by William Cray
The tower had been surpassed by technology at the very zenith of its greatness, eveb before the base of the Stratospire was poisoned by Avery Phelman. Duran had seen the Stratospire from afar, but never this close and the sight moved him. All at once he was proud of man’s greatness and crushed by its mindless stupidity. Power Generating Dome 3, one of the Stratospire’s primary energy sources, lay blackened at its sloping feet.
Duran stared as the lifter nosed west and accelerated towards the lower mounds of the Tharsis Bulge.
Twenty minutes later they had completed the preflight check-in at the operation center of the Arisa Mons Commonwealth Military Outpost. Duran and Floss made their way to the flight line, escorted by a burley navy crew chief. He led them to the lone delta winged space to surface tactical transport sitting on the tarmac. The rear cargo doors were open with a truck backed up to it, large green crates being loaded in the rear by automatic arms operating along the ships interior bay. A young Planetary Force Sub-Lieutenant and three navy chiefs waited outside the starboard passenger door.
The spacecraft's crew chief led Floss and Duran up to the fuselage door stopping just short of the boarding collar. He turned to face the two civilians, looking directly at Duran. “Lieutenant Floss has been with us a couple of times, so I'll need to give the safety briefing to just you sir.” The Chief began his standard, monotone spiel when Duran interrupted.
“That’s Ok chief. I'm familiar with the safety procedures.” A sly grin etched across his angular face, “I've got about eighty take offs in these things… not as many landings though.”
The crew chief returned the smile, “Rocket Trooper?”
Duran nodded once, “A long time ago it seems.”
The crew chief stepped aside, opening the way for Duran and Floss, “Should’a guessed.”
The two climbed aboard and headed to the passenger compartment behind the crew flight stations. Duran climbed in the window seat on the second row, Floss jumped in the isle seat next to him, pulling some filament papers out of his bag and setting them in his lap. Both men strapped in by pulling the webbed links over their shoulders and locking them in place, Floss tightly, Duran looser. Duran hadn’t known anyone to survive a tac-tran inter-atmospheric crash. The big planes just didn’t handle themselves well during sudden stops caused by the ground. The latest versions made crashes much rarer but Duran remembered the days when the ships earned the nickname “The Piton” because of the odd appearance the crafts aft fuselage presented after spiraling nose first into the ground.
The crew chief came by a few minutes later, making sure his two civilians were strapped in. He leaned over them and spoke in a conspiratorial tone, “The Major is getting her check ride today, so we're probably going to do a tactical burn to orbit.”
Floss smiled, “What does that mean?”
The crew chief grinned, “It means you ought to consider putting your stuff away and pulling that safety harness a little tighter Lieutenant. It's gonna be a fast ride up.”
Duran shook his head, pulling his restraints taught. “You fly boys just can't keep yourselves from showing off can you?”
The crew chief winked one eye as he headed to his crew station, “It ain't showing off if it’s in the manual.”
Duran felt the tac-tran pressurize, his ears popping from the artificial environment being created in the cabin. The plane started to hum as the aircraft slowly rolled out to the lift way and Duran felt the inward queasiness that accompanied the suspension engines being activated.
The tac-tran stopped on its marker as the main thrusters spun up. The warbling roar drowned out the rest of the aircraft’s sounds. The tac-tran lifted off the ground, hovering in place just above the tarmac. Duran felt the bump as the landing gear retracted and the aerodynamic wings extended to full spread from the fuselage. Floss tightened his straps one more notch in anticipation.
The vessel started to glide forward under power from the maneuvering units. A sharp crack reverberated as the thruster fired, creating a deafening roar inside the aircraft, accelerating it forward and pressing the passengers into their seats. With a back jarring whip, the tac-tran jerked hard to starboard, leveling out after the simulated evasion maneuver, its altitude now about one hundred meters over the volcano’s plateau. As the aircraft neared the end of the rim of Arisa Mons, the pilot kicked in full power, pulling the big plane into the sky at a forty-five degree angle streaking through the low thin cloud layer and bursting through the grainy dust hovering just over the Martian surface. Duran could feel the engines straining under the four-G climb out as the ground raced away from them, the ship in limited aerodynamic flight, using pure thrust to burn through the thin atmosphere. Two minutes into the flight the blackness of space started to seep into the orange sky, turning it dirty brown first, then purpling into black. Floss smiled from the sensation.
The tac-tran retracted its memory metal wing surfaces, streamlining its already fluid shape as the pilot began another series of maneuvers designed to evade simulated incoming fire and to unmask its lone weapon system, a multi-barreled 440 particle gun, used to spray a lethal stream of energized particles at any object closing on the tac-tran from the rear quarter.
The high altitude twists and turns ended as the ascent leveled out and the ship began its final and much tamer burn to high orbit, pursuing Phobos now a world away. The blackness of space enclosed them and the stars lit the night like flitter bugs outside of the small windows. Duran leaned back into his seat closing his eyes, still weary form the previous night.
Floss beamed. “Amazing. I think my stomach is still in my throat. Ever done one of those before Agent Duran?”
Without opening his eyes Duran responded, “Yeah, a couple of times. We were being tracked or getting shot at or something.”
Floss studied his quiet counterpart for a moment. “You were with the Vendetta fleet?”
Again, Duran nodded.
“What did you do?” Floss asked.
Duran opened his eyes, sitting up a little. He hadn't spoken about the Vendetta with anyone in a long time. For the year after he returned from the mission to the Intruder homeworld he had been largely isolated from the rest of society. All his immediate needs were met by his Imperial service and the intensity of his training had not given him time or the will to establish any outside relationships. He decided that Floss was as good a guy as any, competent, professional and dedicated, besides, talking about it couldn’t hurt as long as no classified information was breached.
“I spent most of it asleep, like everyone else.”
“See any combat?” Floss asked.
Duran sat a little higher. “Some, but nothing I should really talk about.”
“Bad?”
Duran nodded. “Sometimes.”
“You told Commissioner Cole that you had a front row seat at the end.”
Duran nodded again, sidestepping the still classified details. “I don’t remember much about it. I was wounded on the last day.”
Floss fell silent as Duran thought back to that last day over five years ago. The stellar coordinates of the now burned Intruder homeworld were still a closely guarded secret. In reality he didn't remember a lot of the Vendetta. After he and his team returned, he had been told about what he had done during the war as he recovered from his wounds. He had reviewed mission telemetry and the personal logs of his unit's activities for the five years of the Vendetta. What he actually remembered was nothing more than limited perceptions of physical input and a kind of raw emotional dread. It was a common symptom of IRH, along with a series of more debilitating after-effects that he had worked hard to overcome.
During his inconclusive but extensive debrief however, he was told that Lieutenant Colonel John Cochrane, Commonwealth Commando Regiment, had led the extraction force that went in and pulled Duran and his team out of the bunker on the Intruder homeworld’s solitary moon. He hadn’t remembered that day, but Duran could recall from the depths of his blurred memory that he and
Lieutenant Colonel Cochrane had a good relationship prior to that final mission. They were two professionals working a common problem and that had produced a bond. He hoped the man on Phobos was the same Colonel John Cochrane, even though Duran's Colonel Cochrane had been an infantry officer and didn’t have a mark on his face other than the inevitable signatures of life in the field. A lot can change in five years, Duran thought.
The crew chief came up from the cargo compartment still wearing his neon orange flight suit. First he went to the four military personnel. The young sub-lieutenant looked a little green. After checking on his other passengers he over.
“How'd cha like that Lieutenant Floss?”
Floss smiled, “That was great. What a ride!”
The crew chief looked disappointed, “You don’t feel sick or nothin'?”
Floss looked back confused, “No, I feel fine.” Duran cracked a sideways smile. The crew chief frowned creating a rumpled chin under his non-regulation walrus mustache, “Guess I gotta tell the Major she's losing her touch.”
On the way up to the flight deck the crew chief announced over the noise of the thrusters, “We'll be coming aboard in about twenty minutes. Neutral-G in three.”
Duran watched through the window as the tac-tran came in slowly towards Stickney crater. The pilot matched the station spin as he approached the pad near the craters center. The landing gear extended with a hum of motors then the ship settled on its skids with a faint thump as they gripped the pad. A moment later the delta winged transport was lowered into the crater hanger bay. Through the tac-tran’s window, Duran could see a cluster of robotic drones sitting on an adjacent ready pad, waiting for the bay to cycle so they could be released to their autonomous tasks. The station was still busy although its past glory as the gateway to stars had long since been replaced with the bureaucracy of peace.
The Commonwealth Armed Forces had devolved into a formal complacency after the Rokon Wars. Without Imperial resources and an enemy threatening human colonies, they had spent what little money they generated on social programs and maintaining the vast populations of the few habital planets within their sphere of influence. Their armed forces scraped by on budgets a third of its wartime size, and correspondingly its personnel had grown younger and less experienced as the decades went by. The non-commissioned officer corps was virtually wiped out by cutbacks and conscription had to be re-enacted to fulfill manpower shortages on limited duty tours.
The Intruder invasion had shocked them badly, but the damage was done. A massive effort to bring together experienced personnel remaining in active service and the few adequately funded units not affected by the Intruder occupation were thrown together to exact public revenge. What the Commonwealth public did not know was that most of the Vendetta’s able combat forces came from a different pool altogether and Duran was sure they would be livid if they knew the truth.
A few moments later the ready deck was empty and the tac-tran was lowered again to the hanger. Duran followed Floss off the tac-tran onto the hanger deck as a Sub-lieutenant of Intelligence in Commonwealth khaki and blue, approached with the neutral grin of a man tasked with a rather unpleasant duty. He extended his hand, Floss first, then Duran. Yelling over the warbling engines of the tac-tran, “Good morning gentlemen, I'm Lieutenant Ames. If you'll follow me I'll take you to the communication cell.”
The Sub-lieutenant led Duran and Floss through the empty halls of the stations spherical inner ring, taking a neutral gravity elevator deeper into the stations heart where the cylindrical core rotated on its axis to generate sufficient gravity for them to stand on their own two feet. Lieutenant Ames escorted them through the security checkpoints on the way to the secure communications compartment.
The layout of the secure compartment was much like the communications center on a fleet warship. The numerous processors and computers gave the room an oxidized smell, with the two uniformed women occupying the consoles. They seemed somewhat out of their comfort level with the additional occupants in the small compartment. They sat watching the consoles, waiting for an urgent message across the secure networks that never came. Peacetime doldrums bred complacency and very little fun for the military.
Wars weren’t much fun either but at least you were busy, Duran thought.
The ICE-40 was the primary ultra secure communication system for the military and high-level government agencies. The Commonwealth Intelligence Agency maintained the entire network and its New Relativity synchronization codes, a fact Duran was counting on. The order cell contanined a special prefix that would re-route the message to a special address before it reached the Ministry of Codes and Enforcement. An address that would receive the message and give the proper reply.
Floss reached into his redcoat and handed Duran’s order cell to the operator. The operator took the card and placed it on the scrubber. After scrubbing the data for anything hostile, the system aligned the antennas and signaled it was ready.
The young chief petty officer turned to Floss, “Sir, what do you want to send with this data?”
“Simple confirmation,” Floss replied.
The technician made an entry then hit the transmission switch. The display showed the power to the antenna rise, reaching critical mass, then fired the message in a burst of compressed and encrypted data. The transmission light flashed, “Sent …”
Duran watched the message clock begin to countdown as the superlight message hurled towards its destination. Duran waited for his counterparts to do their job as they always had before. If they did, the loop would be complete and Duran’s cover story would be confirmed, freeing him to operate under the thin umbrella of legitimacy. But until the reply, everything was out of his hands and it would be at least an hour before the confirmation of his cover story returned. The message may move at the speed of light, but someone still had to answer. His people on the other end would send the proper reply.
Rather than sit and wait for the reply in the cramped room, Duran turned to their escort. “Lieutenant, I understand your station I.O. is a Colonel Cochrane. Is it John Cochrane?”
Ames replied, “Yes sir, it is. Do you know him?”
Duran nodded once, “I think I might. Is he available this morning?”
Without checking his chrono, he replied as if he had been expecting the question. “He is in his office this morning. He made it a point to cancel some meetings for some reason. I'll check if he can see you.”
Moments later, Duran stood outside the Base Intelligence Officer's office deep in the tethered moon’s superstructure. Duran entered the office through the large gold trimmed oak panel doors. The civilian assistant looked up from her info-board at the visitor as he entered.
The woman sitting behind the desk sized him up as he approached her desk. She was middle-aged, brown curly hair pulled back in a bun, with a slender face and bright eyes. The efficient layout of the papers on her desk suggested she was at least competent. She looked up with an alert smile.
“Special Agent Duran?”
“Yes.”
She extended her hand. He took her hand, jarred by the soft oiled skin as it pressed into his clumsy grasp. “I'm Miss Jones, Colonel Cochrane’s administrative assistant.” She continued, “Colonel Cochrane is expecting you. I'll let him know you are here. If you will just have a seat.”
She pointed to a couch across from a small waiting area. Duran sat down in the old but plush couch, as Ms. Jones buzzed into Colonel Cochrane's office.
A few moments later her earpiece buzzed and Ms. Jones answered, responding with a polite “Of course, sir.”
She turned to Duran with a courteous smile, “Colonel Cochrane will see you now.” She got up and walked across the faded blue carpet to the large double doors as Duran stood, pulling them open as he approached.
Duran entered the office, finding his Vendetta comrade, Colonel John Cochrane, standing centered on the door one meter in front of his d
esk, his face stone, his hands balled into fists, knuckles white. Duran approached, smiling, hand extended, until he noticed the scarred expression of the short, lean, gray haired commando in front of him. Duran slowed, puzzled by the silent rebuke. The door clicked behind him, as Ms. Jones pulled it closed, isolating the two men in the cold moment. Colonel Cochrane stared into Duran's eyes. Duran opened his mouth to speak but Cochrane cut him off.
“I thought you were dead.”
Duran stood his ground. “I don’t understand …”
Cochrane flexed his balled fists, his angular knuckles bulging like exposed caltrops, “I saw you die.” Anger filled his voice.
Duran remained still, looking at Cochrane’s rigid greeting. Despite all he had theorized when he first heard Cochrane’s name mentioned earlier today, he hadn’t expected this.
“Sir,” old formalities returning from years of military conditioning, “I came here to thank you for saving our lives.”
“Saving your lives? Major, I did every thing in my power to kill you. I thought I’d succeeded, yet here you stand.”
Duran reached back into his incomplete memories, relying on the official records given to him to try and reconcile Cochrane’s revelation with what he had accepted for years. The harsh reality of Cochrane’s statement drove into him like a spear thrust against his chest. The internal conflict contorted his voice, “They told us… You came in the bunker after us. You pulled us out.”
Cochrane ground his teeth, his body rigid as a nail. “You and your team Major, came out of that bunker,” He paused, his voice cracking, “and burned down one hundred and seventeen of my troops,”
Duran stood in silence searching for an explanation. Cochrane seethed, looking down at the floor, “…and my legs.”
Duran shook his head in disbelief, but never broke eye contact with the angry commando in front of him. The realization of the truth dropped into his gut and balled up like a clenched fist inside of him. “I don’t understand. We were told you saved us,” Duran said.