Nanotroopers Episode 2: Nog School

and huffing in the morning sunlight. Corpsmen and more troopers flooded into the area as cadets helped load injured into the vehicles.

  Struggling, whining, overheating and shuddering from the thunderclaps of collapsing HERF fields, the crewtracs rumbled off into the foggy morning sky, skidding off the pavement at each sharp turn, as they spiraled around Commissary Road toward the north end of the mesa, toward the Infirmary…finally rounding the first of the lifter pads and turning south and west and slowly but surely putting distance between themselves and the nanomech cloud. Johnny Winger eyed the crewtrac driver warily through the sighthole as he fought to keep control of the vehicle on the narrow winding road between buildings. Only when the buffeting and the sonic pulses and the high keening wail of nanomech hell finally died off, did he finally begin to relax.

  He spied Lieutenant Burke resting against the wall of the crew compartment, hanging on as they veered and swerved toward the Infirmary.

  Their eyes met. Burke offered a wan smile. “Mr. Winger, this was one hell of a training exercise. I can’t wait to hear the debrief. That was a hell of a job you did back there…you saved more than one life.”

  Winger nodded. “Thank you, sir…I did what I could, sir.” He began to wonder if every training day at nog school would be like this one.

  “Haleyville”

  Haleyville, Idaho

  September 16, 2048

  9:30 p.m.

  When all the investigations about the accident at Containment C4 were done, and all the debriefs were concluded and all the finger-pointing and head-scratching and yelling was over, Major Jurgen Kraft figured his cadets could use a little liberty time. He gave them one night…”curfew’s at 0400 hours,” and then turned them loose on the world.

  Like Table Top cadets from time immemorial, they all headed to Haleyville. Not that there was much else to do up in the high country of Idaho’s Sawtooth Range.

  The bar at the Custer Inn was the target and Winger, D’Nunzio, Barnes, Nguyen, M’bela and anybody else with two legs and half a brain all headed straight for the place as if they were missiles homing on an enemy garrison.

  Custer Inn was a faintly shabby, log and shingle mountain lodge of a hotel, nestled in the piney brow of a small turnout valley off the main road, a mile or so before Highway 7 broadened into Main Street, which was lined with gift shops, bait and tackle joints and hiking suppliers. The pale blue glow of a parasailing shop, closed for the evening, threw enough light across the road, so the cadets found the turnoff readily enough.

  One after another, turbos, cabcars and anything else with wheels sped down the decline toward the parking lot, and came to a stop in the shadows. Through the windows, the bar and restaurant shone with boozy conviviality, laughter and saloon music spilling out through the front doors.

  Like a single body with multiple heads, the cadets of 1st Nano went inside.

  Inside of ten minutes, the lies and tall tales had already begun.

  “I’m just no good at book-learning,” Johnny Winger told everybody. “Got to get my hands on something to really understand it.”

  D’Nunzio belched loud and long, holding her own with the others. “Well stay away from me, trooper. No telling where those hands have been!”

  Guffaws and laughs. Then more belches.

  Moby M’bela sucked at the lip of a beer bottle. “I’m not buying what came out of those investigations this morning, are you? I mean: did you hear what they said? ‘Glitches in the processor kernel of the OPFOR master bot. Bad code. Unanticipated second-order interactions.’ Cow patties…it was some kind of sabotage, pure and simple. Has to be.”

  Barnes piped up. “So who’s the saboteur? We don’t have Nathan Caden around; the brass made quick work of him.”

  Winger shrugged. “I don’t know. The way that bot reacted made me think there was someone else around, maybe nearby, driving. It showed way more smarts than your average garden-variety ANAD bot. Unless Ironpants Kraft’s got something cooking up his sleeve we don’t know about.”

  D’Nunzio shrugged. “Well, I heard from one guy in my Molecular Ops class that a couple of Northgate University vans were parked over behind the Containment building.”

  “Really?” said Barnes. Mighty Mite flexed a bicep; she did that reflexively, almost incessantly. The buffalo tats danced and stampeded. She’d even opted for something that looked like a dust cloud, like the buffs were kicking up dirt as they bore down on you. Barnes was hugely proud of it and enjoyed showing it off. “Isn’t that where ANAD was born?”

  “Yeah,” said Winger. “Autonomous Systems Lab. If there are Northgate types skulking around the mountain, who knows what they’ll spring on us.”

  Twenty feet away from the bar, a table in the corner was occupied by three gruff looking men, all buzzcuts and broad shoulders. One of them had a thick black moustache and pile-driver arms. Moustache was amused at Barnes showing off her biceps, got up and sauntered over to the bar. He was followed momentarily by the other two.

  Moustache leaned over the bar. “Excuse me, lads, but ya’ll look like Cub Scouts from the Mountain. Newbies, I’m guessing.”

  M’bela was forever polite and formal. “That’s right…cadets of 1st Nano. On liberty from Table Top.”

  Moustache chuckled at the earnest reply. “Well, cadet—“ he squinted at the name plate “—Mabley or whatever your name is, us real troopers don’t much like Cub Scouts crashing our fun in this bar. The kids’ table’s out back…want me to show you the way?”

  M’bela started to answer, but D’Nunzio cut him off. “Moby…allow me. Say, listen Backhoe…why’nt you go back to your grubby little table and see if you can finish that bottle of pisswater you’re drinking. Leave the real stuff to atomgrabbers.” She gave Moustache her best don’t mess with me New York glare.

  Now that riled up Moustache pretty good. He stood up straight, hefted up his belt and nodded. “Name’s Suvorov, Ms. Fancypants.” He indicated the other two, now hovering around the end of the bar, sniffing a fight. “This is Sergeant Hu. And this beast is Corporal Felder. We call him Hulk. Quantum Corps Central Command, II EuroMed Battalion, out of Balzano, Italy. I’m thinking this little pissant bar’s not quite big enough for your mouth and our chiseled and sculpted bodies. I’d say make like a tree and get lost!”

  Johnny Winger was at the other end of the bar. He put his mug down and stood up. So did Nguyen. The two of them went down to the other end.

  “What say we take this love fest outside, gentlemen. Name’s Winger, as in I’ve heard all I need to hear from your scrawny little cat’s mouth. And hey, Suvorov…what’s that growing on your lips, some kind of fungus?”

  “Eeeeyyeeew!” needled Barnes.

  That was all it took for the bell to sound. Suvorov swung first. Or maybe it was Winger. Possibly Nguyen butted heads with Hu. It was hard to tell. Someone’s fists went flying. Someone else’s head went spinning. Then there were knees. More fists. Some shoving and kicking. And one hell of a lot of swearing.

  “You motherfu—!“

  “Come back here, Tweedletoes…I ain’t through with you yet.”

  The melee quickly developed into a free-for-all ruckus , a full-fledged brawl with tables and bottles and mounted bear heads flying off the walls. It wasn’t long before other patrons decided to wade in and join the fun too.

  How long the fracas went on, Johnny Winger couldn’t say. When he found himself dragged off Corporal Felder, arms and feet flying and restrained by three burly Quantum Corps police officers, he finally relented and let them cram him into a crewtrac that had magically appeared in the parking lot.

  The bartender had gotten on the phone seconds after the bell sounded. QP was on site in less than five minutes. Fortunately, only egos were bruised, though there would be some black eyes, one busted nose and an assortment of scrapes, cuts, lacerations and contusions.

  The ride back to Table Top was made
in stony silence.

  Winger wound up in a holding cell in the base stockade, a small concrete building off the northwest corner of the Barracks. He had company up and down the hall: D’Nunzio, Barnes, M’bela and the rest were all there too.

  Nobody said a word.

  Winger spent an uncomfortable night on a bunk hard as the concrete walls. Two guards came for him the next morning—after a cold breakfast of burned toast and watery oatmeal—and escorted him to a small hearing room inside the Barracks. He wasn’t restrained, but he saw that both guards were sporting MOB canisters. They could have draped him with the mesh in seconds if he’d tried to make a break for it. He didn’t.

  Major Kraft and another officer sat at a sparsely furnished table in the hearing room. Winger stood at attention until he was gruffly ordered to be seated.

  Kraft introduced Captain Starnes, the base JAG officer.

  “The purpose of this hearing is to examine the facts of the little disturbance you were involved in last night, Cadet Winger, and to determine appropriate punishment. Anything you want to say before we get started?”

  Winger had a cold feeling in the pit of his stomach. Here’s where my promising career in Quantum Corps is tragically cut short…Dad, I’m so sorry…. He was already trying out excuses for when they booted him off the mountain. It was going to be a long ride back to Colorado.

  “Sir, I take full responsibility for