The Return of the Grey

by Robert Lee Henry

  The vest. The malfunction would have killed a normal person. Her resistance was hereditary, not unlike Colda’s ‘immunities’. Her survival identified her. Celene appreciated the subtlety and ruthlessness of the test. Her capture or demise would have been accomplished with comparable finesse. It looks as though I have the Box to thank for my life. It was a strange thought.

  Celene roused herself. There is work to do. I must find Nata and get that list. Aesca and Quartermaine will have to see it. Those people most at risk will be on it, not only the Blue cadremen caught up in the House schemes, but other personnel that had attempted the Box more than once. One prominent one came to mind.

  ‘Squad leader. Can you find three marines to accompany me until I find Nata? They must be as capable as yourself yet able to leave Med.’

  Rom, it appeared, was one. She waited with him by the door until two others arrived. ‘What do we do now, M’am?’ he asked.

  ‘Now we just keep everyone alive, ourselves included,’ she answered.

  CHAPTER 53: EXPLANATIONS AND PLANS

  Quartermaine strode up the corridor into Aesca’s barrage.

  ‘We should be operating on La Mar right now,’ said Aesca

  ‘No.’

  ‘Every second counts. She has terrible injuries,’ insisted the medic.

  ‘You told me she was stable.’

  ‘Life support carries her functions. If we are to return her to her own, we must start now.’

  ‘No. We will talk before she goes under your knife.’

  ‘You dare to accuse her!’

  A major incident. A firefight on an observation assignment. Planetary residents killed, including non-combatants. A member of the Guard left behind. A mess. But not La Mar’s. His. ‘Don’t tell me my business, Doctor.’

  ‘You won’t let me do mine. Here in my own wards!’

  Their anger was clearing the corridor. He saw Celene waiting at the corner. A group of marines was melting away from her. Some he recognised. ‘Seca,’ he called. The squad leader halted and turned. The other marines formed up around her. ‘Back on your feet. Are you fit?’

  ‘Yes, Commander.’

  ‘Good. Gather all the marines that are ready for line duty. You leave for the Rim in a week.’ He noted the excited smiles on the faces around her. ‘Battle ready, nothing less. You are going back to help not hinder. I leave it to you, Seca. Work with the Med staff. Aesca will be too busy with La Mar to do the vetting.’ The smiles broadened. ‘I will run them myself, in three days time, on the plain,’ he added. ‘If I find any that aren’t up to it, they will stay behind, and you with them. Got that, Squad leader?’ That should take some pressure off her. Otherwise most of the marines in Med would scheme to go.

  ‘Kill them all, go ahead,’ he heard Aesca mutter.

  He clamped his jaw to stop a retort. He knew what he was sending them into. The Specialist fell in beside them as they turned the corner. Another crowd, this time Amazons, waited outside of La Mar’s room. Aesca must be slipping, to let people gather like this in her wards.

  ‘Who is in command here?’ he demanded of the milling women. Bethane stepped forward. He didn’t give her a chance to speak. ‘Clear the ward. Send your people to the hangars, to see to their craft. You will need them soon.’ He pointed at her. ‘You stay.’

  The Amazons moved off at her nod, one slipping past Quartermaine like a shadow, almost against his chest. ‘Who was that?’ he asked.

  ‘Sian.’

  She moves like Trahern. Good. We will need a few deadly ones in the coming days. His anger was almost gone. The last of it left when he saw La Mar. She has been hurt bad. ‘How are you Commander?’ he asked.

  ‘If the machines are working, I am fine,’ she answered.

  Oh, she is a tough one. I hope she lives, more, I hope she gets it all back. She is the one to follow me. That surety cheered him despite the circumstances.

  Aesca moved past him to check the monitors. Time to get going, thought Quartermaine. Aesca will only hold so long. The Grey was in the room, on the far side of the bed. Only Nata to come.

  ‘La Mar. I’ve asked Med to hold off, so we can talk. You need to know what I have planned.’ Nata appeared in the doorway with the Scholar. Quartermaine motioned them in. ‘Bethane too,’ he said. Celene moved around him to join the Grey on the far side of the bed, making room for the others. Once inside, the Scholar bowed to La Mar on the bed. She, in turn, lifted an eyebrow in a wry glance to Bethane. Aesca slammed some equipment into a cabinet below the monitors.

  ‘I’ve called you all here to hear this. There are orders in it for everyone.’ He checked the faces in the room. ‘The Amazons and the Greys go to the Rim. In seven days. To relieve the Rangers. Trahern will command.’

  The Rangers were down to half strength, an easy way of saying that half had died or gone missing, and they were losing more each day. Soon they would be finished. An old cadre, over a thousand years of history, gone. I will not have that.

  ‘The Rangers have found some sky. They have made a difference.’ He looked to La Mar. ‘Your people are the best to continue that. That is where they must go. Rhone has to wait. We will make no move to retrieve her by force.’ The Amazons won’t like that. Tough. If I’m going to spend their lives, it will be where it matters. He went on. ‘We negotiate. The Planetary Council has called for a meeting in the Arborne Sector.’

  ‘That is more than a week distant,’ said La Mar with alarm.

  ‘They will drag this out on purpose,’ said Celene.

  La Mar shook her head. Trahern and Aesca both reached a hand to her shoulders.

  ‘No planets. Insist on a station. Bring some help with you,’ said Trahern.

  ‘I’m not going,’ said Quartermaine.

  That quieted the room. This is what I had to explain to La Mar. Before she went under. Before she died maybe. He looked into her eyes. There was more pain showing than anger. ‘This is part of the trap that caught you. The aim is to remove me from Base. Why? I don’t know … yet. Maybe by sending PlanCon into the Gap, I’ve bought some time, upset their plans. I don’t know. But I don’t plan to play along. I will be here when they make their move.’ He turned to Celene. ‘The Specialist will go in my stead. She has the seniority to be an acceptable envoy and the presence to carry it off.’

  ‘I have work to do here,’ Celene objected.

  ‘Leave it to your people,’ he ordered.

  ‘I carry risks of my own,’ she said.

  ‘I read those as mainly personal. Between you and Colda. A local matter. Your position is not great enough to trouble the Houses. You will be safer away. Unless there are aspects that I am unaware of.’ He waited for her reply. There was more to that business with Lammas. Something she wasn’t telling him. Maybe he could force it out of her now.

  She kept silent.

  ‘Nata will go with you as your bodyguard. That should be enough to deter attack. You will also have Security and flight teams as back-up.’

  ‘Not Security,’ said La Mar. ‘Marines.’

  Quartermaine shook his head. ‘All the fit marines will be going to the Rim.’

  La Mar brought her hand up to touch Aesca’s fingers on her shoulder. ‘There are some marines that you will never release to the Rim. Aren’t there?’

  The doctor stared down at her for some time then nodded sharply.

  ‘As long as they can stomp down a corridor and blow bulkheads, they will do,’ continued La Mar. ‘They are marines after all. The more torn up they are, the better.’ She addressed the room. ‘I will pick them myself, in three days time, when I have recovered.’

  Near dead, yet she commands us all. She will make a fine Base Commander, thought Quartermaine. How good, she showed with her next words.

  ‘A delay but not significant. They will not give us back Rhone, regardless of how much we hurry or what we promise.’ She met his eye. ‘That is what you have been trying to tell me. Isn’t it, Commander? She will not be released until their sch
emes have played out, if then. When we can, we will retrieve her. We are not going to be heading in when we should be heading out. Are we, Commander? What word on the Ships?’

  ‘PlanCon has already encountered them,’ Quartermaine answered. ‘Small numbers, but deep into this side of the Quadrant.’

  Quartermaine met Trahern’s concerned gaze. Yes, I know. ‘We better sort out the Rim quickly. If this is anything like the last time, the Ships will be making their move soon. A few months maybe.’ He didn’t want to dwell on that.

  ‘That reminds me. I’m sending new teams from Supply and Services with you to the Rim to relieve those that are there. Tollen has kept them alive so far. I want them back. And the Scholar will be accompanying you also.’ That had been a surprise. Quartermaine turned to the tall man. ‘Scholar Elsewise, I would appreciate it if you liaised with Commander Trahern on this mission.’ An Inner Belt request was meant to have precedence at all times but the Grey would see that the Scholar did not hinder operations.

  ‘That reminds me,’ came another voice. ‘If you are done, get out.’

  Aesca was at her limit. Nata was the first out the door, achieved without turning his back to her even though he had the full width of the room between them. I better not offer her mine either, thought Quartermaine. Not in the mood she is in. He waited until Aesca was on the far side of the bed then approached La Mar. He leaned over and said, ‘Good luck, La Mar.’

  It was the wrong thing to say. Aesca straightened and started to come around. Time to go. He had only made a step when he felt a sharp pain in his right buttock. He jumped. Oh no! She wouldn’t dare. He turned to find Aesca standing on the far side of the bed, smiling down on La Mar.

  ‘Just checking your reactions,’ said the prone woman.

  CHAPTER 54: SELECTION

  ‘Wind me up,’ La Mar directed. ‘You don’t expect me to talk to these men on my back, do you?’

  ‘No one knows what to expect from you. Not since you pinched the Commander,’ said Bethane bending to the bed controls.

  ‘Awh, I just didn’t want him to become too serious,’ said La Mar. ‘The whole weight of Base on his shoulders. You know how they get.’ She cast a quick glance up to Gati by the door. He winked back. ‘Maybe you don’t,’ she said, more to herself than Bethane. ‘Gati, do you ever worry about anything?’ she called out.

  The handsome man tapped his chest solemnly, over his heart then swung the same hand to point to Bethane’s back. The object of his attention straightened and turned suspiciously into the silence. ‘No. I lost my beads a long time ago,’ he said.

  ‘Well, you better not hang around here,’ said La Mar. ‘Aesca is not in a good mood. You’ll lose more than beads if she catches you.’

  Anger seemed to be the doctor’s steady state but La Mar had added to it by demanding a full wardroom and having it cleared of all the beds but hers. She needed room for this. She wanted all the marines in together so she could judge fairly and fit them into teams.

  ‘I have reason to be here,’ said Gati. ‘That makes me as safe as you. Safer because I can run.’ He turned to lean against the doorframe. ‘The marines here in Med have asked me to help. Because I know the Amazons so well.’

  ‘Just because you know every centimetre of one, doesn’t mean you know us all,’ said La Mar. This was beginning to be fun. She was going to live. She knew it.

  There were more operations to come, but she would get back on her feet. So far the Med team had only worked on her major organs. ‘So that you can meet your schedule,’ had said Aesca. ‘Deadlines are now more important than dead tissue, it seems.’

  Good thing her instruments are made of steel, the way she throws them around.

  La Mar worried about the doctor. Her fight was against injury and disease. The trouble was that here on Base it came often. With the Rim active, maybe too often. One day it would wear her down. Until then she would be angry, at war with the world. It reminded La Mar of Rhone. ‘Do you know that most of the non-anglo speakers, even some in our own cadre, think that my full name is ‘Shit La Mar’ because of her.’

  ‘Gati. Go gather the marines,’ said Bethane softly.

  When he was gone, Bethane turned to her. ‘We will find her. When the Rim is finished. Gati will come too, if I ask him, and with him Trahern. Nothing will stop us. We will find Rhone and bring her back.’

  ‘No you won’t,’ La Mar commanded. ‘The Amazons that survive the Rim come back here and get ready. Our next fight is with the Ships. Rhone has to stay alive on her own. That’s her fight. If we all win, maybe we get back together.’ Movement at the door halted their conversation. ‘Let’s just see if we can keep from losing another woman. Okay, Gati. Send them in,’ she called.

  The marines filed in, some almost marching to prove their fitness, others held steady by the surreptitious support of their neighbours, a few hopefuls in chairs. Stars, the Rim has hit them hard. Eyes, ears, parts of faces, fingers, missing. And plenty of scarring that she could see outside the cover of the uniforms. One without an arm, she thought, trying to hide in a group at the back.

  ‘One thing we have to get straight before we start. I am in charge. By Commander Quartermaine’s order. We don’t have time to check with your command on the Rim. Anyone that has trouble with that, leave now.’ She gave them a full minute but no one moved. ‘This is your last chance for the door, people. This is not volunteer duty. You don’t get to decide once you have heard the details. If I pick you, you go.’ Again she waited. No one left.

  There were more than she expected. Brought by their pride and comradeship. Not only Aesca’s selection but others that had been rejected by Seca. She wasn’t any kinder than the squad leader. Those that weren’t healed were sent away. If they couldn’t carry their own weight, they were dismissed. La Mar steeled herself against the looks of disappointment. After two passes, she had fifteen men. Bethane made her rest at that point. Gati moved in amongst the marines and got them talking, asking about the Rim. When they resumed, it was with better cheer. Most of them, she knew, had expected to be eliminated early.

  ‘How good is your remaining eye?’ she asked a marine with half his face missing.

  ‘It’s fine, Commander. I used to be twenty-twenty so maybe I am only ten now, but it is good.’

  ‘Is there someone here that can cover your right side?’

  ‘Yeh. Parol and I are squadies.’ One of the men behind nodded energetically.

  ‘Okay. If he has two eyes, you are in. You have the look I want, marine.’

  His lips pulled up in a lop-sided grin. After that, it went quickly and well. No one tried to hide an injury and luckily none of these precluded the roles she had in mind. She left the one-armed man for last. ‘Marine. You are a special case.’

  He tilted his head and jutted out his chin. ‘I can have an arm by tomorrow. The one they are making one for me isn’t ready, but I can get another one.’

  It takes time to be fitted and trained in its use. No, you won’t make our deadline as a two-armed soldier. She could tell from his eyes that he knew that too.

  ‘I want you as you are. I want to put a mag cannon on in place of that arm. Built in a suit, locked across your chest.’ All the marines stiffened. ‘And there, you see, is the difference. We don’t have a good record for cannons on suits. Everyone that has tried it has died. So, you, I am asking. For this you have to volunteer.’

  His jaw came in as his head tipped down. She saw it tremble as he unlocked it. Relief not fear, she knew. Then his head lifted and his eyes came back to hers.

  ‘Sure, Commander.’

  La Mar felt a pang of guilt. She had known that he would agree. ‘That should give you all an idea of what this is about,’ she said to the lot of them. ‘Specialist Celene will be travelling to the Arborne Sector to negotiate for the return of my Rhone. I’m sure you have all heard this. You will accompany her.’ Shoulders went back and chests came out. ‘Not as bodyguards. Get that idea out of your ugly heads. Nata is goi
ng to take care of that. Your job is to blast them free if the need arises. Simple as that. We will not have another one of ours taken hostage.’ She couldn’t stop herself from glaring. ‘If there is an attempt to seize or constrain them, you fire up and blast the way back to our craft. Straight through the walls, if need be. Blast and board, you know the drill.’ She calmed herself. ‘That is why I want the cannon.’ She focused on her one-armed man. ‘What is your name, marine?’

  ‘Joe Pack, Commander’

  ‘Well, Joe Pack. Go to the armoury straight away. Tell Lammas what we want and get cracking on it. We don’t have much time.’

  ‘Sorry Commander,’ broke in the one-eyed man. ‘Lammas ain’t there anymore. He’s up here. Sick.’

  ‘Who has the armoury then?’ she asked. Quartermaine wouldn’t leave it unmanned.

  ‘Old Thomas, from Services. You know, Thomas ...’ He moved his hand parallel to the scarred side of his face and down.

  ‘Burnt Thomas?’

  Almost all of the marines nodded along with him.

  ‘That’s great! No one knows more about blasting and boarding than Burnt Thomas. He will know what I want.’ She thought for a second. ‘All of you go down. Don’t get in the way and don’t irritate him but get his advice. Three teams of five, tell him.’ The room swung and she blinked at multiple images of the marines. Hands on her shoulders forced her back. She looked up into Bethane’s stern eyes.

  ‘Aesca warned me,’ her scarred friend said.

  ‘Bring one-eye over, please. To finish.’

  La Mar opened her eyes at a tap on her shoulder. Close up, his scars were horrific. His one eye peered down at her across the ruin of his face. She was surprised that she could read his concern so clearly. ‘You lead them, understand. This is your squad now. Take your orders from Nata. Bring them all back.’

  ‘I will, M’am. You just look after yourself. Get well. We’ll be back before you know it.’

  CHAPTER 55: DIRECTIONS