Grantville Gazette 37

insignificant genre film called Star Wars.

I can’t even tell you what’s going on in the game industry because it has gotten so big that I can’t keep track. Every now and then, I see an ad for what I think is a movie, only to discover that it’s a game I can buy for my X- Box. And speaking of X-Box, in Cee Lo Green’s summer hit song, “Forget You,” Green says his former girlfriend is X-Box, while he’s Atari, and we’re all supposed to understand the comparison. The nifty thing is that we do.

None of this even pretends to examine the gadget wars. In the first year of its existence, the iPad penetrated 16% of American households, something that took both color television and the cell phone nine years to do. The iPad initiated a tablet war (I love that phrase) so half the commercials on television are about some flat-screened gadget you can hold in your hand and get information from quickly . . . like the devices Captain Picard used to have to glance at while doing his job on the Starship Enterprise.

Then there is the news itself, from the weird weather which makes every single newscast sound like the opening five minutes of a disaster movie to the scuttling of the space shuttle program, which has folks wringing their hands about supplying the International Space Station (three words I love to type), which actually makes it all sound like we are in the future.

And compared to the monochromatic world I grew up in forty-some years ago, we are. This is geek heaven.

2012 might outdo us on sheer geekness, but that upcoming year is going to have to work hard to beat this summer. In fact, if 2012 gets much geekier than 2011, then I’m going to have to give up sleep. Because I barely have enough time to maintain my geek cred right now.

In fact, if it weren’t for mainstream magazines like Entertainment Weekly, I might not have any geek cred at all.

****

Strategic Deployment

Thomas Allen Mays

The fragile jewel of the New Poland colony burned with the pinpoint flames of battle. Sleek, stealthy, teardrop-shaped Hornets dipped in and out of the atmosphere, streaking low to deliver their kinetic and energetic payloads and then soaring away to search eagerly for new targets. The hapless colonists, farmers, and factory workers who had dared to grasp for something as ephemeral as freedom, darted about on the ground, panicked and confused, desperate to find some form of shelter from the rain of destruction.

Nineteen light-years away, Peter Highsmith beheld the horrifying whole with his mind's eye, like some vindictive god laying out his retribution upon the unfaithful. But Peter was no god, and he could only look upon what he was doing with dismay, sickened by the way the Hornets' bloodthirsty whispers spoke to him, thrilled him. He was back, doing what he had sworn he would never do again, doing what had to be done despite his own misgivings. Peter was the Sweeper once more.

Worst of all, as terrible as the destruction he delivered was, there was yet more to be done. The greatest danger, both for himself and the colonists of New Poland, still lay ahead. Peter fought back the darkness of his encroaching memories and firmed up his resolve. With a thought, he reasserted primary control of the Hornets and gave them their final assignments, all the while aware of her presence near him, watching his every move, smiling at every new flare of combat.

Peter shook his head in disgust. I never should have said yes to this mess. This is exactly what I walked away from, and now I'm the only one who can do what needs to be done. . . .

****

The mess in question had begun earlier that day with a very unwelcome reunion. Peter sat, bristling with anger, in a mid-level bureaucrat's office within an immense imperial government tower, nestled in the heart of the overcrowded sprawl of the Dallas-Houston megalopolis. The object of his anger sat arrogantly behind the desk in front of him, gloating at his impotent, spiteful regard. He knew who had the power here and it wasn't him, the broken soldier who had lost himself in a factory for the last decade.

Sylvia Blake, former colonel in Her Majesty's Armed Forces and current Crisis Operations Director for the Ministry of Colonization, smiled back at him with smug contempt. 'You never should have broken with the unit, Peter. If you'd stayed after the war, you might have earned yourself a ticket to success, like I did. As it is, I'm not sure you even work over the welfare threshold. Have you managed to rise above the dole, Major? I neglected to check.'

Peter favored her with a tight smile. It was somehow comforting to know that nothing between them had changed. 'I earn my ration credits honorably, Colonel, and a few luckies on top of that. How's the pay schedule here, lying on your back? Or are you more a 'bend over the desk' kind of girl?'

Her smile dropped and Peter's grew in response. She leaned forward, her eyes flashing in anger. 'We don't really have time for playing catch-up. A situation has developed and I find myself in need of someone with your skills. How would you like to earn ten thousand Leisure and Luxury Credits for a single day's work?'

The number made his head swim. He felt vaguely guilty even discussing such an amount. 'That's a whole lotta luckies. Who do I have to kill? You?'

She chuckled. 'You'll never be that fortunate, but a degree of mayhem is involved.'

'Hmph. Mayhem. I've been out of this business for a while. Surely there's some soldier you could task with this-and you don't even have to pay them any extra.'

His old superior frowned. 'That might be a preferred method, but my ministry is barred from using active troops in colonial situations without a full declaration of war. No, I need a contractor for one mission and one mission only, and I immediately thought of you.'

'That's funny, Sylvia, because I seem to recall that you and I don't get along too well. In fact, I believe we parted on somewhat violent terms.'

She shrugged. 'Yes, you are an insufferable prick, but I need the best, so I go for the best. While not exactly the most obedient sort, in the end you've always done your duty and you always did it with style. That's what I want for my ten thousand luckies: duty to empire and a little of the old Sweeper flair.'

He winced at his old title, but the thought of so much money kept him from stalking out immediately. 'Okay, I'm listening. What do I have to do for this particular payoff?'

The colonel leaned forward. 'It's simple, really. The administration would like you to inflict some . . . collateral damage upon the colony at New Poland.'

Peter slumped, and all the half-formed ideas for how to spend his windfall suddenly fell apart. There would be no money because what she was asking was beyond ludicrous. It was patently impossible. 'Well, the administration-and you-apparently need to have your collective heads examined. There's this great new thing called relativity. Heard of it? Seems it makes attacking another solar system pretty much impossible. Besides, my days of razing villages are far behind me. Find someone else to play with.'

Her nasty smile returned. 'Oh, that's unfortunate, Peter, because this job is simply perfect for you. It's got 'The Sweeper' written all over it, and though you might deny how you really feel, I know that has to count for something. You used to be a Combat Remote Operator-REMO for a whole company of Ripper AI's, and adjunct REMO for a squadron of Hornets. You used to make a difference. And what have you become? Some pathetic factory worker, driving an AI assembly line? Please! You must die a little bit each day. This, on the other hand, is real work, the work you were born for. Willing to give me a chance to explain?'

'Not particularly.' He tried to reject what she was saying, but it was a hollow attempt.

'Tough.' She tossed a slate in front of him. 'Pay attention or walk home.'

When he picked it up, a grainy, 2-D video began on its surface. The small datablock in the screen's corner identified the stately gentleman pictured as the governor of New Poland, an established farming colony a little over nineteen lightyears away, orbiting around Delta Pavonis.

The governor began to speak. ''When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the