“Are you okay, Carl? That blast—”
“Yeah. I’m good. How’s Plazz?”
“She’s okay. Mild concussion, no shrapnel.”
“Huh. That’s a miracle. Lucky woman.”
“EOD says that Sergeant Gutierrez absorbed most of the blast.”
“Sergeant?” G One had been a corporal.
“We had her promoted,” he said. “It won’t mean much, but it’s a little more money for her family.”
“Smart. Thanks,” I said.
“Wish it was my idea. My XO came up with it.”
I nodded. “Still. It’s a good action.”
“It’s not enough.”
“No.” I paused. “It never is, though. Still, you can catch the asshole that did it. It wouldn’t help her, but it would sure make me feel better.”
“We’re looking now. We’ve locked down the entire base. Nobody moves in the halls without explicit clearance. We’re going room to room,” he said. “We’ve shut down all travel off base, too.”
I raised my eyebrows. That was a serious step that would piss off all the commercial entities that used Cappa Base. The situation warranted it, but I hadn’t thought Stirling had it in him to make those kinds of waves. Perhaps he’d come to the same conclusion I had. That we couldn’t contain this anymore. “Probably called for. Whoever it was killed a soldier.”
Stirling nodded. “It’s more than that, though. We got lucky that the bomb was in an interior corridor, but if someone can do that . . . what if next time it’s against an exterior wall? Or in a crowded room? We’ve got to take every chance to stop it, and if that means inconveniencing everyone on the base . . . well they’ve had it easy for a while now. They’ll survive.”
Now it made sense. He took action because if someone breached the station—hard, but possible—it could kill dozens before the emergency systems sealed the breach. Maybe more, if the attacker set it up right. A commander’s career wouldn’t survive something like that. Good to know I could still count on Stirling’s desire for self-preservation. It kept me from having to order him.
“But you’re not here to give me an update on the search,” I said.
“No.”
“Alenda found you? Gave you the report.”
“She did. I told her to wait outside.” He walked over and sat on the arm of the sofa.
“What do you think?” I asked.
He sat silently for a moment. “I don’t know. Tritium. Ship or weapon. Has to be, right? At least ninety percent.”
I nodded. “Yeah. But which?”
He took a deep breath and blew it out. “Hard to say. I think we have to plan like it’s both.”
“I agree,” I said. “And I think you’ve got to pull your people off the surface. Immediately.”
He sat silently. “That’s a big step. It changes the whole war forever.”
I kept my voice level, kept the sarcasm out of it. “If they set off a fusion weapon near one of your camps, it changes the whole war forever too. And it’s much more likely they can do that than to fire one up here successfully.”
He rocked back and forth a bit before he spoke. “A ship is easier. I already ordered a temporary embargo. Nothing goes to the surface except military vessels, nothing comes up without being searched. If they want to get away, they’ll have to run. We can’t contain everything if they make a fast rush for a jump point, but at least we’ll know.”
I nodded. “If you search ships, they’ll know you’re onto them.”
“Definitely. But what’s the choice?”
I sat for a moment, thinking. What was the choice? I hadn’t thought that part of it through. I’d been focused on the soldiers planetside. “Don’t give them time.”
Stirling started to speak, then stopped. He clasped his hands together. “What do you mean?”
“Force them to act. Order all ships off the surface in the next four hours, regardless of mission.”
He sat, contemplating. “That would make it harder for us to search them all. Easier for one to get through.”
“It would also give them no time to load something they didn’t have planned without you being able to spot it,” I said.
He started nodding slowly, then stood and clapped his hands once. “I like it. We know where the contract ships are. We can focus the collection assets before we give the order.”
“Good.” I liked that he added his own take to it. The more he thought it was his own idea, the better he’d execute. “Confiscate silver, too. That’s what the contractors will try to get out.”
“That will piss them off. Good call,” he said.
“What about the forces planetside?” I asked.
He sat back down. “I hate to do it, but you’re right. I’ll send a note to SPACECOM asking for the authority.”
“No!” I started to spring up out of my chair, got a head rush, and fell back into my seat.
“Easy, Carl.”
“Don’t worry about me. But you can’t contact SPACECOM. If you wait to ask permission, they’ll debate it, ask for more data, then debate it some more. Maybe you get an answer in a day. More likely two or three. And all that time your people sit down there, vulnerable.”
He threw his hands up. “I know it. But I can’t make that call. I can’t end the war.”
“Fine. If you won’t make the decision, I will. I’m giving you a direct order. Pull your people off the planet right now. You can notify SPACECOM after you’ve started.” I waited for him to explode. He didn’t know I had authority to give that order, and it would appear as me stepping way outside my authority.
He sat without speaking. I’d stunned him into silence. Or so I thought. “Okay, I’ll give the order,” he said.
I started to speak before it registered, ready to direct him to my authority, then I stopped, speechless. He knew. He knew before he ever came to see me that I had the authority. More important, he wanted me to give the order. He wanted me to cover his ass so he could do the right thing, but have someone to blame if it went wrong.
And it would go wrong. No matter what happened, it was the kind of decision that news people and politicians and even military leaders would second-guess. If only they’d considered this, if only they’d thought about these other factors. They’d armchair-general the decision to death, after they had more information than we’d ever see. They’d find something wrong with the decision, no matter what decision I made. It’s what they always did. So . . .
Fuck them.
Part of me wanted to punch Stirling in his coward face. Another part of me wanted to slap myself for bailing him out and making it easy on him. But it didn’t change anything. We had the information we had, and I made the decision I had to. But then, that’s why Serata sent a dead-end colonel out here. Someone who could make a decision without political pressure.
Then it hit me.
“How long have you known?” I asked.
“Known what?” he asked, but his voice caught. Still not good at lying.
I fixed his eyes with mine. “Aaron . . . you know exactly what I’m asking. How long have you known I had that authority?”
He looked down at the floor. “A while. I don’t know. A few days, at least.”
I took a deep breath and blew it out slowly through my nose. “Okay. This is important. How’d you find out?” I had a suspicion, but I needed him to confirm it. What he said could change my thinking.
He wouldn’t meet my eyes. “I just know,” he said, after a minute.
“Not good enough. I really need to know how.” Even as I said it, I knew the harder I pushed the more he’d resist.
“Sorry,” he said. “It doesn’t matter.”
I bit back my response, started to speak, then waited another few seconds to control myself. Asshole.
“Fine. Give the order to evacuate the planet. Let me know when it’s done.” I turned back to my monitor and pulled up a screen full of information. I didn’t read it. I just didn’t want to lo
ok at Stirling anymore.
I sat there for a long time after Stirling left, staring at the same meaningless screen. Alenda didn’t come in. Maybe she saw the look on Stirling’s face and thought better of it. Maybe he said something, told her not to. I was fairly sure she’d been keeping my confidence recently, but it started to gnaw at me, the way things did when things got messed up and you had too much time to think. What could she have given away? I hadn’t told her about the order. He got that from somewhere else. I knew where he had to have got it from, but my mind still wouldn’t accept it.
Serata had to have told him. It could have been someone close to Serata, another senior leader. Stirling surely had connections. But my gut told me that Serata did it, or at least directed it. But why? I thought about it a bit longer then decided it didn’t matter. Stirling knew, and even if he didn’t, he’d have known once I gave the order. Nothing changed.
I couldn’t sit still and think about it, so I got up, despite my balky leg, and limped to the door. Four soldiers I didn’t know stood outside.
“Find Sergeant Mac,” I said. “Tell him I want to go see Karen Plazz.” Karikov might call, but I figured I had some time. I’d given him four hours, and I didn’t expect him to rush.
It took them five minutes to get Mac and another five for me to convince him that I could walk. It took us ten minutes to walk to Plazz’s room, which was five minutes longer than it would have taken if I’d been telling the truth and actually able to walk. I scuffled, dragging my feet on the no-slip flooring of the deck. To his credit, Mac didn’t say “I told you so.”
I was starting to appreciate how my rank kept me from hearing that recently.
The door opened into a room just big enough for a bed and a small desk. A half-packed bag sat on the floor, Plazz busy stuffing clothes into it.
“They sure don’t give you a lot of space.” I stepped inside, leaving my entourage of guards in the hall.
She looked up from her task. “You look like hell.”
I chuckled. “Thanks. How are you feeling?”
“I’ve got a headache.” She stood up. “Mind if I close the door?”
I glanced outside where two of my guards were looking in. “We’re fine,” I told them. “Go ahead.”
She hit the button and the door zipped shut. She pulled the chair out from the desk and offered it to me, then sat on her bed.
“Going somewhere?” I nodded toward her bag.
She shrugged. “I think I’m going to hang it up here, yeah.”
“How come? The attack?”
She thought about it. “The perspective. The attack just triggered it. I’ve been out here away from real life for a long time, and why? What’s here?”
“You got attacked on a SPACECOM base. That’s a story.”
She shrugged again. “Sure. It’s a story for a day. Maybe two. But it’s not the kind of story I came to tell.”
“What do you want to tell?”
She didn’t answer immediately. “Why are you here, Carl? I mean . . . not here in this room. Here. At Cappa.”
I met her eyes. “You know why. The investigation.”
“Right. The investigation, I know that. But why you? Why send a guy who lost his daughter here? What about this investigation was that important?”
I looked down, thinking about the question. She’d given voice to the question that had been burning in the back of my mind. It was never about finding Mallot. When I looked back up, she was still staring at me.
“Did you think I didn’t know about that?” she asked.
“That’s not it,” I said. In truth, I hadn’t thought about it. Of course she knew.
“You got quiet there.”
I nodded. “You’re a good reporter.”
“Why do you say that?” she asked.
“You ask a lot of really hard questions.”
She sighed. “I’m sorry.”
“No, don’t be. People need to ask those kinds of questions.” She’d asked the question I should have asked myself. I stood, using my good arm to help lever me out of the chair. “You should unpack your bag.”
She stood as well. “Why’s that?”
“There’s a story here that you’re going to want to tell.”
“What—”
I waved my hand, cutting her off. “Don’t ask, because I can’t answer right now. Give it a day. I think you’ll have your answers.”
She stared at me for several seconds. “Okay. I can give it a day.”
I nodded. She couldn’t have left anyway, with Stirling’s flight embargo, but I took it as a small victory that she made the decision on her own. “Hope you feel better.”
I had Mac call for an electric cart to transport me back. I didn’t need the additional strain on my leg, and more important, I needed to think. Serata had put me into an impossible situation, some of which he knew about and some of which he probably didn’t. Serata didn’t do anything by accident. He sent me for a reason, and he trusted me to decipher that reason and act. As I turned over what I needed to do in my brain, I shivered despite the uniform temperature of the processed space-station air.
Chapter Thirty-Five
I flipped open the feed on my monitor to operations and looked over recent actions to make sure that Stirling followed through on the decision to withdraw. He had.
Orders had already gone out, which made me think that Stirling had prepared ahead of time, which meant that he suspected that I’d give him the directive to evacuate. Asshole.
I wondered where else he might have predicted my response. I thought through my recent actions but didn’t see anything obvious. Someone had predicted my path away from my room and planted a bomb, but that hadn’t been Stirling. Not possible.
I watched the screen update, which it did at about the same rate that the sun crossed the sky in mid-afternoon. It served no purpose, but I couldn’t pull myself away. I couldn’t even extrapolate a timeline for the withdrawal. It would depend on how much they tried to take off the surface and what equipment they decided to abandon. We could pull people off easily. The years and years of built-up stuff . . . that would take time. I resisted the urge to call Stirling. He’d have made the decision on what to take and what to leave, and I could live with it, whatever he chose.
The Cappans hadn’t moved against us, which was a good break. I didn’t know how long I could count on that. They could fire anti-ship missiles at a departing ship, if they knew we were leaving. By now they had to know something was happening, but I couldn’t predict their reaction. They wanted us gone, but they clearly weren’t so naïve to think we couldn’t come back at any time, so that wouldn’t deter them. They’d be planning quickly. I had to assume that. I would have been in their situation, and I had to give them credit for having the same level of thought. Anything less was foolish. Never underestimate your enemy.
When the phone beeped I almost jumped out of my chair.
I let it beep a second time before I picked it up. “Butler here.”
“Butler. It’s Karikov.”
“Karikov. Glad to hear you’re alive.”
“Ha! It will take more than a little firefight to knock me out.”
“Yeah. Little firefight my ass.” My mind raced. I hadn’t thought it all the way through, what I’d do if he called. With Mallot dead, I needed to know if Karikov had regained control, or if there were more humans working with the Cappans. If anyone knew their plans, it would be Karikov or someone near him. “Are you alone?”
“Yeah, I’m alone. Hey, Butler . . . I meant to ask you when you were down here. You know a guy from Polla Five named Kapinski? Short white guy.”
“Kappy? Yeah, I knew Kappy.” I also knew Kapinski was tall, thin, and black. A signal. Karikov wasn’t alone, and what was more, he wanted me to know it.
“What ever happened to that bastard?” he asked.
“Kappy’s on Ferra Three. He retired. Works as a contractor, sucking money off the government.”
&nb
sp; “Ha!” He answered. “Sounds about right. Anyway, they told me you needed to talk to me. Said it couldn’t wait.”
“Yeah. Stirling is pulling all his forces off the surface. Thought you should know. With no conventional forces for support, you probably should think about pulling out too. Just for a while.” I wasn’t giving anything away. If the people listening didn’t know about the withdrawal, they’d have figured it out soon enough.
“That’s good to know. We’ll take a look at it,” he said.
“Which way do you think the Cappans will go? You think they’ll try to hit us as we pull out, or do they have other plans?” On the surface it was exactly the kind of question a conventional commander would ask a Special Operator. They knew the locals best. But I used it to give him a chance to tell me something else, if he could. I wanted him to give me a reason not to do what I had already, in my head, started planning to do. Anything at all.
The line stayed silent for several seconds. “Fuck that,” Karikov said, in a muffled voice away from the comm. “We’re probably not pulling out,” he said, clearer. A thud came across the line and a moment later it went dead.
I didn’t know what made the noise, but it sounded like a rifle butt striking a man’s head. Karikov had paid the price for giving me that answer. It didn’t sound important on the surface, but it had clearly meant something to him. It gave me the answer I needed, as much as I didn’t want to hear it. Karikov wasn’t in control planetside, and whoever was wasn’t going to let him tell me anything else.
I pushed myself up out of the chair and got a plastic tumbler, then filled it half full of whiskey. I added four ice cubes for good measure. I swirled them so they tapped against the side. I missed glass. The sound of ice clacking against plastic didn’t have the same effect. I was down to a bottle and a third left. I needed to wrap this thing up. I’m sure a doctor would have said something about drinking after a possible concussion. Good thing there were no doctors present.
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