Scat (Scat's Universe, Book 1) Read online



  Scat

  By Jim Graham

  **~~~~**

  Copyright Jim Graham 2011

  Published by GRAHAM, James Stephen

  ISBN: 9789881575319

  Cover image: Cathy Helms, Avalon Graphics

  https://www.avalongraphics.org

  Other stories by Jim Graham

  Army of Souls

  Birdie Down

  What do readers have to say about Scat?

  “Scat is a sprawling novel, spanning years, full of ideas and conflicts that resonate in today’s world, as good sci-fi is supposed to. ... Graham bombards the reader with ideas and Scat’s ambition and scope are a marvel.”

  -Indiereader.com

  “... the coda is … well, I was drop-jawed. I don’t get drop-jawed often ... the new technology proves to have a horrifying price that I honestly didn’t see coming, that I’ve never seen used before in a lifetime of reading SF”

  -Republibot.com

  “Scat is a big, intelligent, interesting novel. If you enjoy hard gritty sf with plenty of well-handled dialogue, you will not go far wrong with this one”

  Scat

  For my soul mate, Vivien, and my children, Michaela and Alexander.

  **~~~~**

  With thanks to my friends, William de Waard, Peter Adam, Richard Jones and Sean Croucher for reading the roughs.

  Scat

  Contents

  Part One—I Want to Break Free

  Part Two—Rock and a Hard Place

  Part Three—Under Pressure

  Part Four—Band on the Run

  Part Five—Across the Universe

  Part Six—Recover your Soul

  More stories by Jim Graham

  About the Author

  Part One

  I want to Break Free

  1

  The Sinai Peninsula, Egypt

  23rd July 2203

  Sebastian Scatkiewicz’ orders were straightforward enough: escort a member of the local survey team into the Sinai and bring him back in one piece. The only trouble was, the area was inside the Neutral Zone, and the Asian Bloc might not like it.

  ‘This time it’s different, right, Rose? This time you’ll find something?’ he asked, throwing his pack into the Roland 2’s passenger cabin.

  Above his head, the blades began to rotate and the engines whirl. From deep inside the dark interior, a taller and much older man raised his voice in reply.

  ‘We’re as certain as we were the last time, Scat. You know the drill.’

  Scat shook his head. He did know the drill: a week in a dusty hellhole with no air cover to speak of; the constant sniping from the locals; a final shake of the head; and, as was so often the case, the empty-handed return home. On occasion, a body bag in the hold.

  ‘Well it’s getting sodding lame,’ he said under his breath. ‘Find something of value this time, will you?’

  Scat hoisted himself up onto the airframe to sit facing outwards, his legs dangling over the side. He grabbed the port gunner’s spare safety harness, clipped it to his belt and tugged. It held.

  As his team settled down, he looked out across a pitch-black airfield apron. Well, at least they got the weather right: it was a moonless night, and the cloud cover was low and thick in the east. Directly above him, the ever-present atmospheric pollution scattered the ambient light from the camp behind.

  The team net crackled with a familiar voice.

  ‘All secure, sir.’

  Scat glanced over his shoulder and saw Corporal Henderson—Slaps to his friends—raising a thumb. He then heard the loadmaster give the all clear to the flight crew.

  The stripped-down Roland trembled a little as it lifted off the ground, but it soon calmed down to sway, more smoothly, a few feet above the concrete. Seconds later, it dropped its blunt nose and surged forward, funnelling hot desert air through the doorless cabin. Under his feet, Scat watched a sand-dusted replica of small town America slip past, swathed in light. Then they were beyond the camp perimeter, soaring out into a bleak and unwelcoming desert.

  The journey time to the drop-off point, some 80 miles across the canal, was 17 minutes. That gave Scat plenty of time to mull over what Rose had told them as they were getting ready.

  ‘It’ll be over soon, Scat,’ he had said. ‘They’ve finally decided who gets what.’

  ‘Yeah?’ Scat had replied as he and Henderson kept their heads down, charging their magazines. They had little interest in anything Rose had to say, but, over the past few months, the old man had learned how to get in their faces and was increasingly hard to avoid.

  ‘Yep!’ Rose continued, ‘Raddox is exchanging its Micronesian marine mining interests for what’s left of the coal in Western Australia. The Brit PM had talks with their shareholders last night. He finally won them around.’

  Scat had looked up. He had no interest in politics. He only knew they were fighting this war in the national interest: to secure the rapidly dwindling resources needed to keep the West’s industry running and its products affordable. He certainly did not want to believe they were fighting to bolster some company’s assets, even if they were constantly mopping up after them—as were the rest of the Western military. Scat then gave Henderson a look, knowing he felt the same way.

  ‘So, the last few months have been about shareholder’s rights, have they?’ Scat asked, sceptically. ‘Is that what you’re saying?’

  ‘I guess so,’ Rose replied. ‘Eh, it’s not my fault, Scat. I just work for the sons.’

  ‘But why would Raddox have any say in how the war finishes?’

  Rose had shaken his head in mock sympathy.

  ‘You’re being block-headed again, Scat. Remember what I said the first time around? It’s for the very same reason they had when they decided the war should start: for profit. And now it’s all about the final scramble. It’s all about where we’ll be standing when the treaty’s signed.’

  When they had spoken about the war before, Rose had made it plain what he thought about Scat and others like him: he was a cliché; a dedicated and well-trained killing machine; an earnest man and a capable officer, committed to leading his men and women to hell and back. But he was also a naïve and easily led fool who was willing to believe anything his President told him, and that he, as with others like him, was going to be a hugely disappointed man when the war was over, and the free presses were up and running again.

  That had gotten Scat’s hackles up at the time, and the bugger was doing it again. Scat just did not want to believe it. The war-for-profit motive was the conspiracy theory: the one the suck-weed Asian Bloc spread to sap the morale of the Western Bloc’s troops, to undermine the spirits of his compatriots.

  Henderson was the first to respond, mindful that Rose held courtesy rank in the field:

  ‘Go screw yourself. Sir!’

  Scat could only echo the sentiment.

  Rose was a dick and a supercilious, overpaid shit. Few of Scat’s soldiers liked these company men, even though they envied them their incomes and would try hard to win off-world jobs with their companies when their time was up.

  Sure, the war was all about resources—no one disputed it: everyone of the world’s 21 billion population hankered after what was left of them. Rock-scratchers like Rose were everywhere. They would arrive with armfuls of data, a few maps and a hard-on for drilling in someone else’s back yard, relying on Marines like Henderson to keep them safe. Then they would bugger off, back to Washington and their bonuses, along with a case for temporarily annexing yet another swathe of someone else’s country. More often than not, the local chiefs would invite them in, hoping the West would support their agenda for regime change.

  B
ut it was no different across the line: the Abs were the same. Their populations needed resources, just as the West did. They had mouths to feed, industry to prime, populations to employ.

  Nonetheless, Rose was talking crap: the resource companies had not started the war, even if they did profit by it. And, in any case, their cost of doing business was only subsidised by dead Marines, crushed families, and what was left of the national treasury, because it was in the country's best interest. The President had said so. That somehow made it right. It gave Scat the conviction he needed to carry on, regardless.

  But now the war was ending, Scat felt a little unsettled. He was not sure what that would mean for him.

  The Roland’s internal speakers crackled again with a simple warning.

  ‘Insertion in five.’

  Scat raised a hand. Behind him, the five others in his team went through their pre-insertion rituals.

  Marine Dahl, the youngest and smallest of them all, pulled at a chain around his neck, fished out his dog tags, and took a last minute look at a small photo pasted to the back of one of them. He kissed it, and then tucked it away.

  Old Man Philips, at 27 the oldest member of the team, mumbled something to himself, his eyes closed. He looked calm. He always was. He still believed in a God, even at his age.

  Across the cabin, sitting next to Rose and facing forward, Marine Jenny Bruce checked the charge indicator of her Pulsed Impulsive Kill Laser, or PIKL, commonly referred to as a “pickle” for the damage it did to a target’s internal organs. She was still testing the latest variant, a dark-light version, on behalf of Branston, its manufacturer. Seeing it was at full power, she looked up at Scat and smiled at him, knowing he was dying to take it from her.

  Trillion Tang, the tallest and broadest Marine in the squad at six feet three inches and a touch more than two feet wide at the shoulders, took his feet off the bench in front of him and planted them in the regulation position on the cabin floor. That was it. He was about the least flappable Marine Scat had ever met. Nothing fazed him. Not ever.

  Corporal Henderson was doing what he normally did this close to an insertion. He leaned out of the far side, looking down, drumming his fingers against the airframe. He was nodding his head, rhythmically, as though listening to music. He did that a lot. He would be running a rap song through his head, a violent one. He said it got him in the mood.

  They were ready.

  Scat looked down at himself, hoping to see all of his body parts again when they got back. He may not be tall, or built like Atlas, but he was fit, quick and supple; his trim, well-toned body more than capable of humping 120 pounds of equipment for days without complaint—even though his stamina was years from peaking. In a world of short-term contracts, mass-unemployment and minimal welfare, he had to stay in one piece.

  The loadmaster tapped him on his shoulder and shouted into his ear.

  ‘Thirty seconds.’

  Scat looked up at the flight deck bulkhead monitor. There were no alarms, no heat signatures. The insertion point was cold. He pulled the butt of his Garand solid-shot sniper rifle tightly into his right shoulder.

  The Roland tilted backwards as it began to slow, its engines growling a little more. He could see a wide, boulder-strewn wadi carving a gash into the ground below them, its steep black sides shepherding it down the hillside in lazy sweeps.

  They were going in.

  Scat released the gunner’s harness and pushed his feet down on the footplate, ready to leap out. The loadmaster tapped him on his helmet twice.

  ‘Go, go, go!’ the man urged.

  As the Roland hovered, six heavily clad bodies scrambled for the port side exit and dropped the few feet onto the uneven scree. Behind them, the loadmaster kicked their backpacks out into a maelstrom of grit and desert sand. On the ground, the Marines scooped them up, threw them across their shoulders and trudged heavily towards the wadi’s edge.

  A few seconds later, Rose made the jump and then dashed across the wadi to crouch inside the Marines’ protective circle. Out on the scree, a large rubber pouch, filled with the ground-penetrating radar and other tools of his trade, was dangled over the side and lowered to the floor. Dahl and Tang ran back into the storm to drag it across.

  Scat opened his pack, flipped the lid of a box and set free a colony of dragonfly surveillance drones. He switched the colony from test to deploy and, in an instant, they were gone, lost against the dark backdrop of the wadi wall. Moments later, he held his hand up and made circles with his finger as a signal to the team that the colony was sending signals back. Henderson and Bruce both switched on their wrist-mounted monitors to track their assigned perimeter arcs.

  Out front, the loadmaster knelt in the open doorway and waved goodbye; the Roland dropped its nose to haul itself back into the night; and, just as they had on countless insertions before this one, the Marines listened to the sounds of their arrival die away.

  Then they waited.

  2

  Scat sat in the shade of a large rock, spooning beef-flavoured tofu mush from a can. He licked the spoon until it shone, turned it over and took a quick glance at an insect bite on his cheek. It was swelling; inflating a long, gaunt face that had long ago shed most of its flesh. The rest of him looked no better. His hazel eyes were bloodshot and sank deep inside their sockets. Sweaty hair crept from the high, straight hairline and stuck to his forehead. The fresh, doe-like look was gone, lost alongside the natural optimism of youth. He needed a break, and yet here they were, still, aimlessly walking around a hot, barren, desolate lunar landscape looking for something that someone, somewhere, wanted so badly they were willing to antagonise the locals and risk an uneasy peace.

  It was the fourth such outing in two weeks, and yet, two days in, Rose was still coming up empty.

  The satellite had suggested there was a deposit deep down inside the earth’s crust, and all the survey team needed to do was to confirm what the damned thing was telling them. Nonetheless—even though the local chief had promised them a free ride, and they could range more freely than on most other days—the mission looked a bust. Every so often and with a marine in tow, Rose would break away to scan deep down into the ground, only to come back with a glum look on his face.

  As he just did.

  Scat watched Rose traipse across the scree towards him, looking a little pensive.

  ‘Another blow-out, Rose?’ he asked.

  Rose sat down with his back against a large boulder and threw his lanky legs out in front of him. He wiped his brow with a paisley handkerchief and then leaned forward to massage his thighs.

  ‘It’s not looking too hot, Scat. The satellite imagery was promising. It’s just not translating. There should be a large deposit of the stuff in this area—in fact, just below our feet. But sod knows it’s playing hard to find.’

  ‘Another blow-out, then?’

  ‘Unconfirmed for now, Scat,’ Rose pointed out.

  ‘And you still ain’t saying what you’re looking for?’

  Rose failed to rise to the bait so they rested in silence for a few moments. Scat looked up and along the nearside of the 300-yard-wide wadi to check that his two sentries were OK. The others were napping.

  ‘In fact, if this war’s over soon, as you say it is, why the blazes are we here at all?’ Scat asked.

  Rose stood, arched his back and then went behind the boulder to take a pee.

  ‘Because it’s valuable stuff, Scat,’ he shouted back. ‘Peace or no, we still need it.’

  Scat noticed Rose’s voice had an edge to it. The man was frustrated, or anxious.

  ‘So why not get a license to prospect for it,’ Scat asked, ‘pay the friggin’ locals to dig it up, and then buy it off them?’

  ‘Because it’s been this way for 50 years,’ Rose replied, testily. ‘It won’t change. In fact, it’ll only get worse. We’ll sign this shagging treaty, it’ll last for a few years, and then we’ll be poaching again, just as both sides do right now. Get used to it, Scat
. Get with the programme.’

  Scat spirits lifted a little. He had riled the jerk at last. He leaned back and pointed up to a light blue and empty sky, blown clear of clouds and grey-brown pollution by a weak khamsin breeze.

  ‘So why are we still kicking each other’s butts down here, Rose, if there’s so much of it up there? That’s where the resources are now, right? Out there? Isn’t that why the companies all but own the New Worlds—so they can bring the stuff back here?’

  This time Rose did not answer.

  ‘And while we’re at it,’ Scat continued, ‘why bother with it up there, if we’ve blown each other to kingdom come down here? Don’t you need consumers who can buy the crap your company makes?’

  Rose returned from behind the boulder carrying his pack, pulling at one of its zips.

  ‘We still kick each other’s butts, Scat, because when we find it, it’s still cheaper to drag it out of the ground here, than it is from up there. And I’ll remind you that we don’t make anything. We just find the stuff that industry needs to make things with.’

  Scat sneered at him.

  ‘Yeah, like those friggin’ useless hologram-pads—which 99% of us can’t afford and don’t need … and for a life-sucking profit. Does the State Department charge you for any of our services?’

  Rose forced a chuckle.

  ‘Scat, when are you going to crawl out from under a rock? Do you really think they do?’

  ‘I guess not, then. So, you freeload. We thought as much.’

  Scat didn’t listen for an answer. He put his trash in his pack, blew some dust off his rifle and gave the order to move on again. Tang and Dahl grabbed the rubber survey bag, giving Rose a dirty look: he never offered to carry the heavy stuff. Bruce took up point as Philips and Henderson brought up the rear.