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Episode 3: Deeno & Mighty Mite
Copyright 2016 Philip Bosshardt
A few words about this series….
Nanotroopers is a series of 15,000- 20,000 word episodes detailing the adventures of Johnny Winger and his experiences as a nanotrooper with the United Nations Quantum Corps.
Each episode will be about 40-50 pages, approximately 20,000 words in length.
A new episode will be available and uploaded every 3 weeks.
There will be 22 episodes. The story will be completely serialized in about 14 months.
Each episode is a stand-alone story but will advance the greater theme and plot of the story arc.
The main plotline: U.N. Quantum Corps must defeat the criminal cartel Red Hammer’s efforts to steal or disable their new nanorobotic ANAD systems.
Episode # Title Approximate Upload Date
1 ‘Atomgrabbers’ 1-14-16
2 ‘Nog School’ 2-8-16
3 ‘Deeno and Mighty Mite’ 2-29-16
4 ‘ANAD’ 3-21-16
5 ‘Table Top Mountain’ 4-11-16
6 ‘I, Lieutenant John Winger…’ 5-2-16
7 ‘Hong Chui’ 5-23-16
8 ‘Doc Frost’ 6-13-16
9 ‘Demonios of Via Verde’ 7-5-16
10 ‘The Big Bang’ 7-25-16
11 ‘Engebbe’ 8-15-16
12 ‘The Symbiosis Project’ 9-5-16
13 ‘Small is All!’ 9-26-16
14 ‘’The HNRIV Factor’ 10-17-16
15 ‘A Black Hole’ 11-7-16
16 ‘ANAD on Ice’ 11-29-16
17 ‘Lions Rock’ 12-19-16
18 ‘Geoplanes’ 1-9-17
19 ‘Mount Kipwezi’ 1-30-17
20 ‘Doc II’ 2-20-17
21 ‘Paryang Monastery’ 3-13-17
22 ‘Epilogue’ 4-3-17
“Mali”
Banikaiyan, Mali
October 2, 2048
12:45 a.m.
Major Kraft’s words rang in Johnny Winger’s ears like some kind of bell tolling. “Just grab a corpse,” the Major had said at the mission briefing. Operation Sahara Ghost was like that. Kraft had dropped the mission and the rules of engagement on Detachment Alpha just that morning, just before they had boarded Charioteer for the two-hour suborbital hop to West Africa, to Mali and Banikaiyan. They had lifted off from Table Top shortly thereafter, burned a hole in the sky like a meteor in reverse, and now the ocher tableland of the Sahara Desert was sliding toward them from the eastern horizon.
“Ah…Banikaiyan, Mali,” enthused Deeno D’Nunzio as she tightened her shoulder harness for deceleration and re-entry. “Flies, fleas and fun…what’s not to like? All the comforts of home—“
They would be on the ground at Bamako-Senou Airport in less than half an hour.
The mission of Sahara Ghost was simple enough. Winger went over the particulars in his mind, with help from vids and graphs on his wristpad…Kraft’s words droning on through its tinny little speaker…Q2 wants to know what Red Hammer has, what HNRIV’s made of…grab a sample of HNRIV, any way you can…secure it…bring it back to Table Top…Q2 wants to know how much of ANAD is inside HNRIV….
Deeno was nearby, watching Winger watch Kraft gesticulate on the tiny wristpad screen. “Skipper, wouldn’t it be great if we keep Ironpants in that little gizmo…contained like ANAD?”
“No chance…the Major’s larger than life. I’m just glad he can’t replicate like ANAD…yet.”
Deeno was a trash-talking New York kickboxing enthusiast, a bit of a wisecracker but she’d never met an ANAD interface, a hypersuit or satlink she couldn’t fix. She loved all kinds of physical stuff, from wrestling to tai chi and could out hit and out lift half the guys in the platoon. She had a great physique and she liked to show it off. Hoyt Gibbs called D’Nunzio Her Magnificence. Deeno loved every minute of it.
No question about it, Johnny Winger was the best code and stick man 1st Nanospace Battalion had ever seen. He was a natural about it, like he'd been born to the interface controls, able to see and anticipate things at indescribably tiny scales in a way that was almost eerie. As a platoon leader in 1st Nano, Lieutenant Winger was a short timer; he'd been in the billet less than three months. Which was probably just as well. With Major Kraft having named him to lead the ANAD Detachment on a recon of HNRIV's home territory in Mali, Winger had enough to deal with.
He didn't need any static from jealous colleagues like Dana Tallant.
Quantum Corps' hyperjet Charioteer touched down at Bamako's airport a little after noon local time, kissing the tarmac with a hard bump after a grueling eight-thousand mile, two-hour flight from Table Top. From the top of the ramp, Winger found the capital of Mali a sprawling, dun-colored metropolis perched on endless miles of grassland, desert sand and scrub bush. Though the city was only a few hundred kilometers north of the Equator, the air was surprisingly cool and dry. Through distant haze, red-topped mountains rimmed the horizon. The Niger River flowed lazily right through the center of the city.
The Sahara is somewhere out there, Winger remembered from the maps. But this was no time for sightseeing.
"Fall out!" he yelled. "Get the pallets unlocked and rolled out. Lifters'll be here at 1350 hours."
The ANAD Detachment was a bastard creation on anybody's organization chart, but Kraft had pulled all the talents and ratings a Level 1 mission would need and Winger was glad of it. As the team floated their pallets of equipment out of Charioteer and stacked them for loading on the lifters that Quantum Corps Central had staged down from Balzano, Italy, Winger silently inventoried the team and their gear.
First were the IC's, interface controllers to the uninformed. IC's were the Detachment's 'code and stick' men, responsible for programming the ANAD mechanisms, or 'driving' the master replicant if the situation called for it.
Next were the CEC's. That stood for Containerization and Environmental Control. The CEC's did service and support for the TinyTowns that ANADs traveled in, from one theater to another. And you couldn't forget the CQE's, Communications and Quantum Engineering. CQE's were the Mr. Fixits of the detachment. They had responsibility for the comm and data links, for computer setup and maintenance, even the hypersuits the unit sometimes wore into combat.
Rounding out the detachment were a pair of SDC's, whose main job was stealth and defensive countermeasures for the unit and another pair of DPS's, the Defense and Protective Systems specialists, who manned the coil-gun patrol bots and the group's HERF and magnetic weapon systems.
Overseeing all, the CC's were command and control ratings who did all the mission planning, all the tactical decisions, the sitreps and writeups and most of the ass-kicking needed in the field.
That was ANAD Detachment Alpha, twelve people in all. Only the two CC's were officers. Everybody else ate from the non-comms' mess.
Winger motioned the CC2 over. Lieutenant Dana Tallant had been helping the CEC's with stowing the containment pods for loading aboard the lifters when they arrived, when she saw Winger's hand signal. Tallant jogged over to see what was up.
Winger was shaking hands with a heavy-set ruddy-cheeked man in a khaki outfit.
"Lieutenant, meet Dr. Stuart McTierney…just flew in from Geneva. Our WHO contact and guide."
McTierney bowed and offered his hand. Tallant snapped off a smart salute.
"A bit dry and dusty, gents," McTierney was saying. He lowered his cap, squinting off toward the north. A utility truck was speeding across the tarmac toward Charioteer, a rooster-tail of du
st trailing behind it. The truck jerked to a stop ten meters away. A statuesque black man got out and came over.
McTierney recognized the officer and made introductions. "Ah, just in time…this is Colonel Udinka, Mali Territorial Guard. He'll be our chaperon today."
Udinka saluted all. "You have all your gear here, Lieutenant?"
Winger nodded. "Yes, sir…just waiting on the lifters."
Udinka squinted into the western sun. "Where we are going is kulwezi liwale…how do you say, most disturbing. The spirits are angry…much death…great suffering--"
McTierney spied the pair of UNQC lifters overhead, circling Bamako-Senou Field, ready to land near Charioteer. "Here comes our ride, gents. The Colonel has generously detailed two infantry platoons to use…we've already worked out the details with the village chief at Banikaiyan. Rather obstreperous fellow. Shell-shocked you might say, over the plague and all. Name's Enkare. Probably Tuareg.”
"We need to gather intelligence on the threat, Colonel," Winger said. "Sampling the air, soil, some of