by Jamie Sawyer
Of course Zero had seen what had happened. She’d been watching the vid-feeds from the ship, and her station was a nest of monitors, each showing a different angle of the conflict on Vektah. She knew every detail of what had occurred.
“I saw it,” she confirmed. “Just let it go, ma’am.”
“Don’t ‘ma’am’ me, Zero,” I argued. “Phoenix Squad stole our asset. That was the Jackals’ objective!”
“The important thing is that we have the specimen,” Zero said. “Look at this rationally.”
“I just got left behind on the surface of an alien planet, and erased by a plasma barrage—so forgive me if I’m feeling a little cranky.”
“Jenk, let it go!” Zero implored.
“Stand aside, Zero.”
Angrily, I shook the liquid from my skin and pounded towards Phoenix Squad’s ops bay. Lopez, Feng and Novak watched on, ready to provide support if I needed it. Zero seemed to freeze, glaring at her terminal screens: tense at the expectation of confrontation.
“You’re a fucking asshole, Ving!” I exclaimed.
The warden-form had no doubt been handed over to the Providence’s waiting security team. Having completed their mission, Ving and Phoenix Squad were decamping from their own tanks. Every member of the unit looked surprisingly like their commanding officer: buff, broad, so heavily muscled that the operators themselves could be mistaken for simulants.
Ving turned his head sharply when he heard my voice. His real skin was filled with holo-tattoos, pictures of birds with tails of fire, of planets on which the squad had fought. When Ving moved, the tattoos followed the shift of his musculature; in particular, making the feathers of the phoenix on his chest animate. It was a cheap tri-D effect, but one that Ving was known for.
“Oh? It’s you, huh?”
“What the hell was that?” I yelled, jabbing a finger into Ving’s chest.
Ving raised an eyebrow and sipped at a green-coloured nutrient shake. “What did I tell you about using proper military address, Lieutenant?”
“We’re supposed to be on the same side!”
“Yeah, well. Maybe that was a little payback for Darkwater.”
“That was different!”
“Not from where we were sitting.” Ving turned to his meathead squad mates. “How many days were we on that evac-pod, boys?”
“Enough,” muttered one.
Ving continued: “Sixteen days. Sixteen fucking days drifting in deep space. We were only picked up by chance. You hit an Alliance Sci-Div facility, and yet you’re still wearing the uniform. How do you figure that?”
“We were doing what we thought was best.”
Now Ving poked a finger at me. We were both stark naked, after the tanks, but that didn’t matter. A crowd had gathered around the bay now, troopers taking both sides of the argument.
“You’re a simulant operator, Jenkins!” Ving shouted back at me. “You follow orders, just like the rest of us.”
“We had orders from Lazarus,” I said.
But my voice dropped. I’d lost a little of my conviction. There were some repressed sniggers from Phoenix Squad, as well as other operators on Ving’s side of the divide.
“Lazarus?” Ving said, shaking his head. “So you’re relying on a dead man’s name to defend yourself?”
“You saw him too.”
The sneer grew across Ving’s broad face. “I saw an old guy wearing a Directorate uniform,” Ving muttered back. That caused some more murmuring from the gathered crowd. Eyes swivelled in Feng’s direction. “And I’ll testify to that. Get back to it, Lieutenant, and take the Directorate clone with you.”
Feng’s expression dropped. “You need some new material, Captain.”
“You were activated, Chino. Activated! And yet you’re still on the force.” Ving turned his attention to Lopez now. “Of course, we all know how that happened. Senator’s little girl and all that.”
Lopez bared her teeth. “Go screw yourself, Ving. My father isn’t—”
“Quiet!” Zero hissed.
The mood in the chamber suddenly changed. Hush descended, and some of the sharper operators tried to look like they were doing something.
“Officer on the deck!”
Three figures, all wearing full Army uniform, cut through the crowd and made a beeline for Phoenix Squad’s bay.
I recognised Captain Peter Heinrich, and my heart sank a little. Because he was the only non-operational member of the strike-force, he was in his real skin, and looked even shorter than usual, sandwiched as he was between two simulants. Those two officers looked equally out of place; you hardly ever saw sims wearing anything but combat-gear, and they looked wrong in formal uniform. With the clip-clip of boot soles against the deck, hands clasped firmly behind his back, Heinrich advanced on the bay.
The Jackals fell into an uneasy salute. His eyes still on me, Ving did the same.
“What’s going on in here?” Heinrich scanned my face, then Ving’s. “What’s the meaning of all this noise?”
Technically, Ving and Heinrich were the same rank, but Heinrich was first captain of the strike-force. He had been promoted straight out of officer college, and from there he’d managed to skulk his way to the top. As first captain, he reported directly to Command. He’d never been a line trooper, and had never actually faced deployment. Although his blond hair and blue eyes were unusual for a Proximan, Heinrich had proper ancestry—like Lopez, his family had political roots back on Proxima Colony.
“We were having a disagreement of sorts, about the mission outcome,” Ving said, curtly.
“In what way?” Heinrich asked.
“Lieutenant Jenkins was the subject of a late extraction,” Ving said. “Due to, ah, an accident.”
I sighed noisily. My jaw danced with pent-up aggression and anger.
“That was no accident,” Lopez muttered, under her breath.
Captain Heinrich didn’t hear her, which was probably for the best. “Is that so, Lieutenant?”
“Yes, sir,” I said. “That’s right.”
“Well, it’s no cause for disorderly behaviour. You know how I like to run this company—with or without your presence.” Heinrich lifted an eyebrow in disapproval, looking me up and down. “Maybe the period of operating out of the chain of command has led to a lapse in regulation.”
“Possibly, sir,” I said, through teeth that were almost gritted.
“Fine,” Heinrich said. He turned to Ving. “No doubt Captain Ving will fill out the necessary incident report.”
“Of course, sir,” said Ving.
Ving and Heinrich were in one another’s pockets. I knew that if I pushed this, it would get me nowhere. Better to just agree, and get it over with.
“I’m sure that the lieutenant will endorse your version of events,” Heinrich said, sealing the deal. “Isn’t that right, Lieutenant Jenkins?”
“That’s right, sir,” I parroted back.
“Good. That’s what I like to hear.” Heinrich nodded to himself in approval. “You successfully initiated code hammer fall. I suspect that you took out a good many fishes as a result. Now, I wanted to come down here to congratulate you all. Thanks to the efforts of Captain Ving and Phoenix Squad, we successfully executed the mission objective.”
That roused some applause and cheering from the deck. Ving raised a hand, nodding along with the clapping, basking in the attention.
“We have a living, breathing Krell warden-form in our custody,” Heinrich said. “This is truly an unprecedented feat. It has never been attempted before, and I doubt that it will be attempted again.”
“It was nothing,” said Ving, with mock embarrassment. “We were only doing our duty.”
Heinrich continued with his address. “This asset will allow us to explore the possibility of a cure for the Harbinger virus,” he said, “in a way that has previously been impossible. Well done, Captain Ving and Phoenix Squad.”
Heinrich flashed a glare in any direction as he said those
words, as though he was almost daring me to speak out against him.
“We’re currently heading to Sanctuary Base,” Heinrich said to the deck at large, “where our intelligence will be digested by Science Division. You should all be aware that Secretary Lopez will be in attendance, so best behaviour all around, please. I don’t think that you’ll have to wait long for the next deployment.”
“As you were,” called one of the simulant officers accompanying Heinrich.
The atmosphere of oppression lifted as the trio left the deck, and the Jackals visibly relaxed. Zero tossed me some fatigues, and I retreated back into our dedicated bay. It felt safer here, surrounded by our own tanks. I towelled myself dry and got dressed.
“So we don’t even get recognition for our hard work?” Lopez griped.
“Looks that way,” I said.
Zero sat at her terminal. “You did the right thing back there, ma’am. By not hitting Ving, I mean.”
Novak rumbled a laugh. “Hitting Ving is not good idea.”
“You know that you’ve crossed the line when Novak is the voice of reason,” Feng offered.
“What?” Novak said, shrugging his enormous tattooed shoulders. The ink was evidence that Novak had made more than his fair share of bad decisions. “I am most reasonable man on squad.”
“Right, right,” Lopez said.
“How do you feel about seeing your father again, Lopez?” Zero asked.
Lopez pouted. “Not great. Daddy can be difficult.”
“And don’t we know it,” Feng suggested.
“I don’t think that his interference is helping,” Lopez said. “Maybe I should talk to him.”
I buttoned up my fatigues. “Well, it stopped General Draven from throwing us in the clink, so I guess that has to be something.”
“Daddy never does anything without a reason,” Lopez said, shaking her wet hair. She was exceptionally pretty, although her time in the Army had made her leaner and harder.
“Not even for his little girl, huh?” Feng said. “That’s cold.”
Lopez just nodded. “That’s Daddy.”
“Catch some downtime until we reach Sanctuary,” I suggested. “You’re dismissed, Jackals.”
“Where are you going, ma’am?” Feng asked me.
“I want to make sure that we all got back safely. I’m going to check on Pariah.”
Despite its crucial role during the raid on Vektah Minor, P’s liberty was restricted as soon as it boarded the Providence. Captain Heinrich had issued an edict that Pariah was to remain in confinement and under observation at all times while aboard the ship.
I found the entrance to the Science Deck guarded by two Military Police officers in full battledress.
“Here to see your fish again?” asked one of the MPs.
Shock-rifles were standard armament for shipboard security, but both guards were equipped with tactical shotguns. Bandoliers of alternative ammunition—from incendiaries through to frags—were strapped across their torsos. Heinrich’s safety briefing insisted that in the event of a “containment failure”, P was to be terminated with extreme prejudice. Captain Heinrich liked P almost about as much as he liked me…
“Same as ever,” I answered.
The other nodded at me. “Doesn’t it bother you, Lieutenant? Fraternising with one of them, I mean?”
“It’s a member of my squad, trooper.”
“But it…” said the MP. “It’s a fish, ma’am.”
“So?” I challenged. “You going to let me through, or what?”
The MPs didn’t have much of an answer to that, and the bigger guard shrugged. “Have it your way,” he said.
I passed through a security gate, and into the lab complex that made up Science Deck. P’s fishy scent lingered on the air, overwhelming even the military grade atmo-scrubbers, and I just followed my nose to its cell. Whether Sci-Div wanted to admit it or not, that was what this chamber really was: a cell. P, tended by a couple of medtechs, was a prisoner behind an armourglass wall. The single Science Division officer stationed outside the cell looked up as I approached.
“Good evening, Lieutenant,” he said. He gave a warm smile that looked halfway genuine.
“How’s my trooper doing?”
“It’s doing well,” the officer said. “Very well, in fact. I don’t think that we’ve met. I’m Dr Wesley Saito.” He tapped the name-tag dangling from his lapel. “I’m Chief Science Officer on this operation.”
Although one science type looked the same as any other to me, I was pretty sure that I hadn’t seen the guy around before. He was maybe forty Standard years old, with a small frame concealed beneath a plasticised smock, which was the closest thing that Sci-Div had to a uniform. Shorter than me, with shaved dark hair and Japanese features, Saito was handsome in a geeky sort of way. He clutched a data-slate that danced with tri-D images.
“I’m Jenkins. Keira.”
“I’d guessed that already. You’re something of a celebrity on the ship.”
I shrugged. “Don’t believe everything you hear,” I said, not very keen to go back into the Jackals’ various exploits.
“I just got transferred, out of Cristobal Complex.”
“Cristobal?” I asked. “Didn’t that get wasted?”
“Not completely,” said Dr Saito. “Science Division moved all Priority Three staff off-world before the Spiral took control of the facility. I was lucky; I got out before they bombed it.”
“Right. Good for you. Why’s it so quiet in this sector?”
P’s lab was usually crawling with personnel, eager to make observations and take readings. It felt unnaturally calm.
Dr Saito explained, “Most of the Sci-Div contingent is concerned with analysis of the warden-form. It’s stirred up a lot of concern.”
“I’ll bet. So everyone’s lost interest in P?”
That was Science Division for you, I guess. Always keen to move on to the next big thing, to work on the next quick fix to a particular problem.
“I wouldn’t say that. It’s just that… well, nothing like this has ever been done before. We didn’t even know that warden-forms existed until relatively recently. The Krell…” Dr Saito clucked his tongue. “They are a species of infinite variation. We weren’t expecting the warden-form to have those defensive bio-adaptations.”
“Those spine things?” I queried. “Yeah, they came as a surprise to us, too.”
“Six months ago, the very idea of bringing a senior Krell bio-form into custody would’ve been unthinkable.”
“I guess so,” I muttered.
Dr Saito smiled. “I know that there are some in Sim Ops, and in Sci-Div too, who bear you and your squad ill will. I’d just like you to know that I’m not one of them.”
Dr Saito put the data-slate down on a medical trolley, and rolled up the sleeve of his smock. His forearms lacked data-ports—he obviously hadn’t been one of the Sci-Div staff sent to Vektah—but his flesh was badly burnt there. The skin was warped, a virtual morass of scar tissue.
“My family are Japanese,” he said. “I was a scientific advisor to the Directorate, during the Krell War. Born on Tianjin Prima.” His eyes twinkled a little at that revelation, as though he was holding back tears. He went on: “Like your Private Feng, I was liberated from a Directorate prison camp.”
“When did that happen?”
“Oh, don’t worry,” he said. “Tianjin Prima was one of the Alliance colonies invaded by the Directorate, during the hostilities. They took me prisoner. I’m not a clone. I was born and bred.”
“So was Feng,” I said, defensively.
“I’m not making any judgement. My point is, I’m not carrying anything like the private had in his head. I’ve read the debrief on him; I know what happened in the Kronstadt system.”
“I’m not sure anyone really knows what happened to Feng,” I said, with a spike of irritation in my voice.
“Probably not,” Dr Saito said. “But I know the Directorate about as wel
l as Private Feng does. I spent almost five years in a prison camp. No amount of hypnotherapy or drug treatment is going to make me forget what I saw there.”
I noticed that the doctor had a serial code tattoo splashed across his wrist, where the scarring was worst.
“I was made to work for them, you know. Not everyone in the Directorate agreed with their policies, with what they tried to do.” He looked up at me, sharply. “I’m grateful for what you did at Kronstadt,” he said, his voice dropping so that there was a measure of intimacy to our conversation. “You dealt a mighty blow to the Directorate. Not everything has to be a battle, Lieutenant. Not everything is a threat.”
“It is from where I’m standing.”
“That’s sad,” Dr Saito muttered. “That’s a terrible way to see life.”
“And it’s not true? Look at what the Directorate did to you.”
“I forgave them for that.”
I snorted a laugh. “Really?”
He shrugged. “I can forgive them and take pleasure in the fact that they are destroyed. Those things aren’t mutually exclusive.”
“You’re too highbrow for me, Doc.”
Dr Saito laughed. “I just wanted you to know that I’m just grateful for what you did.”
“I wish everyone had that view.”
“The rumour is that the Directorate will never really recover. They say that you’ve finished them.”
Where had I heard that before? The Asiatic Directorate was like a hydra. Although you could cut off one head, there were always many more waiting to bite you. I wasn’t sure at all that it was gone, no matter what the news-feeds and the Press Corps said.
“Well done. Thank you.”
“Any time,” I said. I meant that part if nothing else: I was proud of what we had done to the Directorate, whether we had finished them properly or not. Small victories, and all that.
I nodded at P, beyond the glass. “It isn’t right that P is locked up like this.”
Dr Saito smiled, but the expression faltered. “You can thank Captain Heinrich for that. His orders, I’m afraid.”
“So I hear, but it doesn’t mean that I have to like it. Are the geeks going to be long with my trooper?”