Old Man’s War

by John Scalzi

  "How old are you, sir?" I asked.

  "I'll be fourteen next week," he said. "Now, I'll be having a staff meeting tomorrow at 0600. Until then, get yourself set up and comfortable, have some chow, and get a little rest. We'll talk more in the morning." He saluted and I was dismissed.

  Jane was waiting in my quarters.

  "You again," I said, smiling.

  "Me again," she said, simply. "I wanted to know how you're getting along."

  "Fine," I said. "Considering I've been on the ship for fifteen minutes."

  "We're all talking about you," Jane said.

  "Yes, I can tell by the endless chatter," I said. Jane opened her mouth to speak, but I held up my hand. "That was a joke," I said. "Major Crick told me about the BrainPal thing."

  "It's why I like talking to you like this," Jane said. "It's not like talking to anyone else."

  "I seem to remember you talking when you rescued me," I said.

  "We were worried about being tracked then," Jane said. "Speaking was more secure. We also speak when we're out in public. We don't like to draw attention to ourselves when we don't have to."

  "Why did you arrange this?" I asked her. "Getting me stationed here on the Sparrowhawk."

  "You're useful to us," Jane said. "You have experience that may be useful, both on Coral and for another element of our preparation."

  "What does that mean?" I asked.

  "Major Crick will talk about it tomorrow at the briefing," Jane said. "I'll be there, too. I command a platoon and do intelligence work."

  "Is that the only reason?" I asked. "That I'm useful?"

  "No," Jane said, "but it's the reason that got you onto the ship. Listen, I won't be spending too much time with you. I have too many things to do preparing for our mission. But I want to know about her. About Kathy. Who she was. What she was like. I want you to tell me."

  "I'll tell you about her," I said. "On one condition."

  "What?" Jane asked.

  "You have to tell me about you," I said.

  "Why?"

  "Because for nine years I've been living with the fact my wife is dead, and now you're here and it's messing me up inside," I said. "The more I know about you, the more I can get used to the idea that you're not her."

  "I'm not that interesting," Jane said. "And I'm only six. That's hardly any time to have done anything."

  "I've done more things in the last year than I did in all the years leading up to it," I said. "Trust me. Six years is enough."

  "Sir, want company?" the nice young (probably four-year-old) Special Forces soldier said as he and four of his buddies held their meal trays at attention.

  "The table's empty," I said.

  "Some people prefer to eat alone," the soldier said.

  "I'm not one of them," I said. "Please, sit, all of you."

  "Thank you, sir," the soldier said, putting his tray on the table. "I'm Corporal Sam Mendel. These are Privates George Linnaeus, Will Hegel, Jim Bohr, and Jan Fermi."

  "Lieutenant John Perry," I said.

  "So, what do you think of the Sparrowhawk, sir?" Mendel asked.

  "It's nice and quiet," I said.

  "That it is, sir," Mendel said. "I was just mentioning to Linnaeus that I don't think I've spoken more than ten words in about a month."

  "You've just broken your record, then," I said.

  "Would you mind settling a bet for us, sir?" Mendel said.

  "Does it involve me doing anything strenuous?" I asked.

  "No, sir," Mendel said. "We just want to know how old you are. You see, Hegel here is betting your age is older than twice the combined ages of our entire squad."

  "How old are you all?" I asked.

  "The squad has ten soldiers in it including myself," Mendel said, "and I'm the oldest. I'm five and a half. The rest are between two and five years old. Total age is thirty-seven years and about two months."

  "I'm seventy-six," I said. "So he's right. Although any CDF recruit would have let him win his bet. We don't even enlist until we're seventy-five. And let me just say, there's something profoundly disturbing about being twice as old as your entire squad, combined."

  "Yes, sir," Mendel said. "But on the other hand, we've all been in this life at least twice as long as you. So it comes out about even."

  "I suppose it does at that," I said.

  "It must be interesting, sir," Bohr said, a little down the table. "You had an entire life before this one. What was it like?"

  "What was what like?" I said. "My life, or just having a life before this one?"

  "Either," Bohr said.

  I suddenly realized that none of the five other members of the table had even picked up their forks to eat. The rest of the mess hall, which had been alive with the telegraph-tapping sounds of utensils hitting trays, had also gone largely quiet. I recalled Jane's comment about everyone being interested in me. Apparently, she was right.

  "I liked my life," I said. "I don't know that it was exciting or even interesting to anyone who didn't live it. But for me, it was a good life. As for the idea of having a life before this one, I didn't really think about it at the time. I never really thought about what this life would be like before I was in it."

  "Why did you choose it, then?" Bohr asked. "You had to have some idea of what it was like."

  "No, I didn't," I said. "I don't think any of us did. Most of us had never been in a war or in the military. None of us knew that they would take who we were and put it into a new body that was only partially what we were before."

  "That seems kind of stupid, sir," Bohr said, and I was reminded that being two or whatever age he was, was not conducive to tact. "I don't know why anyone would choose to sign up for something when he really had no idea of what he was getting into."

  "Well," I said, "you've also never been old. An unmodified person at seventy-five is a lot more willing to take a leap of faith than you might be."

  "How different can it be?" Bohr asked.

  "Spoken like a two-year-old who will never age," I said.

  "I'm three," Bohr said, a little defensively.

  I held up my hand. "Look," I said. "Let's turn this around for a minute. I'm seventy-six, and I did make a leap of faith when I joined the CDF. On the other hand, it was my choice. I didn't have to go. If you have a hard time imagining what it must be like for me, think about it on my end." I pointed to Mendel. "When I was five, I hardly knew how to tie my own shoes. If you can't imagine what it's like to be my age and joining up, imagine how hard it is for me to imagine being an adult at five years of age and knowing nothing but war. If nothing else, I have an idea of what life is like outside the CDF. What is it like for you?"

  Mendel looked at his companions, who looked back at him. "It's not anything we usually think about, sir," Mendel said. "We don't know that there's anything unusual about it at first. Everyone we know was 'born' the same way. It's you who are the unusual ones, from our perspective. Having a childhood and living an entire other life before you get into this one. It just seems like an inefficient way to do things."

  "Don't you ever wonder about what it would be like not to be in the Special Forces?" I asked.

  "I can't imagine it," Bohr said, and the others nodded. "We're all soldiers together. It's what we do. It's who we are."

  "That's why we find you so interesting," Mendel said. "This idea that this life would be a choice. The idea that there's another way to live. It's alien."

  "What did you do, sir?" asked Bohr. "In your other life?"

  "I was a writer," I said. They all looked at each other. "What?" I asked.

  "Strange way to live, sir," Mendel said. "To get paid for stringing words together."

  "There were worse jobs," I said.

  "We don't mean to offend you, sir," Bohr said.

  "I'm not offended," I said. "You just have a different perspective on things. But it does make me wonder why you do it."

  "Do what?" Bohr said.

  "Fight," I said. "You know, mo
st people in the CDF are like me. And most people in the colonies are even more different from you than I am. Why would you fight for them? And with us?"

  "We're human, sir," Mendel said. "No less than you are."

  "Given the current state of my DNA, that's not saying much," I said.

  "You know you're human, sir," Mendel said. "And so do we. You and we are closer than you think. We know about how the CDF picks its recruits. You're fighting for colonists you've never met—colonists who were your country's enemy at one point. Why do you fight for them?"

  "Because they're human and because I said I would," I said. "At least, that's why I did at the start. Now I don't fight for the colonists. I mean, I do, but when it comes down to it, I fight—or did fight—for my platoon and my squad. I looked out for them, and they looked out for me. I fought because doing any less would have been letting them down."

  Mendel nodded. "That's why we fight, too, sir," he said. "So that's one thing makes us all human together. That's good to know."

  "It is," I agreed. Mendel grinned and picked up his fork to eat, and as he did, the room came alive with the clattering utensils. I looked up at the noise, and from a far corner saw Jane staring back at me.

  Major Crick got right to the point at the morning briefing. "CDF intelligence believes the Rraey are frauds," he said. "And the first part of our mission is to find out if they're right. We're going to be paying a little visit to the Consu."

  That woke me right up. Apparently I wasn't the only one. "What the hell do the Consu have to do with any of this?" asked Lieutenant Tagore, who sat directly to my left.

  Crick nodded to Jane, who was sitting near him. "At the request of Major Crick and others, I did some research into some of the other CDF encounters with the Rraey to see if there's been any indication of technological evolution," Jane said. "Over the last hundred years, we've had twelve significant military encounters with the Rraey and several dozen smaller engagements, including one major encounter and six smaller engagements over the last five years. During this entire time, the Rraey technological curve has been substantially behind our own. This is due to a number of factors, including their own cultural biases against systematic technological advancement and their lack of positive engagement with more technologically advanced races."

  "In other words, they're backward and bigoted," Major Crick said.

  "In the case of skip drive technology, this is especially the case," Jane said. "Up until the Battle of Coral, Rraey skip technology was far behind ours—in fact, their current understanding of skip physics is directly based on information provided by the CDF a little over a century ago, during an aborted trade mission to the Rraey."

  "Why was it aborted?" asked Captain Jung, from across the table.

  "The Rraey ate about a third of the trade delegates," Jane said.

  "Ouch," said Captain Jung.

  "The point here is that given who the Rraey are and what their level of tech is, it's impossible that they could have gone from being so far behind us to so far ahead of us in one leap," Major Crick said. "The best guess is that they didn't—they simply got the tech for skip drive prediction from some other culture. We know everyone the Rraey know, and there's only one culture that we estimate has the technological ability for something like this."

  "The Consu," said Tagore.

  "The Consu indeed," agreed Crick. "Those bastards have a white dwarf yoked to the wheel. It's not unreasonable to assume they might have skip drive prediction licked as well."

  "But why would they have anything to do with the Rraey?" asked Lieutenant Dalton, down near the end of the table. "The only time they deal with us is when they want a little exercise, and we're far more technologically advanced than the Rraey are."

  "The thinking is that the Consu aren't motivated by technology like we are," Jane said. "Our tech is valueless to them much in the same way the secrets of a steam engine might be valueless to us. We think they're motivated by other factors."

  "Religion," I said. All eyes shifted to me, and I suddenly felt like a choirboy who has just farted during a chapel service. "What I mean is, when my platoon was fighting the Consu, they started with a prayer that consecrated the battle. I said to a friend at the time that I thought the Consu thought they were baptizing the planet with the battle." More stares. "Of course, I could be wrong."

  "You're not wrong," Crick said. "There's been some debate in the CDF about why the Consu fight at all, since it's clear that with their technology they could wipe out every other space-faring culture in the region without much of a second thought. The prevailing thought is that they do it for entertainment, like we play baseball or football."

  "We never play football or baseball," said Tagore.

  "Other humans do, jackass," Crick said with a grin, then sobered up again. "However, a significant minority of CDF's intelligence division believes that their battles have ritual significance, just as Lieutenant Perry has suggested. The Rraey may not be able to trade tech with the Consu on an equal basis, but they might have something else the Consu want. They might be able to give them their souls."

  "But the Rraey are zealots themselves," Dalton said. "That's why they attacked Coral in the first place."

  "They have several colonies, some less desirable than others," Jane said. "Zealots or not, they might see trading one of their less successful colonies for Coral as a good trade."

  "Not so good for the Rraey on the traded colony," Dalton said.

  "Really, ask me if I care about them," Crick said.

  "The Consu have given the Rraey technology that puts them far ahead of the rest of the cultures in this part of space," Jung said. "Even for the mighty Consu, tipping the balance of power in the region has to have repercussions."

  "Unless the Consu shortchanged the Rraey," I said.

  "What do you mean?" Jung said.

  "We're assuming that the Consu gave the Rraey the technological expertise to create the skip drive detection system," I said. "But it's possible that they simply gave a single machine to the Rraey, with an owner's manual or something like that so they could operate it. That way, the Rraey get what they want, which is a way to defend Coral from us, while the Consu avoid substantially disrupting the balance of power in the area."

  "Until the Rraey figure out how the damn thing works," Jung said.

  "Given their native state of technology, that could take years," I said. "Enough time for us to kick their ass and take that technology away from them. If the Consu did actually give them the technology. If the Consu only gave them a single machine. If the Consu actually give a shit about the balance of power in the region. A lot of 'ifs.'"

  "And it is to find out the answer to those 'ifs' that we're going to drop in on the Consu," Crick said. "We've already sent a skip drone to let them know we're coming. We'll see what we can get out of them."

  "What colony are we going to offer them?" Dalton asked. It was difficult to tell if he was joking.

  "No colonies," Crick said. "But we have something that might induce them to give us an audience."

  "What do we have?" Dalton asked.

  "We have him," Crick said, and pointed at me.

  "Him?" Dalton said.

  "Me?" I said.

  "You," Jane said.

  "I'm suddenly confused and terrified," I said.

  "Your two-shot firing solution allowed CDF forces to rapidly kill thousands of Consu," Jane said. "In the past, the Consu have been receptive to embassies from the colonies when they have included a CDF soldier who has killed a large number of Consu in battle. Since it was your firing solution specifically that allowed the quick end of those Consu fighters, their deaths accrue to you."

  "You've got the blood of 8,433 Consu on your hands," Crick said.

  "Great," I said.

  "It is great," Crick said. "Your presence is going to get us in the door."

  "What's going to happen to me after we get through the door?" I asked. "Imagine what we would do to a Consu who'd ki
lled eight thousand of us."

  "They don't think the same way we do about that," Jane said. "You should be safe."

  "Should be," I said.

  "The alternative is being blasted out of the sky when we show up in Consu space," Crick said.

  "I understand," I said. "I just wish I'd been given a little more lead time to get used to the idea."

  "It was a rapidly evolving situation," Jane said nonchalantly. And suddenly I got a BrainPal message. Trust me—it said. I looked back at Jane, who was looking placidly at me. I nodded, acknowledging one message while appearing to acknowledge the other.

  "What do we do after they're done admiring Lieutenant Perry?" asked Tagore.

  "If everything goes according to past encounters, we'll have the opportunity to ask up to five questions of the Consu," Jane said. "The actual number of questions will be determined by a contest involving combat between five of us and five of them. The combat is one on one. The Consu fight unarmed, but our fighters will be allowed knives to compensate for our lack of slashing arms. The one thing to be especially aware of is that in previous cases where we've had this ritual, the Consu we've fought were disgraced soldiers or criminals for whom this battle can restore honor. So needless to say, they're very determined. We get to ask as many questions as the number of contests we win."

  "How do you win the contest?" Tagore asked.

  "You kill the Consu, or it kills you," Jane said.

  "Fascinating," Tagore said.

  "One other detail," Jane said. "The Consu pick the combatants from those we bring with us, so protocol requires at least three times the number of selectable combatants. The only exempted member of the delegation is its leader, who is, by courtesy, the one human assumed to be above fighting with Consu criminals and failures."

  "Perry, you get to be leader of the delegation," Crick said. "Since you're the one who killed eight thousand of the buggers, by their lights you'd be the natural leader. Also, you're the sole non-Special Forces soldier here, and you lack certain speed and strength modifications the rest of us have. If you were to get picked, you might actually get killed."

  "I'm touched you care," I said.

  "It's not that," Crick said. "If our star attraction was killed by a lowly criminal, it could jeopardize the chances of getting the Consu to cooperate."