[GZG] RE: [GZG Fiction] We Need to be Sure

With my apologies to those who've now seen it in a bunch of places, ehre
is a repost of the messages lost when the list was down

Beth

We Need To Be Sure

In this age of ubiquitous AI, with bots at home and work, drones in the
air and sea and crawling over the land there's this perception that
there's no need for human lives to be the first on the line. There's
many who wonder why humans need to be risked at all. Simple. Sadly AI
never lived up to the hype. At least not in my opinion. It's one of my
greatest disappointments. They promised intelligences that could
threaten us for domination of the planet for centuries. Spoke of
transitions in society and the potential for us to end up slaves to
silica-brains. For better, or even for worse, it never happened. Cold,
calculating, subservient they got right. There was even the odd surprise
as they followed the letter of their orders rather than the intent, but
for all that they never matured. They learned, adapted, but never
matured. Our brains rewire with adolescence but no matter how much the
cyber geniuses tried they couldn't get that kind of transformation in
the AIs, even the brightest never made that final transition. Smart as
hell, yes. Efficient, yes. Cunning bastards with intuition enough to
save their necks in that critical instant, no. End result I find myself
bumping across the waves of the Kolyma More headed for a back door
insertion on Ariza ahead of the invasion.

I started out in Intel as the fresh faced kid there to tool up the bots.
Then along comes the bang up on Fliescher II. I was into free climbing
back then and pretty fit and the roster was short due to the 3SW going
hot. I ended up being sent in to fix the surveillance and guard droids
for the 136th Gloucestershire's defending Bradley. I've been working
live intel twenty years now; done dozens of these "eyes on the spot"
jobs; never fails to amuse me that when push comes to shove it's still
real live butts on the line. Just thinking about it tickled me on the
boat ride over, so I flashed a smile at the three marine commandos in
the boat with me. They just grimaced back, pulling down deeper into
their vests against the biting wind and spray. We had to cover the final
15 kilometres by rowing, so as not to alert the locals to our presence.
It went fairly quickly, the men had been chosen for their
professionalism and fitness. Once we'd safely stowed the boat I pulled
the smart scroll from my pouch and booted up. The scroll was one of
those typical issue spec ops ones, wafer thin, 10x15 cm flexi sheet,
with pulse triggered nano-activation point boot-up for gui access. We
each had points on our forearms and fingers. I've always wondered about
the pulse trigger though, I'm waiting for the day I lose an arm and need
to borrow the dead guys nano points, but no cigar as no pulse. I can
understand the rationale though, this way the enemy can't get a sneaky
peek at anything left behind.

Anyways this time round the scroll contained pages on the island, known
intel on the area and a grid map containing points of interest we had to
refine. The drones and satellites of the RNAAF and other national bodies
had taken enormous numbers of high res scans of the area, but they still
couldn't be sure what a few of the things they were seeing were. The
Krak went in for some interesting architecture so it wasn't always clear
what you were looking at. So here I was with a series of circles on a
map to clear up. First task of the trip was to check the grain
composition of the beach, see if was really suitable for the landing of
heavy vehicles. Then we had to check the beach for mines, and if present
map them and find a pathway for the tanks and men who would land here in
under 36 hours. 

That took us a little over an hour of creeping and skittering and
surveying. Then we ran over the ridge, hugging terrain and noting some
bunker positions and the location of shore batteries as we went. Then we
ghosted the main arterial line connecting the port city of Ariza in the
south with the mariculture satellite settlements on the northern edge of
the island. We didn't venture down on to the road itself, despite the
fact it would have made much easier going, as their was a maddeningly
erratic stream of service and cargo hauling vehicles plying back and
forth. We were even passed by a full blown military convoy, lead by a
squadron of tanks and backed up by those great tusked mounts the Krak so
like to breed. I have no idea how they didn't sniff us out. A few snouts
twitched, but I guess their riders assumed they were just stirred up by
the ride or something, they certainly steered them away from the ditch
we'd taken refuge in. 

We had another near run thing when we had to pass through the agri-land
on the edge of Ariza. It's so open I was sure we'd be seen for sure, but
by following the old irrigation channels we made it through unseen,
though it's a wonder they couldn't smell us a mile off the muck we were
coated in. We ticked off the final three circles down in then port
itself. I even had to strip down to my thermsuit and check out the
underside of what we thought was a Krak brown water trawler. Turned out
to be a mine layer of all things. I did my best to destroy its propeller
shaft, but I doubt the effort was fully effective as I had no tools and
my fingers were all but numb by this stage, my lungs aching from cold
and the time underwater. 

One of the marines jabbed me with some metabostim to counteract the fact
I was about to nose dive into hypothermia. When I'd redressed we began
retracing our steps to the beach for the extraction. The return journey
was not without incident, but we did manage to complete it without
having to kill any Krak. As much as we may have wanted to, doing that
would have given us away for sure or at the very least increased
surveillance in the area, very counterproductive for the invasion. So it
was imperative that we avoid contact of any kind. Then row out was much
harder than the row in, but with all of us pitching in we did finally
get away. Adrenaline and a good dose of mediative redirection keeping my
aching back and lead weight arms at bay until we linked up with the
grav-ship offshore. We made it back across the More and up the road to
Kingston with 23 hours to go before the men hit the beach. 

A surprising number of upper brass were there to hear my report and
grill me with more questions than felt humanly possible given how tired
I was. It just stretched on, the pain of my exhausted body kicking in as
the cold wore off. Report done I had a long and almost unbearably hot
shower, before dropping into a bunk and sleeping a deep dead sleep. Four
hours later I was woken up again, given a big feed, handed my battle
dress and sent to the loading dock to join the main force headed for
Ariza. I found a nice comfy corner, and wedged myself in, getting some
extra sleep as the ship took me across Kolyma More for the third time in
two days. 

Around 2am on September 5th I went topside and readied to transfer to a
grav sled for the ride in to the beach. I was to go in with the
Swabians, act as a guide to the lead units. The weather was weird,
eerie. The fine dust kicked up by all the Krak activity on the Isthmus
sitting above the waves in the moist air like a mist. Then a stiff
breeze came up, and for just a short time it was like some giant hand
had drawn back the curtain, a vast flotilla of wet-navy ships and grav
vehicles stretching as far as they eye could see, you could just about
walk on water leaping from one to the other. There had to be thousands.
A sight I will surely never forget. If I hadn't seen it for myself I'd
never have believe it. 

At 4am all hell broke loose as organised chaos accompanied the
invasion's start; a hectic pulse of men and materiels being loaded and
pushed away. Thankfully the Krak didn't see us or chose to bide their
time. Using the plans we'd brought back the day before, the invasion had
been fine tuned to come in under the nose of the big guns; in a blind
spot the gun couldn't cover and out of sight of the bunkers in the hills
above. They would be able to see us once we'd cleared the beach, but the
landing site itself was fairly secure unless a foot patrol happened upon
us. 

Our luck held, mostly, and we saw little attention until we had waded
ashore, cleared the beach and topped the dunes, bringing us into view of
the bunkers. The squad I was with was then tapped for the attack against
the bunkers. Scrabbling up a sheer scree slope to try and silence the
heavy machine guns the Krak had sitting up there. The men around me were
dropping like flies. These lads were only 18 and 19, young Mueller was
only 17 for Christ's sake. I swear some of those kids had only just
learned how to use a rifle. I'd watched them as we came over. Proud, but
nervous young men. Crack enough to have been chosen members of the top
Panzer grenadier battalion, but in actuality a not atypical mix of
veterans and newly trained replacements all mixed together. The
youngest, had looked bedraggled even back on the boats. After sitting in
prep for two days, some had been stuck on the boats the whole time. Few
had managed any real sleep and many had suffered from the atrocious sway
the shallow waters set up, being seasick is never fun, even at the best
of times. Mueller had spent most of the crossing praying, while two of
the other raw replacements looked to be on the verge of nervous tears.
You could see the little reel sliding through their minds. The big
question being asked over and over again. What's going to happen? That
question will dog any mind left to wander, always better to get some
sleep, that way you can't catch yourself thinking about it.

Under the cover of fire being directed over our heads by the OU troops
below, we scrambled up the slope, covering the shifting, rocky ground
between us and the lip of the bunker complex. Five of us reached the
wall about the same time, a flurry of hand signals determining who would
do what in the next few minutes. Then another six men joined us and we
began our final assault on the access port into the bunkers. It took us
just under seven minutes to penetrate and clear the bunkers. In the end
the surviving combatants were pushing bodies aside as they fought deeper
into the bunkers. They did it with such courage it made me so glad to be
part of it. In the end we triumphed and the bunkers were under our
control. We left a few lads in charge of securing it, but there was
little of use left in the place, which had chunks missing from all the
walls and the floor was slick with blood and gore. Then we came back
across the ridge to hook up with the thrust against Ariza proper. 

That was a week and a half ago. Then we pushed up through Ariza and
joined up with you guys. Nice job you did down in the warehouses
yesterday. So you said you grew up in a little place on Barnard?

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