Still confused but needing to move, I followed the group as they proceeded to the gear removal room, and I got myself out of my armor with a little help from the guy who’d spoken to me. From there I went to decon in a mini-unit that held three soldiers at a time, which would have been a pain for an entire platoon, but worked fine for me and my lone helper. I’d been on the ground and he’d touched me. I’d forgotten about decon. Even carrying critical information, there were safety protocols for interacting with alien planets. That explained why nobody had approached me. I used the seven-minute procedure as a reprieve.
Danner waited for me when I came out. He wasn’t smiling, but he did look happy to see me, in that way that soldiers have. “You need something to eat, sir, or can we get right to your debriefing?” Professional. No bullshit. No way to tell yet if that was good or bad.
“I could use a cup of coffee,” I said. “But there’s no reason we can’t talk at the same time.”
He nodded and a soldier behind him hurried off, probably to fetch my beverage. What I really wanted was a drink, but I had to keep my mind sharp. I’d drink when I knew my fate, not before. Once they’d made their decision, I’d get good and drunk.
If I was going out an airlock, I’d be doing it with a buzz.
I sat with Danner at a round table, not across from him, but sort of by his side. He picked the seats and then said, “This isn’t an interrogation. We’re just talking.” Exactly what I would have done if I were interrogating someone.
“First things first, sir. You said you had the data?”
“It’s in my suit,” I said, knowing that they probably already had gone through it and found the chip. I’d taken it from Larsson’s body and had the Cappans load it, which fit my story. “I didn’t want to take it through decon. I don’t know how those things work, but no reason to take a chance, right?”
“Of course, sir. We’re going to get it uploaded and send it back to Talca to make sure it’s what they need.”
“Great,” I said. I assumed I had what they wanted, but at that moment, for whatever reason, it flashed through my mind that I had no idea. The Cappans could have loaded anything. Shit, it could be blank, and I wouldn’t know it.
“You okay, sir?”
“Yeah. I hope we got the data. All those deaths . . . I don’t know if it’s worth it, but at least they wouldn’t be meaningless.”
He nodded. “Yeah. What the hell happened?”
“We got chewed up the whole way. I’m sure you saw the reports.” I paused. “Shit was bad. Potato mines . . . I hate those fucking things.”
He sat, his face not changing, waiting for me to continue.
“When we got to their encampment, our birds dropped bombs on some of their structures. For a minute that seemed to take the life out of them. They stopped shooting back, and that’s when Larsson made the call to go forward to retrieve the information.” I did my best to ensure I included everything they could verify. I wanted to keep the lie as small as possible.
“We saw that,” he said.
“Kapoor took me down and we linked up with Larsson. They took us inside, and they agreed to give us the data. Then . . . I don’t know. People started fucking shooting in an enclosed space. Larsson . . . she was hit, but she took a couple of them down, too. We ended up behind an overturned table and she passed me the data. Her leg was wrecked. I guess she figured I had a better chance of getting away. Last I saw she was providing cover fire, and . . . I don’t know. I figured they’d chase me, but they didn’t. She’s a fucking hero.” I added the last touch off the top of my head.
Danner’s face relaxed slightly, which led me to believe he’d bought it. The sketchy part was the data handoff, but the Larsson-as-hero thing covered some of that up. They’d want to believe that about her. People always wanted to believe in heroes, though the truth of the stories rarely lived up to the myth. Somewhere somebody would know that she and I didn’t get along, so my positive report about her would hold even more credibility.
Of course it wasn’t really Danner that I had to fool. He was the second gate. The real test came back at Omicron, and I had almost no way to influence that except through Danner. “We’ll know in a few minutes whether the data is good. Let me go update home station with your debrief.” He didn’t add that he’d be requesting guidance on what to do with me, also, but then again he didn’t need to. I sipped my coffee and casually scanned the room. I wanted to know who else was interested, because they’d be the people I needed to watch later. Danner was the most important link, but the way that soldiers had acted down on the planet told me Omicron would have people watching him, too. Nobody stood out.
I got up and walked around, using the excuse of getting more coffee. Nobody paid me any attention, so I took advantage of that and made my way to the Ops center. Danner sat on one side, staring at a terminal, but I avoided him and looked for Lopez. I found her via her buzz cut, and she was sitting at the targeting station. Exactly what I hoped to see.
“You have targeting solutions worked up yet?” I asked.
She closed down a window where she’d been playing a puzzle game and glanced up. “Oh, hi, sir! Targeting solutions for what?”
“The XM-25s. Taking out the Cappan settlement.”
Her eyes went wide and her breath hitched. Nobody had told her. To be fair, I was guessing at the order, so it didn’t surprise me that she didn’t know. “Is that what we’re doing?”
“Oh . . . uh . . . never mind. I thought they’d have given you the order.” It was a shit thing for me to do to a young soldier, using her like that. It would never cross her mind that I’d lie to her, and she’d assume I knew more than she did. Given my other sins, this one seemed small in comparison.
“Should I be working on that?”
“Not yet. Let’s wait for the Ops officer. Maybe there will be another way. That’s a tough thing, all those lives down there, if we have to do it. Some of our own, too, maybe. No sensor reports, but I have to believe there’s a chance that a few of them made it.” I walked away before she had a chance to respond. I’d done what I needed to do. I’d got her thinking about it.
Lieutenant Danner called to me before I got out of the room. “Sir, you have a minute?”
“Sure. Here, or in the other room?”
“Other room,” he said.
I nodded and led the way, waiting for him to close the door behind us, then spoke before he could. “Look, before you say anything, I don’t want to know. If they told you to kill me . . . or if they do tell you, in the future . . . don’t tell me. Just put me in stasis, like we’re going home, and take care of it there.”
He started to speak, but caught himself, considered his words for a few seconds. “Thank you, sir. I can tell you right now that I don’t have that order, but I do understand why it might be under consideration. I hear what you’re saying.”
It didn’t really matter to me. Dead was dead. But I’d made it easier on him. I’d like to think, with all the shitty things I’d done and was continuing to do, that act might help balance the scales a little bit. “So what did they say?”
“The information you retrieved, sir. It checks out. It’s exactly what they wanted.”
I smiled. “Good. But that look on your face . . . you don’t look like a man who got good news.”
“They want us to destroy the Cappan settlement.”
I nodded. This was the moment I’d planned for. Everything hinged on the next minute of conversation. “How do you feel about that?”
He sighed. “I don’t love it. But it’s the mission. And if I don’t do it, they’re going to put somebody else in charge that will.”
“You’re the only officer left on the ship.”
“It’s not the military, sir. They can promote anyone they want.”
“Good point. You’ll want to talk to Lopez, the targeting tech. I think she’s going to take this hard. Especially if she had friends down on the planet.”
“Shit,�
�� he said. “I didn’t think about that.”
I sipped my coffee, giving it a few seconds to sink in before speaking. “I could do it.”
“Tell Lopez? I couldn’t ask you to do that, sir. She’s my troop.”
“No. I mean I could work the targeting. I’ve got some experience with the machine.”
“No doubt about that, sir.”
“More important, I’ve got some experience living with something like this. Trust me, that’s much harder than the actual mechanics of it. It’s not something I’d wish on anybody. Not Lopez. Not you.”
“It’s still my authority, sir.”
“Sure,” I said. “But nobody has to know that. Especially not back in the world. When this gets out—and it will get out; everything always does—the media is going to look for somebody to blame. I’ll be a convenient target, since they already know me. Shit—once they check the manifest and see me on it, they’re going to assume it was me.”
He thought about it. “Like you said, sir. Things always get out. They’ll get the truth.”
“Maybe not. Show them the story they want . . .” I shrugged. “Well, show them that, and they tend to stop digging. Besides, the soldiers on board know who I am, but they don’t know why I’m here. If I take over, they’re likely to think that’s part of the plan. Why else bring along a mass murderer?”
He thought about it for several seconds. “It could work.”
“If it doesn’t, we haven’t lost much. It’s not like an attempted cover-up is going to make it worse.” I watched him closely. So far he hadn’t registered even a hint of suspicion, but he’d get there soon. I couldn’t get ahead of him. He needed to come up with the problem himself before I could present him with the solution. But I could prompt him. I waited until we started to walk back to Operations. “I’ll need the authorization codes to fire.”
His step caught for a fraction of a second. There it was. He stopped, and hesitated before he spoke. “I’m not sure this is a good idea.”
I pretended to think about it. “Oh! Right. I should have thought about that. You don’t trust me.”
“It’s not that, sir—”
“It’s totally okay. I can see why you’d be worried. I tell you what. I’ll build the firing solution and set everything except the execution codes. You can verify what I’ve got in the system before you authorize.” He bit his bottom lip, but didn’t respond. He was close. “And of course you’ll be able to view the target area via the sensors. You’ll see the results clearly enough.”
He stood there for several more seconds. I couldn’t read him. Then he nodded. “Let’s do it.”
“Okay. Let Lopez know.”
“Right.” He walked over to the soldier and spoke to her in low tones. She nodded and got up from her seat. I’m not sure how much he told her, but she didn’t look upset, which was all that mattered. I sat down at the terminal and pulled up the necessary pages, taking a minute to familiarize myself with the interface. It nearly mirrored the military system, which didn’t surprise me, given that Omicron made them both. I punched in the parameters of the mission and selected the weapon type, and in another frame I pulled up a three-dimensional map of the island. I chose all four missiles we had on board, which was overkill for that area. I could have done the job with two or three, targeted correctly. Because I chose four, the computer spit out over twenty possible solutions, all of which would satisfy the mission requirements. I’d done it on purpose to get those multiple solutions, because I wanted to pick the one closest to what I wanted. I had information that the computer didn’t. I also wanted to expend all the ordnance so they didn’t have another shot, just in case.
I studied the numbers for several minutes. I could sense Danner getting nervous, pacing behind me, so I reassured him. “The computer spit out twenty-three effective firing solutions. I’m checking them manually to find the best one.”
I selected the solution that was closest to my parameters, and I began manipulating the four aim points. People think targeting with high-yield weapons is a simple thing, and that fusion weapons create such a big explosion that all you have to do is get close. It’s subtler than that. As big as the weapons are, the planet is bigger, and moving an impact by a few hundred meters can make a significant difference. A hill or a ridge can divert a shockwave, lessen the impact on a certain area, increase it in another. The energy all has to go somewhere. That’s scientific law. Where it goes? That’s art. I’m a master artist. The effects of a minor change in aim point grow more significant if the target is underground. The computer’s solution didn’t account for subsurface targets. Mine did.
Not everybody who did targeting could do what I was attempting. People tended to rely on machines without knowing the underlying science. They accepted what the computer spit out, and it worked. I was old-school. I’d learned how to do it manually before I ever learned it on a computer. I didn’t think Lopez had. I knew Danner hadn’t. I moved the impact location of two of the missiles and ran a check through the computer’s simulation. The green circles lit up, indicating my solution met the mission requirements. According to the computer, it would destroy everything on the surface. There was no way around that. But if I’d done it right, people underground in certain locations would survive. Maybe. Like I said, it’s an art. It’s not perfect. It was the best chance I could give them, and I believed it would work.
“Ready.” I stood up to let Danner get at the terminal. I left the green lights up in one corner of the screen, so he could see that the solution met parameters. “I’ve highlighted the authorization field. All you have to do is put your biometrics in.”
He stopped behind the chair instead of sitting. “Let me see the detailed parameters screen.”
I hesitated, but only because I hadn’t expected it. “Right, of course.” He was smart to check that. If I’d altered the parameters, the computer would show green for a different mission. It was a simple thing, and I’d not thought to try that. Theoretically, if I’d reprogrammed the parameters to leave the settlement undamaged but cause massive damage out over the ocean, I could still get the green bubbles to light up by firing the XM-25s harmlessly into the water. I leaned in and pulled up the parameter screen and let him check it without comment. I hadn’t altered it from when Lopez built it. It still showed the settlement and all surface life as the primary target.
“This will kill everyone?” he asked.
“Probably not,” I said. “Even with the biggest weapons, there are always survivors. Somebody who is out of the area, or happens to be behind the right giant rock or standing in the right depression at the right time. But there won’t be many.”
“Shit,” he said.
“What’s up?”
“Just thinking about our own people, if any of them are still alive. It’s hard to believe we lost an entire company.”
“Yeah. It sucks,” I said, keeping my face as impassive as I could. “On the other hand, you wouldn’t want to leave any of our people to the Cappans. You know what they’re like.”
“Yeah.” He sighed deeply. He didn’t know firsthand about how some of the Cappans treated prisoners the way I did, but he had certainly heard stories. “Okay. No sense waiting. The attack aircraft are clear of the atmosphere.”
I pulled the authorization back up and stood back as Danner authenticated with first his thumbprint, then his retina. “That will do it.”
I hit the fire button before he could rethink anything.
The ship barely vibrated as the four missiles left their bays. Their engines wouldn’t fire until they had cleared the ship. From there, the computers inside each one would guide them to the targets I’d programmed. Theoretically they could be recalled, though it would be dicey to try once they entered the atmosphere. At that point the best option would be to neutralize them. We wouldn’t be doing that.
“How long until impact?” Danner asked.
I checked the computer. “Just over nine minutes.” Missiles didn’t
need to stick to g-forces that humans could live through, so they accelerated faster than ships.
“Flight control, I want a manned overflight of the target area in fifteen minutes,” Danner announced. He looked at me as if to ask if that would be safe. I nodded.
“Roger, sir. Flight control has the mission,” responded an older-looking sergeant.
“Intel, I want unmanned drone passes, too. Scan on every type of spectrum we’ve got.”
“Roger, sir.” A female voice this time. I didn’t turn to look at her. I was sure that everybody would read the nervousness on my face if they saw me, so I stayed focused on the screen in front of me. The outcome had passed from my hands. The Cappans had defeated our drones and our sensors when we’d been down on the planet. I had to trust that they could do it again now. If not . . . well, I bought them a month or so until Omicron could get more assets in place.
The room stayed silent, or as close to it as an Operations room can get. Nobody spoke. It was as if the air itself had hushed, paying respects to those on the planet below. The weight of it would stay with everyone in the room. They hadn’t done it, but they’d been there. They’d seen it. It would affect some more than others . . . there was no way to tell. Some would second-guess themselves, their role in things. Some wouldn’t ever think about it again. And others . . . others would feel nothing but then wonder why they didn’t.
I could release them all from that. I could tell them that, if I did it right, those very expensive missiles would make a huge mess but the people were safe. Safe. I almost laughed. It was a stupid thought. If I told them, then Omicron would send another ship. More missiles—
“Impact,” someone said.
A couple screens whited out for a half second before going black, their internal systems shutting down the sensors to avoid damage. They’d take several seconds to reawaken. The room stayed totally silent as we waited for them to come back up. The visual-spectrum sensor came back first, treating us to a picture of what used to be the Cappan settlement. The prefab buildings were now so much trash, scattered and melted into unrecognizable slag. One person clapped for a second when the image came up, but quickly broke off when he realized nobody else had joined in.
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