by Walker Long
“Nope,” Hardaway agreed. He clicked the safety on his pistol and looked at it a bit sheepishly. “You’re going to tell me I’m paranoid.”
“No. I’m going to tell you I’ve got your six,” she replied. Hardaway turned to face Quantrill and she waved the little knife. “It was the best I could find at short notice.”
“You are one in a million, Q,” Hardaway laughed. “Drop dead gorgeous and still a warrior.”
“Oorah,” Quantrill breathed.
Hardway’s face turned serious and his eyes flashed a familiar intensity. “Is that my shirt?”
“Yes.”
“Take it off,” Hardaway ordered.
“Sir, yes, sir,” Quantrill agreed quietly. She dropped the knife and grabbed the gray shirt by the hem. As she swept it up over her head her long blonde hair crowded her face. She tossed her head and the champagne blonde locks cascaded down around her shoulders.
Hardaway set his pistol on a side table and picked up Quantrill around her narrow waist. They kissed, their tongues tangling together. She could feel the man’s hardness press against her body as he lowered her onto the bed. She smiled and spread her legs.
***
At about 3 o’clock that morning the two lovers were laying naked on the tangled sheets chatting and laughing. Quantrill talked about her childhood back on Earth – about playing stickball in the streets, about ducking the police patrols, about his mother and their small apartment back in Clevlinatti. Hardaway didn’t share much about his own life and Quantrill finally demanded, “Okay, now you. Tell me something about you.”
Hardaway gave a deep sigh. He looked closely at Quantrill and worried over his lower lip as though considering his options. Finally he said, “Do you know why I don’t want that promotion?”
“Why?” Quantrill asked eagerly.
“It was because of Rhona.”
“What’s Rhona?”
“Not what – who,” Hardaway told her. “She was a waitress at this little coffee shop in Saint Joseph. It was just a hole in the wall place near the University.” Quantrill nodded. She knew Hardaway was educated – that was no surprise. But where was this Saint Joseph? That name was familiar somehow, but she couldn’t place it.
“I would go there and drink cup after cup of shit coffee and pretend to read my textbook,” Hardaway went on. “Just to watch her. She was – she was – remarkable. Beauty and grace. A gentle, musical laugh.”
“You were in love with her,” Quantrill squeaked. She felt a sharp twinge of jealousy. This Rhona woman meant more to Hardaway than she ever could!
“Everyone loved her,” he explained. “She was so beautiful. Just stunning. I would watch guys hit on her all night – guy after guy. She would shoot them all down.”
“Except you,” Quantrill suggested.
“I never thought I had a chance,” Hardaway said. “But one day…” He stopped and laughed. “One day she leaned over and whispered, ‘You’ve been on the same page for half an hour.’”
“Oh! She called you out!” Quantrill giggled. In spite of herself, she liked this girl. You had to admire that kind of nerve. “What did you say?”
“I said something like ‘I guess I got distracted’ and she told me to try to focus for another hour because she got off work at ten o’clock.”
“So?” Quantrill prompted.
“So after that we started dating,” Hardaway went on. “I saw her almost every day. She wasn’t just beautiful – she was tough and kind and smart. So smart. A girl from a poor family isn’t going to have much education, but I would have put her mind up against any of the men from my University classes.”
“Sure,” Quantrill agreed. She had known a few really sharp guys back home who managed to get noticed and sent to good schools, but that was rare. And of course for girls it was impossible.
“We were together through my whole last year at the University. Just before graduation I asked her to marry me. And she said yes.”
“I didn’t know you were married!” Quantrill exclaimed.
“No,” he replied sadly. “No, we never married. My father disapproved. She was Beneath My Station, he told me. She wasn’t good enough. He threatened my trust fund, the family credit chip, my apartment. He threatened to cut me off if I saw her again.” Hardaway stopped. He seemed lost in his thoughts, just staring into the distance.
With a pained expression he finally went on. “I was afraid. I’d lived my whole life in the privilege my family’s wealth provided. Privilege so pervasive I never even recognized it. It surrounded me. It was like the air I breathed. I didn’t know if I could live without it.”
“Of course you can,” Quantrill protested. Her protest was futile, of course. She couldn’t talk Hardaway out of his decision. It was in the past. She had a compulsion to try anyway. “Billions of people do it. They can be happy!”
“You’re right, of course,” Hardaway agreed. “And it would have been worth it. For Rhona it would have been worth it. But I was young and foolish and I made the wrong decision. I told her we couldn’t be together.”
“Oh, no,” Quantrill breathed. Her heart broke for the poor waitress. And for the young Hardaway who had turned his back on love. She even spared a thought for herself. She was as poor as anyone – well below Hardaway’s station on the social ladder. Was there any future for her in his life?
Of course there wasn’t. Being a woman might feel like her true destiny, but the fact remained that in a few days she would have to become a man once again. A tear slid down her cheek.
“I realized I made a mistake almost immediately,” Hardaway went on. He brushed away her tear with a strong hand and then kissed her on the forehead. “But I was –,” his voice cracked with emotion “I was too late.”
Quantrill put her small arms around his shoulders and held him close. Hardaway leaned his head against her and drew in several ragged breaths. Eventually he continued. “When I went to see her – to try to apologize – I couldn’t get through. Security forces had blocked the roads.”
“Saint Joseph…” Quantrill said softly. She finally realized where she had heard the name. “Oh, no!”
“The Saint Joseph Massacre,” Hardaway said with a nod. “The Bugs attacked our colony in force. Where I lived – the wealthy part of the city – we had security and walls and shelters. Where Rhona lived – they were wiped out.”
“Oh, how terrible,” she whispered. Quantrill held the wounded man close. His hurt and regret was like a physical presence. She wished she could smash it to bits, blast it to oblivion with a five-round burst of AP. That wasn’t possible, though. All she could do was hold him.
“She died,” Hardaway finally said. “She died believing I loved my wealth more than her.”
“Don’t,” Quantrill said gently. “Don’t blame yourself. You didn’t know.”
“I blamed my father at first,” he said with a sigh. “Went to his office and threw all the cash I had right in his face. Then I stormed out and enlisted in the Corps.”
“So you joined the Marines for revenge?”
“That’s what I told myself,” Hardaway said. “I was convinced I was down in the dirt slugging it out with Formids to make the Bugs pay for taking Rhona. And I killed plenty. I was fearless. Never gave up, never retreated.
“But I was reckless. Almost didn’t come back from some drops. See, deep down I didn’t want to come back. I wanted it to be over. The grief, the guilt. I was more afraid of living the rest of my life than I was of the Bugs,” Hardaway said in a soft voice that Quantrill could barely hear.
“But the Corps gave me a reason,” he went on in a stronger voice. “I became a squad leader. I had Marines counting on me. Every time I got those boys home in one piece, it felt like a step toward making up for failing Rhona.”
“That’s really nice,” Quantrill said with a smile. “So that’s why you don’t want a non-combat position.”
“Right,” he agreed. Then he took a deep breath and collected himsel
f. “And besides, somebody has to keep you out of hot water.”
“Oh, really?” Quantrill giggled and rolled Hardaway onto his back. She lay on top of him and let her long, blonde hair hang down around his face like a curtain. “Since when do you have a problem with me getting hot and wet?”
“Maybe I just want to make sure I’m there when it happens,” he replied and pulled her down for a kiss.
Chapter 19
Angkor
The shore leave was over far too soon. Going back to his male body, back to his crowded quarters on the Jericho, back to his old life was a hard adjustment for Quantrill. His fatigues were itchy and coarse and his boots were heavy and awkward. It just didn’t feel like who he was anymore. He almost cried when Lieutenant Hardaway helped him shave off his long, blonde hair.
Fortunately he didn’t have a lot of time to sit and think about it. The Marines were kept busy around the clock getting the Jericho out of space dock. They didn’t even wait for the ship to be completely repaired. Several decks were simply sealed off and left in vacuum. They were in a hot hurry and shipped out less than two days after Quantrill and the rest of his platoon returned to duty.
Something was going on – that was obvious. The ship was going back into action with holes in the hull, so whatever they were doing, it had to be important. No one was surprised when Major de Coverly called for a Company assembly just after they left orbit. Quantrill expected the Major would tell them why they were blasting across the system like the devil was chasing them. He just didn’t know if the news would be good or bad.
Every Marine on Jericho filed into the gym and lined up in neat ranks. The huge cargo bay was full of jarheads from wall to wall. Major de Coverly was up front. He had a huge vid set up behind him like they were going to eat popcorn and watch a stream together.
“I heard we’re going to Earth,” Jabara whispered beside him. “Big invasion coming down.”
“No way,” Quantrill replied. The Formids had never even been close to Earth. The defenses were impenetrable. There were so many battle cruisers in Sol system that people on Earth saw more ships twinkling in the night sky than stars. Of course, given the air pollution they didn’t see that many stars anymore either.
Major de Coverly stepped to the podium and the murmurs of a hundred different conversations cut off. He clicked a button in his palm and an image flashed onto the screen behind him. It was a dull gray planet or moon – it didn’t look familiar to Quantrill, but it didn’t look much different from a dozen other uninhabited rocks he’d visited since joining the Corps either.
“This he’ah is where we’re goin,” the Major drawled. “Fleet Command calls this place Angkor. I call it Formid Central.” He clicked his button again and the image was replaced with aerial video of a barren cliff face dotted with caves or tunnels like a honeycomb. Hundreds of Formids scurried over the rock. From such a great height they looked like – well they looked like tiny bugs. It was like standing over a bustling anthill, except these ants were twice the size of a man and had a taste for human flesh.
“What the fuck?” Jabara gasped. All around the cargo hold was filled with similar comments and nervous conversation.
“Not the Formid home world – we don’t think anyway – but a damn large colony,” the Major went on, talking over the murmurs of the company. “The largest colony of theirs we have evah found, in fact. Our boys in intel say there are upward of 9 million Bugs on this rock. It appears to be a base of operation for launching assaults into our space.
“We managed to find this hot spot because a platoon – from our very own Company – a platoon of Marines managed to find themselves a Formid Buzzard knockin on death’s door. Some Fleet science types cut out that critter’s guts and found – ,” Major de Coverly paused and clicked to the next image. It was a blurry mash up of indistinct shapes and colors. It looked like the splotchy pictures someone would show you to try to measure your personality based on what you think the crazy thing looks like.
“This is,” the Major turned and read off the image caption, “the cellular residual radiation that reflects the shape of the hyperdrive distortion field most recently broadcast by the organism.” Major de Coverly turned back to the Marines and shrugged. “Long story short, they tracked this sum bitch back home.”
“Wow,” Jabara whispered in excitement. “We helped do that!”
“Yeah,” Quantrill agreed half-heartedly. This was big news for sure, but he wasn’t entirely sure it was good news.
“We will be joinin’ up with Marine Companies from the Saratoga,” the Major went on. He clicked his button and a small image of the Jericho appeared in a corner of the screen. Another click and a second ship – presumably the Saratoga – appeared right next to it. “The Valley Forge, the Taedong, the Guadalcanal, and the Tripoli. The Army is sending two infantry and two armored divisions on the Roger Young, the David Patraeus, the Mazer Rackham, and the Dwight Eisenhower. We’ll have support from battle cruisers Kansas, Maharashtra, Ukraine, and Tennessee.”
With each ship he named, the Major clicked his button and another image appeared. By the time he was finished the whole screen was covered in Alliance starships. It was more firepower than Quantrill had ever seen at one time. No wonder they had to get the Jericho up and running ahead of schedule. Fleet was throwing everything they had at Angkor.
“You can see this is gonna’ be a big operation. We got heavy artillery, tanks, the whole nine. But Army needs a nice, quiet place to land their big-ass birds and unpack their toys. That’s where we come in.” The Major clicked and another aerial view appeared on the screen. It showed a wide, flat plateau in the middle of rugged, rocky terrain.
“We – along with Company H and a company of Army Rangers – are gonna drop here on this mesa. We come in hot, we sweep and clear, and we secure the LZ for the heavies. We are the tippa’ the spear here people,” Major de Coverly said earnestly. “Let’s make our country proud. May God be with us.”
The men were dismissed back to quarters. For once they didn’t have a bunch of starship maintenance work to do, so they sat around shooting the shit. Quantrill disassembled and cleaned his AR316 – twice. A lot of Marines were speculating on what a battle that size could mean. The consensus was if things went well it might kick the Bugs in the gonads hard enough to end the war. Nobody asked what it would mean if things didn’t go well. At least, not out loud.
That night Hardaway called in the squad leaders for a briefing. Afterward, Vanlanding came around and briefed the squad. Quantrill was disappointed that Hardaway wasn’t doing the briefing himself – he would have loved to just sit and look at the handsome Lieutenant – but it was still a relief to know there was a plan. He just hoped it would be a good one.
“We will all be landing near the center of this big flat area,” Vanlanding told them. The Corporal had a topographical map on his p-vid and was using it to point out landmarks.
“Is this a good idea?” Quantrill interrupted to ask.
“Where the fuck else are we going to land, Q?” Vanlanding shot back. “We need room for the heavy transports.”
“No, I mean … all of it. Why invade this shitty, little planet at all? What do we get out of it?”
“We get to kill Bugs,” Vanlanding said and looked at Quantrill like the young Private had lost his mind. “Because of the war. Remember that?”
“Right, right,” Quantrill agreed with little enthusiasm. Was it really that simple? He used to think so. Now he wasn’t so sure. Of course, none of those thoughts were going to do him a damn bit of good when he was in the dirt. He needed to put that aside and focus on the task at hand.
“As I was saying,” Vanlanding went on. “We land here. Then our platoon will move about three clicks south to secure this washout.”
The men nodded. South might not have quite the same meaning on an alien planet as it did on Earth, but the Fleet liked to slap a coordinate system onto the battlefield anyway. It helped with communication.
“LT wants us to drop with double ammo. Triple if you can carry it,” Vanlanding reported. “We’re not going to be running around chasing Bugs all over the plateau like the other platoons, but we will have plenty of customers at that washout.”
“No shit,” Quantrill agreed.
“Report to the landing craft at oh-three-hundred hours ship-time,” Vanlanding instructed.
“Aw, man,” Potter and Jabara groused. It figured this crazy ass invasion would begin in the middle of the night.
“We will hit Angkor orbit at oh-four-hundred,” Vanlanding went on, ignoring the complaints of the squad. “We drop about ten seconds later. Be on that bird or answer to the LT.”
“Roger that,” Potter sullenly agreed.
After the briefing the Marines were left with nothing to do but wait. Quantrill decided to take a blue pill and hit the rack. There were only so many times you could strip a rifle. Getting some extra shuteye seemed like a more productive use of his time.
***
Quantrill awoke to the sounds of Marines tossing their gear around. He checked the time on the vid in his rack – they had twenty minutes to get on the drop bird. Better move it. He rolled over, rubbed at his sleepy eyes, and climbed down from his rack.
“Hey, Q,” Jabara said. The big Marine was clipping his body armor in place. “The LT was down here looking for you.”
“He was?” Quantrill said with more excitement than he intended.
“Yeah, that’s what I said,” Jabara replied. “You were asleep so he left.”
“Really? What did he say? How did he look? Happy or mad or what?”
Jabara stopped what he was doing and gave Quantrill an annoyed look. “He said, and I quote, ‘Q here?’ to which I replied, ‘He’s sleeping, Sir,’ and he said, ‘Good,’ and then left. Is that what you want to know?”