Free Burnt Ice by Steve Wheeler Page A

old-fashioned quart bottles of beer from the galley chiller. He
opened them, pouring a couple of large glasses.
     
    ‘Sergeant, I am Captain Willie
der Boltz. Interesting-looking beer — no labels. In-house brew? Yes? Smells
good! And in actual glass. I’m impressed. Your health!’
     
    They both took a deep pull on the
excellent dark beer and Marko motioned for the captain to be seated.
     
    ‘I am told that you have a superb
ability when it comes to life-form engineering.’ said der Boltz. ‘And that most
of your creatures are remarkable, really superb Artificially Created Entities.
I would very much like you to build an ACE for me and my squadron.
Incidentally, I am most impressed by how your section of engineers handled
themselves in the alien city. To put your mind at ease, I was Alpha for that
operation. I’d like to meet Captain Longbow too, if he’s around.’
     
    ‘I’ll text him, sir.’ Marko
paused. ‘No, sorry. I’m getting the DND back. He is fairly hot on a fellow
officer, probably grabbing some sack time with her now.’
     
    They both grinned and Marko
decided that, in spite of his clipped accent and serious demeanour, he quite
liked the man. They quietly discussed the events of the past few days and then
got down to business. Marko had recovered his computer from its secure storage
under the partially damaged sergeants’ mess and had it on board the Sunfish
with him. He pulled across the midi remote and the unit came into the room
under its own power. Captain der Boltz whistled when he saw it.
     
    ‘Now that is a serious design
computer, sergeant. I have only seen a few like it and they were all in
research facilities. Now I am very impressed. That would have cost you a
considerable sum.’
     
    ‘Not wrong there, captain, not
wrong. So, parameters please?’
     
    Der Boltz handed across a small,
elegant plate which Marko realised was very, very high class. He looked across
at the captain with respect. Der Boltz smiled; he too could source the ‘good
stuff’.
     
    Marko loaded the plate into his
remote checker. After some minutes it advised him the data was OK. He then
loaded it into his machine and lifted the design files.
     
    He looked at the files, scanning
each briefly.
     
    ‘Nice; type three, pterodactyl
style. I like it. Yeah, I see what you want to do with this. So you also want
to cross some cat type into it as well. Hmm ... can’t see too many problems
with that. Snap-out energy system? They work but I prefer the Isirius7
micropile series 12 located in the thorax. Access through the wing root for the
occasional clean out and, if you ever need one, you have a nice little bomb
sitting there waiting. Blast radius is impressive. Integrated human DNA central
nervous system with an Augmented Intelligence laid over a Fossa? Fossa? Hold on. Fossa, here we go. Oh, I like that! That I will have to pinch. Care to
trade on it? Get to that in a minute. Something more?’
     
    ‘Yes,’ said Captain Willie der
Boltz. ‘The skin.’
     
    ‘Hostile-environment skin system
with chameleon-ware capability?’ When the captain nodded, Marko said, ‘Hmm, sir
— you realise that they seriously suck energy, don’t you? If you really need
that much energy we might have to go to the series 13C and so increase the
overall size of the ACE by about fifteen per cent. OK. Info-gathering
capability, limited range transmitting. Right, so we basically have a winged,
four-legged dragon spy, yes? Plenty of scope for me to have fun as well. I see
all the other parameters are here. Nice. Don’t see any weapons systems, though?’
     
    ‘No, Marko. We are going to build
all that as a series of mechanical augments for the little beast to use as he
sees necessary.’
     
    They spent another beer going
through the look of the creature and discussing a few refinements.
     
    ‘Well, if you have come this far
just to see me, sir, then you are also aware of my fees? An Artificially
Created Entity isn’t cheap.