Rise of a Valkyrie

Part 17

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Masey Laukkanen arrived when they were taking a break, said hello to Kayla, and introduced herself to Thandi and Christie.

"Once you've done five years in a Ranger battalion," Urtiga explained, "you get to pick a specialty. Half of all women go into the Research and Development Collective, but the rest of us—"

"The rowdy ones," Masey said with a smile.

"Haha, right. The rowdy ones go into specialized units. Masey is in the Orbital Demolition Teams, or ODT for short."

"Working in space," Masey explained. "Space walks, boarding and breaching ships or stations, that kind of thing."

"That's awesome," Thandi replied.

Masey nodded. "Very awesome, and amazing views. But you need to be comfortable in a completely hostile environment. Space will asphyxiate, or freeze you to death in seconds, so your life depends on your gear, and good decisions. Make the wrong move with your thrusters and you might end up burning up in the atmosphere or shooting off into the void to die over several days."

Thandi's smile vanished, while Christie's eyes went wide. Kayla wondered if they had been expecting some kind of adventure theme park. The idea of drifting in space didn't appeal to her when there was nothing to hide behind or climb over. But death was death. Whether a wild animal snapped your neck, or you suffocated from lack of air, the result was the same.

"Last week," Masey continued, "an orbital bombardment battery was drifting through the Oordo System, and we went in to disable it. Those platforms have a tendency to expend their ammunition on any planet they get near. Fortunately, its defenses were down, but that's not always the case."

"What kind of defenses do they have?" Thandi asked.

"Gun turrets, lasers, and drones are the usual," Masey said.

"Why don't you just blow it up?" Christie asked.

Masey rolled her eyes. "Gee, I wonder if the Jotnar ever thought about that? Why can't we blow up something that's designed to resist being blown up? And who cares about the danger of a half-exploded weapons platform tumbling through space, right?"

"You don't have drones of your own to send in?"

"Human piloted drones are not useful for anything other than recon," Masey explained, "because the Jotnar systems can jam their signal. What you're really asking is, why don't we start a battle in space managed by machines? To start with, machines are dumb. They react poorly to chaos, they can't adapt, they can't deceive, and they can't innovate. A platform or a ship is essentially an armored box packed with incredibly destructive ammunition and powered by a miniature sun. There is a lot of potential for things to go wrong. Our teams need to get inside and get control of its systems. Only then can the deconstruction process begin."

"But the Jotnar can rely on drones for defense?" Christie persisted.

"Because it's a last-ditch defense. If their hardware was operated by living, thinking beings, our jobs wouldn't be so easy. It'd be actual war."

Kayla wanted to learn more about Masey's job, but she couldn't keep her own questions buried any longer. "What's happening on Caldera?" she interjected. "Where did the monsters come from that are killing colonists? Are they Jotnar?"

"Caldera, yeah..." Urtiga began as she ran a hand through her hair. "We've seen some aggressive wildlife before, but not creatures that spend most of their time trying to attack human settlements. After I met you, I led survey teams all over the planet trying to track down their movement patterns or natural habitats, but we came up empty. We send teams down there regularly to thin their population."