Burning Eagle

by Navin Weeraratne

  Cullins stared out across the shipyard.

  “I guess at the end of the day, my old life really did matter to me. I need to do this, Jack. If you were in my shoes, I think you it would feel the same.”

  “No, I wouldn’t. Saying this is about closure, is just another way of saying it’s about ego. I wouldn’t let ego get me into trouble like this.”

  “We’re more alike than you realize.”

  “We’re less alike than this.”

  “Look, I really have to go see a man about a war now.”

  “Alright. I’ll be good till you get back.”

  “That a promise? I thought we hadn’t discussed metrics.”

  “Don’t worry Gerard. I’ll have plenty to hold you to.”

  D-11

  Earlier, U.E.F. Dreadnought “Victorious,” on final approach to Pardiso

  “To D-Day!”

  “To D-Day!” Glasses clinked.

  The Victorious’ observation deck was a diamond-paned dome, large as the Hagia Sophia. It seemed incongruent in a fleet of lethal nanodusts, truck-sized cruisers, and collapsible shipyards. However, its form too followed its function. Nanodusts needed to perforate seals and lungs. The observation deck needed to host treaty-signings and cocktail parties.

  Admiral Marie Metzger looked about her and sipped her champagne.

  “I’ve never seen this many officers together.”

  “I have,” said the dark man standing beside her. “Delhi, two years ago. The Defence Minister's daughter was marrying a Bollywood star, turned politician. You know the type. One Kashmiri nano-tablet dropped into a drink, and the whole military would have been down to scout leaders. But, this is a close second.”

  “I had no idea the UEF was so diverse. Those guys in the blue jackets? They're Macedonians. Forget ships; since when did the Macedonians have a country?”

  “That's what happens when Earth gets involved,” he picked a hors d'oeuvre from a passing waiter. “We are a zoo. A giant zoo full of quaint, deadly animals.”

  “Admiral Rao, are you telling me you're quaint?”

  “Absolutely. Indians emigrate to spread India, not to leave it. Digital clade databanks buried deep in ice moons, with Little India inflataspheres in orbit, selling them tech support. It doesn't get more quaint than that.”

  “Tennyson was a hedron point; a knife aimed right at Earth's heart. But Paradiso? It's off-grid, second wave, colonial. Not your problem.”

  “Honestly?” the Indian raised an eyebrow. “I wouldn't have expected this much support from Earth, either. But Sun Tzu has been campaigning hard for this war. There isn't a government in the Union he hasn't approached.”

  “Or outside it,” she nodded, “At least those that will accept our ambassadors.”

  “Indeed, Admiral. I'm here because most of my countrymen now truly believe that this is Humanity's war. A war that we cannot stay out of, for both moral and realpolitik reasons. If India didn't join, Indians still would.”

  “Well I think I can speak for all colonials when I say it's nice we're not going this alone,” she raised her glass. They toasted; the old world standing by the new.

  “I say,” Rao's eyes flamed, his neck craned forward. “Is that that who I think it is?”

  She followed his finger. Where it stopped, her smile faded.

  “That's Captain Cullins!”

  “Yes. It is. He's a Commodore now.”

  “And to think, he came back after how he was treated. Now there's a true gentleman! I'm surprised he's drinking alone. Shall we go talk to him?”

  “You go on ahead. I'll talk to him, but on my own.”

  Rao looked at her quizically.

  “Cullins and I go back a while.”

  “Oh! History?”

  “No, not that kind. Worse.”

  “You can't just say that, and expect me to leave it.”

  “I'm also qualified as a military attorney. I used to practice.”

  “You were his defense?”

  “His prosecutor.”

  The evening deepened, and D-10 approached. The workaholics and early-risers had already left. So too, those realizing how young and attractive they were to each other. The old boys pulled up chairs into corrals of class and privilege. They drank into the night, swapping academy tales and gossiping. Lone warriors sat quietly at empty tables. They stared at their own reflections and asked them unfair questions.

  A shadow fell on one warrior, he looked up.

  “Hello, Commodore.”

  Cullins blinked. Then smiled, slowly.

  “Aquino.”

  “It's Metzger, now.”

  “It's also Admiral now. Well, good for you. I really mean that. Please,” he gestured. “Sit with me.”

  She sat. The table was at the very edge of the dining area. Except where Cullins was, the napkins, plates, and silverware hadn't been touched.

  “You ate alone?”

  “I got here late,” he lied.

  “That's a shame. I'm sure many people wanted to talk to you.”

  “I guess.”

  “Did Lokesh Rao come up to you? Indian Space Navy. He's a big fan of yours.”

  He smiled and sipped his wine.

  “Yeah, he did. Sonofabitch offered me a job when all this is over.”

  “Really?”

  “Sorry, I've drunk too much. Admiral Sonofabitch.”

  She laughed.

  “Was it not a great offer?”

  “Teaching in some war college. I told him I prefer to school the Coast Guard from the other end of the scanner sweep. You should have seen his face. I'm done with government jobs.”

  He finished his glass and starting pouring himself another. He tipped the bottle to her, but she shook her head.

  “Just this job, and then I'm out.”

  “I'm glad you came back.”

  “I'm sure you are.”

  “No really, I am. And I hope you reconsider leaving, after the war. The Union Navy is where you belong.”

  “You didn't think so, once.”

  “Well, I was wrong. I'm not too proud to come and face you, and say that.”

  “No,” he leaned back and studied her, cradling his glass. “I suppose you're not.”

  “I know nothing can change what's happened. I know nothing can make amends for what you lost. For what little it's worth – and I know it's a little – I'm sorry. For what happened, and for my part in making it happen.”

  “You're sorry,” he smiled and nodded. “Well, I guess that changes everything. Did that work? Do you feel better now? Did it absolve you? Admiral?”

  He rocked forward, smashing his fist down on the table. Other people stopped and stared.

  “How dare that sonofabitch talk down to me! Admiral? Admiral? Indian Space Navy? Who the fuck are they? I could run his fucking navy! Admiral. You know what rank I would have been right now? Huh? You know what my rank would be, if it wasn't for you?”

  “Gerard, I - “

  “The Navy was my life,” he stood up. “These were my friends,” he jabbed his finger at a table of starers. “This was my family. It was all I ever wanted, to join the Union Navy. No nationality-driven bullshit like all these Earth assholes! One fleet, for all humankind - ” he took in the stars with his arm. He turned and looked at her sharply.

  “And what happened, Admiral? What happened when I was there, right where I needed to be? What happened when my crew and I did our jobs? When I bought you years of lead time to save millions of people? What happened to them? What happened?”

  He finished his wine and began pouring another.

  “But hey, it's okay. Because you're sorry. And that means I have to smile now, and get over it.”

  “No, it doesn't. But you didn't have to come back if you didn't want to, Gerard.”

  “Ten years back pay. Ten years.”

  “You could have got more money when you sued. You chose not to.”

  “It was a time of war. I was advised not to be too greedy
.”

  “So you what? Started schooling coast guards?”

  “Like I said, it was ten years back pay. That's a lot of money for me. There have been times I've had barely more than the change in my pocket, and the fumes in my fuel tanks. I won't say no if someone offers me easy money. Saying no to money is stupid.”

  “You just did. to the Indian Navy.”

  He said nothing, and drank from his glass.

  “You should probably stop drinking.”

  “I'll stop drinking when I damn well feel like it. Unless, you plan to prosecute me for insubordination. I guess in that case, I'll just keep drinking anyway. As long as my combat skills are sharper than your legal skills, Sun Tzu might throw me a bone. Though, historically, he won't.”

  He sat back down, hunched in his seat. He stared at his reflection in a fork.

  “I loved deep space patrol. So many others hated it, the months in space, the cramped conditions, but me I loved every moment of it. Chasing down smugglers when they were just blips and radar echoes. Doing recon flybys of hider settlements. Sometimes we'd get to respond to a distress call. Have you ever stepped through a hatch and seen the faces of a crew who thought they were all going to die?”

  “Yes,” she nodded, “I have. The Kinshasa. It was a colony ship that lost its reactor in a freak meteorite strike.”

  “How many souls?”

  “Three hundred.”

  “You saved them all?”

  “Every last one.”

  He smiled.

  “So is that why you came back?” she asked gently.

  “To save lives?”

  “Because you miss it. The life you had. The family you had. Because you miss the Navy.”

  His face hardened again.

  “No. I came back, because I hate the Navy. I gave you people everything, and you betrayed me. I'm here, because I want all of you to see me. I want you see me and think, 'we were wrong, Millions are dead, and it's because we betrayed him,'” he leaned towards her. She could smell the alcohol in his breath. “All I've wanted to do since that day, is punish you. Through all these years, that never went away. I carried it, right here,” he stabbed at his chest. “And now – I'm going to do something about it, Marie. Now, I'm punishing you. For as long as I'm going to live, that's all I want to do.”

  He picked up the bottle, but it was empty. He hurled across the deck and it smashed.

  “To fucking D-Day,” he called over his shoulder, and staggered away.

  Jahandar II

  “So that’s what an occupied Transcendent looks like.”

  Crouched at the edge of the cliff, Saleh Al-Masri (Zulu Three), lowered his binoculars. He wasn’t a sniper, he couldn’t zoom his eyes that far. “It’s pretty big.”

  “It was bigger, this was Saraswati’s main campus,” I circled structures in the air with my finger. On our augmented reality view, blue circles formed around them. “Those ruined statues beyond the outskirts - too big to clear away. They marked the end of the Transcendent grounds, proper. Beyond were several colleges.”

  “My notes have those down as cooling towers, not statues.”

  “They are cooling towers. Saraswati was basically the Hindu goddess of design. Transcendents decide their names based on their inclinations.”

  “They’ve built a settlement on a Transcendent campus,” he scratched his throat under his shemagh. “It’s right on top of the core.”

  “Makes sense,” said Khalid Nasser (Zulu Four), walking up alongside us. He bit noisily into an MRE. ‘Three Cheese Pizza’ would easily have outlived us all. “Planning a Transcendent is not too different from planning a town. They need space. Energy. Communications, both internal and external.”

  “This is an equatorial desert,” I replied. “How was this a good place?”

  “Most of this planet has become desert. This desert though has roads; solar power farms; and the most powerful computer on the planet. They may have leveled her conservatory, but even aliens would have kept the rest.”

  “Careful what you assume about aliens,” said a voice behind us.

  A person standing in the same khaki fatigues as ours. Her carbon body armor was already buckled on. A poncho over her shoulder, inverted, the circuitry showing. Her PDW hung across her chest. “ZULU ONE” was printed on the breast pocket.

  “That’s what got us into this mess in the first place. I just got a tight-beam from the Washington. They approved our request to get in close.”

  “How close?” I asked.

  “As close as good cover will permit,” Koirala replied. “We’ll drive down the long way, using the hills for cover. Come nightfall, we’ll infiltrate the campus proper.”

  “You mean prison camp,” said the chewing Khalid.

  “Whatever it is. Orbital Support doesn’t want to touch it till we can tell them what they’re staring at. Especially if it’s a prison camp, they need to tell a bunkhouse from a barracks.”

  Behind her in the sky, a pair of contrails formed. In a life that no longer had meaning I knew that would have made a good photo, and I pointed. Koirala turned, looked, and shook her head.

  “It’s probably one of ours. Nothing Calamari is going to stay up for very long.”

  “Doesn’t need very long to spot us,” I said.

  She shrugged.

  “We’ve got a lot of unknowns to worry about. Let’s not add more to the list unless we have good reason to. Right now, we have a camp to recce.”

  Twenty minutes later, we broke camp and drove out.

  We had dropped early last evening, just outside our Area of Operations (AO). Covering us was a joint barrage by the Washington and Cheng Ho. Megawatts upon pin-point megawatts rained down. Staring wolves left long shadows, and thorn bushes bloomed, their flowers tricked. The heat created sandstorms, which was better than we had hoped for. Our traces blurred under the hot winds of an atomized army.

  Gone were my marine days – I was Tier One now: Union Special Forces. Most were from Earth, loaned veterans of that planet’s never-ending conflicts. It was curious, watching traditional rivals planning ops together. They smiled and told me they were simply being professional. Earth is complicated.

  Special Forces assault elements had been on Paradiso for two days now. Our team was the very tail end of this “pre-invasion”. Mostly they were from Task Force Recon. Those guys are just what it says on the tin. They were out gathering intel and confirming targets, just like we were. This was all-important work. Thus far, everything we knew of Paradiso, was observed from space. We needed eyes on the ground to tell barracks from labor camps.

  The others would be coming down tonight, D-Day. Taskforce Pararescue would be picking up downed pilots and crews. This work is unavoidable in any conflict, no matter how well planned. More likely though they’d help anyone on the ground who needed it. Twenty klicks away, no doubt eating “Three Cheese Pizza,” were two Pararescue teams on Crossbow transports. One ‘squawk’ and they’d pull us out of the fire.

  Task Force Support would be the busiest. The Droptrooper Rangers would be seizing command centers and spaceports. They would be hurled in by the company, and take casualties to match. Some elements though would just be assisting other operators. Support made our lives easier. Want to raid a single building? Talk to Support. They’ll secure the whole street, so you can work without outside interference.

  Then there was Task Force Direct. They’re what people think of when they hear the term “Special Forces.” Direct Action did the fun, sexy, newsworthy operations. Counter-terror. Hostage rescue. High Value Targets. We were from Task Force Direct, although we’d been permanently attached to the Washington. Who knows what Direct would be doing tonight? Probably shooting alien governors in their perhaps-heads.

  Only Task Force Friendly had fuck all to do. They were already the butt end, mostly I think because of their name. Friendly was to work with local resistance elements: arming, training, and then leading them. If we hadn’t a giant navy, this woul
d have been their war. They’d spend three months working with locals, teaching them insurgency. Then they would lead them in battle. The Calamari would learn too late that they were fighting what was effectively a Union infantry army.

  I honestly don’t know why we brought Task Force Friendly. From my chats with some Green Berets, they wondered the same. Some had asked if they could come along with us – out of boredom – but this was just recon mission. We didn’t need the muscle.

  The smart buggy bumped its way over the rough going. An ammo box clattered till I stopped it with my boot. Gripping the roll bar beside me, Khalid scanned the desert. Fifty meters to our left, was the second buggy. Radar and IR pods were slap-glued around the chassis. Paired chaff launchers were mounted front and back. It too mounted a heavy machine gun. Flying above and well hidden were two fire support drones. They were equipped with nano-launchers and anti-armor micro-missiles.

  Our job was recon, but it didn’t hurt to bring some assets with us. An invasion was always going to be a chaotic environment. If we wanted to be sure of support, we’d have to take it with us. Battlefield Control denied us prebuilds, but permitted us the ammo and other hard-to-prints. When we landed the drop pod melted and reassembled into the vehicles. Within hours we were on our way.

  Khalid leaned and spat over the side. “Hard to believe they named this shithole, Paradise.”

  “Iraq and Israel used to be the Fertile Cresent,” I replied.

  “Yeah, but thousands of years of human pressure didn’t do this. What did the Calamari do with the place? I figured they would have added water, not gotten rid of it.”

  “There’s no evidence that they like water. If anything, their form is zero-G adapted. The similarities could just be a coincidence.”

  “But they must have evolved in water. Unless they’re so old, their form has changed to move better through fluids.”

  “Well, maybe we’ll get some answers to that this time around.”

  He said nothing for a while.