her chest for a second before it faded and echoed off nearby buildings. She towered over the others. The physical difference was more than enough to remind her she was not like any of them. She pulled her black hair into a tight ponytail and stared down at the ground between her feet, trying to make herself look smaller. There, that’s more natural. With her face bare against the cold, she exhaled a cloud of steam with every breath in the frigid seaside morning. The temperature did not bother her, nor did the throng of people around her. Chin to her chest, she sighed and spoke quietly in English.

  “My name is Amy Nakamura.” She looked up as the breeze freshened, and a cloud of cherry blossoms fell across her vision like thick Himalayan snow. The recent memory brought a smile. Standing on the top of the world had been worth every ounce of effort it had taken. She’d been happy then, experiencing the wonders of a world she knew but did not remember. Before the dreams came. Before she’d learned the truth.

  <> a smooth, deep voice said in her ears. Her protocol was a combination friend, traveler, and encyclopedia. She’d named him Rock when they approached Everest Base Camp eight months ago. How time had flown.

  “I’m late for integration.”

  <>

  “No, Rock.” She tugged the collar of her yellow parka closer to her face and flipped the fur-lined hood over her head. “I’m not going back just to die again.”

  <>

  A cherry blossom brushed across the bridge of her nose, and she raised a hand to catch another one. The white flower settled into her palm like an angel. “You said war isn’t imminent, Rock. That’s what the news says, too. I know better. The Greys are hitting the Outer Rim expeditionary colonies more and more. It’s a matter of time before they hit one of the actual colony planets. When that happens, everyone goes to war. It’s the same thing every single time.”

  <>

  “That doesn’t answer the question, does it?” She stared up into the marine layer and saw a faint wisp of blue sky. A high-altitude aircraft shot across the tear. Her heartbeat accelerated, and she closed her eyes, longing to see the curve of the Earth from an aircraft. As quickly as the thought came, she shook it away. Flying was pain. Death.

  <>

  No, Rock. Please disengage. I don’t want to be disturbed right now.

  <>

  An ornately carved wooden bench sat by a still pond encircled by blooming cherry trees. Amy separated herself from the crowd and sat next to an old woman with a pink-and-blue scarf across her face. The water looked cold and uninviting. Maybe it was time to return and see what the next piece of this new life would be, come what may. Maybe she should finally become what her father so desperately wanted her to be.

  She closed her eyes and tried to visualize his face. Instead, she saw him sitting in the right seat of their Cessna as she took the controls that first time.

  No!

  Another memory surfaced. Her first solo. The celebration with sake when she’d landed at the small mountain airport. Her father and the rest of the doctors in his department toasting her accomplishments well into the night.

  Please. She squeezed her eyes shut and saw herself punching clouds in her sleek F-15E Strike Eagle fresh out of pilot training. She’d made a low pass over her alma mater during a homecoming football game, pushed the throttles a little too much, and broken a couple hundred windows.

  The smile came involuntarily. She wanted to fly again. It would be fine, she told herself even as the visions changed—as they always did—from calm blue skies to a flak-filled mountain valley in the snow.

  Not again. Please. The vision came stronger and enveloped her. Incomplete integration brought them. Until she reconciled her past with her new life, they would continue to debilitate her. I can’t.

 
; Tracer rounds arced up harmlessly below her. Thick snow blanketed the ridgelines above her. As the sun set, her infrared displays and instrumentation gave her as accurate a picture of the terrain as she’d need to accomplish her mission. They’d be back at base in an hour, just in time for Thanksgiving dinner.

  “Tommy, give me everything you’ve got,” she heard herself say. The control stick and throttle in her hands felt natural, and the sleek machine responded to her every adjustment. “Break that zoo out of the clutter.”

  The ZSU-23 was an ancient weapon compared to her forty-million-dollar aircraft, but the antiaircraft weapon’s capability to knock them out of the sky leveled the playing field considerably. Four twenty-three-millimeter cannons meant a bad day for any aircraft flying low enough to be a target. First Lieutenant Tommy Fields sat two meters behind her as the weapons systems officer. Using considerable experience and a healthy amount of innate skill, he tweaked the systems.

  “Got it, boss. You’ve got steering to target. Five miles.”

  “Roger. Call up those choppers. Have them follow us once we hit the IP.” The initial point was a river crossing three miles ahead. Four army Blackhawk gunships hovered behind a ridgeline, waiting for her to knock out the gun platform. Once she destroyed the gun, the Blackhawks could move to support the trapped Bradley fighting vehicles. With any luck, the stranded air defense vehicles would be able to escape toward Kandahar in the chaos.

  She heard Tommy calling. “Thunder Flight, this is Rebel Four Three. Follow us up the valley. How copy?”

  The army commander’s stress-filled voice crackled in their ears. “Rebel Four Three, Thunder Six, roger.”

  Tommy said, “The zoo’s radar is scanning. They’ll have us from the IP on.”

  Amy nodded, causing the oxygen hose to tap her chest. Ahead of them, the valley turned sharply to the right, the initial point looming beyond the turn. She pushed the nose down, dropping the Eagle to mere meters off the valley floor. A stunned Afghan sheep farmer locked eyes with her for a brief instant. He flung himself to the valley floor as she pulled the throttle back and readied herself for a four-G turn into the mouth of hell.