The Eternity War: Pariah

by Jamie Sawyer

  “Steady,” the captain said. Put a hand on her fellow officer’s shoulder, and displaced him with the gentlest of touches. To Feng, she said, “I’m sure that someone out here believes you, even if I don’t.”

  Feng looked sideways at me. His shoulders dropped. Probably disarmed by the grin across my face.

  “She doesn’t mean any harm,” I said, nodding at the captain. “Trust me, her bark is far worse than her bite.”

  When he looked back to the captain, she was smiling too.

  “It’s been too long, Carmine,” I said. “No one told me that I would be working under you.”

  “That’s Captain Carmine to you, girl,” she said. “At least in front of the crew.”

  I gave a brisk and genuine salute at the older woman. She waved it aside and flung her arms around me.

  “Oh, I’m not your commanding officer,” Carmine said. “But you’ll meet him, soon enough. I just take care of the flying.” She called over her officer cadre, indicated to the Jackals. “Get these troopers settled in. I’m sure they’ll get used to me soon enough.”

  “Jackals,” I said, opening my arms towards the squad, “meet Captain Miriam Carmine. Captain Carmine, meet the Jackals.”

  “You know the captain…?” Lopez said.

  Carmine frowned. “She’s bright, this one. Do I recognise her from somewhere?”

  “Maybe her daddy,” Novak suggested.

  “Hmmm,” Carmine said, shuffling on her metal walking stick. “Probably. An old girl like me loses track after so many lovers…”

  “I don’t think he meant it like that,” I said.

  Carmine winked. “I might be old, but I’m not stupid. Come, come, Keira. We’ve got so much to catch up on. Anyone wants me, I’ll be taking tea in my quarters with Lieutenant Jenkins.”

  Carmine grasped my forearm with an iron grip that suggested I couldn’t escape even if I’d been armed.

  “Come, my dear. Come.”

  I’d insisted that Zero accompany me for some moral support. She looked more than a little perplexed by the captain’s presentation.

  As Carmine ushered us into her cramped cabin, she turned to Zero and said, “Don’t worry. I only mean half of what I say.”

  “The captain is an acquired taste,” I explained.

  “Much like a fine wine,” Carmine said. She was basking in Zero’s confusion. “Or a cheap spirit.”

  Carmine’s cabin was hardly befitting of a senior Navy officer, but I supposed luxury was a foreign concept aboard a transport like the Santa Fe. The chamber was filled with bolted-down furniture, and we took up seats around a small desk. That was mostly dominated by tea-making facilities. The cabin, and Carmine, smelled of fresh tea leaves.

  Carmine slowly tap-tap-tapped her way round the deck, sliding into a seat behind it. With the silver cane and the affected movements, she looked positively ancient, and I couldn’t help but think about how long it had been since I’d last seen her.

  “You haven’t changed, Carmine,” I said, just because it felt like the right thing to say.

  “And you’re a bad liar,” she said. She flung her cap across the room, onto a poorly made bunk. “I’m older, and so are you.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “You can see it in your face, and I spied a few grey hairs back there in the dock.”

  Zero laughed. “I thought you two were friends?”

  “Oh, we are, my dear,” Carmine said. She set about activating the tea set, pouring steaming hot tea into a set of beaten metal mugs without asking whether we wanted it. “But even friends get older. So how have you been, Keira?”

  I sipped at the tea. It was bitter, without milk, and very hot. “You don’t know?”

  Carmine smiled. Age lines spread across her cheeks. “If you’re referring to Daktar, then of course I know. I suppose that’d age anyone. It’s the biggest news this side of the Maelstrom.”

  “It wasn’t our fault,” Zero said.

  “And who would you be, my dear?” Carmine asked. She pushed a cup across the table in Zero’s direction and intimated that she drink it.

  “Sergeant Zoe Campbell, ma’am,” Zero said. “I’m the Jackals’ intelligence and operations handler. Everyone calls me Zero.”

  “Welcome aboard the Fe, Zero,” Carmine said. “You already know who I am, but everyone calls me ‘Carmine the Carbine.’” She winked. “I pretend not to notice.”

  Behind Carmine, attached to the wall, was an ancient assault carbine. The pattern was one that hadn’t been in service for decades. Carmine turned to look at the weapon. Her mechanical leg whirred noisily.

  “What happened?” Zero said.

  Carmine looked at me. “Can I tell her the story?”

  “If you must,” I said.

  “The long or short version?”

  I blew on my tea. “I don’t think that we have time for the long version.”

  Carmine pulled a tight smile. “Listen to the girl, will you? Gets her own squad and she suddenly thinks she’s General Draven himself!”

  “Just get on with it.”

  “Well, Zero,” Carmine said, rolling the words around her mouth in a theatrical way, “Keira Jenkins and I have known each other for a long time. Longer than she’s been a lieutenant, in fact. We go back to when she was Legion, when she served under that irrepressible oaf Conrad Harris…”

  “Lazarus?” Zero said. Her face illuminated at the name, in a way that I always found endearingly child-like. “You met him?”

  “In the flesh,” Carmine said. “Both real and simulated. The Legion used my ship as a base of operations during the New Ohio withdrawal. There was an evacuation order, you see, and the population were being shuttled into orbit. It was during the Krell War.”

  Carmine frowned, recalling the memory. “I was captain of the Atran Prime in those days. She was a good ship—served me well for almost five years. While we were ferrying civilians from the surface, the Atran was attacked by pirates. Boarded by two dozen of the nasty bastards.”

  Carmine tapped her leg. She shuffled around the edge of her desk, so that Zero could see what she was indicating, then pulled up her left trouser leg. The fabric snagged on a skeletal frame made of dull metal, and with some difficulty she pulled it to her knee. It was a poor-quality bionic. The Navy, like the Army, rarely went in for cosmetics: so far as Logistics was concerned, if a prosthetic did the job then that was all that mattered. She limped back to her side of the desk.

  “I’ve only met pirates once in my life,” she said, “and that was once too many. Lazarus and his Legion were a little late on that particular rescue operation…”

  “The pirates shot you?” Zero asked.

  Carmine grinned at me. “You’ve got another clever one in your squad then? Yes, my dear, the pirates shot me. Killed several of my crew as well though, so I count myself lucky. Anyway, Lazarus and the Legion were on New Ohio. But when they became aware that the ship had been boarded they extracted back to the Simulant Operations Centre and cleared the pirates out.”

  I looked at Carmine across the table. “Except that’s not quite how it happened, is it? You’re making out that we saved you…”

  “Which is precisely what you did,” Carmine insisted.

  I shook my head. “You lost that leg defending the Simulant Operations Centre, so that we could get the refugees off-planet.”

  Carmine stared down at her tea, at the ripples that danced across the dark surface.

  “I’m old, my dear,” she said. “Sometimes the details get lost in the telling.”

  “What’s important is that you’re the heroine of that story,” I said. “And that’s how Captain Carmine got her nickname. She used a carbine—one of the pirates’ assault rifles—to kill their leader.”

  There the weapon sat: a Fabrique Multiworld MN. A proper antique, with a moulded plastic stock and a battle-scarred muzzle. I knew, without asking, that the carbine would still be capable of firing. That was Carmine. Ever-ready.
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br />   Carmine breathed out slowly. “That’s not the only reason they call me Carbine. I have a fast mouth too. I like to talk, and the Navy don’t like that in an officer.”

  I pointed at the wall. Sarcastically added, “Hence the medals, and all.”

  As well as the carbine, the walls of Carmine’s cabin were filled with accolades. Merchant Navy shipping certificates, from her early career, sat alongside framed holo-medals and ribboned badges. Pride of place was a picture of six young women who looked so much like younger copies of Carmine that it was almost uncomfortable.

  “How’s the family?” I asked, nodding at the picture.

  “Good,” Carmine said. “Last I heard, at least. Difficult to keep track of them when I’m never home. Earth’s a long way from the frontline. I try to call when I can, but tachyon-links don’t come cheap…”

  Carmine was an Old Earther, like me, and given the practicalities of time-dilation I doubted that she had much time to go back to the Core and conduct family visits. She was actually from California, her hometown not far from Low State where I’d grown up. I wondered if I would end up like her in my old age. Out here alone, sailing the stars without anyplace to call home. There are worse ways to go, I silently concluded.

  “And what about you, Zero my dear? Where are you from? I can’t place your accent.”

  “I’m Mau Tanis,” Zero said.

  “American or French?” Carmine asked.

  “Bit of both. My father was French, my mother North American.”

  Carmine gave a little shake of her head, remembering the details. “Wasn’t Mau Tanis the site of that Krell attack in ’76?”

  “Yes,” Zero said, and with admirable calmness. “It was. I was eight standard years old at the time.”

  “You were there, weren’t you?” Carmine asked of me. “With the Lazarus Legion, I mean.”

  “I was,” I said. I swallowed. Not everyone can be saved. “Maybe I’ll tell you about that another time, Carmine.”

  “Very well,” Carmine said.

  Although Carmine might put on the old lady façade, she was very far from stupid. She must’ve detected that she was stepping into a minefield. She gave new direction to the conversation.

  “What about the rest of your squad? The ‘Jackals,’ eh? Who the hell thinks up these names?”

  “Command,” I said. “I was supposed to iron them out, but things haven’t quite gone to plan…”

  “How many transitions?”

  “Seven apiece,” I said. I didn’t explain to Carmine that six of those had been in training, and that the seventh transition had ended up in this mess. “Except for Riggs. He has eleven.”

  “That’s awful green, Jenkins. Awful green.”

  Although she wasn’t Simulant Operations, and she wasn’t operational like me and the other operators, Carmine was an old hand. She knew the Programme well: you didn’t get as many years under the belt as Carmine without understanding how fellow military agencies worked.

  “The dark-haired one,” she said, waving a hand in the air, “he’s quite the eye-candy.”

  “Feng?” Zero said.

  Carmine scowled. “Not the Directorate one. The muscly one.”

  “Corporal Riggs,” I said. “Yeah, he’s easy on the eye, I guess.”

  Carmine smiled with a knowing glint in her eye. I felt my cheeks prickle with embarrassment. She had an almost supernatural sense for this sort of thing, an ability to wheedle information out of people without even really trying. She’d probably make a good Military Intelligence officer.

  She poured herself another cup of strong tea. “Like I said, I only half-mean some of the things that come out of my mouth. I only half-meant the things about that Chino trooper…”

  “Feng’s okay,” I said. “He’s been through an extensive debrief procedure, and Sci-Div say that there’s no residual Directorate influence.”

  Captain Carmine’s concerns echoed my own, but I wasn’t about to give up on Feng. As Draven had told me: I needed to lead this squad if they were going to be anything. That meant giving Feng, even Novak, the benefit of the doubt. I knew that Zero would be satisfied I had defended Feng, if nothing else.

  “I’ll take your word for that, Keira,” Carmine said. “You know I trust you.”

  “Leave it with me,” I said. “But more pressingly, we were expecting some sort of briefing on our part in this operation.”

  Carmine finished her tea and set the cup down on the table. “You and me both,” she said. “But as you’ll see, he isn’t exactly the talkative type.” She raised her eyebrows in another dramatic expression. “But then Military Intelligence rarely are…”

  “He’s Mili-Intel?” Zero asked.

  “That’s what I said. We’ve been running transport operations for him for some months now, on and off. The work’s usually clandestine, and often seems to involve Simulant Operations. You’ll probably want to check out the Sim Ops bay, down in Medical. It’s quite something.”

  “What’s our destination and route?” I asked.

  “All I know is that the major expects us to make Q-space to North Star Station,” Carmine said. “From there, new course projections will take us into the Maelstrom.”

  “Any idea about journey time?”

  That was the big question for any trip into the Maelstrom. While the Santa Fe travelled through quantum-space, time would slow down. But for the rest of the universe it was business as usual, and the clock still ticked. That was the time-dilation effect of a Q-space jump. The only alternative was to use a Shard Gate.

  “Faster than you’d expect,” Carmine said. “We’re running an experimental engine module.”

  “Like Riggs said,” Zero added.

  “So he’s not just a pretty chassis?” Carmine offered. “The drive is fresh out of Science Division labs. Fastest Q-drive that we have in operation. Jump time is much reduced compared to an older module. Only a dozen or so ships have the drive, and until it is safety-approved it won’t be rolled out across the fleet. We’ve been running the drive for the last few months, since this new CO took operation of my ship.”

  “What’s he like? The CO I mean.”

  “He’s okay. Far from the worst officer I’ve ever had on one of my ships.” Carmine’s face grew a little reluctant. “But this can wait. Launch comes first, and you should take a look around your new home.”

  Before I could dissent, Carmine had commed for an officer to her cabin. Almost instantly, as though she had been waiting outside the hatch, a Navy lieutenant appeared.

  “This is Lieutenant Yukio,” Carmine said. “She’s my executive officer—my second in command. She’ll look after you.”

  We got squared away with quarters as the ship launched from Unity’s dock. I had my own cabin, midships, and the Jackals were allocated a communal barracks at the Fe’s aft. The rest of the Navy crew were housed on the same deck.

  Lieutenant Yukio gave us a cursory tour of the ship. She was a small, muscled woman of indiscriminate age, with a tight cap of black hair. Dour and formal, she was from one of the Alliance colonies on Taiyo and explained that she had been on Carmine’s crew for several years.

  The Jackals inspected all of the decks that they would be expected to work on, and met most of the starship’s crew. The Santa Fe was equipped with a decent-sized cargo hold, which housed a Warhawk shuttle for interplanetary flight, a subspace communications array, a zero-G gymnasium, and a scientific-medical deck. For a ship of her size, the latter was quite impressive: with a well-equipped medical facility, an automated-doctor for treatment of injured personnel, and a full Simulant Operations Centre.

  “This will be for your use,” Yukio said to Zero. “We don’t have a dedicated medical staff aboard the ship—not any more—so feel free to make yourselves at home.”

  Zero beamed at that. “Nice. I hadn’t expected to have the place to myself. What about simulant supplies?”

  “That’s all been taken care of,” Yukio said.

&n
bsp; She showed us down the corridor to another hold. The air carried that familiar charge of working cryogenics technology.

  “Holy Gaia…” said Riggs.

  The walls were lined with powered cryo-storage capsules. Each held a simulant, refrigerated and ready for deployment. My pulse quickened and my throat constricted. This was excitement, refined. The idea that I might get to make transition again sometime soon was nearly intoxicating. Old hands called it “the high”: an addictive sensation that every simulant operator came to recognise.

  “How many skins have we got in here?” Feng said, the sense of wonder thick in his voice.

  Yukio gave a tight smile. “A couple dozen each.”

  There were copies of each Jackal, every working capsule stamped with a name and serial code. Everyone except Zero.

  “This would make Senator sick,” Novak offered. He snorted. “All money.”

  Feng nodded. “Must have cost a pretty Proximan penny.”

  “Then it’s a good job he isn’t here,” Lopez said.

  We paced the rows of iced simulants. Novak’s hooded eyes. Lopez’s hair swimming like a sea-snake. Feng’s boyish features in a deep sleep. Riggs’ thickset shoulders and tanned skin.

  “What is that…? Novak said.

  In the middle of the room, held in a charging cradle that vaguely resembled medical stirrups, was an enormous suit of battle-armour. Now my pulse was hammering triple-time. It felt like my heart was about to leap out of my chest.

  “It’s a HURT suit,” I said. “I’ve read about these things…”

  “HURT?” Lopez enquired.

  “Heavy Utility Response Team,” Zero explained. “As worn by deep-space salvage and rescue teams, mainly.”

  “Its use is highly restricted,” I said, “and this is the first time that I’ve seen one in the flesh, so to speak.”

  The armour was three times the size of a full combat-suit—a true mammoth. The limbs and body were bulbous, up-armoured to such an extent that the wearer would be dwarfed inside. Helmet removed, the driver cabin was visible. Being a true mech rather than powered armour, the unit didn’t rely on haptic responses like a combat-or recon-suit. The armour was cast in a dull metallic grey, devoid of camouflage patterning or any insignia—because it would be almost impossible to hide something that damned big—and both arms terminated in oversized kinetic cannons known as suit-guns. A pair of ammo drums were locked beneath the forearms. The suit’s weapons package was completed with a grenade launcher across the shoulders—perfect for crowd-control. Meanwhile, an enormous M66 EVAMP was attached to the rear, so that the suit could keep moving no matter what the opposition.