I waited for Lex to leave, stashed my shoulder bag, then picked up Mac and Hardy and headed for the mess hall. Plenty of time to set up my room later.
People bustled through the big room, in uniform and out, military personnel mixed with the defense contractors who kept the base running. I’d hit a peak hour for chow by the looks of it, and I stopped out of the line of traffic to scan the room. Heads turned when I came in, the effect of a strange colonel. Voices hushed around me and people went about their business a bit quicker than they might have otherwise.
I’d asked Mac and Hardy to hang behind so I could enter alone. I wanted to make myself accessible. Somewhere I’d find someone I knew, someone I’d worked with, but too many faces passed by to process, too much movement. I’ve never been good at remembering people anyway.
I made my way to the line and grabbed a tray. Even if I didn’t find someone to talk to I could at least fill my stomach. I pointed at one of the two entrée choices, the one that looked the least like a gray hunk of fused crap, and the server slopped it onto my plate. At least they had fresh vegetables, probably grown on base or on a nearby agriculture ship.
I weaved through the long rectangular tables until I found one with some empty seats. I took a chair a couple of spots away from three non-coms who immediately stopped talking. One of them nodded to me, respectfully, and a few minutes later they left. So much for learning something through casual conversation. I gave a mental shrug and then went about shoveling my food in.
“Sir! I thought that was you.” A master sergeant stood across the table, no plate. I flipped through my memory trying to place him. A cook. Goodell . . . no, Goddard. He hadn’t been a master sergeant.
“Hey! Did you get promoted?” I let my eyes flick to his name tape to confirm my memory.
“Yes, sir, about a year ago.”
“Nice. You’re not cooking out here are you?” I glanced down at my plate.
He laughed. “No, sir. This is all contracted. I do quality control. Make sure the meat is the right temperature, stuff like that.”
“There’s meat?”
He laughed again. “Come back tomorrow. We’re having real chicken.”
“No kidding?”
“Yes, sir. They raise them down on the planet now.”
“Excellent,” I said. “I look forward to it.”
“What brings you out this way, sir? Are you taking the command?” Something in the way he said it made me suspicious. Like maybe he knew something, but wanted me to confirm it.
I shook my head, playing along. “Nothing like that. Just out here doing an investigation.”
Goddard let out a low whistle. “So it’s true.”
“What’s that?” I asked, feigning ignorance.
“Rumor has been going around about a bigwig coming from headquarters to check out the brigade. I’d heard your name mentioned.”
I bit back a grimace. That wouldn’t help my cause, if they’d pegged me as the outsider. Soldiers tended to stick together in the face of external pressure, and in this case, sticking together meant keeping their mouths shut. I wondered if the media caused it, or something more intentional.
Goddard spoke again after a moment. “They bring someone like you out here to poke around, it must be something good. Senior officer put his dick somewhere he shouldn’t?”
I smiled. “I can officially neither confirm nor deny that. But no, nothing like that. MIA case.”
Goddard narrowed his eyes a bit, as if deep in thought. “Not that kid in the news.”
“That’s the one,” I said.
“Damn, sir. I can’t believe they sent a colonel all the way out here for that.” He paused, leaving an obvious opening for me to comment.
I took a bite of mystery meat to stall for time. It made the lull in the conversation slightly less awkward and gave him the hint that I probably wouldn’t be answering anytime soon.
“I’ll let you get back to your meal, sir. Just wanted to say hi.” He kept his smile. Good guy.
I stood and shook his hand. “It’s good to see you again, Master Sergeant. I’ll be around.”
“You too, sir. Good to see you.” As he walked off, I couldn’t decide if he’d given me good news or bad.
Chapter Five
I walked for about four minutes through the mostly empty corridors of Cappa Base, trying to establish some landmarks in the windowless construction so I could get around without a map. I’d forgotten the uniformity of everything related to space life, with only colored symbols on the walls to mark my location. I could have lived without experiencing it again.
I showed up in Colonel Stirling’s outer office ten minutes before the appointed time. A soldier offered me coffee, which I accepted. I managed one sip of the scalding beverage before Stirling came out to greet me. No waiting games. Good.
He was a short man, at least six or seven centimeters shorter than me, and I’m average height. Thin, too, but not in a weak way. More like a runner, or triathlete. He had his hair cut high and tight, accentuating his poster-worthy square jaw. “Welcome, Carl. Glad you made it. I’m Aaron.”
I shifted my coffee to my left hand so I could shake the one he offered. “Glad to be here.” I felt okay lying, since he lied first.
“Come on in.” He led me into his functional office, moderate sized and appropriate. Pictures of soldiers in action planetside decorated the walls along with unit accomplishments. Military texts and journals lined the single bookcase along with a few volumes on leadership. Nothing personal to Stirling other than the photo of his family on his desk. One wife, two boys. Standard commander accoutrements that tried to humanize him a little without giving anything away.
“You know why I’m here,” I said.
Stirling gestured for me to take a seat on the fake-leather sofa. “I do. Lieutenant Mallot. Councilor’s kid. Good man, from what I’ve heard. Good grunt.”
“You never met him?”
He shook his head, took a sip of his coffee. “I don’t know most of the LTs. Hell, I don’t even know all the captains. I keep a book with the faces of the commanders, so I recognize them.”
“Smart.” With nearly forty companies, you had to study.
“You’ve done a preliminary investigation,” I said.
He nodded. “We did. Of course. By the book. It’s not worth much, though.”
I waved my hand, dismissing it. “I just need the basics to help me get started. Where he went missing, who saw him last, enemy in the area, that kind of thing.”
Stirling froze, his coffee cup halfway to his mouth, staring. I stopped moving too, his look arresting me.
“You didn’t get the basics before you flew?”
“I didn’t ask for them. I wanted to see it fresh when I got here, keep an open mind.”
Stirling stood and paced to the wall behind his desk, his back toward me. He paused a moment, then turned and walked back. He planted his palms on his desk and leaned over. “He didn’t disappear in combat. Not exactly.”
Something in his tone, the way he shifted his eyes when he spoke, made me sit up in my chair. The hair on my arms tingled. I set my coffee cup down on the end table and took out my device, thumbing open a note page. “What happened?”
He blew air out between pursed lips and paused, considering his words. “I don’t know.”
It wasn’t the answer I expected, but I didn’t say anything. Stirling continued.
“His battalion had chopped his platoon over to the Special Ops guys. They got hit. Nobody in my outfit even knew about the fight until we got the call for medical evacuation. We couldn’t bring the bird in immediately. Too much heat around the landing zone. The battalion pushed out half a company to secure the site. They got there, and Mallot’s legs were chewed up. Looked like a potato mine, my guys said.”
I winced. A potato mine was a Cappan creation, buried in the ground, with an organic case which made it almost impossible to detect. Not always deadly, but always bad. “I thought you
said it wasn’t combat related.”
“I said the disappearance wasn’t. He got on the MEDEVAC. My guys saw them put him on.”
“So he disappeared after he arrived at the hospital?”
He shook his head. “He didn’t arrive.”
I stopped writing mid-sentence and almost dropped my stylus before I recovered and looked up to meet Stirling’s eyes. “Where did he go?”
“That’s the million-mark question.” Stirling sat at his desk, looked down, and rubbed his temples. “He got on the bird. That’s the last time anyone saw him.”
“So where did the MEDEVAC go?”
“Its records say it came straight back here to base. But the hospital shows no record of him arriving.”
I tapped a quick note, not because I wouldn’t remember. I needed to take a moment to think. “Huh.”
I might have needed more than a moment.
“It’s bullshit.” He pounded his fist on the desk.
The outburst felt a bit contrived, but I let it go without reacting. “What’s the pilot of the MEDEVAC say?”
“He doesn’t say anything. He’s dead. The whole crew, three days later, hit during another pickup.”
“Shit.” I paused. “Is that common?”
“Unfortunately it’s not uncommon. We’ve lost four in the last five months. The Cappan insurgents have been targeting them.”
Targeting evacuation ships? I looked down at my notes, which didn’t tell me much. It didn’t matter. The ideas had started to bounce around in my head, and I needed the excuse to consider my next question. “Three days later. You had to know he was missing before then.”
“Of course we did. We tried to get in to see him. Not immediately. He needed surgery, we knew that. But within half a day.”
“And?”
“And he wasn’t there. Maybe another half day before someone elevated it to my level. It’s all in the initial investigation. Statements, timelines, lack of cooperation from the hospital commander.”
Stirling sounded bitter about the last part, and I observed him for several seconds. He met my eyes without wavering, but also without challenge. “He wouldn’t let you see Mallot?” I asked.
“She. Colonel Mary Elliot. The hospital commander.”
“She wouldn’t let you see him?” I repeated.
“I told you—Mallot wasn’t there. Was never there, from what we can tell. From what they tell us, nobody saw him.” Stirling almost pushed himself out of his chair.
“So the lack of cooperation . . . the pilot . . . she wouldn’t let you talk to him?”
“Right.” He relaxed, slightly. “Elliot invoked her own authority. Said she’d question her people, get to the bottom of it.”
“But she didn’t.”
Stirling sighed, his shoulders sagging slightly. “Not that I can tell. If she did . . . well, she doesn’t answer to me.”
“You’re the base commander.”
“I’m the base commander for SPACECOM,” he said a little too quickly. “She reports directly to MEDCOM. And Karikov—he reports directly to Special Ops Command.”
“I see.” Karikov. I didn’t know him, but I’d heard of him. Everyone had. A legend and a badass. “That’s a pretty messed-up way to run a war.”
Stirling pulled his lips into a flat line. “Yeah.”
“Got it. Not what I expected, that’s all.” I sat silently, but Stirling allowed me the time to think. Serata hadn’t mentioned the issues with command structure. He may not have known, but that seemed like a stretch.
“I’ve got a liaison officer for you. Major Alenda. She’s got a copy of the initial report,” Stirling said, after a bit.
“I met her.” I assumed he knew that, but it didn’t seem prudent to make a point of it.
“She’s solid. Use her however she helps. You don’t have to keep her in the loop if you don’t want.” He knew I’d consider her a spy. Stirling and I had the same basic background, the same experiences. We would generally know what the other thought simply because we had the same thought process. I’d have to watch that.
I nodded. “Thanks. I’ll give her a chance. You have anyone I can use at the hospital?”
Stirling shook his head. “I’m afraid you’re on your own on that one. Elliot and I aren’t on great terms, as you might have guessed.”
“Okay. Well that’s probably where I need to start.”
“Good luck,” he said.
“Thanks. I’ll keep you informed.”
Stirling stood up and came around the desk, forcing a smile. I expected that he’d relax a bit, now that the interview was over, but the muscles in his neck and the tension in his handshake said otherwise. He met my eyes very deliberately. “Thanks, Carl. If there’s anything you need from my command and you aren’t getting it, you let me know. We want to be completely transparent, and cooperate fully with your investigation.”
I nodded. He used the right words. He had no choice. Not cooperating would reflect poorly on his command. I wouldn’t know until later if he really meant them or not, but for now, I’d play along. “Thanks, Aaron.”
“I just want this wrapped up quick and tight.”
“We all do.” Quick and tight. Serata’s words. Might have been a coincidence, but I doubted it.
Chapter Six
Major Lex Alenda buzzed at my door at precisely 1300 standard time, exactly the time I asked her to be there. She held a tablet with a blue cover screen in her hand.
“Come on in, Lex.” I stepped out of the way to make space for her to pass. “You can go if you want, Mac.” He’d been sitting there for a couple hours acting as a sounding board. I didn’t really need security in my room.
“Yes, sir,” he said. “I’m going to hit the gym. I’ll be back before you need to go anywhere.”
Alenda held up the tablet she’d brought. “I have a copy of the report loaded for you, sir. And I’ve dropped it into your account on the network as well. Did you have any trouble accessing the system?”
“No, I got in, no problem. What do you normally do, Lex? You said Intel, but what capacity?”
“Intel fusion,” she said. “Targeting, mostly.”
“Nice. I did some years in targeting.” I wasn’t an intel officer, but I’d spent a lot of time with them. I liked them, mostly, although it made a weird choice for a liaison. I didn’t really care, though. I needed to start establishing a relationship. I needed Alenda to see me as a person rather than as a colonel from headquarters. She’d work better for me that way, or I’d know that I couldn’t use her at all. Either way.
“So you can tell me what’s going on planetside?”
“Yes, sir,” she said. “Or I can set up an ops brief. That might be better—get you the intel and the ops at the same time.”
“Sure, set it up. I’ll go through this today.” I waved the tablet in the air. “I’ll figure out whose statements stand and who I need to talk to. Fair warning: I’m going to want to talk to most everyone, I think. Go ahead, sit down.”
Alenda went to the sofa and perched on the front edge of it, her legs directly in front of her.
“You can relax, Lex.”
She scooted maybe four centimeters farther back onto the sofa, her shoulders still square, her back rigid.
“Where are you from?” I asked. Senior Officer 101. Get people to talk about where they’re from to establish a personal connection.
“Nowhere, really, sir. I’m a military brat. We moved around with my father. I have a house now on Elenia Four, so I guess that’s home.”
“Elenia Four. My wife’s there too. She’s from there originally. She went back to live near her family.”
A hint of a smile crossed her face. “It’s a nice system. Great weather, and I like that the terraforming is complete, so the amino acids are right and it’s pretty much self-sufficient. Something about getting your food fresh makes life better. I could see myself settling there someday.”
“Yeah. I could see myself settl
ing there too. And not just because my wife said she’s never leaving again.” I smiled. “So . . . you have any thoughts on where to start on this thing?”
She sagged back a little into the sofa. “Yes, sir. I read through the initial report. It’s . . . well, it’s not very useful. I don’t know if people weren’t talking or if the investigator didn’t ask the right questions.”
I nodded. “It’s okay. I’ll use it as a baseline, to see if people keep the same story.”
“Yes, sir. A lot of the guys are planetside. Mallot’s unit, most of the Spec Ops people. They come and go. I can work to get them rotated back here. At least the ones who work for us. Spec Ops, not so much.”
“I’m not sure I want to start bringing folks up off the surface yet. We’ll talk to who we can here, and figure the rest of it out. Did you set up the meeting with the hospital commander?”
Lex didn’t answer immediately.
I raised my eyebrows. “Nothing?”
“They said they’d get back to me, sir.”
“Do you think they will?”
“No, sir, I don’t.” She didn’t hesitate. Stirling’s rift with the medical command apparently ran deep.
“Can you draw me a strip map to the hospital? I can’t remember exactly how to get there.”
“I can lead you over there, sir. Or arrange transportation. It’s a long walk.”
I smiled. “Lex, you don’t want to be in the middle of this.”
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