Real Professionals

Nellis Air Station was our first stop, the closest site to Yucca Mountain with the facilities to handle our transport plane and the little half-squadron of robotic deathbirds that had followed us.

Now we were cruising over the Las Vegas suburbs, stuffed into an armored VIP tiltjet with the marines from earlier– actual, trained members of the Alliance Marine Corps, a rare sight.

I tried not to boggle at them like Boris had.

Apart from glorified secret-librarians like me, the Alliance rarely used military personnel at all, instead relying on robots, swarms of civilian contractors, and cheap PMC goons.

Real professionals like sat across the cramped compartment were reserved for only the most serious situations. Their constant training, cutting-edge cybernetics, and who-knew-what-else secret force multipliers made these two an investment larger than the entire air combat wing we'd passed on the tarmac at Nellis.

If the little expert system under my arm could order marines around… what else could it do?