by Baen Books
“My discussions with Administrator LePic and with Admiral Theisman have told me what kind of men they are, what dreams they dream. This conversation has shown me the woman—the dreams—behind President Pritchart, as well, and I would far rather deal with her than with anyone who might someday replace her.”
“Shirkahna Ambart,” she said after a moment, “understand that the Republic of Haven is not Frontier Security. You’re right, I’m sure, about all of the . . . beneficial fallout of Haven’s presence in Refuge. And you’re certainly right about who provided the capability to build the Bolthole Complex and its supporting infrastructure. But this system belongs to Sanctuarians, not Havenites. It has to. On behalf of my government, I would propose an ultimate ownership stake of, say, thirty percent in the existing infrastructure for the Republic, with the understanding that we would intend to privatize it eventually. And the further understanding that Sanctuarian investors would be given the first opportunity to bid on any privatization offers.
“I’m prepared to sign a treaty formalizing that understanding immediately. And, regardless of your decision to accept or reject that treaty, I intend to withdraw all Havenite authority to control any aspect of your educational system or your economic system outside the Bolthole shipyards themselves. Obviously, I will recognize Refuge’s sovereignty at the same time.
“In return, I would ask you to continue to conceal the existence and location of your world. And I would ask you to assume the risk—the very real risk, should Manticore somehow discover Bolthole’s existence and location—of a major attack on your star system which could well result not simply in massive destruction but in major loss of life, as well.”
“You realize you don’t have to ‘ask’ for anything?” Again, his tone made the question a statement. “There’s clearly nothing we could do—in the short term, at least—about any of those matters.”
“I think you may underestimate yourselves a bit.” Pritchart’s tone was dry. “Over the decades, the People’s Republic learned quite a bit about what passive resistance and selective sabotage can do to military and industrial production.”
“I imagine it did.” Ambart chuckled, but his expression remained serious. “All the same, my point remains.”
“Perhaps it does.” Pritchart shrugged. “But many, many years ago, on the most terrible day of my life, I decided what I was willing to put on the line for my beliefs. It came from an ancient document I once read, and it was only three words. Very simple ones, but words that expressed both the least I could justify giving and the highest price I could conceive of paying. I try to bear them in mind every day, especially now that I’m actually in a position to rebuild the Republic of Haven of Michèle Péricard.”
“And those words are . . . what—?” he asked softly.
“‘Our sacred honor.’” Her voice was equally soft, her eyes somber with memory. “Our sacred honor,” she repeated. “That’s what my friends and I put on the line the day we decided to stand and fight. That’s what we believe in, what we stand for, and that means being honorable. It means conducting ourselves so that the people we’ve lost would approve of what we’ve done. And it means I have to give you back—return to you, not bestow it upon you like some gift—your own star system and your own future. But when I do, I have to do it in a way that preserves my own star nation and everything I gave my sacred honor to thirty-seven T-years ago. And I have to ask you to understand—and accept—that.”
Ambart considered her in silence once again. Beyond the tower window, lightning flared and flickered, and the first rumble of rain drummed on the tower roof. Thunder rolled, and she waited until, finally, he sighed.
“I wonder if you have any idea, truly, of what a remarkable woman you are, Madame President,” he said.
“I don’t think I’m remarkable at all,” she replied. “Or, if I am, it’s only because the events in my life made me that way. And the price it took to get me to understand what I needed to do was too terrible for me to not try every day to be worthy of it.” A tear glittered at the corner of her eye, and she shook her head. “It’s not just my mirror I need to be able to look into, Shirkahna. It’s my memory.”
“Perhaps one day I’ll ask you about that memory,” he said, and his voice was gentle against the background grumble of thunder. “But not today.” He smiled again, more warmly. “I’m certain we’ll have many opportunities in the future for me to ask. Perhaps when we sign that treaty of yours in the next few days. Or perhaps on the day—some years from now, I’m sure—when you join me in a toast to the privatization of our friends in the Republic of Haven’s interest in our star system’s infrastructure.”
Her eyes widened ever so slightly, and his smile grew broader.
“Or perhaps even on the day when Refuge seeks admission to a Republic of Haven worthy of the men and women fighting to restore it.”
* * * * * * * * * *
But Dark Fall ends.
Dawn comes at last to even deepest night,
And men unafraid,
And women of valor
Walk bravely into the light.
—The Dark Fall Saga
Love in the Time of Interstellar War
Brendan DuBois
I was late getting into the NCO staff meeting at the Mitchel Joint Navy-Army station that morning and when I started getting ragged on by the other three NCOs, I took my cane and rapped it against my right leg—the metal and wooden one—and I said, “Give it a rest, guys, okay? One of the K-9 units dragged my leg out last night for a chew toy.”
That got some laughs but my Ell Tee—Antonia Juarez, a regular Army officer who was sent down to this unit once her spine got broke during a Creeper attack—moved her wheelchair a bit next to her desk and said, “Very good, Hart. Have a seat. And then come up with a better excuse. That’s the third time you’ve used it in the past six months.”
I sat down with a thin folder in my hand, joining the other NCOs who were part of the 2nd Infantry Brigade Combat Team, the New York National Guard unit tasked to keeping peace and order on Long Island.
I was the unit’s intelligence officer, which should have been assigned to a lieutenant or captain, but since the Creepers invaded a decade ago, the thinned out armed forces of the United States had to adjust to doing a lot more with a lot less.
Including me, a one-legged first sergeant whose stomach felt like it was on fire, and who had skipped breakfast again this morning.
More than a century ago the Mitchel Joint Navy-Army station had been an Air Force base, flying and training a lot during World War II. Post-war, it was eventually decommissioned, parts of it were turned over to civilian use, and then it was only re-founded ten years ago, when the Creepers invaded. Technically it should be a Navy-Army-Air Force station because of its history, but since the Creeper’s killer stealth satellites in orbit burn down anything with electronics that flies, the United States technically doesn’t have much of an Air Force anymore.
Lieutenant Juarez glanced down at her clipboard. “All right, let’s get with it. Give me your morning stats, and keep it short and to the point.”
One by one, we gave our status reports.
Armed patrols along the abandoned and tsunami-swept towns of Long Island reported the detaining of forty-three coastie refugees trying to sneak back to their homes. They were being fed, processed, and would be returned via ferry to a Red Cross camp near New Canaan.
Logistics reported that a convoy successfully arrived yesterday at 1400 hours after an uneventful trip along the old I-295.
A couple of other reports followed, and it was my turn
“Ma’am, I beg to report that no alien activity has been monitored at the enemy base dome at Cunningham Park during the last twenty-four hours. During that time period, mobile artillery from the 1st Battalion, 258th Field Artillery, fired a total of six 155-mm shells at the dome.”
“No response?” she asked.
“No, ma’am,” I said.
“Ver
y well,” she said, and after going through the day’s schedule and other housekeeping details, she said, “Dismissed . . . save for you, Sergeant Hart.”
There were sounds of chairs scraping and a low “uh oh” as the other NCOs walked out, and I shifted in my seat, adjusted my wooden leg, and when the door to the lieutenant’s office—a former classroom—was shut, I said, “Ma’am, I apologize again for being late.”
She reached over and took a red-bordered file folder from her desk. “Shut up, Hart. Apology not accepted.”
I kept my mouth shut, and Lieutenant Juarez said, “We’ve got visitors coming here tomorrow. You’re tasked to escort them, accompany them, give them what they need, and ensure they have a successful visit. Got it?”
“Yes, ma’am. May I ask why?”
“Because you’re what passes for intelligence in this unit, that’s why,” she said. “You’re to escort them to the base dome and do whatever it is that they require.”
“Are they VIPs? Visitors?”
“In a manner of speaking, yes,” she said. “They’re from Russia, and they’ll be arriving by watercraft at about oh nine-hundred, at the harbor at Hempstead. Provide meals, shelter, transport.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said. “Are they military?”
She glanced over at me like I was an errant first-grade student who had just wet himself. “No, they’re an advance unit for what’s left of the Bolshoi Ballet . . . Christ, of course they’re military.” Lieutenant Juarez went back to her paperwork. “They are Russian Navy personnel . . . Petrov and Kosanskey. Special detail from Kallingrad. They’ve been on the water now for nearly a month.”
“I see, ma’am,” I said. “And how long do you expect them to be here?”
“Long enough to do their job.”
She waited and I waited, and then I bit.
“Lieutenant, what’s their job?”
She closed the folder, put it back on her desk.
“To destroy the alien base dome at Cunningham Park.”
Well, that got my attention, because I’ve only heard second- or third-hand about successful attempts to destroy the base domes. Scores of them were scattered around the United States countryside, and many others were stationed around the world. They were the base of operations for three types of Creepers—Battle, Transport, Research—that skittered out in their armored exoskeletons to explore, kill, or whatever else aliens do as part of their occupation.
But they were nearly invulnerable to any form of attack, from lasers to explosive shells to napalm. My mention earlier about six 155 mm shells striking the dome in Cunningham Park—about 29 klicks to the west of us—was just the Army’s way of telling the Creepers inside that they were still being observed.
Not that it seemed to bother them that much. We had one reliable weapon to use against the Creepers, a binary nerve agent fired from an infantry weapon, a Colt M-10, but more often than not, when it came down to a fight, sometimes the Creepers got killed and most times, the attacking soldier or Marine was either scorched to a cinder or sliced into pieces by a laser beam.
But to destroy a Creeper base dome took one thing and one thing only: a nuclear bomb.
Seemed simple enough, didn’t it. There were tens of thousands of nuclear bombs among the world’s arsenals when the invasion took place, so why hadn’t each dome been destroyed upon its establishment?
Delivery devices, that’s why.
With the killer stealth satellites in orbit, anything flying—from a missile to an aircraft to even an unmanned drone—would be blasted out of the sky before it posed a threat. Which left delivery by truck, tank, or even a horse drawn carriage. But even then, the Creepers could detect the electronics contained within the weapons, and they would still be destroyed by a particle beam or a “rod from God” before it got close enough to do any damage.
But just over a year ago, word filtered down from the government in Albany that our allies, the Russians—everybody was an ally nowadays—had come up with a way of destroying a dome by a nuclear device.
It involved breaking the bomb into several components, being able to shield the electronics from detection, and then slowly, gradually, transport those pieces up to a Dome, usually by two or three soldiers armed with nothing more than a knapsack. There, the soldiers would quickly reassemble the device, and then set it off.
Not by timer.
Not by a remote switch.
Not by anything electronic.
But mechanically, using Mark II eyeballs and hands.
If the mission was successful, it meant a destroyed Dome and lots of dead Creepers.
But it also meant two or three dead humans as well.
Suicide mission.
But the Russians being the Russians, some were prepared to pay the ultimate price.
And now they were coming here to Long Island.
“Sergeant Hart?”
“Ma’am?” I realized she had just spoken and I hadn’t heard what she had said.
“Did you hear what I just said?”
Decisions, decisions.
I decided to throw myself on the mercy of my superior officer and confess the truth.
“Ma’am, I’m afraid I didn’t.”
“Late for the briefing, not hearing a word that I uttered,” she said, shaking her head. “A hell of a way to start the day.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You’re one sloppy NCO, aren’t you.” It wasn’t really a question.
“The sloppiest, ma’am.”
“But you also happen to be one of my smartest, which helps. Sometimes. Don’t push it.”
“No, ma’am.”
She referred to another piece of paper. “What did you have for breakfast this morning?”
“Ah . . . I was running late, ma’am. Didn’t have breakfast.”
“Major Glenn reports that you’ve vomited blood twice in the last week.”
I didn’t reply to my boss.
What could I say?
She said, “How are you holding up?”
“Fine, ma’am.”
“You’re probably lying to me, Sergeant Hart.”
“It’s a possibility, ma’am.”
She stared at me with her brown eyes and I saw something there that was not usual.
Sympathy.
“When the time comes,” she said, “we’ll change your duty status.”
“If you say so, ma’am.”
“I do so.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
The lieutenant picked up another sheet of paper, a thin light yellow message flimsy, and she said, “You were stationed at Fort Saint Paul in New Hampshire three years ago, correct?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And served in a Ranger Recon platoon with a Randy Knox?”
A slight smile at the memory of being at that platoon and Knox’s silly but very capable Belgian Malinois named Thor.
“That’s right,” I said. “Sergeant Knox.”
“It’s now Lieutenant Knox,” she said.
“Great,” I said, feeling just the tiniest bit jealous of him earning his lieutenant’s bars before me.
“Not so great,” she said, putting the message flimsy down. “Got last quarter’s casualty reports this morning. He’s listed MIA after an ambush in Connecticut.”
“Connecticut?” I asked, hoping for a mistake. “Last I knew, he was still stationed in New Hampshire. What was he doing in Connecticut?”
“Getting ambushed,” she says. “He was part of a convoy, heading east to Massachusetts when they were attacked by a band of Creepers. Most of the convoy was destroyed. Knox was listed MIA. Sorry.”
I took a breath. Losing friends and family members was nothing new in this ever-constant war, but one tried not to get used to it. And I wasn’t going to fool myself by hoping he was, indeed, missing. Not in this time, not in this war. In a very few instances, being listed as MIA was a way of a soldier deserting into the wild and not being listed as being absent without
leave. But most times it was a way of facing reality, that in a war when we humans faced lasers, flame weapons, rods from God and kinetic energy weapons, sometimes there were no remains or dog tags left behind.
So Knox was MIA.
Poor Randy. At some point, years from now, some overworked and undermanned graves registration unit might find a charred bone or two, tangled up in his dog tags, and that would be that.
Dogs.
I hoped his Thor had made it.
“Sergeant Hart?”
“Ma’am?” I replied, knowing I had been caught again, not paying attention.
“Your visitors are arriving at approximately oh nine-hundred tomorrow, at Hempstead Harbor. Be there.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Dismissed.”
The next morning I was standing at one of the floating docks making up the Hempstead Harbor structure. Pre-war there were lots of harbors scattered along Long Island, but the invading Creepers had dropped asteroids in oceans, lakes and rivers, causing artificial tsunamis. That meant a lot of cities around the world were drowned, and places like Long Island were pretty much scoured clean, and any surviving ports were tumbled places of junk from broken docks to boat hulks.
That meant most harbors were artificial, built with floating docks, and the one I was on took care of this part of Long Island. Fishing boats of all kinds were moored on two long docks, and the third dock I was on belonged to the Navy, as small as it was.
Out on the waters there was a distant haze masking the Connecticut coastline, and among the fishing vessels out there was a steam-vessel of some sort—it looked like it had once bore masts—and at the stern of the craft a flag was slowly waving in the steady breeze. It had three stripes—white, blue and red—and in the corner was a yellow square with a double-headed eagle.