by Daniel Gibbs
The emergency response team, aided by the nurses and Bhatt, quickly moved David onto the bed. A nurse turned on the more in-depth diagnostic tools within it. “Pulse is faint, forty-two beats per minute. BP is seventy over fifty.”
Tural leaned over, staring down at David’s blood-stained face. “Can you hear me, Colonel?”
“Barely, Doctor,” David rasped out.
“You’ll be fine. You have a bullet within you, and we’re moving you to emergency surgery. Routine procedure for battlefield trauma.”
“Am I going to die, doc?”
“Yes, Colonel, but not today,” Tural replied as he forced an assured smile onto his face and stepped back. “Fifty ccs of sedative. I want him out immediately. Transfer to OR 1.”
“I’ve got a location on the bullet, Doctor Tural,” Bhatt interjected. “He’s lucky. One centimeter to the right or left, and it would’ve hit a major artery.”
“May Allah guide our hands,” Tural replied. “Let’s get scrubbed in.”
“Is he going to be okay, doc?” Calvin shouted from across the medical bay. “You damn well better not let the colonel die on us.”
“Demood, the wounds are serious,” Tural began. “But I believe you got him here in time.”
“Stubborn... I knew it was worse than it looked.”
“I believe this would be a case of the pot calling the kettle black… isn’t that how Americans put it?”
Calvin broke into a grin. “Yeah, fair enough, doc.”
“There’s nothing you can do here. Please allow us to do our jobs. You know I will do everything in my power.”
“I guess I can go have a chat with our prisoners.”
“Is that a euphemism for something?”
Calvin shook his head. “No, doc. I’m done with the… nastiness of before. We’ll have a very direct conversation.”
“Then I wish you all success.”
As the two men talked, the medical personnel completed the transfer of David back to the anti-grav stretcher and guided him off further into the bay toward the operating suites.
“I must go, Colonel Demood.”
“I’ll try to pray for both of you, Doctor.”
Tural flashed a hint of a smile. “I won’t turn it down.”
A few hours after dispatching the League patrol, Ruth and the rest of the team were holed up in another abandoned barn. The landscape of Freiderwelt was dotted with small empty houses and depilated structures the League didn’t bother to maintain or bring in colonists to occupy. They’d set up an automated perimeter with a few small tracking drones and an auto-turret.
Ruth shifted as she tried to rest. Ironically, the League never seems to build anything, just take over what we made. There’s probably some deep meaning there, but I’m too tired to find it.
“Wake up, Lieutenant,” MacDonald barked from under Ruth’s perch. “We’re discussing options. Get your butt down here.”
“Coming, Master Chief,” Ruth grumbled, opening her eyes and jumping off the bed she’d made. When she got into the main area where the rest of them were, it wasn’t lost on her that Susanna was already present. What do I have to do to earn MacDonald’s respect anyway? Better question, why do I care?
“Rostami has some new intel,” MacDonald stated, gesturing toward the lanky commando.
“I was able to hack into the League C2 network,” Rostami announced. “They’ve figured out that we got off the transport intact, and they put two and two together. There’s a pretty persistent major leading the effort to find us.”
“Great,” Ruth said sarcastically. “Got any more good news?”
“Three-quarters of their garrison is looking for us,” Rostami deadpanned.
“Sounds like a target-rich environment to me,” Harrell interjected to muted snickers from Mata and Meissner.
“This isn’t freaking funny,” MacDonald barked. “We’re not superheroes, and we can’t take out a thousand Leaguers.”
Ruth snapped her head up. “Maybe we don’t have to, Master Chief.”
“Explain?” MacDonald replied.
“If seventy-five percent of their garrison is out looking for us… maybe that’s the opening we need.”
“You seriously want to stage a frontal assault on their main military installation with six shooters?” MacDonald asked incredulously.
“She might be onto something, boss,” Meissner said. “It’s the last thing they’ll expect.”
“Surprise is a great ally to have, Master Chief,” Ruth followed up, pressing forward. “We scoped out the base. The weakest side has two guard towers. I know Mata and Meissner are qualified snipers; they could handle the towers in tandem. Take those out, get up and over the fence fast. All we’d have to do is find the building that houses their control center for those damn satellites, play the music, and wait for the fleet.”
“Play the music?” Susanna asked with a look of bewilderment.
“It’s what we call marking a target electrically,” Ahmad explained, drawing a sharp look from MacDonald.
“We do have some indirect fire support to call on, boss,” Meissner said.
“This is madness,” MacDonald replied. “Absolute madness, but,” he continued, his voice trailing off.
“The only choice we’ve got unless we want to be run down like dogs,” Harrell said. “I don’t like it either. I’ll be damned, though, if I die without taking some Leaguers with me.”
“Okay,” MacDonald finally said after a good fifteen seconds of silence. “Let’s suppose I go along with this insane idea for the sake of argument. We’re just going to wander around a military base, hope no one sees us, and have Rostami do his business until we find the right building?”
“There’s got to be a way we can narrow it down,” Ruth stated.
“If we could’ve gotten away with getting in there dressed like Amish, we could have, Lieutenant,” Rostami said. “I mean, there are some pretty basic things we can assume. First is it has large power requirements, second is it’s probably partially underground.”
“They’d have to have some system that regulates the power,” Ruth said, thinking out loud. “If you hack that, you could tell us what building is drawing the most power.”
“Then we could just make our way there and blow it up,” Rostami finished.
“Because that’s a walk in the park,” MacDonald groused.
“I thought you were the biggest, baddest soldier in the Terran Coalition, Master Chief?” Ruth asked with a grin.
“She’s got you there, boss,” Meissner said, laughing.
“Glad to see someone’s having fun here.”
“Best plan I’ve heard,” Harrell said.
Ruth turned toward him, her eyes half bugging out. “Did I hear you right, Senior Chief?”
“Don’t get used to it, LT.”
“We still don’t have enough shooters. With Mata providing overwatch from a guard tower or the top of a building, plus a spotter, that leaves us with four,” MacDonald said.
“Five,” Ruth said defensively. “I think I’ve proven I can handle myself.”
“With respect, Lieutenant, I have no doubt you were once rather good at ground combat. You’re nearly fifteen years out of practice.”
“Some things you never forget, Master Chief. I’ve got it.”
“What’s a spotter?” Susanna asked, causing several of them to turn toward her.
“A sniper is most effective when someone is looking for targets for them, marking them with the optical scanners in helmets of our armor, and calling out wind speeds for long-range shots,” Ruth explained, wondering why she asked.
“I could do that,” Susanna replied.
“Absolutely not!” Ruth exclaimed, surprised by the forcefulness of her response. No!
“Why the heck not, Lieutenant?” MacDonald said while staring at the young Amish girl like he’d had an epiphany.
“Because she’s sixteen, hasn’t had any training, and isn’t a combatant, M
aster Chief,” Ruth barked. “We don’t use children to fight.”
“Lieutenant, the boss told us all about you fighting as a teenager in the resistance,” Harrell said quietly. “I doubt you had training.”
“That was different, that was…”
“Your choice, right?” Harrell continued in a tone Ruth hadn’t heard out of him before. “Truth is, Susanna here has already made the choice to help. She put her behind on the line for us back at the garage, and she did it without losing her lunch. You and I both know some people have what it takes to fight naturally. If she wants to roger up to help, I say we need all the help we can get right now.”
Ruth was silent; she looked down at the ground. I don’t want her to have to experience what I did. No one should ever have to go through what I did.
“I want to do this,” Susanna said, her jaw set and her voice sure. “I can help. Let me.”
“Are you sure?” Ruth asked. Please say no.
“Yes. All seven of you are willing to die to save my people and me. The least I can do is put my life on the line too. The Bible says that there is no greater love than someone who lays down their life for another. If you are willing to lay down your lives for us, then I must do the same.”
The commandos glanced between themselves; Ruth could tell that no one wanted to speak first.
MacDonald finally did. “Perhaps my judgment of you was wrong, Miss Nussbaum.”
“What if she has to kill someone, Master Chief?” Ruth said quietly. As soon as she did, the room went still.
“That’s war,” MacDonald replied bluntly.
She shouldn’t have to do this. No teenager should, especially one that’s never been exposed to our kind of brutality. “Can we at least try to train her?”
“Why don’t you take point on that, LT?” Harrell said.
“Sure,” Ruth said. I got her into it… I have to help her get out of it.
“Okay, we’ve got the beginnings of a plan,” MacDonald announced. “It’s 2100 hours local. I want everyone in here to bed down, get two hours sleep. I’ll stand watch. We’re up at 2300 hours, and it’s a two-hour hike to the objective. We’ll finish planning along the way. Any questions?”
“Execution time?” Ruth questioned.
“0100 hours. Standard League watch change is every six hours, with the next guard shift beginning at 0200. Hopefully, they’ll be slacking off.”
“While we’re frosty as… crap,” Mata said, clearly fishing for something besides a curse word at the end of his sentence.
“Everyone clear?” MacDonald said, glancing between each of them.
“Hoorah,” several commandos said as one.
Ruth grinned, despite herself. “Crystal, Master Chief.”
“Okay. Get some rest. LT, before you bed down, take Nussbaum out back and show her how to use a sidearm.”
“Roger that, Master Chief,” Ruth answered, pointing toward the back of the barn and nodding toward Susanna. She got up, and they both walked outside into the crisp, fresh night air. She reached down and pulled her sidearm out, ejecting the magazine and racking the action to ensure it was unloaded.
“You don’t want to teach me, do you?” Susanna asked.
“I need you to understand what this does,” Ruth said, holding up the pistol. “When you kill someone, there’s no coming back from it. I swear to you with God as my witness, the face of the first person you take the life of never leaves your memory.”
“You take life. I’ve seen you do it twice.”
“Yes, but…”
“What’s different?”
“I’m already screwed up. I’m already broken. This is my job, I do it well, and sometimes I enjoy it. When we’re done here, you have to go back to your life. There’ll be no one to talk about it with, no one who understands what happened or the pain you went through. Oh, they’ll try to be nice, they’ll try to help you, but they’ll never understand!” Ruth said the last few words with anger and pain, her voice a cry.
“Are we talking about me or you?”
“Perceptive, aren’t you,” Ruth said, her tone bitter. She held the pistol out, butt first, toward her. “Take it.”
Susanna picked it up like it was a foreign object she had no idea what to do with. “First things first,” Ruth stated. “Do not aim it at anything you don’t want to kill. Always treat it as if it’s loaded, even if you’re sure it’s not and just checked. Never look down the barrel.”
“I see,” Susanna said.
“You’d be surprised how many people can’t master those simple rules. Now hold it out in front of you, grasp with two hands, keep your trigger finger on the guard, and do not place it on the trigger until you’re ready to fire.”
“Like this?” Susanna said, following her instructions to the letter, grasping the pistol tightly.
“Yes, exactly. We can’t do live fire training because of where we are, but dry fire by squeezing the trigger so you can feel what it takes to do so.”
Susanna placed her finger on the trigger and pulled back; the pistol’s action made a harsh click. “Very good,” Ruth said. “I’ll give you one with a suppressor on it when we get going in a few hours.”
“A suppressor?”
“Makes it quiet. Stealth and speed are our watchwords.”
“I understand.”
“Let’s get some sleep,” Ruth said, not wanting to spend another minute out there. I’m teaching her how to kill. My God, what kind of monster have I become?
The two of them went back inside, Ruth taking up the rear. After she lay down and closed her eyes, she fell into a restless sleep, dreaming of the night she killed the man who murdered her parents.
Calvin tightly gripped his tablet, which had a script of questions for his “interview” with the next officer captured from the Monterrey. Keep your cool, stick to the manual, and get some information. He repeated the mantra several times while pushing the hatch open. The man at the table glanced up, his face ashen. Still wearing his uniform, the ribbons were unremarkable but showed a soldier who’d served for at least ten years. Beneath the flag of the Terran Coalition on his sleeve, there was the Christian flag. His entire life must be a lie.
“Captain Thomas Mendoza,” Calvin said as he sat in the chair directly across the table.
“Yes.”
“Captain, Coalition Defense Force. Served during the ’56 campaign. Executive officer, CSV Monterrey. Traitor,” Calvin spat.
“No,” Mendoza said as he glanced up. “Not a traitor.”
“You sold your country out for what, some money?”
Mendoza’s face flashed defiance; it showed in his eyes as they narrowed. “Never. I never took money.”
“What then, got passed over for promotion? Sleeper agent plant? If you tell me what I want to know, things might go better for you.”
“You think I’m stupid, Colonel? I’m going to be executed.”
Calvin shrugged. “Six months ago, I would have done it myself after a battlefield interrogation.”
“And we’re the good guys?”
“Yeah, we are. You’re a disgrace to the uniform you wear. The same uniform I’ve buried too many good men and women in.”
“I was acting on conscience.”
“Conscience?” Calvin repeated incredulously. His face began to turn red as anger rushed through like a roaring flood.
“I won’t answer any further questions,” Mendoza stated, his jaw set.
“You know what I think, Captain? I think you’re a cheap SOB that profited off killing his fellow soldiers and Marines. I think you’re not worth the bullet that ends your life.”
Mendoza sat stoically, not flinching or saying a word.
Calvin stared him down. I ought to draw my sidearm and erase this piece of filth from the face of the universe. No, that’s not the way, another voice countered within. Right and wrong still matter, even if they don’t matter to him.
“There are two ways this can go down,” Calvin final
ly grated out, staring at the disgraced officer. “You can help me, and in doing so, help yourself, or I can mark you down as non-compliant and move on down the list. Someone’s gonna crack. We have all your compatriots dead to rights on charges of treason. Only crime with an automatic death sentence. You’ve got to realize you’ve no choice but to cooperate with me.”
“I know where my soul will go when I die, Colonel.”
“Yeah, yeah. I get it, no God and all that. We’re just stardust.”
Mendoza, for the first time, stared directly into Calvin’s eyes. “No. My faith in God is unshakeable. I’m certain that I will go to heaven when I die.”
What the hell? “Wait a minute. You’re telling me that you betrayed your country to the nation of communists and militant atheists that shoot people like us if they find them on their worlds, yet you believe you’ll end up in heaven? Explain this one to me, Mendoza.”
“I’m doing what needs to be done, as were my fellows. The Terran Coalition has grown decadent, even cold, and it ignores the suffering of the poor and the lost.”
“You think the League’s better?” Calvin blurted out, dumbfounded by what he was hearing.
“No one starves, all are taken care of. Yes, the League is intolerant to religion, but that could be changed. At least they understand at a basic level that society must take care of all its citizens.”
“I’m a Marine. I don’t debate politics, Captain. I eliminate targets. The only reason I’m sitting here is because we don’t have professional interrogators on this ship, and our commanding officer is lying in the doc shack after your CO shot him. I’m getting answers. I’ll get them from you or I’ll get them from the next guy.”
“What can you even offer?”
“For starters, the death penalty can be taken off the table.”
“So I get to spend the rest of my life in a metal box, allowed one hour a day to exercise? I think death sounds preferable.”
“Who said it had to be Lambert’s Lament? There’s nicer places to be incarcerated in the Terran Coalition. Almost any prison is better than what you just described.”
“I remain convinced what we were doing was just.”