by Eric Thomson
When Talyn saw Decker nod with enthusiasm, she groaned.
“This is a conspiracy. I don’t know how you two cooked it up, but I surrender.” She gave her partner an evil glare that promised retribution. “By all means, let’s take a detour twenty kilometers above the surface before we conduct our real business here. But someone will owe me.”
“I’ll pay whatever I have to,” Decker replied. “Seeing your cheerful face on the shuttle will keep me in smiles for a long while.”
“You want to spend time in the simulator first?” Bayliss asked.
Decker nodded.
“We’d better. If you can slip us in tomorrow morning and reserve a shuttle for the afternoon that would be excellent.”
“Done. I’ll even be your jumpmaster. It’s been a while since I had a little fun without worrying about knobs thundering in because they couldn’t find the spare’s release. Will you do your manners with the CO?”
“Of course. Is he in?”
Bayliss shook his head.
“Not right now. He’s out in the field observing the command Pathfinder course finals. A good crop this time around. There’s even a couple from our old outfit. Come by after breakfast tomorrow. I’m sure he’ll be glad to buy you a coffee and chew the fat. You too, Commander. Where are you bunking, by the way?”
“In your lines, where else? The 1st doesn’t have transient officers’ quarters.”
“Which would explain why you’re parked here. Let’s go sign you in and drop off your bags. It’s almost chow time.”
They climbed the short flight of stairs and entered.
“Now what’s this about not so ancient history involving C Squadron in Ariane Redmon’s day? Last I heard, she’s been sent to the place you never leave thanks to bogus charges and an even more bogus court-martial.” Bayliss’ tone dripped with disgust. “Or is this one of those times when I’m not supposed to ask?”
“We came across her file in an unrelated matter, and my bullshit detectors went to full alert, Josh. I want to talk with the troopers involved in the alleged incident, and more importantly with those who testified at the court-martial or made a written deposition. Of course, I can’t force any of them to speak with me and break the non-disclosure strictures.”
“Oh, they’ll talk to you.” Bayliss led them to the transients’ wing of the HQ complex, their heels loud on the corridor’s polished stone floor. “You weren’t around back then, but there’s still a lot of anger with what happened to Redmon. Folks in the Special Forces Regiment will tell you she was one of the good officers, the kind who knew her stuff and wouldn’t do anything stupid. Heck, only the brilliant ones become S-3 over there, right? The man you want is Command Sergeant QD Vinn, H Troop. His guys were the ones involved in the firefight. Most of them are still in H Troop.”
They stopped at a pair of side-by-side doors.
“Commander, yours is on the left, and Major Danger here gets the other one. There’s a private connecting door between both suites if either of you gets the urge to play cards in the middle of the night.” Bayliss gave Zack an entirely innocent glance.
“Always the gentleman, aren’t you, Josh?”
With their luggage secure, they headed for the mess hall. As they crossed the central parade square, Decker glanced at the Special Forces Regiment’s HQ and had a flash of inspiration.
“How hard would it be to organize us taking a few jumps with Vinn and his troop? You know, set the stage by showing them Hera and I belong here, that we’re family and not Fleet HQ assholes looking for nits?”
“Consider it done, and by the way, good idea,” Bayliss replied. “I guess that’s why they made you a major. You grew brains to go with your brass balls.”
*
“There she is!” Decker raised his beer glass in salute when he saw Talyn enter the Pegasus Club. “The dust on her wings blown away by three proper drops and once more a fully qualified special operations NILO.”
She gave him an indulgent smile, knowing he was in his glory, holding court at the bar surrounded by two dozen Pathfinders.
“Where’s the NILO’s drink, big boy?” Talyn asked, winking at Bayliss as she joined the circle of special operators occupying the far end of the polished bar.
Decker reached behind his back and produced a wine glass sloshing with dark red liquid. “Will a Chateau Airdrop do, Commander? Finest vintage, bottled thirty minutes ago, just for you. I’m reliably informed it won’t give you the dry heaves.”
She grabbed the proffered drink, scowling at her partner.
“Always the classy one.” Then, smiling at Lieutenant Colonel Capurso, Talyn said, “Why you insist on mingling with this semi-sociopath will always be beyond me.”
“A bad example is an example nonetheless,” the Commandant of the Marine Corps’ Pathfinder School replied in a didactic tone, one index finger pointing at the heavens. “Besides, he bought us a round, so we’re stuck being nice to him.”
Talyn took a sip of her wine and made a face.
“He’s not spending much if you ask me. But then, I suppose you Marines have lower standards when it comes to free ethanol.”
“We have no standards when it comes to free ethanol,” Sergeant Major Bayliss said after draining his glass. He gave her a meaningful glance. “We’re hoping whoever’s buying the next round does.”
“Don’t look at me,” Talyn replied. “I just got here.”
“But you’re the most senior officer present,” Capurso replied with a sly smile. “Noblesse oblige.”
“Are you invoking time in rank, lieutenant colonel?”
“I couldn’t help notice you had a few years on me when I updated your records to renew your qualification.”
“Think of it as spending your drinking money for the next few weeks in a single shot, Hera,” Decker said. “Once they give us our next mission, we’re dry.”
“You? Dry?” Bayliss guffawed. “Commander, one of these days, you must take a video of him when he has to pass on the free drinks at those fancy receptions you spooks attend in the line of duty. I’ve always wanted to see what Zack looks like when he’s actually suffering.”
Decker put on a mock-wounded expression.
“I’ll have you know I once spent an entire mission beyond the Rim drinking coffee and juice. We’re talking months, not days.”
“Any evidence to support that unbelievable assertion?”
“You remember who I work for, right? Evidence is a dirty word in my universe.”
“Everything’s dirty in your world, buddy,” Bayliss replied. “Were you there, Commander?”
“No.” Talyn shook her head. “We were solo acts for that period, but I’m inclined to believe him. You know, truth being stranger than fiction. He had no reason to admit being a teetotaler. Mind you, the moment I finished debriefing him after he finally staggered back to HQ, having set the Rim on fire, he made love to a vintage Shrehari ale. I was almost jealous, but then I remembered he’s always had skewed priorities.”
“But not much sense.” Bayliss nudged Decker. “You ought to be nicer to your partner, buddy. She knows more ways of making a body vanish than we’ve ever taught at the school.”
“And yet, I’m still here.” Decker raised his empty glass above his head. “I think it’s the sergeant major’s turn. All in favor, say, aye.”
Twenty-two voices replied in unison, “Aye!”
Bayliss bestowed an evil smile on the assembled Pathfinders. Then, he said, “I’ll buy, but since the guy who nominated me goes by the code name Rookie Trooper, for reasons that are best left unexplored, I need to hear every verse of Blood on the Risers.”
“And hear them you will,” Decker replied. Then, in a clear baritone, he led off with the rest joining him on the second line.
He was just a rookie trooper and he surely shook with fright,
He checked all his equipment and made sure his pack was tight;
He had to sit and listen to those awful engines roar,
/>
“You ain’t gonna jump no more!”
Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die,
Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die,
Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die,
He ain’t gonna jump no more!
Bayliss, after distributing the round and handing Decker a bottle of vintage Shrehari ale, added his deeper voice to the more solemn final verse of the centuries-old paratrooper song.
There was blood upon the risers, there were brains upon the chute,
Intestines were a-dangling from his paratroopers suit,
He was a mess, they picked him up, and poured him from his boots,
He ain’t gonna jump no more.
Six
“Ari Redmon was screwed over six ways from Sunday, Major,” QD Vinn said, the moment he and the two agents were alone in one of the regimental HQ’s meeting rooms the next morning. Wiry, compact, with black hair and dark eyes, he wasn’t the average civilian’s image of a Special Forces operator. But he moved with the suppleness of a fit, alert fighter, his intense gaze missing little if anything.
“Why don’t we grab a pew,” Decker suggested, pointing at the chairs surrounding an oval table. “This could take a while.”
“Sure.” Vinn dropped into one of the form-fitting seats and looked at Zack with barely suppressed impatience. “So what’s up, Major? Did someone come to their senses in the Puzzle Palace?”
“Josh Bayliss told you who we work for, right?”
“Yep.”
“We came across Ariane Redmon’s file during a case and the moment I read it, I knew it stank like a ten-day-old whale carcass, Sergeant. The commander and I want to figure out what happened and why. I’m not talking about the anti-terrorist raid because I’m sure that was as righteous a mission as any.”
“Damn right it was, Major. If we’d found out those were civilians when we struck, I’d have scrubbed it there and then, no matter what the orders said. Someone fucked with the evidence and turned us into liars. There’s no way Major Redmon would have run roughshod over innocents. No way ever. She’s as straight and clean as they come in the Corps. Based on what I hear from Sarn’t Major Bayliss, you and her would get along real well.”
“What we’re after is anything that might have happened between when C Squadron came home, and the day Ariane Redmon was charged with homicide. If she was railroaded, I’d say it had to be for something unconnected to the mission.”
“If, sir?” Vinn raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Everyone who knew Ari, everyone who was there will swear to her being fucked over for a fact. Most of them are still in my troop, so you can speak with every single one however and whenever you want.”
“And we just might. Is there anything that could have happened here, on Caledonia, after the mission? Something that might lead to false charges?”
Vinn’s forehead wrinkled and his eyes narrowed as he searched his memory.
“Let’s see. A few months after we came home, she turns C Squadron over to Major Letts and becomes the S-3. So a lot of us lose track of her from one day to another, but she visited Sanctum a lot, for hush-hush conferences with top brass — operational planning stuff. Seems to me I saw her in the Pegasus Club one night after she came back from HQ, about a week or so before the MPs charged her. Ari looked like she’d been run over by her own ghost. Matter of fact, I think that’s the last time she visited Sanctum before her court-martial.”
“Any idea why?”
“Not a clue, sir. Maybe she said something to the CO, but good luck finding out. Colonel Drake retired a few weeks after Ari was convicted and he left Caledonia for parts unknown.”
“Anyone in the S-3 shop I might talk to?”
“Sure, but Ari didn’t talk out her problems with junior folks. Maybe she spoke with one of the other majors, the squadron commanders, or the regimental XO, although I doubt it.”
“Anyone, in particular, she was friendly with?” Talyn asked.
“She used to hang around with Major Letts, our current squadron commander. No idea how close they were though.”
“Then we’ll speak with Major Letts. Anything else you can think of that might help?”
Vinn shook his head.
“Not right now. But if you ever find the asshole who screwed her, call me, and we’ll gladly help you take care of him.”
Decker gave Vinn a grim smile.
“Don’t be surprised if I take you up on that offer some day. Now, where would I find Major Letts?”
“In his office, most likely. I’ll lead you there, sir.”
*
“It took you fine HQ folks long enough to look into Ari’s case again,” Major Letts said the moment Decker had stated their purpose.
Letts was nothing so much as a younger, darker version of Zack and carried himself with the same self-assurance. He gestured at the chairs in front of his desk.
“Grab a seat and tell me how I can help correct the most egregious miscarriage of justice this Corps has seen in living memory.”
“After speaking with Sergeant Vinn,” Decker said, “we think it’s possible that something happened during Ariane Redmon’s tenure as regimental S-3. Perhaps something unrelated to the incident for which she was tried, something that triggered charges everyone around here swears to be false.”
“That’s because they were false,” Letts replied, anger creasing his rough-hewn features.
Decker held up a placating hand.
“Sorry, bad choice of words. The case file and court-martial transcript don’t pass the smell test with us either. Vinn said she traveled to Fleet HQ a lot for operational planning, and that when she returned from her final visit, Redmon seemed genuinely upset. Any idea why that might have been?”
“No, but a lot of us noticed she looked like her best friend had died that day. When I asked, after a beer or two in the Pegasus Club, she almost bit my head off. That wasn’t characteristic of her. She has a quick temper, but there’s usually nothing wrong with her self-control. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have lasted in this outfit. In hindsight, perhaps she got wind of the bogus criminal charges coming at her. Are you saying something happened that day related to this sorry mess?”
“Possibly. Redmon wouldn’t be the first officer to get royally shafted because she stepped on some big ego’s toes. God knows there are plenty of those at HQ, including bastards nasty enough to ruin a good Marine’s life.”
“As you know from personal experience, or so I hear.” Letts’ brief chuckle held no amusement. “Everyone knows about Major Decker’s checkered career. You can thank Bayliss for that.”
“He was sergeant major of the 902nd when I clocked Captain Sarratt for being a useless waste of rations. After what we lived through, Josh is entitled to tell the story of a reprobate who redeemed himself.”
“Is your personal history why you’re taking an interest in Ari’s case?”
“No.” Zack shook his head. “Or at least not directly. The reasons are more serious than sympathy for a fellow sufferer’s plight, although that needs looking into as well.”
“Do you intend to take Ari off Desolation Island and put her back in the Corps?”
Decker and Talyn exchanged glances, then he nodded.
“If we can. But first we need to find evidence she was convicted on false charges, and there’s nothing in the files that show who ordered the judge advocate general to lay them. They simply appeared unexpectedly, complete with fabricated evidence. After that, it was goodbye Ari.”
“So find out what turned Ari into a shadow of her former self in the days before her arrest. It’s probably lurking in your neck of the woods, anyway.”
“Would she have confided in anyone?” Talyn asked.
“Ari didn’t like to share her woes. If she spoke with someone, it would have been Colonel Drake. He hand-picked her for the S-3 job, but as Vinn probably told you, Drake retired not long after Ari’s sentencing and boarded a starship. No one’s heard from him since.”
/>
“Was his retirement planned?”
Letts snorted.
“It was as much of a surprise as Ari’s conviction. We figured he was slated to take over as Director, Special Forces, at Fleet HQ, with promotion to brigadier general, come the next posting cycle.”
Decker and Talyn exchanged glances again, and she asked, “Is your terminal connected to the Fleet’s secure network?”
“Sure. You need to look something up, Commander?” Letts climbed to his feet and gestured at his chair. “Be my guest.”
Using her Naval Intelligence credentials, Talyn logged on. After a few minutes of silent searching, she exhaled slowly and sat back.
“Add one more to your column, Zack. Colonel Drake was killed in an aircar accident shortly after landing on Aramis. Hit and run.”
“Shit.”
Talyn relinquished the seat back to Letts. Then she said, “It makes me wonder how hard Drake lobbied the brass to have Redmon’s charges dropped, or at least make sure she faced a fair trial.”
“Hard enough,” the Special Forces major replied. “Drake was in a righteous rage after spending the day knocking on doors in the Puzzle Palace. I’d never heard him curse the Corps before then. Rumors said it took the regimental sergeant major three hours to calm him that night. He was floored when leave to appeal was denied so swiftly after the trial. Perhaps that’s what convinced him to pull the plug on his career.”
“Do you remember anything else about those events?”
“Sorry, nothing comes to mind right now.”
“Would there be any point in talking with the regiment’s other senior officers?”
Letts shook his head.
“I was Ari’s closest friend. If she didn’t tell me what was wrong, she wouldn’t have told anyone else. Apart from the colonel that is.”
“And he’s dead,” Decker said.
“Yeah.” Letts’ features twisted into a mask of distaste. “Funny how that happened.”
*
“What now?” Talyn asked, turning control of their aircar over to the AI after they’d left the confines of the Fort Arnhem military reservation. “We can’t go around HQ interviewing everyone who had dealings with Redmon. If she was a victim of whatever’s now coming after the rest of us, our snooping will alert them to the fact we know we’re under attack.”