“So would you say you put concerns of expedient skill uptake over those of safety?” he asked.
“I’m not sure I’d put it that way.”
“What way would you put it, then?” Lieutenant Rochelle asked.
“I . . . I don’t know.”
“Would you say that Sebastian was in urgent need of skills uptake?”
Tears smeared my vision, and the Reds’ insignias ran down their uniforms. “Yes, sir.”
“Based on what?” asked Lieutenant Brauchenbuer.
“Based on the fact there were so many cadets getting hurt. That there were so many accidents.”
“Well, that’s what I’m having trouble making sense of, Aaron. It seems to me that if you were concerned about this recent spate of accidents then you would be inclined to be even more observant of gun safety procedures. From my perspective, it calls your story into doubt. Wouldn’t you say, Lieutenant Rochelle?”
Lieutenant Rochelle nodded.
“But that’s the thing . . . I didn’t think they were accidents,” I said, only vaguely aware of the revelation. Deep down I think a part of me had known. Deep down I think I’d known all along. “I thought the students were going after each other, so yeah, I felt a lot of urgency with his skills uptake. With weapons, with physical combat, with everything.”
“I’m not sure that makes sense, either,” Lieutenant Brauchenbuer said after a short pause. “Because if you thought these events were anything other than accidents then you should’ve come to us immediately, instead of taking matters into your own hands and endangering student lives.”
I blinked a few times. I’d managed to quell my tears, but my eyes were still wet. The lights spilling onto the desks and the floor made everything look like it was liquefying.
“Why didn’t you come to us?” Commander Marquardt asked.
“Because everyone said you wouldn’t listen,” I said, exhausted.
“And so you just . . .” Mr. Marquardt’s face twitched a little, apparently shocked at my presumption. “Believed them.”
“Well, you didn’t come break up the fight in the cafeteria the first day I got here.”
Commander Marquardt didn’t seem like he knew what I was referring to and turned to Lieutenant Brauchenbuer.
“We didn’t have anyone stationed there at the time and, from what we heard, the fight was stopped quickly. Frankly, I find it odd he’d think that, considering we broke up a fight that he started yesterday in mere moments.” Lieutenant Brauchenbuer shook his head, looking at me. “Do you only want us to break up the ones you don’t start? You can’t have it both ways.”
The room was getting smaller and smaller with every word they said and my body seemed to be shrinking with it. My lungs were caving in on themselves; I had to take breaths in small sips. It made Verna’s firmly-held opinions about my confidence seem absurd now. What would she think, seeing me like this? What would my parents think?
“And what was that fight about?” Brauchenbuer asked. “It was at breakfast, just after the incident with Cadet Garrehal occurred. Reports say you went after your block captain, Caelus Erik. Is that correct?”
I nodded.
“And you said you were going to kill him.”
“I didn’t mean kill him.”
“Your own wing SO, Brandon Baez, reported that you assaulted him in your barracks two days ago,” Mr. Brauchenbuer continued implacably. “Did you not mean that either?”
“I . . . I . . .”
“Presumably you threatened Captain Erik because you thought he had something to do with the incident,” Commander Marquardt interjected, soft again, like a guidance counselor.
They seemed to be moving into good cop/bad cop mode. “Yes.”
“That’s quite a serious accusation,” Lieutenant Rochelle said. “Captain Erik is one of the most decorated SOs we’ve ever had and one who has always, from what we’ve observed, acted with the highest integrity.”
“He’s duping you,” I said flatly.
The three of them exchanged glances.
“I’m not sure how far you’ll get, taking that line,” said Commander Marquardt. “But it’ll be your inquest, so you can defend yourself however you best see fit. Usually it’s a random appointment, but a teaching assistant, Mr. Katz, has stepped forward to be your faculty advocate. It’s your choice, obviously, but my advice would be to take Mr. Katz up on his offer. I assume you’ve read the handbook’s section on disciplinary proceedings?”
“I’ve looked through it.”
“Read it carefully. There are lots of rules and paperwork that go with command and it’ll hold you back if you’re as dismissive of them as you appear to be. This especially is the kind of formal process that should be treated with the utmost gravity, given what’s at stake both personally and professionally for you.”
I swallowed hard, thinking again about the bullets in my sparring bag. If they did a search of my stuff, they’d find them.
“But I’ll need to know quickly—today, actually—if you’ll be letting Mr. Katz be your advocate.”
“Yeah, I guess,” I managed to whisper.
“Okay.” Commander Marquardt made quick a note on his desk lightboard. “I’ll let him know. And . . .” He turned once again to Lieutenant Brauchenbuer and Lieutenant Rochelle. “I believe that’s all we have for now.”
They nodded. I remained seated, silent, while they shuffled their electronic papers and began talking among themselves. After about fifteen seconds Commander Marquardt asked, “Is there anything else?”
“What I don’t understand is why we would need to have an inquest at all if you already know what happened.”
They looked confused.
“I mean, you can see everything, right?” I said.
“And just how would we be able to see everything?” Lieutenant Brauchenbuer asked.
“With all the cameras.”
They looked at each other again, amused.
“Aaron,” started Commander Marquardt, “we don’t have any cameras except on the bridge and in the environmental control bay.”
“But the vents. Everyone says the vents have little cameras, and that . . .” My voice trailed off.
“Sometimes, Aaron, a vent is just a vent.”
In the hammock that night, the shadows hardened into things that could walk across the room. Silence became the medium for jarring frequencies. Guilt lowered itself down as if on threads from a spider’s web when I was trying to sleep. It was an impassable enemy. One that preferred cracks and corners. One that would rebuild nightly if needed. It would keep landing and landing and then wait until I’d finally pushed the thought out and then land again. It made everything seem so impossible. It refracted sleep through a nightmarish prism and made it appear like it was on the horizon, but it would evaporate—a mirage swirling into the background—just when you thought you’d reached it.
The fact that there was no end in sight made me desperate. Even though I tried to tell myself that I didn’t know who to make one with, it made part of me want to make a deal. It made me think about playing along because it all felt like an inevitable descent now, time ticking randomly. The arbitrariness making me loosen my grip, embittered, and do what they wanted because they would force me to do it anyway. But another part, the better part—the part that still had Eve—kept repeating, You fuckers, I won’t make it easy.
And then I woke up in the middle of the night, pain shooting through my chest, my heart racing faster than it ever had before, with no idea how to slow it down. It was a nightmare pulled back into consciousness, leaking out into my bed. Everything coated in stims and Zeroes. I didn’t know what was real and what was a dream.
I went into the bathroom and splashed water on my face. I hadn’t been eating very well and for the first time I was actually aware of my bone structure: the cheekbones, the broad jawline narrowing into a defined chin, all pressing up around the networks of capillaries in my eyes. Together with the swatches of pur
ple and black bruising, it was like a ghoulish mask was printing itself onto me more and more each night.
Chapter 46
“I’m not a whiner; you guys know I’m not a whiner. I don’t think there’s a soul in the whole wretched outfit who would say, ‘That Jersey Trimble, nice guy, but you know he’s kind of a whiner,’ even at the behest of our wonderful lieutenant. Would either of you?”
“No, Jersey,” came a woman’s voice.
“No, Jersey, you’re not a whiner,” came another.
“All right, okay! So seeing that that’s settled—”
“But people who aren’t whiners don’t generally whine about other people thinking they’re whiners,” the second woman added.
“Now, I had an inklin’ one of you hens was going to cluck something like that, but if a man could be besmirched just by defendin’ his good name against spurious charges, who are we really looking out for? If it’s fashionable to accuse, it’ll become fashionable to condemn. They’re each other’s handmaidens. But given that we’ve established that I’m not a whiner”—he paused and looked at both women alternately, illuminated by the beam from his Pegasus rifle—“don’t you think that a concern voiced by such a stoic servant of this platoon merits more than just the usual ‘Thanks, but kindly piss off’ from the lieutenant? Now, don’t get me wrong—I like the lieutenant. I think the lieutenant is swuh-eh-eh-el and I appreciate how he doesn’t rub his rank in our faces, or drop fancy words like Rosario does. But when someone thinks he’s got a bunch of copper miners under his gov’nance, when one of those miners hands him a bar of solid gold, he’s going to think it’s copper. Because after all, they’re copper miners.”
“Jersey, I think what you need to consider—”
“Now, I know what you’re going to say. ‘Jersey, you might have a point, but if every decision about who does what and when was pecked apart we wouldn’t get nothing much done.’ And I’d be the first to agree, in principle. I most certainly would. But I believe that an exception should be made when it comes to determining which one of us sorry sons of bitches is gonna be playing mole in these here caves again tomorrow. That, I reckon, is a matter worth delving into with a little more nuance.
“And I know what you’re thinking: That if I’d been the one to draw listening post duty when we were cradled in R76, I’d be singin’ a different tune. And I’ll shoot you straight, I very well may have.” He raised up a finger. “However, I did not draw LP duty in R76, or even at the falls at S2. I drew it at R53, where the Verex turned Esteban into one of those medical textbook anatomy cross-sections, and at R71, where we thought that sinister-sounding trickling was water until we got those flashlights charged back up. And now I’ve gone and drawn it again here, at a post that has my hairy ass hanging out the farthest of all the asshole listening posts. They’re not all the same, so that goddamn lil’ computer should quit goddamn pretending they are when it’s doing all its humming and beeping.”
Jersey was getting flustered and breathless. He kept starting and stopping his sentences, moving his eyes around, back and forth between the silhouettes, making it unclear whom he was trying to convince. “And again, I like the lieutenant. That’s God’s honest truth! But it’s a crime against the son when he goes and throws his hands up, saying that it’s the lil’ computer’s call when we all know he’s the one whisperin’ in its ear. I bet you all the brandy comin’ down that borehole that if he whispered something different, then my name sure as shit wouldn’t be on that little slip of EP that thing spits out. Heavens, no.”
“I see your point, Private, but we’re all getting flushed down the drain. What difference does it make who’s first?” This from the more forceful-sounding woman.
“All the difference in the world if Battle Group Center gets here,” said the woman with the softer voice.
“Oh come on, Han, you’re old enough to have stopped believing in fairy tales. They don’t have a passable route and even if they did, they don’t have the catalyte. They’re just saying that because . . . because what else are they going to say?”
“The truth,” said Private Trimble.
“You’re on the wrong planet for that, Jersey. Hell, you’re in the wrong galaxy.”
“Sure. But there’ve been forces cut off worse than we are and they’ve been rescued. Colonel Samson’s armor got stuck in the Slippery Pill last autumn, and—”
“They had five boreholes to resupply one brigade. We have one to resupply five entire divisions. And to tell it straight, the only reason the Verex are letting that one stay open is to encourage us to keep throwing good shit after bad. Why not let the wound bleed? And the top brass are going along with the fiction, playing hot potato I s’pose you could say, because no one wants to be the commanding general to lose five divisions on their watch. No, sir. Best just keep the lights on, keep sendin’ in the utility checks. Keep pretending. And hopefully in the meantime their transfer application’ll go through. Then it’s someone else’s fucking mess.”
“Christ, Sergeant McPherson, that’s some mighty pessimistic talk right there. I know you like to shoot straight, but don’t do it when the gun’s pointed at your own head.” Private Trimble licked his lips. “I’m no fool. I know some part of the leg has to be the first charred in the roast, but it’s a sin how it’s chosen.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Sergeant McPherson replied. “They’re going to come from everywhere at once anyway.”
“Making sure the whole platoon doesn’t die in its sleep doesn’t matter? Our names came up. So have everyone else’s—that’s how it goes,” said the other woman.
“It’s fuuuucked.”
“That’s not for you to decide, Private Trimble. You’re a private for a reason. If you were smart enough to be calling shots then you’d’ve come from one of the training stations. Like the major says. ‘You signed up, so now you shut up.’”
“The major says a lot of things,” Trimble replied sourly.
“And if every last word was horseshit it wouldn’t change anything. Armies don’t lose battles because grunts don’t make the orders, they lose because grunts don’t follow them.”
“How long were you waiting to drop that line, Han-Wei?”
“I speak when I have something to say.”
“That’s nice, but I get the inklin’ with that tone of yours that perhaps you might be implying that—”
“LP3, this is LP4, did you guys hear that?”
Han-Wei made a quieting gesture and brought the commline up to her mouth. “Negative, LP4. It’s pretty relaxed here except for the stream a few clicks away. What are we listening for?”
“I don’t know, exactly. Husson thought he heard something and . . . and I guess we just wanted to check in. I know it’s not—”
“Acknowledged, LP4. We’ll keep an ear open. Three out.”
“You don’t have to be so brisk on the commline, Han-Wei. They just want someone to talk to, that’s all. It’s scary out there in the dark. They’re out even farther than we are.”
“I’m not their mother. I’m not going to read them bedtime stories. It dilutes the channel.” Han-Wei held out the receiver to Private Trimble, showing him where it read “Essential communication only.”
“I’d say it’s pretty essential that people aren’t shitting themselves.”
“Their problem.”
“Considering they’re on our exposed flank, I’d say it’s very much our problem,” Trimble replied, grabbing the commline out of Han-Wei’s hand. “Hey there, LP4, this is your friendly neighbor again, LP3, and it occurred to me we’ve come across quite a helping of stilix activity today. As you know, they can cause loose rocks to fall when chasing each other, making for some pretty strange acoustics. Could that be what your guy heard?”
“One moment, LP3.” And then a few seconds later. “He seems to think that’s plausible.”
“Great, just thought I’d toss that out there, that’s all. LP3 out,” Private Trimble finished, handing the
commline back to Han-Wei. “Everything’s your worst fear when the lights are out.”
“They’re never going to learn if you keep coddling them.”
“Oh, I don’t care if they learn or not, baby girl. I just don’t want them cracking up when they’re out with us,” Jersey replied, putting a hand on her shoulder.
“Get your fucking paw off me,” Han-Wei snapped as she brushed it away.
“Easy there, darlin’. You look like you could use a little calmin’ down yourself.”
“Fuck off.”
“In a heartbeat.”
“Both of you, that’s enough,” snapped Sergeant McPherson. “Goddamn it. I see I’ve been saddled with the clever children, which are a hundred times worse than dumb a—”
“LP3, come in. LP3, come in. Are you guys seeing that?”
“Acknowledged. Seeing what, LP4?”
“Seismometer activity’s spiking erratically. It could just be noise, but—”
“Not reading anything on our end,” Han-Wei cut in.
“Okay . . . it just did it again. Peaked out of the normal seismism range by about, uh, thirty microns.”
“We’re still within our range, LP4, and I wouldn’t call thirty microns peaking.”
“It did it again. Thirty-five, forty-five, sixty.”
“That could be noise.”
“Seventy, ninety, sixty-five, ninety-five—a hundred and ten.”
“Still noise.”
“I . . . I don’t know—it’s got some velocity to it.”
“Registering a hundred and five now, hundred and fifteen, hundred and thirty-five, hundred and forty, hundred and sixty.” I could feel Jersey’s panic rising to match the speaker’s.
McPherson grabbed the commline from Han-Wei. “This is LP3 actual, confirming your coordinates are still 856/019/708?”
“Affirmative,” said the voice, now starting to quiver. “One hundred seventy-five microns—wait no, no it’s one . . . one ninety-five, above threshold!”
“Jesus Christ,” someone else exclaimed, loud enough we could hear it over the commline.
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