[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?