by Mike Moscoe
“It's all a waste. All of it. This whole war is nothing but a waste. Those who died under you. Your being crippled. My daughter. It is all for nothing.”
Ray let the word—nothing—roll around his skull. It was a good word. To feel nothing. To be nothing. A good word. For now, he could do nothing. Say nothing. Begin being nothing, as so many of the men and women under his command had become. Did their mothers still weep? Were their fathers looking at what they had sacrificed their lives for and seeing nothing?
Ray deserved to be nothing with them.
“We had such hopes, such dreams when it all began. Unity would bring us together. United behind one powerful man, there would be nothing we and Urm could not do. Foolish lies by those who said them. Foolish dreams by we who listened. And a foolish old man has killed his only child.” Now the man wept, deep, racking sobs that shook his body, yet hardly a noise escaped him.
Ray left him to his silent tears. He had much to contemplate. He had gambled with the lives of so many men and women. They had died, trying to make true the foolish lies he spoke as orders. Rita had said he was forgiven, and in her body he'd found the words could be true. Now she was gone, swept away by a commander's foolish lies. Gone, leaving him alone with hundreds of faces, faces that screamed “murderer” at him, “foolish dreamer” at him, “nothing” at him.
An officer and a gentleman would use a pistol. Yet among all his gear that Rita had brought to her parents' house, neither pistol nor knife were present. He raised his glass in silent salute to the hundreds of eyes accusing him in the dark. “To nothing,” he whispered, and drained the glass.
* * * *
Having successfully repeated one jump, they turned the Sheffield into an experiment. If speed mattered and ten meters per second got them to one system, where was the change? Fifty meters, one hundred meters got them to the same system. Somewhere between five hundred meters and one klick per second found them staring at a new sun.
Mattim relaxed only when he was once more gazing at four suns. Or, rather, he returned to that level of tension that had become his norm since the dead admiral ordered him to the tag end of the squadron line. Mattim wondered if he'd ever relax again.
Using both hands to push himself up from his chair, he stood. “All right, crew, we can repeat jumps. Let's knock off, get some rest, and look things over in the morning.” There were a few mutters, but most of the bridge watch headed for the hatch, the middies chattering enthusiastically to each other. Tomorrow, he suspected, they'd have a lot to say.
“Guns, have your chiefs make sure those middies get at least eight hours sleep.”
Guns was chuckling. “I've already had a few chiefs ask me if I'd back them up. I told them there was a baseball bat behind my stateroom door they were welcome to.”
“Exec, set a minimum watch. Keep the middies out of it.”
“Will do, sir.”
“Sandy, do I need to get Ivan to haul you away?”
“No, I've fought my demons. I'll get a good night's sleep and return a hardheaded rationalist.” With a wave, she went.
Mattim treated himself to a long, thoughtful shower. They'd gone where no human had gone—and come back. There was a logic to these damn jump points. Yet, they still didn't understand something. What was it about their original jump? The question did not keep him awake.
* * * *
Ray was still in his chair the next morning; he doubted he had slept. The day passed slowly, marked by the ticking of the clock on the fireplace. Ray let the tick-tock fill his mind. For a man who had been forever active—thinking, planning, doing—this was the closest to nothing he'd ever been. They offered him food. He ignored it, as he did the pitcher of tea they left.
Night and day and night came again. The cook begged him to eat, to drink. Mr. Nuu pleaded with him. “Even my wife eats something. Drinks a little tea. Please, Major.”
He answered them with nothing.
Captain Santiago arrived and sat beside him. The silence between them stretched. They spun it into soft nothing. Occasionally, the captain would add words, more to ornament the silence than break it. First words were about the brigade. It was being rebuilt as a division. Its commander had two stars, though until recently he'd been a party hack. Santiago had wrangled command of a company of old hands.
The quiet grew. Others left them alone. Only then did Santiago weep—and it was not for Rita. His kid sister had shared with her church group how much she didn't want her only son drafted. The police had come for her in the night. The family had been required to pay for the bullet. Only the captain had dared to face the police and collect her ashes.
Paying for the bullet was an old tradition. Santiago had never thought he would serve a government that followed it. Neither had Ray. For this Rita had died?
Ray did not notice when the captain left.
Another night and day passed . . . maybe two. The doctor came; he muttered of dehydration and punctured Ray's arm with a needle, left a pole standing beside his chair with a plastic bag that slowly emptied clear liquid into him. That night Ray removed the needle. They did not put another into him.
Time passed into nothing. A car drove up the tree-lined driveway. Rita raced across the grass. It was not the first time he had seen her. This time, she seemed so happy. Maybe this time she had come for him. He closed his eyes, willed himself to nothing.
The door slammed open. “Ray, Mother, Father. I'm not dead. I'm home.” Ray opened his eyes. Rita... bedraggled, begrimed, still in a pilot suit that stank of fear and old vomit. . . threw herself at his knees. “I'm alive, and you look like shit.”
If he had the moisture to spare, he might have cried.
* * * *
First Lieutenant Mary Rodrigo stared at the map projected on her eyeball. The damn colonials had landed another ship on her front. Just one. Not more than a company. More people to kill. More people killing her own. With an exhausted sigh, she began moving her forces to meet them.
For the next three hours, they came at her in twos and threes. Nothing bigger. Most of the time, Mary did nothing. Her troops were dug in; sensors out, rockets ready. Colonials died trying to cross her rim, find her people, fix them in place or force them into the open, do anything that would let them kill the pass's defenders, punch a hole through the wall into the crater.
The colonials came, and fought, and died.
And through it all, Mary hardly felt a twitch.
She felt nothing even when she sent Dumont out with a fire team to mop up what was left of half a platoon of colonials. She watched the hostile icons disappear from her map, but felt no relief. There were more behind those. She wasted no time on visuals of the fight. The enemy was colored pixels. Just that, no more. Her forces were different-colored icons. Just that. No more. Friendship was something hardly remembered from a distant, forgotten past. She sent a sergeant here, another there. She tried not to think of the name—Cassie, Dumont, whatever name had been attached to the rank.
In four hours, this battle was over, the wreckage of the colonials slinking back. She let them go; she had nothing to risk in pursuit. She'd held them, and kept them from learning what they could not be allowed to know. Company A was not here.
Mary commanded the remnants of first platoon, puffed up with a few green replacements. Second and third platoons were long gone, gone to reinforce bled and shattered C company. Mary could not remember how many times she'd held the pass. She'd held it again, and would keep holding it until. . .
Hold until relieved, her orders said. She wondered if there would be anything left of them by the time relief came. She shivered, and shook that thought off. She had things to do.
She keyed her mike. “Sergeant, fourth squad. The left needs some shoring up. Can you loan a fire section to first?”
“We're getting a little thin.” Cassie answered as the tough sergeant, then softened. “But Dumont looks to be even thinner. They're on their way, Lieutenant.”
“Thanks, Sergeant.
”
“Mary.” The voice was soft, full of memories Mary couldn't afford to touch. “When are you going to take some R&R? Everyone's been back to brigade for a couple of hours. Everyone but you. Mary, you can't carry this damn pass forever.”
“Thank you for your opinion, Sergeant. I'll take it under consideration. HQ out.”
Mary switched off before Cassie could argue with her. Before the soft voice would remind her of another person she no longer could afford to be. “Rest is for the dead,” Mary muttered, and checked the ammunition expenditure for the last four hours. Battalion wouldn't like it, but she'd forward the list to them. If she had to look like a company, she had to shoot like one. Supplies and how they got here was a Navy problem. It was her job to see that every round counted.
She'd taken care of her job. Those Navy pukes had better take care of theirs.
Mary glanced at the list of the messages that had backed up during the firefight. One said she was a first lieutenant. The rest were end-of-month reports; she'd be all night. She didn't mind all the reports. She didn't even mind all the colonials. She just wished they'd get their acts together and coordinate.
* * * *
Rita told her story as she spooned soup into Ray, her mother and father at her elbow, the handyman and cook standing at the door of his parlor. “They knew we were coming. There were Earthie ships all over the place.” A spoonful of broth.
“I think our admiral goofed when he killed their last one. This one's a fighter.” A spoonful of broth.
“They went straight for us transports. It doesn't take a genius to know that you can dash around in space all you want, but Ray's ground-pounders were the ones who'd give us that damn moon.” A spoonful of broth.
“I took hits, but landed in one piece. I had a hundred troopers, and every one of them was alive when they left the Friendship.” A spoonful of broth.
“We had cargo rigged for a quick drop. I offloaded despite a missile damn near taking the rockets out from under us. The Brotherhood wasn't so lucky.” A spoonful of broth.
“When we booted out of there, I thought the worst was over, but the Earthies weren't done with us. They hit us hard. Cadow died. Hesper died. We lost most of our comm gear. The main tanks were hit, streaming, making us a target, so I ducked and ran, headed in-system, away from the fight. There were other, smaller, gas planets. I refueled from one.”
The bowl of broth was in her hand. Her eyes were somewhere else. Ray had been there. He was hungry now, but not hungry enough to call her back. He waited.
“We patched her tank as best we could. Comm was lost: We could barely navigate. Once everyone had left, we tried for the jump. More by luck than anything else, we found it. I even made it to the next jump point. There was a tiny picket boat that took us aboard. We aimed the Friendship at the sun and left her. I tried to call. They said the battle was under strict secrecy. The Earthies kicked ass, and our brass doesn't want anyone to know. Christ, the Earthies damn well know what they did.” She glanced at her father. “The Earthies aren't the ones the brass are keeping secrets from.” Her father, her mother, and Ray nodded. The handyman and cook just stared.
“I landed a half hour ago. They said I needed to debrief. I told them where they could go and grabbed the first car I could get my hands on. I'm afraid, Dad, it may be considered stolen.”
“William and I will return it. William, you may drive my car. I will drive the borrowed one.”
“Yes sir.” The handyman looked relieved.
“Oh, Ray, it must have been horrible for you.” She threw her arms around his neck. The soup bowl, inconveniently placed and forgotten, spilled its contents. Neither mother nor cook fussed. For a long time, Ray just held Rita as she cried. Now the tears came. She was here, safe in his arms. He would never let her leave.
* * * *
Mattim joined the wardroom for breakfast. Guns presided like a proud grandfather over a table of chattering middies. At Sandy's table, personal computers took up as much space as trays. The damage control officer, Gandhi, had a table with one vacancy; he headed for it. The officers at her table were watch-standers, leaders of the divisions that kept environmental support going, the ship working while the flashy kids explored stars. They led the young and scared able spacers who held the ship together. They deserved his attention.
They also fell silent as he sat down. Half his plate was empty, this table a quiet island in the sea of stormy, excited conversation, when one JG put his fork down and looked square at him. “Are we going to make it back, sir?” Forks hesitated just short of mouths. Eyes, directly or furtively, were on him. They had a right for a straight answer from their captain.
“We've gone out, and we've come back.”
“Yes sir, but we didn't. ..” An ensign fell silent as she was nudged by the officers on either side of her.
“Right, Ensign. We went, but not where we wanted to go. Not yet. The team we've put together here on the Sheffield has learned more about the jump points in the last couple of days than the best scientists have learned in the last three hundred years. We've still got some trial and error. I'd like to tell you we'll have it all together for the next jump, but it may be the fifth or the tenth. Still, if I was a betting man, I'd give better than even odds we're home in a month. Six weeks at worst. And you can pass that along to your chiefs, and they can tell the crew. We've got sensors like no other ship before us. The best the Navy has and the best my Maggie had as a merchant ship going through jumps the Navy would never touch.”
“Right,” Commander Gandhi agreed. “We got the best of both worlds. And those kids may have been a pain in the ass to lead, but no one ever said they weren't smart.”
There were murmurs of agreement around the table. Most plates were empty. A collection of late-rising middies were just exiting the steam tables, plates full. The officers around Mattim excused themselves. He sent them on their way with a smile, hoping he'd made their day better.
Quickly, he found himself surrounded by the kids, talking between themselves. Arguments over the data were settled by dueling computers. Arguments over the significance of the results were settled with rising voices. Following Guns' lead, he let it roll for a while before rapping a glass with a fork. “Let's take it down to a dull roar. Volume does not make truth.”
Shamefaced, the two culprits did. A few minutes later, Mattim dismissed himself. His departure did not interrupt a discussion of something he knew nothing about.
* * * *
The house returned quickly to the bustling, happy place it had been. Rita had Ray on the rails, walking. It took him two days to recover to where he had been; Rita was merciless. She was also loving.
Mr. Nuu watched the news each day. The propagandists were in hyperdrive. The dead were saints; Earthies were devils. Every man, woman, and child along the frontier must avenge the fallen martyrs. More workers were called up, divisions formed. Ray frowned at the reports. Why organize troops you could never use?
Rita discovered she was an unwanted commodity. Less than half the transports had survived, and most needed major time in the body and fender shops. Despite the casualties among the crews that came back, the brass weren't sure they would have a ship for her. She cut the flip-flopping at Personnel by demanding to be seconded to Military Intelligence.
“They knew we were coming. Who's looking for the leak?”
She got her reassignment, but to Threat Assessment, not Internal Security. “At least I can stay close to you,” she told him. That was all that now mattered to Ray.
Rita's father was changing. The near death of his daughter had drained something out of the buff, confident industrialist. There were no more references to his early party membership, and the news reports did not go un-commented upon, though never when the cook or handyman was in the same room.
Still it was a surprise when he asked Ray to visit his plant. “I'll go too,” Rita jumped in. Ray shrugged; he'd had enough of being the invalid. It was clear, even to him, that
he would never command troopers again. He might as well get to know the industrial side. He had married the boss's daughter; there had to be something he could do with himself.
The “plant” turned out to be a sprawling complex that they drove through on an electric cart. “This is just the ground side. We've got mines in the asteroids. The dirty work is done there. One of the larger shipyards in orbit is mine, too.”
“Dad began with that little shop we started at,” Rita said, pride shamelessly dripping from her voice. “When I was just a little girl, I'd go there. I've watched it grow.”
“These were good times.” Ernest—yes, they were now Ernest and Major; Ray had been offered and ignored— shrugged off his daughter's praise, but with a happy smile. “People were looking for work. I gave them jobs. The more work we did, the more opportunities came our way. We grew together, me and the crew.”
“Have you been able to keep them together, your workers, what with the draft?”
“Some volunteered. I've promised them jobs when they return.” It was kind of him to say “when,” not “if.” “Out in the mines, I just installed some new equipment, reduced my staffing needs by half. I'd intended to spread the miners out and expand. I'll save that for after the war. Unlike other companies, I've managed to keep the raw materials flowing to the plants. My people are busy, and the draft boards have plenty of idle workers elsewhere.” He shrugged. “Some say I'm using my connections with the party. Maybe, but if I did not deliver the ships, war supplies and other gear, they would not remember my low party card number for long.”
Ray had been checking out the equipment; jigs, presses, drills in one shop; chip fabrication in another building. “You have a very sophisticated setup. The names on your heavy equipment read like a who's who of the largest corporations in developed space. How could you afford it?”
“It is close to lunchtime.” Ernest's face had gone flat.
We have a picnic basket, and I always keep green around my plants. Let us eat among the trees.”